I’ve been working on a homebrew system that aims for compatibility with monsters and adventures from B/X. Over the last month, I went down a rabbit hole of exploring using a possible armor-as-DR system before eventually abandoning it (for some of the reasons articulated here regarding possible pathologies). However, one of the things I wanted to keep from that exploration was the idea that people are people and have the same hit points regardless of what class they took while still offering some differentiation in survivability.
Armor-as-DR would have provided that (since warrior types would naturally use better armor), but since I didn’t want to go that route, I ended up pivoting a bit. Armor just gives you extra hit points. The way I implemented that is hit points are based on a simple formula (level × base hp + 5 × CON where base hp = 4 by default). Chain gives you +1 to base hp, and plate gives you +2. It’s not a perfect emulation, and there are some edge cases (such as removing armor when you are not at full hp), but it capture the idea that armor increases your effective hp without really changing the combat process.
Note sure how useful that is for others, but I figured I’d throw that out there as another idea for keeping things simple.
Armor-as-DR would have provided that (since warrior types would naturally use better armor), but since I didn’t want to go that route, I ended up pivoting a bit. Armor just gives you extra hit points. The way I implemented that is hit points are based on a simple formula (level × base hp + 5 × CON where base hp = 4 by default). Chain gives you +1 to base hp, and plate gives you +2. It’s not a perfect emulation, and there are some edge cases (such as removing armor when you are not at full hp), but it capture the idea that armor increases your effective hp without really changing the combat process.
Note sure how useful that is for others, but I figured I’d throw that out there as another idea for keeping things simple.