Ever since WotC took over D&D (and maybe before), they have consistently misrepresented nonmagical armour as being less effective than it should be, both in terms of verisimilitude and gameplay.
It seems like the players who prefer to play spellcasters of one flavor or another can always expect the game to cater heavily to their tastes--witness the fact that the PHB always has a hundred pages dedicated to spells, but only a single-digit number given to armour and weapons.
I *like* playing that classic Knight-in-Shining-Armour archetype. I *love* shopping for new armour and weapons. I want the game to enable and support this with exciting, effective, and realistic choices that represent mundane weapons and armour as being more useful and powerful than they have heretofore been depicted.
Since we're on the point of seeing a new edition, and we have a chance to influence changes for the better, I want to see something like the following happen:
I use the example of an early-level Fighter clad in mail and carrying a shield as my baseline for determining whether or not these things are being represented in a satisfactory fashion; that equipment provides a pretty good common touchstone for most of the world's historical cultures, so I feel that it's a good one to go with.
Thus, when we examine how things used to work in the attack matrices of 1st Edition AD&D, we see that a standard Goblin armed with a scimitar wounds a warrior armed as above only on a roll of 18 or better (1d-d HD monster needs 16 to hit AC 4, -2 for the scimitar vs that AC type). Sadly, in 5e, that same Goblin gets a staggering +4(!!) to hit, resulting in it wounding our first-level Fighter in mail and shield (AC 18) on a 14+. That's going from a 15% chance to cause damage to a 35% chance. That's huge. I think being heavily-armoured *should* make you harder to hurt than that.
Obviously, heavier armour (splint, plate, etc.) should be even better at keeping its wearer safe from most threats.
So going forward, I hope to see a huge bump in the effectiveness of armour. Maybe adding +2 or more to all Armour Classes that are above the baseline 10, e.g. leather armour is AC 13, a breastplate is AC 16, going up to full plate at AC 20, etc. So our mail-clad warrior with a shield, now at a respectable AC of 20, would expect to be hurt by that goblin only on a roll of a 16 or better. It's not perfect, but it would be a definite step in the right direction...
Way too much math for me lol. But I have no objection to your conclusion. I just personally prefer spellcasters.
I personally like higher ACs, I think it creates more opportunities. And I also like spellcasters, but I want to see more armor for spellcasters. Armor that won't stop them from casting spells.
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O noes, a goblin with a scimitar has a massive one in three chance of hitting a 1st-level sword and board fighter... assuming it even gets an attack off and isn't killed before it lands a blow
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I dunno. Part of the point of the game is that all monsters can actually do something to an adventurer. If you make it so that a monster that is supposed to be a medium encounter for one first level character is barely able to hit that PC, then that drastically changes game balance. And though you say that heavy armor should "obviously" be able to do a better job at preventing attacks, I don't really know how obvious that is since D&D is not made to reflect how heavy armor would have worked in real life when it was actually used, and also, your example literally involves a goblin trying to hit someone in heavy armor. So that is already really unrealistic.
This change would massively alter the landscape of the game, but it really wouldn't help give martials more cool options. It would just raise the numbers and power levels a bit, without adding any real choices. And a lot of people like not having to deal with as many choices, but a lot of people don't too. So if your goal is to give people more cool and exciting armor choices, adding special effects to armor as opposed to static benefits would be the better way. However, a balance of static bonuses or special effect (such as imposing disadvantage as a reaction by moving your body so the blade will hit your armor as opposed to you) would allow martials to be buffed while also allowing for the martial players who want it to have more cool complex options.
But yeah, this would involve completely redesigning the game and its' balance. And giving static bonuses would further reinforce the predetermined roles in combat where the spellcaster sits in the back with their low AC, trying to avoid being targeted, and the martial runs up to the bad guys and tanks all the damage and attacks. So casters might need to get some buffs too.
But honestly, I think player characters AC's and monsters to hit bonus are fairly balanced at low level. The problem is that at high level, every attack almost always results in a hit, so I think the armor and AC system doesn't really need to be redesigned at low levels, but it might need to be changed at high ones. (I actually haven't ever gotten to super high tiers of play, I just know this from watching lots of D&D shows that have.)
In short, there are a lot of benefits and flaws with this proposal. To me at least, more static bonuses to armor are not necessary, don't make sense, and would involve a massive redesign of the game. However, giving armor more special effects would be cool. And small static bonuses could be used as alternatives. But also, the best way to rebalance casters and martials isn't by drastically altering martials power level in one area of the game (especially if they are already very powerful in that area). A better way to buff martials is by boosting multiple facets of their design somewhat, but not one aspect too much.
TL;DR: IDK, just read the post if you want to hear my thoughts.
I’m of the opinion that the game is already too easy, and that monsters should hit more often to ratchet up the difficulty level, but I see what you’re saying. The difference is that in 1e, that gobbo with the scimitar could potentially kill a martial PC with only 1 or 2 hits, so every attack the goblin got was a li’l scary. Now, PCs are more resilient, and they don’t instantly die at 0 HP, so the goblin has to hit twice as often to make it challenging.
PC resilience can be defined both as having more AC or having more Hit Points. I have heard the criticism leveled at 5e that hit point totals are often too high. Given the choice, I think I'd prefer to see higher ACs and lower hit point totals, both for PCs and for monsters.
Re: the balance issue...
I'd venture to guess that one of the most-often recurring debates in the hobby is that of martial vs. caster class balance. I don't see anything wrong with increasing the effectiveness of martial classes (that is, the classes that most often make use of armour) with regard to making them harder to hurt than they presently are. I *don't* feel that low-level combat is well-balanced at present, and would very much like to see a Fighter or Paladin in heavy armour be able to expect to ignore attacks from enemies more than they do.
That would seem, to me, a good fix for the ongoing balance issue: spellcasters get to bend reality in numerous interesting and tactically satisfying ways, while martials get to enjoy a certain expectation of greater chance of survival when attacked by monsters.
You've got me pondering how I would go about rebalancing the whole martial vs caster system now!
I agree with what you're saying, and I honestly have always felt that perhaps D&D is a little too abstract in how it handles hits and armour. I get that they are considering something to be a "hit" if it goes past your amour and hits you, but I also feel like it makes more sense if your dexterity was the defining factor of whether you get hit, and your armour is the defining factor in whether you get hurt.
I'm going to pre-empt it now - stand by for me spending way too long obsessing over a new set of rules for this that will never get used!
My first reaction? Yay, more rolls which amount to nothing. A one in three hit is pretty low...and missing all the time is boring. I've not played high level yet, but at least at low level, the last thing we need is turning more rolls and turns to duds and thereby lengthening combat by even more.
I know that it's cool to be the untouchable tank that everyone whales on and never gets a hit through...but it's boring for everyone else. Remember, if your armour gives more protection, so do theirs. Your proposal would be more realistic (if you treat HP loss as actual damage), but I think less fun overall. I played Star Trek Adventures with characters that were all rubbish at hitting...the fight was boring and protracted. "The Romulan fires a phaser at you but misses you" was fun only for the first few rounds
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I enjoy playing a tank character on the occasions I get to be a player, and personally think the armour system is fine. Armour provides enough of a static bonus to make a pretty big difference in how protected you are (-5% for the enemy to hit per AC you have over your squishier colleagues), and it isn’t that hard to have a vastly higher AC than most other classes if you commit. A tank will frequently be 15% or more harder to hit, which has a measurable output in gameplay. Tanking classes also tend to have more HP so they can better sponge damage.
Frankly, I like getting hit as a player - it makes the fights feel a bit more stressful and it makes those times your armour pays off and protects you feel all the sweeter. If I were to change the armour system, it would be to make armour increase Max HP some, so you could absorb more damage before death—but I don’t think that is necessary and would rather see no change than a change to AC.
That is also not to say that there are not other things tank characters need - 5e’s options for focusing aggro on the tank are lacking and poorly distributed among subclasses, for example. Or fixing the CR system to accurately represent that encounters should be against much more deadly foes than presently recommended.
Now I know that the game isn’t necessarily realistic but I’m going to start there. One on one a goblin vs a trained fighter in chainmail with a shield the goblin looses. Even if he hits he shouldn’t be doing significant damage. That opens up some alternatives to just raising the AC - damage reductions vs different types of weapons (slashing/piercing/bashing). That Chainmail (with gambeson/padding underneath) is very strong against slashing, but weaker against both bashing and piercing. So maybe a -2 Hp from slashing and a -1 for piercing/bashing. there are other problems with armor and weapons as well - like the nonexistence of studded leather. In another thread I proposed starting with soft leather ( think motorcycle leathers) then cuir boili (regular leather) for light, then hide, chain shirt, brestplate and hauberk (chain or lamellar) for medium and then half plate, chainmail, banded/splint, platemail, and articulated plate for the heavy armors. In addition there should be 2 shields - bucklers at +1, and shields at +2.
I feel that the inherant problem here is not that AC is not doing the job, but that it doesn't scale as the players get more powerful. By tier 3, your wizard and sorcerer are blasting out massively powerful spells, but your martial tank is facing enemies with +9 or +10 to hit, which you haven't been able to adapt to cope with. I feel like AC is perhaps a little too static.
The static AC I can see being a problem. That's something that I observed in looking at the armours - the only way to progress AC is magical armour, and even then it tops out at +3. When you're fighting a Tarrasque with +19 to hit, that's sucky.
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What if your AC included half your PB rounded down, but rounded up for martial characters?
That is similar to something I am pondering. I am currently thinking:
reduce AC across the board by 2.
Add proficiency to AC if you're proficient.
Shields are +2 if not proficient, or +prof. bonus if you are.
So a proficient dude in heavy armour with a shield will gain 2AC every time their prof. bonus goes up, making them grow roughly in line with their opponents ability to hit
I am also pondering whether to give armour two roles, but I will need to see how hopelessly beyond comprehension that turns out to be before I seriously consider it! I am thinking "what if armour gives a form of temporary hitpoints that replenishes every round", meaning that even if you're hit, it could do very little if they don't deal much damage!
What if your AC included half your PB rounded down, but rounded up for martial characters?
That is similar to something I am pondering. I am currently thinking:
reduce AC across the board by 2.
Add proficiency to AC if you're proficient.
Shields are +2 if not proficient, or +prof. bonus if you are.
So a proficient dude in heavy armour with a shield will gain 2AC every time their prof. bonus goes up, making them grow roughly in line with their opponents ability to hit
I am also pondering whether to give armour two roles, but I will need to see how hopelessly beyond comprehension that turns out to be before I seriously consider it! I am thinking "what if armour gives a form of temporary hitpoints that replenishes every round", meaning that even if you're hit, it could do very little if they don't deal much damage!
Then you would also need to massively increase weapon damage so two-handers and dual-wielders can keep pace with sword & boarders.
If you start boosting armor values, that goblin (wearing leather armor) will also be harder to hit. So now both sides will just miss more often. Seems like a recipe for longer combats without much else to show for it.
Unless the goal is to make casters even better, since they’ll have the option of forcing a save, ignoring armor entirely.
So goblin and fighter stand there missing each other until the cleric wins with spirit guardians/sacred flame.
What if your AC included half your PB rounded down, but rounded up for martial characters?
That is similar to something I am pondering. I am currently thinking:
reduce AC across the board by 2.
Add proficiency to AC if you're proficient.
Shields are +2 if not proficient, or +prof. bonus if you are.
So a proficient dude in heavy armour with a shield will gain 2AC every time their prof. bonus goes up, making them grow roughly in line with their opponents ability to hit
I am also pondering whether to give armour two roles, but I will need to see how hopelessly beyond comprehension that turns out to be before I seriously consider it! I am thinking "what if armour gives a form of temporary hitpoints that replenishes every round", meaning that even if you're hit, it could do very little if they don't deal much damage!
Then you would also need to massively increase weapon damage so two-handers and dual-wielders can keep pace with sword & boarders.
In honesty? I was thinking to not have this affect monsters or enemies. It's simple to track on a character, but less so for a monster, and I don't fancy going through them all and changing their AC!
people wielding with 2 hands or using 2 weapons will still be sacrificing their AC in exchange for more damage output, so I'm not ure what would change to be honest, besides making havng a high AC actually tempting in the latter-tiers of play. AC22 is nothing when the enemy has +14 to hit!
What if your AC included half your PB rounded down, but rounded up for martial characters?
That is similar to something I am pondering. I am currently thinking:
reduce AC across the board by 2.
Add proficiency to AC if you're proficient.
Shields are +2 if not proficient, or +prof. bonus if you are.
So a proficient dude in heavy armour with a shield will gain 2AC every time their prof. bonus goes up, making them grow roughly in line with their opponents ability to hit
I am also pondering whether to give armour two roles, but I will need to see how hopelessly beyond comprehension that turns out to be before I seriously consider it! I am thinking "what if armour gives a form of temporary hitpoints that replenishes every round", meaning that even if you're hit, it could do very little if they don't deal much damage!
Then you would also need to massively increase weapon damage so two-handers and dual-wielders can keep pace with sword & boarders.
In honesty? I was thinking to not have this affect monsters or enemies. It's simple to track on a character, but less so for a monster, and I don't fancy going through them all and changing their AC!
people wielding with 2 hands or using 2 weapons will still be sacrificing their AC in exchange for more damage output, so I'm not ure what would change to be honest, besides making havng a high AC actually tempting in the latter-tiers of play. AC22 is nothing when the enemy has +14 to hit!
I wasn’t talking about monsters at all. But if the AC boost from wielding a shield is that high, then it makes the alternatives look less attractive by comparison. In order to keep two-handing and dual-wielding as viable options, their damage output would need to increase to compensate. Either that or they would also need to get some bonus to AC too. Otherwise, why use them? Ne?
There is a lot about armor that gets handwaved and ignored, such as the 10 minute donning/doffing time, impacts on resting, and the obvious impact it would have on vision and endurance.
Mundane armor really wouldn't do much on its own in a fantasy setting. To an ogre or dragon, a knight may as well be a soft shelled crab. And a heavy blow to the head will do traumatic damage regardless. However, martial types already get a defensive buff in the form of higher hit dice. While not explicitly related to armor, it abstractly represents increased durability, which could easily be attributed to proficiency with the armor, or general heroic qualities.
That said, the proficiency bonus route is neat, but I might instead suggest expanding upon the feat Heavy Armor Master, which gives Damage Reduction 3 against non-magical attacks. Fighters are fed feats like casters get magic, so if you give them more armor based proficiency feats, that would be a flexible avenue. With tiered feats, fighters will end up with exclusive "skill trees" to reflect their heroic growth.
Edit: Simply letting heavy armor master stack would be interesting. By 19th level, that would allow a fighter to ignore 21 points of damage per attack. Maybe give them resistance to magical weapon damage as well?
Or... make an inverted Rogue, where once per round a knight could negate Xd6 damage from an attack.
Ever since WotC took over D&D (and maybe before), they have consistently misrepresented nonmagical armour as being less effective than it should be, both in terms of verisimilitude and gameplay.
It seems like the players who prefer to play spellcasters of one flavor or another can always expect the game to cater heavily to their tastes--witness the fact that the PHB always has a hundred pages dedicated to spells, but only a single-digit number given to armour and weapons.
I *like* playing that classic Knight-in-Shining-Armour archetype. I *love* shopping for new armour and weapons. I want the game to enable and support this with exciting, effective, and realistic choices that represent mundane weapons and armour as being more useful and powerful than they have heretofore been depicted.
Since we're on the point of seeing a new edition, and we have a chance to influence changes for the better, I want to see something like the following happen:
I use the example of an early-level Fighter clad in mail and carrying a shield as my baseline for determining whether or not these things are being represented in a satisfactory fashion; that equipment provides a pretty good common touchstone for most of the world's historical cultures, so I feel that it's a good one to go with.
Thus, when we examine how things used to work in the attack matrices of 1st Edition AD&D, we see that a standard Goblin armed with a scimitar wounds a warrior armed as above only on a roll of 18 or better (1d-d HD monster needs 16 to hit AC 4, -2 for the scimitar vs that AC type). Sadly, in 5e, that same Goblin gets a staggering +4(!!) to hit, resulting in it wounding our first-level Fighter in mail and shield (AC 18) on a 14+. That's going from a 15% chance to cause damage to a 35% chance. That's huge. I think being heavily-armoured *should* make you harder to hurt than that.
Obviously, heavier armour (splint, plate, etc.) should be even better at keeping its wearer safe from most threats.
So going forward, I hope to see a huge bump in the effectiveness of armour. Maybe adding +2 or more to all Armour Classes that are above the baseline 10, e.g. leather armour is AC 13, a breastplate is AC 16, going up to full plate at AC 20, etc. So our mail-clad warrior with a shield, now at a respectable AC of 20, would expect to be hurt by that goblin only on a roll of a 16 or better. It's not perfect, but it would be a definite step in the right direction...
Way too much math for me lol. But I have no objection to your conclusion. I just personally prefer spellcasters.
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I personally like higher ACs, I think it creates more opportunities. And I also like spellcasters, but I want to see more armor for spellcasters. Armor that won't stop them from casting spells.
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O noes, a goblin with a scimitar has a massive one in three chance of hitting a 1st-level sword and board fighter... assuming it even gets an attack off and isn't killed before it lands a blow
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I dunno. Part of the point of the game is that all monsters can actually do something to an adventurer. If you make it so that a monster that is supposed to be a medium encounter for one first level character is barely able to hit that PC, then that drastically changes game balance. And though you say that heavy armor should "obviously" be able to do a better job at preventing attacks, I don't really know how obvious that is since D&D is not made to reflect how heavy armor would have worked in real life when it was actually used, and also, your example literally involves a goblin trying to hit someone in heavy armor. So that is already really unrealistic.
This change would massively alter the landscape of the game, but it really wouldn't help give martials more cool options. It would just raise the numbers and power levels a bit, without adding any real choices. And a lot of people like not having to deal with as many choices, but a lot of people don't too. So if your goal is to give people more cool and exciting armor choices, adding special effects to armor as opposed to static benefits would be the better way. However, a balance of static bonuses or special effect (such as imposing disadvantage as a reaction by moving your body so the blade will hit your armor as opposed to you) would allow martials to be buffed while also allowing for the martial players who want it to have more cool complex options.
But yeah, this would involve completely redesigning the game and its' balance. And giving static bonuses would further reinforce the predetermined roles in combat where the spellcaster sits in the back with their low AC, trying to avoid being targeted, and the martial runs up to the bad guys and tanks all the damage and attacks. So casters might need to get some buffs too.
But honestly, I think player characters AC's and monsters to hit bonus are fairly balanced at low level. The problem is that at high level, every attack almost always results in a hit, so I think the armor and AC system doesn't really need to be redesigned at low levels, but it might need to be changed at high ones. (I actually haven't ever gotten to super high tiers of play, I just know this from watching lots of D&D shows that have.)
In short, there are a lot of benefits and flaws with this proposal. To me at least, more static bonuses to armor are not necessary, don't make sense, and would involve a massive redesign of the game. However, giving armor more special effects would be cool. And small static bonuses could be used as alternatives. But also, the best way to rebalance casters and martials isn't by drastically altering martials power level in one area of the game (especially if they are already very powerful in that area). A better way to buff martials is by boosting multiple facets of their design somewhat, but not one aspect too much.
TL;DR: IDK, just read the post if you want to hear my thoughts.
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HERE.I’m of the opinion that the game is already too easy, and that monsters should hit more often to ratchet up the difficulty level, but I see what you’re saying. The difference is that in 1e, that gobbo with the scimitar could potentially kill a martial PC with only 1 or 2 hits, so every attack the goblin got was a li’l scary. Now, PCs are more resilient, and they don’t instantly die at 0 HP, so the goblin has to hit twice as often to make it challenging.
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PC resilience can be defined both as having more AC or having more Hit Points. I have heard the criticism leveled at 5e that hit point totals are often too high. Given the choice, I think I'd prefer to see higher ACs and lower hit point totals, both for PCs and for monsters.
Re: the balance issue...
I'd venture to guess that one of the most-often recurring debates in the hobby is that of martial vs. caster class balance. I don't see anything wrong with increasing the effectiveness of martial classes (that is, the classes that most often make use of armour) with regard to making them harder to hurt than they presently are. I *don't* feel that low-level combat is well-balanced at present, and would very much like to see a Fighter or Paladin in heavy armour be able to expect to ignore attacks from enemies more than they do.
That would seem, to me, a good fix for the ongoing balance issue: spellcasters get to bend reality in numerous interesting and tactically satisfying ways, while martials get to enjoy a certain expectation of greater chance of survival when attacked by monsters.
You've got me pondering how I would go about rebalancing the whole martial vs caster system now!
I agree with what you're saying, and I honestly have always felt that perhaps D&D is a little too abstract in how it handles hits and armour. I get that they are considering something to be a "hit" if it goes past your amour and hits you, but I also feel like it makes more sense if your dexterity was the defining factor of whether you get hit, and your armour is the defining factor in whether you get hurt.
I'm going to pre-empt it now - stand by for me spending way too long obsessing over a new set of rules for this that will never get used!
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My first reaction? Yay, more rolls which amount to nothing. A one in three hit is pretty low...and missing all the time is boring. I've not played high level yet, but at least at low level, the last thing we need is turning more rolls and turns to duds and thereby lengthening combat by even more.
I know that it's cool to be the untouchable tank that everyone whales on and never gets a hit through...but it's boring for everyone else. Remember, if your armour gives more protection, so do theirs. Your proposal would be more realistic (if you treat HP loss as actual damage), but I think less fun overall. I played Star Trek Adventures with characters that were all rubbish at hitting...the fight was boring and protracted. "The Romulan fires a phaser at you but misses you" was fun only for the first few rounds
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I enjoy playing a tank character on the occasions I get to be a player, and personally think the armour system is fine. Armour provides enough of a static bonus to make a pretty big difference in how protected you are (-5% for the enemy to hit per AC you have over your squishier colleagues), and it isn’t that hard to have a vastly higher AC than most other classes if you commit. A tank will frequently be 15% or more harder to hit, which has a measurable output in gameplay. Tanking classes also tend to have more HP so they can better sponge damage.
Frankly, I like getting hit as a player - it makes the fights feel a bit more stressful and it makes those times your armour pays off and protects you feel all the sweeter. If I were to change the armour system, it would be to make armour increase Max HP some, so you could absorb more damage before death—but I don’t think that is necessary and would rather see no change than a change to AC.
That is also not to say that there are not other things tank characters need - 5e’s options for focusing aggro on the tank are lacking and poorly distributed among subclasses, for example. Or fixing the CR system to accurately represent that encounters should be against much more deadly foes than presently recommended.
Now I know that the game isn’t necessarily realistic but I’m going to start there. One on one a goblin vs a trained fighter in chainmail with a shield the goblin looses. Even if he hits he shouldn’t be doing significant damage. That opens up some alternatives to just raising the AC - damage reductions vs different types of weapons (slashing/piercing/bashing). That Chainmail (with gambeson/padding underneath) is very strong against slashing, but weaker against both bashing and piercing. So maybe a -2 Hp from slashing and a -1 for piercing/bashing. there are other problems with armor and weapons as well - like the nonexistence of studded leather. In another thread I proposed starting with soft leather ( think motorcycle leathers) then cuir boili (regular leather) for light, then hide, chain shirt, brestplate and hauberk (chain or lamellar) for medium and then half plate, chainmail, banded/splint, platemail, and articulated plate for the heavy armors. In addition there should be 2 shields - bucklers at +1, and shields at +2.
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I feel that the inherant problem here is not that AC is not doing the job, but that it doesn't scale as the players get more powerful. By tier 3, your wizard and sorcerer are blasting out massively powerful spells, but your martial tank is facing enemies with +9 or +10 to hit, which you haven't been able to adapt to cope with. I feel like AC is perhaps a little too static.
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What if your AC included half your PB rounded down, but rounded up for martial characters?
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The static AC I can see being a problem. That's something that I observed in looking at the armours - the only way to progress AC is magical armour, and even then it tops out at +3. When you're fighting a Tarrasque with +19 to hit, that's sucky.
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That is similar to something I am pondering. I am currently thinking:
So a proficient dude in heavy armour with a shield will gain 2AC every time their prof. bonus goes up, making them grow roughly in line with their opponents ability to hit
I am also pondering whether to give armour two roles, but I will need to see how hopelessly beyond comprehension that turns out to be before I seriously consider it! I am thinking "what if armour gives a form of temporary hitpoints that replenishes every round", meaning that even if you're hit, it could do very little if they don't deal much damage!
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Then you would also need to massively increase weapon damage so two-handers and dual-wielders can keep pace with sword & boarders.
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If you start boosting armor values, that goblin (wearing leather armor) will also be harder to hit. So now both sides will just miss more often. Seems like a recipe for longer combats without much else to show for it.
Unless the goal is to make casters even better, since they’ll have the option of forcing a save, ignoring armor entirely.
So goblin and fighter stand there missing each other until the cleric wins with spirit guardians/sacred flame.
In honesty? I was thinking to not have this affect monsters or enemies. It's simple to track on a character, but less so for a monster, and I don't fancy going through them all and changing their AC!
people wielding with 2 hands or using 2 weapons will still be sacrificing their AC in exchange for more damage output, so I'm not ure what would change to be honest, besides making havng a high AC actually tempting in the latter-tiers of play. AC22 is nothing when the enemy has +14 to hit!
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I wasn’t talking about monsters at all. But if the AC boost from wielding a shield is that high, then it makes the alternatives look less attractive by comparison. In order to keep two-handing and dual-wielding as viable options, their damage output would need to increase to compensate. Either that or they would also need to get some bonus to AC too. Otherwise, why use them? Ne?
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There is a lot about armor that gets handwaved and ignored, such as the 10 minute donning/doffing time, impacts on resting, and the obvious impact it would have on vision and endurance.
Mundane armor really wouldn't do much on its own in a fantasy setting. To an ogre or dragon, a knight may as well be a soft shelled crab. And a heavy blow to the head will do traumatic damage regardless. However, martial types already get a defensive buff in the form of higher hit dice. While not explicitly related to armor, it abstractly represents increased durability, which could easily be attributed to proficiency with the armor, or general heroic qualities.
That said, the proficiency bonus route is neat, but I might instead suggest expanding upon the feat Heavy Armor Master, which gives Damage Reduction 3 against non-magical attacks. Fighters are fed feats like casters get magic, so if you give them more armor based proficiency feats, that would be a flexible avenue. With tiered feats, fighters will end up with exclusive "skill trees" to reflect their heroic growth.
Edit: Simply letting heavy armor master stack would be interesting. By 19th level, that would allow a fighter to ignore 21 points of damage per attack. Maybe give them resistance to magical weapon damage as well?
Or... make an inverted Rogue, where once per round a knight could negate Xd6 damage from an attack.