Armor and Shields: Difference between revisions
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A character who wears armor and/or uses a shield with which they are not proficient takes a penalty to to-hit rolls and Str- and Dex-based ability and skill checks equal to either -4 , or the armor's (and/or shield's) armor check penalty, whichever is greater. The penalty for non-proficiency with armor stacks with the penalty for non-proficient shields or non-proficient weapons. | A character who wears armor and/or uses a shield with which they are not proficient takes a penalty to to-hit rolls and Str- and Dex-based ability and skill checks equal to either -4 , or the armor's (and/or shield's) armor check penalty, whichever is greater. The penalty for non-proficiency with armor stacks with the penalty for non-proficient shields or non-proficient weapons. | ||
===Armor Bonus to AC=== | |||
The entire POINT of wearing armor is that it grants a native, non-magical, Armor Bonus to the Armor Class of the user. Even better, this armor bonus is always on, it cannot be negated in any way, and if you are willing to wear the heavier armors and shields, it can be extremely large. War Plate and a Tower Shield, without any other bonuses at all, can get a typical character to an AC of 24, which is...pretty incredibly good. As an added benefit, Armor is not worn in a 'normal' magic item slot, which means that if you wear armor, you get the benefits of an 'extra' magic item, and it is a really nice item, as Armor Properties can be applied to Armor (and only armor) which can be really, really nice. And on top of that, Armor can be made out of Dweomermetals, which adds another entire stack of amazing effects. Armor is very, very nice indeed. Of course, all these great benefits come with some pretty heavy downsides, so there are tradeoffs to all these sorts of things. | |||
===Penalty to Dexterity Bonus to AC=== | |||
And, speaking of downsides, here is a big one. Armor is heavy, bulky, and hard to wear. This causes LOTS of big problems for wearing armor, and the first one is, many suits of armor are so heavy and difficult to wear that the penalize the amount of AC you can get from your Dexterity. Now, this penalty cannot ever lower you Dexterity Bonus to AC below zero, so there's that, but if you want to be extremely 'dodgy', you need to carefully choose armor that is light and easy to move in. War Plate is incredible, but you're not going to be dodging nearly as well in that massive tank. | |||
===Armor Check Penalty=== | ===Armor Check Penalty=== | ||
Most armors as well as any shield, hurt a character's ability to use Dex- and Str-based | Most armors as well as any shield, hurt a character's ability to use Dex- and Str-based [[Skills]]. An armor check penalty applies to all Dex- and Strength-based skill checks. A character's encumbrance may also incur an armor check penalty. If a character is wearing armor and using a shield, the armor check penalties of both are added together before being applied to Dex and Str-based skills. Ouch. | ||
Armor check penalties apply even when a character is proficient with the armor or shield they are wearing. However, armor check penalties do not apply to any skill with which the character has a [[Natural Talent]], even if the skill in question makes use of the character's STR or DEX modifier. | Armor check penalties apply even when a character is proficient with the armor or shield they are wearing. However, armor check penalties do not apply to any skill with which the character has a [[Natural Talent]], even if the skill in question makes use of the character's STR or DEX modifier. Now, a quick check of the Skills table at the page linked above will show that there are a LOT of nice skills that are made more difficult by wearing a portable castle. Choose carefully what skills you want to be your natural talents, or invest in items that make armor less burdensome. | ||
===Arcane Spell Failure Chance=== | ===Arcane Spell Failure Chance=== | ||
Armor interferes with the gestures that | Armor interferes with the gestures and even worse, the inherent aura, of arcane spells. Divine spells are granted a boon, that they are able to bypass this interference, which is why you see so many clerics in chainmail, luckily enough, can tie their aura to their identity as performers, and can thus wear light armor and use shields without incurring any arcane spell failure chance for their bard spells. | ||
Arcane spell failure chance does not apply to arcane spell effects created by the use of a magic rod, a magic scroll, or from a potion. | Arcane spell failure chance does not apply to arcane spell effects created by the use of a magic rod, a magic scroll, or from a potion. | ||
Casting an Arcane Spell in Armor: A character who casts an arcane spell while wearing armor must usually make an arcane spell failure check. The number in the Arcane Spell Failure Chance column on Table: Armor and Shields is the percentage chance that the spell fails and is ruined | Casting an Arcane Spell in Armor: A character who casts an arcane spell while wearing armor must usually make an arcane spell failure check. The number in the Arcane Spell Failure Chance column on Table: Armor and Shields is the percentage chance that the spell fails and is ruined. | ||
Shields: If a character is wearing armor and using a shield, add the two numbers together to get a single arcane spell failure chance. | Shields: If a character is wearing armor and using a shield, add the two numbers together to get a single arcane spell failure chance. | ||
=== Movement Penalties=== | |||
Medium and heavier armor is heavy, stiff, and slows down your movements. All such armors incur a penalty to the movement rate of sized Medium adventurers. Luckily, size Small adventurers, due to their more petite size, are able to suffer a smaller penalty, if they suffer one at all. Of course, being sized Small such adventurers are frequently less swift on their feet than their larger brethren, so this tends to balance out. | |||
===Durability=== | |||
Armor and shields are designed to take a severe beating. After all, that is what it's FOR, after all. No amount of normal damaging attacks, of any sort, can ever harm or disable armor in any way. However, if Armor or Shield is targeted by a Sunder maneuver (darn rust monsters....), then...it STILL keeps working! | |||
Unlike almost every other thing that any adventurer possesses, Armor and Shields have a Durability score. Armor and Shields are not broken until they take a number of Sunders that EXCEEDS their Durability score. What this means, is that a suit of Armor, or a Shield, almost always has to be Sundered (or otherwise take points of Siege Damage) more than once before it actually inflicts the [[Broken]] condition on its wearer. Some really heavy suits of armor can take FIVE sunders, or even more, before they finally give up the ghost and become officially Broken. Nothing else, short of buildings or vehicles, are that tough. | |||
===Weight=== | |||
Armor and Shields are HEAVY. Indeed, at the beginning of most games, the sheer, grinding mass of Armor means that many players can't wear it, just because it's so heavy they couldn't move with it on! There's a good reason so many Fighters and Paladins have big Strength scores! They need to be that strong just to stand up in that tank-like carapace! | |||
===Donning Armor and Shields === | ===Donning Armor and Shields === | ||