Hi, since seeing this thread (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?373681-Armor-as-DR/page2) I’ve been thinking about a system of armour as damage reduction of my own and I would appreciate the views of other gamers on my thoughts.
I agree with some of the posts in the above thread that introducing damage reduction based on armour has the potential to make some characters/monsters very difficult to damage at low levels which can make some characters feel useless (your dual dagger wielding rogue vs. your great sword wielding fighter for example). The only solution to this that I have ever seen is using a damage reduction dice rather than a static value as Monte Cook uses in his Iron Heroes game. So for example leather armour grants 1d4 damage reduction while full-plate grants 1d8. When damage reduction kicks in the player rolls their damage reduction dice and subtracts it from the damage they take.
This brings me to on to the change I was thinking of making to my game. I have always disliked the fact that (short of scoring a critical hit) the “to hit” roll has no real effect on the amount of damage an attack deals. On most occasions whether the damage from a successful hit is low or high depends only on the way the damage dice falls. I have been wondering if the game could be balanced around using the modified attack roll on the d20 to calculate damage. My early thoughts are this:
1) The attacker (a) rolls a d20 and adds any modifiers for proficiency and strength or dexterity as normal.
2) The defender (d) either rolls a d20 of their own or takes 10 (in the case of monsters this cuts down on the number of rolls) and adds their dexterity modifier and their proficiency modifier if they are 1) defending with a weapon they are proficient with or 2) they are proficient in dexterity saves (i.e. dodging). (This is equivalent to a dexterity save and the result sets the DC for “a” to hit them).
3) If “a’s” modified roll is higher than “d’s” modified roll the attack is a hit (which is pretty much what happens now but replacing armour bonuses with proficiency bonuses).
4) This is where things diverge a little more from the core rules. If the attack is successful “a” rolls a damage dice based on the weapon they are using e.g. 1d8 if using a long sword. Rather than adding any strength or dexterity modifier though they instead add this roll directly to the result of the modified attack roll they have just made. “d” dose the same with any damage reduction dice they have from the armour worn. They roll the dice and add the result directly to the modified roll they have just made (or the static DC used if they are a monster). “d’s” combined rolls are then subtracted from “a’s” combine rolls and the result is the damage dealt.
While this is meant to feel less abstract than bundling everything up in to AC (I think it dose) your mileage may vary. Both players and monsters would be taking more damage with this system so hit points will need to be adjusted (I think giving players maximum hit point per level rather than average might do it). Spell damage would need to be adjusted too. My question though is could this work with the right tweaking and if so what might those tweaks be?
I agree with some of the posts in the above thread that introducing damage reduction based on armour has the potential to make some characters/monsters very difficult to damage at low levels which can make some characters feel useless (your dual dagger wielding rogue vs. your great sword wielding fighter for example). The only solution to this that I have ever seen is using a damage reduction dice rather than a static value as Monte Cook uses in his Iron Heroes game. So for example leather armour grants 1d4 damage reduction while full-plate grants 1d8. When damage reduction kicks in the player rolls their damage reduction dice and subtracts it from the damage they take.
This brings me to on to the change I was thinking of making to my game. I have always disliked the fact that (short of scoring a critical hit) the “to hit” roll has no real effect on the amount of damage an attack deals. On most occasions whether the damage from a successful hit is low or high depends only on the way the damage dice falls. I have been wondering if the game could be balanced around using the modified attack roll on the d20 to calculate damage. My early thoughts are this:
1) The attacker (a) rolls a d20 and adds any modifiers for proficiency and strength or dexterity as normal.
2) The defender (d) either rolls a d20 of their own or takes 10 (in the case of monsters this cuts down on the number of rolls) and adds their dexterity modifier and their proficiency modifier if they are 1) defending with a weapon they are proficient with or 2) they are proficient in dexterity saves (i.e. dodging). (This is equivalent to a dexterity save and the result sets the DC for “a” to hit them).
3) If “a’s” modified roll is higher than “d’s” modified roll the attack is a hit (which is pretty much what happens now but replacing armour bonuses with proficiency bonuses).
4) This is where things diverge a little more from the core rules. If the attack is successful “a” rolls a damage dice based on the weapon they are using e.g. 1d8 if using a long sword. Rather than adding any strength or dexterity modifier though they instead add this roll directly to the result of the modified attack roll they have just made. “d” dose the same with any damage reduction dice they have from the armour worn. They roll the dice and add the result directly to the modified roll they have just made (or the static DC used if they are a monster). “d’s” combined rolls are then subtracted from “a’s” combine rolls and the result is the damage dealt.
While this is meant to feel less abstract than bundling everything up in to AC (I think it dose) your mileage may vary. Both players and monsters would be taking more damage with this system so hit points will need to be adjusted (I think giving players maximum hit point per level rather than average might do it). Spell damage would need to be adjusted too. My question though is could this work with the right tweaking and if so what might those tweaks be?