Simplified Tome Armour

[TarkisFlux]

The skill bonus is a pretty trashy ability since it doesn't stack with the +1 per level skill boost you could get as a basic bonus on a wondrous item. It should either give you +1 per level, like the other magical bits that also grant a second basic bonus, or you should toss it.

In our games we changed the scaling skill bonus to be a flat +5. The scaling skill bonus does nothing at first or second level, and is half the RNG at level 10. It's intentional it doesn't scale with the wondrous item bonus, it basically allows you to have a skill bonus item as your armors magical effect.

That's fine (sort of), but it wasn't referenced in your opening. You may want to add back in a basic skill item that grants virtual ranks then equal to your level + 3 (that don't stack with regular ranks) and have the +5 as a lesser quality on top of it. Then you can keep up with people who have ranks in their skills (which the flat +5 can't), but you can't surpass them by much and it costs you a lesser quality to do so. It is a skill nerf though, but it's probably worth it to allow guys with cloaks of hiding to not be boned by spotters with spot boosting items.

[Red_Rob]

Changes:
- Amended anything with max dex of 8+ to read "-"
- Upped Brigandine's cost to 150gp
- Gave Spiderweb armor +5 AC as its abilities are a little niche
- Changed Cord armor to 0 ACP
- Changed Wooden Shield to 0 ACP
- Reduced Wicker armors cost to 55gp and added a Jump bonus
- Reduced the cost on Full Plate, Great Armor, Silk Steel & Still suit

Brigandine: Of the low-level armors, this one is easily the most solid overall choice.

Worrying. The point of this is to remove the "stand out choices". I upped the cost to 150gp to make it less of an automatic option for starter characters, but it is still an auto-pick for anyone with less than a +4 dex bonus. Maybe reduce the Max Dex to +2?

Cord Armor: I don't like replacing things which are usually fairly well balanced, like AC or saves, with things that are typically useless and thus handed out like Halloween candy, like skill bonuses. So long as absurd skill cheese is kept in check, this armor is probably the best choice for anyone who has high Tumble, though, so that's cool.

Whilst replacing AC with a skill check can be busted, this only works against 1 attack per round and doesn't work when you are flat footed. I think that's enough to keep it in check.

Gray Armor: This is really pushing it for "starter armor" since it costs 1,000 GP...

With its high Max Dex and fair AC I actually saw it more as an option for insane Dex characters once they pumped their dex over 30. I removed the max dex entirely just to make that clearer.

Leather Armor: In terms of verisimilitude I don't see why leather armor grants more fire resistance than other armors (particularly the Still Suit)...

Most of the other armors are leather + metal. Metal gets hot, whilst the idea here is that cured cow hide doesn't so much. Regarding the Still suit, just because it is good in hot environments it doesn't follow it would protect from flames. To prevent heat exhaustion you need loose fitting clothing and ways to prevent lost water, whilst actual flames require skin covering flame retardant material.

Padded Armor: Why would anyone use this ever? The tumble guys are all over cord armor, the AC is pathetic, and everyone can afford something at least slightly better. Maybe this would hold up better as a non-armor?

Good point. I'm not comfortable giving wizards +1 AC at first level, maybe it should just be dropped.

Still Suit: This is a pretty niche utility to be giving up 2-3 points of AC for, but I'm okay with having niche armor...
Winter Clothing: That cold resistance does a lot to make up for the poor AC and middling max DEX.

The idea with these is that in hot or cold climes the players have 2 choices - keep their regular armor and take penalties due to frostbite / heat exhaustion, or downgrade to these armors but avoid that. Of course, most players would choose option C - have the Cleric cast Endure Elements on everyone. In that case these armors had better be available at the levels where the casters can't just burn 1st level Spell slots like they were nothing, so these armors had better be cheap. Reduced the Still suit to be comparable to Winter clothing so low level parties might invest in them.

I still think there needs to be another "special" light armor with stats comparable to Mithril. Ideas I had so far are:
Ironskin Leather - Leather made from the hide of a creature with DR, provides DR/Piercing
Angelfeather suit - Shed Angel feathers, gives the Power Slide ability of a Jester/Thief Acrobat
Dragonbone vest - Vest reinforced with Dragon bones, provides ER
Bronzewood Cuirass - Body armor made from slats of light yet iron-hard wood, provides DR/- whilst in natural sunlight or a Daylight spell effect.
Voidbark - Bark from trees grown in an antimagic field, provides Spell Resistance

I noticed that there are no heavy armours you can afford at first level. Does that make Heavy armor more special, or should there be a banded mail or something at 200gp?

[Chamomile]

Rather than making still-suit armor with magical air conditioning, why not just make "desert clothing" or something? Wrap up in fabrics light enough to not overheat you too much but dense enough to prevent you from getting terrible sunburns, and like, have turbans and such. I would make that and winter clothes non-armors, because wearing a coat seems like something a Wizard could wrap his head around. Drop the ACs right down to 0, since the whole point is to give very low level parties a tough choice. I might take a big hit to AC in exchange for dodging frostbite or heat exhaustion, especially since a light armor character is probably getting close to half their AC from DEX anyway.

Yes, the brigandine is a stand-out choice for anyone who doesn't have really high DEX or benefit from a specific ability that some of the other armors use. Decreasing its DEX mod would probably help with that a lot, as it would at least open up chain shirt as an option for any high-DEX character. Also, I would drop padded armor. It doesn't seem like something an armor list would be incomplete without, and it's probably not worth the effort to try and make it work. Who wants to be a dude in padded armor? I have never run into anyone who has described their character as wearing padded armor. Leather and studded leather, yes, chain in both shirt and hauberk varieties, yes, a million different kinds of plate, yes. Never padded. I don't think anyone would miss it.

Of the special light armors, Ironskin and Angelfeather are far and away my favorites.

[Red_Rob]

* Heavy fortification -- why so afraid of 100% immunity?

Wow, just wanted to note that for some reason I assumed Light/Med/Heavy fortification was 25%/50%/75% in the DMG when I wrote the magic abilities. Totally didn't realise it was 25%/75%/100%. I'll change it.

A note on the magic effects, once the armor stats and costs have all been finalised I'll work on adding a bunch more magic abilities.

[CatharzGodfoot]

25% fortification is shit, and should not exist. Even though it's probably going to be better than a specific energy resistance if you compare the two over multiple encounters, at least you can make some strategic decisions about using armor of fire resistance.

I'm also inclined to think that 75% should be as good as it gets, but that ship sailed long ago. Consider the merits of 50%/75%/100%.

[Red_Rob]

Rather than making still-suit armor with magical air conditioning, why not just make "desert clothing" or something?

Added Travellers Cloak as a non-armor, left the other two as light armor as I feel depriving warriors of all their AC in extreme conditions is too harsh.

Yes, the brigandine is a stand-out choice for anyone who doesn't have really high DEX or benefit from a specific ability that some of the other armors use.

After looking at this for a while I realised Brigandine would always be better as long as it has AC5 - that's simply out lif line for a basic light armor. Dropped it to AC4, changed the fluff description and the abililty to make it more distinct from the chain shirt.

Of the special light armors, Ironskin and Angelfeather are far and away my favorites.

Added Ironskin to the light armor section.

Summary of changes:
- Brigandine major overhaul to bring it in line with other mundane light armors
- Removed padded armor as it served no function
- Added Ironskin Leather as an alternative to Mithril Shirt
- Reduced cost on Ringmail as it was worse than a chain shirt in both stats and cost
- Changed Leather to 0 ACP to be more attractive to skilled characters
- Upped Lamellar to AC5 and increased cost as too many weak AC4 medium armors - medium armor should provide more AC than light armor generally.
- Added note that some armors are automatically masterwork to prevent shenanigans
- Added Travellers Cloak to the non-armors
- Changed Light Fortification to 50%


TO DO:
Add more item magic abilities & tidy these up
Add another Greater Medium armor
Change the ability on Ringmail - it's not a form of chain armor as I first thought.

[Chamomile]

Unfortunately I'm really bad at estimating when certain armors are going to become available, so rather than doing the rest of the light armors up to higher levels, I've instead just looked over the starter/low-level armors for the medium section.

Breastplate: The AC/DEX combo isn't all that awesome and I'm not really sure if that ability does very much. It makes you more likely to fall unconscious rather than die, but does it actually help you win? I'd seriously consider taking chainmail over this even if I had +4 DEX.
Chainmail: This is good, but like the brigandine in the previous section its straightforward utility threatens to overshadow other armors.
Chitin Carapace: This is fairly expensive, and I'm not quite sure the utility ability is worth it, considering that in terms of stats it's basically just a breastplate.
Elaborate Gown: Wait, this is medium armor? Shouldn't this be a non-armor? Knock the AC bonus off but keep the huge ACP. Only time anyone's going to wear this is when an occasion calls for it, and in that case a Bard shouldn't be incapable of putting one on.
Gith Armor: This might be too much, given its special ability. It's flat-out superior to the breastplate in everything but cost and you're handing it out to Wizards in exchange for a few feats. Might want to tone down the AC by 1 or 2.
Hide Armor: I has a hat! This armor seems good, particularly since it's mostly there for Druids and the ability fits them pretty well. It's also a nice cheap option for medium armor wearers who want to spend starting cash on something else.
Lamellar Armor: Is slashing damage sufficiently more common than piercing to justify the lamellar armor being flat-out superior to chainmail like this? And the poor breastplate, who is now completely overshadowed by an armor with identical stats and an actual ability that isn't "you lose slightly less when you lose."
Lobster Mail: A niche utility, but exceptionally useful for when it comes up. A really good example of an armor optimized for special environments.
Ringmail: Who is this armor being made for? People with +4 DEX have already got lamellar armor, people without it can almost certainly afford the superior chainmail. I guess this is another question of whether slashing damage is actually that much more common than piercing.
Scale Mail: So I get that this is marginally cheaper than ringmail and chainmail and lamellar armor and all of these other armors that are clearly better than it, but is 100gp actually enough to stop anyone from buying it? No one's holding onto this for longer than a single adventure, tops, unless the adventure takes place in Bludgeistan. I don't think an armor gets to justify itself as an economy option when the difference between it and the next upgrade is 25GP.

[Surgo]

I think Gith armor should just cost a bit more, and it would be okay. Also transition from "adamantine breastplate" and "mithril breastplate" to some other names. Maybe they work, but I just don't see that naming scheme used anywhere else on the page.

[Red_Rob]

Breastplate: The AC/DEX combo isn't all that awesome and I'm not really sure if that ability does very much. It makes you more likely to fall unconscious rather than die, but does it actually help you win? I'd seriously consider taking chainmail over this even if I had +4 DEX.

I am a little unsure how good this ability is compared to straight up reduction of one type of damage, however I think you're selling it a little short. Consider that although changing damage to non-lethal doesn't actually affect the fight straight away, after the fight non-lethal heals much quicker, and any magical healing heals an amount of non-lethal for free equal to the regular hit points it healed. The fact that this power works on all physical damage means that over an adventuring day it will save you a lot more hp than chainmail or lamellar, unless you exclusively take slashing/piercing damage. The question is how that stacks up against a chance of directly reducing damage taken. My feeling is that as warriors don't go to negative hit points in every fight this ability will be better than you think, but I'm prepared to accept I might be mistaken.

Chainmail: This is good, but like the brigandine in the previous section its straightforward utility threatens to overshadow other armors.

Lamellar Armor: Is slashing damage sufficiently more common than piercing to justify the lamellar armor being flat-out superior to chainmail like this? And the poor breastplate, who is now completely overshadowed by an armor with identical stats and an actual ability that isn't "you lose slightly less when you lose."

I don't see Chainmail as overpowering in the same way Brigandine was. Brigandine had an extra AC over everything else, which given that is the main reason you wear armor in the first place, was too hard to balance. I'd rank Slashing more common than Bludgeoning and Piercing, if only because of the amount of enemies with swords and claws. Therefore I think the extra max dex makes this a choice rather than an automatic pick for any of these options. If you really think the Breastplate ability is measurably worse than these two I'm open to dropping the ACP of the Breastplate to -3, which would give it the best stat profile to compensate.

Gith Armor: This might be too much, given its special ability. It's flat-out superior to the breastplate in everything but cost and you're handing it out to Wizards in exchange for a few feats. Might want to tone down the AC by 1 or 2.

Actually, at low levels feats are a very limited resource. If a caster wants to spend a feat on Medium Armor proficiency in order to be "The Armored Mage!", and only get 1AC over just having Mage Armor cast, that seems like a reasonable cost for the benefit. At higher levels when feats aren't such an issue Greater Mage Armor already gives you +6AC.

Ringmail: Who is this armor being made for? People with +4 DEX have already got lamellar armor, people without it can almost certainly afford the superior chainmail. I guess this is another question of whether slashing damage is actually that much more common than piercing.

I agree this armor doesn't currently serve much of a purpose. I'm not even sure it should have slashing resistance - I was picturing a form of chainmail when I wrote the abilities but looking into it, it's more like leather with metal rings sewn on the front. The loose rule I've been working to is that metal armor gets abilities that reduce damage, whilst softer armors (like leather or hide) don't. If Ringmail was given a +6 dex max and the Studded Leather ability it could be an alternative to Scale mail for starting characters, and an armor for high dex Medium armor wearers like archers? Let's try that.

Scale Mail: So I get that this is marginally cheaper than ringmail and chainmail and lamellar armor and all of these other armors that are clearly better than it, but is 100gp actually enough to stop anyone from buying it? No one's holding onto this for longer than a single adventure, tops, unless the adventure takes place in Bludgeistan. I don't think an armor gets to justify itself as an economy option when the difference between it and the next upgrade is 25GP.

I disagree. Necromancers use it to outfit their skeleton hordes
On a more serious note, there needs to be a cheaper alternative for first level characters to choose, and being cheaper it probably needs to be a bit worse. The fact that this has an ability that no other armor has means it might find niche uses at other times, but I'm fine with having that be its purpose. Part of the problem with costing items in D&D is that the wealth characters accumulate is fucking insane compared to the normal expected wealth of the populace, so anything that could conceivably be bought by normal people has to be dirt cheap or it ruins verisimilitude.

Also transition from "adamantine breastplate" and "mithril breastplate" to some other names. Maybe they work, but I just don't see that naming scheme used anywhere else on the page

I don't quite understand? Mithril Breastplate?

Changes:
- Ring mail is now +4/+6/-2 with the studded leather ability
- gave Brigandine a +6 dex max as it's ability is slightly worse than the Chain shirt

[Surgo]

Nevermind, I think I misread something there. Sorry.

[Surgo]

I'm a little dissatisfied with Unreal Armor as a greater magic item. First of all, it's greater and high-level and all that, so maybe Greater Blink instead of normal Blink.

Second of all, the passive ability doesn't seem particularly useful. Spend a move action to move somewhere within LOS within your land speed...I mean, you already have flight, so when is this useful except to bust out of a forcecage?

[Red_Rob]

Unreal armor being Major was based off Frank's suggestion that at-will Blink should be a Major ability in his item rankings. As it's pretty much the God power for Rogues I'm happy with it at that level.

I guess Blink already gives many of the benefits that Move action Dimension Door would normally provide, like escaping grapples and avoiding difficult terrain. Here's what it does on Unreal armor:
- Get out of Forcecages
- Allows you to move at full speed whilst Blinking
- Bypass damaging areas / spells without a chance of being affected
- Don't provoke AoO for movement

My thinking is that the Blink is the Major effect and the teleport is just the armor ability, like Dragonscale ER or Mithril's DR. It seems useful enough in that capacity, however if you really think the armor is underwhelming it could be an Immediate action. That would make it a lot more powerful though.

Changes
- Added more Lesser, Medium and Greater magic abilities
- Added Juggernaut Major Medium armor
- Added Dryad Bark Lesser Medium armor

TODO:
Something I noticed is that Medium armor doesn't offer much of a jump from Light armor. Light goes from +1 to +5 AC Bonus, with +11 total AC from dex and AC being the best you can get (+5/+6). Medium goes from +3 to +7, with only Adamantine at +7. That's only 1 point higher than light armor most of the time, and the best is still +11 total AC (+6/+5). Heavy armor then goes from +6 to +12, with +15AC the highest you can achieve (+9/+6). Does Medium armor need a boost?

[Chamomile]

I would say so. Light armor had a lot of fun niche armors that sacrificed a few points of AC/DEX in exchange for a helpful niche ability, things like cord armor. Medium armor sacrifices most of that in exchange for lots of very straightforward armors with nearly identical stats and very straightforward, often underwhelming abilities (although I do see how the breastplate's abilities could be useful in certain campaigns, the fact does remain that some GMs expect the party to heal themselves to full between encounter anyway). Medium armor is just not nearly as much fun as light armors.

[Surgo]

Well, the thing about Greater Blink is that it's the same amount of awesome for Rogues, while being a bit more awesome for everybody else. That's why I submit that for use.

[Red_Rob]

I think allowing you to walk through walls up to your full move without any chance of failure is a pretty big power up for Rogues.

Blink is pretty powerful already. Force armor gives attacks and spells a 50% chance of failing to affect you as it's main ability - Blink does this PLUS walking through walls PLUS gives bonuses to hit PLUS triggers sneak attack PLUS flight PLUS you can see/affect ethereal creatures. The downsides are you have a 20% miss chance, and you move slower. I'm not sure it's a good idea to power it up more for casters and allow them to hit Blink and throw SoD's every round with no miss chance.

[Surgo]

Fair enough, I suppose.

[Red_Rob]

I would say so. Light armor had a lot of fun niche armors that sacrificed a few points of AC/DEX in exchange for a helpful niche ability, things like cord armor. Medium armor sacrifices most of that in exchange for lots of very straightforward armors with nearly identical stats and very straightforward, often underwhelming abilities (although I do see how the breastplate's abilities could be useful in certain campaigns, the fact does remain that some GMs expect the party to heal themselves to full between encounter anyway). Medium armor is just not nearly as much fun as light armors.

The problem with Medium armors all having similar stats is that they are constrained by being compared to Light armors on the lower end and Heavy armors on the high end. A related point is that monkeying with the ACP doesn't have as much impact with Medium armor as with light - Leather armor having 0 ACP makes it very attractive to a low level Rogue, as Move Silently, Hide and Tumble make up a chunk of their low level abilities, so it is a real choice whether to go for Studded Leather or Leather. The difference between -3 ACP and -4 ACP is nowhere near as important when deciding whether to choose a higher AC armor as your skills are already in the toilet whichever you choose. With that said, I think that the higher end Medium armors should gain a point of AC. Currently they are only 1 point better than the equivalent tier light armors, which isn't a noticeable enough boost. By increasing medium armors up to +6/+7 AC they become more of a mid point between light and heavy armors, whilst also allowing more variety in the stat lines to account for different abilities.

Regarding the lack of utility abilities, it is true that as the armors get heavier you can see an increased focus on abilities that mainly prevent damage or protect the wearer. This is mainly due to trying to tie the abilities at least partially to the armor descriptions - a suit of all encasing metal seems like it would mainly prevent you from getting hurt! It's also a choise of priorities; lighter armor wearers tend to be the ones that don't get into combat that often, so would choose a more generally useful ability over a protective one, whereas heavy armor wearers tend to take a beating for a living. It's also important to note that a heavy armor wearer can wear light or medium armors if they like the ability, so the armor categories effectively incorporate the lower level armors aswell.

Changes:

- Upped the AC on Breastplate, Chitin armor, Dragonscale Shirt, Adamantine Breastplate, Mithril suit, Bone armor, Trollhide, Living Breastplate, Rime Hauberk, Tempest armor and Juggernaut armor. This should make more of a use for the "worse" options, whilst also allowing a more noticable jump from light armor to medium.
- Reduced the Max Dex on the Breastplate to +2 and upped the cost to make it like a mini half-plate (which fits the fluff).
- Reduced the cost on Hoplite armor as it is now competing with the higher AC Medium armors.
- Reduced the cost on Coral armor for the same reason.
- I noticed that although I thought claws were slashing damage, they are actually slashing and piercing. Does this make slashing resistance less useful?
- Upped the max dex on Ironskin Leather to +5 as light armor wearers tend to have higher Dex scores.

And unless there's anything glaring here, I think that should be pretty much the armors finalised. Just need to add weights and maybe revise the Tome armor rules to make them more straightforward (upping the max dex of the armor by 1 for every 2 points your BaB exceeds the ACP? Is that really necessary to calculate every time you look at an armor?).

[AndreiChekov]

I am hear to argue for the life of padded armor.

There is a reason to have it. I've specifically played characters that couldn't wear anything better. The reason is because padded armor (at least in my mind) can be made to look like clothes. I played a changeling spy in a game where I wore padded armor because it was easier to disappear into a crowd of unarmored civilians that way. Low level campaign. We were all capped at 3.
I think it might be a good idea to make padded armor exist, but be able to be worn under clothes without anyone being able to really notice it. Then it can become the thing that people wear when they can enter a room unarmed and unarmored. Very niche, but still fun methinks.
Also somewhere in the 3.0 books. I have no idea where, there was an item that cost 15 gp, added +1 to your armor, added 1 ACP to it, and couldn't be worn with full plate. The idea behind it was a metal bracer. I think that thing was where i first learnt to optimize (26 AC at level 1). At first glance it seems like a bad idea, but the flavor is pretty nice, and it could easily be added to the list somewhere. I just can't think of anyway to make it worthwhile and not too powerful at low level.

Sorry for the ramble. I like this project very much.

[Red_Rob]

Padded armor exists in this weird place where it seems like it should really be a non-armor, but you don't want to give all casters +1AC. I guess it could be a non-armor that gives you +1AC if you have a BaB of +1 or higher? Sounds a little awkward.

The metal bracer is a bad idea. If you want soft armor with metal plates in it wear brigandine

- Reordered the tables from lowest to highest cost rather than alphabetical for ease of reading and added weights.

I think I'm going to add a section on the Tome armor rules and why some of them should be scrapped, and then it should be done.

[Red_Rob]

Added a section on the Tome armor rules in the initial post, expanding and replacing the line about removing ASP

[Hicks]

Two points herre:

1. I like your work and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

2. Magic Pants provides a deflection bonus of +1/3 levels when tome deflection bonuses never exceed +1/4 levels, is this intentional?

[...You Lost Me]

2. Magic Pants provides a deflection bonus of +1/3 levels when tome deflection bonuses never exceed +1/4 levels, is this intentional?

He might be going with Kaelik's Tome Errata and using the +1/3 deflection bonus, which is bad in its own right, but it's a likely explanation.

[Red_Rob]

The difference between a 1/4 levels and 1/3 levels bonus is so small that it isn't worth breaking the symmetry of all other similar bonuses being 1/3 levels. If all the bonuses are on the same track, when you hit 10th level you can say "all your bonus items go up by one". Which is nice.

Looking at the difference between the two, it is mostly 0 or 1 AC. At the levels people actually play it just doesn't make much of a difference:

Level	1/3 levels	1/4 levels	Difference
1	1	1	0
2	1	1	0
3	1	1	0
4	2	1	1
5	2	2	0
6	2	2	0
7	3	2	1
8	3	2	1
9	3	3	0
10	4	3	1
11	4	3	1
12	4	3	1
13	5	4	1
14	5	4	1
15	5	4	1
16	6	4	2
17	6	5	1
18	6	5	1
19	7	5	2
20	7	5	2

[Surgo]

If it's all done, I'm gonna go ahead and edit it into the Races of War page on the wiki (provided I have your permission to do so).

[Red_Rob]

Sure, something that might need clearing up though; "Prevents X slashing damage" is identical to "DR/Piercing or Bludgeoning", and is ignored by things that ignore DR, but I always hated how counterintuitive it is that you have to work backwards from what it doesn't work against to find the thing it does. If you think it might cause problems you can add a note at the top or amend them to "DR/X or X".

edit: As Whatever pointed out, I wrote "X and X" it should have been "X or X". I R dumb.