Fighter Armor Training pg. 27

[Raymond Gellner]

I believe that fighter armor training is too powerful and does not allow for the potential to individualize characters. While I like the base concept, the ability should be changed. Instead of all three effects (reducing the armor check penalty by 1, increasing the armor class by 1 and increasing the maximum dexterity bonus allowed by one) the player should choose one of the three effects, or alternately gain the armor check penalty bonus and then choose one of the two others. My main concern about the power of this ability as it is written is that it is essentially giving a fighter with a high dexterity a bonus of +2 on AC at 3rd level and then at every four levels afterwards which seems excessive.

[Skjaldbakka]

I fail to see the problem. Armor Training is barely even a boost at all. There is no reason to change it to make it a) less good and b) more complicated. It provided maybe a +7 bonus to AC to a level 20 fighter with an above average dexterity. At most its +10, but then your a fighter with a 20 dex, which is highly uncommon.

[Remmington Steele]

The point of Fighters is to beat things into submission and coming out with as few scratches as possible. A BBEG can still overcome an extremely high AC, but a Fighter, like a Wizard, can now hit the minions with little fear.

[Jadeite]

The problem I see is that now there is only three types of armor at best a fighter would use. Mithral full plate (the default option), adamantine full plate (if he has a low dexterity) and mithral breastplate (if he doesn't want a reduced speed). A level 7 fighter in a mithral full plate will can get +15 on AC out of armor and dex bonus alone. Considering that the recommended high attack for a CR 7 opponent is only +13 this might be a little high.
I would like to propose the following fix:
At third level the fighter gains a +1 bonus on AC bonus, max Dex and lessens the armor check penalty by one while one type of armor (light, medium, heavy or shield(but not buckler)). On 7th level he gains the same bonus on a second type of armor, but if he wears both types of armor at the same time (this would only apply to shields), both bonuses would apply. On level 11 he would gain another type of preferred armor and the bonuses would increase by one. On level 15 it would apply to all kinds of armor. Maybe the bonus could increase to +3 on level 19 in addition to the DR gained on that level.
This would increase the variety of armors a fighter would wear and also the general usefulness of shields compared to two weapon fighting and twohanded fighting.

[Locworks]

Jadeite wrote:

The problem I see is that now there is only three types of armor at best a fighter would use. Mithral full plate (the default option), adamantine full plate (if he has a low dexterity) and mithral breastplate (if he doesn't want a reduced speed). A level 7 fighter in a mithral full plate will can get +15 on AC out of armor and dex bonus alone. Considering that the recommended high attack for a CR 7 opponent is only +13 this might be a little high.

Level 7 wealth

23 500 GP (Alpha 3, p. 123) or 19,000 gp in 3.5 DMG)

Max cost of one single item: 11750 GP (Alpha 3, p. 123) or 9500 GP (DMG, p.42)

3.5 costs
Adamantine full plate costs: 1500 + 15000 = 16500
Mithral full plate: 1500 + 9000 = 10500

[Locworks]

Raymond Gellner wrote:

My main concern about the power of this ability as it is written is that it is essentially giving a fighter with a high dexterity a bonus of +2 on AC at 3rd level and then at every four levels afterwards which seems excessive.

The current rule caters to all fighter types:

The low-DEX tanks will love the armor bonus which offsets their low DEX. The max dex penalty reduction doesn't help them and they learned to live with their reduced speed.

The high-DEX finesse fighters will love the DEX-penalty reduction. If they are the swashbuckler type, they will love the armor check penalty reduction which will allow to tumble, climb and steal kisses in better armor. They won't go for heavy armour, because of the speed reduction.

[Jadeite]

Locworks wrote:

The current rule caters to all fighter types:
The low-DEX tanks will love the armor bonus which offsets their low DEX. The max dex penalty reduction doesn't help them and they learned to live with their reduced speed.

The high-DEX finesse fighters will love the DEX-penalty reduction. If they are the swashbuckler type, they will love the armor check penalty reduction which will allow to tumble, climb and steal kisses in better armor. They won't go for heavy armour, because of the speed reduction.

But they will all wear mithral full plates. As you have posted yourself, a +1 mithral full plate is affordable by level 7. By level 15 it doesn't even have an armor check penalty any more. It's only disadvantage against a mithral breast plate is it's reduced speed. And unless you are aiming for a dashing conquistadore, breast plates are not the kind of armor I associate with swashbuckling. At level 7, a fighter in a breast plate has no armor check penalty and a maximum dexterity bonus of +7. It's price would be 4,200 gp compared to a mithral shirts 1,100. So, he might get an additional plus one enhancement bonus on the mithral shirt to compansate for the lower armor bonus, but at later levels the mithral breast plate will be much more cost efficient, as fixed modifiers disappear against quadratical growth. One of my players wants to play a high dex two weapon fighting fighter rogue in a mithral full plate. It's extremely ridicolous, but quite reasonable from a mechanic point of view.

[Locworks]

Jadite wrote:

As you have posted yourself, a +1 mithral full plate is affordable by level 7.

A mithral full plate costs 10500 GP in 3.5

A +1 mithral full plate costs 11500 GP in 3.5

So no, it's not affordable under 3.5 and barely affordable under Alpha 3 if the GM allows it.

Alpha 3, p. 122
"For a balanced approach, PCs that are built after 1st level should spend no more than 25% of their wealth on weapons, 25% on armor and protective devices, 25% on other magic items, 15% on disposable items (like potions, scrolls, and wands), and 10% on ordinary gear and coins."

The 50% rule is a guideline for awarding treasure from encounters when there was little treasure from a series of encounters. See Alpha 3, p. 122

Spoiler:

Alternatively, if the PCs face a number of creatures with little or no treasure, they should have the opportunity to acquire a number of significantly more valuable objects sometime in the near future to make up for the imbalance. As a general rule, PCs should not
own any magic item worth more than half their total character wealth, so make sure to check before awarding expensive magic items.

Jadeite wrote:

One of my players wants to play a high dex two weapon fighting fighter rogue in a mithral full plate. It's extremely ridicolous, but quite reasonable from a mechanic point of view.

No, it is against the wealth per level guidelines and single item price limit.

[Big Bucket]

Jadeite wrote:

[...] One of my players wants to play a high dex two weapon fighting fighter rogue in a mithral full plate. It's extremely ridicolous, but quite reasonable from a mechanic point of view.

So make it tough to get. Mithral is extremely rare and there shouldn't be a suit of mithral full plate just laying in a store front window. To have it built will be a long process - take a look at the Craft rules. Assuming he finds an armorer with a +20 to his craft (adding +10 to make it faster, see Craft) and taking 10 on his checks, that is not busy with other orders, he'd be looking at:

Full plate: 1,500 gp - 40 x 18 DC = 72 gp/wk (21 weeks)
Mithral (incl masterwork): 9,000 gp - 40 x 20 DC = 80 gp/wk (112.5 weeks)

So the player has over 2 and a half years for his order to be completed, plus any time waiting for the armorer to finish other orders, find the mithral, etc.

Now some of my numbers may be off, I'm running them through my head, but if it is a fast paced campaign the player may be retired or dead before the armor is made.

[JoelF847]

Also, we haven't seen what changes (if any) there will be to mithril and adamantine in either price or qualities in Pathfinder yet. I'm hoping that they will become more expensive and/or less powerful (especially adamantine weapons ignoring hardness and mithril armor counting as 1 category lighter)

[Jadeite]

Locworks wrote:

Jadite wrote:

As you have posted yourself, a +1 mithral full plate is affordable by level 7.

A mithral full plate costs 10500 GP in 3.5

A +1 mithral full plate costs 11500 GP in 3.5

So no, it's not affordable under 3.5 and barely affordable under Alpha 3 if the GM allows it.

Alpha 3, p. 122
"For a balanced approach, PCs that are built after 1st level should spend no more than 25% of their wealth on weapons, 25% on armor and protective devices, 25% on other magic items, 15% on disposable items (like potions, scrolls, and wands), and 10% on ordinary gear and coins."

The 50% rule is a guideline for awarding treasure from encounters when there was little treasure from a series of encounters. See Alpha 3, p. 122** spoiler omitted **

Jadeite wrote:

One of my players wants to play a high dex two weapon fighting fighter rogue in a mithral full plate. It's extremely ridicolous, but quite reasonable from a mechanic point of view.

No, it is against the wealth per level guidelines and single item price limit.

I might have been a bit misleading. The character in question is level 9, so his plan is quite feasible under the alpha 3 rules. But thanks for directing me to this rule. While he will be able to get his armor, this should restrict his access to his magic buckler, his ring of protection and his amulet of natural armor, bringing his AC back to a humane number.

[TarkisFlux]

Yeah, this ability isn't a big deal, but it could be improved upon. As is it just gives the fighter more numbers, not more options or more differentiation. It's probably fine for all of the plate wearers out there, but I think there's an opportunity here to improve the ability so that everyone doesn't have to get shiny mithral breast/full plate as soon as possible. Doing slightly different abilities for different armor groups would also make this a more useful ability to multiclass fighters.

So that's what I spent the last hour thinking about, and here's what i would suggest. Three groups, 5 paths, everything stacks, etc. It's a bit more complicated than it was, but the fighter is so straightforward right now that I think he can take it.

Light Armor Mastery Group - Reasoning: Any fighter that is specializing in light armor probably isn’t looking to stay single classed. So the abilities here are designed to sync well with light armor classes (rogue, ranger, even bard) and to help out an arcane fighter. Since I don’t imagine they’d take more than 10 levels of fighter (and thus only ever get two of these anyway), there’s two paths of two upgrades each here. The armor mods they provide are tuned down to reflect both the weaker nature of this armor group in general, and the reduced need to undo armor check or increase max dex. I would never expect all four of these to be taken by a character.

Light Armor Optimization I – increase max Dex by 1, decrease armor check by 1
Light Armor Optimization II – increase armor bonus by 1, increase max Dex by 1
Light Armor Arcane Optimization I – decrease armor check by 1, decrease spell failure 5%
Light Armor Arcane Optimization II – increase max dex by 1, decrease spell failure 5% (yes, I know that there's a feat that does this, but it requires a swift action to use, and sometimes you need those for other things)

Medium Armor Mastery Group - Reasoning: Fighter’s specializing in medium armor are kinda rare, but I could see a fighter/barb doing it. There’s two paths here as well specifically for that reason, but I tried to make it appealing to a fighter in general who was willing to trade a bit of defense for mobility. Again, a bit toned down from the standard to reflect armor stat differences and movement gains.

Medium Armor Movement Optimization I – decrease armor check by 1, decrease speed penalty by half
Medium Armor Movement Optimization II – increase max dex by 1, eliminate speed penalty
Medium Armor Optimization I – increase armor bonus by 1, decrease armor check by 1
Medium Armor Optimization I – increase armor bonus by 1, increase max dex bonus by 1, decrease armor check by 1

Heavy Armor Mastery Group - Reasoning: This is probably where your standard fighter will live, and only clerics or pallys would bother multiclassing for this. I really don’t think that fighters need an additional +4 armor bonus on top of their full plate +4, heavy shield +4, ring of deflection +4, and necklace of nat armor +4 (i have not checked WBL guidelines to see if it's even possible, just using hyperbole), but that’s the direction things were going so I didn’t change it significantly. I think we should draw the line at the dex mod though. An 8 point AC gain for a dextrous fighter in plate (or one with cat’s grace) seems a bit ridiculous, so those got toned down. I also removed the reduced run multiplier. It’s a minor thing at those levels, but it looked like it needed something else.

Heavy Armor Optimization I – increase armor bonus by 1, decrease armor check by 1
Heavy Armor Optimization II – increase armor bonus by 1, increase max dex by 1
Heavy Armor Optimization III – increase armor bonus by 1, decrease armor check by 1, allow full run multiplier (x4 instead of x3, or whatever)
Heavy Armor Optimization IV – increase armor bonus by 1, increase max dex by 1, decrease armor check by 1

[eggellis]

What if a dwarf wants to wear medium armor and doesn't wanna multiclass?

[TarkisFlux]

eggellis wrote:

What if a dwarf wants to wear medium armor and doesn't wanna multiclass?

There's nothing stopping them from doing it, they just don't get as much out out of the deal. But seriously, aside from flavor reasons (which are often sufficient to justify a sub-optimal choice IMO), why would a dwarf fighter ever do this? They don't suffer any movement penalties for any armor choice in 3.Pai, so why would they not select the thickest, heaviest, best defending armor they could get?

And for those dwarf barb/fighters who don't have the movement issue can just take the non-move medium abilities and still get a relevant/useful bonus. This certainly isn't as powerful as the original ability, but I agree with the OP that it could have used a bit of tuning anyway.