In older editions where mages (and Druids) couldn’t wear armor they could actually wear magic helmets/helms/caps, etc. IN 5e the restrictions on armor are pretty well done away with so even that small inconsistency pretty much disappears. I suspect that that inconsistency, as well as balance issues, is why helmets were left out of armor ratings. And trying to put them back in at this level of abstraction is probably not going to work. Further, let’s not head into the morass of weapon damage vs armor types - we visited that with THACO and it was a horrible pain in the rear. There are really 2 questions here 1) What level of realism are we interested in in basic armor types and classes? 2) What level of ease of play are we interested in?
and maybe a third: 3) could we get what we want in Questions 1&2 together in a single revision to what we have now. I think we can and I’ve tried to suggest how but…
I think it hardly matters what *we're* interested in, at least in terms of what's going to be printed in the mainline books. We're hardly anybody in the scope of things.
Speaking for myself, I've expressed my preference. Speaking for anybody else wouldn't make sense to do.
I would *expect* they'll never go full abstraction. Part of the fun of the genre is in getting a little excited about historical arms and armor. After all, it wouldn't have nearly the same appeal if all characters wore kevlar or something. But I could see them separating the names from the rules -- similar to how they say, if you want nunchaku, use the rules for a club, and if you want a spell that shoots glowing chickens, use Magic Missile. And for that same reason, they'll never go back to full simulationism. Because why get so picky about historical accuracy in a game where you could get killed by a magic chicken spell?
Baldur's Gate on PC had helmets negate critical hits. The end result was that character classes who couldn't wear armor like wizards and thieves felt like they were being penalized rather than classes that could wear armor felt like they were getting a bonus.
Interesting bit of psychology, right? I assume you would occasionally find helmets as random loot, which would continually run salt in the wound.
Mundane helmets were super common loot/trash not work looting. Oddly enough, other head slot items (such as ioun stones) also negated critical hits.
Baldur's Gate on PC had helmets negate critical hits. The end result was that character classes who couldn't wear armor like wizards and thieves felt like they were being penalized rather than classes that could wear armor felt like they were getting a bonus.
Interesting bit of psychology, right? I assume you would occasionally find helmets as random loot, which would continually run salt in the wound.
Mundane helmets were super common loot/trash not work looting. Oddly enough, other head slot items (such as ioun stones) also negated critical hits.
Yeah, but non-helmet items that went into the head slot didn't show up until the second game.
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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.
Baldur's Gate on PC had helmets negate critical hits. The end result was that character classes who couldn't wear armor like wizards and thieves felt like they were being penalized rather than classes that could wear armor felt like they were getting a bonus.
Interesting bit of psychology, right? I assume you would occasionally find helmets as random loot, which would continually run salt in the wound.
Non-magical helmets were sold by every vendor that also sold armor. They were 1 gold coin (the game only used gold coins and didn't use platinum, silver, or copper) and couldn't even be resold.
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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.
I think it really depends on if you mod'ed you game, as there were lots of interesting articles in the Dragon Mag and maybe Dungeon Mag that interesting ideas. We adopted helms and item locations from another game system in AD&D. But again we were young and at times the mods did not work as we thought they would or impacted other aspects that we did not think of until later.
In first edition AD&D your armour was supposed to include headgear of an equivalent AC. If it didn't your AC was considered 10 if attacks were directed at your head. 50% of the time for intelligent monsters, 1 in 6 for unintelligent monsters.
In first edition AD&D your armour was supposed to include headgear of an equivalent AC. If it didn't your AC was considered 10 if attacks were directed at your head. 50% of the time for intelligent monsters, 1 in 6 for unintelligent monsters.
I do not remember that rule but it is a good one and something I may include in many RPG games that I play.
In first edition AD&D your armour was supposed to include headgear of an equivalent AC. If it didn't your AC was considered 10 if attacks were directed at your head. 50% of the time for intelligent monsters, 1 in 6 for unintelligent monsters.
I do not remember that rule but it is a good one and something I may include in many RPG games that I play.
It was an optional rule inserted to retroactively give a benefit to helmets. It proved unpopular and was generally ignored.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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.
In first edition AD&D your armour was supposed to include headgear of an equivalent AC. If it didn't your AC was considered 10 if attacks were directed at your head. 50% of the time for intelligent monsters, 1 in 6 for unintelligent monsters.
I do not remember that rule but it is a good one and something I may include in many RPG games that I play.
1st edition AD&D DMG p28
Helmets: It is assumed that an appropriate type of head armoring will be added to the suit of armor in order to allow uniform protection of the wearer. Wearing of a “great helm” adds the appropriate weight and restricts vision to the front 60° only, but it gives the head AC 1. If a helmet is not worn, 1 blow in 6 will strike at the AC 10 head, unless the opponent is intelligent, in which case 1 blow in 2 will be aimed at the AC 10 head (d6, 1-3 = head blow).
In first edition AD&D your armour was supposed to include headgear of an equivalent AC. If it didn't your AC was considered 10 if attacks were directed at your head. 50% of the time for intelligent monsters, 1 in 6 for unintelligent monsters.
I do not remember that rule but it is a good one and something I may include in many RPG games that I play.
1st edition AD&D DMG p28
Helmets: It is assumed that an appropriate type of head armoring will be added to the suit of armor in order to allow uniform protection of the wearer. Wearing of a “great helm” adds the appropriate weight and restricts vision to the front 60° only, but it gives the head AC 1. If a helmet is not worn, 1 blow in 6 will strike at the AC 10 head, unless the opponent is intelligent, in which case 1 blow in 2 will be aimed at the AC 10 head (d6, 1-3 = head blow).
I do remember the great help part and the restricting vision as well as some articles in the Dragon Mag or Best of the Dragon Mag about helms.
In general a lot of rules can be unpopular if your table does not use them.
As to the bonus part or penalty, it needs to fit within the overall armor system. If the system is too simple (light AC11, med AC14, heavy AC 17) there is not enough room for it to be meaningful and it is simply a prop or visual accessary.
As to the bonus part or penalty, it needs to fit within the overall armor system. If the system is too simple (light AC11, med AC14, heavy AC 17) there is not enough room for it to be meaningful and it is simply a prop or visual accessary.
If the only difference is "armor X is better than armor Y and is more expensive by a rounding error" there isn't enough room for it to be meaningful and it might as well be dropped or turned into a visual accessory.
3.5e had actual concrete reasons you might choose different armor types, but nothing like that exists in 5e -- there's no reason other than cost to wear padded, leather, a chain shirt, scale armor, or splint, and the use cases for hide, ring mail, and chainmail are very narrow, which basically means by tier 2 there are only four armor types in 5e: studded leather, breastplate, half-plate, and full plate.
I remember this attack type vs armor type rule from AD&D. We never ever used it.
But I played another game that implemented this idea into the core rules, and we had no problem using it. I still remember swords were cut and thrust weapons, but piercing attacks were more advantageous, so everybody used thrusts only.
Savage Worlds has specific rules for weapons, some have armor piercing ability. We used them without any problem.
Nowadays I think it's too much for role players, but I would have no problem using it, because it would require 3 AC slots and that's all.
As to the bonus part or penalty, it needs to fit within the overall armor system. If the system is too simple (light AC11, med AC14, heavy AC 17) there is not enough room for it to be meaningful and it is simply a prop or visual accessary.
If the only difference is "armor X is better than armor Y and is more expensive by a rounding error" there isn't enough room for it to be meaningful and it might as well be dropped or turned into a visual accessory.
3.5e had actual concrete reasons you might choose different armor types, but nothing like that exists in 5e -- there's no reason other than cost to wear padded, leather, a chain shirt, scale armor, or splint, and the use cases for hide, ring mail, and chainmail are very narrow, which basically means by tier 2 there are only four armor types in 5e: studded leather, breastplate, half-plate, and full plate.
I wouldn't mind seeing more differences with basic non magical armor types, and I think that the gold cost of plate is a bit much, but as is the system helps to give some short term goals at low levels, especially if the DM isn't showing you with magical items at low levels. Having a goal to upgrade that leather to studded leather or working up from chainmail to eventually plate adds a sense of progression.
If looked at from the perspective of endgame or higher levels then sure, but looking at it from the perspective of a level 1 party just starting out, I think it's good to have.
Anyone that thinks there are four armor types playing at tier 2 is missing out on several enchanted armors. My personal favorite is Elven Chain Shirt.
There are a couple of unique armors that are only available in a single armor type, including elven chain and dragonscale armor, but they're basically unique magic items that happen to resemble standard gear.
I firmly believe that there should be a Basic set of rules for weapons and armor and an Advanced set. The Basic set would be Light, Medium, and Heavy and each of those would either be flexible or rigid. Flexible armor would have no Stealth penalty and rigid would. Yes, you CAN have a rigid breastplate made from boiled leather that would creak when you moved as well as make noise if it scraped against something. This would essentially be Rigid Light Armor.
The Advanced rules would include such things as armor layering (since most of the heavier armor required a padded or quilted jack underneath unless you wanted your hide rubbed off), encumbrance, and certain kinds of weapons being more effective against certain kinds of armor. However, I think that this should be optional and clearly described as such because it requires more work on the part of the DM AND the players.
'You take 6 points of Slashing damage.'
'Great! I maille shirt reduces the damage by 2 because cutting maille sucks! I roll a 16 to hit the other guy and if I do, he takes 9 points of Piercing.'
'You effectively have a +1 to hit because he's wearing maille too and maille sucks against Piercing damage so you hit.'
This is just an example. A big combat in 5e can take a while now so as much as I would LOVE to see the weapons and armor expanded, I doubt many players and DMs would agree.
As to the bonus part or penalty, it needs to fit within the overall armor system. If the system is too simple (light AC11, med AC14, heavy AC 17) there is not enough room for it to be meaningful and it is simply a prop or visual accessary.
If the only difference is "armor X is better than armor Y and is more expensive by a rounding error" there isn't enough room for it to be meaningful and it might as well be dropped or turned into a visual accessory.
3.5e had actual concrete reasons you might choose different armor types, but nothing like that exists in 5e -- there's no reason other than cost to wear padded, leather, a chain shirt, scale armor, or splint, and the use cases for hide, ring mail, and chainmail are very narrow, which basically means by tier 2 there are only four armor types in 5e: studded leather, breastplate, half-plate, and full plate.
I agree on the 3.5 vs 5e statement in general. 3.5 had a mush more robust system in place for armor and weapons (I also agree that publishers put out too much game material and that causes issues). 5e is very simple -3 to +3 type of system and this is a boob and a problem. If you are saying that the metric's 5e uses do not have a lot of range and meaning thus armor should be simplified I do not agree, I think 5e should make other types of armor have meaning to be more like life in general.
So in general the rules should change more in the direction of 3.5 but not necessarily be that complex or allow for lots of other published material. I am also not a fan of more cinematic style or very very very rules light games that rely a lot of what the GM says just because. Or the GM is the author and director and you are on railroad tracks of various gauges.
Note: I am of the same feeling in a number of other areas in the 1D&D playtest doc just as I was in the PFII playtest in which the same ideas were brought up and seem to be repeated here.
Edit: I do think it can be done, ie making armor rules a little more robust and not turning off the "pony-finder" and/or simplicity focused segments.
I firmly believe that there should be a Basic set of rules for weapons and armor and an Advanced set. The Basic set would be Light, Medium, and Heavy and each of those would either be flexible or rigid. Flexible armor would have no Stealth penalty and rigid would. Yes, you CAN have a rigid breastplate made from boiled leather that would creak when you moved as well as make noise if it scraped against something. This would essentially be Rigid Light Armor.
The Advanced rules would include such things as armor layering (since most of the heavier armor required a padded or quilted jack underneath unless you wanted your hide rubbed off), encumbrance, and certain kinds of weapons being more effective against certain kinds of armor. However, I think that this should be optional and clearly described as such because it requires more work on the part of the DM AND the players.
'You take 6 points of Slashing damage.'
'Great! I maille shirt reduces the damage by 2 because cutting maille sucks! I roll a 16 to hit the other guy and if I do, he takes 9 points of Piercing.'
'You effectively have a +1 to hit because he's wearing maille too and maille sucks against Piercing damage so you hit.'
This is just an example. A big combat in 5e can take a while now so as much as I would LOVE to see the weapons and armor expanded, I doubt many players and DMs would agree.
2e had this. It was awful - to the point of propably being the most ignored rule in all of RPG-dom.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
I don't see the point of having a rock, paper, scissors subsystem in D&D like that. Either they're all roughly equal, in which case there's no point choosing, or they're not, but players would likely never know that until they played a lot.
You'd inflate the number of magic weapons a warrior character needs in order to feel like they're working with a full toolkit. You'd have encounters that swing more wildly in difficulty just based on which type of damage the monsters can deal, which would hurt the CR system even more. And all for what, exactly? The boon of someone saying, "I switch from one weapon to another"?
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In older editions where mages (and Druids) couldn’t wear armor they could actually wear magic helmets/helms/caps, etc. IN 5e the restrictions on armor are pretty well done away with so even that small inconsistency pretty much disappears. I suspect that that inconsistency, as well as balance issues, is why helmets were left out of armor ratings. And trying to put them back in at this level of abstraction is probably not going to work. Further, let’s not head into the morass of weapon damage vs armor types - we visited that with THACO and it was a horrible pain in the rear. There are really 2 questions here
1) What level of realism are we interested in in basic armor types and classes?
2) What level of ease of play are we interested in?
and maybe a third:
3) could we get what we want in Questions 1&2 together in a single revision to what we have now.
I think we can and I’ve tried to suggest how but…
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
I think it hardly matters what *we're* interested in, at least in terms of what's going to be printed in the mainline books. We're hardly anybody in the scope of things.
Speaking for myself, I've expressed my preference. Speaking for anybody else wouldn't make sense to do.
I would *expect* they'll never go full abstraction. Part of the fun of the genre is in getting a little excited about historical arms and armor. After all, it wouldn't have nearly the same appeal if all characters wore kevlar or something. But I could see them separating the names from the rules -- similar to how they say, if you want nunchaku, use the rules for a club, and if you want a spell that shoots glowing chickens, use Magic Missile. And for that same reason, they'll never go back to full simulationism. Because why get so picky about historical accuracy in a game where you could get killed by a magic chicken spell?
Mundane helmets were super common loot/trash not work looting. Oddly enough, other head slot items (such as ioun stones) also negated critical hits.
Yeah, but non-helmet items that went into the head slot didn't show up until the second game.
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.
Non-magical helmets were sold by every vendor that also sold armor. They were 1 gold coin (the game only used gold coins and didn't use platinum, silver, or copper) and couldn't even be resold.
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.
I think it really depends on if you mod'ed you game, as there were lots of interesting articles in the Dragon Mag and maybe Dungeon Mag that interesting ideas. We adopted helms and item locations from another game system in AD&D. But again we were young and at times the mods did not work as we thought they would or impacted other aspects that we did not think of until later.
In first edition AD&D your armour was supposed to include headgear of an equivalent AC. If it didn't your AC was considered 10 if attacks were directed at your head. 50% of the time for intelligent monsters, 1 in 6 for unintelligent monsters.
I do not remember that rule but it is a good one and something I may include in many RPG games that I play.
It was an optional rule inserted to retroactively give a benefit to helmets. It proved unpopular and was generally ignored.
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.
1st edition AD&D DMG p28
I do remember the great help part and the restricting vision as well as some articles in the Dragon Mag or Best of the Dragon Mag about helms.
In general a lot of rules can be unpopular if your table does not use them.
As to the bonus part or penalty, it needs to fit within the overall armor system. If the system is too simple (light AC11, med AC14, heavy AC 17) there is not enough room for it to be meaningful and it is simply a prop or visual accessary.
If the only difference is "armor X is better than armor Y and is more expensive by a rounding error" there isn't enough room for it to be meaningful and it might as well be dropped or turned into a visual accessory.
3.5e had actual concrete reasons you might choose different armor types, but nothing like that exists in 5e -- there's no reason other than cost to wear padded, leather, a chain shirt, scale armor, or splint, and the use cases for hide, ring mail, and chainmail are very narrow, which basically means by tier 2 there are only four armor types in 5e: studded leather, breastplate, half-plate, and full plate.
I remember this attack type vs armor type rule from AD&D. We never ever used it.
But I played another game that implemented this idea into the core rules, and we had no problem using it. I still remember swords were cut and thrust weapons, but piercing attacks were more advantageous, so everybody used thrusts only.
Savage Worlds has specific rules for weapons, some have armor piercing ability. We used them without any problem.
Nowadays I think it's too much for role players, but I would have no problem using it, because it would require 3 AC slots and that's all.
I wouldn't mind seeing more differences with basic non magical armor types, and I think that the gold cost of plate is a bit much, but as is the system helps to give some short term goals at low levels, especially if the DM isn't showing you with magical items at low levels. Having a goal to upgrade that leather to studded leather or working up from chainmail to eventually plate adds a sense of progression.
If looked at from the perspective of endgame or higher levels then sure, but looking at it from the perspective of a level 1 party just starting out, I think it's good to have.
Anyone that thinks there are four armor types playing at tier 2 is missing out on several enchanted armors. My personal favorite is Elven Chain Shirt.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
There are a couple of unique armors that are only available in a single armor type, including elven chain and dragonscale armor, but they're basically unique magic items that happen to resemble standard gear.
I firmly believe that there should be a Basic set of rules for weapons and armor and an Advanced set. The Basic set would be Light, Medium, and Heavy and each of those would either be flexible or rigid. Flexible armor would have no Stealth penalty and rigid would. Yes, you CAN have a rigid breastplate made from boiled leather that would creak when you moved as well as make noise if it scraped against something. This would essentially be Rigid Light Armor.
The Advanced rules would include such things as armor layering (since most of the heavier armor required a padded or quilted jack underneath unless you wanted your hide rubbed off), encumbrance, and certain kinds of weapons being more effective against certain kinds of armor. However, I think that this should be optional and clearly described as such because it requires more work on the part of the DM AND the players.
'You take 6 points of Slashing damage.'
'Great! I maille shirt reduces the damage by 2 because cutting maille sucks! I roll a 16 to hit the other guy and if I do, he takes 9 points of Piercing.'
'You effectively have a +1 to hit because he's wearing maille too and maille sucks against Piercing damage so you hit.'
This is just an example. A big combat in 5e can take a while now so as much as I would LOVE to see the weapons and armor expanded, I doubt many players and DMs would agree.
I agree on the 3.5 vs 5e statement in general. 3.5 had a mush more robust system in place for armor and weapons (I also agree that publishers put out too much game material and that causes issues). 5e is very simple -3 to +3 type of system and this is a boob and a problem. If you are saying that the metric's 5e uses do not have a lot of range and meaning thus armor should be simplified I do not agree, I think 5e should make other types of armor have meaning to be more like life in general.
So in general the rules should change more in the direction of 3.5 but not necessarily be that complex or allow for lots of other published material. I am also not a fan of more cinematic style or very very very rules light games that rely a lot of what the GM says just because. Or the GM is the author and director and you are on railroad tracks of various gauges.
Note: I am of the same feeling in a number of other areas in the 1D&D playtest doc just as I was in the PFII playtest in which the same ideas were brought up and seem to be repeated here.
Edit: I do think it can be done, ie making armor rules a little more robust and not turning off the "pony-finder" and/or simplicity focused segments.
2e had this. It was awful - to the point of propably being the most ignored rule in all of RPG-dom.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
I don't see the point of having a rock, paper, scissors subsystem in D&D like that. Either they're all roughly equal, in which case there's no point choosing, or they're not, but players would likely never know that until they played a lot.
You'd inflate the number of magic weapons a warrior character needs in order to feel like they're working with a full toolkit. You'd have encounters that swing more wildly in difficulty just based on which type of damage the monsters can deal, which would hurt the CR system even more. And all for what, exactly? The boon of someone saying, "I switch from one weapon to another"?