Realism and Armor in d20 Modern

[davidgeisbush]

I know realism and armor in d20 is a stretch, but I have an idea for a pretty realistic and simple modification. Grant an armor bonuses on both the massive damage theshold (MDT) as well as the massive damage saving throw (MDS). The bonus should be 2 for light armor, 4 for medium, and 6 for heavy (half if the wearer is not proficient). This means that wearing armor makes you much more likely to survive a wound, but it doesn't mean you take any less damage.

Ex. Our hero with a 14 CON wearing +4 medium armor is hit by a 16 points of damage, but because his (adjusted) MDT is an 18, he doesn't make a MDS. Say he was hit by 20 points of damage, he does make a MDS, but he has a +4 armor bonus on his saving throw.

The point of this is to make armor desirable for surviving a gunfight. The downside is that we've chosen to apply this to all damage instead of just gunfire, it was just too complicated to deal with archaic armor vs modern armor, vs weapon type, elemental effect, etc.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I am not sure if this is any more realistic approach to armor. Armor - if effective at all - usually reduces damage done or avoid it alltogether. I do not think your rule idea will work in this case, and it might even make wearing armor useless to most characters - no way to avoid taking 12 points of damage (exaggeration)? Goodby, Smart Hero (well, he didn`t deserve this name anyway, because he obviously wasn`t behind a safe cover at that moment, like he should have done). He won`t care that the damage didn`t exceed his MDT - he is still out of hp.

If you wanted a cineatic feel (which you don´t ), it would probably go even in the wrong direction - in most movies, characters are knocked down/out when someone hits them, even if they are protected by armor.

 

[Tellerve]

I know if you look through some old posts your sure to see debates on this. Then again, no one ever looks back into previous posts.

As for what your saying, sure use it if you want, I also was tempted to use it as well but I've decided to just have the AC of the armor be the bullet hitting the armor and not going through, thereby not needed any checks or anything. It all really boils down to personal taste. But the problem with a addition to massive damage threshold is that your implying the bullets only ever hit the armor. Never, legs, arms, or head that might not be covered by a standard bulletproof vest.

Tellerve