D&D 5E Why AD&D Rocks and 3e - 5e Mocks all over AC...

[Mannahnin]

Good point. These videos are kind of pointless without comparing to some approximation of anything other than "plate armor" vs "effectively naked". Try to approximate different types of armor, carrying a heavy backpack that we always ignore and so on.

Right. In the obstacle course, it looked like the firefighter lost some time trying to move his dangling equipment out of the time.

Not pointless. Just useful for debunking the myth that medieval knights needed cranes to hoist them into their saddles and were utterly clumsy in harness. Stuff propagated in popular 20th century fiction including, regrettably, the otherwise-wonderful The Once and Future King.

The videos demonstrate that a plate armored knight or man at arms is similarly mobile to a modern soldier in combat kit, or to a firefighter, modern athletic professionals whom we expect to be able to operate in a battlefield or disaster zone, carry wounded or disabled people, fight effectively and perform other strenuous physical feats.

If we're trying to establish that plate is entirely UNencumbering, sure, the videos don't do that.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I always get annoyed when I want I'm playing heavy armored paladin and the term "realism" gets used. Note that no one complains about smiting or laying of hands, those are apparently realistic enough. Sleeping, however...

People need to stop equating realism using magic to realism not using magic. The two breaks from reality aren't the same.

 

[Willie the Duck]

As was mentioned above, total weight should matter more than what armor you wear. To me, penalties should be based on a percentage of your total carry capacity. That 8 strength wizard that's at 90% carrying capacity should have a bigger penalty than the guy in plate at 50% carrying capacity.

The problem I foresee with this is the number of people who handwave encumbrance*. Mind you, if encumbrance starts to have more meaning for more gaming groups, it might get used more. However, such a change wouldn't catch on, I feel, unless there was something interesting you could do with this on an ongoing bases. Bean counting isn't fun for a lot of people; bean counting towards some kind of bonus possibly is. Regardless, a second problem I foresee is this just makes the high-strength characters the party U-haul (or at least everyone just spreads out the gear and loot until everyone is a half-pound below threshold and then maybe someone -- likely again the high-str guy -- takes on the extra load and tries not to get asked to do any athletics).
*And I'm really not going to fault them on this. Once D&D left gp=xp and the subtle risk-reward weighing of trying to pull just a few more coins out of the dungeon, they never exactly came up with an alternative that would regularly make this engaging.

See, in practice, the rogues AC is about the same (maybe higher, if the best heavy armor isn't available). Heavy armor needs a buff of some kind just to be a viable option mechanically.

One idea would be to have Dex or Dex bonus create a minimum AC, but not add to an existing one. Example: if you are unarmored, but a master of agility (18 Dex or whatever), you might have a 14 AC (6 if 0=good), but if you are wearing armor that provides 4+ points of armor, you just take the armor's benefit. This goes completely opposite to the OP point about people retaining their Dexterity when wearing heavy armor (perhaps we say it is simply less vital to defense when doing so). Although this means your high-dex platemail character isn't really more rugged than a more clumsy platemail wearer, it does make it such that Dex-based and even light-armor-based characters are going to be less rugged. I don't know which power fantasies this serves or harms (I guess the warrior who has high stats in everything, which honestly I really have no problem with the system giving some redundant/non-overlapping abilities).

Otherwise, moving all the heavy armor up a point might help.

Or some side benefit like making the benefits of Heavy Armor Master inherent to wearing heavy armor.

I always get annoyed when I want I'm playing heavy armored paladin and the term "realism" gets used. Note that no one complains about smiting or laying of hands, those are apparently realistic enough. Sleeping, however...

A fundamental issue I think D&D takes extreme measures never to take a solid stand on -- how realistic is it supposed to be, anyways? Are you playing IRL medieval soldiers? medieval soldiers of folklore or of myth? Bruce Willis action character or Arnold Schwarzenegger action character? Various editions have had different levels of rigor on things like lifting and jumping distance and even if you can swim in armor and what kind of surfaces thieves can or cannot climb, and it usually is towards incentivizing not being a physically-oriented character.

 

[DND_Reborn]

This is actually somewhat tongue in cheek...so don't take the title all THAT seriously. This isn't REALLY an AD&D vs. other editions thing...it's more of a discussion on the why's and what's of AC in 3e and 5e.


AD&D allows the full DEX modifier.

I found it ridiculous how 3e decided that your DEX modifier to AC was limited due to the armor type. Even more so with 5e.

Why did they even start this trend (Back in 3e) of limiting the amount of DEX modifier you could have to your AC depending on the type of armor you wore?

Ridiculous assumptions regarding armor? Fallacious views of how mobile knights were?

Anyone know the answer?

Anyone share my view that the full DEX modifier should be allowed to be added to AC regardless of armor type. The only thing that happens by not allowing this is reducing Warrior efficiency. People already criticize the Warrior types for being weaker at higher levels...let them have that DEX bonus (if they even have it) to their AC!

Yeah, I love those videos.

FWIW, this is how we deal with DEX in armor:

Light - full
Medium - half, round up (so DEX 20 = +3)
Heavy - half, round down( so DEX 20 = +2)

While armor does allow a lot of movement, you will never be as good at moving while in it compared to out of it IMO.

 

[Scott Christian]

Anyone share my view that the full DEX modifier should be allowed to be added to AC regardless of armor type. The only thing that happens by not allowing this is reducing Warrior efficiency. People already criticize the Warrior types for being weaker at higher levels...let them have that DEX bonus (if they even have it) to their AC!

Wait, a player playing a class and wanting something more than the rules allow? What?!

A little facetious, yes. But D&D is not a simulation mod. If you dislike the armor penalty to dex, then remove it. And then your friend, who plays a wizard, can wear plate and get a dex mod.

I think a better way to approach this is to say: This is what I want to houserule. What, if any, complications do you foresee?

 

[Faolyn]

I always get annoyed when I want I'm playing heavy armored paladin and the term "realism" gets used. Note that no one complains about smiting or laying of hands, those are apparently realistic enough. Sleeping, however...

Smiting and laying on of hands are magical and therefore can ignore reality.

 

[Vaalingrade]

The restriction on magi wearing armor is explicitly to keep them running around in bathrobes.

I'm shocked there was never a chance of spell failure for being beardless given how desperate D&D can get in enforcing archetype sometimes.

 

[Oofta]

Not pointless. Just useful for debunking the myth that medieval knights needed cranes to hoist them into their saddles and were utterly clumsy in harness. Stuff propagated in popular 20th century fiction including, regrettably, the otherwise-wonderful The Once and Future King.

The videos demonstrate that a plate armored knight or man at arms is similarly mobile to a modern soldier in combat kit, or to a firefighter, modern athletic professionals whom we expect to be able to operate in a battlefield or disaster zone, carry wounded or disabled people, fight effectively and perform other strenuous physical feats.

If we're trying to establish that plate is entirely UNencumbering, sure, the videos don't do that.

What can I say, I just want someone to make a video comparing people with approximations of the different D&D armor and encumbrances. Put someone in brigandine armor and have them try to swim*, see how quickly they get overheated in high temps, how quickly they can run, how comfortable it is to sleep in, how well they can perform acrobatics and so on. Then have someone that has below average strength put on a 90 pound pack while carrying a quarterstaff do the same. Compare that to someone in plate armor that's properly fitted.

Until then, some DMs will insist that a PC can carry around a hundred pound pack with a cook's utensils hanging off it with no penalty while someone in plate has a hard time climbing a staircase.

*There was a video of a middle aged guy in chain mail that went for a swim in a lake to see how hard it would be. It wasn't difficult at all, the gambeson acted as a flotation device much like a life jacket. Sadly I can't find it any more.

 

[Faolyn]

*There was a video of a middle aged guy in chain mail that went for a swim in a lake to see how hard it would be. It wasn't difficult at all, the gambeson acted as a flotation device much like a life jacket. Sadly I can't find it any more.

I found this one, where the guy says he can swim but it's pretty hard and he doesn't think he could make it across a lake.

I'd guess that he's rolling at disad, and I have no idea what his Strength score is.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

in 2e I had a player that would always calculate his AC with and without armor, around 3e people started looking at me weird when I asked for such... "Um it isn't a second skin you are not always in it" but then we got monk and duelist (and monk duelist with dex wis and int to AC) and people having 27 naked...

over time D&D has deemphasized armor.