Hrothgar Rannúlfr
Explorer
I cannot wait to see this, too, Nifft.Nifft said:It's part of my huge Saga-ization of D&D project.Hopefully details around Christmas / New Year.
Cheers, -- N
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Way for armor to eat damage, w/o armor = DR.
- Thread starter BASHMAN
- Start date
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Sounds like many larp systems I’ve done. Ablative hits from armour. Only difference is the armour hits are tracked separately. I.e in one system I might have 3 body hits and 5 armour hits. Unless hit with a “through” I lose the armour hits first. These hits can’t be healed as it is the armour, not me, but could be repaired (slowly unless magic is on tap).
Keeping armour and body hits separate might make healing make a little more sense. Crits could bypass the armour hit points in part or whole.
Many skeletons dug up on old battle sites were found to have died from blunt trauma, swords didn’t so much cut people up as beat them to death as it never breached the armour.
So….
Could I suggest that instead of needing crits to do real damage and breach the armour, giving armour a “non-leathal threshold”, all damage in a single blow up to that score is non lethal. Damage which flows over that cap is real. Eg you decide to give mail a cap of 5 (= to its standard ac bonus). PC takes 8 points of damage, first 5 are non lethal, the remaining 3 are lethal. Crits will usually end up doing lethal any way.
Keeping armour and body hits separate might make healing make a little more sense. Crits could bypass the armour hit points in part or whole.
Many skeletons dug up on old battle sites were found to have died from blunt trauma, swords didn’t so much cut people up as beat them to death as it never breached the armour.
So….
Could I suggest that instead of needing crits to do real damage and breach the armour, giving armour a “non-leathal threshold”, all damage in a single blow up to that score is non lethal. Damage which flows over that cap is real. Eg you decide to give mail a cap of 5 (= to its standard ac bonus). PC takes 8 points of damage, first 5 are non lethal, the remaining 3 are lethal. Crits will usually end up doing lethal any way.
Malhost Zormaeril
First Post
I've played systems which had armour as ablative hp; it was a nice idea, but frankly, the execution is very hard to pull off. The point is, adventurers are damaged quite often, and as armour hp are usually the first to go, we get to the situation where our characters' armour has a very low life expectancy -- two battles tops -- which means low-level characters spend most of their cash on armour but usually go around armourless.
I'm assuming, of course, that once the armour's hp are reduced to zero, it's been destroyed and is useless, right?
I'm assuming, of course, that once the armour's hp are reduced to zero, it's been destroyed and is useless, right?
Simia Saturnalia
First Post
Weird...I just bookmarked this thread tonight so on January 2 I could harass Nifft about his rules.
rumplefurskin
First Post
I prefer modifying the current v3.5 system to make it as easy as possible to transition. I don't think it's necessary to incorporate percentages or HP additions, although it's certainly one interesting option.
Here is how I would do it. Give armour two values, AC and DR. Split a character's AC into two values, which I call Dodge Class and Armor Class but perhaps could be better named.
Dodge Class represents all factors that go into AC that help a character *avoid* being hit. Dex, luck, insight, maybe deflection, shields, and so on. This is the *base* AC, in a sense.
Armor Class represents protection from armour, and is added *on top* of Dodge Class.
Thus, a character with a dex of 14 and +2 armour has a Dodge Class of 12 and an Armor Class of 14. Armor Class is always greater than or equal to Dodge Class, because it stacks on top.
The damage from an attack roll is treated differently depending on how it is, relative to the receiving character's Dodge and Armor Classes.
(1) If the attack does not beat the Dodge Class, the character has avoided the blow.
(2) If the attack beats the Dodge Class but not the Armor Class, the character has managed to take the blow on his armour (or, from the other point of view, the attacker managed to hit but not to find an opening in the armour). The blow is dealt, damage is calculated, but *damage resistance applies from the armour.*
(3) If the attack beats the Armor Class, the character did not avoid the blow nor did he take the blow on his armour (from the other POV, the attacker managed to hit the character and find an opening in the armour). Damage is calculated and taken without damage resistance from the armour applying.
The main change to the existing rules that is needed with this system, is that a DR rating must be invented for all pieces of armour. That will take some playtesting.
The only other change is to consider how other methods of adding DR interact with standard armour-DR. Adamantine armour, for instance, would probably just add to the DR of the armour. But what about a character with inherent DR who also wears armour, such as a barbarian? This might lead to "two" DRs, one of which always applies, and one of which only applies in situation (2). That is a complication, and I like to avoid complications. Still, it might be easy to rename the armour DR in order to treat it conceptually differently from other forms of DR, thus allowing for easy mental compartmentalization.
Thoughts?
Here is how I would do it. Give armour two values, AC and DR. Split a character's AC into two values, which I call Dodge Class and Armor Class but perhaps could be better named.
Dodge Class represents all factors that go into AC that help a character *avoid* being hit. Dex, luck, insight, maybe deflection, shields, and so on. This is the *base* AC, in a sense.
Armor Class represents protection from armour, and is added *on top* of Dodge Class.
Thus, a character with a dex of 14 and +2 armour has a Dodge Class of 12 and an Armor Class of 14. Armor Class is always greater than or equal to Dodge Class, because it stacks on top.
The damage from an attack roll is treated differently depending on how it is, relative to the receiving character's Dodge and Armor Classes.
(1) If the attack does not beat the Dodge Class, the character has avoided the blow.
(2) If the attack beats the Dodge Class but not the Armor Class, the character has managed to take the blow on his armour (or, from the other point of view, the attacker managed to hit but not to find an opening in the armour). The blow is dealt, damage is calculated, but *damage resistance applies from the armour.*
(3) If the attack beats the Armor Class, the character did not avoid the blow nor did he take the blow on his armour (from the other POV, the attacker managed to hit the character and find an opening in the armour). Damage is calculated and taken without damage resistance from the armour applying.
The main change to the existing rules that is needed with this system, is that a DR rating must be invented for all pieces of armour. That will take some playtesting.
The only other change is to consider how other methods of adding DR interact with standard armour-DR. Adamantine armour, for instance, would probably just add to the DR of the armour. But what about a character with inherent DR who also wears armour, such as a barbarian? This might lead to "two" DRs, one of which always applies, and one of which only applies in situation (2). That is a complication, and I like to avoid complications. Still, it might be easy to rename the armour DR in order to treat it conceptually differently from other forms of DR, thus allowing for easy mental compartmentalization.
Thoughts?
in my classless D&D mod i made armor have DR and Armor Points based on Type and AC bonus
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?p=3958744#post3958744
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?p=3958744#post3958744
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