What is the point of medium and heavy armor?

[dark_samuari]

To the actual topic: I've already explained how to fix non light armors earlier here.

Than leave...

[Mixster]

...Here we go again...

I didn't start the flamewar!

[Bauglir]

That's a good point. We've got two separate issues here, then, as I see it. The first is that armor is useless against spells; thus, spellcasters have yet another reason why they're just plain better than everyone else. This actually seems intentional on the designers part (even if it's not something they explicitly thought about), but it probably shouldn't be so. The second is that armor is nigh-useless against actual attacks, as well; thus, it fails even to provide the single defense the designers thought it would.

So, come to think of it, I guess armor fixes do need to be more comprehensive than I thought earlier, unless you fix spellcasting in an unrelated way first.

[Littha]

I was thinking about a potential fix.  Basically make armor give you miss chance that works against LoE based spells along with attacks.


Needs more work but so far (AC*5) = miss chance. That is a lot of miss chance and I need to have some way of getting around it... Possibly (AC-Enemy attack bonus)*5 = Miss chance.

[JaronK]

I like the idea of cold iron armor that helps against spells a lot.  SR equal to the total armor bonus +10 and maybe an increase to will and fort saves equal to half the armor bonus against spells only, perhaps?

JaronK

[The_Mad_Linguist]

I like the idea of cold iron armor that helps against spells a lot.  SR equal to the total armor bonus +10 and maybe an increase to will and fort saves equal to half the armor bonus against spells only, perhaps?

JaronK

SR that you can voluntarily let things through, I assume, since as is SR can be a bad thing.

[Mixster]

I like the idea of cold iron armor that helps against spells a lot.  SR equal to the total armor bonus +10 and maybe an increase to will and fort saves equal to half the armor bonus against spells only, perhaps?

JaronK

SR that you can voluntarily let things through, I assume, since as is SR can be a bad thing.

Also, it should preferably be level scaling or stacking with other SR, else it would be tremendously useful at levels 3-5. And needless at levels 10-20.

I was thinking about a potential fix.  Basically make armor give you miss chance that works against LoE based spells along with attacks.


Needs more work but so far (AC*5) = miss chance. That is a lot of miss chance and I need to have some way of getting around it... Possibly (AC-Enemy attack bonus)*5 = Miss chance.

I quite like this. It is simple, yet useful. It doesn't make that much sense, but D&D doesn't make sense anyway, so it is a nice fix.

Unless you by enemy attack bonus mean their total bonus to attack rolls and not just their BAB. And you don't let it apply for spells, then you've still just fixed the problem until around level 10.

Perhaps even make it so light armours are no miss chance, medium armours are AC*5 and Heavy Armours are AC*10.
That would put the cleric into Tier 0 though.

[JaronK]

SR that you can voluntarily let things through, I assume, since as is SR can be a bad thing.

True, and yet it makes no sense for a magic stopping material to be voluntarily negated.  Perhaps you can ignore the SR when touched by the caster (since you're letting them bypass the armor and touch you directly?).

JaronK

[weenog]

I like the idea of cold iron armor that helps against spells a lot.  SR equal to the total armor bonus +10 and maybe an increase to will and fort saves equal to half the armor bonus against spells only, perhaps?

JaronK

Saving throw boosts are nice to have, but I don't know that it makes much sense thematically -- armor is (or at least is supposed to be) about causing targeted attacks to glance off rather than hit home.  What if cold iron armor's total armor bonus applied to touch attacks, but only touch attacks to hit with spells and spell-like abilities?  +5 cold iron full plate in addition to a deflection bonus and maybe parrying shield could make connecting something like Sonic Orb, Disintegrate, or Twin Empowered Split Repeating Enervation a non-trivial task, especially for a repeatedly multiclassed magic user.

[Bloody Initiate]

SR that you can voluntarily let things through, I assume, since as is SR can be a bad thing.

True, and yet it makes no sense for a magic stopping material to be voluntarily negated.  Perhaps you can ignore the SR when touched by the caster (since you're letting them bypass the armor and touch you directly?).

JaronK

Well most buffs and such must be delivered via touch right? Why not argue that the guy in the armor isn't so much as lowering their SR as they are presenting an unarmored portion of themselves for their allied caster? If it's the metal creating the SR, say the heavily-armored fighter presents their palm for buffs, which is clad only in leather.

The point is if you want something to work you should make it work for the right reasons and not let imaginary arguments get in the way. Who cares that the guy is clad in magic-resistant garb? He's a melee type, he needs all the help he can get, and since there's no science to D&D magic anyway, why bother applying any? The reason magic is so good in D&D is because everyone making it just imagined rather than limiting it all, and they limited everything non-magic in every way they could imagine.

I also like weenog's suggestion.

[JaronK]

Well most buffs and such must be delivered via touch right? Why not argue that the guy in the armor isn't so much as lowering their SR as they are presenting an unarmored portion of themselves for their allied caster? If it's the metal creating the SR, say the heavily-armored fighter presents their palm for buffs, which is clad only in leather.

Right, which is why I said you can bypass the SR if the caster is friendly and touches you during the casting.  That should still allow for most buffs to get through, while making some sense.

JaronK

[Nytemare3701]

At that point you run the risk of getting punched in the face by SR touch spells.

[JaronK]

Hence "friendly."  You have to chose to allow it.  Figure it's the caster hitting the inside of your palm, or some other intentionally made open patch.

JaronK

[The_Mad_Linguist]

Hence "friendly."  You have to chose to allow it.  Figure it's the caster hitting the inside of your palm, or some other intentionally made open patch.

JaronK

Healing Facepalm?

[Bloody Initiate]

At that point you run the risk of getting punched in the face by SR touch spells.

And you wouldn't run that risk that much anyway.

D&D has no official called shot system that I know of since it is assumed you're always trying to make the best hit possible, but the armors are illustrated as having helmets and such even though there's never talk of needing helmets (because there are no "headshots").

So "punched in the face" sounds really effective until your bare knuckles meet steel visor, or worse, armor spikes.

_{Fist of Stone}
What? Did you hear something?

Basically the game suggests "describe your action after you resolve it."

So you CAN be like the dozens of roleplayers I've suffered who talk about how they're going to do flip over and kick this guy right before they stab that guy "IN THE FACE" (Always in the face or in the nuts), and then they roll a 2 with their attack bonus of 2 and just wasted everyone's time.



Or you can successfully make your melee touch attack and successfully overcome their SR, at which point the GM says "Wow, you must've punched him in the face." After the two 2s the GM just says "Miss" and you've thankfully wasted no more time than you had to describing your kung-fu sorceror.

It's lame watching casters try to act like monks, anyway. It shows that what they really wanted to play was a monk, and that they aren't playing their caster right (Nothing shows that the monk can be played like a monk).

[Sunic_Flames]

To the two mouth breathing fuckwits whining and flailing about me: Hi Welcome and GFY.

To everyone else: Continue on.

[Barbarossa]

To the two mouth breathing fuckwits whining and flailing about me

Mouth breathing is not uncommon for people with stuffy noses. It does not imply anything except that the person in question has no access through their nasal passages. Also, if you think their comments don't apply to you at all, why respond to them?

[Shadowhunter]

...Here we go again...

I didn't start the flamewar!

I dearly wish there was a "Like" button right about now.
That.
Was.
Awesome.

That is all. Carry on.

[Lycanthromancer]

To the two mouth breathing fuckwits whining and flailing about me: Hi Welcome and GFY.

To everyone else: Continue on.

Please stop. You're just ruining everyone else's enjoyable conversation at this point. Either contribute to the conversation or kindly leave.

Otherwise, I may get angry.

And you won't like me when I'm angry. [/B. Banner]

[Pimpforged]

How about a 2 AC jump from light to medium, a 4 AC jump from medium to heavy, and the "Half the AC is DR instead" rule from UA?

This would make fullplate something to be reckoned with as it and a tower shield would give impressive protection, to the tune of 14 AC and 6 DR.

Math:
12 AC Fullplate becomes 6 AC fullplate with 6 DR
8 AC tower shield stays where it is.


BTW, this is only for fighters, as a "good stuff" for one of his dead levels.

http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=10638.msg363851#msg363851 ;-)

I'd like it to be an effective form of proficiency, as the current one is a joke.

Revised Ideas:

•AP Medium gives you the +2 to wearing medium, but requires 5 BAB to gain the bonus?
•AP Heavy gives you the +4 to wearing heavy, but requires 10 BAB?
•AP Exotic gives you a +6 to wearing Exotic, but requires 15 BAB?

These revised rules allow a gish to qualify if they try hard enough, but a fighter gets the benefits automatically as he reaches the BAB benchmarks.

I think something like this would work best, If you jack up armor to the point where it will be relevant at high lvls, It will be far too good at low ones. The only way to make it scale properly seems to be to use BAB.

I like the idea of making the different materials better, but getting SR from it seems odd to me. Maybe a bonus on reflex saves? The armor protects your body better from the fireball than the wizard's robes? (Not that fireballs are particularly relevant, you can usually just shrug them off anyway, but it seems a touch more realistic than non-magical armor granting SR)

Edit: Maybe just make adamantine's DR better? Maybe scale with BAB?