Is there a reason half-plate has no Dex. bonus and Full-plate has a Dex. bonus? I don't think anyone I game with buys half-plate. Atleast after initial character creation.
And about ACs. The problem with 3.5 there is that you have to have all kinds of AC bonus giving magic items to get your AC respectable to take on mid to high level monsters. I'd like to see characters more difficult to hit without a billion magic items or without having to be monks.
4e does this by adding +1 to AC every even level. But they totally contradict this with giving monsters incrediblly high stats and attack bonuses.
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There is some attempt at this: fighters now get a scaling AC bonus. Dodge now grants a +1 AC against all opponents as a swift action (and eventually might be +2 with the Acrobatics skill).
I'm not sure why half-plate has no Dex bonus - historically half-plate was just full plate without the bottom leggings, which would imply better maneuverability. I believe it is because the D&D half-plate is basically a hogde-podge of plates around the body that don't balance well.
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Is there a reason half-plate has no Dex. bonus and Full-plate has a Dex. bonus? I don't think anyone I game with buys half-plate.
This actually goes into a fundamental problem with armor stats as they exist currently. The price disparities are essentially pointless for the purposes of balancing them - as you say, you can buy any kind of armor you like by about 3rd level. So the total AC the armors offer is limited by the total of their Dex bonus and their AC bonus:
- Padded__________9
- Leather__________8
- Studded Leather___8
- Chain Shirt_______8
- Hide______________7
- Scale Mail________7
- Chainmail__________7
- Breastplate________8
- Splint Mail________6
- Banded Mail_______7
- Half-Plate________7
- Full Plate________9
This is why, at low levels, no one takes medium armor is they can help it.
Once you get past low levels, though, a new factor enters the picture, and suddenly everything changes: mithral. Now all the metal armors get a huge boost, while the non-metal armors stay right where they were. So now the list looks like this:
- Padded__________9
- Leather__________8
- Studded Leather___8
- Chain Shirt_______10
- Hide______________7
- Scale Mail________9
- Chainmail__________9
- Breastplate________10
- Splint Mail________8
- Banded Mail_______9
- Half-Plate________9
- Full Plate________11
So mithral full plate is hands down the best armor you can get, as long as you can wear medium armor without losing class features. By midlevels, anyone who wants one can get a +2 Dex bonus, but only Dex monkeys are really trying for much more than that. So Dex +2, armor +9 is the best deal you can get for your AC, period.
If you can't use medium armor, then you want a mithral shirt, because you're probably going to a Dex bonus of +6 pretty fast anyway, it's 3K gp cheaper than a mithral breastplate, and mithral breastplates still have a -1 ACP.
The phenomenon of the clearly superior armor is, I think, unfortunate for the game. I would greatly prefer to see some parity added in, so that armor choice is based on the interaction between the characters' own stats and their desired AC, rather than just heading straight for one of two armors.
As long as AC remains a yes/no stat, a difference of a few points is practically meaningless except for academic purposes. This applies to the Fighter AC boost, the differences between types of armors (Fluff is highly mutable), and especially Dodge (Does not compute from the action economy analysis).
The only way of altering this, aside from massive rear loaded AC boosts (low levels don't really change, high levels mean AC in the 60s) is to change every single enemy to have lower to hit, allowing the current AC amounts to do the same thing, and putting a floor on iterative attacks so that instead of 20/15/10/5 you get 20/15/15/15. Unless all of the above are done, any minor changes to AC are pointless. 15 point differences always enforce a yes/no status when there are only 20 possible outcomes. When enemies hit you on a 2, even if you've boosted your AC considerably it is a yes/no stat.
Maybe Dex bonuses should add 2 to the AC instead of 1 for each increment. I just think that after a couple levels, we get too dependant on magic items to boost our ACs and abilities. Less dependance on Magic items and min-maxing and more on natural ability.
Then we can go out at 7th level and feel safe enough to risk a good fight in regular armor. Magic armor and items should be a little rarer.- just me
About half of what is called 'min maxing' is natural ability. The other half is ensuring you have the most to make the most of.
Optimizer: Designs characters to be the best at its chosen purpose. This can just as easily be a God Wizard as a Craft: Underwater Basket Weaver.
Powergamer: Designs characters for sheer dazzling effectiveness. Here is where you start seeing uber caster builds all the time.
Munchkin: Designs characters to be the best via blatant cheating.
Min maxing is optimizing, but narrower as it can only use limited resources in the most efficient manner. Trying to array a Monk on 25 PB is an example of min maxing (which you are doomed to fail due to insufficient resources).
Main difference is one wants to make what they want without it sucking, one only wants the best, and one is playing a completely different game.
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This has been a pet-peeve of mine for a while - thanks for the itemized detailed list of each armor type and its associated best AC it can provide.
In my opinion, what needs to change is the lackluster bonuses that medium armor specifically wind up providing - most all medium armor provide less overall protections than all the light armors - one more thing that benefits rogues - AND they still provide a loss of movement.
Either medium armor needs to get rid of the movement penalty, OR they need to provide a better bonus overall between Dex Mod and Armor bonus to be in line with the lighter armors.
I'm thinking a Mithril version of any medium armor should provide AT LEAST the same overall bonus of Padded armor.
As it stands, the 'fluff' is rarely enough of a draw to warrant anyone wearing medium armor considering the amount of mechanics drawbacks in doing so or at the least the mechanics benefits in wearing others.
Robert