AC or DR

[GlassJaw]

Real men prefer Armor as DR/-.

If you stab me in the foot with a knife, am I disabled? No. I am in pain, yeah, but not disabled. If you hit me on the head with a hammer, am I disabled? Maybe. If you hit me 10 times on the head with a hammer, am I dead or diabled? Probably.

[shameless self promotion]You would like my Grim Tales variant ruleset, complete with my gritty wound level system. [/shameless self promotion]

 

[EdL]

I voted for DR, type of damage matters. However, what I had in mind, which no one else has mentioned, is gas attacks and the like. Although I like the idea of different weapons doing different damage against different types of armor, it gets real complicated real fast. So usually not worth the bother. (Certainly not if I'm slogging through the chore of writing the rules!)

 

[The_Gneech]

If you're willing to add the extra roll, you could do armor over specific hit locations, a la Fantasy Hero with the realism settings cranked up. Then the finesse fighter takes a to-hit penalty to call a strike to the "eyes" location, for instance, which rarely has any armor.

-The Gneech

 

[trancejeremy]

Me, I like DR for modern games, and AC for D&D/fantasy games.

 

[Gruns]

AC is just fine...

I bet if you really crunched the numbers, the current SIMPLE D&D system would work out to be about right on with the moxt complex "roll to hit then if you hit roll for damage than apply armor damage reduction" system. While you get to roll several dozen more dice, you'd probably find that the "easy to hit but hard to damage" dwarf in plate mail dies at about the same time in either system. May as well go with what's simplest.
Quick- one of you geeks out there run some tests!

Later.
Gruns

 

[iwatt]

I voted armor as DR independent of damage type.

Armor as DR because it makes more sense.

Independent of damage type because I don't like complicating things more than necessary.

But I wouldn't use any without a serious revamping of the game, since a lot of things would have to be adjusted to make this work well. Some of them (not all) are:

1) Change PA since with the lower defense values you'll just be batting away at full power attack, and unless you give 10+ DR you won't be making a difference. And every PC would go around using THS.

2) What happens with Natural Armor? Does it stack with armor DR? Could you even scratch a Solar?

3) A good called shot system (whicj I'm very leery of since I've seen what they've done when introduced...)

 

[Catavarie]

I have to vote for AC = DR with type that matters,

Afterall a suit of platemail, might protect you from a short sword, but it doesn't help that much when it comes to a hammer or club, you simply feel like your inside of a bell thats being rung and you still get knocked around.

Just a thought

 

[drothgery]

Armor = AC

As long as we're using D&D's abstract damage system, where hit points are combination of fatigue, luck, and physical toughness (there are no hit locations or anything like that), let's keep it down to one mechanic for avoiding hit point loss.

 

[Merlion]

Armor = AC

As long as we're using D&D's abstract damage system, where hit points are combination of fatigue, luck, and physical toughness (there are no hit locations or anything like that), let's keep it down to one mechanic for avoiding hit point loss.

To late. Adamantine armor. Creature damage reduction. Spells. Already many different ways to avoid it

 

[drothgery]

[I don't like DR]

To late. Adamantine armor. Creature damage reduction. Spells. Already many different ways to avoid it

And they all are annoying. DR should go away; damage arithmatic is tedious enough without it.