If you actually went through with this trying to ad realism to armor then you would have to add the variable effects of different weapon types vs different armor types.
You would probably also want to add what part of armor protects you from being hit and what part stops actual damage. It is entirely possible to get hit while wearing plate and not get hurt.
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"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
Realism doesn't result in a good game though. I mean, you need some to make the game predictable and immersive, but it's means, not an end. While I'm sure that in reality the skill required to wear heavy armour isn't really all that different to medium (or rather, an armour that D&D classifies heavy and one it classifies as medium), there are important gameplay reasons for it. To name one that comes mind: the Caster. You don't want a Wizard being able to wear armour without cost like a Fighter. Proficiency allows you to gate that ability. The Wizard can wear armour, if he sacrifices to get it via a level in Fighter or something. The three categories of proficiency allow the Wizard to decide on how much to sacrifice. Does he go for a level in Fighter for heavy armour but get a bunch of abilities that will rarely help him? Or a level in Ranger that gives more help...but only in medium armour?
That kind of tradeoff is easiest to implement with different proficiencies for different levels of armour. If you didn't have them, you'd only ever have 3 armours in the game. The cheap, nasty one you start off with, one that is great for protecting but gives disadvantage to stealth, and one that is good at protecting but doesn't give you disadvantage to stealth. Gold just becomes too liberal to make cost a factor beyond when you upgrade.
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If you want a realistic set of rules of armour in your TTRPG then I suppose you also want to get rid of Magic, because in real life last time I checked, my priest can't heal my stab wound with a few words, I can't make another person do the things I want thanks to a dominate person spell and, anyone who dies stays dead.
My point here is, there are plenty of TTRPGS out there that do what you want, play them, they would value your support and investment and they will run much much better than a houseruled to the hilt version of DnD.
Can I ask how? I apologize, the post was not as easy to follow as one could wish.
Perhaps you could provide a list of what armor you think should be in the game? What do you think the different light, medium, and heavy armor options should be?
I wrote about things I would change.
A full list would be:
Light
Padded, Leather, Hide
Medium
Chain mail, Scale, Breastplate, (optionally a standalone Brigandine)
Heavy
Brigandine, Half plate, Plate, (optionally the full chain mail)
The optional armors can be easily justified to improve variety.
I would probably eliminate a number of armors, but not specifically because of realism, it's because they're armor types with no real function. For example, I haven't seen anyone wearing leather after first level, or ring mail at any level, and once you get into magic items, there isn't really any point to anything but best-in-class armor types.
I would be somewhat tempted to eliminate named armor types -- you just buy Light Armor, or Medium Armor, or Heavy Armor, with potential for Expensive or Loud.
1. Some armors can be used by NPCs
2. Such a simplification would be interesting, but armor names are also descriptive and the players don't need to ask their type. I think this is rather for simple systems.
Am I the only one who grumbles at the concept of Armor Proficiency that isn't just "Armor Proficiency"? Light, Medium, Shields, and Heavy shouldn't each be their own thing, but game balance is a thing for a reason.
1. You're hardcore. :)
2. These proficiencies are just a substitute for long lists of what weapons and armor each class can use. And when they are proficiencies, the heroes can learn it, thus it's a handy tool for character customization, too.
I would probably eliminate a number of armors, but not specifically because of realism, it's because they're armor types with no real function. For example, I haven't seen anyone wearing leather after first level, or ring mail at any level, and once you get into magic items, there isn't really any point to anything but best-in-class armor types.
I would be somewhat tempted to eliminate named armor types -- you just buy Light Armor, or Medium Armor, or Heavy Armor, with potential for Expensive or Loud.
100%.
Name them if it makes you feel more immersed. I would suggest text like "heavy armor includes brigandine, as well as..."
I did find OP's post interesting, and I don't hate it in concept. And the loss of several 5e armor types is really no loss at all. But both OP and 5e are bloating the list.
Yeah. Chainmail arguably has a reason to still exist as it has a STR requirement separate from SPlint/Plate. Which could hypothetically appeal to a character with decent strength but not their main stat, but I feel like this is probably a very narrow subset of characters.
Plate's only reason to exist is to be prohibitively expensive in the early game and make fighters/paladins save up to get or hope they get lucky in what they're able to find out adventuring. It's just a slightly better splint at an exponentially higher price for the one difference in AC.
I don't know of any character I've ever played as or with that had a reason to wear padded armor. Studded leather, like plate, is just a slightly better but more expensive alternative to leather. Except that studded leather is only 45 gold. Far more affordable in the early game.
Hide baffles me on multiple fronts. It's functinoally studded leather but with a limited dex gain. If you have med armor prof you have light armor prof. This seems to only exist for druids, but honestly I think it could be folded into leather/studded leather without losing anything. And then just give druids light armor prof instead of 'med armor prof but they would never wear most med armors because they don't like wearing metal.'
Chain Shirt/Breastplate and Scale Mail/Half Plate re likewise similar armors where one is cheaper and the other is more expensive with one more AC, with a middle ground on pricing where the gap is a lot higher than light armor but not as extreme as plate. These could be consolidated.
THAT SAID. I do think there is some fun value in upgrading armor in the early game. Especially if your campaign isn't throwing magic items at you frequently in the early levels. It can be a fun early game goal to upgrade that leather to studded leather as a rogue. Working your way up from chain mail to splint to plate can be a fun set of upgrades. Sure, once you're deeper into the campaign the lesser armor categories lose any real relevance. But having those short term upgrade goals can still be fun in the early levels.
THAT SAID. I do think there is some fun value in upgrading armor in the early game. Especially if your campaign isn't throwing magic items at you frequently in the early levels. It can be a fun early game goal to upgrade that leather to studded leather as a rogue. Working your way up from chain mail to splint to plate can be a fun set of upgrades. Sure, once you're deeper into the campaign the lesser armor categories lose any real relevance. But having those short term upgrade goals can still be fun in the early levels.
You nailed it. Cheap, bad armor is a thing because progression is a core concept of all RPGs. These items provide easy goals for low level parties that provide concrete, satisfying benefits. WotC is not infallible, but there are good reasons the system works the way it does.
That being said, hide armor needs to be fixed so that it has at least one niche and "padded armor" being a louder version of leather just seems dumb.
You might introduce small shields, the bucklers. This would give +1 AC, of course. It's easy to take it off from the belt, and any class could use it. Good for rogues, bards, or for anyone who isn't a fighter, and doesn't have shield or two weapon fighting proficiency. It could be part of simple weapons.
Again, this messes too much with the game. Shield proficiency is not included in certain classes for a reason. These guys are supposed to be fragile, or at least to handle damage mitigation in other ways that help to differentiate them from Fighters and Clerics and Paladins. It provides us different modes of play. If you want a buckler, find a way to get shield proficiency like every other schmuck has to do and call it a buckler.
I think Splint Mail is supposed to be representative of Japanese Samurai armor which did fallk in heavy metal plates. Furthermore D&D was never meant to be 1400's Europe, Tolkein's Lord of the Rings books were, D&D was a game adapted to that which is why certain armor is not from Europe necessarily.
I think banded armor was based on Roman armor but I can't be sure.
The difference in Ring Mail and Chain mail is more than just the name. Ring mail is composed of interlocking rings. These leave gaps that can breached by piercing weapons. I think it would be called Chain back in the 1300's but I don't know, that is not the point. The point is what the armor was. Chain mail is different. It is not rings but I believe twisted metal chain links that form ropes of chain metal and those ropes are linked together as well forming a tight metal blanket. I think this armor would be superior because there would not be as many gaps in the metal. Of course, in the 1400's all of that would draped over gambison (padded armor) which btw would be very cumbersome not from the weight but from the thickness of the quilts over the joints and was actually much more efficient at stopping damage that the books describe.
I think you are mistaken in stating Gygax just invented these armor types without understanding real armor. In the original AD&D books a lot of attention was given to not just the make up of the armor but the undergarments and leather it was attached to and how it was put together. It may have taken literary license with somethings but Gygax came from a group of War Gamers. Roleplaying did not exist before him. He came up with that idea while playing a war game where each player was a different country and he assigned cards to them describing who that ruler was that they represented. In the diplomacy session people went with it and took on the affectation of being that person and thus the game was really fun for everyone because it made the diplomacy sessions before war moves more interesting and Gygax applied it to other games.
Chainmail, the first version of D&D were wargame rules for fantasy. At that time wizards and fighters were just pieces on a board. Tolkein translated those War Game rules to Dungeons & Dragons (the boxed set that actually was the first version of D&D. In that game Dwarf was not a race but a class. All dwarves had their own progression as did elves. AD&D was the first system where one had a distinctive race and a class but elements of the original boxed sets were there which is why the other races were the only ones that multiclassed and why every class but the theif was limited in the number of levels that could be attained.
The point of all this though is if you really want realistic armors you would bring back a mechanic from AD&D that was phased out by second edition. You would have each armor with modifiers for the type of damage, Bludgeoning, Piercing and Slashing. This was a chart for each type of armor with three columns for each damage type with a to hit modifier for the attacker either an increase in the AC (a positive modifier) or a decrease in the AC (a negative modifier) because certain types of weapons were more and less useful depending on the type of armor being worn.
WOTC won't even dream of adding this given their penchant to make the game "simple" but you could make house rules. Maybe to make it easier certain armor gives disadvantages or advantage to the character atacking based on the weapon damage type, piercing, slashing or bludgeoning. Maybe that might be something they consider but it still adds complexity to system which is a narrative now in the gaming community, one I hope begins to go the other way so that there is more options in creating characters but who knows.
The difference in Ring Mail and Chain mail is more than just the name. Ring mail is composed of interlocking rings. These leave gaps that can breached by piercing weapons. I think it would be called Chain back in the 1300's but I don't know, that is not the point. The point is what the armor was. Chain mail is different. It is not rings but I believe twisted metal chain links that form ropes of chain metal and those ropes are linked together as well forming a tight metal blanket. I think this armor would be superior because there would not be as many gaps in the metal. w
If you actually went through with this trying to ad realism to armor then you would have to add the variable effects of different weapon types vs different armor types.
You would probably also want to add what part of armor protects you from being hit and what part stops actual damage. It is entirely possible to get hit while wearing plate and not get hurt.
I agree but with most of this but does 5e have the rule space to do this? I have seen a few systems that deal with roll location then determine if you hit then roll damage. Some were fun and some tended to fail by trying to do things too simply and that simplicity allowed some really silly things to occur.
So how is it done, does the rest of the rules support that level of detail and do the rules make sense goes a long way in my book to determine if rules last in the long run vs a publisher put this out because they need to publish.
IDK if this would be a good fit in practice, but SW5E (basically a big rework of D&D 5E for star wars stuff) has three different shield tiers, light medium and heavy, and ties them to armor prof of the same tier.
Light shields grant +1 to ac. THey are wrist mounted and while it does require using a hand to benefit from the shield, you don't have to don/doff it. So you can switch between holding something in that hand or using it for the shield more fluidly without needing multiple item interactions.
Medium are the standard D&D shields. +2 to ac no special properties.
Heavy are +3 to AC but you can only wield weapons with the light property in your other hand because of how bulky they are. Unless you take a feat or something to get rid of that requirement. Trading offense for the extra defense.
Providing some different tiers of shield use with different benefits and drawbacks for light/heavy variants. Could be an interesting concept to play with to diversify shields a bit outside of magical shields with different effects, even if not using those exact rules.
I would be somewhat tempted to eliminate named armor types -- you just buy Light Armor, or Medium Armor, or Heavy Armor, with potential for Expensive or Loud.
I also agree that this is a pretty good idea. Some folks would cry about the details which make RPGs more crunchy than war games, but the details can be worked out by the GM and the players.
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Realism in armor isn't really something that can be achieved without a radical revamp of how combat works, because there are two ways of defeating armor -- either hit where it doesn't cover, or hit harder than it can stop -- and they aren't particularly related to each other.
Other games commonly handle this by having armor affect the damage roll instead of the attack roll, though this has some issues too.
That would actually be a really neat idea. Bake a certain level of flat damage reduction into each grade of armor. Light armor reduces incoming physical damage by flat 2, medium by flat 4, and heavy by flat 6, with shields possibly adding another flat 1 to that. Numbers spitballed off the top of my head of course, but having heavier armor actually help mitigate damage rather than just deflect attacks would go a long way towards selling it as heavy armor Or, heck - maybe even tie it to STR. Invert the DX formula for AC: light armor cannot reduce damage at all, only aid in deflection. Medium armor reduces incoming physical damage by a value equal to your Strength mod, max 2. And heavy lets you reduce incoming physical damage by your uncapped Strength mod. So the more dexy you are the more you want light armor, the stronger you are the more you want heavy armor, and if you're an in-betweeny mix then medium works out best. Throw Strength a bone, dead gods know the poor stat needs one.
If I were to do a damage mitigation stat on armor I would change the AC value as well. The whole idea behind AC is that some "hits" don"T hurt which makes me think Heavy Armor would maybe top out at 16-17 and magical bonuses add to damage reduction instead of AC.
I would also have to do a deep think on HP - NAH, then you would have to redo that whole magic system.
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"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
Yes changes in one area often mean changes in other areas, this is why when they said 1D&D is going to be backward compatible with 5e that is a problem with moving the game forward and not just doing cosmetic editing.
No realism because of magic: I have seen the above statement elsewhere saying the system cannot be more realistic in area A because we have magic. That is a poor argument.
If I were to do a damage mitigation stat on armor I would change the AC value as well. The whole idea behind AC is that some "hits" don"T hurt which makes me think Heavy Armor would maybe top out at 16-17 and magical bonuses add to damage reduction instead of AC.
There's a reason I said 'radical revamp'. Realistically, heavy armor does make it a lot harder to be hurt by a guy with a sword, but isn't particularly relevant to gross overkill attacks such as siege weapons, guns, and attacks by giant monsters (depending on how it affects your mobility, it could even be inferior to not wearing any armor at all).
While I'm not against the reworking of armor and I do like the idea of replacing Studded Leather with the actual brigandine, I think some of the suggestions are headed in wrong directions. Some of the problems seem to be holdovers from earlier editions where the armors weren't just those of 1400's Europe but reached back to cover most of the history of armor. That meant that Chain/mail becomes a major type of armor along with things like splint/banded. This would also allow for cultural differences at least. In addition, damage reduction, to me, is a step back into 4e and towards THACO with different types of weapons doing different amounts of damage through different armors. While brigandine is generally thought of as plates sandwiched between cloth or leather it could be light chain in the sandwich for many time periods and places/cultures. the problem with just light, medium and heavy armor is that it also limits your ability as a player or DM to world build or background build.
Shields have a similar problem. bucklers are a straight deflection tool - used to deflect weapon attacks but not to absorb damage. i can see it getting a 1AC bonus. medium and large shields do not just deflect weapons, they absorb damage and sometimes even trap weapons. the big differences are really about weapon attacks around them more than about the area they protect so a standard +2 AC for both makes more sense to me.
for me the ideal sequence would be; Light Armours: Full Dex Bonus allowed Leather AC12 (includes hide armors) Gambeson (padded) AC 11
Medium Armors: +3 Maximum Dex Bonus Chain Shirt/Chain Brigandine/light brigandine AC14 Breastplate AC 13
Heavy Armors - No Dex Bonus Full Chain and half plate AC16 Splint/Branded AC17 Plate AC18
Buckler +1AC
Large and Medium Shields +2 AC
Further I would get rid of Elven Chain and leave mithril, with mithril as a material that reduces the armor's class by one so mithril plate is considered a medium armor and mithril chain shirt is considered a light armor. To me (and I know not all agree) mithril is titanium and titanium (or a titanium iron allow) has roughly the same hardness and strength as iron/steel but only about 1/3 the weight but calls for extreme temperatures and some special processing representing the need for elven or dwarven master smiths to manufacture in most cases
First off, wikipedia is not a source that can be relied on for anything. The editors admit they lie and re edit it. The sight is absolute garbage.
I refuse to use it and if I need to research something I will go to Encyclopedia Britannica.
As to your take that chain mail is just interlocking rings, I have been to medieval fairs and actually seen and felt chain mail and they are not just interlocking rings, A ring is a circle and these chain links are smaller and twisted in order to ensure there is not gaps so you will forgive me if I trust my lying eyes over wikipedia..
Again, I don't care who called it what or when, there is a huge difference and the mail with just ringed circles interlocking is easier to make as I understand it.
If you actually went through with this trying to ad realism to armor then you would have to add the variable effects of different weapon types vs different armor types.
You would probably also want to add what part of armor protects you from being hit and what part stops actual damage. It is entirely possible to get hit while wearing plate and not get hurt.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
Realism doesn't result in a good game though. I mean, you need some to make the game predictable and immersive, but it's means, not an end. While I'm sure that in reality the skill required to wear heavy armour isn't really all that different to medium (or rather, an armour that D&D classifies heavy and one it classifies as medium), there are important gameplay reasons for it. To name one that comes mind: the Caster. You don't want a Wizard being able to wear armour without cost like a Fighter. Proficiency allows you to gate that ability. The Wizard can wear armour, if he sacrifices to get it via a level in Fighter or something. The three categories of proficiency allow the Wizard to decide on how much to sacrifice. Does he go for a level in Fighter for heavy armour but get a bunch of abilities that will rarely help him? Or a level in Ranger that gives more help...but only in medium armour?
That kind of tradeoff is easiest to implement with different proficiencies for different levels of armour. If you didn't have them, you'd only ever have 3 armours in the game. The cheap, nasty one you start off with, one that is great for protecting but gives disadvantage to stealth, and one that is good at protecting but doesn't give you disadvantage to stealth. Gold just becomes too liberal to make cost a factor beyond when you upgrade.
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If you want a realistic set of rules of armour in your TTRPG then I suppose you also want to get rid of Magic, because in real life last time I checked, my priest can't heal my stab wound with a few words, I can't make another person do the things I want thanks to a dominate person spell and, anyone who dies stays dead.
My point here is, there are plenty of TTRPGS out there that do what you want, play them, they would value your support and investment and they will run much much better than a houseruled to the hilt version of DnD.
I wrote about things I would change.
A full list would be:
Light
Padded, Leather, Hide
Medium
Chain mail, Scale, Breastplate, (optionally a standalone Brigandine)
Heavy
Brigandine, Half plate, Plate, (optionally the full chain mail)
The optional armors can be easily justified to improve variety.
1. Some armors can be used by NPCs
2. Such a simplification would be interesting, but armor names are also descriptive and the players don't need to ask their type. I think this is rather for simple systems.
1. You're hardcore. :)
2. These proficiencies are just a substitute for long lists of what weapons and armor each class can use. And when they are proficiencies, the heroes can learn it, thus it's a handy tool for character customization, too.
100%.
Name them if it makes you feel more immersed. I would suggest text like "heavy armor includes brigandine, as well as..."
I did find OP's post interesting, and I don't hate it in concept. And the loss of several 5e armor types is really no loss at all. But both OP and 5e are bloating the list.
Yeah. Chainmail arguably has a reason to still exist as it has a STR requirement separate from SPlint/Plate. Which could hypothetically appeal to a character with decent strength but not their main stat, but I feel like this is probably a very narrow subset of characters.
Plate's only reason to exist is to be prohibitively expensive in the early game and make fighters/paladins save up to get or hope they get lucky in what they're able to find out adventuring. It's just a slightly better splint at an exponentially higher price for the one difference in AC.
I don't know of any character I've ever played as or with that had a reason to wear padded armor. Studded leather, like plate, is just a slightly better but more expensive alternative to leather. Except that studded leather is only 45 gold. Far more affordable in the early game.
Hide baffles me on multiple fronts. It's functinoally studded leather but with a limited dex gain. If you have med armor prof you have light armor prof. This seems to only exist for druids, but honestly I think it could be folded into leather/studded leather without losing anything. And then just give druids light armor prof instead of 'med armor prof but they would never wear most med armors because they don't like wearing metal.'
Chain Shirt/Breastplate and Scale Mail/Half Plate re likewise similar armors where one is cheaper and the other is more expensive with one more AC, with a middle ground on pricing where the gap is a lot higher than light armor but not as extreme as plate. These could be consolidated.
THAT SAID. I do think there is some fun value in upgrading armor in the early game. Especially if your campaign isn't throwing magic items at you frequently in the early levels. It can be a fun early game goal to upgrade that leather to studded leather as a rogue. Working your way up from chain mail to splint to plate can be a fun set of upgrades. Sure, once you're deeper into the campaign the lesser armor categories lose any real relevance. But having those short term upgrade goals can still be fun in the early levels.
You nailed it. Cheap, bad armor is a thing because progression is a core concept of all RPGs. These items provide easy goals for low level parties that provide concrete, satisfying benefits. WotC is not infallible, but there are good reasons the system works the way it does.
That being said, hide armor needs to be fixed so that it has at least one niche and "padded armor" being a louder version of leather just seems dumb.
Again, this messes too much with the game. Shield proficiency is not included in certain classes for a reason. These guys are supposed to be fragile, or at least to handle damage mitigation in other ways that help to differentiate them from Fighters and Clerics and Paladins. It provides us different modes of play. If you want a buckler, find a way to get shield proficiency like every other schmuck has to do and call it a buckler.
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(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
I think Splint Mail is supposed to be representative of Japanese Samurai armor which did fallk in heavy metal plates. Furthermore D&D was never meant to be 1400's Europe, Tolkein's Lord of the Rings books were, D&D was a game adapted to that which is why certain armor is not from Europe necessarily.
I think banded armor was based on Roman armor but I can't be sure.
The difference in Ring Mail and Chain mail is more than just the name. Ring mail is composed of interlocking rings. These leave gaps that can breached by piercing weapons. I think it would be called Chain back in the 1300's but I don't know, that is not the point. The point is what the armor was. Chain mail is different. It is not rings but I believe twisted metal chain links that form ropes of chain metal and those ropes are linked together as well forming a tight metal blanket. I think this armor would be superior because there would not be as many gaps in the metal. Of course, in the 1400's all of that would draped over gambison (padded armor) which btw would be very cumbersome not from the weight but from the thickness of the quilts over the joints and was actually much more efficient at stopping damage that the books describe.
I think you are mistaken in stating Gygax just invented these armor types without understanding real armor. In the original AD&D books a lot of attention was given to not just the make up of the armor but the undergarments and leather it was attached to and how it was put together. It may have taken literary license with somethings but Gygax came from a group of War Gamers. Roleplaying did not exist before him. He came up with that idea while playing a war game where each player was a different country and he assigned cards to them describing who that ruler was that they represented. In the diplomacy session people went with it and took on the affectation of being that person and thus the game was really fun for everyone because it made the diplomacy sessions before war moves more interesting and Gygax applied it to other games.
Chainmail, the first version of D&D were wargame rules for fantasy. At that time wizards and fighters were just pieces on a board. Tolkein translated those War Game rules to Dungeons & Dragons (the boxed set that actually was the first version of D&D. In that game Dwarf was not a race but a class. All dwarves had their own progression as did elves. AD&D was the first system where one had a distinctive race and a class but elements of the original boxed sets were there which is why the other races were the only ones that multiclassed and why every class but the theif was limited in the number of levels that could be attained.
The point of all this though is if you really want realistic armors you would bring back a mechanic from AD&D that was phased out by second edition. You would have each armor with modifiers for the type of damage, Bludgeoning, Piercing and Slashing. This was a chart for each type of armor with three columns for each damage type with a to hit modifier for the attacker either an increase in the AC (a positive modifier) or a decrease in the AC (a negative modifier) because certain types of weapons were more and less useful depending on the type of armor being worn.
WOTC won't even dream of adding this given their penchant to make the game "simple" but you could make house rules. Maybe to make it easier certain armor gives disadvantages or advantage to the character atacking based on the weapon damage type, piercing, slashing or bludgeoning. Maybe that might be something they consider but it still adds complexity to system which is a narrative now in the gaming community, one I hope begins to go the other way so that there is more options in creating characters but who knows.
That is, uh, not correct.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain_mail
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_armour
It is generally, modernly accepted that "ring mail" is the same as "chain mail." Both are interlocking rings. The victorians weren't very good at historical research.
I agree but with most of this but does 5e have the rule space to do this? I have seen a few systems that deal with roll location then determine if you hit then roll damage. Some were fun and some tended to fail by trying to do things too simply and that simplicity allowed some really silly things to occur.
So how is it done, does the rest of the rules support that level of detail and do the rules make sense goes a long way in my book to determine if rules last in the long run vs a publisher put this out because they need to publish.
IDK if this would be a good fit in practice, but SW5E (basically a big rework of D&D 5E for star wars stuff) has three different shield tiers, light medium and heavy, and ties them to armor prof of the same tier.
Light shields grant +1 to ac. THey are wrist mounted and while it does require using a hand to benefit from the shield, you don't have to don/doff it. So you can switch between holding something in that hand or using it for the shield more fluidly without needing multiple item interactions.
Medium are the standard D&D shields. +2 to ac no special properties.
Heavy are +3 to AC but you can only wield weapons with the light property in your other hand because of how bulky they are. Unless you take a feat or something to get rid of that requirement. Trading offense for the extra defense.
Providing some different tiers of shield use with different benefits and drawbacks for light/heavy variants. Could be an interesting concept to play with to diversify shields a bit outside of magical shields with different effects, even if not using those exact rules.
I also agree that this is a pretty good idea. Some folks would cry about the details which make RPGs more crunchy than war games, but the details can be worked out by the GM and the players.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
Realism in armor isn't really something that can be achieved without a radical revamp of how combat works, because there are two ways of defeating armor -- either hit where it doesn't cover, or hit harder than it can stop -- and they aren't particularly related to each other.
Other games commonly handle this by having armor affect the damage roll instead of the attack roll, though this has some issues too.
That would actually be a really neat idea. Bake a certain level of flat damage reduction into each grade of armor. Light armor reduces incoming physical damage by flat 2, medium by flat 4, and heavy by flat 6, with shields possibly adding another flat 1 to that. Numbers spitballed off the top of my head of course, but having heavier armor actually help mitigate damage rather than just deflect attacks would go a long way towards selling it as heavy armor Or, heck - maybe even tie it to STR. Invert the DX formula for AC: light armor cannot reduce damage at all, only aid in deflection. Medium armor reduces incoming physical damage by a value equal to your Strength mod, max 2. And heavy lets you reduce incoming physical damage by your uncapped Strength mod. So the more dexy you are the more you want light armor, the stronger you are the more you want heavy armor, and if you're an in-betweeny mix then medium works out best. Throw Strength a bone, dead gods know the poor stat needs one.
Why you shouldn't start ANOTHER thread about DDB not giving away free redeems on your hardcopy book purchases.
Thinking of starting ANOTHER thread asking why Epic Boons haven't been implemented? Read this first to learn why you shouldn't!
If I were to do a damage mitigation stat on armor I would change the AC value as well. The whole idea behind AC is that some "hits" don"T hurt which makes me think Heavy Armor would maybe top out at 16-17 and magical bonuses add to damage reduction instead of AC.
I would also have to do a deep think on HP - NAH, then you would have to redo that whole magic system.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
Yes changes in one area often mean changes in other areas, this is why when they said 1D&D is going to be backward compatible with 5e that is a problem with moving the game forward and not just doing cosmetic editing.
No realism because of magic: I have seen the above statement elsewhere saying the system cannot be more realistic in area A because we have magic. That is a poor argument.
There's a reason I said 'radical revamp'. Realistically, heavy armor does make it a lot harder to be hurt by a guy with a sword, but isn't particularly relevant to gross overkill attacks such as siege weapons, guns, and attacks by giant monsters (depending on how it affects your mobility, it could even be inferior to not wearing any armor at all).
While I'm not against the reworking of armor and I do like the idea of replacing Studded Leather with the actual brigandine, I think some of the suggestions are headed in wrong directions. Some of the problems seem to be holdovers from earlier editions where the armors weren't just those of 1400's Europe but reached back to cover most of the history of armor. That meant that Chain/mail becomes a major type of armor along with things like splint/banded. This would also allow for cultural differences at least. In addition, damage reduction, to me, is a step back into 4e and towards THACO with different types of weapons doing different amounts of damage through different armors. While brigandine is generally thought of as plates sandwiched between cloth or leather it could be light chain in the sandwich for many time periods and places/cultures. the problem with just light, medium and heavy armor is that it also limits your ability as a player or DM to world build or background build.
Shields have a similar problem. bucklers are a straight deflection tool - used to deflect weapon attacks but not to absorb damage. i can see it getting a 1AC bonus. medium and large shields do not just deflect weapons, they absorb damage and sometimes even trap weapons. the big differences are really about weapon attacks around them more than about the area they protect so a standard +2 AC for both makes more sense to me.
Light Armours: Full Dex Bonus allowed
Leather AC12 (includes hide armors)
Gambeson (padded) AC 11
Chain Shirt/Chain Brigandine/light brigandine AC14
Breastplate AC 13
Full Chain and half plate AC16
Splint/Branded AC17
Plate AC18
Further I would get rid of Elven Chain and leave mithril, with mithril as a material that reduces the armor's class by one so mithril plate is considered a medium armor and mithril chain shirt is considered a light armor. To me (and I know not all agree) mithril is titanium and titanium (or a titanium iron allow) has roughly the same hardness and strength as iron/steel but only about 1/3 the weight but calls for extreme temperatures and some special processing representing the need for elven or dwarven master smiths to manufacture in most cases
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
First off, wikipedia is not a source that can be relied on for anything. The editors admit they lie and re edit it. The sight is absolute garbage.
I refuse to use it and if I need to research something I will go to Encyclopedia Britannica.
As to your take that chain mail is just interlocking rings, I have been to medieval fairs and actually seen and felt chain mail and they are not just interlocking rings, A ring is a circle and these chain links are smaller and twisted in order to ensure there is not gaps so you will forgive me if I trust my lying eyes over wikipedia..
Again, I don't care who called it what or when, there is a huge difference and the mail with just ringed circles interlocking is easier to make as I understand it.
Then what are the citations for your claims?
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.