Armor

Armor in The Domains of Dread occupies the chest equipment slot and is the main contributing factor to any character’s Armor Class or AC. Attackers must beat a target’s AC in order for their attack to hit and deal damage.

A character’s unmodified, base AC is 10 +/- DEX. They may lose their DEX bonus from status effects or other factors, but will always have a negative DEX applied if present. After base AC, the armor AC of their equipment is applied, then the shield AC of an equipped shield. Duplicate sources of AC that are not untyped AC do not stack, including the dodge AC granted from hard ranks in Tumble or Poise. For example a character may have gauntlets that provide +1 shield AC. If they also have an equipped shield providing +2 shield AC, their sheet would reflect +2 shield AC, taking from the highest rather than adding them together. Likewise if the gauntlets were +1 deflection AC, they would have 3 bonus AC in total between it and the equipped shield.

There are no armor proficiencies in The Domains of Dread, allowing any character to attempt to wear any armor. However certain armor families have other prerequisites, like a minimum attribute requirement. Some individual armor species may also impose prerequisites, like a class archetype requirement. Should a character wear armor they do not meet the prerequisites for, they lose -3 armor AC and any dodge AC.

Armor Families

Armor Family	Base Armor AC	Maximum Bonus	Armor Check Penalty	Arcane Spell Failure	Prerequisite
Cloth Armor	+0 armor AC	- DEX (unlimited)	0	+0%
Light Armor	+3 armor AC	+5 DEX	0	+15%
Medium Armor	+7 armor AC	+3 DEX, +3 STR	-5	+30%
Heavy Armor	+9 armor AC	+0 DEX, +5 STR	-10	+45%	14 STR

Shield Families

Shield Family	Base Shield AC	Armor Check Penalty	Arcane Spell Failure
Small Shield	+2 shield AC	0	+15%
Large Shield	+3 shield AC	-5	+30%