Talk:Plated Leather Armor (5e Equipment)

Could it not be cheaper, made of wood?

Why not make lower the pricing and make it more special by instead of plated with metal it is plated with wood. I don't see enough druid friendly armor

To be fair, druids aren't supposed to be friendly to armor. Their typical options are 11 + Dex AC with leather armor, 12 + Dex (max 2) AC with hide armor, 16 with barkskin (caster level 3rd, requires concentration), and 15 + Dex (max 2) AC with dragon scale mail (expected character level 11th or higher). —Proton^[talk] 07:54, 29 November 2016 (MST)

Classification of this armor

As a medium armor, shouldn't this have a max dex bonus of +2? Not sure if that was intended or not, but it should either have that or be a light armor.--Dorlon (talk) 09:27, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

Dorlon, excellent point. I am not entirely sure of the presumed intent, as it could be argued this is aiming at a sort of "welterweight" armor that is close to the borderline of light/medium. Those who have reconstructed this armor IRL attest that it is as quick to don/doff as leather and has similar mobility, so limiting the Dex max to 2 is just not accurate; I would lean toward counting it as on the heavy end of "light". There's already precedent for the weight of various armor to cross over categories: consider that Hide is medium but weighs less than some of the "light" armor; meanwhile half plate and ring mail weigh the same but one is medium and the other heavy. So plated leather can have a weight typical of some medium armor but still be light armor due to its careful construction where all joints and seams are just like leather armor. The only other alternative IMO would be giving it a sort of "welterweight" designation whereby it counts as medium armor, but has similar mobility to light armor, with, say, a max Dex bonus of +3. Would be interested to hear what you think is the most defensible view in respect to the canon, but I lean toward treating this as light armor. --Nathar (talk)

As far as canon goes, there's light armor that has no max dex, medium which has +2 max dex, and heavy which ignores dex (including negatives) completely. Therefore, I think that categorizing it light armor would be best. Which brings up the issue of the AC being 13; plate is supposed to be the best armor (unless you take a feat and have a 16 dex, which puts half-plate equal). This now puts light armor on the same footing, if you have a 20 dex. Personally, I don't think it's that big of a deal, because you have to invest pretty heavily into dex for that, whereas for plate armor, you could have a 3 dex and still get the full AC from it. As long as it isn't better than plate, I think it should be good.--Dorlon (talk) 09:33, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

I concur with your logic. --Nathar (talk)

Stealth Disadvantage

Another thing that occurred to me: I suppose if a player could manage to get Plated Leather made with mithral, it should remove the stealth disadvantage, though the PHB says this benefit of mitrhal is for "medium and heavy" armor (not mentioning light). Obviously, since in the PHB there's no light armor with a stealth disadvantage owing to metal (padded armor has stealth disadvantage for other reasons), therefore there was no reason for the PHB to explicitly list "light armor" as benefiting from mithral construction; but implicitly, it seems that plated leather should be subject to this potential benefit. --Nathar (talk)

I have question that is, why does it have disadvantage on stealth? Using logic if non of the plates touch then it would make as much noise as leather, alternative you could say that it restricts movement but then it would definitely be a medium and have a dex cap. If some one could explain this to me that would be great.--Lord Survival (talk) 04:25, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Lord Survival, there are several things working against stealth, all at once, compared to leather armor. This one adds some weight and bulk compared to leather armor; it adds a bunch of metal surfaces that your other gear (your sword, shield, your pack) are going to rattle against as you move; besides plates it also has lengths of chain mail covering the joints (that's a bit of noise); and noisiness is not the only factor in stealth. Part of the stealth disadvantage of plate mail is the shiny metal plates being more likely to reflect glare, which this armor has. All these factors combine to give it stealth disadvantage. And there is a way to remove the disadvantage: get it made of mithral, which is lighter, quieter, and less reflective than steel. Besides, if it did not have disadvantage but still had full Dex bonus, it would "break" the system of balance, being too far superior to several competing armors. --Nathar (talk)

But then wouldn't something like a cloak over it but under those other thing remove the disadvantage except for the noise? Thanks also for the timely answer.--Lord Survival (talk) 16:40, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

No matter how you layer the cloak in, generally, a regular (non-magical) cloak is not enough to cancel an armor's stealth disadvantage. Either it covers all the plates on the whole suit (which a normal cloak wouldn't likely do unless laced up a lot), in which case it restricts your agility and movement (remember, padded armor has stealth disadvantage in D&D), or, it's worn looser so you can move better. On the other hand, a Cloak of Elvenkind would grant stealth advantage, thus cancelling out this armor's disadvantage. If you made the plates of mithral and also wore a Cloak of Elvenkind, you could even net out with stealth advantage wearing this armor. There are a lot of possibilities for getting your stealth character geared up with this, but it takes some doing. --Nathar (talk)

The most basic reason is that the disadvantage is the excuse to have the armor break the AC cap on light armor. If you took the disadvantage away, you'd have to balance this by making it the same as studded leather. Marasmusine (talk) 06:22, 22 August 2017 (MDT)