Anybody interested in real armor knows these were made up by Gary Gygax or the historians of the Victorian era. And those who aren't interested won't care anyway. The material culture of D&D is based on Western Europe in 1400-1450 without firearms. So what if you skip made up armors and replace them with real ones when it makes sense? D&D is a cultural phenomenon and influences the belief of the players about everything it contains, including the existence of these armors. A new edition is an appropriate moment to consider these changes.
These are: -Studded leather This is almost certainly based on the misinterpretation of brigandines. Brigandines are made of small plates studded to an outer leather or textile layer. Thus the onlooker sees only a leather thing with studs. How to do it? Leather should give 12 AC, and interpret studded leather in the early books as leather. Job done. 20 gold is enough for price. Padded armor shouldn't have stealth disadvantage. Actually the heavy leather is more noisy but who cares?
-Scale mail The problem is only the name. Use scale armor instead. 'Mail' as a synonym for armor is a Victorian age fabrication. Fortunately you get rid of 'plate mail' and the similar terms already, this one should go as well. Btw 45 lbs seems too heavy for scale armor. I don't know how you calculated it. I'd say max 30 lbs. Actually scale armor wasn't used in the 15th century Western Europe, but this is a staple in the genre, and it's not made up at least.
-Ring mail There is no such thing as a ring mail. This is probably a misinterpretation of the Bayeux tapestry. This myth even has a wiki page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_armour No replacement is necessary. Those who would wear it could wear scale armor instead.
-Separate chain shirt and mail Full chain mail wasn't worn in the 15th century in Western Europe anymore, but in the Ottoman Empire, India, and probably in the large area between them. Those who could have afford it chose the option in the following entry.
-Splint Metal strips were used only on the limbs, not as a whole set, and mostly in the early medieval period. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splint_armour This could be replaced by the brigandine. This armor is typical in the period and missing from the game for some reason. So the heavy section should contain only two entries, brigandine with AC 16 and plate with AC 18. Otherwise brigandine should have AC 17 if you want to keep the chain mail. Those players who currently start with chain armor should start with brigandine instead. The arms could be protected by brigandine 'plates', or most commonly by mail. The mail could reach the knees to justify the heavy armor status. Brigandines were worn both by common soldiers and nobles. Historical depiction, Battle of Agincourt, see the archers (and you can see them on knights, too) https://i.pinimg.com/originals/c3/3c/5d/c33c5d1defd23e37be2c9a1a3d86a6ed.jpg Detailed video description: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzhAhRZzCrA Inside view https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_1881-0802-57
Other notes to consider
Half armor should be heavy armor. It's quite heavy even if it doesn't cover the legs. Weight should be a factor when judging if an armor is heavy. And it should provide AC 16.
In the description of leather armors I would emphasize they are thick, say 6mm or 1/4 inch. Otherwise players might think a mere leather jacket can be considered leather armor.
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. Sword and buckler was a very popular civilian weapon pair. The earliest fencing treatise is about this style, it was written around 1300. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Armouries_Ms._I.33 http://muckley.us/1386/men-armour-3-hallam.JPG
Thick clothing or thin leather and thin gambeson could give AC 11.
Brigandine without mail could give AC 14 and it could be a medium armor. It would consist of a cuirass and a helmet. Price could be 50 gp, weight 20 lbs.
It seems my post is not clear enough. My armor list would look like this after the changes:
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.
Edit2:
There is one group of armors actually could be grouped, these are the ones made of small plates: the scale, brigandine and lamellar armors. Their construction method, thus their appearance is different, but they are also very similar due to the method of protection.
There should be a medium and a heavy armor set of these. The description should explicitly mention these 3 names as variants or examples, and the fact they all composed of small plates. The stats would be the same, so they could be a single group.
The question is, what could be their name (medium + heavy)? A common name? Or one of these armors, and the rest would be mentioned in the description?
I can understand the desire to remove armor that doesn't, y'know... actually exist. But from a gameplay perspective I'd rather still have their mechanical function be represented somehow, even if the description needs to change drastically to explain it. This idea that D&D should accurately reflect the technology of 1400's Europe is silly to me.... it's not a simulation game, it's a fantasy game. I think it's perfectly valid to pull armor reference from any point in history as long as it accomplishes the same "feel" for the fantasy world setting.
It’s a game. Pure fantasy. It isn’t a real life simulation. It would be like playing monopoly and expecting the dog token to bark. Or going to an estate agent and expecting them to sell you a house for £200. Play the game if you enjoy it or go play something else if you don’t.
Yeah. I don't necessarily expect or particular desire D&D to be accurate to the real world. I definitely want to keep the way light/medium/heavy armor work mechanically. I wouldn't mind having more options added to these categories, even if it's just alternate descriptions for the same mechanical benefits just for more variety. I wouldn't want to say, remove leather armor because it's not historically accurate though because it's a deeply embedded part of the aesthetics for the fantasy of rogues etc at this point.
Of all those published settings, none of them are on earth. So it doesn’t really matter what was or wasn’t on earth at any given time. The people who created toril and theros and wildemount all decided those armors were there, so they are. I mean, if you want to go earth accurate, the fireball spell wasn’t invented until the mid 1800’s, as everyone knows.
With all other options relegated to homebrew or 'cultural variations'.
Okay.
What's the benefit?
What's the upshot to cutting over half the game's armor options out of it, eliminating every last single option for armor that doesn't disadvantage Stealth except ONE, and reshuffling descriptions? What's the gameplay benefit from almost entirely removing armor selection/variation in this way? How does this make the game more fun to play? Historical re-enactors and historians are already fluffing D&D heavily, when they don't scoff at it and ignore it as Lowbrow Fantasy Garbage. What's the gain here for people who aren't historians?
D&D’s primary goal, especially in 5e, is accessibility. It sets out to make a game that is instantly recognisable, understandable, and in-line with the fantasy tropes folks want to act out.
Using terms consistent with their meaning modern fantasy (which you yourself admit date back over a century) improves accessibility - after all, someone who has played the Witcher, Skyrim, or seen any fantasy film or TV show can generally recognise and envision the terms used in D&D. Recognisability, combined with giving players what they expect out of fantasy (rather than what one would expect from reality) is a benefit to the game as a whole. After all, there are a lot more casual fantasy fans out there than historical armour fans… and of the historical armour fans, most of them enjoy complaining about the anachronisms for fun, but do not actually care, and certainly will not leave the game over it. Meeting the expectations of the masses rather than appeasing a subset of a subset of the fan base is how you make a popular game.
Besides, that subset of a subset who is truly upset over the lack of historical accuracy in clothing can always homebrew. Though, let us be honest, just as every writer, artist, and historian since time immemorial, their “realist” depiction shall contain an element of fantasy. After all, to reference a battle you mentioned, does anyone really want to take a page from Agincourt, and have their character decide to stand around shooting arrows naked from the waste down because a -1 penalty to AC seems more preferable than suffering the… shall we say, other unpleasant effects wearing leggings and armour might have when suffering from dysentery?
I would actually quite like to see brigandine armor in D&D, but generally brig is conflated to Splint Mail and left there. Call splint brigandine in your games and you're good to go, got a player doing exactly that in one of my current games. The idea of "knightly brigandine" (which is a weird name) is nevertheless interesting, because a lot of people did prefer brig specifically so they could Fashion Souls their armor. Paying a premium for armor which displays wealth and status could be an interesting Useful Mundane Upgrade - your armor is serviceable, certainly, but you aren't going to impress anyone in the King's Tourney with that drab, mud-spattered gear.
'Mail' as a synonym for armor is a Victorian age fabrication
A change in language use is not a "fabrication", my dude. It's how language works
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
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 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.
Absolutely, the armor system in R5e is one of the most annoying failure points of the whole system for me. Armor in 5e is boring, and it doesn't need to be. I understand the intent to simplify, simplify, and simplify some more, but they cut too deeply here and left the system almost entirely meaningless. Unless you have specific magical effects you need, armor is a game of tic-tac-toe. There's always going to be and only one 'best' choice of armor for you to wear, it's never going to be even close, and there's no point in any of the other armor types outside simply not being able to obtain the 'best' armor for whichever reason.
I just don't necessarily think hewing strictly to historical realism is the way to go, either. I'm willing to discuss, by all means, but I was apparently correct in surmising that I had not followed the original proposal correctly.
I feel like 5e was built under the assumption that gold would be much less easily acquired than it ultimately ends up being... which is weird because even going off of the earliest pre-written adventures, it is extremely easy to just buy the best possible armor for your class after just a few adventures... the only armor type that I've seen require anything beyond the most basic investment is Plate Mail, which costs a cool 1500gp... nearly 8 times the cost of the next-best armor for +1 to AC, but which is functionally identical otherwise.
Aside from the few high-cost armors, for the most part the only difference between armor types is whether or not the armor gives disadvantage on stealth. I kind of like Pentagruel's idea of just giving two armor "types" for each weight of armor to differentiate between one that gives higher defense and one that trades lower defense for stealth.
No. I have learn to leave my book learning at home when I come to fantasy gaming. I Also recommend George Cameron Stone "glossary of arms and amour" if still in print. And Any thing by Ewart Oakeshott if you want to study real armour.
Comedic point: I have a PC named Elden Ring and he claims his family invented ring mail, so if there is no ring mail the joke will not work. Also later his family got into security by making devices to transmit visual and audio and formed a company named ring security, that joke will still work.
Armor: if you reduce the armor to just light, med and heavy I think you will lose a lot of players the same if you just have simple weapon listings. I also think that armor need to be redone to have more options with maybe a lower starting base AC to make room for more and higher AC options.
I just reworked my system for armor, trying to base as much on reality as possible... it resulted in slightly higher AC on average, but not a higher cap.
To start, there's the Armor Layering mechanic, where you can wear 1 light armor under medium armor. You can also wear 1 medium armor (and 1 light armor) under heavy armor. This all caps you out at 50# of armor with full plate and 18AC.
Each layer under your top-most layer gives you a +1AC bonus (so plate is actually 16AC before the bonuses).
Lastly, there's Partial Armor which lets you put on parts of heavy armor (like... just a helmet, or two vambraces) for a +1 bonus per axial item or pair of limb items to a max of +2.
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.
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.
I feel like there's not enough difference between light and medium armor to necessarily feel like it requires drastically different training to wear one or the other in the real world... but I do feel like heavy armor (at the very least, heavy plate) requires a very specific skillset to be able to move in comfortably.
In terms of realism, I've never worn armor. I don't know if 'light, medium and heavy' proficiency should be separate or not in terms of realism. Shields though, that should definitely be its own thing. Being trained to move an armor and trained to defend yourself with a shield I feel are different enough skills.
In terms of game design though, I like the current system, giving different classes different paths to high AC. And making it 'all or nothing' with armor profiicency would either mean giving full access to all armor across the board too much or taking away all armor prof too often.
In terms of realism, I've never worn armor. I don't know if 'light, medium and heavy' proficiency should be separate or not in terms of realism.
Realistically, the 'light' armor category pretty much shouldn't exist -- leather and cloth armor that were (sort of) effective against battlefield weapons did exist, but was more encumbering than mail or plate, its only real benefit is being cheaper. However, that doesn't have a lot to do with the cinematic reality D&D is trying to emulate.
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Anybody interested in real armor knows these were made up by Gary Gygax or the historians of the Victorian era. And those who aren't interested won't care anyway.
The material culture of D&D is based on Western Europe in 1400-1450 without firearms. So what if you skip made up armors and replace them with real ones when it makes sense?
D&D is a cultural phenomenon and influences the belief of the players about everything it contains, including the existence of these armors. A new edition is an appropriate moment to consider these changes.
These are:
-Studded leather
This is almost certainly based on the misinterpretation of brigandines. Brigandines are made of small plates studded to an outer leather or textile layer. Thus the onlooker sees only a leather thing with studs.
How to do it?
Leather should give 12 AC, and interpret studded leather in the early books as leather. Job done. 20 gold is enough for price.
Padded armor shouldn't have stealth disadvantage. Actually the heavy leather is more noisy but who cares?
-Scale mail
The problem is only the name. Use scale armor instead. 'Mail' as a synonym for armor is a Victorian age fabrication. Fortunately you get rid of 'plate mail' and the similar terms already, this one should go as well.
Btw 45 lbs seems too heavy for scale armor. I don't know how you calculated it. I'd say max 30 lbs.
Actually scale armor wasn't used in the 15th century Western Europe, but this is a staple in the genre, and it's not made up at least.
-Ring mail
There is no such thing as a ring mail. This is probably a misinterpretation of the Bayeux tapestry. This myth even has a wiki page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_armour
No replacement is necessary. Those who would wear it could wear scale armor instead.
-Separate chain shirt and mail
Full chain mail wasn't worn in the 15th century in Western Europe anymore, but in the Ottoman Empire, India, and probably in the large area between them. Those who could have afford it chose the option in the following entry.
-Splint
Metal strips were used only on the limbs, not as a whole set, and mostly in the early medieval period. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splint_armour
This could be replaced by the brigandine. This armor is typical in the period and missing from the game for some reason. So the heavy section should contain only two entries, brigandine with AC 16 and plate with AC 18. Otherwise brigandine should have AC 17 if you want to keep the chain mail. Those players who currently start with chain armor should start with brigandine instead.
The arms could be protected by brigandine 'plates', or most commonly by mail. The mail could reach the knees to justify the heavy armor status.
Brigandines were worn both by common soldiers and nobles.
Historical depiction, Battle of Agincourt, see the archers (and you can see them on knights, too) https://i.pinimg.com/originals/c3/3c/5d/c33c5d1defd23e37be2c9a1a3d86a6ed.jpg
Detailed video description: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzhAhRZzCrA
Inside view https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_1881-0802-57
Other notes to consider
Half armor should be heavy armor. It's quite heavy even if it doesn't cover the legs. Weight should be a factor when judging if an armor is heavy. And it should provide AC 16.
In the description of leather armors I would emphasize they are thick, say 6mm or 1/4 inch. Otherwise players might think a mere leather jacket can be considered leather armor.
There is no reason to put hide armor in medium armors. It should be light, a cultural variant for leather. It could be worn by peoples where sheep farming is widespread. It's rather a piece of clothing, but whatever. https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0518/4323/6024/products/ferfi-vilagos-barna-borkabat-kezmuves-szucs-termek1_1024x1024.jpg
FOOD FOR HOME BREWERS ONLY
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. Sword and buckler was a very popular civilian weapon pair. The earliest fencing treatise is about this style, it was written around 1300. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Armouries_Ms._I.33
http://muckley.us/1386/men-armour-3-hallam.JPG
Common soldiers didn't wear leather historically, they wore gambeson aka padded armor with metal helmet. This set should give AC 12, and should cost 15-20 gp. Leather is good for steppe peoples with huge herds of cattle. Leather is expensive elsewhere. https://i.pinimg.com/736x/f2/f2/8d/f2f28d7118c95b6fa5165644f7d3f461--the-hundreds-armature.jpg
Thick clothing or thin leather and thin gambeson could give AC 11.
Brigandine without mail could give AC 14 and it could be a medium armor. It would consist of a cuirass and a helmet. Price could be 50 gp, weight 20 lbs.
Knightly brigandine. Brigandine on the body with velvet or silk cover, plate on the limbs. This was a popular kit, depicted many times, for example here: https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-496bd3bbbf4af6aceadad7bea19cdd4d-lq
https://i.pinimg.com/564x/6f/a4/d3/6fa4d318e0901a7682f22f32d2ab8af7.jpg
It would be a medium armor with AC 15, stealth disadvantage, 50 lbs, 1200 gp.
It could be a variant for your NPCs.
This makes sense only if half armor is medium armor, too.
Edit:
It seems my post is not clear enough. My armor list would look like this after the changes:
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.
Edit2:
There is one group of armors actually could be grouped, these are the ones made of small plates: the scale, brigandine and lamellar armors. Their construction method, thus their appearance is different, but they are also very similar due to the method of protection.
There should be a medium and a heavy armor set of these. The description should explicitly mention these 3 names as variants or examples, and the fact they all composed of small plates. The stats would be the same, so they could be a single group.
The question is, what could be their name (medium + heavy)? A common name? Or one of these armors, and the rest would be mentioned in the description?
I can understand the desire to remove armor that doesn't, y'know... actually exist. But from a gameplay perspective I'd rather still have their mechanical function be represented somehow, even if the description needs to change drastically to explain it. This idea that D&D should accurately reflect the technology of 1400's Europe is silly to me.... it's not a simulation game, it's a fantasy game. I think it's perfectly valid to pull armor reference from any point in history as long as it accomplishes the same "feel" for the fantasy world setting.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
It’s a game. Pure fantasy. It isn’t a real life simulation. It would be like playing monopoly and expecting the dog token to bark. Or going to an estate agent and expecting them to sell you a house for £200. Play the game if you enjoy it or go play something else if you don’t.
Yeah. I don't necessarily expect or particular desire D&D to be accurate to the real world. I definitely want to keep the way light/medium/heavy armor work mechanically. I wouldn't mind having more options added to these categories, even if it's just alternate descriptions for the same mechanical benefits just for more variety. I wouldn't want to say, remove leather armor because it's not historically accurate though because it's a deeply embedded part of the aesthetics for the fantasy of rogues etc at this point.
Of all those published settings, none of them are on earth. So it doesn’t really matter what was or wasn’t on earth at any given time. The people who created toril and theros and wildemount all decided those armors were there, so they are.
I mean, if you want to go earth accurate, the fireball spell wasn’t invented until the mid 1800’s, as everyone knows.
Let me see if I understand this.
You want to condense armor down to the following Historical options:
Light Armor:
Leather (AC 12, Stealth disadvantage)
Padded/Gambeson (AC 11)
Medium Armor
Scale (AC 14, Stealth disadvantage)
Heavy Armor
Brigandine (AC 16, Stealth disadvantage)
Plate (AC 18, Stealth disadvantage)
With all other options relegated to homebrew or 'cultural variations'.
Okay.
What's the benefit?
What's the upshot to cutting over half the game's armor options out of it, eliminating every last single option for armor that doesn't disadvantage Stealth except ONE, and reshuffling descriptions? What's the gameplay benefit from almost entirely removing armor selection/variation in this way? How does this make the game more fun to play? Historical re-enactors and historians are already fluffing D&D heavily, when they don't scoff at it and ignore it as Lowbrow Fantasy Garbage. What's the gain here for people who aren't historians?
Please do not contact or message me.
D&D’s primary goal, especially in 5e, is accessibility. It sets out to make a game that is instantly recognisable, understandable, and in-line with the fantasy tropes folks want to act out.
Using terms consistent with their meaning modern fantasy (which you yourself admit date back over a century) improves accessibility - after all, someone who has played the Witcher, Skyrim, or seen any fantasy film or TV show can generally recognise and envision the terms used in D&D. Recognisability, combined with giving players what they expect out of fantasy (rather than what one would expect from reality) is a benefit to the game as a whole. After all, there are a lot more casual fantasy fans out there than historical armour fans… and of the historical armour fans, most of them enjoy complaining about the anachronisms for fun, but do not actually care, and certainly will not leave the game over it. Meeting the expectations of the masses rather than appeasing a subset of a subset of the fan base is how you make a popular game.
Besides, that subset of a subset who is truly upset over the lack of historical accuracy in clothing can always homebrew. Though, let us be honest, just as every writer, artist, and historian since time immemorial, their “realist” depiction shall contain an element of fantasy. After all, to reference a battle you mentioned, does anyone really want to take a page from Agincourt, and have their character decide to stand around shooting arrows naked from the waste down because a -1 penalty to AC seems more preferable than suffering the… shall we say, other unpleasant effects wearing leggings and armour might have when suffering from dysentery?
I would actually quite like to see brigandine armor in D&D, but generally brig is conflated to Splint Mail and left there. Call splint brigandine in your games and you're good to go, got a player doing exactly that in one of my current games. The idea of "knightly brigandine" (which is a weird name) is nevertheless interesting, because a lot of people did prefer brig specifically so they could Fashion Souls their armor. Paying a premium for armor which displays wealth and status could be an interesting Useful Mundane Upgrade - your armor is serviceable, certainly, but you aren't going to impress anyone in the King's Tourney with that drab, mud-spattered gear.
Please do not contact or message me.
It's perfectly fine if you don't care.
You failed.
A change in language use is not a "fabrication", my dude. It's how language works
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
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?
Please do not contact or message me.
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.
Absolutely, the armor system in R5e is one of the most annoying failure points of the whole system for me. Armor in 5e is boring, and it doesn't need to be. I understand the intent to simplify, simplify, and simplify some more, but they cut too deeply here and left the system almost entirely meaningless. Unless you have specific magical effects you need, armor is a game of tic-tac-toe. There's always going to be and only one 'best' choice of armor for you to wear, it's never going to be even close, and there's no point in any of the other armor types outside simply not being able to obtain the 'best' armor for whichever reason.
I just don't necessarily think hewing strictly to historical realism is the way to go, either. I'm willing to discuss, by all means, but I was apparently correct in surmising that I had not followed the original proposal correctly.
Please do not contact or message me.
I feel like 5e was built under the assumption that gold would be much less easily acquired than it ultimately ends up being... which is weird because even going off of the earliest pre-written adventures, it is extremely easy to just buy the best possible armor for your class after just a few adventures... the only armor type that I've seen require anything beyond the most basic investment is Plate Mail, which costs a cool 1500gp... nearly 8 times the cost of the next-best armor for +1 to AC, but which is functionally identical otherwise.
Aside from the few high-cost armors, for the most part the only difference between armor types is whether or not the armor gives disadvantage on stealth. I kind of like Pentagruel's idea of just giving two armor "types" for each weight of armor to differentiate between one that gives higher defense and one that trades lower defense for stealth.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
No. I have learn to leave my book learning at home when I come to fantasy gaming. I Also recommend George Cameron Stone "glossary of arms and amour" if still in print. And Any thing by Ewart Oakeshott if you want to study real armour.
No Gaming is Better than Bad Gaming.
Comedic point: I have a PC named Elden Ring and he claims his family invented ring mail, so if there is no ring mail the joke will not work. Also later his family got into security by making devices to transmit visual and audio and formed a company named ring security, that joke will still work.
Armor: if you reduce the armor to just light, med and heavy I think you will lose a lot of players the same if you just have simple weapon listings. I also think that armor need to be redone to have more options with maybe a lower starting base AC to make room for more and higher AC options.
I just reworked my system for armor, trying to base as much on reality as possible... it resulted in slightly higher AC on average, but not a higher cap.
To start, there's the Armor Layering mechanic, where you can wear 1 light armor under medium armor. You can also wear 1 medium armor (and 1 light armor) under heavy armor. This all caps you out at 50# of armor with full plate and 18AC.
Each layer under your top-most layer gives you a +1AC bonus (so plate is actually 16AC before the bonuses).
Lastly, there's Partial Armor which lets you put on parts of heavy armor (like... just a helmet, or two vambraces) for a +1 bonus per axial item or pair of limb items to a max of +2.
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.
I feel like there's not enough difference between light and medium armor to necessarily feel like it requires drastically different training to wear one or the other in the real world... but I do feel like heavy armor (at the very least, heavy plate) requires a very specific skillset to be able to move in comfortably.
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In terms of realism, I've never worn armor. I don't know if 'light, medium and heavy' proficiency should be separate or not in terms of realism. Shields though, that should definitely be its own thing. Being trained to move an armor and trained to defend yourself with a shield I feel are different enough skills.
In terms of game design though, I like the current system, giving different classes different paths to high AC. And making it 'all or nothing' with armor profiicency would either mean giving full access to all armor across the board too much or taking away all armor prof too often.
Realistically, the 'light' armor category pretty much shouldn't exist -- leather and cloth armor that were (sort of) effective against battlefield weapons did exist, but was more encumbering than mail or plate, its only real benefit is being cheaper. However, that doesn't have a lot to do with the cinematic reality D&D is trying to emulate.