Armor Class and Defense

[ArmoredSaint]

Claymores evolved during the Scottish conflicts with the English.

LivingHistory.co.uk • View topic - c14th Highland/Isleman Clothing?

Scroll down that page a little bit. Those stone tomb effigies are of highland chieftains and nobles. Note that they wear padded armour and mail for the most part. That's the environment in which the claymore evolved, and the armour it faced most often. Not plate. It is not meant to combat plate armour, and would fail where a more acutely-pointed continental-style sword optimized for the thrust might prevail. Again, you don't combat plate armour by just trying to cut through with the edge of a sword. Anti-armour weapons are always either optimized for bludgeoning (in the case of maces and hammers) or piercing (in the case of picks, etc.). Claymores, while probably excellent for cleaving lightly-armoured poor men, just are not good at dealing with well-equipped men in plate armour.

Half-sword - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Note the portion that reads: "...a slice or a cleaving blow from a sword is virtually useless against iron or steel plate. Most medieval treatises show armoured combat as consisting primarily of fighting at the half-sword; the best options against an armoured man being a strong thrust into less-protected areas such as the armpits or throat..."

That's how you fight a man in full harness with a sword. You don't uselessly try to cut him with the edge--you jab a pointy thing into a spot where he has little or no armour.

 

[variant]

LivingHistory.co.uk • View topic - c14th Highland/Isleman Clothing?

Scroll down that page a little bit. Those stone tomb effigies are of highland chieftains and nobles. Note that they wear padded armour and mail for the most part. That's the environment in which the claymore evolved, and the armour it faced most often. Not plate. It is not meant to combat plate armour, and would fail where a more acutely-pointed continental-style sword optimized for the thrust might prevail. Again, you don't combat plate armour by just trying to cut through with the edge of a sword. Anti-armour weapons are always either optimized for bludgeoning (in the case of maces and hammers) or piercing (in the case of picks, etc.). Claymores, while probably excellent for cleaving lightly-armoured poor men, just are not good at dealing with well-equipped men in plate armour.

Half-sword - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Note the portion that reads: "...a slice or a cleaving blow from a sword is virtually useless against iron or steel plate. Most medieval treatises show armoured combat as consisting primarily of fighting at the half-sword; the best options against an armoured man being a strong thrust into less-protected areas such as the armpits or throat..."

That's how you fight a man in full harness with a sword. You don't uselessly try to cut him with the edge--you jab a pointy thing into a spot where he has little or no armour.

What they wore and what they fought against aren't one and the same. As I said, the claymore evolved during the Scottish battles against the English.

In fact, the two-hander in general evolved to cleave plate armor.

Historical fencing researcher and author, Grzegorz Zabinski, observes, "It can be assumed that the two-handed infantry swords were a culminating point of one of the directions of the evolution of swords, that aimed to increase their efficiency against plate by means of increasing their dimensions and weight, and, quite naturally, their impact." Zabinski offers sample data for a range of two-handed infantry swords from the end of the 15th and the beginning of the 16th centuries at the excellent collection of such weapons housed in the State Art Collection at the Royal Castle of Wawel, Krakow, Poland:

The Two-Handed Great Sword

 

[BobTheNob]

Guys, give up on the "historical accuracy" debate. We arent trying to emulate history, we are trying to make a game. D&D has never been simulationist.

The important thing is not what emulates history the best, its what works best for the kernel of the design. Does DR or AC do that the best? Does armor reward the classes that utilize in the manner its meant to? Does the chosen method allow for interesting enchantment options?

There the sort of questions you should be answering.

 

[Syunsuke]

Reposting my idea...

I've been toying around this idea about weapon damage type and armor as AC or DR.

Under 3/3.5 rule;
When you roll higher than AC, you deal full damage. Armor doesn't reduce damage at all.
When you roll less than touch AC, you miss, so you deal no damage. Armor doesn't matter.
When you roll higher than touch AC but lower than AC, you deal no damage. You touch your target, but his/her armor reduce damage completely.

Then, how about "you deal partial damage when you roll higher than touch AC but lower than AC"?
You graze your enemy, his armor soaks some force , but you somewhat hurt the enemy.
"Partial damage" can be simply "half damage." Just halving numbers isn't that hard, I guess.

Or each weapon could have both "full damage(when hit)" and "partial damage (when touch)" to represent damge type.
Like, a sharp blade has higher full damage but much lower partial damage, and a mace has decent full damage and not-so-lower partial damage.
Adding "critical damage" for each weapon is also possible.

With this rule, armors should have higher AC bonus (and small "touch AC" bounus), for damage will be dealt more frequently.
Also, you can't roll damge and atack roll at the same time. This can be small drawback.

 

[ArmoredSaint]

What they wore and what they fought against aren't one and the same. As I said, the claymore evolved during the Scottish battles against the English.

Where do you get the idea that they only fought the English and not among themselves during that period? It sounds like you've been watching too much Braveheart...

In fact, the two-hander in general evolved to cleave plate armor.

The Two-Handed Great Sword

Did you even read that link? 'Cause the rest of the essay is rather starkly at variance with at least part of the statement you picked out.

From further down the page:

"These weapons were not intended to defeat heavy plate armor with powerful cuts but did evolve from those longswords that were developed for use against armors by thrusting rather than cutting."

"For more than a century two-handed greatswords were used less for fighting against armors and more for open battlefield where pike and halberd formations were combined with firearms..."

Just as Derren and I noted above. It's clear that Mr. Clements, the author of that piece, does not believe that such swords were used to try to cleave armour.

Further reinforcing my point (groan! ), from the same website:

http://www.thearma.org/essays/armoredlongsword.html

"Certain tactical basics became apparent early on. The edge of the sword, for example, is relatively useless against plate armour. Most source texts show no edge blows at all. Rather, armoured sword fighting is all about putting the point into a relatively unprotected area."

"The truth of the matter is that plate armour simply is not effectively cut with a sword's edge, in spite of what you will see portrayed in movies and at many Renn fairs."

 

[Dour-n-Taciturn]

DR will be difficult to incorporate as a module, as each monster description/stat block would have to incorporate a modular variant to comply. Any modular concept should build on the existing monster stats using a few simple tables rather than having to re-jigger monster stats or add sub-stats.

I like the idea, I am more of a fan of HP as damage, but obviously we all know that D&D is abstract at its core. You would really have to resign yourself to the idea that DR will continue to function per spell/item effect, feat, or class feature (the latter two we already see in 3rd ED D&D and Starwars).

I was toying with a Middle Earth d20 variant that applied damage to a fixed wound threshold value based on creature size (independent of CON), inflicting 1 wound for every multiple of hits inflicted. The more wounds you accumulated the more restricted your actions became (similar to Daze, Disabled, Stunned...) which characters could roll to save from at the end of each round (as per 4th ED D&D conditions). This is obviously not simulationist, but would perhaps be a little easier to incorporate since you could extrapolate monster size into a wound threshold number and apply external modular tables.

The other notion is to increase damage in proportion to how well your attack roll exceeded AC, ie. 2x damage per 10 points above AC; of course this would skew badly in favor of skilled characters such that they effectively turn opponents with a significantly lesser AC into one-shots (like minions per 4th ED).

Food for thought...

 

[Izumi]

D&D AC represents a lot more than that. Dexterity adds to AC, as do various feats and class bonuses representing the skill of the character.

Feel free to add them in. They don't change the underlying assumptions one bit.

If the damage roll just measured the defensive properties of the armor, it would be modified based on the type of armor it is going against. Not all armors are equal. It also wouldn't be exactly the same when going against an unarmored opponent.

Armor Class still varies by armor type, and the the damage roll doesn't represent the defensive property of armor it's merely an effect of it.

 

[variant]

Where do you get the idea that they only fought the English and not among themselves during that period? It sounds like you've been watching too much Braveheart...


Did you even read that link? 'Cause the rest of the essay is rather starkly at variance with at least part of the statement you picked out.

I think you are taking this a bit too personally as you are moving towards using personal insults...

DR will be difficult to incorporate as a module, as each monster description/stat block would have to incorporate a modular variant to comply. Any modular concept should build on the existing monster stats using a few simple tables rather than having to re-jigger monster stats or add sub-stats.

Yep, it needs to be in or out because adding armor-DR into a game that isn't built for it causes too many issues.

Feel free to add them in. They don't change the underlying assumptions one bit.

Yes it does...

Armor Class still varies by armor type, and the the damage roll doesn't represent the defensive property of armor it's merely an effect of it.

...and no different between someone that wears armor and someone that doesn't as long as they have the same AC.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

If you want to be more realistic, you need to discriminate between different type of weapons and the effect of AC.

Maybe against a blunt weapon, your Full plate gives DR. Against piercing weapons you get AC, as most hits are deflected, only some get into unprotected parts.
against slashing weapons you may have both.

Is it complicated? Yes.
Is it really realistic? Probably not.
Is it worth the effort? No.

You should settle for an approach. I would hesitate to have AC as pure DR. I could accept Armor that has slightly lower AC but some DR. This would be a way to have more armor types that are useful.
Also you may have weapon properties, that penetrate that small scale DR.

So while I would not want a total switch, some DR could make the game more varied.

 

[Rhenny]

DR could easily be an option in D&D next. I like the idea that a critical hit could penetrate DR.