Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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Just wanted to spread a little hate and loathing for the chain shirt, which is better than EVERY kind of medium armor. +4 AC, +4 DEX. The only one that matches the total is the breastplate at +5/+3, and for that is more expensive, heavier, and oh by the way slows you down 10 feet per round!
I know, I know, backwards compatibility and all that, but can we PLEASE get rid of this armor type?
Suggestions:
1. Eliminate it entirely.
2. Reduce the AC bonus given by all forms of light armor by 1:
a. Padded goes away.
b. Leather becomes +1/+8, ACP 0
c. Studded leather becomes +2/+7, ACP -1
d. Chain shirt becomes +3/+5*, ACP -2
* (but unlike the others kinds of light armor, chain shirt can be made mithril)
Medium armors can offer base AC +4 to +6
a. Hide +4/+2, ACP -3
b. Scale +5/+2, ACP -4
c. Chain +6/+2, ACP -4
d. Breastplate +6/+3, ACP -3
Heavy armors can offer base AC +7 to +9
a. Splint +7/+0, ACP -5
b. Banded +7/+1, ACP -5
c. Plate +8/+1, ACP -6
d. Full plate +9/+1, ACP -6
Just a notion...
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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Why not just make the chain shirt +4 AC/+3 Max Dex, and leave all of the other armors alone - they didn't do anything to you so stop taking it out on them! :)
Yes, this makes a chain shirt identical to scale mail in some ways, but it's light armor and doesn't slow you down, and it could keep the lower armor check penalty and arcane failure chance.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6
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Medium armor might actually see some use by medium characters if it slowed you down 5 feet instead of 10 (perhaps not slowing smalls at all). Right now, the only reasons to use it no matter what you do the chain shirt are cost (it's a cheap way to get 1 more point of AC) and barbarian movement. In practice, you only see medium armor on low-level PCs and NPCs who don't know any better, or in its mithral-version-of-heavy-armor form. Changing the net AC of a chain shirt won't fix that problem - the same people will still dump medium the minute they can afford heavy.
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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Russ, I completely agree with you. It would also have the side benefit of making chases more interesting, by having a bigger variety of possible movement rates available. Right now you only have 30, 20, and 15. If Medium armor reduced speed by 5, and heavy reduced it by 10, you'd have 30, 25, 20, 15, and 10 for small or medium humanoids.
I would prefer for Chain Shirts to have +3 armor bonus and Hide armor to have +4. Stop the 'Light' category at +3 armor bonus, have the Medium category go from +4 to +6 armor bonus (which would bump banded / splint down to medium armors), and anything +7 or better (half-plate full plate) is Heavy.
I agree, +3 armor bonus for a chain shirt helps the medium category out a little.
The 5-feet only penalty for Medium armor is an attractive idea. Good one guys!
(And I take it dwarves still maintain a base Speed of 20 regardless of their armor type.)
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Russ, I completely agree with you. It would also have the side benefit of making chases more interesting, by having a bigger variety of possible movement rates available. Right now you only have 30, 20, and 15. If Medium armor reduced speed by 5, and heavy reduced it by 10, you'd have 30, 25, 20, 15, and 10 for small or medium humanoids.
Also agree.
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Ok, we can't get rid of Chain Shirt, what else are you going to use for chainmail bikinis?
Armor does have a problem though. PC armor Use:
Bard can use Light Armor
Rogue can use Light Armor
Ranger can use Light Armor
Barbarian uses Light or Medium Armor
Druid can use Light or Medium, Non metallic Armor
Cleric can use Light, Medium or Heavy Armor
Fighter can use Light, Medium or Heavy Armor
Paladin can use Light, Medium or Heavy Armor
Monk, Sorcerer, Wizard can wear no armor
For the Bard and Ranger they are going to quickly settle into a Chain Shirt. The Rogue will settle into Leather or Studded Leather. In the Light Armor catagory, only Padded is going to be frequently neglected. Occasionally a Rogue may want a set of Padded Armor when he is in town breaking and entering and not expecting much in the way of combat- and has am amazingly high Dex.
For the Barbarian the armor of choice should be Breastplate if he has a Dex higher than 15 or is worried about Armor Check Penalties. The Druid is pretty much limited to Hide Armor, unless an exotic material is used. In the Medium Armor catagory Scale is the least commonly used with occasional though uncommon use of the Chainmail.
Now the Heavy Armor tanks are going to quickly shift to Full Plate ASAP. Almost no doubt. But there are reasons to use Banded Mail and very few reasons to go to Half-Plate (only if the tank has no positive Dex modifier).
So, essentially we have two classes that will quickly go to Chain Shirt, so it obviously is going to see some use. As is Hide, Breastplate and occasionly Chainmail. Heavy Armor users will go straight to Full Plate as soon as they can afford it, and use the lesser heavy armors as stepping stones to Full Plate.
So, I dont see any reason to get rid of Chain Shirt as that nerfs two classes, which is 25% of armor wear classes.
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So far, everyone in my last three games who wasn't a Wizard or Druid, has worn the Chain shirt until about 8th level.
Clerics? Absolutely. Losing 10 ft. of movement speed when you need to be able to motor around the combat for healing duty is the difference between life and death. "Oh, sorry you died, I couldn't get there in time to still have a standard action and cast Cure Light Wounds because I wanted that +1 AC from a breastplate..."
Fighters, even more so. Mobility is *vastly* better than the +1 AC you could get from a Breastplate. At around 8th level, mithral Fullplate *finally* makes the Fighter willing to sacrifice 10 ft. of mobility for a +4 armor bonus over the Chain Shirt.
Any Barbarian who wears Hide is insane, sacrificing his 10 ft. movement bonus to have a *worse* armor class than he'd get from a Chain Shirt.
So yeah, the only characters who *don't* wear Chain Shirts throughout the majority of our game-play experience, are those (Druids, Monks, Sorcerers and Wizards) who aren't *allowed* to wear Chain Shirts.
I would suggest that this is less of a problem with the chain shirt, which follows a logical enough progression, and instead a problem with medium armor.
The chain shirt, in my experience, is often used by higher level combat bards and rogues who can soak the skill-penalty without any trouble. I've never felt it was unbalanced when compared to Studded Leather or other light armors, but it certainly provides a better choice than the first two selections on the medium armor list.
The thing of it is, since Rogues and Bards are almost never going to wear medium armor (as it would require a feat and disable some of their class features), the target audience for medium armor is solely Barbarians. Compared to anything but a Breastplate, the chainshirt is by far the better choice.
So do we nerf the chainshirt? Or make medium armors better?
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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Ok, we can't get rid of Chain Shirt, what else are you going to use for chainmail bikinis?
Armor does have a problem though. PC armor Use:
Bard can use Light Armor
Rogue can use Light Armor
Ranger can use Light ArmorBarbarian uses Light or Medium Armor
Druid can use Light or Medium, Non metallic ArmorCleric can use Light, Medium or Heavy Armor
Fighter can use Light, Medium or Heavy Armor
Paladin can use Light, Medium or Heavy ArmorMonk, Sorcerer, Wizard can wear no armor
For the Bard and Ranger they are going to quickly settle into a Chain Shirt. The Rogue will settle into Leather or Studded Leather. In the Light Armor catagory, only Padded is going to be frequently neglected. Occasionally a Rogue may want a set of Padded Armor when he is in town breaking and entering and not expecting much in the way of combat- and has am amazingly high Dex.
For the Barbarian the armor of choice should be Breastplate if he has a Dex higher than 15 or is worried about Armor Check Penalties. The Druid is pretty much limited to Hide Armor, unless an exotic material is used. In the Medium Armor catagory Scale is the least commonly used with occasional though uncommon use of the Chainmail.
Now the Heavy Armor tanks are going to quickly shift to Full Plate ASAP. Almost no doubt. But there are reasons to use Banded Mail and very few reasons to go to Half-Plate (only if the tank has no positive Dex modifier).
So, essentially we have two classes that will quickly go to Chain Shirt, so it obviously is going to see some use. As is Hide, Breastplate and occasionly Chainmail. Heavy Armor users will go straight to Full Plate as soon as they can afford it, and use the lesser heavy armors as stepping stones to Full Plate.
So, I dont see any reason to get rid of Chain Shirt as that nerfs two classes, which is 25% of armor wear classes.
As another poster pointed out, virtually every class has a good reason to wear a chain shirt over any medium and most heavy armor: MOVEMENT.
Even, say, if you're a 1st level clr/ftr/pal with NO Dex bonus, are you going to buy a suit of scale mail or a chain shirt? 1 point of AC vs. a 50% increase in your movement rate? I know which one is more appealing to me. If you're a dwarf, no problem. You're already slow, and you don't get slower in armor, so you're fine. Any other race, chain shirt is going to be your armor of choice until you can afford full plate, or at least plate mail. Even splint and banded are maybes as upgrades for no-DEX characters - you could at least start to argue that 2 points of AC is worth it for 10 feet of movement. Not a slam-dunk, but an argument at least.
Breastplate is a pretty weak alternative even for barbarians - +1 AC vs. 33% movement increase; and more to the point, that extra edge of movement that lets you run down standard-speed (30) enemies faster than they can run away.
My point isn't to nerf 25% of armor-wearing classes. It's to nerf the light armor category in general and the chain shirt in particular. The point is that the game already substantially rewards light armor, both in movement rate and in the enabling of special abilities (evasion, Tumble, ranger combat style, bardic spellcasting). Light armor is already its own reward.
The fact that the best kind of light armor, which is a fraction of the cost of heavy armor, is so good that there is almost no reason to ever use any other kind of armor. When one option is so insanely better than every other option around it, that to me points out a problem with that particular item.
It's like longsword in 1st Ed. D&D. By the rules, the weapon was just flat-out better than 95% of weapons. A handful of others were arguably as good in the right circumstance (two-handed sword, bastard sword, longbow, dagger, maybe halberd if you wanna stretch it), but every other weapon was clearly mechanically weaker than longsword. You would only take other weapons if forced or if you wanted to (gasp) roleplay, and in so doing have to gimp yourself.
That's weak.
The chain shirt overdoes what it was designed for and blurs the line with and overshadows an entire category of armor (medium) - honestly, the shirt you wear with your chainmail gives you 4 points of AC, but the armor on the legs, arms, and head only gives you ONE more point of AC? WTF?
I'd like to see chain shirt +3 and chain mail (whole body) +6.
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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What about a kind of "built-in" fortification? Light armor has a 10% chance to negate crits, medium has a 20%, and heavy has a 30%? It makes sense that, the more heavily armored a target is, the harder it will be to get at it's vitals. This will, of course, impact the effects of the various 'fortification' enchantments.
This makes the chain shirt a good choice for highly-mobile fighters and rogues while giving some other classes a reason to wear the heavier armors at least. You could even go 5%, 10%, 15% but that seems so minor as to be trivial at any level.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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I would suggest that this is less of a problem with the chain shirt, which follows a logical enough progression, and instead a problem with medium armor.
The chain shirt, in my experience, is often used by higher level combat bards and rogues who can soak the skill-penalty without any trouble. I've never felt it was unbalanced when compared to Studded Leather or other light armors, but it certainly provides a better choice than the first two selections on the medium armor list.
The thing of it is, since Rogues and Bards are almost never going to wear medium armor (as it would require a feat and disable some of their class features), the target audience for medium armor is solely Barbarians. Compared to anything but a Breastplate, the chainshirt is by far the better choice.
So do we nerf the chainshirt? Or make medium armors better?
We do both.
And compared a Breastplate, Chain Shirt is still the better choice. +1 AC (assuming the Barbarian has a DEX of 17 or less) for the Breastplate vs. 10 feet of movement for the Chain Shirt.
I also wonder if folks make too much of the skill penalty for light armors. A masterwork chain shirt (250 gp) has an ACP of -1.
If you want to kick it up a very small notch, a mithril MW chain shirt (1100 if you follow the rule that mithril items are automatically masterwork, 1250 if you make em pay for MW anyway) has an ACP of 0.
Finally, the chain shirt doesn't follow a logical pattern. Well, more to the point, since 1-2-3-4 is logical enough, it does not follow a CONGRUENT pattern with respect to the other armor types. Each of the other armor types has a span of 3 AC's, with one duplicated with a better DEX bonus for the same armor bonus: medium is +3 to +5 (2 armors at +5). Heavy is +6 to +8 (2 armors at +6). Light armor has a span of 4 AC's, +1 to +4, with no duplications.
To be logically consistent, two of the armor types in light armor should share the same armor bonus, and in doing that you would then shrink the range to a span of 3 AC's, such as:
Padded - +1 AC/+8 Dex
Leather - +2 AC/+6 Dex
Studded - +3 AC/+4 Dex*
Chain Shirt - +3 AC/+5 Dex
* yes, I know, this makes studded the same as hide armor, but hide is all natural (so druid-friendly) and medium armor (so everyone-else-unfriendly), so I can live with it.
That would then make it fit better with the rest of the D&D model of armors.
My original suggestion was to ditch the virtually never-used padded armor and just have 3 light armors, but I could go either way.
I dont think the chain shirt is the problem...it represents the best light armor you can buy and is about right for that purpose. The problem is that medium and heavy armors need to be made better. There is currently no good reason to wear medium at all, and all the heavy armors are just place holders until you can afford plate. I want a scale where a plate wearer with 0 dex bonus has the same AC as a chain shirt wearer with a 20 or so. Then people would be getting the armor that best matches their dex to armor bonus ratio...not just plate or chain shirt. I understand the idea of being stuck with what we have in the spirit of compatability, so maybe we could add in some new armors to create a more even scale ?
I hate this idea
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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I am extremely hesitant to change or remove any types of armor. They (and especially the chain shirt) are used by a lot of published NPCs and PCs making them an artifact we are stuck with.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing
I don't mind you not removing them, for the above-noted reason, though ironically it sort of proves my point about the armor being so ridiculously better than the alternatives that umpteen other adventure writers have seen that fact and used it for that reason.
As for not changing them... come on. We're changing a LOT of stuff in PF. Changing the armor bonus given by armor is not that hard of a fix to make. Obviously there will have to be some sort of conversion notes document. Just make one of those notes under ARMOR say:
Simple enough. Nothing to complicated there.
Director of Game Design
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Jason,
I realize that there is going to be a conversion document, but for every "across the board" change I make, I need to weight it against the value of the change. Is refiguring nearly every NPCs AC worth doing so that we can iron out a few oddities in the armor types. I am not 100% sure that the value here is worth the effort.
I am not saying this cannot be done.. it is just borderline to me. It does not seem to be that huge of an issue, considering the change that would need to be made, especially considering all of the other armor types floating around in other books that I cannot fix.
Step back and think about it a bit...
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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I dont think the chain shirt is the problem...it represents the best light armor you can buy and is about right for that purpose. The problem is that medium and heavy armors need to be made better. There is currently no good reason to wear medium at all, and all the heavy armors are just place holders until you can afford plate. I want a scale where a plate wearer with 0 dex bonus has the same AC as a chain shirt wearer with a 20 or so. Then people would be getting the armor that best matches their dex to armor bonus ratio...not just plate or chain shirt. I understand the idea of being stuck with what we have in the spirit of compatability, so maybe we could add in some new armors to create a more even scale ?
Per the bolded question, we already do have that.
Chain shirt with 20 Dex = AC 18 (Dex bonus is capped at +4)
Full plate with 10 Dex = AC 18
I think a side issue is that because the Dex AC is useful against more things (touch attacks most relevantly), that the Dex portion of AC becomes more useful as PCs go up levels and the armor portion of AC becomes less useful. So AC 18 from plate is actually not as good in MOST situations (though not all) as AC 18 from chain shirt + Dex.
Since the relative benefit of the armor portion of AC is generally less useful than the Dex portion, it stands to reason that a plated tank should have a higher total AC than the Dex-monkey, not an identical one, in order for each to have similar defensive value.
Of course, you could also argue that an equivalency between the two is foolish. By definition a plated-up character is choosing defense while in theory a lightly armored character is choosing mobility and/or offense at the expense of defense. They should NOT have the same AC as the character attempting to emphasize defense. It should be less good because they get other benefits to compensate for it.
Anyways, YMMV...
What if the chain shirt were moved into the medium armor category? It is 25 lbs after all; the same as hide. And I believe they are cumbersome to wear over long periods of time as chain armor weighs heavily on the shoulders and is not distributed very well.
And/or the max dex bonus could be reduced by one. It may be true that chain shirts are sprinkled throughout published material, but I'll be willing to bet that most of the NPC's using it don't have +4 bonuses to their dex.
Small changes but good changes. Most characters swap to mithril full plate instead of looking over the other options, and Dex is king, while the heavy armor sits there and...
These changes are small. They're not as big as the changes going to be needed to convert barbarian NPCs, for instance. Or recalculating other changed feats, which may or may not make sense for the creatures using them anymore.
Or animal companions.
I'm sorry. I like what you do, and I appreciate it, I just have to side with the other Jason on this one, and I work hard at being lazy. ;)
One of the reasons I avoided 4e was the difficulty of customization. Who wants to come up with 70+ odd powers...per class...that you'd wanted to create?
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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Jason,
I realize that there is going to be a conversion document, but for every "across the board" change I make, I need to weight it against the value of the change. Is refiguring nearly every NPCs AC worth doing so that we can iron out a few oddities in the armor types. I am not 100% sure that the value here is worth the effort.
I am not saying this cannot be done.. it is just borderline to me. It does not seem to be that huge of an issue, considering the change that would need to be made, especially considering all of the other armor types floating around in other books that I cannot fix.
Step back and think about it a bit...
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing
Sure, I've thought about it. And of course it's easy for me to make free with YOUR time and effort in making conversion notes! It's not the end of the world. It's a fix that I personally would like to see and would probably houserule anyway.
The most purely nice fix would be to rejigger the armor system and smooth out the kinks, but with the backwards compatibility goal looming, it seems that perhaps the best solution in terms of not having to deal with that can of worms is to let AC be what it is (esp. as it ends up pertaining to armor types in other books), and to make the improvements or changes to armor types in a perpendicular kind of way.
That is, to improve armor, don't change the AC of it, change something else about it.
Which gets us back to the proposals of DR or miss chance for armor and shields (and whether shields give an armor/shield bonus (which doesn't work vs. touch) or a cover bonus (which does)).
All right, while it's my pet issue I can keep it in the doghouse and let it run around in there. Instead, my suggestion goes back to one I proposed a month or three ago during the fighter playtest.
That's it.
Short. Sweet. Requires NO change to existing stat blocks and no recalculation of anything. It is absolutely 100% backwards compatible, requiring only a single comment about whether barbarian DR overlaps or stacks with armor/shield DR.
At the low end, ordinary scale/chain/breastplate gives DR 2/magic. Nice, and a decent reason for a lower-level character to suck up the movement penalty of medium armor and actually wear it for a while (getting heavy is better, of course, but probably not until 2nd or 3rd level can you afford it), but nothing gamebreaking.
At the upper end, a high-level fighter in +5 adamantine full plate and a +5 adamantine tower shield would have DR 10/-.
That sounds pretty sweet, but it had better considering the investment in becoming the King of Defense, and then you think of all of the effects that bypass DR (like spells), and all of the monsters the heavy-duty warrior is facing at this level who have DR that he may or may not have the counter for, and it seems like a fair alternative. Sure, monsters can use heavy armor too, but a lot of them will already have DR anyway so it's kind of gilding the lily for them, but essential survival for the PC. Mostly, it's a way to give martial types a better chance to stand up to super-melee monsters at higher levels.
[ooc]Medium and heavy armor and light, heavy, and tower shields (but not light armor or bucklers) gives DR equal to half the armor bonus...
I have played using those exact rules for the DR values, but I used DR\- for all of it. I really like how effective DR for armor was, but at times it was a pain to remember to take DR into account on every hit. Maybe part of it was that my players and I just weren't used to playing with DR but it was somewhat of a hassle.
Just because of the extra bookkeeping, I removed the DR but allowed a fighter to train a feat to pick up the DR (2 feat chain: first one called armor expert provides 1\-, 2\-, and 3\- DR while using light, medium and heavy armors. The second feat is called armor master and provides 1/2 total armor bonus as DR). That way the DR bookkeeping is only limited to those characters willing to train in it.
I wouldn't mind seeing your DR proposal as part of the rules I would be playing with, but I would need to try it again for a longer period to see if I could get used subtracting DR on every hit.
I always viewed the shirt as a haubergeon (partial sleeves and thigh length) compared to full chain being a hauberk (full sleeves and knee length, usually with mail leggings).
The artwork in the Player's Handbook sucks for the armors.
I think basing the movement penalties on total encumbrance instead of armor type might help fix the problem here.
It is not that chain shirt is balance-threatening or even really good. It can somewhat help those who cannot afford better protection (and I don't mean heavier armor) but aren't forbidden to wear it, because it is cost-effective at low levels. That's all. Medium armors, on the other hand, outright blow. They are the problem. Also, using movement-restricting armor in general is not worth it. You can pick up mythral breastplate, when you can afford it on your spare change, anything else wastes your money. If you're aiming to optimize AC, heavier armor is not your friend, class abilities or/and access to spells are. This is a more general problem. Nerfing chain shirt will make the game worse by nerfing an already-weak option.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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It is not that chain shirt is balance-threatening or even really good. It can somewhat help those who cannot afford better protection (and I don't mean heavier armor) but aren't forbidden to wear it, because it is cost-effective at low levels. That's all. Medium armors, on the other hand, outright blow. They are the problem. Also, using movement-restricting armor in general is not worth it. You can pick up mythral breastplate, when you can afford it on your spare change, anything else wastes your money. If you're aiming to optimize AC, heavier armor is not your friend, class abilities or/and access to spells are. This is a more general problem. Nerfing chain shirt will make the game worse by nerfing an already-weak option.
Sure, we all know the whole "light armored characters = better AC" mantra. And we all know that medium armors blow and heavy armors are at best so-so (esp. if you want to play a dwarf and you're already slow).
But mithril breastplate really isn't even better than mithril chain shirt and costs 3000+ more. That's a problem right there.
Also, better protection is often orthogonal to armor - they offer useful protections that are neither helped nor impeded by armor (miss chance, alternate targets, items, class abilities, etc.). That's not true for all, of course, but many of them.
So to the extent that armor has value (whatever extent you believe that to be, which in your case would seem to be not much), the chain shirt is ludicrously more cost-efficient, both in terms of cash and in terms of game-resources (movement, ACP, ASF, class abilities tied to light or no armor) THAN OTHER ARMOR.
A comparison of the chain shirt to non-armor options for defense is only semirelevant to a conversation about comparing the chain shirt to other armor options.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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I always viewed the shirt as a haubergeon (partial sleeves and thigh length) compared to full chain being a hauberk (full sleeves and knee length, usually with mail leggings).
The artwork in the Player's Handbook sucks for the armors.
I think basing the movement penalties on total encumbrance instead of armor type might help fix the problem here.
I've been on record previously (during the fighter playtest) as supporting this idea - encumbrance straight up, not worrying about armor categories for movement.
Jason,
I realize that there is going to be a conversion document, but for every "across the board" change I make, I need to weight it against the value of the change. Is refiguring nearly every NPCs AC worth doing so that we can iron out a few oddities in the armor types. I am not 100% sure that the value here is worth the effort.
I am not saying this cannot be done.. it is just borderline to me. It does not seem to be that huge of an issue, considering the change that would need to be made, especially considering all of the other armor types floating around in other books that I cannot fix.
Step back and think about it a bit...
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing
If I may say Jason, I believe that an armor makeover is worth considering...
I really think there will be more "at last somebody did something about those armors!" than "bother! yet another tweak!" reactions.
'findel
Testify!
I dislike the items which make others obsolete. I have one player in my group who wants to hunt down all those "idiots" who keep making magic chainmail or banded
The way I have changed it for house rules is to make chain shirt medium armor. In addition I only allow mithril armor to make chain shirt, chain mail and banded count as 1 category lighter (which stops the mithril plate wearing barbarian).--but I dont advocate either of these changes for the rules for backwards compatability sake.
If you dont want to change the armors for backwards compatability reasons isnt the solution to introduce different effective and useful medium armor and other armors? (I think monte cook has done this)
beasthide leather, studded leather, scale or hide cost + x gp (not much as it is only competing with 100gp chain shirt) adds 1 ap -1 skill modifier
Reinforced breastplate and chainmail adds 1 ap, -1 skill modifier
Wasn't really expecting armor to change much, so I'll certainly voice my opinion to not really change anything in this regard.
I dont think the chain shirt is the problem... <snip> The problem is that medium and heavy armors need to be made better. There is currently no good reason to wear medium at all, and all the heavy armors are just place holders until you can afford plate.
I agree with Warmaster Spike. I wouldn't tinker with AC or ANY of the other current statistics for the armors, but I would add DR to the Medium and Heavy armors.
All Medium Armors - 5 DR/-
All Heavy Armors - 10 DR/-
I think this would give most armor-users a reason to decide if they really wanted to stay in Light Armor or absorb and shrug-off damage, like a "Tank". (Tanks aren't hard to destroy because they're hard to hit, they're hard to destroy because they're hard to damage.)
The DR would be according to whatever the base armor started at aka Mithril Fullplate is still DR 10, despite the fact that it's a Medium armor when Mithril.
I admit the numbers may be a bit high, wouldn't know until I've playtested it some, they might have to drop to 3 & 5 DR respectively.
A comparison of the chain shirt to non-armor options for defense is only semirelevant to a conversation about comparing the chain shirt to other armor options.
It is wholly relevant. To determine the direction of the fix, we must determine, whether the chain shirt is overpowered, or other armors are underpowered. Clearly, the latter is true. Generally, you cannot get even semi-decent AC through armor and shield, without crippling yourself (in the terms of mobility and/or finances). While both spellcasters and un/lightly-armored characters can have better AC without the restrictions. To nerf armor even more? Uh, no, thanks. If armor cannot be reworked completely, then leave the chain shirt as it is.
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Director of Game Design
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I am curious about a little something. I continue to see the argument that "the unarmored or lightly armored PC can easily have a higher AC than the heavily armored PC". Although I have my thoughts about where this is coming from, I am curious to see how this plays out from your angle. Please dump your rational behind spoiler buttons so as to not completely derail this thread...
I get curious as 12:30am... what can I say.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing
Okay. A few examples.
2. The second way to buff AC, stacking Ability X to AC, does not yet work really well at 5th level (too low for prestige-dipping). Except for Wizdom-based Sworsage 4/Monk 1 - this one goes to have at least AC 20 from Wiz alone. Sure, not optimal offensive build - but the heavy armor-wearers must gimp themselves even more to have AC above 19 at this level, by either using shield (thus failing at offense) or making their expensive fullplate ridiculously expensive by making it out of mythral AND investing in Dex, which does not synergise with their expected role on the battlefield at all. Also, if your AC is not at least 20 at 5th level, and you're a frontliner, you might not bother with it at all.
If we remain within the core, Dex-based characters, like rogues and ranger archers, probably have about Dex 22 at this level, because they actually aren't totally crippled by investing in Dex at the expense of Str. And they can pack mythral chain shirt for AC 20 - that's less expensive than mundane full plate and does not interfere much with their offense (you're sneak attack/favored enemy dependent anyway, so you better off investing in Dex.) And rogues can try to use, say, some of the above-mentioned spells on themselves with UMD - admittedly at 5th level it might be not the best idea, but as UMD-using classes gain levels this becomes viable or even necessary.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6
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I've always found it fairly practical to get a decent AC via heavy armor, and eventually an animated shield. It avoids the opportunity cost of lost spell slots, for one thing. I have two fairly successful high level characters using this (one 12th, one 15th). Both are tank-style melee damage engines.
As to why I thing that any character that expects to be in melee often should have AC above 20 by level 5th (and credible offensive, which mostly excludes SAB), that should be pretty obvious from a single look even at the first monster manual. Because vanilla melee monsters at CR 5 tend to hit AC 20 40-60% of the time and have several attacks. Most also have various abilities, like DR, regeneration, fast healing, pounce, etc., that allow them to win the slugging match with fighter, probably even with hasted fighter, unless said fighter smashes things with best and biggest two-handed weapon he can find. Also, by level 5 you very musch need at least a relative mook immunity (i.e., being hit only on a 20), because being dogpiled by, say, bunch of ghouls, or a crowd of orc warriors is not fun otherwise.
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Wasn't really expecting armor to change much, so I'll certainly voice my opinion to not really change anything in this regard.
I have to agree. I just don't see enough of a problem to really make any changes. I disagree that Medium Armor is just a holdover until Plate, as several classes are just plain never going to be able to use any heavy armor. I also disagree that 10 feet of movement is worth enough to sacrifice +1 AC. The barbarian gets that movement back, dwarves are not really affected at all by it.
The last character I played was a cleric and I stopped my armor at Breastplate, simply because I was not a front line fighter and had no real need for better armor. The Armor Check Penalty wasn't that big of a deal either.
I think Armor as is, is good enough.
And in another post about adding DR to armor, while I like the concept, we tried it after Unearthed Arcana came out and found combats lasted a LOT longer. It just wasn't worth the aggravation of long combats.
Forgot to add that I used examples from level 5 mostly because at this level non-touch AC can be somewhat viable as primary defense and because normal armor still can be important. Two levels forward and you must invest serious money into magic bonuses or be glad if bog-standard MM I meleers hit you only on 6. Alternatively you can cripple youself by taking purely-defensive feats. Which is going to backlash, sooner or later, either because monsters still are going to outclass AC from armor, enhancements or core feats at high level, or because most of the serious opponents do not need to target full AC.
I long ago came to terms with the fact that, past 4th level, there were only three armors in the game: Mithral Chain Shirt, Mithral Full Plate, and Adamantine Full Plate.
In a way, it doesn't bother me anymore. By boiling it down to effectively two armor types, I've given up on "realism" for the purposes of armor. A lightly armored character is wearing armor that gives them +4 AC, +6 Max Dex, 10% ASF, and 0 ACP or Move penalty. And, as far as I'm concerned as a DM or player, it doesn't matter what that armor looks like. It could be a chainmail bikini, really big shoulder pads and a small breast plate (a la Deedlit) or even just a really cool coat. I'm fine with it, as it allows a character to look like how they want to look, without worrying about whether it fits their mechanical armor.
I wouldn't tear my hair out if something was changed to make medium and heavy armors better (I tend to favor light fighters, but that's for many reasons), but I have no issue with it as it stands. PCs wear mithral chain shirts or fullplate, and the world turns less on what kind of armor, then on which style they've decided to follow - light or heavy. Fine by me and my players, for the most part.
