A new Developer's Blog? Why yes!

[Tattered Rags]

[Lys]

[Roth]

[Lys]

Generally you wear light armour because you have abilities that benefit from you going first - such as Air Dance and Anticipate Blow - and to prevent other people from using such abilities against you. There is definitely a trade-off, it just has nothing to do with armour-defeating hits. Going Inside a Shield is still an option in 3e, I've just frankly never seen anyone use it so I tend to discount it. You need to both win initiative at a penalty and roll well enough to beat their defence in order to benefit from the attempt. None of the people I game with seem to think it's wroth the risk, so none of them use it. I haven't run the numbers to be sure whether this is really the case, but offhand I'm inclined to agree with them. However, with shields giving a defence bonus in 4e, players may feel more inclined to actually try and go inside them.

[Flowswithdrek]

The reason my player characters wear light armour is that it is better than no armour at all and heavy armour is very expensive and out of the price range of most, especially at lower circles. The right choice in armour also gives you a little boost to mystic armour. Its not all about getting hit with a blade.

[Roth]

[shiinx]

Not going into the details of the previous discussion, but didn't the chances for a knockdown also change with 4e? I cannot remember, though, if they went into the direction of it being easier to accomplish or harder given a certain amount of damage surplus compared to the wound threshold. This should also factor in your ongoing discussion.

And just for the sake of counting. "armor defeating hit" were 3 words in a 23 words sentence .

[Lys]

[Roth]

[Slimcreeper]

I don't think there's any real world advantage for a lightly armored combatant to attack a more heavily armored combatant head to head. Lightly armored combatants have an advantage if they fall in the water. Lightly armored combatants are more welcome in social situations. Lightly armored characters have an easier time moving through brush when scouting and move faster on horseback. But a guy in some cool leather straps with a couple knives is not going to win a direct fight against a sword and board fighter with chain mail.