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I think I'd prefer a return to more traditional armour ratings and capping the maximim Dex bonus that someone in heavy armour receives on AC at +1 is a good idea (and maybe +2 for a chain shirt or elven chain, and +3 for an elven chain shirt).  It keep some incentive to have a reasonable dex but gives an advantage to dextrous, lighter armoured characters.  I don't think some level of damage resistance for heavier armours is a bad idea but it needs to be minor if they want low level monsters to remain a threat for longer (maybe 1 point for medium armour and 2 points for heavy armour negated for the rest of the encounter if a monster scores a crit).  Spending an action to use a shield for damage reduction (1 buckler/small, 2 medium, 3 tower shield) could also be viable if it scaled with level (so if a level 1 character in heavy armour with a medium shield spends their round just defending, they'd have DR 4 and a higher level fighter could forego his extra attacks to defend with his shield for a better DR score).

1e (Unearthed Arcana) kept a rough cap on AC by limiting armour availability.  So +4 armour had to be made from mithral, and +5 armour had to made from adamantine meaning that light armour was capped at +3 (and technically elevn chain should be capped at +4 - although I do recall a 1% chance of finding +5 elven chain back in the day...).  3e took a step on the cookie cutter item trail with every armour having the same range but 4e reflects the old system with its faster scaling masterwork heavy armours.  Something akin to the old system could help maintain the advantages of heavier armours. 

If a chain shirt is treated as medium armour AC7 with a +2 dex cap would that bring it slightly back in line?  Its advantage would be that it could be enchanted to +5 or an elven chain shirt allowing +3 dex but enchantable only to +4.

If Bracers of Defence as AC were to come back, they should cap their power - maybe AC8 for low, AC6 for mid and AC4 for high levels so that armour retains some attraction.

But then until we know their dex bonuses to AC are going to be calculated the argument is rather speculative.

Apr 13, 2012 -- 8:20PM, emwasick wrote:

Apr 13, 2012 -- 7:20PM, rampant wrote:

What if we counte by having armor make you easier to hit?

Low or non armored characters take fewer hits but those that do hurt more, while an armored character takes a lot of hits, and each one hurts less. 

That kind of system can be really swingy, sort of like a rogue "evasion tanking" in WoW, if that's familiar. Beyond the mechanics, I dislike armor as DR because it changes the open, abstract nature of hit points.

This. Plus you get into avoidance vs absorbtion issues, where avodiance is almost always better, due to mitigating more rider effects. If you absorb 5 points of damage on a 6 point prone attack, you're still prone...

AC works fine. It helps protect your "not dead yet" points through making it harder to get dead.

Apr 16, 2012 -- 10:52AM, AnthonyJ wrote:

Apr 15, 2012 -- 12:18AM, halvgrim wrote:

Oops, I meant to say that I want to make meaningful tactical choices during combat, but I also want a fast paced game. Therefore I don't want to rules that slows down combat without providing meaningful tactical choices during combat. Therefore I will probably prefer to play without damage reduction.

Typically you renormalize damage in any game where armor provides damage reduction, so it doesn't really slow down combat by that much. It just means that base damage tends to be much higher, and there usually isn't as much variation in damage levels.

I think he just means that adding one more step (subtract DR from damage done) slows things down. And usually the math major with the 160 IQ messes up the subtraction because... I don't know why, but he does.