Quote:
Originally Posted by warhorse11h
Could this work. It seems that a consensus is that the armor penalties are too severe. There is no consensus on a solution. A talent is an idea for some, but others indicate it is not difficult enough to learn to wear armor and the loss of movement is not too severe for lighter forms of armor.
Would it be possible for a fighter, as he advances, to purchase a bonus for his armor/shield familiarity, reducing the DX penalty for his armor/shield by 1. The cost would be equal to a talent with a value of (1). Allow him to purchase a second and greater level of armor familiarity with experience point cost as a talent of (2). This would reduce the armor/shield DX penalty by 2. And a third would allow him to purchase a third level of familiarity at a cost equal to a talent of (3) and reduce the armor/shield DX penalty by 3. The maximum penalty reduction would be 3, each higher level replacing the former.
Set a minimum ST requirement for each level of this familiarity, say ST 12 for the first, ST 16 for the second and ST 20 for the third.
And provide one last requirement, you have to wear armor and/or carry a shield the whole time. You can't become familiar with anything by looking at it, you have to do it.
|
I am pretty sure the consensus is a little bit wrong here. Armor penalties are not too high over all. In my sim armor builds do quite well.
At 40p level the top 20 builds (out of a total of 380 builds) have 5.35 points of armor on average. 6 plate builds, 2 Chain builds, 3 leather, 3 cloth and 6 No armor.
At 36p level the top 20 builds (out of a total of 336 builds) have 3,9 points of armor on average. 0 plate builds (2 in the top 30), 1 Chain builds (number 21 and 22 were both chain builds), 4 leather, 4 cloth and 11 No armor. At this level Shields are preferred over armor that lower MA.
At 32p level the top 20 builds (out of a total of 162 builds) have 2.0 points of armor on average. 0 plate builds (1 half-plate and 2 plate builds at 60, but still with a better than 50/50 win rate), 0 Chain builds (first one comes at number 40), 2 leather (3 in the top 30), 6 cloth and 14 No armor. 7 out of those top builds were Pole Arm builds and they prefer Cloth as a maximum for MA purposes.
Over all the armor balancing is almost spot on. The cost of armor is either about 1 to 1.5 less damage from swinging a one handed weapon instead of a two handed one. But you get a bonus of 1 for your shield, so that pretty much evens out. Especially since you have Shield Expertise that cost you very little if you already have the IQ for it because you have Expertise with you main weapon and after that you are ahead.
Armor with the new changes, so they are are 1 for 1 all the way up to plate are also spot on. The whole trick is to get your bell curve adjDX to a reasonable number. And you use armor to adjust that. Armor for a DX 10 character is usually bad. But if you have a DX of 14, armor is a very good investment, at least until you bring your adjDX down to about 12. If your DX is 16 it is a super investment, since you will lose very little for that first point of DX that goes to armor.
This is not my opinion it is from the simulation. The results made me reevaluate the worth of armor a lot. I used to think that armor sucked as well. But my sim only handles one vs one. In a battle situation where we have five PC vs. one bad guy, armor do suck. The well armored guy will be attacked last, and his armor will not absorb much in the fight. But in the reverse situation with 3 PC vs 15 weak minions, your armor will be a game winner three times over. And in a campaign setting with a physicker and healing per wound (common home brew rule), armor makes the physicker many times more effective. With out that rule, he will still be a lot better, but not astoundingly better.
The only bad thing with armor is that if everyone go 9/13(8)/10 with double expertise they do about 1+1 damage and have adjDX vs each other of 6 and 7 points of armor and can't hurt each other unless they crit. The battles will be very looong. We are talking 30+ turns easily. So people will resort to Shrewd attacks with adjDX of 1, hope for auto hits and crits instead.
Armor stacking on the other hand might be a problem. It will not get better by allowing people to buy it cheaper.
The solution would be that all 5 point hits give 1 non lethal damage, if all of the normal damage was absorbed. Or an aimed attack that by-passes some or all of the armor like dagger marksmanship, etc. Then you could jump a tin can, get them into HTH so their shield is out of play and start aiming for their weak spots.
One more thing. The worth of armor is not linear. You need a certain amount to get the most out of it. Your adjDX is the big difference of course. But the opponents average and max damage is another bell curve. Going from 5 to 7 armor in the example above is a huge difference when the max damage is 1+1(7).
But one point of armor against a Great Sword wielder is hardly noticeable if you have ST 9. 11.5 damage versus 1 armor gives you about a 10% increase in survival, but since most hits will take you out anyways it is almost of no use.
But 1 more point of armor when you go from 8 to 9 armor will make a huge difference. Now the average great sword hit do 2.5 instead of 3.5 which is a 25% improvement. If you pay with adjDX in the 10 to 11 range every point cost you about 20% effectiveness (62.5% down to 50% hit chance).
But in order to reach 8 or 9 armor you probably already have an abysmal adjDX around 8. And so the cost is higher, about a 33% loss of effectiveness (30% down to 20% hit chance). So against a Great Sword wielder, armor is usually not a winning strategy. Better to attack first, hit and try to do 5 or 8 hits and hope the great sword never connects.
If we still have a high adjDX around 14 (high attribute characters) and go down to 13 we lose less than 10% effectiveness (91% down to 84%). And still gain a 25% increase in survivability. All of sudden it is worth it.
So even against a Great Sword wielder we can find a tipping point where armor might be a good trade-off. Against dagger wielders, Cloth and an expertise tower shield will shut them down.
But I am not against the idea to have a talent that can shift IQ and XP into a more defensive build. But I don't feel it is needed because armor is inherently weak, but I like build options, so as long as the talent is balanced it might be a good idea. Armor is sliiightly weaker in a one on one arena fights if the opposition is unknown. But as a dungeon delver build they are very competitive. I am not too fond of the lower MA from armor though. It goes out side the normal balance equation and it comes in at certain levels a little haphazardly making Leather and Chain a lot worse.
And Running is not enough to counter it. Maybe a "running in heavy armor"-talent? That costs a lot (probably 3), reduces armor penalty with 1 and also reduce MA penalties by 2. Maybe at IQ 11 or 12 so there is something for pure fighters between Expertise and Mastery levels.
Two weapon fighting is a little weak and not for everyone. (Builds come in at 50-55% win rate. Not really viable. -2 or -3 on second attack maybe? Or parry for 3 damage, since we now have Shield Expertise.)
I would rather have nice rules for custom fit armor that are costly but gives 1 less adjDX that would give the cheaper base cost armors Leather and Chainmail a little boost to compensate for taking a hit on MA.
As for your suggestion for talent prereqs. I like them. I just disagreed that armor is undervalued. I thought so to, but not anymore. :-) We need something for Great ST. Be it chosen feats, talents or a table with set bonuses or a general rule of oversized weapons or damage bonuses.