Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
ShortQuests -- Pocket Sized Adventures! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed for 1-2 game sessions.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="dvvega" data-source="post: 2492159" data-attributes="member: 524">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 OpinionHeavier 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 OpinionReduce 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 TypesChainmail 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</blockquote>

Verification