Armour Table Glossary

Cost

The cost in gold pieces of the armour for Small or Medium humanoid creatures.

Damage Reduction (DR)

Armour reduces the damage that you take. Your damage reduction is equal to the sum of the damage reduction from the heaviest pieces of arm, leg and torso armour that you are wearing. If you are only wearing an underlay, you may use the damage reduction from that instead. Subtract this value from any damage that you take following a melee or ranged attack.

• Light armour cannot reduce the damage dealt below 1.
• Medium armour can reduce the damage dealt by weapons with the finesse property to 0. Damage dealt by other weapons cannot by reduced below 1 by medium armour.
• Heavy armour cannot reduce the damage dealt by weapons wielded in two hands below 1. Damage dealt by other weapons can be reduced to 0 by heavy armour.

Damage from multiple attacks from a single creature in one turn (such as from the Extra Attack class feature, the Multiattack monster action, the Eldritch Blast spell, or when two-weapon-fighting) is added to the damage before it is reduced.

Abilities that deal extra damage (such as Smite or Sneak Attack) are also added to the damage before it is reduced.

Whenever damage reduction completely negates the damage from an attack, it also negates most special effects that accompany the attack, such as injury poison, a monk’s stunning, and injury-based disease.

Damage reduction is applied before damage resistance.

Properties

Bashing

A shield with the bashing property can be used as a weapon, rolling the damage die shown in parenthesis.

Bulky

Bulky armour cannot be hidden from plain sight and may provoke use of the heat metal spell from hostile spellcasters. You cannot benefit from the concealed armour property while wearing bulky armour. Furthermore, if you are wearing a bulky shield you cannot make use of a weapon’s parry property.

Wearing bulky armour imposes:

• -1d on Athletics checks to swim, climb, run, and similar activities.
• -1d on initiative checks. This can be avoided if your Strength score is at least 2 points higher than the armour’s Strength requirement.
• -50% overland travel time before making endurance checks. E.g. 4 hours instead of 8.

The penalties from multiple pieces of bulky armour stack.

Clothing

It is generally considered socially acceptable to wear armour with the clothing property in public.

Concealed

Concealed armour can be worn inconspicuously under clothing. When only concealed armour is worn, the wearer appears unarmoured unless an observer succeeds on a DC 14 Wisdom (Perception) check. If the observer has physical contact with the wearer, this check is made with advantage.

Cover

Attempts to overrun or tumble through your space while you are wielding this shield, treat your space as difficult terrain and suffer disadvantage.

As an action, you can set down a shield with the cover property as stationary protection. The shield faces in a direction of your choice and it takes an action to change its orientation. You benefit from greater cover instead of the shield’s bonus to Dexterity defence, and one adjacent ally standing behind you benefit from standard cover. You get no cover from attacks that pass through other edges of your square.

While wielding this shield, you suffer disadvantage on melee and ranged attacks, unless you are wielding a light weapon or a spear.

Coverage

When rolling on a table to determine an injury, if the result of your roll falls within the range defined by the coverage of your armour, then you may reroll and take the better result.

Finesse

When making an attack with a finesse shield, you use your choice of your Strength or Dexterity modifier for the attack and damage rolls. You must use the same modifier for both rolls. Shields with this property that do not also have the light property require Strength 11 or higher to use Dexterity in this way.

Hard

Hard armour is made of large, curved sections, making it vulnerable to the sunder weapon property.

Light

Light shields are small and easy to handle, making them ideal for use when fighting with two weapons (see the rules for two-weapon fighting).

The shield is able to be used just as effectively whilst you are laying on the ground or whilst you are standing. When you are prone and attack with this shield, you do not suffer disadvantage if you are proficient with the weapon.

Noisy

Noisy armour reduces your ability to move quietly, due to metal components scraping against each other. When you wear Noisy armour, you suffer -1d on any Stealth checks to move silently. Other situations, such as hiding without movement or magical silence, are up to the GM.

The penalties from multiple pieces of noisy armour stack.

Non-Lethal

Non-lethal shields are designed to incapacitate a target without killing it. Shields with this property deal their full damage when dealing non-lethal damage.

Parry

When wearing a piece of armour with the parry property, you may use the Parry action, which grants you a +1 bonus to your Strength defence vs melee attacks.

If you are wielding a finesse shield and blocking an attack from a weapon that is being wielded in one hand, then you may use your Dexterity to calculate your Strength defence.

Shield

Most shields have the shield property, which grants a bonus to Strength and Dexterity defence vs melee and ranged attacks equal to the listed value.

A shield can also be raised to provide additional protection.

Shirt

These torso armour pieces are considered to be one weight category lower when worn without other arm, head, or leg pieces. A chain torso armour piece worn alone is a chain shirt (light armour), and a plate torso armour piece worn alone is a breastplate (medium armour). When worn in this manner, the maximum possible Dexterity bonus when wearing the armour increases by 2 and the Strength requirement is reduced by 4.

Soak

If this armour is not worn as the top layer, then it adds 1 damage reduction vs a specific damage type.

Unwieldy

Small creatures have disadvantage on attack rolls with unwieldy shields. An unwieldy shield’s size and bulk make it too large for a Small creature to use effectively.

Visor

Helmets with a protective visor provide additional protection to the eyes. The visor is optional (unless stated otherwise) and can be raised or lowered as a bonus action.

Whilst the visor is lowered, your face is hidden and you gain coverage 3. However the visor limits the effective field of view. Creatures that you did not attack or target with abilities and spells during your last combat turn, have advantage on attack rolls against you. You also suffer disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight.

Worn

This shield attaches to the arm but the hand remains unoccupied. If you attack with a weapon held in your shield hand (such as a two-handed weapon), you must either choose to do so with disadvantage or you cannot benefit from the shield until the start of your next turn.

Weapons with the worn property are equipped in a way similar to armour, by strapping it firmly to the body. It takes up to 1 minute to don or doff the shield and you can do it as part of donning or doffing armour. The GM may allow you to skip the required time if you ignore the worn property of the shield.

While the shield benefits from the worn property, it cannot be disarmed unless the attack or skill check is a critical hit.

Strength

Armour interferes with the wearer’s ability to move quickly, stealthily and freely. If an armour table shows a number in the Strength column for an armour type, the armour reduces the wearer’s speed by 10 feet unless the wearer has a Strength score equal to or greater than the listed score.

Weight

The weight of the armour sized for a Medium wearer. Armour fitted for Small characters weighs half as much and armour for Large characters weighs twice as much.