Armor as temporary hit points

[CubicsRube]

Like many a hobby tinkerer, I have thought about how you'd go about implementing an armor-as-dr system in 5e....before giving up and realising it was way too much work.

There is a number of interactions that make this difficult, but a large one is that a number of low level enemies hits would simply be negated by dr.

So what if armor instead gave temporary hit points that replenished on a long rest? The depletion of these hit points would represent the armor being damaged and then being repaired on a long rest.

I would imagine that I could use the ac value as temp hit points. So 11 for leather, and 18 for plate for example. This would make armor still desirable, especially for lower levels, but also not mandatory.

It would in my mind enhance survivability greatly at low levels and add to the feeling that armor is protecting you. Because it is!

What interactions would you see as being problematic to thjis implementation? (Besides needing to adjust ac values for which i have an idea for)

 

[mellored]

Final Fantasy Tactics did this. It worked well. So I don't see any issue with armor as HP in general.

But it coudln't simply be swapped in for 5e. You would need to do a bunch of math to rebalance everything.

 

[Wiseblood]

I too have considered this. In my version it had a bigger impact than level (not a D&D houserule but a game built from the ground up). The thing that I never did manage to reconcile was how do they get the hp back? Take off the armor and put it back on? That seems dumb to me. Resting? End of the encounter? Also when do real HP get reduced? When temp HP are gone or on a crit?

 

[Ancalagon]

I would be concerned about characters dumping their armor and replacing them with another, esp if they have say a cart, or a bag of holding.

 

[mellored]

I would be concerned about characters dumping their armor and replacing them with another, esp if they have say a cart, or a bag of holding.

You could just assume they do. And balance the HP on a per-fight basis.

"After each battle, you spend 5 minutes repairing or replacing armor. You regain your armor's THP."

 

[Coroc]

Armor as damage reduction in case of a hit is the way to go down that route, but that is incompatible with D&D since D&D computes your Chance to be hit of AC already.

If you use DSA (Black Eye) the hit chance depends on some of your attributes and not what your opponent is wearing, and there you use armor as damage reduction. That system also has a kind of built in bound accuracy in that your hit Point max does not go up a lot when you level up, so low level critters stay dangerous for your PC as in 5E.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

So robes/common clothes would get 10 Temp HP? The wizards, sorcerers, monks, and barbarians of the world all better get proficiency with weaver's tools!

Or, if robes/common clothes get 0 Temp HP, that immediately puts all these classes at a big disadvantage and/or forces them into possibly awkward choices like taking the Lightly Armored feat or dipping into a level of Fighter, assuming the group is playing with feats and MC.

Anyway, interesting concept - just not sure there's a simple way to implement. Which has got me thinking that assigning Temp HP as a daily benefit of a homebrewed set of magical armor might be neat...

 

[Dausuul]

1. The difference between no armor and light armor is huge; each armor upgrade past that point is tiny. PCs will move heaven and earth to get light armor proficiency, but no one will care about heavy armor.

2. When a PC's "armor hit points" are depleted, and they take off their armor since it's no longer useful, do they suffer any consequence for that? What if they put on a different suit of armor (after all, it hasn't been damaged in combat, so it should recharge their temp hp)?

3. The value of armor starts out unbelievably huge, and drops rapidly as the PCs level up.

4. For low-level wizards, mage armor goes from a valuable spell to an utterly indispensable one, assuming you rewrite the spell to grant "armor hit points" instead of AC. If you don't rewrite the spell, low-level wizards are just wrecked, and there's nothing they can do about it except dip fighter or spend a feat.

5. What about effects that don't target AC? If you're wearing plate armor and get targeted by heat metal, can you use the temp hp from your armor to absorb the damage from your armor turning red-hot? If not, you now have special conditional temporary hit points that can only be used for certain things, adding one more layer of complexity.

6. How do "armor hit points" interact with other sources of temp hp?

If you're determined to go this route, I would have the "armor hit points" refresh after a 1-minute rest, and scale to the PC's level. Light armor grants 1 hp/level, medium grants 2 hp/level, heavy grants 3 hp/level. Yes, this removes the difference between armors within a category, but at least it stays consistent by level, doesn't destroy wizards, and doesn't incentivize carrying around a bag full of suits of padded armor.

But before doing even that much, I'd step back and ask, "What problem am I trying to solve here?" Is it just that it "feels" unrealistic to have armor deflect hits instead of absorbing damage? If so, does the solution "feel" more realistic, or is it actually making the problem worse? To me, it "feels" very weird to have armor totally absorb a hit or two, and then stop working completely.

 

[Syntallah]

TPK Games has a book called Fifth Edition Options - Optional Rules and Mechanics (great book, chock full of interesting stuff) that has a section on using armor as DR, and assigning AC values based upon class & level instead of armor worn. You might check that out...

 

[Nutation]

So what if armor instead gave temporary hit points that replenished on a long rest? The depletion of these hit points would represent the armor being damaged and then being repaired on a long rest.

There is some of this in the system already that you could use for guidance. Wild Shape and Polymorph are temporary hit points tacked onto (usually) low AC. In fact, most of the monsters have "appropriate" ACs and are balanced by their hit points. To do the same, though, I think you would have to redo hit points by character class according to their armor proficiencies rather than what armor they are actually wearing. That could also be more work than you want.