Reworking Fortification

The current Fortification quality for armour doesn't really seem to fit into the D20 system - it gives a straight percentage chance and doesn't scale evenly. I'd like it to fit better.

Fortification gives two abilities: the possibility of totally negating a critical and the possibility of totally negating sneak attack. The latter ability significantly disadvantages the rogue, and the former means that those high-damage attacks really aren't that high any more.

So I'd like to fold it more in to the D20 system. I'm looking for a mechanism that's quick and easy, and works on the D20 scale, not a seperate roll of d100.

In both cases the degrees of fortification change from Light / Medium / Heavy to 1 to 5, as per standard weapon plusses, and count as such. Epic armour could offer higher.

For the first quality, I've two possibilities in mind: either reduce the critical range by 1 per degree of Fortification, or impose a penalty on critical confirmations (say -4 per degree of fortification).

For the second quality, again I've got two possibilities in mind: either reduce the sneak attack by 2d6 per degree of fortification or have each die of SA take -1 per degree of fortification (i.e. with 2 degrees of fortification, rolls of 1 and 2 do no damage, and a roll of 6 only does 4).

Consider a +5 suit of armour, with 5 degrees of fortification, for a total costing bonus of +10. For the first quality, the opponent could take either a -5 to his critical range, or a -20 to his critical confirmation roll. For the second quality, either -10d6 SA damage (matches 20th level rogue) or -5 on each die of SA damage.

I'm edging to the latter properties in each case because the former properties give away information to the opponents.

What do you think?

The latter properties work wonderfully, I think.

I like the +X to AC against crit confirmations, it seems clean and easy. The subtract SA dice is also a good idea.

Again, I think your solution is really playable, and more so than the original rules. It's arguably not much more elegant, though, because you're modeling a single magical property (protects your vital points against special attacks) with two mechanics for different situations, which smells to me of kluge. Accordingly, a natural solution might just be to split fortification into two abilities, one of which protects against critical hits (by making it much harder to confirm threats) and one of which protects against sneak attacks (by giving you uncanny dodge, which is a bit more powerful). Consider thusly:

Ablative
Ablative armor projects a deflective field of force when opponents strike a telling blow, making it very diffiicult for those blows to strike true. The armor comes in two grades, which offer varying degrees of protection. When a creature threatens a critical hit against the wearer of lesser ablative armor, the creature suffers a -10 penalty to its roll to confirm the threat. The greater version of this ability instead imposes a -20 penalty.
Moderate abjuration; CL 12th; Craft Magic Arms and Armor; stoneskin or repulsion; Price +1 bonus (lesser) or +2 bonus (greater).

Vigilance
Armor of lesser responds of its own accord to threats, granting its wearer an split second of prescience before he's attacked by an opponent he's unaware of. The wearer of either type of armor of vigilance retains his Dexterity bonus even when caught flat-footed or struck by an invisible attacker, but still retains it when immobilized. In addition, a wearer of the greater version cannot be flanked, except by a rogue of 19th level or higher.
Strong divination; CL 15th; Craft Magic Arms and Armor; moment of prescience; Price +2 bonus (lesser) or +4 bonus (greater).

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The market prices are just guesses, here, at this point, but you get the idea.

I also like +AC against confirmations and -dice. Alternately, it could be +AC against sneak attacks also, by which I mean that normal damage is dealt if you hit their normal AC, but you don't deal sneak attack damage unless the attack roll beats the boosted AC.

The problem is that this special property does protect against at least two forms of special attack (does Heavy Fortification negate Death Attacks?) and I have to say that I think that your Ablative idea is very good indeed. I'm not so enthusiastic about Vigilance, but I do like the idea of splitting the properties. I need to think on this.

I'd suggest that a +2 / +4 quality is a bit overpriced for Vigilance: +1 / +2 / +3 seems more like it.

How about recasting Vigilance as below:

Vigilance: Sneak Attack damage on the character is reduced by 1 (+1), 3 (+2), or 5 (+3) points per die.

Nice and simple, and removes any confusion about special attacks like Death Attacks.

Nice ideas,

I think I'll adopt them (or some variation thereof), but I need to confer with my players.

Good job though,

J from Three Haligonians

Quartz said:

I'd suggest that a +2 / +4 quality is a bit overpriced for Vigilance: +1 / +2 / +3 seems more like it.

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Plausible. I kept my prices high because it did more than just protect against sneak attacks, and because, since it emulated a class ability, I wanted to veer on the expensive side to help keep the class abilities at least a little special (though there is precedent--consider armor of "uncanny dodge" as analogous to a ring of evasion). A more focused version of sneak attack could reasonably be more economical.

Vigilance: Sneak Attack damage on the character is reduced by 1 (+1), 3 (+2), or 5 (+3) points per die.

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Sounds good to me. Do you want to make any provisos, though, about skirmish attacks or sudden strikes (like from the scout or ninja from the Complete Adventurer, respectively)?

comrade raoul said:

Sounds good to me. Do you want to make any provisos, though, about skirmish attacks or sudden strikes (like from the scout or ninja from the Complete Adventurer, respectively)?

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I'm not familiar with them, but if Fortification would protect against them, then so wwould Vigilance.