Armor Class and Defense

[Derren]

I disagree. A sword has a much longer reach and is far more effective by that fact. If daggers were so effective, you could just equip an army with daggers and win against an enemy army that is fully armored.



A sword going through an inch of steel is going to do a lot less damage coming out the other side than one going through a piece of cloth.

Utter nonsense. You don't try to push a sword through a inch of steel. That simply doesn't work. You hit him where the armor does not protect him, eye slits, joints, etc. And thats also the reason why the dagger is more dangerous to the full plate than a sword. It can get in a lot more gaps than a sword does.
Thats the reason wrestling/grappling also was a important part of the training of a knight, because you had to defend against people who get inside your reach and try to pin you down so they could putt a dagger through your eye slits.

The question, then, is what makes for a better game. And overall, I like the idea of almost all attacks doing at least something.

I don't, and not only because I like my games to at least try to resemble reality instead of slipping into total nonsense for gamist reasons. So what now?

Also, while brute force was also used to penetrate armor sometimes, if you succeeded you didn't only bruise the one inside it because the armor absorbs the hit. No, such a hit shatters bones. And other brute force weapons like a halberd or hooked hammer are even more lethal when they manage to pierce the armor. Nothing gets absorbed there.

The idea that armor is incredibly encumbering is a myth.

Down from horseback with armour - YouTube

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqC_squo6X4&feature=related]How to Mount a Horse in Armor and Other Chivalric Problems - YouTube[/ame]

 

[dkyle]

I don't, and not only because I like my games to at least try to resemble reality instead of slipping into total nonsense for gamist reasons. So what now?

But HP is total nonsense, that doesn't resemble reality, and exists entirely for gamist reasons. So it doesn't make much sense to be demanding a high degree of "realism" for armor, when the thing that armor is protecting is so completely unrealistic.

Also, while brute force was also used to penetrate armor sometimes, if you succeeded you didn't only bruise the one inside it because the armor absorbs the hit. No, such a hit shatters bones. And other brute force weapons like a halberd or hooked hammer are even more lethal when they manage to pierce the armor. Nothing gets absorbed there.

Are you saying that these are weapons that can be expected to do as much (or even more) damage to a plate wearing defender, as to an unarmored defender, suffering the same attack? Because that's the only way it makes sense to say that DR couldn't apply here.

If a weapon imparts energy into denting, or tearing, through a sheet of metal, the energy being imparted into the person would necessarily be less. The energy an attack applies to a person is the primary determinant of the degree of damage produced.

To say that a "hit" should do more damage than is reflected in DnD rules is obvious. That's due to the nature of HP. With AC-as-miss-chance, hits still don't shatter bones, so it's disingenuous to claim that AC-as-DR is somehow unrealistic for a reason that applies equally to AC-as-miss-chance.

 

[Derren]

Are you saying that these are weapons that can be expected to do as much (or even more) damage to a plate wearing defender, as to an unarmored defender, suffering the same attack?

Yes, that is what I am saying. Someone with a plate helmet getting hit by a warhammer on the head with a strong swing ends up dead with his head crushed. If he did not wear armor the result would be the same.

There is only a very tiny gray area where a hit would do enough damage to breach the armor but not enough to seriously injure the one wearing the armor and that also applies only to blunt weapons (tiny minority). Piercing weapons which were invented to be used against armor (that includes the warhammer. They have a spike for a reason) either get deflected, doing no damage at all or pierce through the armor and the wearer would be injured the same way as if he wore no armor at all.
And as I said, there were also weapons used to bypass armor like the dagger which was more dangerous to a warrior in full plate than a sword which was not very good against plate armor at all compared to other weapons.

 

[dkyle]

Yes, that is what I am saying. Someone with a plate helmet getting hit by a warhammer on the head with a strong swing ends up dead with his head crushed. If he did not wear armor the result would be the same.

A nasty concussion? Sure. Head crushed just as badly as if there were no helmet at all? Gonna have to to call [citation needed] on that one. The physics of it just doesn't make sense. Crushed head implies a crushed helmet, and crushed helmet implies a less crushed head than if the helmet wasn't there, since a substantial amount of energy went into deforming the helmet.

There is only a very tiny gray area where a hit would do enough damage to breach the armor but not enough to seriously injure the one wearing the armor and that also applies only to blunt weapons (tiny minority).

I would say that that "gray area" applies to all hits. Making contact, without actually doing serious damage, is really hard to do, no matter what.

But the problem with this is "serious injury" in DnD only happens on the killing (or possibly knockout) blow. The effects of HP loss prior to that cannot be reasonably considered a "serious injury" by any realistic standards. So saying that a warhammer to a helmeted head is just as "serious" as a warhammer to a non-helmeted head doesn't make much sense, because most hits aren't actually serious in the first place. You're driving a false equivalence of "serious = serious", and therefore, all hits should do the same damage, regardless of armor.

Whereas, if armor takes any of the force of the hit, in place of the body, I say it should translate to less damage. If a blow to an armored head results in 10% of the energy going into the helmet, and 90% into the head, (as opposed to 100% into the head for the unarmored head) that ought to be 10% fewer HP lost. Most serious hits would still be serious, but there logically has to be a border case where a "serious" hit, with 10% energy removed, becomes a non-serious hit.

Piercing weapons which were invented to be used against armor (that includes the warhammer. They have a spike for a reason) either get deflected, doing no damage at all or pierce through the armor and the wearer would be injured the same way as if he wore no armor at all.

Again, physics just don't work that way. If you're puncturing armor, then some of the effectiveness of the blow must be lost.

And as I said, there were also weapons used to bypass armor like the dagger which was more dangerous to a warrior in full plate than a sword which was not very good against plate armor at all compared to other weapons.

Now, I'm not saying AC-as-DR is more realistic in all cases. AC-as-miss-chance makes a lot of sense for daggers vs. plate. On the other hand, AC-as-DR for daggers vs. leather makes a lot of sense.

Rather, I don't think either is more realistic, in general, than the other. Using either universally, for all attacks, is equally gamist. Therefore, the argument should be which produces a better game. I think a reasonable argument can be made in both directions on that topic. But I don't think one can legitimately be labeled "gamist", and the other "realistic".

 

[ArmoredSaint]

Once upon a time, I used to be a radical proponent of armour as DR being a better and more realistic/logical representation of the effect of armour than armour as AC.

Now, while I still believe that armour would be better represented mechanically that way, I find that I care less and can deal with the abstraction of AC.

More important than the actual rule mechanic used is that armour be effective. Whether it's represented as soaking up damage or making you harder to land a telling blow on, heavy armour absolutely must be the best defensive option in the game--the statistic is called Armour Class for a reason...

 

[variant]

Utter nonsense. You don't try to push a sword through a inch of steel. That simply doesn't work. You hit him where the armor does not protect him, eye slits, joints, etc. And thats also the reason why the dagger is more dangerous to the full plate than a sword. It can get in a lot more gaps than a sword does.
Thats the reason wrestling/grappling also was a important part of the training of a knight, because you had to defend against people who get inside your reach and try to pin you down so they could putt a dagger through your eye slits.

Going through armor is exactly what weapons like the claymore were created for. Weapons were created to penetrate the armor of their time as armor was created to prevent them from penetrating. The weak points in the heavy plate armor are where the armor is weakest and the steel is thinnest.

 

[Bobbum Man]

I vote for the classic AC system, on the basis of it being just plain easier than any armor-as-DR system that I've ever seen. Such systems tend to be cumbersome while adding little of actual value to games.

There is always a subset of people trying to shoehorn armor-as-DR into D&D, but if most people actually wanted that, they would be playing Rolemaster or Runequest instead.

My one complaint about the classic AC system is that it invalidates such character concepts centered around lightly-armored melee fighters. #rd edition did a good job balancing heavy and light armors with the max dexterity bonus to AC rules.

 

[variant]

Now, I'm not saying AC-as-DR is more realistic in all cases. AC-as-miss-chance makes a lot of sense for daggers vs. plate. On the other hand, AC-as-DR for daggers vs. leather makes a lot of sense.

Rather, I don't think either is more realistic, in general, than the other. Using either universally, for all attacks, is equally gamist. Therefore, the argument should be which produces a better game. I think a reasonable argument can be made in both directions on that topic. But I don't think one can legitimately be labeled "gamist", and the other "realistic".

All depends on what you consider the damage reduction to be. Since damage itself is against hit points which are an abstraction of stamina and the ability to withstand minor injury, the damage reduction acts as a buffer against the cost to your stamina and shows the benefit armor provides in withstanding attacks. The whole argument of weapons penetrating armor is kinda pointless as it is only one aspect of it.

When a weapon rolls above the damage reduction of armor, it doesn't mean the weapon penetrated the armor, it means the weapon was able to cause more fatigue, rattle him, cause minor bruising, etc. The damage reduction simply represents the inherent defense armor provides.

 

[Derren]

A nasty concussion? Sure. Head crushed just as badly as if there were no helmet at all? Gonna have to to call [citation needed] on that one. The physics of it just doesn't make sense. Crushed head implies a crushed helmet, and crushed helmet implies a less crushed head than if the helmet wasn't there, since a substantial amount of energy went into deforming the helmet.

I probably should have said spiked. Because thats what war hammers were about. They did did not feature a big flat surface like many D&D pictures want you to believe but a rather small one, if they had a flat surface at all.

The point was to concentrate the energy of the swing on a single point to pierce through the armor. This resulted in either the swing not doing any damage at all when it failed to penetrate the armor or piercing through and impaling the one inside the armor. There was hardly any middle ground between those two results.

I would say that that "gray area" applies to all hits. Making contact, without actually doing serious damage, is really hard to do, no matter what.

No, hitting without doing serious damage is very easy when the opponent is armored. Plate was practically invincible to sword and axes unless you knew exactly where to hit.
Medieval armor was made to deflect attacks so that you do not get harmed at all. They were not made like modern day motorcycle helmet which indeed are build to absorb.
And thats why from a realism and a logical point of view armor does not make sense as DR. And from a gameist point of view it also is bad because is completely devalues small weapons (which, coming back to realism were also quite effective against armor when they were designed to be that way).

Whereas, if armor takes any of the force of the hit, in place of the body, I say it should translate to less damage. If a blow to an armored head results in 10% of the energy going into the helmet, and 90% into the head, (as opposed to 100% into the head for the unarmored head) that ought to be 10% fewer HP lost. Most serious hits would still be serious, but there logically has to be a border case where a "serious" hit, with 10% energy removed, becomes a non-serious hit.

A hit through the armor which has 90% of its force left is a very serious hit considering the force needed to penetrate it. And be hones, with just 10% DR no one would bother with heavy armor.
Will there be cases where armor lessens a penetrating blow? Yes, but they would be rare and it makes no sense to base the game around such a rare event.

Again, physics just don't work that way. If you're puncturing armor, then some of the effectiveness of the blow must be lost.

When you puncture armor the thing limiting the damage would primarily be the location and the length of the spike not the force of the blow. Its the same way where the force of you ramming a knife into someones gut doesn't really matter as much.

Rather, I don't think either is more realistic, in general, than the other. Using either universally, for all attacks, is equally gamist. Therefore, the argument should be which produces a better game. I think a reasonable argument can be made in both directions on that topic. But I don't think one can legitimately be labeled "gamist", and the other "realistic".

Ok, what is better for the game? The mechanic where you can kill on a miss and can calculate that you will do X damage every round and thus will kill the enemy in Y rounds no matter what happens and where small weapons are made useless because they loose a lot of damage against armored opponents no matter what they do so everyone is practically forced to run around with a 2-handed sword?
Or the mechanic where you will have tension because you don't know if you or the enemy will hit and where you can wield small weapons and still be effective?

Going through armor is exactly what weapons like the claymore were created for. Weapons were created to penetrate the armor of their time as armor was created to prevent them from penetrating. The weak points in the heavy plate armor are where the armor is weakest and the steel is thinnest.

Actually the claymore and other 2-handed swords were more used against pikes and riders than against armor. Against mail they were good but against plate people preferred smaller, pointed weapons as they could concentrate the force on a small area and not long bladed weapons. When faced with someone in plate armor and you only have a long sword it was used more like a spear/polearm than a traditional sword.

 

[dkyle]

All depends on what you consider the damage reduction to be. Since damage itself is against hit points which are an abstraction of stamina and the ability to withstand minor injury, the damage reduction acts as a buffer against the cost to your stamina and shows the benefit armor provides in withstanding attacks. The whole argument of weapons penetrating armor is kinda pointless as it is only one aspect of it.

When a weapon rolls above the damage reduction of armor, it doesn't mean the weapon penetrated the armor, it means the weapon was able to cause more fatigue, rattle him, cause minor bruising, etc. The damage reduction simply represents the inherent defense armor provides.

I completely agree with this.

It's just that the "physical injury" component of HP is the only part where the actual properties of weapons vs. armor actual mean much, and was the area where it was being asserted that AC-as-miss-chance is more realistic, so that's what I was disputing.

I think it would be very hard to make a case for either kind of AC being more realistic when it comes to the more intangible components of HP.