Nytemare's PHB Rewrites: Armor & Shield Proficiency

[Nytemare3701]

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

Armor Proficiency: Light [Fighter]
You gain the following benefits while in light armor:
• DR equal to 1/2 your BAB
Armor Proficiency: Medium [Fighter]
You gain the following benefits while in Medium armor:
• +1 AC
• DR equal to your BAB
Armor Proficiency: Heavy [Fighter]
You gain the following benefits while in Heavy armor:
• +2 AC
• DR equal to 1.5x your BAB
Armor Proficiency: Exotic [Fighter]
You gain the following benefits while in a specific Exotic armor:
• +3 AC
• DR equal to double your BAB
 
Comments:
• It may seem a little weird to get such a huge bonus to DR from a sash (exotic weapons tend to be weird like that) but think of this: You are proficient in using this exotic object in creative and (sometimes) convoluted ways in order to fend off otherwise deadly blows. I was considering making it a very high AC bonus instead, but some exotic armors are types of massive plate, so DR just works better all around.
• Low level D&D is an AC game, while high level D&D is rocket-tag. Getting scaling DR makes the it less so.
• These revised rules allow a gish to qualify while a fighter gets better benefits.


Shield Mechanics:
• Shields add their AC bonus to touch AC, as they prevent an attack from coming in contact with the character.
• Shields gain a stacking Hardness 2 for each point of enhancement bonus. This bonus is magical in nature, and cannot be bypassed by normal means (force effects, adamantine, etc.)


Shield Proficiency [Fighter]
You may use your shield to block incoming attacks of all kinds.
Benefits:As an immediate action, the character can perform a shield block, making the shield the new target for an attack and changing the attack into an attempted sunder, which does not provoke an attack of opportunity unless it fails.
Special: The sunder attempt disregards weapon type, meaning bows, piercing weapons, and spells can sunder a shield as well.


New use for Craft [Arms and Armor]
Shield Repair: A player may take an hour and make a DC 20 Craft check to repair minor damages in a shield that is above 1/2 hp. You repair 2hp+1 per 5 you beat the check DC by.



Example Shield for discussion:
Heavy Adamantine Shield: 26 HP, Hardness 20.
Heavy Adamantine Shield +5: 93 HP, Hardness 30.
Heavy Adamantine Shield +5(New mechanics): 93 HP, Hardness 30+10(Magic).

That is a pretty damn big wall to eat through. How many critters do more than 40 damage PER attack? The Tarrasque does 4d8+17 on his normal attack.

Edit: Yes, some things bypass hardness. A fighter should probably be wary when someone pulls out the adamantine though, just like he should beware the rust monsters.

[VennDygrem]

Are you really going to make a separate post for each of these? They're really short posts. You really ought to just make one post with each "rewrite" in it. Separate them with hr tags, or spoiler tags, or individual posts or whatever, but please don't spam the board with a dozen tiny posts.

[Nytemare3701]

I would do that, but I expect many of them to become long drawn out discussions, so I am giving them space. I'll be making a thread to collect them all though, so the ones that aren't discussed will still be accessible without clogging up the frontpage.

In short: Don't worry about it, they'll naturally get buried.

[RobbyPants]

An AC boost is a help at low, and somewhat at medium levels.  Beyond that, it doesn't do you much good.  Waiting until BAB 5 for the AC boost will make it nearly unusable.

If you don't fundamentally change how AC interacts with various forms of attacks, bigger numbers won't stop AC from becoming irrelevant at higher levels.  It will help keep you from being Power Attack-bait for high level beasties, but it won't stop casters and monsters with SLA's from just bypassing your armor and forcing Will saves or something.

So, what are you looking for?  Your proposed fix will certainly give low level fighters and clerics a reason to consider getting medium and heavy armor, but it won't have much impact once the PCs hit levels 7+ or so.

[bearsarebrown]

All armor of a certain type is the same. Light grants half BAB, medium grants full BAB, heavy grants 1.5 times BAB, exotic grants twice BAB. There is a minimum bonus too so its not worthless to low levels. Sheilds work on a similar system and allow you to sacrifice AoO attempts to block hits, gain cover and deflect rays.

The problem with your system is that it's to little to late. AC scales fairly linearly until level 6 or so and after level 10 it explodes exponentially. Tarrasques should fight people with an AC of 53 for a fair fight. If you're playing a martial character whose schtick is big heavy armor and a shield your AC should be even higher. This concept includes other stipulations, Clerics have Poor BAB, Divine Power doesn't exist, and bonus types have been consolidated to avoid stacking(No such things as untyped, no bullshit types like Sacred. Only Armor, Shield, Dodge, Enhancement, Insight exist)

[Nytemare3701]

All armor of a certain type is the same. Light grants half BAB, medium grants full BAB, heavy grants 1.5 times BAB, exotic grants twice BAB. There is a minimum bonus too so its not worthless to low levels. Sheilds work on a similar system and allow you to sacrifice AoO attempts to block hits, gain cover and deflect rays.

The problem with your system is that it's to little to late. AC scales fairly linearly until level 6 or so and after level 10 it explodes exponentially. Tarrasques should fight people with an AC of 53 for a fair fight. If you're playing a martial character whose schtick is big heavy armor and a shield your AC should be even higher. This concept includes other stipulations, Clerics have Poor BAB, Divine Power doesn't exist, and bonus types have been consolidated to avoid stacking(No such things as untyped, no bullshit types like Sacred. Only Armor, Shield, Dodge, Enhancement, Insight exist)

This is exactly the kind of input I'm looking for. I need to know what ELSE needs to change in the game for these fixes to work. Definitely need to write a shield proficiency one that grants % chance to deflect rays and grant cover.

[bearsarebrown]

% chance is lame because you don't make the choice.

[RobbyPants]

% chance is lame because you don't make the choice.

What do you mean?

[bearsarebrown]

If Shields have a passive 20% chance to deflect all rays then the player does not get to make choices. Not that many rays are thrown around and it results in being similar to +4 saves against rays. If the player made the choice to deflect a ray at the cost of an action, the player becomes more engaged in the gameplay. And it makes both a mechanical and flavor difference to having a shield more then just numbers.

[RobbyPants]

Is that the general direction we want with armors?  That all bonuses require a decision?

[bearsarebrown]

This is specifically talking about Shields. I personally feel Shields should be an active part of the character. You make the decision between a weapon and a shield after all. Armor can be passive because it doesn't replace anything active.

[RobbyPants]

That makes enough sense.  Personally, I'm fine with a passive miss chance and I'm also fine with some type of Immediate action which may or may not eat up an AoO for the character.

[Nytemare3701]

Alright then, added a shield proficiency feat as well. Now a shield is an active part of combat, and it can be broken by overuse.

[Garryl]

Any chance you could find a better limitation than having the shield take damage? I just hate having my shield crumble to pieces in my hands during heated combat.

[Nytemare3701]

Any chance you could find a better limitation than having the shield take damage? I just hate having my shield crumble to pieces in my hands during heated combat.

Shields break instead of your face. It's kind of the point of a shield. Magic items have ungodly high durability anyway. Maybe someone will actually FIX their gear during downtime now >.<

[veekie]

Any chance you could find a better limitation than having the shield take damage? I just hate having my shield crumble to pieces in my hands during heated combat.

Shields break instead of your face. It's kind of the point of a shield. Magic items have ungodly high durability anyway. Maybe someone will actually FIX their gear during downtime now >.<

Given the amount of beating these things will be taking they'd be shattering after absorbing full attacks at higher levels, magical or not.

[Nytemare3701]

Any chance you could find a better limitation than having the shield take damage? I just hate having my shield crumble to pieces in my hands during heated combat.

Shields break instead of your face. It's kind of the point of a shield. Magic items have ungodly high durability anyway. Maybe someone will actually FIX their gear during downtime now >.<

Given the amount of beating these things will be taking they'd be shattering after absorbing full attacks at higher levels, magical or not.

Well, then let's give them Hardness based on enhancement! We are treading on new ground, and no cow is too sacred.

Edit: Who the hell takes 40+ damage per attack from a monster? The Tarrasque only does 33 average damage on his base attack.
Edit2: Made the new enhancement bonus to hardness magical, and not bypassed by adamantine or force effects.

[Garryl]

... you're kidding, right? There isn't much that can repair magic items. Mending doesn't fix things that broken, Fabricate doesn't affect magic items, and Psionic Repair Damage only affects constructs, not just items. Only the Craft skill can fix magic things, and that takes forever. Well, and Truenamers.

Thankfully, Craft works on the base cost, including masterwork, of the item, rather than its enchanted cost (I hope). So even though you're only paying 1/5 of the base price, its of a small base price, at least. The real issue is time. A 10th level fighter type (Int +0, 13 ranks in Craft) with a masterwork tool (+2 circumstance) and a +10 enhancement item can take 10 to get a result of 35. Multiply that by an equal Craft DC (which may be up to 9 points lower due to rounding) for 12.25 gold/week of progress. Assuming that repair costs are proportional to the damage taken, rather than the entire cost of the item, a +5 heavy steel shield (hardness 20, 70 HP, 170g cost) that blocked a hit for 30 damage (10 after hardness; easily achievable by any CR 8-10 beater with a lucky damage roll or a couple of points of Power Attack) would take two whole weeks to fix. Heaven help you if you wanted to make it out of a special material. That's pretty much ideal circumstances (low damage, efficient shield, and an item solely for skill checks that costs as much or more than what you should have spent on a shield at that level).

So, yeah. Since you're rewriting the whole of Core, you may want to address any of the above. That's the feat damaging your magic items, magic not being able to fix the problem (one of few things it can't fix), Craft being hella slow (and yes, I just said "hella" with a straight face... er, typed it with a straight face), and shield hp not being that high for this purpose.


P.S.: Enhancement bonuses already grant +2 hardness and +10 HP per point of enhancement bonus.

[Nytemare3701]

Short of a critter powerattacking for massive damage you aren't breaking a +5 adamantine steel shield. Even then it will take a while to chew through almost 100hp and 40 hardness.

I agree with the repair cost problem. I meant for craft to fix dings in your shield, not rebuild it. New craft use, coming up.
Edit: Done, You can spend hour and a DC 20 craft check to repair 2hp to a shield. If it drops below 1/2 though, you have to fix it the normal way.

[Garryl]

+5 Adamantine heavy shield has 76 HP, not 93. (Base 26 = 20 * 40 / 30, +50 enhancement = 10 * 5) Also, adamantine only bypasses hardness less than 20, just so you should know.

Tarrasque actually does a ton more damage than it looks because it has Power Attack and a huge attack bonus. If it takes a mere 10 point penalty (and it's still attacking at +40-something) that gives it 4d8+27 (31-59, avg. 45, or avg. ~12 after hardness 40). Tarrasque is actually a weakling in that regard. Try a Storm Giant on for size.

Basic Storm Giant at CR 13 deals 4d6+21 damage (25-45, avg. 35, or avg. ~0.5 after hardness). It's using a two-handed weapon and has Power Attack. Give it a few class levels and NPC WBL to bring it up to 18-20th, and it should have about a +42 attack bonus for 4d6+31 damage (7 more BaB, 4 larger Str modifier, +4 weapon). By comparison, your AC should be 46 = 10 + 13 armor + 7 shield + 6 exotic armor + 5 deflection + 5 natural or so. Huh, it isn't as accurate as I thought it was. It's still an average of about 1.5 hits/round, though. Power Attack isn't even worth it at that point.

Anyways, I think the point is this. With the damage going around, you'll have to replace your shield every day or two, which is kinda annoying. Though not as bad as I thought it would be.