Rating the Benefits of Heavy Armor Master
Benefit #1 –
+1 to Strength, to a maximum of 20
Half an ASI is a common feature for many feats. Boosting Strength is necessary to be able to wear the heaviest armor, and is also great for weapon users.
Benefit #2 –
While wearing heavy armor, a character reduces the damage from non-magical slashing, bludgeoning or piercing attacks by 3
Flat damage reduction is an incredibly rare effect in 5e, and this works on every non-magical attack, as long as the character is wearing armor. It’s incredibly powerful, especially against groups of weaker enemies.
Mechanics and Requirements
Understanding How It Functions
Half an ASI in Strength
Many feats offer half an ability score increase (ASI) as part of their benefits, offsetting the pain of taking a feat by half.
The HAM feat gives the user a fixed half-ASI in Strength, which is an essential stat for almost every character who wants the feat.
First off, the best heavy armor all have a Strength requirement to wear. A character with lower strength than the threshold suffers a pretty severe -10 penalty to their speed.
Secondly, many characters who have proficiency in and wear heavy armor intend to be where the fighting is thickest, swinging weapons at enemies. A heavily armored build is likely to be using strength for weapon attacks, as pumping Dex for weapons while wearing heavy armor is working at cross purposes.
Damage Reduction
The main benefit of the Heavy Armor Master feat is the flat damage reduction.
A character with this feat that is wearing heavy armor reduces all damage they take from non-magical sources of slashing, piercing, and bludgeoning damage by 3.
First, it’s worth pointing out how unique this effect is. In 10 years of 5e, the amount of effects that reduce damage by a flat amount like this can be counted on one hand.
While 3 damage might seem like a low amount, that’s deceptive. In the early levels, enemies regularly only do single-digit damage, which you now reduce by a considerable amount.
In later levels, when enemies can hit for 20-30+ in one strike, and swing multiple times per turn, it feels inconsequential. Again, though, this is deceptive. Think of it as adding 3 HP to your character’s HP total for every attack that makes it through AC and lands to deal damage.
For tougher characters, like Fighters, it might take 4 – 5 attacks to drop to 0 HP. Heavy Armor Master just added another full level of hit points to your total.
This only scales harder against enemies that throw a ton of low-damage attacks. Many enemies in the monster manual have a host of medium to weak attacks, and certain encounters will throw hordes of lower-level enemies at the party, trying to wear you down through attrition. In both cases, HAM is incredibly strong.
The feat also seems to come with built-in limitations; namely, needing to be wearing heavy armor, and only protecting against non-magical, physical damage types.
These are less of an issue than they seem. One, it’s far easier to gain resistances against the elemental damage types that ignore HAM’s damage reduction. Two, even at a later level, finding monsters that deal magical damage with their attacks, either through weapons, or natural weaponry, is surprisingly rare.
It takes reaching the upper echelons of the monster manual to typically find enemies with magical attacks. Even many CR 10-15 fiends and celestials still make standard attacks. Yes. A character with this feat is somehow so good at wearing armor that they can make the attacks of devils dredged from the deepest pits of hell less effective.
Heavy Armor Master and environmental hazards
The Heavy Armor Master feat only protects a character from attacks. This is important because it means bludgeoning damage from, for example, a fall, isn’t resisted. But taking damage from a trap that makes an attack roll is reduced.
Key Stats
The Heavy Armor Master feat has +1 Strength as part of its benefits. Strength is a requirement for wearing heavy armor, and many characters who take this feat will be warrior-types who appreciate a bonus to what’s probably their main stat.
Ideal Characters for Heavy Armor Master
Top Classes
Fighter – Innate access to every fighting style, proficiency in anything that could be considered armor or weapons, and a healthy spread of subclasses that cover every style of combat make for an effective combination.
Our choice of subclass would be Samurai, who can gain free advantage and make themselves much tankier, multiple times per day. Battlemasters are always great, in every situation. And if you’re looking to make the toughest Fighter possible, roll up an Eldritch Knight, take every hit on the chin, and laugh mockingly at those mere mortals who try to hurt you.
Paladin – The archetypal knight in shining armor, Paladins love cladding themselves in full garb, couching the lance, and charging headlong into combat.
Almost every Paladin will be wearing heavy armor. The class also has a hefty d10 hit die and innate, class-based healing to keep themselves topped up. HAM ensures that, when the dust clears, they’ll be the last ones standing.
Cleric – Many Cleric subclasses gain heavy armor proficiency as part of their level 1 benefits, and the “battle priest” is a common build, wading deep into combat with weapon and spell.
Like the Paladin, the Cleric wants to be the one standing at the end of combat to get everyone back onto their feet. Because of the Paladin’s larger hit die and access to defensive fighting styles, HAM has much greater value for a Cleric who plans on taking hits.
Race or Subrace Choices
Variant Human – This combo has been known and abused since the start of 5e because of its raw power. If you’re playing from level 1, taking HAM makes a character all but unkillable for the first handful of levels.
Goliath – Further bonuses to Strength are great, as is resistance to Cold damage. What we want, though, is the Stone’s Endurance feature, a further flat reduction to damage, usable multiple times per day, which can stack with the reduction provided by this feat.
Warforged – A ton of supplementary defensive bonuses, as well as skills, are great for martial classes who often have many. +1 to AC is the real draw, turning a Warforged with this feat into one of the tankiest classes in the game.
Dragonborn – Elemental resistances are excellent on a tank, and most of the classes that want this feat struggle with hordes. An AOE breath weapon, usable multiple times per day, is an excellent answer.
Combos, Tactics, and Synergies
Complementary Feats
Crusher – Free, unstoppable movement once per turn lets you isolate an enemy and force them to fight you, even if they don’t want you. The bonus stats and boost on crits are also incredibly nice.
Sentinel – No one wants to hit the invincible brick of armor, so punish enemies who try to get away from you, or who attack your friends, by slapping back with an out-of-turn, reactionary strike.
Inspiring Leader – Stack a temp HP shield on the whole party, yourself included, and refresh it on every rest. Being so tough you make everyone tanky? Now that’s real leadership.
Spells that Synergize
Absorb Elements – On-demand elemental resistances add another layer of defenses against the things HAM doesn’t protect against.
Shield/Shield of Faith – AC is more effective the higher it is. Adding another +2 or +5 to the base 20AC of plate and shield can turn a character into an impregnable fortress.
Spirit Guardians – For the Clerics, lay down an AOE of constant damage and difficult terrain that’s centered on you, then plant yourself in the middle of the biggest group of enemies.
Strategies for Maximizing Heavy Armor Master Effectiveness
Take it early!
Seriously. Nothing makes the Heavy Armor Master feat more effective than gaining it as early as possible.
Consider the most extreme circ*mstance: A character gaining this feat at level 1.
Many standard monsters a party faces at this level deal low damage, spread across a lot of hits. 4 goblins are an appropriate CR1 encounter, striking for 1d6 + 2 with assorted weapons.
That’s a damage spread of 3 – 8, with an average damage of 5.5 HP per hit. Enough that two landed hits will down many level 1 characters.
A character with Heavy Armor Master, though, reduces this to 0 – 5, with an average damage of 2.5 HP. Suddenly, the character’s effective HP is more than doubled. They are literally twice as hard to kill.
The feat is still incredibly effective in the single-digit levels, losing efficiency as the party gets stronger, and enemies do significantly more damage with every attack.
With this said, even at higher levels, many monsters still deal non-magical damage, and a character taking 10 hits throughout the adventuring day still reduces a flat 30 HP from the damage they would have taken, which is functionally equivalent to increasing their HP by that amount.
Heavy Armor Master and Resistance
Adding damage resistances to a character with the HAM feat is a simple way to massively increase their resilience.
Many class features, spells, and items can add resistance to physical damage to a character. Resistance cuts damage from a source in half, which is a huge buff to overall toughness.
5e is clear on the ordering here. Apply reductions first, so the -3 from HAM, then cut the damage in half, rounding down.
Heavy Armor Master and Rage
At first glance, Heavy Armor Master might seem like a perfect fit for the Barbarian class, especially considering how its damage reduction stacks with resistances, as we just discussed.
Unfortunately, the Barbarian is locked out of wearing Heavy Armor. While the class is wearing Heavy Armor, it gains none of the benefits from the Rage feature, meaning no damage bonus or damage resistance.
Final Thoughts on Heavy Armor Master
Heavy Armor Master is a strong feat, leaning towards broken if it’s taken in the earliest levels of play.
It’s hard to overstate how powerful reducing the average damage a character takes by half is. Taking the HAM feat at level 1 is essentially like having permanent Barbarian Rage damage reduction on, all the time.
Even at later levels, while the raw numbers might seem less impactful, they add up fast. Especially against hordes of smaller foes.
This is a great feat, with no real downsides and a fun, meaningful positive that slots easily into a lot of builds. Better still, you’ll feel the impact of the feat every single time you sit down to play, and that’s the real mark of a great feat. That taking it feels meaningful. And Heavy Armor Master certainly hits that mark.
