Heavy Armor Needs Love, Too

[The Rambling Midget]

Light armor has a laundry list of options for a wide variety of classes, many of which provide better protection than their common variants, along with enormous (by Arelith standards) skill bonuses and potentially tremendously powerful special abilities, to go on top of classes which typically already have a huge bank of skill points and defensive abilities.

Medium armor isn't as robust, and caters heavily to exotic builds that rely on some mechanical loophole to get around multiple attribute dependence, but still has a fairly good range of options.

Heavy armor gets "the armor", or "the armor that makes you die faster, in exchange for some skill points that you can't benefit from, because the rest of your crafted gear hasn't been inflated to support it, and your skill point pool was too small to get a meaningful amount of base ranks, anyway". The DI is nice, but ultimately meaningless without the AC to back it up, and still contributes to pigeonholing heavy armor wearers into the singular role of hitting things with a big stick.

Heavy armor is meant to be the pinnacle of physical protection, but for some reason a pole danger dragging around a metal wall that weighs twice as much as they do, and wielding a knitting needle, is somehow a more terrifying combatant.

What gives?

[AstralUniverse]

This is an interesting topic but I have to admit I didnt understand about half of what you wrote there.

Over all, I cant see how we buff heavy armors without buffing those divine/wms and barb/wms and 20th cots we really dont wanna buff right now. Templar half plate is in a good place. Increasing addy to +4 ac is something I've suggested before but I dont know if it would do more good than harm in the current meta. Other heavy armors are pretty bad imo.

Something I now thought about, probably not to first to think about, why dont we raise the max dex allowed for half plates to 2 and banded armors to 3, this way they all reach the same ac, but require increasingly higher dex investment, which can be beneficial to some nich builds.

[The Rambling Midget]

Over all, I cant see how we buff heavy armors without buffing those divine/wms and barb/wms and 20th cots we really dont wanna buff right now.

That sounds like a problem with a very small group of classes, not the armor they're wearing. If that one guy over there is too tall, sawing off everyone's legs at the knee doesn't seem like the best option to bring them down to a more palatable size.

I'm also not talking about a straight buff, so much as a wider variety of heavy armor options that encourage playstyles beyond "click an enemy and wait for the fight to end".

[Morgy]

Would it be realistic for heavier armours to offer some kind of raw HP increase per level? This would kind of replicate the increased resistance to injury heavier armours provide, without making the wearer harder to hit or sticking on more damage immunity/reduction that some builds already stack.

[Mythic]

Ultra-Heavy with negative to Charisma bonuses. Barbs lose most of their bonuses using heavier than medium armour.


Example

"Bastion Plate"

Full Plate Armour

+5 AC Bonus
-2 Dexterity Modifier
-4/ Charisma
20% slashing immunity
10% Piercing Immunity
+5 Discipline
+20% arcane spell failure
50% increased wieght

[NPC Logger Number 2]

I made this exact same thread a good while ago. Adamantine full plate is a bad joke when you take into consideration how much it costs, you're spending half a million gold on a piece of armor that is objectively worse in every possible way than every other end-game piece of armor, most of which cost 1/5th of the price.

[NPC Logger Number 2]

Here are JUST A FEW examples of end-game armor options for DEX melee and ranged/caster builds:

Armor of Immolation
Arcane Spell Failure: -05%
Armor Bonus: +4 (AC Armor Modifier)
Damage Resist: Fire 10/-
Enhancement Bonus: Charisma +2
Improved Saving Throws: Fire +3
Skill Bonus: Discipline +5
Use: Elemental Shield (12) unlimited uses

Padded Vestment of the Holy Squire
Armor Bonus: +4 (AC Armor Modifier)
Enhancement Bonus: Dexterity +4
Bonus Feat: Dodge
Skill Bonus: Heal +5
Use: Resurrection (13) 1 use/day
Only Useable By: Paladin

Ranger's Runic Vestment
Armor Bonus: +4 (AC Armor Modifier)
Damage Immunity: Slashing 10%
Enhancement Bonus: Strength +2
Arcane Spell Failure: 25% increased
Use: Barkskin (12) 1 Use/Day
Runic
Only Useable By: Ranger

Enchanted Fine Silk Shirt
Armor Bonus: +3 (AC Armor Modifier)
Enhancement Bonus: Dexterity +1
Skill Bonus: Move Silently +3
Skill Bonus: Hide +3
Skill Bonus: Perform +2
Skill Bonus: Tumble +3

Disciple's Garb
Armor Bonus: +3 (AC Armor Modifier)
Enchantment Bonus: Wisdom +2
Discipline +4
Runic
Only Useable By: Monk



Every single one of those armors is cheaper and easier to craft than Adamantine Full plate, most of them cost 1/5th as much. Each of them give all kinds of bonuses, some of them even give more AC, and if you have at least 14 DEX on any build you can get the same or more AC from those armors that you would get from Full Plate Adamantine, easily. And those are JUST A FEW of the end-game armor options DEX builds and casters have, I could easily copy and paste a dozen more that are all better than adamantine full plate but for the sake of brevity I won't...

And then you have Adamantine Full Plate, the ONLY viable option for STR Melee to reach maximum possible AC unless you are an Orog.

Full Plate Armor (Adamantine)
Armor Bonus +3 (AC Armor Modifier)
Damage Immunity: Slashing 10% Immunity Bonus

There are a few semi-decent half-plate options but those will all cost you 1 AC. For the most part there is no point in going for any of them though unless you are a divine build and really need that +3 CHA more than you do 1 AC. DEX builds don't have to sacrifice any AC though to gain all those sweet bonuses, and they spend a fraction of the gold on materials to craft their armors. STR Melee is literally forced to pay 5x as much for equipment that is less good. It's an outrage and I think STR Melee deserves to have a few solid gear options too.

[Dr. B]

Ultra-Heavy with negative to Charisma bonuses. Barbs lose most of their bonuses using heavier than medium armour.

I like this.

[Flower Power]

There are a few semi-decent half-plate options but those will all cost you 1 AC. For the most part there is no point in going for any of them though unless you are a divine build and really need that +3 CHA more than you do 1 AC. DEX builds don't have to sacrifice any AC though to gain all those sweet bonuses, and they spend a fraction of the gold on materials to craft their armors. STR Melee is literally forced to pay 5x as much for equipment that is less good. It's an outrage and I think STR Melee deserves to have a few solid gear options too.

It's worth noting that if you don't think cost is an issue (and, let's face it, gold is laughably easy to come by once you hit L30 and have reliable access to adamantine anyways) that Templar Plate is very, very cheap to make and very flexible enchantment-wise (you can 5% enchant it then rune it ontop of that) - it's a lot less painful to get your enchantments added to Templar Plate than it is to Addy Fullplate, which makes it very desirable for that end.

But yeah. Heavy Armor is boring and undertuned compared to the amount of love that's been shown to DEX-based builds, which were hand over fist several tiers more optimal than 90% of non-DEX builds when I stopped playing.

[mjones3]

I think added Damage immunity to plate that scales along the regular progression would be the best way to go. Steel gets 5% bludgeoning and piercing added. Mithril 10% bludgeoning and piercing added. And adamantine gets slashing upgraded to 15% of all three.

You're going to get hit as a STR character but currently those with medium armor can get a higher damage immunity over all than those with heavy armor.

[NPC Logger Number 2]

There are a few semi-decent half-plate options but those will all cost you 1 AC. For the most part there is no point in going for any of them though unless you are a divine build and really need that +3 CHA more than you do 1 AC. DEX builds don't have to sacrifice any AC though to gain all those sweet bonuses, and they spend a fraction of the gold on materials to craft their armors. STR Melee is literally forced to pay 5x as much for equipment that is less good. It's an outrage and I think STR Melee deserves to have a few solid gear options too.

It's worth noting that if you don't think cost is an issue (and, let's face it, gold is laughably easy to come by once you hit L30 and have reliable access to adamantine anyways) that Templar Plate is very, very cheap to make and very flexible enchantment-wise (you can 5% enchant it then rune it ontop of that) - it's a lot less painful to get your enchantments added to Templar Plate than it is to Addy Fullplate, which makes it very desirable for that end.

But yeah. Heavy Armor is boring and undertuned compared to the amount of love that's been shown to DEX-based builds, which were hand over fist several tiers more optimal than 90% of non-DEX builds when I stopped playing.

Cost IS an issue for STR Melee though. For STR Melee to be viable it is pretty much mandatory that they spend the majority of their income on healing kits, potions, and wands/scrolls. I can easily get a million gold on any other kind of build without even looting the majority of the corpses I leave, because they don't cost a whole lot to run. STR Melee is expensive to play though. Add on top of that their gear is 5x more expensive by default, and that they won't even be able to start earning a profit or running end-game dungeons until they've grinded low level areas for months to pay for said gear... Then yeah, cost is definitely an issue. A million gold is nothing for a wizard, a cleric, or a druid, they can just summon creature X and go afk and come back to buckets of gold. To do the same on a fighter you got to actively be watching the screen and the combat log and using heal kits and potions, toggling IE on and off, etc.

[AstralUniverse]

Ultra-Heavy with negative to Charisma bonuses. Barbs lose most of their bonuses using heavier than medium armour.


Example

"Bastion Plate"

Full Plate Armour

+5 AC Bonus
-2 Dexterity Modifier
-4/ Charisma
20% slashing immunity
10% Piercing Immunity
+5 Discipline
+20% arcane spell failure
50% increased wieght

This is pretty broken but I like the direction. Armors with cha penalty can be more easily balanced because you know divine builds wont use them.

[The Rambling Midget]

Ultra-Heavy with negative to Charisma bonuses. Barbs lose most of their bonuses using heavier than medium armour.

I understand the desire to hamstring divine builds, but this is still punishing everyone else for something they didn't do. I'd rather see the actual root of the problem addressed than continue to hand out draconian punishments to non-div STR builds that are trying to do something interesting.

Moreover, the worst offenders are going to be wearing Immolation, anyway.

[NPC Logger Number 2]

Ultra-Heavy with negative to Charisma bonuses. Barbs lose most of their bonuses using heavier than medium armour.

I understand the desire to hamstring divine builds, but this is still punishing everyone else for something they didn't do. I'd rather see the actual root of the problem addressed than continue to hand out draconian punishments to non-div STR builds that are trying to do something interesting.

Moreover, the worst offenders are going to be wearing Immolation, anyway.

Or Enchanted Silk, or Disciple's Garb, or Padded Vestment of the Holy Squire. Even a STR Melee with 14 DEX is better off wearing any of those than they are Full Plate Adamantine. The divine dips everyone is so worried about can already wear Padded Vestment of the Holy Squire and only need +4 dex on the rest of their gear to get more AC than adamantine full plate, along with +5 heal and a free resurrection spell (worth 20k) once a day. Even the DEX gear is better for STR Melee than the actual STR Melee gear. There is no good argument at all against adding better gear for STR Melee classes that I can see. Most DEX Melee classes could be completely naked with no armor at all and still have higher AC and better damage output than a STR Melee in full plate adamantine, along with all the skills, saves, etc. I really want to see what mythical STR paladin build everyone is so scared of buffing, cuz I highly doubt it would melt drow in a single round like my DEX Spellmonk did.

[-XXX-]

Up until now, whenever full plates were at least comparable to lighter versions of armor, people went for the max AC in an overwhelming majority of cases.
Personally, I consider adamantine full plate the top of what should be available to melee PCs. Unfortunately, the DEV team opted to compensate the removal of artifacts with some really powerful craftable items. OK, that's a design balance choice and I respect it.
Now, the last thing that we need IMO is an arms race between heavy and lighter armor types.

I'd like to point out that the decision to have the Fighter class passively gain armor AC during level progression opens up a very interesting design space:

It might be interesting to introduce Full plates / half plates / banded armor versions with some interesting properties WITHOUT any AC bonus. That way builds with fighter levels could use them to their fullest potential without necessarily buffing other melee builds.
Regeneration, DR, immunities (would crit immunity be too much? ), +2 CON, etc.

[Dr. B]

Ultra-Heavy with negative to Charisma bonuses. Barbs lose most of their bonuses using heavier than medium armour.

I understand the desire to hamstring divine builds, but this is still punishing everyone else for something they didn't do. I'd rather see the actual root of the problem addressed than continue to hand out draconian punishments to non-div STR builds that are trying to do something interesting.

Moreover, the worst offenders are going to be wearing Immolation, anyway.

I'm not sure how this "hamstrings" divine builds. Divine Builds tend to the the exception to the norm that strength builds are relatively weak compared to dex builds, so Mythic's solution is to offer a boon to strength builds that won't make divine builds overpowered. I don't see that as hamstringing. It's a lot like how some bonuses that affect finessable weapons don't apply to quarterstaff.

[The Rambling Midget]

I'm not sure how this "hamstrings" divine builds. Divine Builds tend to the the exception to the norm that strength builds are relatively weak compared to dex builds, so Mythic's solution is to offer a boon to strength builds that won't make divine builds overpowered.

You're misreading what I wrote about hamstringing, but that doesn't matter.

The point is that this would be an attempt to reduce the power of divine builds which rely on CHA by putting a reduction on a specific piece of crafted armor, instead of fixing the class, itself. It only addresses one case out of dozens, and further pushes players toward DEX based builds, which we have enough of, already.

[NPC Logger Number 2]

How about this, a typical naked DEX Melee'er already has more AC than a STR Melee'er in Full Plate Adamantine. Do the DEX Melee armors really need a +4 AC on top of all the insane ability and skill bonuses and unlimited use per day spells? It's even more broken when you consider the majority of these DEX builds have things like Epic Dodge and HiPS. What's good for the goose is good for the gander though, if DEX Melee gets to have all these overpowered armors, then STR Melee should get SOMETHING!

If a +4 AC, +2 STR full plate is too powerful for STR Melee, then why does DEX Melee get +4 AC, +4 DEX, +5 Heal, and 1/day Resurrection? If +4 AC and +5 Disc and DR 20 is too powerful for STR Melee, then why does DEX Melee get +4 AC, +2 Cha, +5 Disc, Resist 10 Fire, and Unlimited use per day Elemental Shield? Take armor out of the equation, and DEX Melee is leagues more powerful than STR Melee, so why does DEX Melee need way better armor on top of that?

I'm sick of the red herring "We can't buff divine dips!" excuse for not giving STR Melee anything when a fight between any of the current meta DEX Melee'ers and 10 divine dip guys in full plate adamantine would look something like this:

https://youtu.be/Kv9ygN2B8WU

[Dr. B]

The point is that this would be an attempt to reduce the power of divine builds which rely on CHA by putting a reduction on a specific piece of crafted armor, instead of fixing the class, itself.

I take it that this is not the intention behind Mythic's suggestion. CHA builds would still rely on Templar Armor. The "Bulwark Armor" or whatever would be intended for non-divine meleers like 20/7/3, Barbarians, etc. The CHA penalty would give divine builds an incentive not to use it in the first place.

I also don't agree that the fix to a balance issue must always be to change the class, or that doing so is somehow more preferable than introducing new items. There can be multiple means to achieving balance, and that can include introducing new items. Indeed, there are certain advantages to the latter method; it won't necessitate rebuilds or require people to familiarize themselves with yet more mechanical changes.

[Hunter548]

Ultra-Heavy with negative to Charisma bonuses. Barbs lose most of their bonuses using heavier than medium armour.

I understand the desire to hamstring divine builds, but this is still punishing everyone else for something they didn't do. I'd rather see the actual root of the problem addressed than continue to hand out draconian punishments to non-div STR builds that are trying to do something interesting.

Moreover, the worst offenders are going to be wearing Immolation, anyway.

I'm not sure how this "hamstrings" divine builds. Divine Builds tend to the the exception to the norm that strength builds are relatively weak compared to dex builds, so Mythic's solution is to offer a boon to strength builds that won't make divine builds overpowered. I don't see that as hamstringing. It's a lot like how some bonuses that affect finessable weapons don't apply to quarterstaff.

Every single div build I can think of is stronger as a dex build than a str build. I think that's the bigger issue here, tbh. Get the dichotomy between dex/str builds under control first (which should involve nerfing a few of the various armor options dex has) and then think about whether heavy armor needs buffed.

I don't think something that's "addy plate +ac" is the answer in any case. People can already get the same thing from a fullplate with magic vestments, and that's not enough to bridge the gap.

[Hazard]

Could the answer be to nerf some of the div/dex builds/items, instead of buffing heavy armor?
I think the problem is power creep with the newer stuff. Some of these builds are far stronger than stuff we collectively decided was OP in the past (and present). It's getting weird and PvE is being triviliased by much more more than just druids these days.

[mjones3]

30 fighter with full adamantine gear is 42 ac. DI is 10% across the board
30 fighter with a +4 dex modifier and elven chain is 42 ac. DI is 10% Slashing and 15 Piercing and Bludgeoning.
27 Fighter/3 paladin with adamantine gear is 39 AC
27 Fighter/3 Paladin with chainmail of the holy knight is 36 ac.
Non Fighter with Full Adamantine 33 AC
(All AC assuming Armor skin and no Improved Expertise)

It comes down to choice for some fighter divine dips. 3 AC or immunity to harm, word of faith once a day, +4 dex to help reaching a better ac, and runic. Will divine dips be that much stronger with 3 AC and other boons? I don't know I'm not the best with balance. But as it stands If you're not fighter heavy armor is rather pointless, might as well lose some AC and get some more DI or infinite elemental shield since you're getting hit no matter what.

[Seven Sons of Sin]

1. Do you nerf Dex armours or buff STR armours?

2. Do you add -CHA heavy armours to give non-divine STR builds a boost?

3. Does universally buffing Heavy Armours "move the ceiling"/"raise the floor"?

4. Is all of this just a sideshow to the divine-build problem? And further, is the divine problem a divine DEX problem, or both a divine DEX/STR problem?

[Xerah]

Right now, there is an archer issue (related to DEX) and a divine DEX issue.

Blinding speed, being a free action, not dropping expertise, allowing 1r to haste+DS+DM, and have 3x duration of a wand/potion is one of the biggest reasons why.

[NPC Logger Number 2]

Right now, there is an archer issue (related to DEX) and a divine DEX issue.

Blinding speed, being a free action, not dropping expertise, allowing 1r to haste+DS+DM, and have 3x duration of a wand/potion is one of the biggest reasons why.

This has nothing to do with STR Melee having better armors. No one with Blinding Speed is going to be wearing Heavy Armor. The people with Blinding Speed already have more than a dozen sets of armor to choose from that are better than Full Plate Adamantine.