Why does everyone keep saying armour is shit in 3.5 D&D?

The fluff is quite bothersome; like in Morrowind, when you attack and "miss" due to dicerolls, but every other game on the market would count that as a hit. Shits up my fantasy even if I understand why the mechanic is there.

Your cool PCs and enemies either completely miss or completely hit; it's a binary thing and you've little control over it. Fluff-wise, saying "you miss" to the skilled duelist attacking a fat slow troll sounds stupid and hurts the fantasy.

If you mask that up with fancy GMing ("your toothpick gets stuck in its fat"), it's much better, and an ok system for D&D and such games made/balanced with AC in mind.

Concerning 3.PF AC bullshittery, Hack-fix in a way is capping AC to 25 like in Shadow of the Demon Lord for both PCs and NPCs, and having a relative max of +15 for d20 attacks (this gives you a "take 10" hit on most foes; fighters could go slightly above +15 and any clothfucker goes up to +10).

Now, just one nice thing about it, if you have a lot of attacks and such, AC as a simple binary thing is easy to handle.

>the super high-accuracy monsters the GM had to throw in just to even remotely challenge the tank.
As someone who builds tanky characters, this annoys me to no end. I'm giving up other character options to make myself harder to kill. Don't just change the balance of the game just because you can't kill me, instead make it a challenge to keep myself in between the enemies and the rest of the party that I'm supposed to be protecting.

Ironically, even though knightfags whine whenever guns get mentioned, their armor already becomes obsolete tissue paper in the face of disintegration and other such nasties once you hit midgame, and better ways to up your abilities to survive come available, with the best defense being to not get hit.

>Talking about longbows.
>In a replica of armor that was used way the fuck after the longbow was totally obsolete.

>Whine when guns get mentioned

Plate armor was made to resist firearms, and the height of plate armor in the early modern period coincided with the rise of firearms.

People just think it's weird when the knight in shining armor has a pistol.

>People just think it's weird when the knight in shining armor has a pistol.
I feel greatly privileged to be have done away with this mentality, and now even feel a samurai or knight isn't complete with a nice, blackpowder "fuck you" weapon.

Luckily the game itself actually has a built-in way to fluff misses that it doesn't really bring attention to in such a context: touch AC.

If your attack misses, but would have hit touch AC, then the attack "hit" but was rendered moot by armor. If it failed to even hit touch AC, it missed entirely.

Is this why Paladins were more competitive than let's say monks?

Monks are just god-awful.

I'd like to run some houserules by you guys, if I may.

Medium and heavy armor no longer caps movement speed. You can walk 30' a round in heavy armor as you would with light armor.

Instead!
Armor check penalties double for one round if you move over a given soft cap.
Medium armor ACP doubles if you move more than 30 feet during your turn.
Heavy armor ACP doubles if you move more than 15 feet during your turn.

I hate to be an armchair martial artist, but I think this would be more realistic based on the studies I've seen; medieval armor doesn't restrict your movements that much, it's just more tiring to move around in.

Also, armor spikes, while they don't make sense in a real world context, do make some sense in a world full of monsters that will try to grab you with tentacles and massive rending claws and things. It's just that the armor spikes should be retractable, spring-loaded things so they aren't always in the way.

Because people on Veeky Forums are an autismal lot, and can't grasp abstraction. Everything should be simulationist with 50 pages on different armor types for every body part and how they counteract different damage types (with citations from appropriate period sources and peer-reviewed papers, of course), or it "doesn't make sense".

Well, it's not just abstraction, is it?
You could make a lot of complaints about the game mechanics as well.
I mean, who in their right mind uses anything heavier than a mithril breastplate? Really.

> this would be more realistic
I don't think you should be homebrewing d&d rules.

Armour is shit in all versions of D&D and AC is a dumb concept.

>It's just that the armor spikes should be retractable, spring-loaded things
This wouldnt work. The armour would have to be way bulkier to accomodate for space, even if you used a telescopic design. Even then it would be fragile and useless.

Shit ideas/10

> Why does everyone keep saying armour is shit in 3.5 D&D?
Because it's shit.

> What's wrong with 3.PF's Armor Class mechanics?
1. Armor reduce blows causing each hit to deal less damage, does not negate X5% of all attacks.
2. Min-Maxing for AC gives the monsters moderate chances to hit instead of low.
3. Most monsters will ignore a can and focus on truly dangerous party members.
4. Your choices as a players are near meaningless if you don't get appropriate gear. Like immensely costly gear. Gear your wizard will probably enchant for a 50% reduction. If he has time.
5. Other means of defense are more effective (E.G. mirror image, blur...)
6. Armor serves no purpose against too many effects monsters benefit from.
7. It slows you down and impair your skills.
8. Monsters often have more than one attack at full BaB.
9. Even if you were to max-out AC, there's little you can do to ensure opponents target slow you instead of mobile wizard or rogue you're supposed to protect.

EVEN when you shell out the immense amounts an armor, shield, amulet and ring, it's often more of an hindrance than a boon. Especially level 5 and onward.

I suppose your next question will be "Why is the Reflex Save the least useful?" Or "How do I make a To-Hit roll?"

Try this instead:
> Every Full BaB martial class gets Armor Mastery as the Fighter.
> Other martial classes gets it so that by level 7 they have no penalty.
> Allow the Vanilla Fighter to pick any ability from an archetype that would normally replace the Fighter's Armor Mastery class ability.

Try to avoid conditional bonuses, there's already too many "Did you forget you had Bless cast on you?" in this clusterfuck of a game.

> Other martial classes gets it so that by level 7 they have no movement penalty with the heaviest armor they have proficiency in.

Sounds bad. If you don't like movement speed penalty for armors, just remove it and don't replace it with anything else. Axe everything past "Instead" in your post and it'll be way better.

Another option would be:
> Armor penalty is -1 (light) / -2 (medium) / -3 (heavy) all skills, doubled for swim and stealth.
> Armor still have a maximum Dex Bonus to AC, but no other penalty.
> Each hour, make a DC (7 + consecutive hours armor is worn - (Armor Check Penalty). A failed save means the character is Fatigued / Exhausted / Unconscious. Reduce the DC by 2 when a save is failed. A character can Take 10 on this check. Fatigue cannot be recovered with armor on, unless one has the feat Endurance.

This way, a 1st level Fighter with 14 Con and a Medium Armor should last 5 hours straight before making a check. Furthermore, these checks can all be rolled in-between encounter, instead of according to one's movement.

As an reenactmentfag, because it's not how fucking armor works at all. Armor should work as a dual system, with an area of coverage and armor rating. A guy in a breastplate for example, while virtually immune to all strikes against his upper torso, can be struck in any other spot for notable damage. The attacker makes a check based on his weapon skill to strike at the exposed spot. There is a multiplier added to this if you have grappled your enemy and flipped them onto the ground, sorta like a coup de grace, but still having a fair chance of failure.

Alternatively you can just strike the armor and try to deal damage through it. Striking with a sword blade will have little effect, but striking with the quillons will allow you to bleed small amounts of concussive force through until they pass out. Or you have something like a Bec de Corbin, which can rip open plate like a can opener.

Soooo... DR / Called-shots-penalties-to-bypass?

Sorta. But not as fast as D&D DR and with some twists. Like weapons having dual stats. A sword obviously doesn't deal the same type of damage, with the same degree of harm on flesh versus maille or plate armor. One is a brutal cut, the other is a light bruise, and the last one is like getting slapped with no bruising to mention unless it's a really big, heavy sword. Dual cut/pierce/etc stats along with concussion ratings for everything.

Base AC for melee is BAB+10, base AC for ranged becomes BAB+10 if you have the arrow catching thing, a shield, or a weapon specialization with a melee weapon you're holding.

Armor is DR.

Granulate all attacks into piles of dice rather than w+modifier, then apply the DR against every individual die. That way
a)even very little DR has significant impact, and
b)you can modulate armor-piercing properties of attacks by changing the size and the number of dice it uses.

From a player's perspective: armour is shit as it's expensive and only protects you from one means of attack when a dozen other things can render it pointless, along with only protecting one person. If you're armouring up, you're leaving yourself vulnerable to magic attacks (saves, or things hitting touch AC), things that bypass armour (stuff hitting touch AC like guns or thrown weapons), things that can hit accurately, and things that grapple.

You can avoid or minimise the remainder of the rest of the attacks (melee and arrows) with simple spells, using cover or moving out of range.

You can achieve the same effect with spells but better, especially if you put them on items or using a wand.

From a DM's perspective, either you have one invincible guy and 5 guys who will die in one hit, or you attack one of the weakspots of armour, eg. use magic, and then the guy using armour will have his choices gone to waste and feel singled out.

From a design perspective, the binary of save or dies and armour not having anything to do with that hurts a lot. What point is armour if it doesn't help against the majority of threats?

You sound like a fucking joy to play with. I bet it must be lots of fun spending an entire session on combat as each participant pairs off for a historically accurate duel.

DnD's rules are pretty shit, there's no arguing against that, but faggots who insist they're shit because "that's not how things work!" are worse. The rules were never meant to simulate real combat. It's the same thing as /k/ sperging out that guns in cyberpunk games behave nothing like they do in real life.

>You sound like a fucking joy to play with. I bet it must be lots of fun spending an entire session on combat as each participant pairs off for a historically accurate duel.
Or y'know you engage in fun unit tactics instead of being a bunch of screaming barbarian idiots cleaving through everything effortlessly and conquering massive hordes of enemies. Far more fun to engage in tactical melee combat where some people have to fulfill certain roles.

Hey, hey.
Don't poke fun at Riddle of Steel players. It's a perfectly OK way to enjoy a game.

It is, simulationist games have a definite niche to fill, but going into DnD and trying to "fix it" by adding simulationist home rules is literal pants on head level.

And this can't be accomplished without house ruling all of combat into a simulationist mess that barely even resembles actual fighting anymore and stands as a stark contrast to the literal robe and wizard hat motherfuckers flying over all of you tossing cloudkill onto swathes of soldiers?

You can effortlessly get 40 AC in 3.5e as a Lv 3 Cleric in an ECL 5 party if your DM so much as gives you an inch outside of RAW. It's harder in PF but possible.

Armor's pretty good early on, but the second you start seeing ~9th-level casters you need to focus hard on your saves and immunities, even at the expense of your armor. Mages in 3.PF use the old Pokemon adage: "it doesn't matter what I'm weak to if they're dead".

Effortlessly? That's a hyperbole, more like 30 and your still shit at literally anything else not to mention any Good dm is going to look at your sheet, feats and items and say no, you can't do that

>Any GOOD DM won't let you do this thing that's totally possible via the rules
Uhhuh.

If a DM lets you get away with selling items that you created, and/or abridging the time it takes to craft items, you can outfit yourself with high-end gear the second you hit Cleric 3. You might be Cleric 3 and the rest of your party be in the 8~10 ballpark, but most of your good Cleric spells are in 1st-4th level anyway, at least until you start getting 7th level spells. You'll easily make up the difference in XP eventually.

Not to mention that clerics get proficiency with full plate in 3.5e by default. Tack on some enhancements and a souped-up heavy shield, and you've got yourself a mean tank that can patch themselves and allies up on the fly. Your offense will be shit, but that's why you have a party, right?

Yeah, it dies to basically any AoE attacks, particularly spells, but life ain't fair, and D&D certainly ain't either.

>if your DM so much as gives you an inch outside of RAW
>Any GOOD DM won't let you do this thing that's totally possible via the rules
These are mutually exclusive

A good DM in 3.PF isn't playing 3.PF exclusively by RAW.

High HP mitigates the latter problem, and the former is a relatively uncommon issue since excessively high AC builds are not particularly good nor are they particularly desirable.

>A good GM in ANY system isn't playing it exclusively by RAW

Fixed that for you.

Actually there were techniques for piercing plate with European swords, that said the mace and morningstar were normally the way to go.

...

>look, i'm a meme forcing faggot

How about you choke on a dick?

> Not him, but I think in the scenario you described, the GM should look into something like "Armor-piercing" enemies that are able to bypass the fully-armored dude's plate.
Nah. Fighting smart and objectives that DON'T involve "kill everything" works better.

You dnd haters all literally all pants on head retarded with this shit

>the systems broken
>hows it broken
>you can do this stupid thing if you manipulate the rules to be used in ways they weren't meant to
>okay well a good dm says no when you try to do that
>WAHHH, THE DM IS TELLING ME I CAN'T DO SOMETHING, HE'S AN AWFUL DM
>but you just said that the game is stupid because it let's you get away with that
>yeah but if the dm has the power to remove all the things in dnd I hate then I can't bitch about it on Veeky Forums

Noone said I'm playing exclusively in RAW, hell Ill let my players use whatever obscure feat or ability as long as they okay it with me and can justify it, but if you show up to my table with a stupid cheesy bullshit I'm going to tell you no

Source: someone who dm/gm's and plays 3.pf almost exclusively and everyone has fun

>Look at all these strawmen, ma!

>Allowing casters
Did that once, never again. Druids maybe but dear god never use true mages of any sort.

Reminder that just because the GM can fix/disallow something, it does not make the system good or free of fault.

A system should not be praised for what the GM does, just as it should not be criticized for what the GM does.

If you're not even going to use the system for what it's good for, why not use another system better suited for your actual wants and needs?

We have. Favored systems for some realism in difficulty but with fantasy still present include WHFRPG 2E, but we're now trying out Song of Swords. It's..... OK but I think I want to make a push for GURPS. SOS is very clearly still in the demo phase and can be confusing as shit.

Not that guy, but have you tried Anima? Ki is pretty accessible to everyone and pretty generically useful, and casters are generally not too powerful until later on (by which point your martials can theoretically solo an army).

Downsides are that it's got a bit of a learning cliff, but once you get it, you pretty much get it.

It is pretty stupid though. I'm all for having the DM override stupid rules but the stupid rules shouldn't be there in the first place. They bloat the rulebook and give players dumb ideas.

It's hard to balance when there are 20 million fucking but if you just use RAW then it's nowhere near as bad as tg will have you believe

>muh caster disparity

The very first game I ran had a wizard, a rogue, a cleric and a paladin, they went from 1 to 20 and all of them were relevant throughout but each other them had specific times to shine

The wizard spent a lot of gold and experience for his scrolls and magic items, it was to the point were he was 2 levels behind and had to run some solo adventures just to catch up

The rogue ended being the scariest mother fucker in the party and the could have bitch slapped the rest of the party if he felt, he specialized in mage killing because the main plot was against the wizards tower

He'll even the paladin probably could have 1v1 the wizard if he felt the need but it doesn't even matter because they were best fucking friends

Yeah that sounds nice. We pretty much banned offensive magic after our one caster character basically turned into motherfucking Doctor Who but with fireballs.

Why not just say fuck balance since the DM will take care of that anyway, and just make a neatly arranged system that is fun to play?

>motherfucking Doctor Who with fireballs
Rude.

Anyway, yeah, Anima's pretty alright, but suffers from a bad initial learning curve, and is very math-intensive unless you're a massive excelfag like me and just make sheets that do the math for you.

>but if you just use RAW then it's nowhere near as bad as tg will have you believe
Because Druids aren't busted as fuck by RAW, apparently.

Paladins are better than Monks because they have more synergy and their individual abilities give them utility on top of damage.

Why are you so eternally triggered bitch user?

Will just axe movement penalties and keep ACP and Max Dex.
Thanks!

user, but it is you who is eternally triggered.
Do try to stop being a bitch.

>NO U!

Play RuneQuest 6/Mythras. It's the same tactical combat with less bullshit.

if grim realism is your thing, I recommend this

So Monster Hunters were real!!!

your brand loyalty is really admirable, user

It just doesn't perform like people expect

it actually works fine when you know what you're doing

>Works fine
>Except when you're dealing with the majority of threats that can bypass or ignore it.

What ISN'T shit about 3.5 D&D?

armor adds to your AC, it isn't your whole AC

if you put on some full-plate and suddenly think you can take on a behir, you're an idiot

but if you (the mid-level fighter) put on +1 full-plate, a +1 tower shield, an amulet of nat armor or maybe a ring of protection, and have +1 dex and use fighting defensively or combat expertise, suddenly it's wasting it's attacks on you

armor isn't supposed to defend you from spells, for the most part

it doesn't have shills talking shit about other systems 24/7

I was thinking of carrying over the idea of Touch attacks and flat-footed into 5e.

I like the idea of anknowledge the difference between skilfully avoiding a blow and just turtling up.

No, it has shills that talk shit about other systems, in addition to forcing shitty memes that's somehow even more annoying than getting called a "cuck" or a "shill" instead.

Hey, ETBA. Just doing your shitposting rounds? Cool, cool.

Might want to stop being a little bitch though.

3.5 gets 95% of all shit-talk
so go fuck yourself

the more I learn about 3.5, the more I see it actually is balanced

not nearly as much as people think
sure, in an ideal situation, but those are rare
animal companions have low AC's, no ranged attacks, and can't deal with shit like doors or ladders and whatnot, they also can only act on simple commands
summons take a spell slot each, take a full-round to cast (the entire round, not just your turn), and are completely ineffective against someone with protection vs evil
buffing them require yet more spells and rounds

3.5 has people, on both sides of the debate, who are aware of its issues and either move on to better systems or come up with homebrews to at least try to fix the issues.

Either way, nobody is delusional enough to ignore its issues aside from ETBA's who cannot grasp the idea that a game can be the most popular thing in the world (at one point) yet is still a flawed system overall.

Y'know, like this faggot who feels the need to shitpost in every thread that references D&D as a whole.

This is kind of why you're just an ETBA.
You really don't get why people are calling you an ETBA, and it's not because they don't realize that no game is perfect.

It's because you are compelled to shitpost eternally about a game you don't like. You can never ignore it, but you need to always tell people about how evil it is, and how people choosing to play it is the worst thing that can ever happen.

You really just like to bitch, and to be a bitch.

>animal companions have low AC's

Barding

>no ranged attacks

Made up by the fact that some get pounce as a standard ability.

>can't deal with shit like doors or ladders and whatnot

A lot of creatures have the ability to just bust through the door. Even then, why are you depending on a bear to open a door when you have 3-6 humanoids?

>they also can only act on simple commands

Simple commands are all you need, plus I'm pretty sure that druids are telepathically linked to their animal companions.

>summons take a spell slot each

But you can get up to 1d4+2 creatures per summon that can either deal damage as a group or act as more shields for the enemy to eat an AoO from.

>take a full-round to cast (the entire round, not just your turn)

full-round just means that you can't use a standard or move action whenever you use it.

Even then, you're still summoning up to 3-6 creatures that put more meat between you and your opponent.

It just sounds like you're an idiot.

>2. Min-Maxing for AC gives the monsters moderate chances to hit instead of low.
...typo?
if a monster has a 5 or 10% chance to hit with an attack, then 90-95% of it's attacks are wasted

>3. Most monsters will ignore a can and focus on truly dangerous party members.
Assuming they can get passed the enlarged spiked-chain improved-trip combat reflexes fighter, or keep him away for more than one round, without giving the rest of the party than much time to deal with them

>4. Your choices as a players are near meaningless if you don't get appropriate gear. Like immensely costly gear. Gear your wizard will probably enchant for a 50% reduction. If he has time.
time and exp, which he practically won't ever want to spend
and it's not "immensely costly", you're just straight up lying

>5. Other means of defense are more effective (E.G. mirror image, blur...)
and last for minutes or rounds/level, without cheese, and take up precious spell slots and casting time

>6. Armor serves no purpose against too many effects monsters benefit from.
touch AC, energy damage, AoE....what else?

>7. It slows you down and impair your skills.
slows you down, yes, if it's heavy armor (mithril medium armor is available pretty early)
impairs your skills, yes, if it's heavy armor, but if you wear heavy armor, you probably don't care much about your skills
regardless, there's shit like expeditious retreat and haste which effectively negates the speed problem, and your climb/jump/swim will be decent before too long anyway

>8. Monsters often have more than one attack at full BaB.
you mean like primary attack + secondary natural attacks? so what?

>9. Even if you were to max-out AC, there's little you can do to ensure opponents target slow you instead of mobile wizard or rogue you're supposed to protect.
see #3
if it comes down to it, you can just grapple the monster, unless it's gargantuan or colossal

>barding

Oh geez, this guy's actually trying to be super serious right now.

Here's an advanced tip. This entire argument can go back and forth forever, and it ultimately comes down to a matter of preference.

>You really don't get why people are calling you an ETBA, and it's not because they don't realize that no game is perfect.

Nobody said that any game was perfect, why do you continually bring this up in every single thread?

>It's because you are compelled to shitpost eternally about a game you don't like. You can never ignore it, but you need to always tell people about how evil it is, and how people choosing to play it is the worst thing that can ever happen.

And you're so butthurt that you feel the need to force your shitty meme whenever anyone dares to criticize a game that's already bleeding players on roll20.

"Oh, someone called my game flawed and delivered an argument that supports their claim, better call his evidence petty and call him eternally triggered while I'm at it."

You could've just ignore this thread and done something else with your life but here we are.

We're not talking about preference here, we're talking about a dude who is trying to claim that there's no problem while having no fucking idea what he's talking about.

Why do you keep forcing your meme acronym
The East Texas Beekeepers Association has done you no wrong

>barding
very expensive, especially for large and quadruped animals, and probably against the druid's oaths
it also slows the animal

>Made up by the fact that some get pounce as a standard ability.
not what I meant
they can't attack you at all if you are out of reach, say, up on a ledge, or on the other side of a portcullis

>A lot of creatures have the ability to just bust through the door. Even then, why are you depending on a bear to open a door when you have 3-6 humanoids?
that requires a handle-animal check for a trick they don't know, assuming they can even squeeze through the opening if they're really big
regardless, that takes time
and if you separate the animal from the druid with a door, then you can deal with the druid alone, unless the druid takes the time and chance to go open said door

>But you can get up to 1d4+2 creatures per summon that can either deal damage as a group or act as more shields for the enemy to eat an AoO from.
yes, but they're very weak, relatively

>full-round just means that you can't use a standard or move action whenever you use it.
no, a summoning spell takes the entire round, look it up
>idiot

>Even then, you're still summoning up to 3-6 creatures that put more meat between you and your opponent.
assuming you have the room for them, yes
except they're probably not very large, so a big strong fighter can overrun or just jump over them
it's a valid point, but it's not a fail-safe

3.5 has many deep abiding flaws, but meet-or-beat AC is not one of them. It's average as far as systems go. Not super interesting or realistic, but it functions within the game.

fucking this

it amazes how many people can't figure this out

>Nobody said that any game was perfect, why do you continually bring this up in every single thread?

What are you talking about?
Didn't you just say there are people that can't grasp that it has flaws?

>And you're so butthurt

No, that would be you being butthurt, because you think you're really being sneaky.

Sorry, ETBA, but it's not random people who criticize 3.5 that get called ETBA. It's people like you. You are an ETBA. You are eternally triggered, and need to bitch. That's why you've really earned your moniker.

The fact that you post anonymously doesn't change the fact that it's really, really, really, easy to point you out from a crowd. There's the kind of people that can criticize 3.5, and then there's people who desperately need to bitch about it like they have an invested interest in shitposting.

This literally can go back and forth.

Forever.

>very expensive, especially for large and quadruped animals, and probably against the druid's oaths

Leather is a viable material and also something that the Druid could reasonably produce in his free time.

>they can't attack you at all if you are out of reach, say, up on a ledge, or on the other side of a portcullis

That's why the animal companion is flanked by a Druid, who can either attack at range or just force the dude down with weird nature magic.

>3

Not every creature is going to be large mate, I mean, bears go through doors all the time, hell, they can rip apart a small car in minutes if they smell food.

Even then, you're going to deal with a druid, who has access to spells, and can change into an animal, while still being able to cast spells while he's an animal?

Okay chief.

>yes, but they're very weak, relatively

Doesn't fucking matter. A bear has three attack, if you have 3-6 of them attacking, that's 9-18 attacks coming at you.

That's significant.

>At high levels, enemies have such high bonuses to hit that no amount of armor is going to prevent their attacks
this has never been true in 3.5, except with dragons

>No, that would be you being butthurt

Come on son, at least try to be subtle with your shitposting.

>Everything else

Just some ETBA sperging out about his pet system being mocked, nothing to see here people.

Literally, forever.

These are just repeat arguments back when 3.5 vs. 4e was a thing.

You can literally just keep going back and forth, without ever realizing that the ultimate point is that none of these arguments really matter.