Making my own system; how protective should certain armors be?

[System Ufera]

Well if damage output increases over levels but the DR of armor doesn't then armor is a poor investment as the game progresses. Characters who spend the game primarily fighting will take armor that is effective but with the least draw backs possible and they will probably increase what ever defensive skills they can instead.

As is armor looks moderately effective at level 1. By how much does damage increase each level?

Armor actually does increase, but it does so as a result of buying new armor. The DR values I gave were for the basic, unmodified and unenchanted suits of armor.

I seem to have lost the paper with my friend's math on it, but I can give estimates based on stat caps per level and such. By the way, I changed the level system since the last thread I made; there are now 20 levels, with level 1 being flavored the same and level 20 being what level 10 used to be.

The number of damage dice you roll for melee attacks is equal to half your Strength Modifier (modifiers are the attribute divided by 5). As already mentioned, the amount of dice may be increased or lowered depending on the size of the weapon. You would then add the modifier for your secondary attribute (in the case of the longsword, Agility) as a static bonus to damage, in addition to whatever you get from benefits.

Assuming an average warrior-type with a longsword (damage die of 1d6), at level 1, you'd probably have a Strength of 30 and an Agility of 25, with about 3 ranks of a benefit that increases damage with melee weapons by 1 per rank. That means you'd be rolling 3d6 +8 damage.

Unless you picked a race with a racial bonus to Strength, you're stuck at 30 Strength until level 3. This is because the cap for attributes is 30 at levels 1 and 2, except for attributes which your race gives a bonus to; these are capped at 35. Each cap increases by 5 at every odd level starting at 3.

So let's go to level 3. Your character can now have a Strength of 35, which isn't enough to increase the amount of dice you roll. However, you've probably increased your Agility to 30, and bought at least two more ranks in the benefit to increase your damage; this means you're rolling 3d6 + 11 on a hit.

At level 5, you may increase your Strength to 40, giving you an extra die of damage; going with the pattern I've established of Agility being 5 less than Strength, you're now rolling 4d6 +12 on a hit.

From there, you can just follow the pattern. So far, there are two benefits in my game that increase damage by a static amount, and each benefit does so by 1 per rank for 5 ranks.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

What about shields? Most games get them totally wrong, given that a lot of ancient soldiers' only 'armor' was their shield.

 

[System Ufera]

What about shields? Most games get them totally wrong, given that a lot of ancient soldiers' only 'armor' was their shield.

Shields are counted separately from armor; rather than improve DR, they boost the Blocking defense.

 

[GMMichael]

Shields are counted separately from armor; rather than improve DR, they boost the Blocking defense.

I'm on board with this (no pun intended). Shields are more of an active defense, while armor falls on the passive side (which is not to say that using armor is passive).

But I have a question, Jadebrain. If some characters are rolling 4d6 +12 for damage at level 5, are they going to need a calculator by level 15 to roll damage? What happens at 20?

 

[System Ufera]

I'm on board with this (no pun intended). Shields are more of an active defense, while armor falls on the passive side (which is not to say that using armor is passive).

But I have a question, Jadebrain. If some characters are rolling 4d6 +12 for damage at level 5, are they going to need a calculator by level 15 to roll damage? What happens at 20?

At level 15, the normal cap on Strength would be 65. Since the caps only apply to the base stat, and not to bonuses, things like enchantments and other bonuses would be able to bypass this cap.

Let's assume that the character, still armed with a Longsword, has a base Strength of 65 (the cap for Level 15, assuming no racial bonus), with +10 due to enchantments, making it 75. This leaves us with a modifier of 15, halved to 7. As such, 7 dice will be rolled from Strength alone. Let's also assume that the longsword itself has the Extra Damage +2d6 enchantment; this means that the character will roll 9d6.

The character would probably have a base Agility of 60, with +5 due to enchantments, making it 65. The modifier here would be 13, giving a bonus to damage equal to 13. The character may have taken all the ranks of the two benefits that further give a bonus to Damage, thus increasing that bonus further by 10, to 23. Thus, we end up with 9d6 +23 at level 15. That does seem like a bit much, which is one reason why I don't want to make my game any more complex than it currently is.

There's only a difference of 10 points between the caps at level 15 and level 20, and I'm not really planning on making enchantments much more powerful than they already are, so at that point we'd end up with 10d6 +25 damage dealt.

This isn't even getting into the issue of multiple attacks per round, or even calculations involving weapons other than the longsword. For example, there's an exotic weapon nicknamed the "Boulder on a Stick," which has a damage die of 1d12 per half your Strength Modifier, and as a two-handed weapon, it'll have an additional die being rolled. Or, there's weapons which deal additional damage per die, such as the Macuahuitl, another exotic weapon which has a damage die of 1d6 +1 per half your Strength Modifier, meaning that for every die you roll due to Strength, you deal an additional +1 damage.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

Shields are counted separately from armor; rather than improve DR, they boost the Blocking defense.

Makes sense to me.

 

[Argyle King]

I'm on board with this (no pun intended). Shields are more of an active defense, while armor falls on the passive side (which is not to say that using armor is passive).

To some extent I agree with that. However, just by being in the way, a shield also does offer some amount of passive protection to the side it's worn on. It's a barrier between myself and incoming attacks. In some of the games I play, this is represented by a shield giving a bonus to defenses (dodge, parry, block) against attacks from the front and from the shield side.