Prerequisite: Proficiency with medium armor
You have trained to master the use of heavy armor, gaining the following benefits:
Increase your Strength score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
You gain proficiency with heavy armor.
Heavily Armored: Always Wear Protection
Review by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold
The armor system in 5e is, generously put, poorly executed. Most characters will reach their highest AC within the first five levels, and only get small bumps down the road from the occasional magic ring or armor set. Armor types are supposed to be a flavorful way to depict varying forms of defense: light armor for the nimble backline, medium for the skirmishers, and heavy for the frontline tanks. Mechanically, they tend to just assign you a number, which is usually about a 15. The benefits of Heavy Armor tends to be that it offers you high AC on characters with low Dex; light rewards high Dex, medium rewarding exactly a +2 dex. This entire system is based on equipment most characters have access to out the gate from their background or can purchase with starting gold. Outside of plate mail, most characters will find it relatively free to get an AC of at least 15 with any of the armor proficiencies while optimizing their characters to do what they’re supposed to.
Now we arrive to Heavily Armored; a feat offering a flip from an odd to an even Strength score or opening up a Strength based multiclass, and access to heavy armor proficiency. If you want access to it, you already need access to medium armor, gating it to either require another feat, or you need to be a barbarian, cleric, druid, or ranger who doesn’t already have a decent AC and wants a better AC. This is almost never the case for any of the aforementioned characters, and that’s just posing the question: Would these classes want heavy armor proficiencies? Not if it's worth a feat.
Barbarians come with unarmored defense, a mechanic baked into their class that encourages high Dex and Con. Because of their massive hit point pool paired with resistance to common damage types, what could amount to a +2 or +3 to their AC by switching to heavy armor just isn’t justified. Clerics have a boat load of sub classes that give them heavy armor proficiencies, specifically when they’d want to be frontline characters with solid armor classes. Druids have a lore aversion to wearing metal in the first place, and with a +2 Dex (a stat you’re eager to take on druids looking to be in the frontline) with medium armor and a shield you can comfortably sit on an AC of 17, up to 19 with upgrades to half plate. The only AC upgrade from here would be full plate for a bonus 1 to your AC, twice the gold cost, and a 15 Strength requirement. That seems like a whole lot of hoops to jump through for +1 AC.
All of that is to say most characters that can take this don’t even really want it. Strength is used very sparsely. Mostly paladins, barbarians, and fighters care about it, and two of those three already have access to heavy armor. If you want to play a full tank barbarian with a +0 in Dex, and need to get your 17 Strength to an 18, I guess this option could be for you, but I have to wonder where else your stats are going where they’ll be all that helpful. Outside of this super niche scenario, in which I’d still probably rather just have a feat like Great Weapon Master or Polearm Master, there is no reason to take Heavily Armored over just an ability score improvement.
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