I realize that these boards are replete with just about every opinion under the sun, but I couldn't disagree with this one more. Whether you like the proposed armour ruleset of this thread or not -- for whatever reason -- complex is one thing they are not. Indeed, no more complex than all Medium armour granting Max Dex 2 (as the current play-test document does). If you can get your mind around that, then you can wrap your mind around Max Dex 1, Max Dex 2, Max Dex 3, etcetera. They are functionally identical from a mechanical standpoint.
Then I guess we'll continue to disagree, because broad categories that define item properties are by definition simpler and more streamlined than giving different properties to each individual item. I thought you'd acknowledged this tacitly if not openly in regard to weapons, though perhaps you don't consider Max Dex, Speed penalty, and Stealth Disadvantage to be properties. You say your armor list is "not complex," but I didn't declare it to be complex in absolute terms. Complexity is always relative; compared to the current playtest rules, your proposed rules are more complex. Perhaps I shouldn't operate under the assumption that the devs won't significantly ramp up the baseline complexity of armor in future updates, but even if they do, I'm willing to bet there will be certain properties -- Max Dex, Speed penalty, ect. -- that they'll want to keep congruent within categories. Not necessarily every one of said properties will remain tied to armor group/category, but they seem to be aiming for a consistent, simple baseline, so I don't expect them to throw that out the window. I actually expect (somewhat pessimistically perhaps) that they'll change far less than I'd like, but I could be wrong.
Moreover, breaking Max Dex bonuses down individually for each type of armour (however that is finally done, and not necessarily as this thread proposes), along with speed penalties and Disadvantage/Stealth, can only create more distinction and less redundancy between different armours, which has been the biggest shortcoming of the current play-test document.
This I can agree with to some extent, though I wouldn't take it as far as you have (and haven't, in my own tinkerings), and I still don't see them disassociating most of those things from armor groups. I could see them moving in more of a 4e direction -- where Dex mod to AC is a function of armor category but speed and check penalty are armor-specific -- while retaining the current three categories and a broader armor list (broader than 4e, that is). They could also proliferate the categories into things like Leather, Mail, Scale, Plate, and then have one or two armor types per category, but that strikes me as an unlikely direction.
All that said, I'd be content if they left armor as simple and straightforward as it is now and just made sure it was balanced and free of nonsense like "studded leather" and "displacer beast hide." As long as things are balanced, while playing I'm not likely be thinking, "I really should be getting more/less benefit from Dexterity right now." Though I may be bothered if my character can climb and swim just as well in full chainmail as he could stark naked.
I would also like to point out that when plate harness, or plate and maille, became the norm, the shield fell out of use for anything outside of jousting tournaments. Two reasons, the main one was because of the metal plating on the arm, you couldn't control the shield as well because you couldn't feel it against your arm and the leather strapping would slip all over the place, the other reason was that you needed heavier weapons, and two handed ones like axes and maces were more effective at battering through plate, although a good sword swing might still knock you around enough.
D&D pretty much throws that out the window, though.
I actually don't much care for the inclusion of plate in the game. True plate armor only existed for a fairly brief period of time in a pretty narrow geographical region, so it's less likely to fit into a given setting than more long-lived and widespread armor types -- chainmail, scale, lamellar, etc. If you want to play in a setting that deviates even slightly from the D&D norm, like if you're going for a Dark Ages or non-European flavor, then pretty much every other type of armor makes more sense than plate (with the exception of ones that never existed and don't really make sense, like studded leather). I've no problem with having plate available modularly, or even having access to some stat-equivalent but more universal alternative, but putting it in the basic game as an expected piece of AC progression kind of messes with my ability to play the game the way I'd like (that is, without plate).
However, plate's too iconic to kill, so I expect I'll learn to live with it, probably through liberal reflavoring.
I think if certain armors probably didn't exist, it is ok to "reskin" them as armors that did exist, like "studded leather" to brigandine. Also, splinted mail and banded seem quite similar and banded also has a dubious existence apparently so it seems fine to combine them. It won't hurt a fantasy world if those 2 armors were made a little historically accurate.
I think using disadvantage is useful when it is a chore to look up a modifier. Usually the armor check penalty of an armor would be listed on a players character sheet along with max dex, so I don't think it is too complex or difficult to use an armor check penalty like in some previous editions.
So It was late at night when I last posted, but I also wanted to clear up another misconception about the Katana. like dmgorgon said, tha katana is simply a bastard sword. The Katana was extremely difficult to make, due to the process needed to make a good sword. Japan had inferior metal with varying carbon contents. The reason for the constant folding of the blades was because it made the carbon content of the blade more uniform. There is little difference in the cutting power of a Katana vs a bastard sword/ western sword. The extreme difficulty of making the blades did make them almost mythical due to their rarity, and were often named. This mysticism became the fascination of western culture, with the end assumption by many being that a katana is more special than other swords. More work, yes, better, no.
I think using disadvantage is useful when it is a chore to look up a modifier. Usually the armor check penalty of an armor would be listed on a players character sheet along with max dex, so I don't think it is too complex or difficult to use an armor check penalty like in some previous editions.
Yeah, there's really no reason that the check penalty should be Disadvantage rather than a specific number -- other than the fact that the devs clearly got really excited about the mechanic and wanted to use it everywhere. Even with the level of simplicity of the current armor table, "All heavy armor gives you a -2 penalty to Stealth" isn't any harder to remember than "All heavy armor gives you Disadvantage on Stealth." Disadvantage should really be used more as a sitational modifier; as you pointed out, the penalty is going to be right there on your sheet, and presumably you'll be wearing your armor in the vast majority of situations where a check is likely to occur. The fact that it's generally not situationally dependant, and is thus factored into your default Stealth modifier, is also a valid argument for giving different check penalties for different armor types. Perhaps the devs didn't want to force everyone who wore armor to have a Stealth entry on their character sheet (separate from their base Dex mod, that is) even if they weren't trained in Stealth -- although IMO that would be a pretty silly reason to make that particular design decision.
Studded Leather is cute, The art and pseudo history it's original inclusion was based on is laughable, however if we boil it back to the idea of Reinforced Leather it's very much there... in fact, armour made from a leather jack or coat with bits of bone, horn, stone or metal added to certain key points spans from Iberia to East Asia, Siberia to the Sudan and across centuries.
This is represented by what we are calling "ringmail.
Hilarious. "Ringmail" is heavey armour. re-inforced leather is on the other side of a mail byrnie or hauberk from Heavey.
Again, we have the issue of a person having an item that "we are calling" something entirely different. Hi, I have a single edged, slightly curved sword that requires two-hands to wield. We call that a Falchion. But a Flachion is a single handed, shortish bladed sword. We call that a Scimitar. But Scimitar is just mistranscription of Shamshir, which is more like a Sabre than a Falchion anyway. That's okay, we call Sabres Scimitars too! Unless we go back to pre-WotC days...
While I am not as picky as some people, I do feel one shouldn't be punished for literacy and education.
I have an answer for you, it may even be the truth.
Studded Leather is cute, The art and pseudo history it's original inclusion was based on is laughable, however if we boil it back to the idea of Reinforced Leather it's very much there... in fact, armour made from a leather jack or coat with bits of bone, horn, stone or metal added to certain key points spans from Iberia to East Asia, Siberia to the Sudan and across centuries.
This is represented by what we are calling "ringmail.
Hilarious. "Ringmail" is heavey armour. re-inforced leather is on the other side of a mail byrnie or hauberk from Heavey.
There's historical evidence claiming that 'ring maille' never existed, or was in fact another name for Chain.
Actually a lot of armour might be redundant naming. Unfortunately, we have very little information available from that period of time. Literacy was not exactly a high priority for creating things for war.
As for my contibution to this nitpicky thread:
Bastard Sword/Katana same thing, potaeto/potahto. Each weapon category should have a type of effect that may work better on some items and creatures, so we don't end up with 4e's constant seeking for the 'best' single weapon for ALL jobs, even if cutting down a stone door with a sword is awesome anime for you. As with all things in RPGs, don't like it, remove it. But let it be there for those who want more variety.
Heavy Armour should allow you to add half your Strength Bonus to wear it. Making Heavy Armour and Big Weapon fans happy making it better than Light Armour for THEIR builds of choice instead of making it better for everything as it is now. As long as AC is a binary dodge effect, this is the best option we have for Knights in Plate.
I probably have more, but ear ache, lack of sleep...
re-inforced leather is on the other side of a mail byrnie or hauberk from Heavey.
Again, we have the issue of a person having an item that "we are calling" something entirely different. Hi, I have a single edged, slightly curved sword that requires two-hands to wield. We call that a Falchion. But a Flachion is a single handed, shortish bladed sword. We call that a Scimitar. But Scimitar is just mistranscription of Shamshir, which is more like a Sabre than a Falchion anyway. That's okay, we call Sabres Scimitars too! Unless we go back to pre-WotC days...
While I am not as picky as some people, I do feel one shouldn't be punished for literacy and education.
Thanks for impugning my literacy and education. Also, *heavy.
That is Japanese "ring armor," which was what your description of "a leather jack or coat with bits of bone, horn, stone or metal added to certain key points" put me immediately in mind of, though maybe that was a misinterpretation on my part. There are many examples of similar armor from various cultures. So I'm not sure what you're thinking of when you think of ringmail, or why it would count as Heavy armor and not Medium, but considering (as CVB pointed out) that historians aren't even sure if European "ringmail" existed, I'm going to go with the kind that definitively did exist, and it looks a lot like like Medium armor to me. Obviously I'm not an expert, and I'm open to any reasonable revision in nomenclature or what-have-you, I just thought I'd qualify my earlier statement.
I do agree that "falchion" is an ill-suited name for the weapon it's applied to.
That particular example uses coins, yes. I've seen examples of "coin armor" like this from other cultures too, even an Amerindian one I think (post-Columbian, of course). I would still call it a type of ringmail/ ring armor, given it fits the description of rings sewn to a cloth or leather backing.
These and the previous example all match the description of ringmail given in the playtest packet and my general understanding of what the term refers to.
Sure you can have general categories of weapons and armor, but the way they work should be logical and based on history.
I think I'd more upset if the designers got the physics of weapons and armor wrong than I would be about incorrect terms and names. I'm not saying that we should be performing physics calculations at the table, we still need abstract rules for that, but I do think that abstract rules should approximate the same result.
For example, chain mail is terrible against piercing weapons. Plate is more manuverable than chain and shouldn't be incurring disadvantage. You can hook (trip or dismount) a rider with a halberd. The halberd should have three modes of attacking (thrust, hook, and hack). You can use a bastard sword one or two handed. Sheaf arrows cause more damage when you pull them out (a silk shirt helped - the mongols used them). A wooden quarter staff shouldn't be as deadly as a longsword. Sure you can crack a guys skull open with the staff, but the longsword should be more deadly more often.
I just want to see a bit more effort from the part the designers to drop all the nonsense we've seen creep into the equipment list since 3e. In fact in I'm hoping to see an equipment by time peroid table in the DMG (like 2e had).
Also, *heavy.
