Another "Armor as DR" Thread

[Viktyr Gehrig]

I think more use of DR penetrated by slashing, piercing, etc. would be nice.

That's a level of complexity that I do not wish to indulge in.

I'm already on the fence about handling firearms vs. archaic armor. On the one hand, they should clearly be at least as effective against mail and plate as crossbows, but on the other hand, crossbows should be far, far deadlier against modern armors. (Energy weapons are, thankfully, simpler. They do more damage than ballistics, and it makes sense for most armors to hold their own against them.)

 

[dvvega]

The armour as DR "debate" doesn't ever seem to make everyone happy.

Does it reduce damage? Does it protect you? What about firearms? etc.

The following are my person observations/opinions ...

1. Leave it Alone Opinion
Heavier armours were developed to counter damage, but they usually removed mobility from the target, so they developed lighter metal armour (chain) or used plate + chain (chain in the joints, plate in the major areas) to allow some movement.

Then weapons were developed to counter the protection. For example piercing weapons like spears were jabbed into the jointed areas of armour, heavy bludgeoning to crush the armour etc.

I personally think that the d20 system goes most of the way to solve most of this "historical" look.

For example a 1st level Elf with maxed out Dex (20) has a 15 AC, 18 with studded leather. The same Elf in Full Plate With a Heavy Steel Shield has AC 21.

Technically the Elf with Studded should be able to avoid blows better than the Plate Guy but since d20 AC involves penetration in the equation the Full Plate Guy should have the better chance of avoiding damage.

The non-realistic part is that Full Plated guys historically, could take many hits and all the damage adds up slowly, while the Leather guy should take one hit and down he goes. So the Full Plated warrior would be able to hold off many orcs, while one or two lucky orcs will kill off the Leather Armour guy if they hit him.

How to model this is the basis of most Armour as DR systems.

2. The DR Opinion
Reduce the damage taken based on the armour worn. Let us ignore weapons vs armour for now.

Heavier Armour should reduce the damage taken, however it should make everyone easier to hit.

The simplest thing to do would be to reverse the AC table. That is, Full Plate gives you +1 while Padded gives you +8. What will this do? Well it would make the Padded Armour guy really hard to hit, and the Full Plate guy pretty much a target to everyone. The maximum Dex bonus could be left as is. So in the Elf example, the Elf wearing Studded Leather now has an AC of 22, while with Plate and Shield he is now 14.

More realistic to the "I am faster you can't hit me." school. I would say Shields should remain the same and not affected by this system.

Next DR. Should it really be DR? Or should it be damage conversion? Or should it be both? It should be both. Heavy armour reduced the penetration AND it lessened the blow (since the heavier the armour the more layers that made it up). But a decent hit should do leathal damage.

So DR/- should be half the original AC modifier (4 in Full Plate's Case) and half conversion (4 in Full Plate's Case). Any damage that bypasses this is lethal. Odd numbers should go to conversion not DR.

So for the Padded Armour (original AC of 1) would grant DR 0/- and Conversion 1.
For Full Plate (original AC of 8) would grant DR 4/- and Conversion 4.

Now a longsword (1d8) blow by a +5 damage opponent would do an average of 9 damage.

The padded armour guy (if hit) takes 8 lethal and 1 subdual damage. The Full Plate guy takes 1 lethal and 4 subudal. Quite a good protective item.

What about criticals? The adjustments should be applied on a "per die" basis. In the example, a critical would be 18 points.

So padded armour guy takes 16 lethal and 2 subdual (2 sets of rolls). Full Plate guy takes 2 lethal and 8 subdual. The armoured guy, although getting hit a lot more often, will survive a fair number of blows.

3. But We Forgot About Weapon Types
Chainmail is susceptible to piercing weapons, Full Plate has a problem with bludgeoning weapons (crush the armour and mobility is affected), Lighter armours have problems with Piercing and Slashing.

How do you model this? Well if you go with the DR model I suggested in 2, you could change some of the conversion bonus to lethal (1 or 2 points). So for example Chainmail would normally grant DR 2/- and Conversion 2. Against piercing weapons (like arrows) it would be DR 2/- Conversion 0. It still gives protection but if an arrow gets through it is going to hurt.


Anyway that's enough rambling for me.

D

 

[Sadrik]

DR as armor. Without slowing down gameplay. That’s a tough one.

How about this? Weapons always do maximum damage. So you never roll for damage. Then the defender rolls their DR die to resist the blow. The armor values are listed below.
Heavy
Plate 1d12
Banded 1d10
Medium
Chain Mail 1d8
Scale 1d6
Light
Studded Leather 1d4
Leather 1d2
Natural Armor
Half the value round down and give the closest die to a maximum 1d12. For every 2 points of natural armor bonus above 24 add +1 DR bonus. For instance a +45 natural armor bonus would be 1d12+10 DR.

These would be broad categories that would include the other armor types. For instance banded would include: splint. Plate would include half-plate. All of the max dex values would remain the same, that way high dex characters gain benefit for wearing light armor.

Here is another option:
Remove criticals from the game. For every 1 you hit over the creatures AC you do an additional +1 damage. Use the DR system I proposed above. This would create a system where having a very high BAB translates directly to damage, power attack would make this even more extreme. Daggers would still be useful because the damage slides up the better you hit.

Defense Bonus and BAB:
Instead of rolling only to hit 1d20 + BAB + bonuses, you also roll for defense 1d20 + Defense bonus + AC bonuses. I like that one, along with the sliding damage bonus as above could be very cool.

So, to sum up:
Weapons do max damage every hit.
Roll for DR to reduce damage.
Do bonus damage by hitting over their AC.
Roll opposed rolls to hit.

Makes combat much more interesting I think. Have not thought it through completely but there it is. What do you think?

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

So to sum up:
Weapons do max damage every hit.
Roll for DR to reduce damage.
Do bonus damage by hiting over their AC.
Split your BAB into defense and offense.
Roll opposed rolls to hit.

Sounds like a lot of math, and you're adding a couple more die rolls. Pretty sure that would slow combat down quite a bit, and I'm not sure you're getting much benefit out of it.

I'm also generally wary of any split-BAB system that isn't limited and feat dependent. Really don't like removing criticals and adding attack rolls to damage.

 

[Sadrik]

I am not really fond of the BAB/defense split thing either. Ignore it (in fact I may edit it out of my post). Just use Defenses that scale like the average BAB chart does (cleric). All other things still apply though.

Two identical 4th fighters are fighting:
Equipment:
Chain 1d8 DR = 1d8 DR
Longsword 8 damage, Strength +2, specialization +2 = 12 damage

Defense Bonus and BAB
Defense bonus +3, Shield +2 and Dex +2 = +7
BAB +4, Weapon focus +1, strength +2 = +7

Rolls
Each fighter rolls 1d20 on every attack. One rolls 1d20+7 defense and the other rolls 1d20+7 to attack. If the attacker succeeds add +1 point of damage for every point they roll over the opponents total.

So if the attacker rolls a total of 21 (14+7)
and the defender rolls a total of 12 (5+7)
The attacker does 12+9=21 damage (longsword (12) and the differance of the two rolls is 9)
The defender then rolls his DR 1d8 he rolls 7 and so takes 14 damage a solid hit!

I can totally see removing the 1d20 for defense rolls and just going with "they always take a 10 on the defense roll." It would make exactly the same number of rolls as regular d&d. The damage roll moves to the DR roll. The above hit would have done 9 damage still a decent hit for a 4th level character.

I think giving the players options on taking a "10" or rolling defense could be interesting too. Do you feel lucky?

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

I am not really fond of the BAB/defense split thing either. Ignore it (in fact I may edit it out of my post). Just use Defenses that scale like the average BAB chart does (cleric). All other things still apply though.

I already have scaling Defense.

Fighters, Rogues, and Monks get +2 at 1st and +1/2 levels. (Like a good saving throw.)
Barbarians and Bards get +1 at 1st and +5/12 levels.
Wizards and Clerics get nothing at 1st and +1/3 levels. (Like a poor saving throw.)

 

[Sadrik]

Here were your design goals (I will compare them to what I have done):

Have armor reduce damage taken by characters a fair amount for the gp and feat investment.

Armor costs more and requires the feats to use. Check.

Provide a small tactical element with weapon choices against armored vs. unarmored targets.

I did not follow through with this concept. I did like some of the ideas in this thread. The best one was assigning an AP value to every weapon that gives a penalty to the armor roll (I am thinking values of 0, 1 and 2).

Allow finesse and ranged fighters to still be relatively effective against armored opponents without using Sneak Attack.

This is taken into account in my system by having an armor (DR) roll. If you only roll a 1, they got a joint. If you roll well your armor defended well. Finessible weapons could be given the higher AP numbers.

Give adamantine weapons and armor a substantial advantage without making them unbalancing.

If I am not mistaken adamantine weapons count as a non-magical +1 and the armor gives DR of 1/-. These bonuses should just be tacked on to the existing values of equipment so a set of adamantine chain would be 1d8+1 DR.

Give magical armor a substantial advantage without making it unbalancing.

+1 DR to your DR roll is good. +5 full plate would be 1d12+5 which would block 6-17 points of damage per hit!
Note also that +1 to hit and damage per enhancement bonus is really good in this system because the higher you can get your attack bonus the more potential damage you cause. (For every 1 you hit over the creatures AC you do an additional +1 damage).

Make certain that heavier and more expensive armor is generally more effective, and that each increase in magical bonus provides a benefit.

It is. Each armor type increases by one higher die type from 1d2 to 1d12 each going up by a step of two. They are effective.

Allow characters with natural armor to enjoy the benefits without becoming unbalanced-- possibly allowing for characters to benefit from both natural and manufactured armor.

This would need to be playtested but I outlined a way for natural armor to work. Add both together. It may be too strong, my inclination would be that it is balanced.

Do all of this in a way that doesn't bog down combat.

No additional die rolls. But adds one calculation. The calculation for bonus damage (For every 1 you hit over the creatures AC you do an additional +1 damage).

 

[genshou]

This would need to be playtested but I outlined a way for natural armor to work. Add both together. It may be too strong, my inclination would be that it is balanced.

I have found through playtesting that adding natural armor and armor bonuses to DR is no more unbalancing than letting the two AC bonuses stack in regular D&D. Then again, my playtesting of this idea was rather quick and not well-rounded.

 

[Sadrik]

Well, what I was thinking was if a creature that wore chain mail and had a +6 natural armor it would have 1d10 DR.

The Chain Mail would give 1d8 and the +6 natural armor bonus would be 6/2=3 which would increase the die by 2 the extra 1 would be dropped.

If the die is increased to over 1d12 then it adds +1 for every 2 natural armor.

 

[genshou]

Well, what I was thinking was if a creature that wore chain mail and had a +6 natural armor it would have 1d10 DR.

The Chain Mail would give 1d8 and the +6 natural armor bonus would be 6/2=3 which would increase the die by 2 the extra 1 would be dropped.

If the die is increased to over 1d12 then it adds +1 for every 2 natural armor.

Sounds fine to me, Sadrik. I may be getting a gaming group again in the next week or two (HOORAY!), so I'll be testing out some of these ideas for you.