Need Help Designing an Artifact Armor for 5e

>>53089129
What does it do in it's original setting?
Also, artifacts are never broken, they are artifacts.
It's what they do.

>>53089150
The Berserk Armor basically enrages you beyond believe, uses that rage as a pain killer, ups all your physical stats, and acts as a weird form of life support. It maintains the functionality of your body despite the damage done to it. When one of your bones breaks it even stabs it back into place and holds it there. The whole thing supposedly doesn't stop working until every drop of blood has left your body or your brain/heart or something is destroyed. You're basically working at above peak efficiency the whole time up to your death, with nothing diminishing it until the final blow.

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The first issue I am thinking of is what the AC of the armor should be. It is fullplate so its AC should be 18 by default, but others have recommended that since it is magical it should be Fullplate +1?

>>53089150
It's a suit of armor that taps into the wearers subconscious mind and astral body. It shuts off the body's pain response and causes the wearer to be carefree in what they do. But as a consequence you won't know how injured you are until after the armor is done possessing you, it also makes you see every living thing around you as an enemy.

Due to not having the pain response, normal things that would hold you back no longer do so. You attack with all the power of your muscles and damage your own body doing so (can't feel it), while it also makes the user much more agile than they normally would be due to it's wild erratic movements.

The last ability it has and possibly the worst one, is that the armor will do everything it can (at your body's expense) to keep you in the fight as long as possible. If your arm snaps backwards from a collosal blow, the armor will stab inside of your flesh, drag, and force your arm back into place. You can imagine the detriments of being constantly stabbed back into working order.

That's about the best summary I can give, but the wiki is also insightful about it:

>http://berserk.wikia.com/wiki/Berserker_Armor

>>53089230
>>53089280

Ok, let's do this.

We'll use the Armor of Invulnerability as our chassis.

>Heavy Armor, Legendary (Requires Attunement)
>65 lbs. AC 18
>You have resistance to nonmagical damage while you wear this armor. Additionally, you can use an action to make yourself immune to nonmagical damage for 10 minutes or until you are no longer wearing the armor. Once this special action is used, it can't be used again until the next dawn.

Is this a good starting point for you?

>>53089230
>>53089280
Also don't forget that if you have a cool lightning dog inside you then it'll help it grow big and strong to fight off the monsters.

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>>53089302
That's a good starting point, but the armor doesn't really offer any noteworthy resistances in universe. So I'm conflicted about how to handle the whole "keeping you in the fight" thing. Some people have suggested using temporary hp values to simulate it, but resistances could work as well. Hmm...

>>53089334
Ah hah, very true friend.

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I think what can help make the whole thing more balanced would be to play up the detriments of wearing the armor. There's the obvious fatigue from being worn by a suit of armor and slaying monsters at max power, which could generate exhaustion levels. In universe the armor has debilitating effects with long term use besides grievous injuries.

After prolonged use; colors become harder to see, touch is numbed, and the sense of taste fades somewhat as well. This all escalates with increased uses, as well as the harm to one's sanity from pouring all their negative emotions into a suit of armor that then wears them to butcher monsters.

>>53089353
This would be easier if you play with vitality.

Let's add:
>While attuned to the artifact, you can't be blinded, deafened, petrified, or stunned.

To show the "Full power, at all times" aspect.

And to show the everything seems like a foe, the Berserker Curse:
>Curse. Whenever a hostile creature attacks you while you are wearing this armor you must succeed on a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw or go berserk. While berserk, you must use your action each round to attack the creature nearest to you with the axe. If you can make extra attacks as part of the Attack action, you use those extra attacks, moving to attack the next nearest creature after you fell your current target. If you have multiple possible targets, you attack one at random. You are berserk until you start your turn with no creatures within 60 feet of you that you can see or hear.

Is this good?

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>>53089469
That's a good idea. But I think that the immunities might need to be changed. I think the stun immunity could fit, but otherwise I believe it would be immune to many more mental effects. Such as Fear, Charm, basically anything that tries to subvert control of the armor.

Within universe the armor can be unattuned by a skilled mage pulling the user's consciousness back into swing. So I was thinking that a magical teammate within the party could make some sort of medium to high difficulty arcana check to subvert the armor, but idk...

Also could you possibly explain vitality to me? It sounds interesting.

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Another idea I've seen thrown around is that the armor increases stats, since like I said earlier the armor lets you perform feats that are ordinarily outside of the realm of possibilities. I'm not sure what might be considered overpowered, but I was thinking something in the ball park of a +2 to strength and a +1 to dex while active.

Which feels a little underpowered compared to how it is in universe, but I really don't want to have an artifact that's too powerful as I feel like it might make the other players mad.

The armor doesn't really keep the wearer's intelligence intact. So doing nay complicated actions or doing something that does not come natural to the wearer would not be possible. It's only really good at running up on someone and beating them to death. So operating a loading weapon or something of the sort would also likely be impossible.

(pic is a great illustration of what the wearer sees while possessed)

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In regards to the stats I thought it would be a good idea if the armor also decreased some stats. Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma would all suffer while under the effects of the armor.

Intelligence would probably drop very low, probably to 5 or less.

Wisdom would probably drop to about 5, because the wearer's vision is enhanced by the armor I didn't want to set this too low, but since the armor warps the wearer's perception I felt it should be lowered all the same.

Charisma would probably suffer the worst, as the wearer is not able to communicate or understand language at all. Add on a loss of the wearer's sense of self and I'd say charisma is anywhere in the ball park of 3 or less.

>>53089469
>>53089551
Vitality is an optional rule that uses HP as plot armor/flesh wounds and a second pool called Vitality to show wounds on your character.
Every 10 points of damage taken at once you lose 1 point of vitality, crits automatically take 1 + 1 for every 10 damage. If you go to 0 HP, you can keep fighting, but you go unconscious at 0 Vitality. With vitality, HP is calculated with Vitality instead of Con, so a wounded character can keep fighting with his guts hanging, but will crumple like a tissue if he isn't healed, and you only recover vitality at 1 + Con mod. per long rest and 1 point for every 10 HP of healing over your actual max HP.

Now...

>Berserker Armor


>Heavy Armor, artifact (Requires Attunement)
>65 lbs. AC 18

>Increased Strength and Dexterity. While attuned to this armor, your Strength and Dexterity scores increase by 2, to a maximum of 24.

>While attuned to this armor, you have resistance to nonmagical damage, you can't be blinded, charmed, deafened, frightened, petrified, or stunned and you ignore the effects of exhaustion while in combat.

>At the start of each of your turns, if you have half your maximum hit points or fewer, you can gain temporary hit points equal to half your maximum hit points if you have at least 1 hit point. If you do, you suffer one exhaustion level.

>Curse. Whenever a hostile creature attacks you while you are wearing this armor you must succeed on a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw or go berserk. While berserk, you must use your action each round to attack the creature nearest to you. If you can make extra attacks as part of the Attack action, you use those extra attacks, moving to attack the next nearest creature after you fell your current target. If you have multiple possible targets, you attack one at random. You are berserk until you start your turn with no creatures within 60 feet of you that you can see or hear, or until an ally succeeds on a DC 15 Arcana check and soothes the armor.

How about now?

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>>53089932
Yeah that sounds pretty good to me. The vitality system might be worth looking into on my end, as my DM said he was interested in something like that. Thank you.

>>53089926
>>53089932

Let's add this then
>While attuned to this armor, you are maddened with rage and have disadvantage on any ability check or saving throw that uses Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma.

Why not simply have the armor place the barbarian rage effect on the weather whenever they enter combat? That gives a penalty to ac, yes?

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>>53090004
That could work out. My only thought is that since the armor makes one immune to many conditions that having bad saves, or bad scores for stats wouldn't really matter since those saves are usually only for things that give you said conditions. Though maybe I'm just overthinking it.

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>>53090046
That would be a simple solution, but I can't find anywhere that says it lowers ac. Plus the armor is pretty durable to actually getting struck, it just takes a very high toll on the body.

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>>53089979
Let's see a polished draft.

>Berserker Armor


>Heavy Armor, artifact (Requires Attunement)
>65 lbs. AC 18

>Increased Strength and Dexterity. While attuned to this armor, your Strength and Dexterity scores increase by 2, to a maximum of 24.

>While attuned to this armor, you are maddened with rage and have disadvantage on any ability check or saving throw that uses Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma. You also have resistance to nonmagical damage, you can't be blinded, charmed, deafened, frightened, petrified, or stunned and you ignore the effects of exhaustion while in combat.

>At the start of each of your turns, if you have half your maximum hit points or fewer, you can gain temporary hit points equal to half your maximum hit points if you have at least 1 hit point. If you do, you suffer one exhaustion level.

>Curse. Whenever a hostile creature attacks you while you are wearing this armor you must succeed on a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw or go berserk. While berserk, you must use your action each round to attack the creature nearest to you. If you can make extra attacks as part of the Attack action, you use those extra attacks, moving to attack the next nearest creature after you fell your current target. If you have multiple possible targets, you attack one at random. You are berserk until you start your turn with no creatures within 60 feet of you that you can see or hear, or until an ally succeeds on a DC 15 Arcana check and soothes the armor.
And I just noticed that's almost impossible to not go berserk. You have disadvantage on a DC 15 check.

>>53090046
We could throw in Reckless Attack, yes.
But on its own it's way too crappy for an artifact.

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>>53090123
I think someone else had this idea originally, but maybe the save DC for not going berserk starts lower than 15, and then as combat grows more dire the armor will begin to stir more and increase the DC.

>>53090142
What if the disadvantage only kicks in AFTER you go berserk? I fucked up the order.

>>53090183
Yeah, maybe to clarify we could have it where, the armor has no effect on you whatsoever (except for being cursed) until it actually goes berserk. Up to that point it's just full plate.

>>53090196
>Berserker Armor


>Heavy Armor, artifact (Requires Attunement)
>65 lbs. AC 18

>Curse. Whenever a hostile creature attacks you while you are wearing this armor you must succeed on a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw or go berserk. While berserk, you must use your action each round to attack the creature nearest to you. If you can make extra attacks as part of the Attack action, you use those extra attacks, moving to attack the next nearest creature after you fell your current target. If you have multiple possible targets, you attack one at random. You are berserk until you start your turn with no creatures within 60 feet of you that you can see or hear, or until an ally succeeds on a DC 15 Arcana check and soothes the armor.

>Increased Strength and Dexterity. While berserk, your Strength and Dexterity scores increase by 2, to a maximum of 24.

>While berserk, you are maddened with rage and have disadvantage on any ability check or saving throw that uses Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma. You also have resistance to nonmagical damage, you can't be blinded, charmed, deafened, frightened, petrified, or stunned and you ignore the effects of exhaustion while in combat.

>At the start of each of your turns while you are berserk, if you have half your maximum hit points or fewer, you can gain temporary hit points equal to half your maximum hit points if you have at least 1 hit point. If you do, you suffer one exhaustion level.

I like it.

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>>53090253
Sounds really great. Maybe if I get the vitality system up and running it could also have something like:

>While berserk all vitality damage is halved and rounded up.

It would reflect the armor keeping you in the fight, while still turning you into a bloody mess.

>>53090300
If you get Vitality running, you could have it keep you at 1HP, so you will only drop when they left you a bloody mess at 0 Vitality.

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>>53090325
That's also a good idea, I'm having a hard time deciding which is better.

>>53090338
What about this:
>While berserk, you take no damage. Instead, whenever you would take any amount of damage, you lose 1 vitality.

>>53090376
Eh, I don't think that works very well. If a goblin kicked me in the ass, then I'd take vitality damage?

>>53090392
Possibly damage threshold but that might make it OP?

>>53090392
If a goblin manages to kick over 18 AC, yes.
But I'd also change the curse to activate at being hit, not attacked.

You are right though, it's crap against hordes.

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>>53090410
Yeah idk what would work best here, I'm leaning towards the halved vitality damage myself. Maybe to compromise when you are Berserk you can fall to a negative threshold of vitality? Like -3 or something?

>>53090436
Though at that point you should automatically fail some death saves maybe?

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>>53090441
Or exhaustion levels as well? Dying of exhaustion seems like the kind of thing that would happen to a user of the armor.

>>53090436
>>53090441
>While berserk, if you were to drop to 0 vitality, you can choose drop to 1 + your Constitution modifier vitality and regain half your hit points. You can do this once, and regain the ability to do it after a long rest. If you were to drop to 0 vitality again, you die.

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>>53090518
That's a neat idea, but I don't think it should really be a decision of the player. While berserk you would relentlessly stay on the attack even if it wasn't working right, I don't think being able to choose to fall unconscious or not would fit the armor.

Thinking is hard...

>>53090546
>While berserk, if you were to drop to 0 vitality, you drop to 1 + your Constitution modifier vitality and regain half your hit points instead. You can do this once, and regain the ability to do it after a long rest. If you were to drop to 0 vitality again, you die.

How about it?

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>>53090563
At this point I think it comes down to preference. Personally I prefer my idea a little more, but I think your idea is good too. I think whatever is chosen, we're just about finished.

>>53090614
Explain your idea, please.

I feel like there should be some long term repercussions from donning the armor too long, you can see what it does to guts on the ship, essentially leaving him mostly bedridden the entire time.

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>>53090634
Just what I already put down. Maybe with some stuff tacked on.

>While berserk the wearer's vitality can drop down to -3 and still continue fighting. If the vitality drops below -3 the wearer falls unconscious and automatically fails a death save.

Maybe as well you'd also have to make a con save or something not to gain multiple levels of exhaustion after the battle, though I'm not sure what a good DC or exhaustion level for it would be. Probably succeeding on the save would only get half the exhaustion.

>>53090674
You're right. I already discussed that type of thing personally with my DM as I feel that the stuff outside of battle such as gaining exhaustion, losses to perception/wisdom, should be primarily up to them.

I did find a handy SRD on madness/sanity effects for 5e, so that can definitely give the DM some ideas as well.

>>53090709
How about negative half max vitality?
Because -3 vitality is practically 3 hp more, and I don't know how would you benefit from that.

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>>53090767
That could be alright, I just wanted it to be at -3 because I'm worried about this thing being broken.

>>53090803
Take a look at "I have 300 Temp HP" Blackrazor and you will realice that artifacts are made to be really good and really bad.

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>>53090872
lol that's pretty funny, idk I guess I shouldn't worry so much about an artifact being overpowered or not since it's meant to be. I just don't want to cross that fine line into broken territory. So I guess we just have to combine ideas and finalize this.

>>53090897
http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/ByW30Geiyb

How's that?

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>>53090917
That's really cool man, didn't know a site like this existed. Yeah everything seems real great.

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>>53090943
It's http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com
That was fun.
Hope you enjoy it.

>>53090709
link to srd or image desu?

>>53091018
http://5e.d20srd.org/srd/madness.htm
Here you go senpai

>>53091038
a-arigatosankyou op