[Nils_Lindeberg]

For a house rule, there would be almost no impact on the game balance if you changed 1 armor point or 1 negative adjDX to a defensive advantage respectively a defensive penalty.

We already have a bunch of different defensive bonuses from shield expertise, fencing, mastery, and HTH. So a set of armor that gives 2 armor and -2 adjDX could also give 2 armor, -1 adjDX for you and +1 adjDX for your opponent.

One could also go the D&D armor class route with non-absorption armor that gave you -2adjDX and the opponent -2 adjDX. But personally, I feel that a plate should make you easier to hit and harder to hurt, not harder to hit and once you are hit you take just as much damage as an unarmored character.

The same goes for ST penalties. You could change it so a plate lowers your effective ST instead of DX or a combination of the two as long as both your health and weapon choice got affected. An ST 14 hero with leather would effectively be an ST 12 hero. OR a combination of the three. If armor lowered your ST, encumbrance would also become more of a thing if you used adjST for that and dwarves could actually have more armor and not less than humans. It would also fit the narrative of the big strong guy having lots of armor, while the DX fighter didn't. And it would be easier to shield rush a plated opponent.

MA penalties in a fight situation could also be questioned. Since MA is waaay to slow for realistic running, it means it is more of a situational thing. Moving around in combat, being ready for anything and not getting stabbed in passing. And if you have a plate on, you could basically ignore any glancing passing blows and move with a purpose. But then again your vision would be impaired, so you might be slowed down due to that... and so on.

I will stick to the rules as written now that plate armor has been properly balanced.

The only thing I will add as a house rule is combat-fatigue to avoid those ridiculous 5-minute combats when two tanks meet up. It will be a thing in any knight campaign now. Something like 1 fatigue from every hit that does more than half of your armor, but doesn't wound you.

I might also add some piece of equipment that lowers the chance/effect of a critical hit but gives other penalties. Like a full helm with negative alertness or weak spot reinforcements that lowers MA to 4, but also changes crits to +1 die and +2 dice instead of double and triple damage. Small weapons will still be able to cut through in HTH, but that battle axe will not hit you through the face guard or under your armpit and auto kill you.