D&D 5E - Lets Talk about Medium Armor
Hi everyone. I'd like to talk about medium armor, and possibly about improving it. 4E got rid of the concept of medium armor and just had lights and heavies. Some armor was just flat out better than others, but proficiencies were given out by armor and not all at once. 3E had varied max dex bonuses, allowing everyone to aim for roughly the same 17-18 AC (with full-plate and padded being special).5E is ... different. Light and Heavy Armors line up pretty well on their own. Studded Leather is the basic light armor (it's cheap enough that you could have it at first level) at 12+Dex AC. Chainmail is the basic heavy armor, for 16 AC.
For a light armor wearer starting with 16 Dex (doable for dex fighter, ranger, and rogue, and more warrior inclined light armor casters), this is AC 15 compared to heavy armor's AC 16. The light armor wearer can boost their Dex twice, ending with AC 17, while the heavy armor wearer can upgrade their armor twice, ending with AC 18.
That's good. That's balanced.
What about medium armor? Well, a medium armor wearer needs a Dex of 14 to maximize their AC, which can be doable with standard array but really limits options. Chain and Scale are the baseline medium armors. With a 14 Dex, Chain is AC 15, and Scale is AC 16. Scale comes with stealth penalties, just like heavy armor, so the comparison is good here. Medium armor gets to upgrade once, to 16 or 17 AC accordingly ... but that's it.
So, not only does Medium armor require you to make Dex a secondary or tertiary stat (which limits character options in my opinion), but it ends up having lower AC than light armor or heavy armor.
I feel like medium armor needs 2 boosts. I feel like the distinction between "light medium" armors that don't penalize stealth, and "heavy medium" armors that do penalize stealth aren't really utilized. I've personally never seen a character proficient in stealth who wasn't a dex focused character, so medium armor wouldn't benefit them anyway. But maybe I play with power gamers.
I'm not sure where the balance point should be. Medium Armor proficiency is paired with shield proficiency generally speaking, but shield use comes with its own hand things. I feel like medium should be an all around improvement over light, and heavy should be an improvement over medium. I'm not sure "disadvantage on stealth" is really in the same category as "+1 AC" to be balanced against it. I'm not sure "you don't need to invest in Dex" is also a "point" in favor of Medium armor, as investing in lower Dex still comes with its own penalties.
So, where do you think Medium armor should be? Should medium armor always be +1 AC over light? Should heavy always be +1 AC over medium? Should "disadvantage on stealth" be worth +1 AC? Is 14 Dex too must to ask for medium armor wearers?
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