Whilst the original D&D grew from wargaming, the current game is a long way from any sort of medieval warfare simulator.
It most certainly still is a medieval warfare simulator. We don't run around fighting with swords, spears or axes in the modern world because our technology has advanced to the point their obsolete compared to firearms. Yes, it has magic/fantasy elements in it, but I still have my character with my sword that sticks you with the pointy end.
Perhaps a better thing is to ask why you feel that the game should be more accurately based on what we now believe about armor and weapons from across the last two thousand years or so? What would the benefit be? Why would D&D be a better game for it?
Literally nothing is lost by accurately representing the weapons of the time period (13th-16th Century AD).
Why do you assume all D&D is based in this time period? My homebrew setting has steampunk elements and is somewhat comparable to the 1800's, someone else's might be Roman Empire Era based, another might be 2200's Star Trek type (the DMG has options for that too, FYI), and some might be a hodgepodge of different eras or eschew references to real history all-together.
:sigh:
Because that is the time period, technologically speaking, of the default setting Forgotten Realms. Its also the time period, technologically, of ALL D&D settings (past and present) outside of the 2E Historical Reference books (and Dark Sun). That is the time period Plate existed alongside Mail, as well as Arming Swords (erroneously called Longswords), War Bows (aka Long Bows), Crossbows, Rapiers and a crapload of other weapons in the game. I kept it simple because "5E is simple". I could have easily made a very expansive list of armors covering multiple time periods and cultures. I DIDN'T BECAUSE THE DAMN PLAYERS HANDBOOK DOESN'T!
Again, why are you so angry about this? You can homebrew these items; they don't have to be cluttering up the rules for those who don't need, care, or would have trouble working through the additional options.
Gentle reminder, Icon: many tables forbid homebrew, and many others consider all homebrew to be either subpar powergamer jank or inherently dangerous to their game and something to be avoided if at all remotely possible. It's not a valid solution for far too many players, especially with increasing usage of exceptionally strict, RAW-only digital tools like DDB.
I think maybe this would have been a better discussion if posted here or in homebrew with there framework "an effort to align D&D armor more realistically" so that the alternative proposed can be offered to those interested in a flair of "realism" to their games. Going about it as an attempt to fix something a preponderance of the player community doesn't recognize as a flaw.
D&D thrives in fluid anachronicity, to make up a word, and always has, as well as the absurd. I mean how many tavern brawls in real historic time actually involved combatants, who had been up till hostilities carousing, wearing armor off the PHB or Brooklyn's list? Yet aside from the "well, actually" camp of amateur military historians the preponderance of the player base throughout the game's history just don't care.
The history of dungeons and dragons is full of amateur and in some cases professional historians making "interventions" into the game explaining how some of the gear the game references actually worked, and will occasionally present options to allow for those reality workings to have mechanical effects in game. There's nothing wrong with that, nor is there really with the substance of the OP's list or alt table. It's when the knowledge is used to castigate the game, that again is enjoyed as is by the preponderance of the player base, that well threads like this happens.
To use a game analogy to talk a bit about real life communication. Most scholarship and research arguably falls under an INT stat. Now some people occupy spaces where they can get by in their particular sector or racket strictly on the product of that INT stat. In most environments and especially internet environments, the best communicators have the WIS to recognize CHR does as much if not more of the lifting if you want your INT labor to be impactful or at least received or recognized. For that debate set that floats around here about how "facts trump feelings" or whatever, really how you present facts matters considerably. Thats why rhetoric was such an important art in the tutelage of leaders in the classical, bronze, medieval, etc. eras.
I like the list Brooklyn presented, just the manner had that whole grievance thing wrapped up in it which makes it a bit to get through. I don't think my table would be adopting it because I'd rather them just focus on getting the PHB rules down rather than presenting them an alternative critical gear system, plus noting that such a system should probably do a whole rethink of weapon and gear weight in general. I guess I just prefer to keep the game moving. Vince's options for encumbrance and revised load capacity is interesting too and I see it as something more easily implemented if my party didn't already sort of instinctively default to common sense loads.
While armor weights are on the dubious side, compared to a lot of other weights in the game system (18 lb pike?) they're marvels of accuracy, and certainly not a high priority to fix.
That said...armor is boring. Weapons are mostly boring. There is almost nothing a player can do to tailor their loadout. There is exactly ONE 'ideal' endgame armor for light armor users and heavy armor users both - studded leather for light and plate for heavy. Medium armor has exactly two endgoal states - breastplate if you care about stealth, half-plate if you don't. There is absolutely zero reason whatsoever to use any other type of armor for any reason period beyond those four save simple lack of access.
To be honest, having a tiny number of armor types is realistic, because while many of the armor types in D&D did exist in some form or another, they didn't all exist in active use at the same time. From an actual game standpoint, I'd probably just make it cosmetic for magic items:
All magical light armors use the stats of Studded Leather, regardless of actual design.
I know people like to say that any degree of added complexity will Destroy 5e Forever and that "its greatest strength is its accessibility!" But, first of all? No, 5e's greatest strength is not its accessibility. Its greatest strength is fifty years of brand recognition and a gadzooking heap of Hasbro money. Other games are vastly more accessible than 5e, but they never gain market share because they don't have the D&D name.
You are confusing the strength of the 5e brand with that of the 5e system. the marketing and branding of 5e has nothing to do with the system. That's like saying that Legend of Zelda games are popular because of 50 years of brand recognition and a gadzooking heap of Nintendo money. Does it help sell the game? sure. Does it dictate the mechanics of the game itself and how one approaches it? No. Would people play legend of zelda games if they were mechanically terrible? probably not (or at least, in nowhere near the numbers).
In short, it is a definite strength of the 5e system that it is simple and easy to grasp for a large swath of potential players. Branding and Marketing might help the system succeed, but they don't dictate the strengths of the system itself.
(This is kinda an aside, as I don't have a dog in this fight, per se)
The strengths of the systems and the strengths of the brand are pretty connected.
Right now, 5e is way more popular than anything else. I think the numbers of books sold (or something like that) say it is more popular than OD&D, 1e, 2e, 3e, 3.5e, and 4e combined. [Note: I've read that, but don't have a good source. It might be an exaggeration.] Accessibility (via simplicity) is a giant, huge part of popularity. 5e is objectively simpler than all the other types of D&D. D&D's brand strength is (more or less) why it is more popular than other brands, but 5e's simplicity arguably dwarfs its brand strength.
So...WotC and Hasbro leave the detail/realism futzing to supplements, homebrew, or just competing systems.
Personally, I'd love to see some of the changes this thread is about, if only to educate the gaming public a bit better about historical armor. Mostly just to correct some old-school gaming misconceptions. If I want realistic armor with plenty of gameable crunch, I have plenty of other systems to play (assuming I could get the group together to play them).
While armor weights are on the dubious side, compared to a lot of other weights in the game system (18 lb pike?) they're marvels of accuracy, and certainly not a high priority to fix.
That said...armor is boring. Weapons are mostly boring. There is almost nothing a player can do to tailor their loadout. There is exactly ONE 'ideal' endgame armor for light armor users and heavy armor users both - studded leather for light and plate for heavy. Medium armor has exactly two endgoal states - breastplate if you care about stealth, half-plate if you don't. There is absolutely zero reason whatsoever to use any other type of armor for any reason period beyond those four save simple lack of access.
To be honest, having a tiny number of armor types is realistic, because while many of the armor types in D&D did exist in some form or another, they didn't all exist in active use at the same time. From an actual game standpoint, I'd probably just make it cosmetic for magic items:
All magical light armors use the stats of Studded Leather, regardless of actual design.
Actually just thinking outloud and not consulting tables, I like this beyond just magical armors. I'm actually inspired to play around with some "abstract" armor system. Where you can purchase armor levels with a range of +1 - +8 protection (+shield(s)), with effects on stealth allowing one to purchase said protection at varying price points. Maybe your +1 armor level a cuirass, maybe it's a set of bracers and thigh pads you've trained to use defensively, etc. You purchase the protection and mobility you want and flesh out what it looks like in your description. At the end of the day, as a DM all I need to know from my player is how much higher than 10 the number is and once the rolls resolved we can determine whether it sounds like a clang or a soft thump or the blow buzzes past.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Gentle reminder, Icon: many tables forbid homebrew, and many others consider all homebrew to be either subpar powergamer jank or inherently dangerous to their game and something to be avoided if at all remotely possible. It's not a valid solution for far too many players, especially with increasing usage of exceptionally strict, RAW-only digital tools like DDB.
Yurei, I write from a DM's perspective (since that's what I do almost 100% of the time), and as a DM, I homebrew a lot, both for my own purposes and to help my players realize their goals for their characters (they don't have free reign, but if they have an idea I'm willing to work with them and balance it for gameplay as much as possible, and I do say no on occasion). I recognize that not all DM's are as comfortable doing this and that some players might be in a situation where homebrew is not allowed, but given that the DMG and the RAW both provide for and encourage homebrew and customization (even if the examples and means they give are limited), I would think that the majority of tables are not AL-style with no homebrewing allowed (though I'm sure they exist).
As I have also said (in this thread), I would personally support, and purchase, a 5.5e or "advanced" supplement and would probably use it quite a bit, and I play games other than D&D that use more complicated combat and weaponry rules and enjoy them. I just also run games for new players through my local game shop (or did until COVID) and run games with players who would struggle somewhat with more complicated rules, and I see the value in keeping the core rules abstracted and simple for those players.
Gentle reminder, Icon: many tables forbid homebrew, and many others consider all homebrew to be either subpar powergamer jank or inherently dangerous to their game and something to be avoided if at all remotely possible. It's not a valid solution for far too many players, especially with increasing usage of exceptionally strict, RAW-only digital tools like DDB.
Whether homebrew is an option depends entirely on the group, Yurei - it's even explicitly encouraged in the rules. And as much as it's inconvenient to use DDB for homebrew, it's hardly an "exceptionally strict, RAW-only digital tool". There's a pretty significant chunk of this site dedicated specifically to creating homebrew and/or perusing and collecting published homebrew created by others. I very much prefer analog, in-person gaming among other things because it lets me be more flexible and homebrewing is as easy as scribbling a few words down on a napkin if I want to, but there is a middle ground for DDB to be on.
Okay, there is no other way to put this lightly: the armor weights in D&D 5E are atrociously wrong. Not only that, 5E kept the same bad research for armor that D&D has been infamous for the last (nearly) 50 years now. This SHOULD HAVE been addressed a long time ago by the writers, but for whatever reason they continue to not do so. And I, quite frankly, don't wanna hear that weaksauce argument that "This is how its always been" or "This is fantasy, not reality". Newsflash, the "this is fantasy" argument is a non-sequitor as D&D has ALWAYS been a Medieval Warfare simulator since it was first published. Yes, it has dragons, unicorns and all that stuff, but the combat is 100% straight up based on Medieval Warfare. And "this is how its always been" is equally as much a non-sequitor because, if that were true, then WotC would be publishing nothing but OD&D and/or AD&D 1E instead of 5E. If they're willing to retcon/change a boatload of things for "reasons", then they can dang well change this cause this actually has more of an impact on the game than story and/or lore.
Some of the writers can be forgiven for this, but the simple fact is that the weight's listed for many things are just out and out WRONG. The heaviest mail hauberk found to date came in at about 30lbs (lord knows how much of that is rust). Most mail shirts (byrnies) weighed 20lbs at most. Mail sure as drek didn't weigh 55lbs nor could a warrior fight very long wearing such heavy armor. Also, STOP CALLING IT CHAIN MAIL! All Mail is made from chained rings. It comes from the Old French word Maille, which comes from the Medieval Latin word Macula, meaning Mesh. Calling it Chain-Mail (let alone Scale Mail) is not only wrong, its redundant (or categorically stupid in the case of Scale Mail, since Scale armor is not a type of mail). Also, the technology level of D&D assumes 13th-15th Century Europe/Western Asia (if you want to use east Asian and Japanese medieval armor, you're going to have to really adapt things cause there is a world of difference and its not just cultural, but also environmental. Metal armor does incredibly poorly in overly humid environments). Having Classical and Early Medieval armors like Scale and Banded is just confusing things.
There are no such armors as either Studded Leather (they were looking at Brigandine and assuming the rivets holding in the lames were studs) nor Ring Mail (the Bayeux Tapestry wasn't a hyper-accurate depiction of the arms/armor of the Norman Conquest and the "tennis-nets" were as close an approximation of mail as they had at the time). No blacksmith is going to take a shirt of leather and tie over-size rings to it since it would be ruined after one battle. They would, instead, pound the rings into lames to make coat-of-plates (aka Brigandine).
There is literally no reason for Padded to impose Disadvantage on Stealth. If anything, it would be Leather Lamellar (since its made from hardened leather/rawhide) as moving would be somewhat difficult, and the lacings would strain against the lames every time you acted.
While I personally think Medium Armor should allow for adding +3 Dex and Heavy Armor +2 Dex to your AC, I won't push the issue. But the fact is the armor doesn't weigh what the Devs think and its a heck of a lot more flexible than what people generally expect.
Armor Armor Class Weight Notes - Light Soft Leather Jerkin AC 11 2lbs Leather Lamellar Corslet AC 12 9lbs Disadvantage on Stealth Gambeson (Padded) AC 12 9lbs - Medium Arming Doublet* AC 13 12lbs Mail Byrnie (Shirt) AC 14 20lbs Disadvantage on Stealth Mail Haubergeon (Small Hauberk) AC 15 25lbs Disadvantage on Stealth Brigandine** AC 16 9lbs - Heavy Mail Hauberk AC 16 30lbs Disadvantage on Stealth Breastplate AC 17 20lbs Disadvantage on Stealth Plate*** AC 18 50lbs Disadvantage on Stealth
Buckler +1 2lbs (It makes sense to have a small shield that can be strapped to the forearm) Shield +2 8lbs
* - Arming Doublets are a type of Gambeson with Mail attached to it (called voiders) that protected limbs and part of the chest (and sometimes the throat). They were mostly worn underneath a Breastplate (to protect the vulnerable portions of the body). This would actually be the most second most common type of armor worn by Town Guards, the first being regular Gambeson, as well as many mercenaries who cannot afford better armor yet. I didn't add the disadvantage on stealth, but that is really up to the DM.
** - Brigandine is assumed to be the equivalent of Metal Lamellar, often erroneously called Splint Mail (such as the Byzantine Kataphractoi and Varyangian Guard wore, which combined a mail hauberk with metal lamellar corslet) as well as the Coat-of-Plates (which is the earliest form of what became known as Plate armor). Brigandine, due to its light weight and the fact the freedom of movement it affords should classify it as a Medium Armor.
*** - Plate armor that weighs over 60lbs would be Jousting Armor, which isn't used in battle.
I'm not going to get into the economics of D&D and how godawful it is at this time. Needless to say, it needs severe overhauling as well.
Edit: A Mail Hauberk distributes the weight rather evenly. Plate armor does so even better because it is fitted to the wearer (otherwise, it wouldn't cost an arm and a leg to buy). Heavy Armors should probably not require above Strength 13 to use.
What no roman armour? What books are you using in your research? I have used Stone's Glossary of Arms and Armour. And then there is Edward Oakshotte. I have fought in armour. Made Armour. Help dish out armour. I learned way back in 2E is not worry about how realistic the armour is. Nothing is stopping you from requiring your players to list the weights and what they are carrying. But will this add in any more enjoyment to the table? When I did it, it just slowed down the game.
Gentle reminder, Icon: many tables forbid homebrew, and many others consider all homebrew to be either subpar powergamer jank or inherently dangerous to their game and something to be avoided if at all remotely possible. It's not a valid solution for far too many players, especially with increasing usage of exceptionally strict, RAW-only digital tools like DDB.
I homebrew the shit out of almost every system, rpg, D&D edition, world, adventure, module, and campaign. In recent times, I do this with a table of 8-10 players, all but one exclusively using D&D Beyond. They don't even roll dice anymore, much to my chagrin. We have never had an issue, hiccup, concern, or bad moment as a result. Either you're doing something wrong, we are doing something right, or there's more to it than meets the eye - or whatever the transformers said.
After all, weapons are just sticks with numbers on the end. Whether you are carrying a long sword or an arming sword or a falchion or a threshwobbler is irrelevant - all I need to know is 1d8 slashing damage. We could replace the whole weapon table with size - type - dice (dagger = tiny 1d4 piercing, greatclub = large 2d6 blundgeoning) and simplify the two-handed fighting at the same time. Throw in some tages (for example, "cheaply made" = -1 damage) and we're done.
Same for armour. We could have the three types (say light = AC 11, medium = AC 14, heavy = AC 17) and a lot of tags ("cheaply made" = -2 AC, "mithril" = half weight and twice cost, etc).
I don't think we should go with piecemeal armour. It works well in Skyrim and Fallout but I think goes against the simplicity of D&D 5E. It also needs a hit location system in the game, which 5E certainly doesn't have (or need, in my personal opinion).
What no roman armour? What books are you using in your research? I have used Stone's Glossary of Arms and Armour. And then there is Edward Oakshotte. I have fought in armour. Made Armour. Help dish out armour. I learned way back in 2E is not worry about how realistic the armour is. Nothing is stopping you from requiring your players to list the weights and what they are carrying. But will this add in any more enjoyment to the table? When I did it, it just slowed down the game.
[REDACTED] The Armor List in the PHB has 13 lines of equipment. Mine has 12. Do the math.
What no roman armour? What books are you using in your research? I have used Stone's Glossary of Arms and Armour. And then there is Edward Oakshotte. I have fought in armour. Made Armour. Help dish out armour. I learned way back in 2E is not worry about how realistic the armour is. Nothing is stopping you from requiring your players to list the weights and what they are carrying. But will this add in any more enjoyment to the table? When I did it, it just slowed down the game.
[REDACTED] The Armor List in the PHB has 13 lines of equipment. Mine has 12. Do the math.
He was talking about weight enforcement slowing the game down. That one extra line in the PHB is irrelevant to that.
FFS.....
LIFTING AND CARRYING Your Strength score determines the amount of weight you can bear. The following terms define what you can lift or carry. - PHB 176
Having weights that are WRONG penalizes characters unnecessarily. This is doubly so if you're using the Variant Encumbrance Rules. This is all part of The Rules as Written. You know, those things they enforce for Adventure League and any DM that doesn't want to homebrew anything.....
And the carrying rules allow more weight than is feasible for combat and movement other than walking. You are basically making this argument to gain an unfair advantage for your character. Either accept that armor weighs more but the encumbrance system is over-generous to match, or argue for both to be reduced to “realistic” levels
To be fair, variant encumbrance is drastically more punishing than standard encumbrance. Under VE rules, almost any form of heavy armor takes up the huge majority of even an exceptionally strong character's carrying weight. A character wearing plate mail, carrying a halberd and a shortsword in case he loses the halberd (i.e. a pretty bare-bones basic 'warfighter' kit) is carrying 73 pounds of armor and two weapons. With 15 strength, his encumbrance under VE is...75. A character with a pretty respectable 15 strength can barely carry a change of underpants without losing half their speed if they're using a pretty typical Warfighter loadout of armor and weaponry.
Now yes, VE is supposed to be more punishing than typical encumbrance rules, but a lot of folks do feel it's kinda unfairly skewed against heavy-armor characters. I tend to rule that a character halves the weight of their own clothing and/or armor when determining their encumbrance for the purposes of VE, if (and only if) the armor is properly fitted. For 'salvaged'/looted armor this means bringing it to a smith to have it modified and refitted to its new wearer, for a percentage of its cost and crafting time. Off-the-rack armor has no such benefits but may be cheaper/quicker to refit since it was never fitted to anyone else in the first place, and armor you stripped off a death knight in the depths of the Great Tomb of Nazarick is right out until it's refitted.
Also if you've been stripping armor off of death knights in the Great Tomb of Nazarick, you have bigger problems than encumbrance and I pray for your soul. Sorta.
What no roman armour? What books are you using in your research? I have used Stone's Glossary of Arms and Armour. And then there is Edward Oakshotte. I have fought in armour. Made Armour. Help dish out armour. I learned way back in 2E is not worry about how realistic the armour is. Nothing is stopping you from requiring your players to list the weights and what they are carrying. But will this add in any more enjoyment to the table? When I did it, it just slowed down the game.
[REDACTED] The Armor List in the PHB has 13 lines of equipment. Mine has 12. Do the math.
He was talking about weight enforcement slowing the game down. That one extra line in the PHB is irrelevant to that.
FFS.....
LIFTING AND CARRYING Your Strength score determines the amount of weight you can bear. The following terms define what you can lift or carry. - PHB 176
Having weights that are WRONG penalizes characters unnecessarily. This is doubly so if you're using the Variant Encumbrance Rules. This is all part of The Rules as Written. You know, those things they enforce for Adventure League and any DM that doesn't want to homebrew anything.....
Right, but the rules for Lifting and Carrying were written in the same book that lists the weights of armor and weapons in 5e. In other words, the balance of encumbrance rules presumably is based on the weights of equipment that the 5e development team settled on. They would have balanced carrying capacity with those values in mind.
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Wait... why is the weight the thing that bugs you? Why not the fact that armour isn't layered? Or that several sub-par armours are so effective (I'm looking at you chainmail). Or that second layer armour is considered heavy armour (still looking at you chainmail).
Why not include rules about how shields and spears interract with other shields and spears?
Why are all of the weapons so needlessly heavy?
Or that Roman steel is better than Viking age iron... or how viking age iron is inferior to middle age pattern steel, which is still inferior to Teutor steel? Heck, the Viking Age didn't do plate because their metal couldn't support itself, but if you went to a blacksmith, you'd get Viking Age stuff up and through the Georgian era because blacksmiths don't do steel! And if they do, they specifically do "bits" of steel (I'm looking at you, fancy ax head and hammers).
Wait... why is the weight the thing that bugs you? Why not the fact that armour isn't layered? Or that several sub-par armours are so effective (I'm looking at you chainmail). Or that second layer armour is considered heavy armour (still looking at you chainmail).
Um... chainmail was top tier armor until the manufacture of large plates became possible, the only types of armor that should be superior are the types that actually are superior by RAW. If you want to look at armors that are overrated, start with leather and cloth.
Layered cloth armor can actually be quite effective. Obviously not remotely as much so as metal, but a lot of folks underestimate the amount of force and, more importantly, proper cutting technique needed to get through a properly manufactured gambeson. A razor-edged sword with proper technique could largely ignore cloth, yeah - but it was by no means guaranteed back then, nor is it guaranteed in D&D, that an attacker will have a well maintained razor-edged sword nor the technique to use it well.
Padded armor is absolutely valid as a light armor choice, though I cannot figure out why the hell it comes with stealth disadvantage. It's nowhere remotely as good as metal, no, but you can also buy 360 sets of 5gp gambesons/padded armor for the same price as one single 1800gp suit of plate mail.
There's a reason heavy metal warfighting armor was the choice of wealthy lords and noblemen. It's like the Gundams of medieval combat - astonishingly powerful force multipliers and nigh-impervious to anything but another 'Gundam', but so ungodly expensive that no army can afford to field more than a scant handful of the damned things and most of the work is done by drastically less expensive mass-manufactured suits. Or, y'know, cloth-armored peasant levees.
Layered cloth armor can actually be quite effective.
Yes it can be, but layered cloth that's actually useful as armor is heavy, hot, and bulky. Honestly, the top quality for light armor should be fine mail.
Most peasant levees were not cloth-armored. They were unarmored. Cloth armor is mostly stuff like the multi-layered doublets duelists would wear because wearing a breastplate would be considered inappropriate.
Again, why are you so angry about this? You can homebrew these items; they don't have to be cluttering up the rules for those who don't need, care, or would have trouble working through the additional options.
Gentle reminder, Icon: many tables forbid homebrew, and many others consider all homebrew to be either subpar powergamer jank or inherently dangerous to their game and something to be avoided if at all remotely possible. It's not a valid solution for far too many players, especially with increasing usage of exceptionally strict, RAW-only digital tools like DDB.
Please do not contact or message me.
I think maybe this would have been a better discussion if posted here or in homebrew with there framework "an effort to align D&D armor more realistically" so that the alternative proposed can be offered to those interested in a flair of "realism" to their games. Going about it as an attempt to fix something a preponderance of the player community doesn't recognize as a flaw.
D&D thrives in fluid anachronicity, to make up a word, and always has, as well as the absurd. I mean how many tavern brawls in real historic time actually involved combatants, who had been up till hostilities carousing, wearing armor off the PHB or Brooklyn's list? Yet aside from the "well, actually" camp of amateur military historians the preponderance of the player base throughout the game's history just don't care.
The history of dungeons and dragons is full of amateur and in some cases professional historians making "interventions" into the game explaining how some of the gear the game references actually worked, and will occasionally present options to allow for those reality workings to have mechanical effects in game. There's nothing wrong with that, nor is there really with the substance of the OP's list or alt table. It's when the knowledge is used to castigate the game, that again is enjoyed as is by the preponderance of the player base, that well threads like this happens.
To use a game analogy to talk a bit about real life communication. Most scholarship and research arguably falls under an INT stat. Now some people occupy spaces where they can get by in their particular sector or racket strictly on the product of that INT stat. In most environments and especially internet environments, the best communicators have the WIS to recognize CHR does as much if not more of the lifting if you want your INT labor to be impactful or at least received or recognized. For that debate set that floats around here about how "facts trump feelings" or whatever, really how you present facts matters considerably. Thats why rhetoric was such an important art in the tutelage of leaders in the classical, bronze, medieval, etc. eras.
I like the list Brooklyn presented, just the manner had that whole grievance thing wrapped up in it which makes it a bit to get through. I don't think my table would be adopting it because I'd rather them just focus on getting the PHB rules down rather than presenting them an alternative critical gear system, plus noting that such a system should probably do a whole rethink of weapon and gear weight in general. I guess I just prefer to keep the game moving. Vince's options for encumbrance and revised load capacity is interesting too and I see it as something more easily implemented if my party didn't already sort of instinctively default to common sense loads.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
While armor weights are on the dubious side, compared to a lot of other weights in the game system (18 lb pike?) they're marvels of accuracy, and certainly not a high priority to fix.
To be honest, having a tiny number of armor types is realistic, because while many of the armor types in D&D did exist in some form or another, they didn't all exist in active use at the same time. From an actual game standpoint, I'd probably just make it cosmetic for magic items:
(This is kinda an aside, as I don't have a dog in this fight, per se)
The strengths of the systems and the strengths of the brand are pretty connected.
Right now, 5e is way more popular than anything else. I think the numbers of books sold (or something like that) say it is more popular than OD&D, 1e, 2e, 3e, 3.5e, and 4e combined. [Note: I've read that, but don't have a good source. It might be an exaggeration.] Accessibility (via simplicity) is a giant, huge part of popularity. 5e is objectively simpler than all the other types of D&D. D&D's brand strength is (more or less) why it is more popular than other brands, but 5e's simplicity arguably dwarfs its brand strength.
So...WotC and Hasbro leave the detail/realism futzing to supplements, homebrew, or just competing systems.
Personally, I'd love to see some of the changes this thread is about, if only to educate the gaming public a bit better about historical armor. Mostly just to correct some old-school gaming misconceptions. If I want realistic armor with plenty of gameable crunch, I have plenty of other systems to play (assuming I could get the group together to play them).
Actually just thinking outloud and not consulting tables, I like this beyond just magical armors. I'm actually inspired to play around with some "abstract" armor system. Where you can purchase armor levels with a range of +1 - +8 protection (+shield(s)), with effects on stealth allowing one to purchase said protection at varying price points. Maybe your +1 armor level a cuirass, maybe it's a set of bracers and thigh pads you've trained to use defensively, etc. You purchase the protection and mobility you want and flesh out what it looks like in your description. At the end of the day, as a DM all I need to know from my player is how much higher than 10 the number is and once the rolls resolved we can determine whether it sounds like a clang or a soft thump or the blow buzzes past.
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Yurei, I write from a DM's perspective (since that's what I do almost 100% of the time), and as a DM, I homebrew a lot, both for my own purposes and to help my players realize their goals for their characters (they don't have free reign, but if they have an idea I'm willing to work with them and balance it for gameplay as much as possible, and I do say no on occasion). I recognize that not all DM's are as comfortable doing this and that some players might be in a situation where homebrew is not allowed, but given that the DMG and the RAW both provide for and encourage homebrew and customization (even if the examples and means they give are limited), I would think that the majority of tables are not AL-style with no homebrewing allowed (though I'm sure they exist).
As I have also said (in this thread), I would personally support, and purchase, a 5.5e or "advanced" supplement and would probably use it quite a bit, and I play games other than D&D that use more complicated combat and weaponry rules and enjoy them. I just also run games for new players through my local game shop (or did until COVID) and run games with players who would struggle somewhat with more complicated rules, and I see the value in keeping the core rules abstracted and simple for those players.
Whether homebrew is an option depends entirely on the group, Yurei - it's even explicitly encouraged in the rules. And as much as it's inconvenient to use DDB for homebrew, it's hardly an "exceptionally strict, RAW-only digital tool". There's a pretty significant chunk of this site dedicated specifically to creating homebrew and/or perusing and collecting published homebrew created by others. I very much prefer analog, in-person gaming among other things because it lets me be more flexible and homebrewing is as easy as scribbling a few words down on a napkin if I want to, but there is a middle ground for DDB to be on.
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What no roman armour? What books are you using in your research? I have used Stone's Glossary of Arms and Armour. And then there is Edward Oakshotte. I have fought in armour. Made Armour. Help dish out armour. I learned way back in 2E is not worry about how realistic the armour is. Nothing is stopping you from requiring your players to list the weights and what they are carrying. But will this add in any more enjoyment to the table? When I did it, it just slowed down the game.
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I homebrew the shit out of almost every system, rpg, D&D edition, world, adventure, module, and campaign. In recent times, I do this with a table of 8-10 players, all but one exclusively using D&D Beyond. They don't even roll dice anymore, much to my chagrin. We have never had an issue, hiccup, concern, or bad moment as a result. Either you're doing something wrong, we are doing something right, or there's more to it than meets the eye - or whatever the transformers said.
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If it were me, I would take all the names out.
After all, weapons are just sticks with numbers on the end. Whether you are carrying a long sword or an arming sword or a falchion or a threshwobbler is irrelevant - all I need to know is 1d8 slashing damage. We could replace the whole weapon table with size - type - dice (dagger = tiny 1d4 piercing, greatclub = large 2d6 blundgeoning) and simplify the two-handed fighting at the same time. Throw in some tages (for example, "cheaply made" = -1 damage) and we're done.
Same for armour. We could have the three types (say light = AC 11, medium = AC 14, heavy = AC 17) and a lot of tags ("cheaply made" = -2 AC, "mithril" = half weight and twice cost, etc).
I don't think we should go with piecemeal armour. It works well in Skyrim and Fallout but I think goes against the simplicity of D&D 5E. It also needs a hit location system in the game, which 5E certainly doesn't have (or need, in my personal opinion).
[REDACTED] The Armor List in the PHB has 13 lines of equipment. Mine has 12. Do the math.
FFS.....
LIFTING AND CARRYING
Your Strength score determines the amount of weight you can bear. The following terms define what you can lift or carry. - PHB 176
Having weights that are WRONG penalizes characters unnecessarily. This is doubly so if you're using the Variant Encumbrance Rules. This is all part of The Rules as Written. You know, those things they enforce for Adventure League and any DM that doesn't want to homebrew anything.....
And the carrying rules allow more weight than is feasible for combat and movement other than walking. You are basically making this argument to gain an unfair advantage for your character. Either accept that armor weighs more but the encumbrance system is over-generous to match, or argue for both to be reduced to “realistic” levels
To be fair, variant encumbrance is drastically more punishing than standard encumbrance. Under VE rules, almost any form of heavy armor takes up the huge majority of even an exceptionally strong character's carrying weight. A character wearing plate mail, carrying a halberd and a shortsword in case he loses the halberd (i.e. a pretty bare-bones basic 'warfighter' kit) is carrying 73 pounds of armor and two weapons. With 15 strength, his encumbrance under VE is...75. A character with a pretty respectable 15 strength can barely carry a change of underpants without losing half their speed if they're using a pretty typical Warfighter loadout of armor and weaponry.
Now yes, VE is supposed to be more punishing than typical encumbrance rules, but a lot of folks do feel it's kinda unfairly skewed against heavy-armor characters. I tend to rule that a character halves the weight of their own clothing and/or armor when determining their encumbrance for the purposes of VE, if (and only if) the armor is properly fitted. For 'salvaged'/looted armor this means bringing it to a smith to have it modified and refitted to its new wearer, for a percentage of its cost and crafting time. Off-the-rack armor has no such benefits but may be cheaper/quicker to refit since it was never fitted to anyone else in the first place, and armor you stripped off a death knight in the depths of the Great Tomb of Nazarick is right out until it's refitted.
Also if you've been stripping armor off of death knights in the Great Tomb of Nazarick, you have bigger problems than encumbrance and I pray for your soul. Sorta.
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Right, but the rules for Lifting and Carrying were written in the same book that lists the weights of armor and weapons in 5e. In other words, the balance of encumbrance rules presumably is based on the weights of equipment that the 5e development team settled on. They would have balanced carrying capacity with those values in mind.
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Wait... why is the weight the thing that bugs you? Why not the fact that armour isn't layered? Or that several sub-par armours are so effective (I'm looking at you chainmail). Or that second layer armour is considered heavy armour (still looking at you chainmail).
Why not include rules about how shields and spears interract with other shields and spears?
Why are all of the weapons so needlessly heavy?
Or that Roman steel is better than Viking age iron... or how viking age iron is inferior to middle age pattern steel, which is still inferior to Teutor steel? Heck, the Viking Age didn't do plate because their metal couldn't support itself, but if you went to a blacksmith, you'd get Viking Age stuff up and through the Georgian era because blacksmiths don't do steel! And if they do, they specifically do "bits" of steel (I'm looking at you, fancy ax head and hammers).
Um... chainmail was top tier armor until the manufacture of large plates became possible, the only types of armor that should be superior are the types that actually are superior by RAW. If you want to look at armors that are overrated, start with leather and cloth.
Layered cloth armor can actually be quite effective. Obviously not remotely as much so as metal, but a lot of folks underestimate the amount of force and, more importantly, proper cutting technique needed to get through a properly manufactured gambeson. A razor-edged sword with proper technique could largely ignore cloth, yeah - but it was by no means guaranteed back then, nor is it guaranteed in D&D, that an attacker will have a well maintained razor-edged sword nor the technique to use it well.
Padded armor is absolutely valid as a light armor choice, though I cannot figure out why the hell it comes with stealth disadvantage. It's nowhere remotely as good as metal, no, but you can also buy 360 sets of 5gp gambesons/padded armor for the same price as one single 1800gp suit of plate mail.
There's a reason heavy metal warfighting armor was the choice of wealthy lords and noblemen. It's like the Gundams of medieval combat - astonishingly powerful force multipliers and nigh-impervious to anything but another 'Gundam', but so ungodly expensive that no army can afford to field more than a scant handful of the damned things and most of the work is done by drastically less expensive mass-manufactured suits. Or, y'know, cloth-armored peasant levees.
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Yes it can be, but layered cloth that's actually useful as armor is heavy, hot, and bulky. Honestly, the top quality for light armor should be fine mail.
Most peasant levees were not cloth-armored. They were unarmored. Cloth armor is mostly stuff like the multi-layered doublets duelists would wear because wearing a breastplate would be considered inappropriate.