MarkB
Legend
One issue with armour-as-DR in 5e is that damage output is now pretty much the only thing that does scale with level - and it scales a lot. For DR to work and not be utterly swamped at higher levels, you couldn't just assign a numeric DR value to each armour type - you'd need to be constantly topping up the DR as characters levelled up.
Alternatively, you could use a percentile model, as with 5e's current damage resistance - have heavy armour give you the full 50% reduction in damage, whilst light and medium armour gave lesser reductions. The tricky part there is that, for anything other than a straightforward halving of damage, it becomes a pain to calculate each time.
Alternatively, you could use a percentile model, as with 5e's current damage resistance - have heavy armour give you the full 50% reduction in damage, whilst light and medium armour gave lesser reductions. The tricky part there is that, for anything other than a straightforward halving of damage, it becomes a pain to calculate each time.