How would you balance someone wearing chain and plate at the same time with anyone who doesn't?
Is this for 3.5e or 4e?
The 10 base armor is because the attacker also gets a 10 base on his attack roll (the dice roll) so without it attackers would generally hit on the roll of a 2 unless you had a totally insane armor score.
(Also, what is wrong with just letting them describe their armor any way they want, even if it doesn't match the pictures in the book perfectly?)
Edit: The reason for this is, I've raised the price of armor altogether so that players don't access to all armor at such an early level. So they may only may be able to improve their AC by one item out of the next level of armor at a time.
Also how would the Magic Item system work? When can you get an armor enchantment? If you have +1 gloves and +1 boots, but the rest is at +0, what would your enhancement bonus be?
On a personal note, I've never been fond of systems where you can slap on a pair of boots and then suddenly you become significantly more difficult to hit by all attacks. The convention of armour being bought, found, and used in full sets removes this mental hurdle, and removes the image of heroes running around with piece-meal armour cobbled together from random scraps they found everywhere. After a certain point characters will aquire a full set of the best armour they want anyway, so I don't really see what the point is, other than making the math swingy by not always assuring that you have the AC assumed for your level.
Not to poop on your party here, just some things to think about.
The reason that characters get 10 AC naturally is because AC also represents dodging, parrying, etc, and it's assumed that PCs have the ability to do those things. If you take away the 10 natural AC, any character not wearing armour WILL be hit by ANY creature using ANY attack on ANYTHING other than a 1 or if they are taking some penalty. It just seems a bit silly that this system you're making seems to imply that armour is the ONLY thing stopping trained fighters form getting hit by attacks.
On a personal note, I've never been fond of systems where you can slap on a pair of boots and then suddenly you become significantly more difficult to hit by all attacks. The convention of armour being bought, found, and used in full sets removes this mental hurdle, and removes the image of heroes running around with piece-meal armour cobbled together from random scraps they found everywhere. After a certain point characters will aquire a full set of the best armour they want anyway, so I don't really see what the point is, other than making the math swingy by not always assuring that you have the AC assumed for your level.
Not to poop on your party here, just some things to think about.
Haha, you said poop.
What about all the magical enhancements that only work on cloth? Do those work on leather now, as well?
Are all the classes that run with cloth armor going to get leather armor proficiency automatically?
What happens when you have a +2 Deathcut Pauldrons, +1 Black Iron chestpiece, +3 Sunleaf leggings...? What happens if all you have is +1 leggings, but the rest of your armor is regular?
What about heavy armor leggings, light armor shoulders, heavy armor pauldrons, light armor chestpiece - do you get your int/dex mod adjustment to your AC?
Why do other defenses (Fort, Ref, Will) get that +10 to begin with?
On the other hand, (Gaah, I don't have a PH anywhere near me at the moment) D&D has a long tradition of magical helms, gauntlets, boots and bracers, and presumably, if armour comes as full sets, the ones that come as part of the set are replaced by the magical ones. Also, this is how things are handled in Nethack (although with nethack it's simpler, because I don't think gauntlets boost AC, although boots & helms do. And you can wear a shirt under your armour and a cloak over it.)
Ultimately, I can't see why it couldn't work, and if it's what your players want...
I like the idea of a more piecemiel armor set, but I don't know why you have to get rid of the base 10 for it to work. Maybe if I could see your numbers it would make more sense?
I would do something like
Leather- Light Armor
- Cap- +1 AC, Head Slot.
- Bracers- +1 AC, Arms Slot.
- Jerkin- + 1 AC, Body Slot.
Chain- Heavy Armor
- Helm- +1 AC, Head Slot
- Shirt- +4 AC, -1 Movement, Body Slot and Arms Slot.
- Leggings- +1 AC, -1 check, Legs Slot
Plate- Heavy Armor
- Helmate- +2 AC, Head Slot
- Brestplate- +4, -1 Movement, Body Slot
- Pauldrons- +1, -1 Check, Arms Slot
- Greaves- +2, -1 Check, Legs Slot.
You can wear armor in the arms slot, head slot, body slot, leg slot. One piece in each, no more. All take up the "Armor" magic item slot. Each piece of armor can be enchanted sperately, but the Enhancement bonus does not stack, so only the highest applies. If your armor is enchanted with different magical properties or powers you can use any and all of those magical effects. Masterwork armor is complicated, and if you (The OP) want I will add something in about that. Basically it gives a smaller bonus to each piece that is masterworked.
Scale, cloth, and hide armor are condenses/removed. For classes that get cloth let them have leather caps and bracers. For those in hide they can do a chain helm and leggings, but only leather armor otherwise. For those in scale, they can do a helmate, and greaves, but otherwise chain armor.
Armor Proficiency can be taken in leather, chain or plate. Now this feat is better than it was.
EDITED 12-22 because I noticed I had a wrong number on breatplates and pauldrons.
Wait... how does this fit with other magic items that go into those slots?
I don't know, but I would guess that they would be updated to give a bonus to AC if they don't already.
You could even start making certain enchantments for heavier gloves only, to make heavy armor more interesting.
Wait... how does this fit with other magic items that go into those slots?
If in response to mine, you can just wear magic gauntlets like normal, but you can also now wear Armored magic gauntlets that go into the armor slot.
Maybe non-armored magic gauntlets are more of a gloves thing, or however you want to take it. Same for head slots, and what have you.
Magic armor has always had overlap with magic gauntlets and magic hats, and up till now the solution was to simply say "You can not wear the non-magic gloves, and your AC stays the same". This is really for the most part the same solution. You will just have 2 sets of magic gauntlets, and have to find some way to justify that in game.
Or Faye's Idea. That works better, but is more work for you.
The only reason I see using different pieces of armor is when you're using a system that tracks where you hit your opponent. If you hit a guy in the head and he's not wearing head armor, you get extra damage.
Since D&D doesn't tell you where you hit, it doesn't matter.
Benefits-
- You could institute special powers that do things like "If your opponent has no ___ armor, ___happens.
- You can fine tune exactly which armor pieces you want, giving you the exact AC, check penalty, and move speed penalty you want.
- You can include magic helms that do things like "Helm of seeing good. Get +5 to seeing".
Drawbacks-
- More book keeping
as stated the +10 represents the defenders ability to dodge I would keap that unless u use a optional dodge roll to replace it. As for the rest of the idea. think of it already. realy when u buy platemail armor the chest peice is what gives almost all fo the ac bonus, I eman imagin curently a char has plate mail but if he is fully geared he also has difrent boots difrent neck difrent head difrent hands so on and so forth so curently almost all of the original armor is already getting replaced without any ac difrence becouse almost all attacks are concidered aimed at the chest.
If you wanted to mix and match armor typs with a specific effect I would use one of the 3 ideas personaly.
1) each peice adds a small amount of hp perhaps = to the armor bonus you were going to use. this allows for mixed armor to have a effect without changing the basic chance to hit or miss. side effect would be that it also makes the chars a bit tougher but if you were planning on raising prices this could be ideal. Defenders might not be able to affor da full set of plate but they could get the chest and legs (core peices) of the armor gain 8 hp from there plate then later get the hands and head for anouther couple hp but no AC change. this would take a lot of mild fine tuning to work out well though
2) allow for targeted attacks. so a enimies could target chest or -1 to hit target legs -2 to hit target hands, feet, head though again most attacks will use the chest ac if the players used subpar armor for there other spots a enimie might find it worthy to target the harder to hit locations seaking the softer easier to penatrate armor.
3) relise that players already are mix and matching most slots of gear when they get magical gear and stay with current system
What I find laughable is the armor that the illustrators give to some of the martial classes, esp the females who apparently MUST have exposed abdomens and overspilling cleavage (unless you're a level 25 monk with 22 Dex and 20 Con, you might as well wear a sign that says, "Please eviscerate me").
I like the idea of a more piecemiel armor set, but I don't know why you have to get rid of the base 10 for it to work. Maybe if I could see your numbers it would make more sense?
I would do something like
Leather- Light Armor
- Cap- +1 AC, Head Slot.
- Bracers- +1 AC, Arms Slot.
- Jerkin- + 1 AC, Body Slot.
Chain- Heavy Armor
- Helm- +1 AC, Head Slot
- Shirt- +4 AC, -1 Movement, Body Slot and Arms Slot.
- Leggings- +1 AC, -1 check, Legs Slot
Plate- Heavy Armor
- Helmate- +2 AC, Head Slot
- Brestplate- +3, -1 Movement, Body Slot
- Pauldrons- +2, -1 Check, Arms Slot
- Greaves- +2, -1 Check, Legs Slot.
You can wear armor in the arms slot, head slot, body slot, leg slot. One piece in each, no more. All take up the "Armor" magic item slot. Each piece of armor can be enchanted sperately, but the Enhancement bonus does not stack, so only the highest applies. If your armor is enchanted with different magical properties or powers you can use any and all of those magical effects. Masterwork armor is complicated, and if you (The OP) want I will add something in about that. Basically it gives a smaller bonus to each piece that is masterworked.
Scale, cloth, and hide armor are condenses/removed. For classes that get cloth let them have leather caps and bracers. For those in hide they can do a chain helm and leggings, but only leather armor otherwise. For those in scale, they can do a helmate, and greaves, but otherwise chain armor.
Armor Proficiency can be taken in leather, chain or plate. Now this feat is better than it was.
Thank you, this works really well. I'm refining this and implementing this into my campaign as we speak
As for the extra book keeping I don't mind, I have so many home-brew rules in my campaign such as the mining skill and rules from 2nd edition, tailoring and many other things. Interestingly enough I had my characters go into a Dwavern mine overrun with Trolls and actually mine there own special ore for their armor and had them forge it. They felt it added more of a personal connection and greater sense of depth and immersion into the game.