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Real armor did slow you down, especially plate and other heavy armor, but not nearly as much as people tend to think. You did not become like Robocop by wearing one.
A well-made suit of plate armor would sometimes weight no more than 20kg (~40lb), but it was a little clumsy because of the joint connections and such, not only the weight of it alone.

Even a mail hauberk (aka Chain Shirt in D&D) would slow you down slightly.
Maybe not much in overland movement, but try and swim or climb with one and you would certainly feel the armor taking its toll.

The Max Dex rule is a good way to balance things and take that into account, but I do have some remarks...

Two things I would like to see changed in the actual armor rules:

1- Bring back armor check penalty.
It could be Disadvantage instead if you like that better (though in the case of armor I think a -X penalty would be more suitable), but that needs to be extended to all Dex and Str based skills, not just stealth.
Imagine having to tumble, climb, swim or even pick someone's pocket while using a full suit of Plate Armor and you can see what I mean.

2- Make heavier armors better.
Maybe only slightly, but something. Max Dex is good to balance things out, but in the end wearing a good piece of protection should always be desirable for a combatant.
No medieval warrior in his right mind would pass on a suit of Plate or Mail and say "Nah... I think I'll just go bare-chested instead."
The only real reason for someone to not want to wear, say, at least a piece of mail, would probably be something not related to combat.
Example: I'm a thief, so despite the fact that a suit of mail can keep me from harm, I would rather not risk doing my roguey business in such noisy garment.
Or perhaps if I'm a mage, armor will get in the way of casting spells.

So give heavy armors a slight adjustment.
Perhaps AC 20 for plate instead of 18. So that even a high-dex character in light armor can't beat that level of protection.

But won't Plate-wearers become really hard to hit for a 1st level character with low To Hit?
Yeah, but that's how much a real Plate Armor mattered in the battlefield. You just couldn't pierce it with a regular blade. So much that melee combat in the late medieval age changed drastically due to plate use. Techniques of tackling, grappling and immobilizing knights were being used, to then slip a blade between his armor pieces.

Try and force a high-AC opponent into a situation where you have Advantage, then it gets easier to beat his AC by having 2 dice to roll.
Combat gets more tactical and interesting that way.

Also, unless your DM states that your character is highborn, and starts out as a rich noble... I doubt anyone will be using a suit of Plate right away. 'Cause they're very expensive and in general players begin their adventuring with not nearly enough money for purchasing one.


Ok, Ok, I know not everyone cares for that level of historical flavour in their RPGs.
But even so, in terms of pure game balance, I think heavy armors should be slightly better in their level of protection, and not something that "I'll use just cause I don't have much Dex."

Jan 3, 2013 -- 4:26PM, Dwarfslayer wrote:

Jan 3, 2013 -- 4:20PM, Zardnaar wrote:

D&DN has no trade off. Dex is always better.

Yeah, dex is the super stat in D&DN. Though I'm not sure if I hate that. At the very least strength and dex based characters are both viable. I prefer it to 2E/3E where you basically couldn't make a good dex-based fighter wtihout relying on sneak attack.

 You could make a good dex based fighter without sneak attack. In 2nd ed dex was better unless you have 18/XYZ and a archer fighter could be used in 3rd ed and there was various ways IIRC to get dex/int to damage. Most likelygood a dex based fighter was a ranged one in 3rd ed though.

Jan 3, 2013 -- 4:58PM, GEBELL wrote:

Right now, the mechanics suggest that heavy armor slows you down, because that heavy armor negates, or cancels out any dex bonus.  But why should armor that turns a +2 to +0 not turn a +0 to a -2?  Because it provides enough physical protection to counter act the loss in mobility when talking about AC.  

Heavy armor doesn't negate the Dex bonus; it just prevents you from being able to use it.  Eh, that's how I see it anyway.  I guess your way makes sense, too.

I could see something like adding the lower of your Strength modifier and Dexterity modifier (so Strength allows you to regain use of your Dex), but that's about as far as it still makes sense to me.

Jan 3, 2013 -- 7:09PM, hexxer wrote:

Jan 3, 2013 -- 2:47PM, hexxer wrote:

My only thought behind this is PCs are heroes. These limitations on thier ability scores (especially) DEX is detremental.

I was specifically referring to armor ability. Encumberance should be a issue of course. It doesn't seem right to allow Dex bonus upto +2 then tap it off.  If a character can use heavy armor and his strength was great enough why should he not be able to use his Dexterity? or not even consider the heavy armor in the first place?

There are two main factors interfering with the wearer's use of Dex.

1) Weight and weight distribution

2) Flexibility, or a lack thereof

For example, chain mail is very flexible, but extremely heavy, and the weight is poorly distributed as it essentually just hangs from the shoulders.  Plate is heavy, but the weight is much better distributed; however, it's a collection of rigid plates, so it's not exactly flexible.

One could make an argument for having high Str allow you to take advantage of your Dex bonus, but A) that's more complicated, and B) regardless, without a Str beyond the 20 cap, there's no way you're doing backflips in full chain mail.  I'm not saying the current armor list is perfect (far from), but capping Dex to AC keeps things cleaner, simpler, and better balanced.  If you're advocating throwing out Dex to AC caps wholesale, congratulations, you just broke AC scaling and Bounded Accuracy along with it.

So medium and heavy armor have Dex to AC caps because doing otherwise isn't mechanically practical, or even particularly realistic.  As to why you should choose to use heavy armor when you can get equal or better AC with light or medium armor, you shouldn't.  The different armor categories are geared towards characters with different investments in Dex.  Heavy armor is "better" because it provides protection without an investment in Dex (admittedly, not much of a trade, given Dex's current supremacy).  Heavy armor should probably cap 1 point higher than it does (the current armor balance is a bit off), but that's another issue for another thread.

I think you can safely remove the speed penalty for those heavy armors. You might take a hit long distance travel or in top running speed, but regular combat movement shouldn't be impacted. Armor was made to move around in.

And I was thinking heavy armor could provide a +1 bonus to your Dex Save. You get hit by a fireball or a cone of cold the heavy armor helps shield you. Perhaps with a shield you might gain an additional +1 bonus to your Dex Save.