Fullplate unfairness

[Thundron]

It seems we have increased max dex for lighter armors, but not for fullplate. Splint mail even have max dex +3 making it as effective as fullplate, but it has less check penalty and weights less. Fullplate should be best possible armor there is, It should be expensive tho.
Is it possible to give it atleast +2 max dex or take off those bonusses from lighter armors?

One cool thing would be to have heavy armors have some actual damage reduction.

splint users are friking ninjas now 

What do you guys think?

[Threefold]

Splint Mail is only as effective as Fullplate if you have 16 Dex.

If you've invested points in other things, then you might as well be in Fullplate.

I mean do you remember in default NWN? Who at all used Halfplate? At least now some people (14 Dex Weaponmasters, for example) have reason to use it.

[respawnaholic]

It seems we have increased max dex for lighter armors, but not for fullplate. Splint mail even have max dex +3 making it as effective as fullplate, but it has less check penalty and weights less. Fullplate should be best possible armor there is, It should be expensive tho.
Is it possible to give it atleast +2 max dex or take off those bonusses from lighter armors?

One cool thing would be to have heavy armors have some actual damage reduction.

splint users are friking ninjas now 

What do you guys think?

I think no. In all fairness to dex based fighters if your trying to ramp-up your dex to take advantage of the max. dex. of your armor your gimping your characters in other areas like strength and constitution which are argueably more important stats. A leather armored fighter using dex will have a slightly LOWER AC than a plate clad fighter until at least mid-to high levels.

[Springer]

And Studded Leather armour has the lesser dex bonus from all of the light ones - 6, for such bonus to add you need to have at least 22 dex to benefit from it fully, while leather and padded are even more, so most of the time characters who wear light armours have less AC from the armour anyway.
Also people at least use other heavy armours aswell.

[Kenkaku]

As I see it, The Dev team has done an incredible job in balancing the armours in the game. While full-plate isn't as awesome as it used to be, it's still retains it's usefulness for people whose Dexterity does not exceed 12. Which, to be honest, are few and far between, but we still have heavy Clerics and Fighters out there willing to use them.

I'm not sure if anybody noticed, but it looks as if all the armours now have a total of +9 for AC between Max Dex and the actually AC bonus. What I mean is, Full-plate gives +8 AC and has Max Dex of +1, Studded Leather has +3 AC and +6 Max Dex, Half-plate gives +7 AC and +2 Max Dex so and so forth.

So, from the looks of it, I believe that the heavier would in fact see more use with the modifications since one can benefit from a high Dexterity without being gimped like you would in normal NWN or being forced to use Full-plate for the better overall result.

Just my two cents...

[respawnaholic]

As I see it, The Dev team has done an incredible job in balancing the armours in the game. While full-plate isn't as awesome as it used to be, it's still retains it's usefulness for people whose Dexterity does not exceed 12. Which, to be honest, are few and far between, but we still have heavy Clerics and Fighters out there willing to use them.

I'm not sure if anybody noticed, but it looks as if all the armours now have a total of +9 for AC between Max Dex and the actually AC bonus. What I mean is, Full-plate gives +8 AC and has Max Dex of +1, Studded Leather has +3 AC and +6 Max Dex, Half-plate gives +7 AC and +2 Max Dex so and so forth.

So, from the looks of it, I believe that the heavier would in fact see more use with the modifications since one can benefit from a high Dexterity without being gimped like you would in normal NWN or being forced to use Full-plate for the better overall result.

Just my two cents...

Theoretically thats true. I think the point some of us are trying to make with the studded leather armor is that in order to utilize the max+6 dex bonus from it your character needs to START with a dex. of 17. For most races but elves that requires you to spread your reamining stat points much more thinly elsewhere, and at more of a disadvantage than someone taking 12 in Dex. (+4 total stat points) vs 17 in dex. (+12 total stat points)

[Thoraion]

As I see it, The Dev team has done an incredible job in balancing the armours in the game. While full-plate isn't as awesome as it used to be, it's still retains it's usefulness for people whose Dexterity does not exceed 12. Which, to be honest, are few and far between, but we still have heavy Clerics and Fighters out there willing to use them.

I'm not sure if anybody noticed, but it looks as if all the armours now have a total of +9 for AC between Max Dex and the actually AC bonus. What I mean is, Full-plate gives +8 AC and has Max Dex of +1, Studded Leather has +3 AC and +6 Max Dex, Half-plate gives +7 AC and +2 Max Dex so and so forth.

I don't see what the devs have to do with that - this is just the way of armour balancing in DnD 3.5.
Simple as that - you can nearly always get an AC bonus of 9 with one armour that suits your individual str and dex score.

However, heavier armours are in average always better - at least in DnD theory, i don't know how much of that has been implemented in NWN...
Flanking and surprising attacks prevent you from using your dex bonus.

[Thundron]

IRL fullplate was much much better than some half-plate. those were invidually designed to their wielders. Even in pnp 3.5 half plate give 0 dex bonus and greater check penalty than Fullplate. Only noble men could afford fullplates as they were pricey as sportcars at that time. Perhaps this balance thing is fair and all, but I would like to see masterwork uber expensive uber fullplates then 

[Soren / Zarathustra217]

Real life full plates only allowed you to walk, if even that. Half plates just signify that it's only the upper body that's plated (to my knowledge), and isn't a matter of whether it's fitted to the wielder.

As has been suggested, the intent is to make every armour type useful again. I actually wanted the Max Dex bonus one point lower all round, but the lowest that NWN will accept is 1, thus why it landed at the current values.

[Ternce]

I like the armor system as is.  On every other server, people either wore cloth or fullplate.  Currently, every piece of armor is useful, but I have noticed some funky, low values for AB I've never noticed before if you're wearing heavier armor and trying to use a ranged weapon that keys off dex.

[k_moustakas]

I like the armor system this way myself. Otherwise many armor pieces where just useless. I still remember hunting down banded plates with a char with 16 dex

[Thundron]

Real Fullplate allowed you to run and even make cartwheels. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_armour

I liked 2nd edition armor bonusses. platemail had like +3 vs slashing +2 vs bludgeoning or so.. and -3 vs piercing. Fullplate which is similar but joints are reinforced with chainmail  had also +2 vs piercing or so and better slashing ac too.

[respawnaholic]

Real Fullplate allowed you to run and even make cartwheels. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_armour

I liked 2nd edition armor bonusses. platemail had like +3 vs slashing +2 vs bludgeoning or so.. and -3 vs piercing. Fullplate which is similar but joints are reinforced with chainmail  had also +2 vs piercing or so and better slashing ac too.

I think we all know realistically full plate offered more protection than other kinds of armor, but if this was pure realism there would be no magic or dead things walking around either. I could honestly argue however that if any armors needed a stat boost it would be in the light class. These are the armors that you need to badly gimp your charcter in order to utilise their full AC+DX bonus to full effectiveness. Since almost no one can afford to start their characters with a 17 in DEX (hoping to bump it by +5) that means that full plate IS better than leather in this world.  Thats pretty close to "reality" for a fantasy game.

[Thundron]

everyone can count +6 dex (mod +3) from spells as there are so many casters around. starting with 15 you end up 20 which makes you perferct padded user

[respawnaholic]

Thats assuming alot of things.
1) that you happen to have a wizard friend in your back pocket.
2) That said wizard has a maximised cats grace memorised.
3) the maximised cats grace memorised is actually ment for someone besides the wizard.
4) Said wizard friend is always ready and available whenever you are and isnt off ninja looting a dungeon solo.
So yes. if all of thses contingencies are met then its very easy to get dex based AC above and beyond what plate would provide.

[Aahz]

If it can happen at all.... it must be happening constantly.   

[Emomina]

With a character as early as level 8, you can reliably max out the AC using cats grace if you want to wear leather. I have no idea why anyone would wear padded.

But more to the point, if you can not max out AC, then just wear something heavier that you can.

[Thundron]

Thats assuming alot of things.
1) that you happen to have a wizard friend in your back pocket.
2) That said wizard has a maximised cats grace memorised.
3) the maximised cats grace memorised is actually ment for someone besides the wizard.
4) Said wizard friend is always ready and available whenever you are and isnt off ninja looting a dungeon solo.
So yes. if all of thses contingencies are met then its very easy to get dex based AC above and beyond what plate would provide.

could be cleric too ^^ and im sure you can use heavier armor if you dont have that pocket Mage around.

and why to use padded? cause its 1 ac more than clothes.

[Emomina]

and why to use padded? cause its 1 ac more than clothes.

which is not worth the tradeoff of 5% spell failure,  melee mages need dex more than armor, which is why rogue multiclassed melee mages are a smart choice

[respawnaholic]

The real problem with wearing heaver armor is the class restrictions on rangers and dual wielding. Argueably the ONLY non-suckass feat rangers get is dual wielding. The kicker is that they only get the feat if they wear light armor so their choices are limited to padded, leather, and studded leather. Studded leather is +3 AC so the rest has to come from dex. Getting the max bonus from dex is problematic at best which is the point I was trying to make.

[Thundron]

and why to use padded? cause its 1 ac more than clothes.

which is not worth the tradeoff of 5% spell failure,  melee mages need dex more than armor, which is why rogue multiclassed melee mages are a smart choice

I cant see why 10% failure from leather would be any more worthy or what ever..

[Springer]

Full plate is already one of the best armours here, it has the most AC from armour itself and the least dex bonus which most of the heavy melee chars prefer (for reasons which were already mentioned in the thread). Classes which would prefer something else would need pretty high dex for overall AC to be even, which makes their other abilities low, or they would have less AC overall. I cant understand why it is so important for you that Full plate should have more AC then others, at least people use more variations right now.

[Thundron]

People are trying to pursue some strange reality here, so why not with armors? just cause its unbalanced? there are more reasons than overall ac for choosing armor at least in my oppinion. I suppose its not really issue here then since fullplate is cheap. in many places those cost more than twice compared to second best half-plate.

perhaps weight of fullplate could be reduced abit since its 60lb (48lb my steel version) pain in da bum to carry. But then again plate users should get uber str..

[HellsPanda]

its primary benefit is that Dex based AC is unreliable, so a full plate is more reliably protected

[Threefold]

Seen a version weighing 90lbs! Better hope you got a lot of Str for that one.