. . . while you're at it. . . Fix heavy armor!

[Felon]

Just deleting the Gloves of Dexterity in 3e basically fixes heavy armor.

Dex 12 + Platemail = 19 AC
Dex 16 + Breastplate = 18 AC
Dex 18 + Chain Shirt = 18 AC
Dex 22 + Leather = 18 AC
Dex 24 + Padded = 19 AC.

Without magical dexterity enhancement, its tough to get a dexterity that high. Most people will be running about a 14, which means they'll be sitting at about 17 AC in medium armor, or 16 AC in light. +3 AC is a noticeable difference, and worth it.

So I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm just pointing out that fixing this problem may be a lot easier than it seems.

The "fix" you recommend isn't really helping heavy-armor wearers as much as it is nerfing Dex-oriented characters.

I'll never understand how folks can begrudge a character that makes a major investment in maxing out Dexterity winding up with an AC in the same league as another guy who just went out and spent 1500 gp on some armor.

Heavy armor's a patch for having a mediocre Dex. That seems about right.

 

[Felon]

I house rule no sprinting in heavy armour (sprinting is speed x5 in my games) and only 1 round plus con bonus of running before you cannot run (at x4) any more without a check for being fatigued. Combat for longer than 3 mins plus your con modifier also makes you fatigued. Overland travel is done at the normal 920' equiv) movement rate.
But to balance this someone in plate is pretty impossible to injure for anybody of lowish levels- I use Defence scores, wound points/hit points and armour as DR!

Doesn't sound like much balance at all, because it seems that your speed restrictions on wearing heavy armor are less severe than in the PHB, while the amount of protection a character receives is massively boosted. Might as well drop the 3-minute-plus-Con-score rule, because fights just don't last that long.

Seems to me that at the end of the day, making heavy armor into a hands-down superlative option just neuters more characters concepts than it augments.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

As far as I'm concerned, 'medium armor' is a vestigal term. The only armor that anyone will ever wear with regularity is light and heavy armor, no matter how the system is tweaked. If you want mobility, you want the best you can get. If you want protection, you want the best you can get. If the 4e designers are smart, there won't be medium armor in 4e.

See, that's the problem.


Light armor should sacrifice protection for mobiliy and flexibility
Heavy armor should sacrifice mobility and flexibility for protection
Medium Armor should have a balance of mobility and protection, with better mobility than heavy and better protection than light, but worse protection than heavy and worse mobility than light.

Taken together, you should be able to optimize in one direction or other or have a reasonable middle ground.

The problem with the 3E model is medium armor isn't much better than a chain shirt for protection, but has the same mobility penalty as heavy armor, so it is clearly sub-optimal rather than being a reasoned trade or compromise.

Perhaps a solution is to have:

Light: AC +1 to +3, Move 30' and Run at 4x, Dex +4 to +7, minimal/no armor check penalty & ASF
Medium: AC +4-+6, Move 25' (but Run at 3x), Dex +2 to +3, moderate armor check penalty & ASF
Heavy: AC +7 to +8, Move 20', Dex +0 to +1, heavy armor check penalty & ASF

In fact, if all the armor's Dex + AC bonuses sum to +7 or +8 with some trades in mobility, we might have a system where each type of armor is a reasonable choice depending on the trades the character needs to make.

 

[Irda Ranger]

When it comes to plate mail, a lot of folks tend to want to make generalizations about how cumbersome it is (or isn't).

Except ArmoredSaint, who actually owns and has worn accurate replicas of real plate armor.

They get it into their heads that if they can cite a legitimate example of a guy needing a winch to mount his horse, then that provides some definitive evidence about all plate armor throughout time.

I don't think A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (the source, as far as I can tell, of these winch theories) is a legitimate source for this discussion, seeing as how it was Mark Twain's purpose to amuse his readers, rather than inform them.

It's quite possible some knights did have plate so thick and heavy (and perhaps poorly-constructed) that they needed assistance mounting a horse

I suppose anything is possible, but any knight so encumbered would be an easy target to simply being knocked prone on the battlefield and picked off at will by someone on his feet.

I'll never understand how folks can begrudge a character that makes a major investment in maxing out Dexterity winding up with an AC in the same league as another guy who just went out and spent 1500 gp on some armor.

Heavy armor's a patch for having a mediocre Dex. That seems about right.

Eh, not to me, though partly that's because prefer level-based Defense and Armor as DR.

But mainly, I see relying on natural dexterity to defend yourself as a "fallback" for "Oh crap, I don't have my armor." There is no remotely realistic example I can think of where a warrior who had access to armor willingly chose to forgo its use for the 'benefit' of being less encumbered. Ninjas and other stealthy types, sure - but not warriors.

And what's realistic or historically accurate is obviously the primary consideration in game design.

I knew someone would give me lip for that comment.

But more seriously, I think that in a roleplaying game, being "realistic" isn't the best word to use, but being "internally consistent" is. And since D&D has not posited that weapons or steel armor have different properties in D&D-world than they do in the "real world", than "realistic" and "internally consistent" are the same thing. Obviously there is no way to "realistically" model a Fireball or an elf's racial abilities.

But unlike an elf or a Fireball, swords and armor actually exist in the real world, so I just figure that (unless specifically stated otherwise), they work the same in D&D world as they do in the real world. That's part of what makes D&D the game it is. There has to be some element of emulation in the game experience, even if just to give people a frame of reference to know the differences when they see them.

So, yeah, if D&D is going to be a tabletop RPG where you pretend to be Aragorn or Gimli (who wore armor and wielded weapons not unlike our own - except when they were magic), being "realistic" IS an important consideration.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Let's all thank Geron, the inventor of D&D, for stopping by to reveal a very well-kept secret about D&D's armor system.

Hey, you're welcome. Glad I could help you out, too, even though my post wasn't aimed at you, and not intended as "public education" either. But I'm sorry to have to inform you that, even though my screen name starts with G too, I'm not the inventor of D&D. But I'm sure that somebody around here will point you at the real guy if you ask nicely. I heard he hangs around here sometimes.

No, D&D's armor system is not set up so folks can play in different historical periods. D&D's focus is not on historical settings. This is pretty handily stated in the campaign section of the DMG.

Yep, right...that's why, over the decades, there were supplements, campaign settings and DM books dedicated to focus on one specific historical era...apart from the chapter in the most recent DMG that advises DMs on how to build campaigns around such a concept. Because D&D is not set up so folks can ALSO play in different historical periods if they prefer that.
In case it evaded your attention, I was talking about this being a strong option that D&D offers, not as the primary focus.

You can certainly pare away options and run a campaign as "D&D minus" or "D&D lite", but that's not a "strength" of D&D, it's just a DM trying to whittle away at a square peg until it fits in a round hole. It's certainly not something the designers intentionally designed the game to allow you to do--D&D is not some modular metasystem. There's definitely an implied setting, and there lots of comments from guys like Monte Cook about how low-magicking the game is not recommended, and often is a bad approach.

Funny, now I have the impression we are talking about two different games here. Obviously, you're not looking at D&D the way I am looking at it. But hey, tastes can't be discussed, only argued. In that spirit, good gaming.

 

[VirgilCaine]

You can certainly pare away options and run a campaign as "D&D minus" or "D&D lite", but that's not a "strength" of D&D, it's just a DM trying to whittle away at a square peg until it fits in a round hole. It's certainly not something the designers intentionally designed the game to allow you to do--D&D is not some modular metasystem. There's definitely an implied setting, and there lots of comments from guys like Monte Cook about how low-magicking the game is not recommended, and often is a bad approach.

Wow! Someone else who finally gets it! Awesome!

 

[broghammerj]

the BBC did a great documentary on it. People in full harness could do anything all the fighting and running and jumping without much problems, however they couldn't do it for long. The guys had a fight, and the super fit one in plate was a wreck after about 5 mins on nonstop combat with 3 other guys. Totally overheated and exhausted

I don't find this argument very convincing. Have you ever watched wrestling, either folkstyle or Greco-Roman (Not Hulk Hogan)? Those are unencumbered, near naked combatants who are completely gassed after a few minutes of wrestling. My question is it the plate armor causing that or the intensity of combat? Obviously plate doesn't help your endurance! I would also say that after 5 minutes most DnD combat is over.

 

[DarkKestral]

You and Kahuna both got me thinking, a solution to satisfy the realists on all sides might be just to have movement penalties for encumbrance. As it is now, it's a double penalty, and it sounds like maybe it shouldn't be.

If you can carry the weight of the armor without being encumbered, no movement penalty.

At the same time, perhaps the penalties for encumbrance, and the STR chart itself, need to be a little more realistic.

I'd almost go so far as saying light/no armor is move x4 run speed (with a 'sprint' option which trades maybe another x2-x3 for a round or two for the combination of no charges allowed + fatigue for 2-3 rounds afterwards), medium x3 (with sprint option, fading away in power/length at higher levels of encumbrance + armor weight), and heavy (run x3, no sprint. Extra-ordinarily heavy armors can limit movement a bit further and impose extra penalty on some types of movement). For over-encumbered folks, then they need to be taken down a bit in base movespeed and lose any sprint option they may have. The 4e "Steady" special ability would be something like "You can treat your armor as one level lighter for purposes of determining sprint or running speed."

As far as the chain shirt goes, IMO, it's neither balanced nor realistic. A true chain hauberk is about 30 lbs (every time I've worn one, they've weighed about that much.) which should make it's D&D equivalent medium armor IMO. I don't mind the idea of a chain hauberk type of armor, though, and would like to see one.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

See, that's the problem.

Yes, that is the problem that will never be fixed. Even if you worked out stats for medium armor that were a perfect balance between light and heavy armor, 90% of people would still just go for the best light or best heavy armor available. Sure, every once in a while a PC would wear medium armor because the DM is running a historical type game where heavy armor isn't available, or a DM might equip his mooks with medium armor in order to intentionally make them both clumsier and squishier than the PCs but like I said 90% you're going to either go for the best mobility possible (light armor) or the best defense possible (heavy armor) because fence-sitting (medium armor) makes you sub standard in both ways at once.

 

[Warbringer]

Good discussion, and thants to Armored Saint for some fabulous input.

For my part, I've done armor as AC, DR, combinations.. loved the old 1e adjustments... and have finally settled in on the idea that armor should add hit points...once these are used the armor must be repaired (as noted by Armored Saint's comments on maintenance). The armor still provides AC/DR but not hit point buffer..

So say half plate (AC+4,DR4,20hps)... Fighter in combat is hit by a dragon claw for 21 points of damage... DR reduces this to 17, reducing amor to 3. The fighter hasn't taken any damage, but his breastplate now has a puncture hole!

Criticals ignore armour hip points..

For things like Dragonlords (Elric with things like demon armor), magic armor may have more hit points, or healing abilities for the armor only...