The Gaming Den

Technically, it is identical to "DR/Piercing or Bludgeoning" but that just shows how unintuitive that phrasing is in practice.

I should also include that for people allocating magic items rather than using WBL for characters created above 1st level, any armor that costs 2,000gp or more should count as a Lesser Item on its own. So if you're starting at 4th level with 4 Lesser items, you could have 3 items and a Lesser magic chain shirt, 3 items and a nonmagical Mithril shirt, or 2 items and Lesser Mithril.

Most of this is great and all, and removing the difference between Armor Check Penalty and Armor Stealth Penalty is fine, but removing that your penalty to the Stealth skills goes down as your BAB goes up is not fine.

That rule is very specifically there because if one person in the party can't participate in the stealth game then the whole party is forced to either leave them behind or just not use stealth at all. And that's a shitty choice.

So, even if you use all the rest of what's written here, the rule about your penalty to Hide and Move Silently going down as your BAB goes up should be kept in.

The ability of will steel armor references "leather" damage converting to nonleathal damage.

Another suggestion: all armors that convert damage equal to the wearer's BAB to nonleathal should add the armor bonus to BAB for that calculation; it dosen't affect how soon you drop in a fight but it does give the more expensive and heavier armors the ability to get you in another fight more quickly.

Lokathor wrote:That rule is very specifically there because if one person in the party can't participate in the stealth game then the whole party is forced to either leave them behind or just not use stealth at all. And that's a shitty choice.

So your position is that by reducing the penalty for heavily armored characters by one point every two levels, that these characters will magically be able to do stealth missions?

Heavy armor averages around a -5 penalty to Move Silently checks. That means that it'll be level 7 before the penalty is reduced by even one point, and level 15 before the penalty is completely gone. Now, I don't know if you've looked at the D&D skills system lately, but a character at level 15 that hasn't been putting ranks in Move Silently (like most heavy armor wearers) and doesn't have a high Dex (like most heavy armor wearers) isn't going to pass any Move Silently rolls against equivalent level opposition regardless of ACP. Seriously, at low levels your BaB isn't high enough to reduce it and at high levels it doesn't kick in until it's too late anyway.

So how can heavy armor wearers participate in stealth? Well, Oil of Silence works for single encounters, or the Rogue can UMD a wand for protracted stealth missions. If you know ahead of time then Silk Steel is available to suit up the lumbering Fighter or Paladin at levels where they might actually pass a roll. But reducing the penalty by a tiny amount at high levels is not some kind of wonder fix for group stealth being a clusterfuck in D&D.

Hicks wrote:The ability of will steel armor references "leather" damage converting to nonleathal damage.

I looked for this error and couldn't find it anywhere? Did you mean Silk Steel, because I checked that section and it said lethal.

Hicks wrote:Another suggestion: all armors that convert damage equal to the wearer's BAB to nonleathal should add the armor bonus to BAB for that calculation; it dosen't affect how soon you drop in a fight but it does give the more expensive and heavier armors the ability to get you in another fight more quickly.

It does seem a common thread that people think the "convert to non-lethal" power needs a boost. Chamomile didn't like it either.

Currently anything that prevents physical damage keys off your BaB, to represent Warriors being better trained at fighting, whilst ER from Dragonscale is equal to the armor bonus of the armor, to represent better coverage protecting you more against the area effect of dragon breath or fireballs. The Plate armor ability could convert Lethal to Non-Lethal equal to Armor bonus rather than BaB - that would make the ability punchier at low levels. Converting 8 damage to Non-Lethal at third level would make almost every hit into non-lethal damage, and would definitely extend the healing resources of a lower level party.

After looking it over I don't think changing the converting to Non-lethal power to work off AC bonus is a good idea. It effectively becomes DR/- for anything immune to Non-Lethal damage, which includes Undead. A Skeleton or Zombie with a Breastplate should not get DR 6/- at CR 1.

Is there a reason that the Spined armor enhancement can't work as an attack action, instead of a standard action? Could be an interesting bow replacement in that case.

I think I originally had it do D10 damage, so I was a little wary about getting multiple shots at low levels. But yeah, I can't see any reason it shouldn't be an attack action to extend it's usefulness a little past level 6. I'll edit it.

My wife and I have adopted these armors for our campaign. We have just completed the sunless citidel and finally have enough loot to pay for decent armors.

The thaumaturge 1/fighter 1/eldritch knight 4 is using MW get fullplate and a MW tower shield, shooting for sword and board.
Greml the NPC goblin cleric 3 damaged love interest is using great armor, because it's totally pimp for cleric archers.
Meepo is now a cohort rogue 4 sporting brigandine and a buckled.

Treasure in that published adventure is pretty anemic: a party going from 1st to 4th should have received ~24,000gp of stuff, we've found less than 8,000gp. This is me making the best of a treasure poor situation.

Nice to know these are proving useful! Our group has been using them in our campaigns for a few months and they seem fairly balanced. A few people on here have said the Full Plate ability is too weak, any thoughts on individual armors?

On a side note, I've been thinking Troll hide should be increased to Fast Healing 5. Currently it only gives 1, which is basically unlimited out of combat healing, but at the levels you get it you pretty much have that anyway. Upping it to 5 makes it more relevant at mid levels.

All the BAB damage to nonleathal abilities are weaksauce. Many many characters have +0 BAB at first level and the ability does nothing , and at a level where healing is so rare those one or two points of healing nonleathal damage healed don't really save spell slots from being burned on out of combat healing.

Say that the wearer of those armors can choose to suffer from nonleathal damage instead of lethal damage, unless they can't suffer because they are immune to nonleathal damage. Limiting the amount seems unnecessary because the ability does not stop you from dying right now in combat; better to make these armors more useful to a wider variety of creatures than grant undead and constructs super special DR/- at an extreme discount.

Hicks wrote:All the BAB damage to nonleathal abilities are weaksauce. Many many characters have +0 BAB at first level and the ability does nothing.

That isn't unique to Plate armor. Quite a few of the armor abilities are keyed off BaB, and provide nothing other than AC for 1st level rogues and clerics. It's one of the bonuses of being a full BaB class, being able to use armor more effectively in a fight.

Hicks wrote:Say that the wearer of those armors can choose to suffer from nonleathal damage instead of lethal damage, unless they can't suffer because they are immune to nonleathal damage. Limiting the amount seems unnecessary because the ability does not stop you from dying right now in combat; better to make these armors more useful to a wider variety of creatures than grant undead and constructs super special DR/- at an extreme discount.

I kind of like this idea, but it does seem to almost negate the benefit of changing some of the damage to Nonlethal. Let's say you take 6 damage at level 2. Currently, you take 4 lethal and 2 non-lethal. This means that a Cure Light Wounds after the fight effectively heals +2 hit points. If you change it all to non-lethal then the Cure spell still only heals the normal amount. Also, changing all the damage to Non-Lethal might introduce some funky interactions at higher levels when characters have ways to remove or ignore that damage.

To be honest, I'm kind of comfortable with Plate and Breastplates having a slightly weaker ability than other armors as their AC is higher, so it creates a bit of a trade-off and prevents there being one "best" armor at low levels. Plus, their ability works on all lethal physical damage, which none of the other armors does.

If you want to try out the "all damage to Non-lethal" option in your game and report the results I'd be happy to look at how it plays out.

I have done just that. So far, it has played out like an item of fast healing, only way slower as healing your level in nonleathal damage each hour is B-A-L-L-S slow.

Time for a little bit of necromancy, I notice that none of the heavy armors, shields, or great shields got the "This armor is already masterwork and cannot be further improved" line. I assume this is an oversight?

Oops, yeah. Must have forgotten to copy those over from my master sheet.

It's pretty obvious which would get the tag, but I'll go and edit it in.

Yeah, I was pretty sure I knew what ones needed it, but I wanted it from your own mouth before I committed it to the PDF. Which I have now, except for the magic armors, which will find their way into the magic item chapter.

Since no one has mentioned it, wtf is with the ACP on the mundane great shields? -10? -12!? Most people in mundane land go straight to staggering around if they pick one of those up, and that's really weird. Great shields might be a case where you need a lower ACP and an additional penalty to everything else (like you mentioned in the ASP bit) instead of the current numbers.

[Edit] Barely thought out suggestion for your consideration:
Drop tower shield / bone wall to -4ACP and kappa shell to -5ACP.
Add new line to Great Shields: all great shields confer a -5 penalty to <those skills that ACP hits and arcane spell failure thing>. Additionally, attacks made while using a great shield carry a -2 penalty.
Remove the kappa attack penalty, it's in a good place with the worse ACP and higher cost.

You know what, I've never played a character that used a Tower Shield so I've never noticed how bullshit that is. You're right of course, it is kind of ridiculous that a tower shield and armor is impossible for any normal human to use in battle.

Looking at it, I think it is reasonable to expect your average level 1 warrior to be able to fight in medium armor and a tower shield.



Medium armor tops out at around -5ACP for the basic stuff, so a +1 BaB character could take another -5 ACP without being penalised beyond "unable to run". I think that is a reasonable level for your basic Great Shield, and it would mean you could simply have the rule be "Great shield ACP counts double for skills and ASF", which is a little easier to remember than adding 5 every time.

Although I'm not sure you really need that extra penalty, an extra -5 ACP might be enough on it's own.

Red_Rob wrote: Medium armor tops out at around -5ACP for the basic stuff, so a +1 BaB character could take another -5 ACP without being penalised beyond "unable to run"..

I suppose the only "shenanigans!" problem with that is... those legionnaires totally did run with those. Clearly dropping them to flee allowed FASTER running... but they did run.

Also, does having the shield "unequipped" but still on your person (hooked on your back, or something) still apply ACP?

Shouldn't, even in 3.5 just having a shield on your person doesn't apply ACP, though your carrying capacity might.

codeGlaze wrote:

Red_Rob wrote: Medium armor tops out at around -5ACP for the basic stuff, so a +1 BaB character could take another -5 ACP without being penalised beyond "unable to run"..

I suppose the only "shenanigans!" problem with that is... those legionnaires totally did run with those. Clearly dropping them to flee allowed FASTER running... but they did run.

You can still take two move actions even if you can't "run", which is equivalent to a jog. That seems fine to me.

Been uploading this one to the wiki too, here's what I've come across in the translation process:

- Demon Armor: the magic ability is pretty "meh" when used normally, and can only really be used abusively to get any good effect.

Ack, the great shield ACPs are still fucked. And got wiki'ed that way :-/

Yeah, I didn't modify the source material at all. That's easy enough to change though once Rob decides on the final numbers/language. If the TarkisFlux numbers sound good (and it looks like Rob signed off on them), I'll update them and the new shield language post haste.