Pathfinder 1E Armor as Damage Reduction

[enigma5915]

Im starting pathfinder after my breakup with 4E. Its been a few years since I ran 3.5. I'm seriously considering using armor as DR. I would like to hear feedback from anyone that has tried it or uses it. Any watch-outs, or good advice would be nuch appreciated.

I am planning on the AC protection provided by armor to be 100 percent converted over to damage reduction 1 for 1. So Armor that provided a sea of 4 before would not provide no AC bonus and instead provide damage reduction of 4.

I plan on changing AC to defense and it would be equal to 10 +Ref, +shield, +dodge, +deflection, etc...

Natural armor woukd be converted to DR at 2-1 or 1-1 based on the creature and my discretion.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Stumblewyk]

Never done it myself, but Paizo apparently figured someone would want to, since it's right there in the SRD.

Armor as Damage Reduction

 

[enigma5915]

Thank you for the Link Stumblewyk. Its got some useful information though i dislike the part about size bypasing DR. The amount of damage caused by large creatires is already taken into account. Otherwise that helps. I would still like to get feedback from someone thats used some form if this rule.

 

[Tovec]

I have done it, granted not with PF specifically but with a 3.x/d20 as a base. Some issues I hit were...

DR is very good defense. Especially natural armor. Consider how much or how often people are going to hit now that you remove armor (and NA) from AC. Even if that is much more often, DR cuts a LOT of damage from attacks.

I've had to scale down natural armor a LOT (about 1/2 total). And I've also had to add a limiting factor for the scaling of armor, otherwise everyone would buy their way up to full plate.

I found it interesting that you added reflex to AC, interesting choice.


For me, what has seemed to work out is adding BAB to AC, keeping shield, dex, dodge and deflection, but subtracting a new form of ACP from that total.

Hope that helps. Otherwise, if you don't want to change too much I do recommend the PF armor as DR rules.

 

[kkonkel0125]

I tried armor as damage reduction with my group not too long ago. It worked well for the most part, but there were some glaring balancing issues.

Part of the incentive (at least, for me) to armor as DR is that you can create things that are either difficult to hit (high Defense) or hard to hurt (high Armor). However, since none of the other mechanics of Pathfinder really change, even the dodgiest characters have lower Defense than they should to avoid high power attacks. And, the full-plate tank character never had to worry about the volume of attacks coming in because very few enemies could do enough damage to get through the armor.

With a little extra work, you probably can make that system perfect for Pathfinder/3.5/OGL but I personally question adopting any non-core material that needs extra work to function.

 

[Jester David]

I'm trying this with my current game, paired with the wound point system and a housebrewed inherent defence system that increases AC when not wearing armour.

It affects certain classes and builds more than others.

Classes that rely on accuracy to deal lots of small hits are affected pretty hard by armour as DR, as small amounts of damage don't do anything, even if you hit a dozen times. I ran a fight recently where the PCs just couldn't deal more than 6 damage per hit, no matter how hard they tried.

In contrast, power attack becomes potent as the penalty to hit is negligible.

 

[enigma5915]

Thanks for the feedback! I added ref to def because it was an increasing number based on dodgyness that was relative to class an already included. I also doubled the value of shields so they provide +2, +4, and +6 respectively to defense. I also removed str bonus to hit for melee. This helps balance the lower defence issue in general. Besides I never really liked str bonus applied to hit. It made some sense with the rules as written but not with the armor as DR change.

In regard to acquiring plate armor, I increased the cost of armor significantly in addition to an overhaul of the given economics.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

One issue is that damage scales faster than attacks, so a Fighter with AC 30 is going to live a lot longer versus a CR 20 creature than a Fighter with DR 20.

I'd recommend pairing flat DR with a percentage DR, so that armor stays relevant against massive attacks. (Unless you specifically don't want it to be.)

 

[enigma5915]

I considered doing a percentage but decided against it. My reasoning is that armor x protects x worth of damage. this means that some times no damage will be taken from attacks that are from a weak source and that damage from a strong source may still have a lot of damge get through. I am perfectly fine with that. Big scarey things should stay scary by the fact that they hurt when they hit.

This does mean that armor is generaly more valuable at the lower and middle levels. This is ture in the sense that foes tend to increse in size at the higher levels. Armor will still help, but people should avoid gigantic towering monsters weilding trees as clubs and not choose to fight tote to toe. IMHO at least.

 

[Wiseblood]

I considered doing a percentage but decided against it. My reasoning is that armor x protects x worth of damage. this means that some times no damage will be taken from attacks that are from a weak source and that damage from a strong source may still have a lot of damge get through. I am perfectly fine with that. Big scarey things should stay scary by the fact that they hurt when they hit.

This does mean that armor is generaly more valuable at the lower and middle levels. This is ture in the sense that foes tend to increse in size at the higher levels. Armor will still help, but people should avoid gigantic towering monsters weilding trees as clubs and not choose to fight tote to toe. IMHO at least.

What about natural armor? I have found DR to be punitive to any characters that do not cast spells. Every time.