Talk:Catarina Knight Armor (5e Equipment)

Consider that +3 plate armor can at most grant 21 AC, and that's a legendary magic item that requires attunement. In 5e, something like that is priceless.

Meanwhile, this can grant 23 AC on its own (not even including a shield, a spell, class features, etc.), isn't a magic item, and doesn't require attunement. It is at least on tier with an artifact, if not outright too powerful for the game. Ideally I think the catarina knight armor should be (heavily) nerfed. At the very least, it should be listed as magic armor instead of the kind of equipment you could buy at a bazaar. - Guy (talk) 15:43, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

What about just giving it AC 17 with "Special: While wearing this, you have resistance to piercing and slashing damage from nonmagical weapons?" Knowlessman (talk) 17:40, 23 June 2017 (MDT)

The whole thing is ridiculous. I'm trying a total rewrite. Marasmusine (talk) 02:23, 27 June 2017 (MDT)

How about this. Firstly, I have assumed this is thin plate over lots of padding (no way that is solid metal). I set the cost to the same as splint. The AC is 2 less, but you get resistance to slashing and bludgeoning (I feel that piercing would be effective for puncturing through the padding). Is that an even choice to make between this and splint? Marasmusine (talk) 02:34, 27 June 2017 (MDT)

Hard to say; no other thing that you can buy that isn't magical gives you a damage resistance, to my knowledge. Also, I went with that because the mental picture I had was of blades and points glancing off the armor as described while bludgeons would knock it in, as is (...I think?) a better-known historical strategy of getting damage past solid armor. That said, all the padding would indeed dull the damage from bludgeoning weapons, but logically also absorb the points of piercing weapons. You don't think it should function in a similar way to the Heavy Armor Master Feat instead, do you, like maybe subtract 1 or 2 points of nonmagical weapon damage and logically stack with it? I also feel like it should have a higher Str requirement and higher cost regardless, given that it affects more than your AC (and maybe bring that up as well, to maybe... eh, 16?) Actually, what do you think about AC 16, Str 15, -1 muggle damage taken, 200gp? I think Str 13 is kinda really low for dealing with this much padding and cumbersomeness, and come to look at it, the Str requirement only reduces your speed if you wear the stuff without meeting it; it still lets you wear it and have proficiency with it.

I think now that it just shouldn't really be on par with a magic or... truly exceptional item, which something probably should be if it halves damage. Mind, putting classic DR on it feels just as weird, especially thinking about it stacking with the feat; I wanna make it 2, but don't want to give somebody DR 5 for that cheap. ...Maybe DR 2 (and cost raised to 300gp), but worded so it doesn't stack with other damage reduction? I am just generally not sure how to go about this. Knowlessman (talk) 23:56, 27 June 2017 (MDT)

With attack bonuses and damage bonuses in the core books, stacking seems to be OK as long as you control where the bonuses appear (for example, we know that an attack bonus might be in a fighting style or a magic weapon or a mastery feat). With numeric damage reduction, we know it appears in "parry/deflect"-type class features, and the heavy armor master feat. Things get unpredictable with homebrew, but I haven't seen it much thus far. I don't think 1 point of damage reduction is a problem. I thought perhaps it could be an armor property, which opens up other potential armor types and lets us keep track of it. Marasmusine (talk) 06:18, 28 June 2017 (MDT)

Hey everyone, just going through the Needs Balance pages and this was next. It seems you all came close to balancing this or it is balanced but might want to change something around? Where does everyone stand on this item now? BigShotFancyMan (talk) 09:51, 13 December 2017 (MST)

It's very affordable (as much as 17 AC heavy armor). However it effectively (at least) halves the typical heavy-armor-wearing character would receive in a campaign, at expense of having a "good" AC instead of a "great" AC. Personally I don't think it's balanced as common 200 gp armor, but I think it would be balanced enough as an uncommon magic item (even if it didn't require attunement). - Guy (talk) 11:15, 13 December 2017 (MST)

Rework back into a nonmagic armor

Catarina armor isn't magical: It's just bulbous and very-well padded. I can fix this thing up and give it something unique along the way; I was thinking +1 AC against bludgeoning and -1 AC against piercing. Endermage77 (talk) 11:25, 18 January 2022 (MST)