Author Topic: What is the point of medium and heavy armor?  (Read 110053 times)

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weenog

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Re: What is the point of medium and heavy armor?
« Reply #80 on: January 11, 2011, 05:22:31 PM »
If the kobolds are stupid enough to just be attacking with weapons, they deserve to be made to cry.  Plain vanilla kobolds' primary advantage is numbers.  They play merry hell with action economy.  You know what people with not much money but with plenty of actions do when they want to use energy damage to go around damage reduction? Oil and a thrown torch.  It's not difficult to have the entire party on fire and taking damage at CR 2 or 3 when your individual CR is 1/4.  Even a CR 1, just 4 kobolds, is enough to set two guys on fire per round.  How many heavy armor wearers do you expect in a party, anyway?
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Sunic_Flames

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Re: What is the point of medium and heavy armor?
« Reply #81 on: January 11, 2011, 06:21:53 PM »
FAIL!

UA AC as DR rules make you take more damage, not less.
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weenog

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Re: What is the point of medium and heavy armor?
« Reply #82 on: January 11, 2011, 06:34:58 PM »
How you think you're impressing anybody with complaining repeatedly that achievable AC does nothing significant to reduce incoming damage, and then complaining that swapping a small chunk of it for DR also does nothing significant to reduce incoming damage, when all you really bring is insults, large print, the occasional silly picture, and frequent abuse of the No True Scotsman fallacy, is beyond me.

You got some rulebook knowledge but you can't argue to save your life, SF.  I don't claim to be a master of it myself, but at least I'm not making any lofty boasts about my logic.
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Shadowhunter

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Re: What is the point of medium and heavy armor?
« Reply #83 on: January 11, 2011, 08:04:47 PM »
I've always thought that the heavy armor should be the only one that could take Heavy Fortification, since it needs to cover a lot to cover everything.

So, available Fortification enhancements based upon type:
Light Armor: Light 25%
Medium: Light 25%/Moderate 75%
Heavy: Light 25%/Moderate 75%/Heavy 100%
[Spoiler]
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Mixster

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Re: What is the point of medium and heavy armor?
« Reply #84 on: January 11, 2011, 08:09:58 PM »
I've always thought that the heavy armor should be the only one that could take Heavy Fortification, since it needs to cover a lot to cover everything.

So, available Fortification enhancements based upon type:
Light Armor: Light 25%
Medium: Light 25%/Moderate 75%
Heavy: Light 25%/Moderate 75%/Heavy 100%

That makes sense, what would you do to heavy fortification on shields?

How you think you're impressing anybody with complaining repeatedly that achievable AC does nothing significant to reduce incoming damage, and then complaining that swapping a small chunk of it for DR also does nothing significant to reduce incoming damage, when all you really bring is insults, large print, the occasional silly picture, and frequent abuse of the No True Scotsman fallacy, is beyond me.

You got some rulebook knowledge but you can't argue to save your life, SF.  I don't claim to be a master of it myself, but at least I'm not making any lofty boasts about my logic.

While I do agree with you there, I think I also stated the point that DR does really little to practically reduce damage, at least for monsters. For PCs it's a little better. But ability damage is usually worse than HP damage in my eyes anyway, so things that stop that are better IMO.
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wotmaniac

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Re: What is the point of medium and heavy armor?
« Reply #85 on: January 11, 2011, 09:44:22 PM »
I've always thought that the heavy armor should be the only one that could take Heavy Fortification, since it needs to cover a lot to cover everything.

So, available Fortification enhancements based upon type:
Light Armor: Light 25%
Medium: Light 25%/Moderate 75%
Heavy: Light 25%/Moderate 75%/Heavy 100%

That makes sense, what would you do to heavy fortification on shields?
hows about:
buckler: Light 25%
light shield: Light 25%/Moderate 75%
heavy shield: Light 25%/Moderate 75%/Heavy 100%
:shrug

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Shadowhunter

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Re: What is the point of medium and heavy armor?
« Reply #86 on: January 11, 2011, 09:48:49 PM »
I'm hesitant to see a shield totally negating precision damage since it covers only a part of the body. But that might just be my misguided sense of "realism" ;)

So I'd say that you could toss Light Fort. on Bucklers and Light, while Moderate on Heavy and Tower.
[Spoiler]
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Quote from: Vinom
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veekie

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Re: What is the point of medium and heavy armor?
« Reply #87 on: January 11, 2011, 11:16:45 PM »
How you think you're impressing anybody with complaining repeatedly that achievable AC does nothing significant to reduce incoming damage, and then complaining that swapping a small chunk of it for DR also does nothing significant to reduce incoming damage, when all you really bring is insults, large print, the occasional silly picture, and frequent abuse of the No True Scotsman fallacy, is beyond me.
I think its more an issue with how UA does it than with the concept though.
DR pays and pays well in the long run for melee, as long as your AC to DR exchange rate is at least comparable to the PA ratio AND scales with level via enhancement bonuses.
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juton

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Re: What is the point of medium and heavy armor?
« Reply #88 on: January 12, 2011, 12:08:14 AM »
How effective AC and DR will be is dependent on your DM and your character concept but I'm confident both will make a difference. For a baseline, at level 10 getting your character to AC 30 will mean you will notice a reduction in attacks hitting you, every point above that is even better. Getting DR 5/- at that level is also a noticeable improvement, although a small one, getting your DR up to 10 really helps a PC's longevity, stone skin is definitely worth casting. AC and DR matter, if you have enough of them.

veekie

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Re: What is the point of medium and heavy armor?
« Reply #89 on: January 12, 2011, 12:35:32 AM »
Yeah, but the perk of DR is its noticeable on a long day and in particular, keeps cumulative damage from plinking you to death(leading cause of Death By Full Attack), it works whether or not you get hit, and physical damage is generally more consistent and less variable per dose than to hits.
The mind transcends the body.
It's also a little cold because of that.
Please get it a blanket.

I wish I could read your mind,
I can barely read mine.

"Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. At 2:15, it begins rolling up characters."

[spoiler]
"Just what do you think the moon up in the sky is? Everyone sees that big, round shiny thing and thinks there must be something round up there, right? That's just silly. The truth is much more awesome than that. You can almost never see the real Moon, and its appearance is death to humans. You can only see the Moon when it's reflected in things. And the things it reflects in, like water or glass, can all be broken, right? Since the moon you see in the sky is just being reflected in the heavens, if you tear open the heavens it's easy to break it~"
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Khiliarkhou Astrape!
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X-Codes

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Re: What is the point of medium and heavy armor?
« Reply #90 on: January 12, 2011, 02:12:06 AM »
I have to pop back in and defend my houserules.

Level 1 guy in heavy armor moves at 20' speed and runs at 3x speed.
Kobold moves at 30' speed and runs at 4x speed.

Have one or two kobolds distract heavy armor guy while the rest attack squishier characters.

zugschef

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Re: What is the point of medium and heavy armor?
« Reply #91 on: January 12, 2011, 03:03:31 AM »
i have made a homebrew some time ago. why not just post it here...

Quote
VARIANT: BAB-based Armor Scaling

I. Introduction
II. Basic Mechanic
III. To do!



I. Introduction

Armor in DnD scales poorly. Medium and heavy armor even tend to cause more trouble than they help a character: Think of the penalties to skills and movement speed. At high levels a mithral breast plate +5 is usually the best armor available to melee types, because it's considered light armor. Thus, a fighter's armor proficiencies only provide an advantage compared to other classes in the early levels of the game, when he cannot afford full plate, yet. Later on, full plate becomes a suboptimal choice in most cases. This variant tries to change this flaw.

Since bab represents your combat prowess, it should not only affect your offense but your defense, too. The new mechanic lets you add a portion of your bab to your normal AC. This effect increases the heavier your armor is. In in-game terms this means that your character has learned to protect the vulnerable areas not covered by his armor, and because heavier armor has less weak points, they are easier to defend which results in a bigger bonus to AC.


II. Basic Mechanic

The base attack bonus represents a character's experience and skill in combat. Based on that, you gain a bonus to your AC which improves the heavier your armor is.

A character who doesn't wear armor, wears light armor or is not proficient with the armor worn, gains no bonus to AC. Medium armor grants bab/6 (round down, maximum +3) to AC and heavy armor grants bab/4 (round down, maximum +5) to a character's AC.

This armor bonus is active only while you are not flat-footed or denied your dexterity bonus to AC and does not add to your touch AC. Further, only your normal base attack bonus is taken into account to determine the AC bonus; effects such as the one from the divine power spell do not count.

Tordek the fighter has a bab of 14, a dexterity modifier of 0 and wears a full plate +3. Since he wears heavy armor, he may add one-quarter of his bab to AC as long as he is not flat-footed or denied his dexterity bonus to AC. In effect, he has an AC of 24 rather than 21.


III. To Do!

full plate and half plate give the same bonus, as do chain mail and splint mail... is that a problem?
doesn't it break d20's core mechanic when you let bab influence ac?
shouldn't this bonus also increase touch ac? but if yes, how do you explain it in in-game terms?

Sunic_Flames

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Re: What is the point of medium and heavy armor?
« Reply #92 on: January 12, 2011, 12:55:30 PM »
How you think you're impressing anybody with complaining repeatedly that achievable AC does nothing significant to reduce incoming damage, and then complaining that swapping a small chunk of it for DR also does nothing significant to reduce incoming damage, when all you really bring is insults, large print, the occasional silly picture, and frequent abuse of the No True Scotsman fallacy, is beyond me.

You got some rulebook knowledge but you can't argue to save your life, SF.  I don't claim to be a master of it myself, but at least I'm not making any lofty boasts about my logic.

Herp derp all you want. And then remember that variant lowers AC by x, and gives DR x/- of the same amount. Which means everything PAs you, and does the same or more damage as it otherwise would. Usually more. Now I didn't bother spelling out the blatantly obvious, because I was on BG, and was therefore under the erroneous assumption that everyone here was intelligent enough to immediately understand why such a tactic fails without my having to explain it. However, your idiocy is noted, and will be considered in the future.

Also, anything less than Heavy Fort is worthless.
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Sunic may be more abrasive than sandpaper coated in chainsaws (not that its a bad thing, he really does know what he's talking about), but just posting in this thread without warning and telling him he's an asshole which, if you knew his past experiences on WotC and Paizo is flat-out uncalled for. Never mind the insults (which are clearly 4Chan-level childish). You say people like Sunic are the bane of the internet? Try looking at your own post and telling me you are better than him.

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weenog

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Re: What is the point of medium and heavy armor?
« Reply #93 on: January 12, 2011, 02:04:28 PM »
That's nice.  Because you can't get armor bonuses to AC from other sources that are big enough to make up for the loss and get you back to a value at or near what you'd have without getting any DR for it.  Oh wait, you totally can do that, at which point the DR option isn't beneficial how exactly?  Something hitting you with an energy attack doesn't care about your DR, granted, but it tends not to care about any armor bonus to your AC either, so that's just breaking even.
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Sunic_Flames

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Re: What is the point of medium and heavy armor?
« Reply #94 on: January 12, 2011, 02:27:02 PM »
That's nice.  Because you can't get armor bonuses to AC from other sources that are big enough to make up for the loss and get you back to a value at or near what you'd have without getting any DR for it.  Oh wait, you totally can do that, at which point the DR option isn't beneficial how exactly?  Something hitting you with an energy attack doesn't care about your DR, granted, but it tends not to care about any armor bonus to your AC either, so that's just breaking even.

Even with armor granting its full value, you cannot have a relevant AC, so no. And anything you could have gotten to raise your physical defense you could have gotten either way, so no matter what you take the same or more damage from absolutely everything.
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Sunic may be more abrasive than sandpaper coated in chainsaws (not that its a bad thing, he really does know what he's talking about), but just posting in this thread without warning and telling him he's an asshole which, if you knew his past experiences on WotC and Paizo is flat-out uncalled for. Never mind the insults (which are clearly 4Chan-level childish). You say people like Sunic are the bane of the internet? Try looking at your own post and telling me you are better than him.

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Maat_Mons

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Re: What is the point of medium and heavy armor?
« Reply #95 on: January 12, 2011, 02:34:39 PM »
FAIL! UA AC as DR rules make you take more damage, not less.

That might be a relevant comment if you were responding to a post about that Unearthed Arcana variant.  Since you were responding to a post about X-Codes' homebrew variant that increases the armor bonus and adds DR on top of that, I submit that it is you who has failed. 

weenog

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Re: What is the point of medium and heavy armor?
« Reply #96 on: January 12, 2011, 02:35:33 PM »
So trading away some AC (which you can get back, except it's irrelevant anyway so you needn't bother) for some damage reduction makes you take more damage, not less.

And I suppose if you do recover the sacrificed AC, so you have the AC and the damage reduction, you're taking more damage twice, once for AC that doesn't matter and once for damage reduction that doesn't matter.

Interesting.
« Last Edit: January 12, 2011, 02:37:49 PM by weenog »
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juton

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Re: What is the point of medium and heavy armor?
« Reply #97 on: January 12, 2011, 04:10:54 PM »
Even with armor granting its full value, you cannot have a relevant AC, so no. And anything you could have gotten to raise your physical defense you could have gotten either way, so no matter what you take the same or more damage from absolutely everything.

You absolutely can get relevant AC at almost every level. My definition of relevant is, at worst a BBEG has to use less power attack to hit reliably. If you've built your character with AC in mind it's probably not too much of a stretch that even a boss will have to forgo power attack to reliably hit you at all.

X-Codes

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Re: What is the point of medium and heavy armor?
« Reply #98 on: January 12, 2011, 04:14:59 PM »
Even with armor granting its full value, you cannot have a relevant AC, so no. And anything you could have gotten to raise your physical defense you could have gotten either way, so no matter what you take the same or more damage from absolutely everything.

You absolutely can get relevant AC at almost every level. My definition of relevant is, at worst a BBEG has to use less power attack to hit reliably. If you've built your character with AC in mind it's probably not too much of a stretch that even a boss will have to forgo power attack to reliably hit you at all.
This is the big reason why I never really understood the arguments against AC...

weenog

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Re: What is the point of medium and heavy armor?
« Reply #99 on: January 12, 2011, 04:20:07 PM »
I wonder if what happens is that people mean to say that AC will not be as effective (nor in many cases as efficient) as non-AC defenses such as multiple separately-checked miss chances, immunities, interrupts like Abjurant Jaunt and the like, and wind up mistakenly just saying that AC will not be effective, and then just carry it much further than they should due to being unwilling, or unable, to admit they fucked up.
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