Armor Providing Damage Reduction Instead

[Azlan]

Armor Damage Reduction -- The Way It Really Works!

About a year ago, I posted some detailed and play-tested alternate combat rules that involved armor damage reduction. (Even now, my current campaign is using these armor damage reduction rules, albeit in a more refined form than what I originally posted, a year ago.) Mostly, I received negative feedback on my post; not so much because my rules were complex, unwieldly, and/or unbalancing, but because most people liked 3E D&D the way it already was. Most people disagreed from the get-go on the view that the primary advantage of wearing armor is to reduce damage and not to reduce the chances of getting hit.

Now, I find it ironic that "modern" d20 and the next version of d20 Star Wars are going to incorporate armor damage reduction. I wonder why they didn't do that with 3E D&D as well, and make all variations of d20 truly unified and consistant?

 

[Don]

Didn't want to post the numbers for copywrite

Unless you're quoting the text verbatim, it's not a copywrite violation. Even then, you're simply quoting a document, which is legal.

Rules for games are not copyrightable.(Title 17, Section 102(b) of US copyright law).

 

[Don]

Re: Armor Damage Reduction -- The Way It Really Works!

About a year ago, I posted some detailed and play-tested alternate combat rules that involved armor damage reduction. (Even now, my current campaign is using these armor damage reduction rules, albeit in a more refined form than what I originally posted, a year ago.)

Could you repost these somewhere for our benefit?...or just email them to me if you don't want to bother anyone else? I'm interested in seeing what you came up with.

 

[IceBear]

Ok, I wasn't sure if that was against copyright, but I was also too lazy to type it all out

I think the main reason they didn't change the way armor works was because they were afraid of making too many changes and thus scaring away the faithful 2nd Edition players. In a recent interview with Monte Cook he said that they wished they knew how open minded most players were going to be, and if so they would have probably made some more drastic changes. I am sure that's why you're seeing the damage reduction rules being used in the next release of Star Wars.

They used to use the damage reduction rules in Alternity and it was good. But, I think the problem with DR and D&D is the way it works with the hitpoint system. Changes to the way armor works would also need changes to the hitpoint system too, in my opinion.

IceBear

 

[IceBear]

Re: Re: Armor Damage Reduction -- The Way It Really Works!

Could you repost these somewhere for our benefit?...or just email them to me if you don't want to bother anyone else? I'm interested in seeing what you came up with.

I'd like to see them too, if you don't mind.

IceBear

 

[Don]

I think the main reason they didn't change the way armor works was because they were afraid of making too many changes and thus scaring away the faithful 2nd Edition players.

I 'm almost certain this is the case as well.

They used to use the damage reduction rules in Alternity and it was good. But, I think the problem with DR and D&D is the way it works with the hitpoint system. Changes to the way armor works would also need changes to the hitpoint system too, in my opinion.

I'm starting to like the wound point/vitality point idea more and more. I'd probably use it in addition to the DR rules.

 

[IceBear]

The only trouble is a VP/WP system would require a rethinking of how the healing spells work, the overall damages caused by weapons and spells, criticals, etc.

That's why I think they were reluctant to do it with 3E "out of the box", but will probably be in the next edition (or in some optional ruleset in a future product).

IceBear

 

[Azlan]

They used to use the damage reduction rules in Alternity and it was good. But, I think the problem with DR and D&D is the way it works with the hitpoint system. Changes to the way armor works would also need changes to the hitpoint system too, in my opinion.

I disagree. I've been using "armor damage reduction" rules, in some form or another, on and off for the past decade, both with 2nd and 3rd Edition D&D. And I've found that the "abstract hit points" system, used in D&D, works fine -- even with armor damage reduction.

Everyone already knows that while you're inflicting (or suffering) hit points damage, that you're not really dealing with serious or critical wounds, which don't come into play into the last few hit points are lost, and the defender goes into negative hit points. Instead, you are dealing with mostly with light wounds and the wearing down of the defender's endurance, fortitude, skill, luck, etc.

Using complex and cumbersome rules that involve hit locations and detailed wounds is more trouble than they're worth, IMHO. Even if such "realistic" rules were made quick and easy, they would oftentimes detract from the game. For example, no player *really* wants to know that the critical hit scored by the stone giant with a pick-axe actually hit his character's groin!

Anyway, I've found throughout years of playtesting that the part of D&D most affected by armor damage reduction rules is... the spell system. In order to have armor damage reduction apply to both melee/missile weapons and to spells, you have to overhaul the spell system, particularly those spells that inflict damage subject to reduction by armor. You have to make those spells inflict damage the same way that weapons do, and such spells would need rules for attack rolls and for criticals, and do away with saving throws. You cannot have one set of game mechanics for melee/missile weapon damage, and a totally different set of mechanics for spell damage.

 

[IceBear]

Well, you would know better than me as I've never tired it

I was just thinking about stuff like DR10 or higher armor making it next to impossible to hurt someone so when you finally did penetrate the armor and only did 1 hp of damage to something with 250 hitpoints I could see frustration setting in. Thus, I was thinking of something were hitpoints, in general, were made lower.

Anyway, all that was pure speculation as I've never even tried it, but I had noticed that most systems that had damage reduction due to armor (Alternity, Shadowrun, Mechwarrior) tended to have low hitpoints - it wasn't too bad to hit someone, but it was harder to hit someone and make it hurt, but if you ever did get hurt, you got HURT

IceBear