Level Up (A5E) Adept - Brutal Defense

[Koyh]

"You are proficient with light armor. While you are
wearing light armor, you replace your Dexterity
modifier with your Strength modifier for AC. If
you know the Adept Speed practiced technique or
any other that has it as a requirement, you can use
them while wearing light armor."
I was wondering about this defensive technique and it seems wrong from what's supposed to be intended i guess? I mean, from my point of view it was supposed to be a type of defense in which you try to block or evade strikes with pure force, so i can't find a plausible reasoning in the necessity of ''using light armor so i can use strength modifier to increase my AC".

Shouldn't it be to be able to substitute dex modifier with strength while wearing light armor or not wearing armor?

 

[VanguardHero]

One of the key things they wanted to do with Monk -> Adept was to open up different playstyles, Brutal Defense is just a solid way to open up a Strength based Adept to viability without getting MAD. Dex based focus no armor, Str based focus light armor, and then they can ignore the other stat if they so wish.

 

[Koyh]

One of the key things they wanted to do with Monk -> Adept was to open up different playstyles, Brutal Defense is just a solid way to open up a Strength based Adept to viability without getting MAD. Dex based focus no armor, Str based focus light armor, and then they can ignore the other stat if they so wish.

Yeah but light armor can break very easily with their rules, so if his light armor breaks because of a crit (which let's be honest, it's not that hard) you will go back to dex, and most of your AC will be gone considering you are building a STR monk.

The part in which it's easily broken and then you lose most of your AC is the problem i am seeing with such rule.

 

[VanguardHero]

That's not how Broken works in Level Up though. "The bonus to Armor Class is halved (minimum 1)", so you either lose 0 or 1 AC depending on which Light Armor you're using, and you don't lose the bonus from Strength in any case.

 

[Steampunkette]

That's still not how broken works in Level Up, either...

Maintenance checks apply outside of an encounter with a DC 10 or 15 (for severe stress to weapons and armor) to determine if they've been Damaged. You have to fail another time for the item to be broken.

It's only shields that you can sacrifice as a result of a Critical Hit, causing them to be broken immediately. The idea of sacrificing armor has been suggested on the forums, but it'd be a House Rule.

Armor and Weapons can only become broken after becoming damaged, first. And it's generally resolved out of combat, rather than in-combat.

Though Vanguard is right about the halved bonus to AC on a broken armor, including the 0 or 1 point armor penalty. Though it doesn't specify how that interacts with Magic Armor bonuses (Personally I would rule they are either utterly unaffected, or completely negated, not halved).

In any case, you'd still be wearing Light Armor, and benefit from Strength to AC. You'd just be getting less AC 'cause it's compromised.

Also it's only if:

1) Your Narrator remembers that Maintenance Checks are a thing.
2) Your Narrator thinks the armor has undergone significant stress at least twice. (You could always succeed on the check multiple times)

So it's not like it'll ever be -common-.

 

[VanguardHero]

Armor and Weapons can only become broken after becoming damaged, first.

The Adventurer's Guide lists under "Flaw" that "Armors break when you take a critical hit or roll a natural 1 on a Dexterity saving throw". Is there somewhere else that qualifies they only become damaged first? The Armor specifics are like the main thing I find overly fiddly in LU and tend not to pay it much mind, Light Armor not breaking as much as it seems would honestly help that for me.

 

[Koyh]

I see, i just didn't read enough so i had some misconceptions. Thank you both for clarifying.

 

[Steampunkette]

The Adventurer's Guide lists under "Flaw" that "Armors break when you take a critical hit or roll a natural 1 on a Dexterity saving throw". Is there somewhere else that qualifies they only become damaged first? The Armor specifics are like the main thing I find overly fiddly in LU and tend not to pay it much mind, Light Armor not breaking as much as it seems would honestly help that for me.

Armors with Flaw are a thing, it's true. And you're right about how it works. But with two big qualifiers:
1) Not all armors have flaws.
2) Flaws in armor require a specific damage type.

But even that rule has an exception: Bone armors have no specified damage type on their Flaw, and break on any crit hit or fail.

Outside of that it's Piercing only, and almost exclusively for fabric/leather based armors which can become ripped or torn.

So as long as your opponent is using slashing or bludgeoning weapons or attacks, or fire ice psychic whatever, your adept's armor isn't going to break.

In retrospect... are there any spells which have a saving throw against piercing damage you could crit fail on? I'm not certain and might have to look, now, because of all this...

 

[VanguardHero]

Armors with Flaw are a thing, it's true. And you're right about how it works. But with two big qualifiers:
1) Not all armors have flaws.
2) Flaws in armor require a specific damage type.

Yes, but both Light Armors in the Adventurer's Guide share "Flaw (Piercing)", which means if you're crit on a weapon attack you have ~1/3rd chance of armor breaking immediately mid-combat. I had been speaking with this in mind, not that any crit, just the relevant, piercing crits would break the armor. Which as someone who runs Light Armor the vast majority of the time, feels kind of bad that every armor without Dex Cap has the same drawback :/

 

[Steampunkette]

21/47 weapons on the weapons table are piercing, so it's almost half of all weapons, actually... though to be fair...


... 10 of them are Ranged Weapons (which is most ranged weapons except for the Sling). Which brings it down to about 1/3rd as you said.

There's also 4 different kinds of dagger on that list of 11 weapons... And several of them are unlikely to be seen in typical play. Like the War Pick or the Trident. Punching Daggers unless your DM wants to have a weird weapon wielding NPC for some reason.

So it's more like 1/6th chance of facing a piercing weapon, since most npc fighty types in the Monstrous Menagerie are using a slashing or bludgeoning weapon (swords being the most common for obvious reasons). Though they often have ranged weapons, they usually don't get much use out of them for the same reason as players: Battlemap Limitations.

Early fights against Goblins, though, are likely to do some damage to light armors, what with the law of large numbers and a buncha shortswords and shortbows, s'truth.

Though as you noted, it has a minimal effect on AC (1 for Padded Leather, 0 for Padded Cloth) and can be repaired during any short or long rest with a DC 5 for cloth, 10 for leather, check. So it really isn't that big a deal, in the end? More thematic than anything.