Armors: Getting hit vs Damage reduction

[groklynn]

I have a homerule for this:
Let's say you have 3 defenses - will/fort/ref. Which of them have been working already with some combat problems? at least reflexes. and what is the AC? it's a dexterity driven defense too (in a common way) but - if there's an armor on you and you've been hit, does it mean, that you'll get the same damage, if you have no armor? we can say - he dodged or parried cause it's a dex part of rules.
but if we take, say, immobilized character receiving an arrow in his chest. there will be no difference at all.

so what I want to say - one throw with two checks and AC bonus from all the items for two modifiers (AC + dex and AC + fort)

the heavier armor gets primary bonus to fortitude AC and lighter armor adds bonus to reflex AC. e.g. clothes add +4 AC(REF) (why it works so? how do you feel when you are naked in front of crowd trying to avoid attack? i think that comfortable and suited cloth is a really good companion for your success at avoiding attacks) and no fortitude bonus and plate adds +8 AC(FORT) and no ref bonus and all other armor types work in a balance. all the magic items count their enchantement to both AC's.

so you roll attack, then you look at your ref modified AC, and if you hit you look at your fort modified AC. if your fort AC is bigger than roll - your armor gets all the damage and every armor has it's own hp, but you could easily remove 1 AC bonus for each direct hit in your armor and add some reparation work every day. if your fort AC is lower, your armor reduces damage for it's AC bonus. so plate is easy to hit but hard to damage wearer and it could be broken really slowly and cloth is doesn't help you with damage but with good reflexes you gain additional bonus for evading style of defence.

 

[El Mahdi]

...

Interesting. I've never seen that approach before. It does still add an extra step to combat resolution (Checking AC+Dex and Checking AC+Fort, rather than just one comparison to one AC), which would slow down combat a bit, but all in all I don't think it would be too impacting.

I don't know if the OP would like it, and I do prefer other models, but your idea is intriguing.

 

[mkill]

Unearthed Arcana had this:
Armor As Damage Reduction :: d20srd.org

I've learned my RPG ropes on the German "Das Schwarze Auge", which also uses armor as DR.

It works, but it runs into heavy scaling issues. If you have rapidly scaling damage with level, like D&D does, you have to make sure armor DR somehow scales too, otherwise armor becomes useless soon.

The other issue is multiattacks: With armor as hit penalty, armor is as effective against a double attack for 25 damage as a single attack for 50. With armor as DR, the single, heavy attack for 50 is better (OTOH, this may be a good thing).

 

[luide]

Problem really is that making "realistic" armor clashes with lot of core design issues in D&D. Armor in D&D has been gamist from the start (options should be balanced against each other). If you want to make things realistic, it will screw up the game balance.

For example, having properly fitted armour doesn't slow you down that much. It weighs a lot, and if you have true encumbrance rules that should be taken into account, but D&D basically assumes that a) encumbrance effects armor only b) strength doesn't affect armor encumbrance.

So if you're aiming for realism, hide, chain, scale and plate users should be hit pretty much the same, dex bonus for AC should probably be lower of STR / DEX bonus for those wearing armor (probably with some minuses to str bonus for scale/plate).

Also remember that armor proficiences are game balance mechanic that aren't realistic at all.

Third problem comes from scaling between levels. If you stick to any one DR value for armor, there's pretty small sweetspot where it works. For example, DR 5 is awesome at level 1 and ok at level 10, pretty meh at level 15 and more-or-less useless at level 20+.

In my opinion, it's not worth the effort to try to make the system balanced with DR. AC as combination of hits glancing off armor and not being hit at all as acceptable compromise to me.

For me, D&D scaling with damage with levels, lack of melee damage types (crushing, cutting, piercing etc), lack of encumbrance rules makes any attempt to use Armor as DR either 1) just as big compromise and unrealistic as the armor as AC or 2) so much work that I'd be better off using just using GURPs rules.