Laying out all the issues with Tome Armor

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Laying out all the issues with Tome Armor

Post by Josh_Kablack »

Disclaimer 1: I'm working from the Tome0.7rev139 PDF.
Disclaimed 2: this is not a solutions thread, it's a short, profanity laced rant followed by some brief suggestions. At some point in the mid to far future I may actually use this rant to do the needed editing and implement some solutions.
Disclaimer 3: Most, if not all of these have been brought up before, this is just collecting them in one single rant.

  1. Fucking Armor Proficiencies - how do they work?
  2. For the love of Vecna, what possessed you to think Armor Stealth Penalty was a good idea? It's just like armor check penalty with an arbitrary +/- 2 applied.
  3. Does heavier-than-light armor reduce movement in tome or not? The world may never know
  4. Penalty Reductions by level - what a great idea, and what a crying shame the execution was to bring back THAC0, and then add division, subtraction and exclusion steps.
  5. Why do all these dozens of different types of armors do one of the exact fucking same three things for the first 5 levels?
  6. Since they all do one of the same exact three fucking things, why should players care about anything but getting their sweet spot of Armor Bonus + Max Dex? Are pillowfights really such a big deal in this game that reducing nonlethal damage is worth gaining a point of AC for?
  7. Ohhhh, lookie at these shiny new suits of armor we found. So who's got both heavy armor and ranks in Knowledge: Engineering to unlock the Mechanus Armor's bonuses? knight? cleric? Bueller? Bueller? Nope. Okay, how about this suit of Silk Steel, either of you heavy armor 4-or-fewer skill point per level, int meaningless guys sink ranks into Move Silently - which isn't even on your class skill list? Why-the hell not, don't you guys like armor?
  8. Wait, you're saying there are armors other than Adamantine on this list? You gotta be shittin' me here.
  9. Is there even reason to wear heavy armor after mid levels, when you can be pumping your dex bonus (via items or magic) while wearing medium armors for the same total AC but better touch AC, lower penalties and maybe faster movement? I mean Tome is full of stuff like the Fire Mage and similar options, who by mid level are making a pair of ranged touch attacks every round, so it's not like the heavier flatfooted AC of heavier armor and lower dex is even arguably compensating.



Proposed solutions

1. In addition to classes granting proficiencies, we need Tome Scaling Armor Proficiency feat(s). Either one general Armor Proficiency feat that lets you gain proficiency as a "practice for a day" exploit with a specified number of particular-suits similar to Tome XWPs as the base ability or three feats different feats - one each for Light, Medium and Heavy armors that grant different and yet sometimes synergistic abilities.

2. Armor Stealth Penalty goes away as the needless complication that it is. Armor that is supposed to be more stealthy than normal can just get that as a property. Armor that is supposed to be less stealthy than normal can just have a high ACP and a property that give a bonus to the other things ACP applies to.

3. Probably fairest and easiest to leave movement reductions as part of the non-proficient penalties, and let people in heavy armor tear around at full speed.

4. Simplify the scaling fractional negative penalty reductions to explicit break points, and use those break points as part of either the feat or armor scaling abilities.

5 & 6: Suit-by-suit editing is needed. DR vs nonlethal is not a real ability and should be reserved as a tradeoff for armor that is awesome on AC and Dex alone. Particularly the low-level abilities should be distinct on just about every suit of armor and repeats shouldn't show up until at least the 5th level ability. Probably useful to make a lot of the conditional damage reductions a bit less conditional but move them to the 5th level ability.

7: Either great care needs to be taken that skill-based armor keys off of skills that classes which get the relevant proficiency are likely to have and/or armor abilities need to key off one of multiple different skills and/or heavier armors should have 0 level abilities that any wearer can access. (similar to how Tome feats have a base level ability) and/or armor prof feats can let you treat armor abilities as though you had the relevant skill ranks.

8: The above mentioned suit-by-suit editing needs a Nerfbat here.

9: If heavier armor has any sort of slower movement or harsher skill penalties, or just rarer proficiency than lighter armors, then both the best-case and the average case AC and ability setups need to be outright better than those cases for lighter armors in order to compensate. This can be accomplished by giving heavier armor zero-level ability slots and paying more attention to the Max Dex + AC and penalty totals for low-dex, med-dex and crazy dex characters with whichever type of penalty reduction or Max Dex increase is decided on.
Last edited by Josh_Kablack on Sun Oct 23, 2011 3:49 am, edited 5 times in total.
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Post by Psychic Robot »

stop penalizing fighters by reducing movement rate. just roll that straight into encumbrance.
Last edited by Psychic Robot on Thu Oct 20, 2011 9:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by BearsAreBrown »

Is Heavy Armor better then Light Armor?
This needs to be answered. The proficiency is a cost, but if it doesn't grant a benefit what's the point?

What's worth noting is that the armor abilities are all over the place. Fast Healing 1, +2 to Diplomacy, +2d6 on charge, and ER=AC bonus to one type. These are all somehow supposed to be worth the same amount.
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Re: Laying out all the issues with Tome Armor

Post by RadiantPhoenix »

Josh_Kablack wrote:Disclaimer 1: I'm working from the Tome0.9rev139 PDF.
Where did you find this? I can only find up to 0.7rev139
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Re: Laying out all the issues with Tome Armor

Post by CatharzGodfoot »

Josh_Kablack wrote:Disclaimer 1: I'm working from the Tome0.9rev139 PDF.
Disclaimed 2: this is not a solutions thread, it's a short, profanity laced rant followed by some brief suggestions. At some point in the mid to far future I may actually use this rant to do the needed editing and implement some solutions.
Disclaimer 3: Most, if not all of these have been brought up before, this is just collecting them in one single rant.

  1. Fucking Armor Proficiencies - how do they work?

Same as ever.

Josh_Kablack wrote:[*]For the love of Vecna, what possessed you to think Armor Stealth Penalty was a good idea? It's just like armor check penalty with an arbitrary +/- 2 applied.
No idea, but sometimes it's a lot more than ±2. And it distinguishes between heavy armors and noisy armors, letting you do stuff like padding your plate (which makes it harder to move but quieter).
Josh_Kablack wrote:[*]Does heavier-than-light armor reduce movement in tome or not? The world may never know
Yes. Read the section on armor check penalties.
Josh_Kablack wrote:[*]Penalty Reductions by level - what a great idea, and what a crying shame the execution was to bring back anncoultering THAC0, and then add division, subtraction and exclusion steps.
It's obnoxious, but you only have to do it once.
Josh_Kablack wrote:[*]Why do all these dozens of different types of armors do one of the exact fucking same three things for the first 5 levels?
It's hard to come up with good abilities. Makes me sad.
Josh_Kablack wrote:[*]Since they all do one of the same exact three fucking things, why should players care about anything but getting their sweet spot of Armor Bonus + Max Dex? Are pillowfights really such a big deal in this game that reducing nonlethal damage is worth gaining a point of AC for?
You don't until you get to higher levels.
Josh_Kablack wrote:[*]Ohhhh, lookie at these shiny new suits of armor we found. So who's got both heavy armor and ranks in Knowledge: Engineering to unlock the Mechanus Armor's bonuses? knight? cleric? Bueller? Bueller? Nope. Okay, how about this suit of Silk Steel, either of you heavy armor 4-or-fewer skill point per level, int meaningless guys sink ranks into Move Silently - which isn't even on your class skill list? Why-the hell not, don't you guys like armor?
Most armors run off of BAB, because that's good for high-BAB characters. Others are for niche characters. Mechanus armor is good in general, but very good for the siege engineer or mechanic. Silk steel armor is for sneaking in. If you don't have ranks in Move Silently, you don't care anyway.
Josh_Kablack wrote:[*]Wait, you're saying there are armors other than Adamantine on this list? You gotta be shittin' me here.
?
Josh_Kablack wrote:[*]Is there even reason to wear heavy armor after mid levels, when you can be pumping your dex bonus (via items or magic) while wearing medium armors for the same total AC but better touch AC, lower penalties and maybe faster movement? I mean Tome is full of stuff like the Fire Mage and similar options, who by mid level are making a pair of ranged touch attacks every round, so it's not like the heavier flatfooted AC of heavier armor and lower dex is even arguably compensating.
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Heavier armors tend to get better abilities, and (as you already said) the max AC keeps going up with your BAB.

[Edit] That said, I'm actually not in favor of most Tome armors giving out all the abilities that they do. It's just too much crap to keep track of. [/edit]
Last edited by CatharzGodfoot on Fri Oct 21, 2011 1:59 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Strung Nether »

Came here just to say that the tome introduces a metric-fuck-tone of stuff to keep track of. you ether NEED a computer program to assist with character generation, or just accept that you will miss 1/10 of the abilities you are supposed to have.

Im ok with this, as long as that program exists.
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Spelling out some details.

Post by Josh_Kablack »

RP wrote: Where did you find this? I can only find up to 0.7rev139
I "found" it by making a typo in my post. I actually have 0.7rev139.

Sorry for any confusion.
CatharzGodfoot wrote:
Fucking Armor Proficiencies - how do they work?
Same as ever.
And then why is someone ever going to take a Core armor Prof feat over a Tome [Combat] Feat, like say Elusive Target ?

The core feats do not fit with the scope of existent Tome feats, and making them or multiclassing the only ways to gain Armor Proficiencies in Tome is outright ass, and runs counter to the stated tome goal of making characters care about more than 3 different types of armor.
CG wrote:No idea, but sometimes it's a lot more than ±2. And it distinguishes between heavy armors and noisy armors, letting you do stuff like padding your plate (which makes it harder to move but quieter).
Exactly two-thirds of all Tome armors have ACP and ASP that is within 2 points of each other.

The other third can be handled in the manner I suggested, with a combo of ACP values and armor abilities representing stealthier-than usual, or less-stealth-than usual armor for suits where that matters.

Or the current Tome armor rules can cater to the one-third where the difference is meaningful at the expense of the other two thirds having meaningless accounting.

I think my feelings about making a majority of players do extra accounting for minor fiddly modifiers are well documented, but if you need a reminder I will be more than happy to swear some more.
CG wrote:
Does heavier-than-light armor reduce movement in tome or not? The world may never know
Yes. Read the section on armor check penalties.
Nice try, but I'm not the one who didn't.

Here's what tome says, under the heading "Armor-Non Proficiency" (which since we're being pedantic, is actually the section above "Armor Penalties" )
If you are using an outfit with a total armor check penalty that is greater than your Base Attack Bonus, you can only move at 2/3 speed. If your outfit has an armor check penalty that is more than 4 more than your BAB, you can't run. If your outt provides a total armor check penalty that is 10 or more than your BAB, you can only stagger around.
Here's what the PHB/SRD says in the Armor section
Speed

Medium or heavy armor slows the wearer down. The number on Table: Armor and Shields is the character’s speed while wearing the armor. Humans, elves, half-elves, and half-orcs have an unencumbered speed of 30 feet.

It's entirely possibly, and probably even likely that the tome authors intended for their rules on Armor Check Penalty to replace the Core rules about Medium and Heavy armors slowing characters down - but the Tomes do not actually say that they do. At no point does Tome say that the Core rules on armor movement are replaced, voided or subsumed.

I shouldn't have to point out why layering the Tome speed reduction for ACP vs BAB on top of the Core speed reduction based on armor weight category is a horrible idea and runs counter to the stated Tome goal of encouraging characters to wear more than just three types of armor - but that is exactly what the RAW say should happen without clarifying that the core speed reductions are supposed to be ignored in Tome.
CG wrote:
Penalty Reductions by level - what a great idea, and what a crying shame the execution was to bring back anncoultering THAC0, and then add division, subtraction and exclusion steps.
It's obnoxious, but you only have to do it once.
Well you actually have to do it once per level and per suit of armor characters equip. And then if you're saying running a game for Eric (scattered), Brian (too busy to do game math other than during session), or Bunny (new to gaming, but eager to learn all subsystems), you have to explain it to them each and every time a level or armor loot drop happens.

But that's irrelevant - if it's obnoxious, you shouldn't have to do it at all. This is a GAME, not root canal therapy; we're doing it for FUN, not medical expedience.
.

CG wrote:Most armors run off of BAB, because that's good for high-BAB characters. Others are for niche characters. Mechanus armor is good in general, but very good for the siege engineer or mechanic. Silk steel armor is for sneaking in. If you don't have ranks in Move Silently, you don't care anyway.
No shit sherlock.

The problem is that there are enough of those "niche armors" in Tome to make it really unlikely that PCs of the available classes will have (or even be able to acquire) both the required armor proficiency and enough ranks in the key skill to be able to use the armor in a meaningful way. This makes random treasure drops or even stripping the armor from a fallen NPC unlikely to result in usable items for heavy armor characters.

?
Adamant Breastplate (Medium) +7 Armor +3 Max Dex -6 ACP -2 ASP
Adamant Carapace (Heavy) +11 Armor +2 Max Dex -9 ACP, -4 ASP

That's the highest armor bonus of any medium armor, and also the second highest Armor + Max Dex of any medium armor - so it's the sweet spot of numbers for medium armor characters of up to 19 dex.
That's the second highest armor bonus, but tied for the third highest Armor + Max Dex total of any heavy armor - so it's the sweet spot of numbers for heavy armor characters of Dex of 14 thru 19. ( barring THAC0 calculations, which I refuse to do for even the sake of argument )

But they also have the +1 BAB ability of "You gain Damage Reduction equal to your Base Attack Bonus."

DR x/adamant is pretty much D x/specifically constructed NPC, and at x==BAB, and by the time PCs can afford it, that's outpacing both the Tome Barbarian 2+ lvl/2 and Tome Knight lvl/2 class feature DR and for full BAB characters coming pretty close to "you are immune to hit point damage from monsters who don't Power Attack"

There are really no other Tome Armors that are both that solid on the numbers and start off with a defensive ability that strong, making Adamant far and away the obvious choice for the vast majority of Medium and Heavy characters who can afford it in Tome. And at that point, the other Medium and Heavy Armors might as well not exist.
Last edited by Josh_Kablack on Fri Oct 21, 2011 8:07 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Post by darkmaster »

I'm sorry, while I agree the adamant armor is the best I've got to point out that rarely will a monster at your CR not be dealing damage except by power attacking. At low levels you don't have nearly enough DR to matter, and at higher levels Spells, spell-likes, and any energy damage don't even care about your DR.

I'm not saying you're wrong about adamant armor being better, and 1/2 or 1/4 BAB would be more reasonable, maybe even 3/4 BAB but I don't feel like going through the math. Just that even with the DR=BAB you'll still be taking damage.
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Re: Spelling out some details.

Post by CatharzGodfoot »

Josh_Kablack wrote:
CatharzGodfoot wrote:
Fucking Armor Proficiencies - how do they work?
Same as ever.
And then why is someone ever going to take a Core armor Prof feat over a Tome [Combat] Feat, like say Elusive Target ?

The core feats do not fit with the scope of existent Tome feats, and making them or multiclassing the only ways to gain Armor Proficiencies in Tome is outright ass, and runs counter to the stated tome goal of making characters care about more than 3 different types of armor.
If armor is good enough to warrant a feat, the feat is worth it. If the armor isn't good enough to warrant a feat, just wear the best armor that your proficiencies allow. You could make a Tome feat that grants armor proficiency among other things, but that's outside the scope of altering how armors work.
Josh_Kablack wrote:
CG wrote:No idea, but sometimes it's a lot more than ±2. And it distinguishes between heavy armors and noisy armors, letting you do stuff like padding your plate (which makes it harder to move but quieter).
Exactly two-thirds of all Tome armors have ACP and ASP that is within 2 points of each other.

The other third can be handled in the manner I suggested, with a combo of ACP values and armor abilities representing stealthier-than usual, or less-stealth-than usual armor for suits where that matters.

Or the current Tome armor rules can cater to the one-third where the difference is meaningful at the expense of the other two thirds having meaningless accounting.

I think my feelings about making a majority of players do extra accounting for minor fiddly modifiers are well documented, but if you need a reminder I will be more than happy to swear some more.
Go for it. If you don't care about the stealth mini game, you don't even have to put ASP on your character sheet. For those 1/3 who care about the stealth minigame, dealing with ad-hoc fiddly stealth modifiers might be more annoying, and it will definitely be more annoying for those who don't care for the minigame anyway.
Josh_Kablack wrote:
CG wrote:
Does heavier-than-light armor reduce movement in tome or not? The world may never know
Yes. Read the section on armor check penalties.
Nice try, but I'm not the one who didn't.

Here's what tome says, under the heading "Armor-Non Proficiency" (which since we're being pedantic, is actually the section above "Armor Penalties" )
If you are using an outfit with a total armor check penalty that is greater than your Base Attack Bonus, you can only move at 2/3 speed. If your outfit has an armor check penalty that is more than 4 more than your BAB, you can't run. If your outt provides a total armor check penalty that is 10 or more than your BAB, you can only stagger around.
Here's what the PHB/SRD says in the Armor section
Speed

Medium or heavy armor slows the wearer down. The number on Table: Armor and Shields is the character’s speed while wearing the armor. Humans, elves, half-elves, and half-orcs have an unencumbered speed of 30 feet.

It's entirely possibly, and probably even likely that the tome authors intended for their rules on Armor Check Penalty to replace the Core rules about Medium and Heavy armors slowing characters down - but the Tomes do not actually say that they do. At no point does Tome say that the Core rules on armor movement are replaced, voided or subsumed.

I shouldn't have to point out why layering the Tome speed reduction for ACP vs BAB on top of the Core speed reduction based on armor weight category is a horrible idea and runs counter to the stated Tome goal of encouraging characters to wear more than just three types of armor - but that is exactly what the RAW say should happen without clarifying that the core speed reductions are supposed to be ignored in Tome.
So there's 'use the tome rules' option and the 'use both overlapping rule sets at the same time' option. Either way, the answer to your question is an unambiguous "yes".

Josh_Kablack wrote:
CG wrote:
Penalty Reductions by level - what a great idea, and what a crying shame the execution was to bring back anncoultering THAC0, and then add division, subtraction and exclusion steps.
It's obnoxious, but you only have to do it once.
Well you actually have to do it once per level and per suit of armor characters equip. And then if you're saying running a game for Eric (scattered), Brian (too busy to do game math other than during session), or Bunny (new to gaming, but eager to learn all subsystems), you have to explain it to them each and every time a level or armor loot drop happens.

But that's irrelevant - if it's obnoxious, you shouldn't have to do it at all. This is a GAME, not root canal therapy; we're doing it for FUN, not medical expedience.
.
In that case, you're better off fixing the bigger offenders first, like attribute scores and modifiers.

Josh_Kablack wrote:
CG wrote:Most armors run off of BAB, because that's good for high-BAB characters. Others are for niche characters. Mechanus armor is good in general, but very good for the siege engineer or mechanic. Silk steel armor is for sneaking in. If you don't have ranks in Move Silently, you don't care anyway.
No shit sherlock.

The problem is that there are enough of those "niche armors" in Tome to make it really unlikely that PCs of the available classes will have (or even be able to acquire) both the required armor proficiency and enough ranks in the key skill to be able to use the armor in a meaningful way. This makes random treasure drops or even stripping the armor from a fallen NPC unlikely to result in usable items for heavy armor characters.

?
Adamant Breastplate (Medium) +7 Armor +3 Max Dex -6 ACP -2 ASP
Adamant Carapace (Heavy) +11 Armor +2 Max Dex -9 ACP, -4 ASP

That's the highest armor bonus of any medium armor, and also the second highest Armor + Max Dex of any medium armor - so it's the sweet spot of numbers for medium armor characters of up to 19 dex.
That's the second highest armor bonus, but tied for the third highest Armor + Max Dex total of any heavy armor - so it's the sweet spot of numbers for heavy armor characters of Dex of 14 thru 19. ( barring THAC0 calculations, which I refuse to do for even the sake of argument )

But they also have the +1 BAB ability of "You gain Damage Reduction equal to your Base Attack Bonus."

DR x/adamant is pretty much D x/specifically constructed NPC, and at x==BAB, and by the time PCs can afford it, that's outpacing both the Tome Barbarian 2+ lvl/2 and Tome Knight lvl/2 class feature DR and for full BAB characters coming pretty close to "you are immune to hit point damage from monsters who don't Power Attack"

There are really no other Tome Armors that are both that solid on the numbers and start off with a defensive ability that strong, making Adamant far and away the obvious choice for the vast majority of Medium and Heavy characters who can afford it in Tome. And at that point, the other Medium and Heavy Armors might as well not exist.
Off the top of my head, there are very compelling reasons to use animal spirit, gith, mithril, demon, dragonscale, mechanus, silksteel, and sun armors.
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Post by BearsAreBrown »

Every armor, shield, or clothing has an Armor Check Penalty, though that penalty is sometimes -0. A Masterwork version has the magnitude of its Armor Check Penalty reduced by 1 (to a minimum of zero). If you are wearing armor or using a shield which you are not procient in, the armor check penalty of that armor or shield is counted as 4 higher. If you are using an outt with a total armor check penalty that is greater than your Base Attack Bonus, you can only move at 2/3 speed. If your outt has an armor check penalty that is more than 4 more than your BAB, you can't run. If your outt provides a total armor check penalty that is 10 or more than your BAB, you can only stagger around.
Am I using a different pdf then you guys? The rules seem pretty clear.
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Post by CatharzGodfoot »

BearsAreBrown wrote:
Every armor, shield, or clothing has an Armor Check Penalty, though that penalty is sometimes -0. A Masterwork version has the magnitude of its Armor Check Penalty reduced by 1 (to a minimum of zero). If you are wearing armor or using a shield which you are not procient in, the armor check penalty of that armor or shield is counted as 4 higher. If you are using an outt with a total armor check penalty that is greater than your Base Attack Bonus, you can only move at 2/3 speed. If your outt has an armor check penalty that is more than 4 more than your BAB, you can't run. If your outt provides a total armor check penalty that is 10 or more than your BAB, you can only stagger around.
Am I using a different pdf then you guys? The rules seem pretty clear.
According to Josh, you use those rules and the ones in the core SRD as well. Because the above don't explicitly indicate that they replace, rather that supplement, the existing rules.
Last edited by CatharzGodfoot on Fri Oct 21, 2011 10:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by BearsAreBrown »

...why the shit would you do that? There is no RAW bible we're reading from here and using the Tome rules alone is obviously the better implementation. Level 20 characters shouldn't have trouble moving in huge armor.

Heavy armor needs to be better then medium armor, which should be better then light, which should be better then non-armor. It should not be a tradeoff of defense vs speed for any characters past level 3, that's low level shit. I think it's on par with weapon damage die, they're irrelevant because it's about the player, not the equipment.
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Post by TOZ »

I have to admit that my eyes glaze over every time I browse the armor section of the tomes. It's just too much work for too little gain for me.
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Post by Koumei »

I use the actual armours and their scaling abilities, but I just never put armour on people who lack the proficiency (and would use the core rules for it if a player elected to), and use the normal speed reduction.

And I never remember/care enough to use ACP anyway. Like, not even in the first place. Sure it makes sense, but it's just another hassle like class skills, and it's not like I've ever made a Jump, Climb or Swim check in my life.
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Post by Josh_Kablack »

BearsAreBrown wrote:... using the Tome rules alone is obviously the better implementation
You and I obviously apparently have different ideas about what "obviously" means.

Core only:
  • Has only three categories
  • Has only certain listed movement rates
  • Movement has only one exception (dwarves)
  • Does not allow higher-level characters to reduce armor penalties ( other than via Mithral in the items section )
  • Armor Check Penalties are static (aside from getting Mithral armor
Tome only:
  • Extensible for any base movement rate
  • Allows higher BAB characters to ignore movement restrictions on lower to moderate ACP armor suits. This is based on character abilities, not exploiting the special materials property
  • Requires players to compare ACP to BAB, BAB-4 and BAB-10 to determine movement
  • Requires players to track both ACP and ASP
  • Requires players to subtract BAB from ACP and if they get a subzero result subtract negative one times that result from ASP and add negative one times that result to the armor's max dex bonus, with another modifier in there for nonproficiency.
It's fucking far away from obvious to me that the loss of simplicity is worth the gain in flexibility for this case.

And just for completeness sake:

Both at once
  • Agreeably Stupid, as I said in the prior post, you don't have to take Catharz's word for what I said - this combines bad points of both, but is supportable from the text. As the text is a fanmade netbook, that is admittedly a really thin reason to ever do this.
"But transportation issues are social-justice issues. The toll of bad transit policies and worse infrastructure—trains and buses that don’t run well and badly serve low-income neighborhoods, vehicular traffic that pollutes the environment and endangers the lives of cyclists and pedestrians—is borne disproportionately by black and brown communities."
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