Armor as Damage Reduction (how to make it work for you)

[handforged]

I really like this idea overall. I have an idea though... What if critical hits totally ignored the new AC. I would also remove the feint ability of halving Armor bonus to AC. This way when you crit it really shows that you have made it through the chinks in the armor. And parrying becomes that much more important.

2> Critical hits will now be WAY more common, since the confirmation rolls won't need to roll nearly as high.

:snip:

4.5> If you want to make daggers and such useful without adding rolling for everyone else, just say this:
"When using a finessable weapon (see the Weapon Finesse feat) or any bow, the armor DR is reduced from +X to +1dX. Armors with the Fortification ability neutralize this in the same way they do critical hits or sneak attacks."

Finessable weapons are pretty much limited to light blades and the rapier. You could possibly make this variability a Feat for an attacker, a sort of "find weak point" ability, with Weapon Finesse as a prerequisite.

Criticals will be much easier to confirm, and this is definitely an issue with this particular idea. What if the armor bonus of a particular armor was added into the target of the confirm roll? This would decrease the number of confirms back to approximately where they are without this system.

If a player wanted to create a character that took advantage of this system, things that increase critical range of a particular weapon should be pursued, so as to create more opportunity for a critical.

Finessable weapons no longer exist under this system, because all attacks are based on Dexterity.

As an example.

Rolph, a dexterous fighter with a dagger, rolls a hit and threatens a critical against Justin, a not so dexterous fighter in full plate. If he confirms the critical(with the armor's armor bonus added to the AC, to reflect this particular armor's resistance to such attacks) all of the damage goes through, obviously Roplh has found a hole in the armor, and scored a very damaging hit, perhaps driving his dagger into Justin's armpit.

This requires keeping up with the different AC's. The Evasion Class to hit, the Armor Class to absorb damage, and the Crit Confirmation Number, but it does reflect things like the dragon. Very easy to hit with an arrow, very hard to damage with an arrow, but when you do, man it hurts.

let me know what you think.

~hf

 

[Spatzimaus]

Finessable weapons no longer exist under this system, because all attacks are based on Dexterity.

True, which means that you could have my suggestion be the new version of Weapon Finesse. Originally I wanted to just say "any light weapon", but then I wanted to clarify "light pointy weapons", then I wanted to add the Rapier... you can see where that went.

I guess you could remove "bows" from the list I gave, and just add that to Point Blank Shot (when fired from within 30', they reduce the armor DR)

 

[Sonofapreacherman]

Did you consider changing the way hit points work as well?

At one point, yes I did consider it. But then I turfed the idea to keep the variant system consistently abstracted and stylized. And the current incarnation of hit points are nothing if not abstracted and stylized.

You may also want to consider this for the simple reason that you may have changed the balance between different classes. Fighter-type characters now not only have more hit points, they will also take less damage because of their armor. Won't they?

Fighter-types have always been the meat sponges. In this variant combat system, they continues to be meat sponges, but I no longer have to fight even the slightest temptation to pull my punches (fudge the dice) when I roll really high damage.

Not that I ever did.

Do magical protections (spells, etc.) function as DR also? Is a deflection bonus now a type of DR?

This variant combat system necessitated a new type of bonus called "force armor". Different from regular armor in that a force armor bonus typically represents an invisible, tangible field of force around the affected character, as with the mage armor and shield spells, or wondrous magical items, such as with the bracers of armor. As such, it only modifies your Evasion Class. Not your Armor Class as damage reduction.

 

[Sonofapreacherman]

I'd make a few small suggestions/bring up a few issues.

1> Right now, your EC is basically your flat-footed AC and your AC is the touch AC (minus 10, plus DR).
You can move Deflection over to AC, by saying that it's slowing down incoming attacks. Likewise, Shield and Cover AC should move over to EC, since they're more about preventing a blow from reaching your body in the first place.
This way, being flat-footed reduces both AC and EC, and the same for touch attacks.

We're already thinking alike. Some of these changes have already been implemented in this variant combat system, although I haven't mentioned them yet.

To clear up your first statement, EC does not equal being flatfooted, as your Dexterity bonus is added to it. And AC is the sum of your armor bonus, your natural armor, and your damage reduction. That's being said, being flatfooted does not reduce your AC as damage reduction (but being helpless negates your armor completely).

Deflection modifies EC, as do shield and cover bonuses. In fact, shield are now their own category in this variant combat system. They can either be used as a shield bonus to EC, or as a parrying weapon, but not both (barring certain feats).

2> Critical hits will now be WAY more common, since the confirmation rolls won't need to roll nearly as high.
Likewise, all of those "if I hit you I do X" abilities become way more powerful. That includes poison, disease, Sneak Attack, bonus damage dice from Flaming/Frost/Shock; unless it was delivered by a touch attack before, it'll now be stronger.

Very true, but once again, this countered by the fact that those critical hits are being absorbed (sometimes into non-existence) by the AC as damage reduction. That, and the detail I revealed to candidus_cogitens, about different types of bonuses. Armor bonuses and force armor bonuses are different now. They couldn't stack before, because they were the same bonus. Now they are two completely different bonuses.

Take Sneak Attack for example; if I'm attacking someone in full plate they'll have a low EC, I'll hit pretty much automatically, and my +9d6 sneak attack will easily blow through any armor or natural armor they have;

This has always and should always be the case.

in the core rules I'd be far less likely to hit.

I disagree here. If you are executing a sneak attack, then your opponent is flat footed. You are just as likely to hit them as your would to strike their EC.

3> On the other hand, against something with a high AC your only real option is to Power Attack, which ranged attackers can't do; you won't have any problem hitting the target (a dragon with AC of 2?), but damage is a different story. How does an archer defeat the 30+ point DR your larger dragons would now have?

Well, Upper Krust has addressed the issue of piecing weapons halving the damage reduction of armor. I am cautious to start down that road, but perhaps that one exception of weapon type (piecing)/versus armor type can exist.

As for the dragon example, absolutely it would be difficult to damage such a creature, and that is by design. Unless you are an epic character, attempting to melee a dragon should be suicide. Basically, creatures of high damage reduction must be defeated other ways (magical or otherwise) by lower-than-epic-level characters, of which many options exist.

Possible suggestion: move Natural Armor back over to EC, to separate it from armor AC; dragons would now be hard to hit again. It's not realistic, though, and it still has many of the same problems.

I am reluctant to make such change, as per my reason above.

OR, make an "overflow" rule, where every 2 points you exceed the EC by adds +1 to your damage rolls. It's not as efficient as Power Attack, but you don't have to decide beforehand.

*Sonfopreachman cringes at the thought of math during combat.*

Granted its simple math, but math nonetheless during game play. Moreover, it does not make sense to me to grant extra damage for no evident reason. Thanks for the suggestion though.

4> Add a little variability to the "armor bonus" AC to reflect an armor's vulnerable spots, by replacing the flat +X with 2dX. For example, Full Plate would be 2d8; anywhere from 2 to 16 with a mean of 9. Odd sizes get awkward (to roll a d5, do you take half of a d10, or a d6 where you reroll any 6's?).
Without this, daggers will never be useful against full plate; this way, there's always a chance the defender rolls low. Possibly you could explicitly list the set of dice for each type, to reflect that some armors are more uniform than others; chainmail might be 2d4 and breastplate is 1d8, to reflect that the chain is more consistently average but a BP is more all-or-nothing; this'd also allow you to avoid the awkward die sizes.

To my way of thinking, that is way too many extra dice rolls. The simplified variant combat system has just left the building. A dagger is not an effective weapon against full plate armor. That is a fact of life with this system (barring certain feats, like Chink in the Armor), or feinting for vulnerable areas.

 

[Sonofapreacherman]

I really like this idea overall. I have an idea though... What if critical hits totally ignored the new AC. I would also remove the feint ability of halving Armor bonus to AC. This way when you crit it really shows that you have made it through the chinks in the armor.

That was originally explored, but the fact that you scored a critical already indicated that you found a chink in the armor (by doing more damage than normal) and thus overcoming the damage reduction of armor by a greater amount.

Criticals will be much easier to confirm, and this is definitely an issue with this particular idea. What if the armor bonus of a particular armor was added into the target of the confirm roll? This would decrease the number of confirms back to approximately where they are without this system.

As per my previous post to Spatzimaus, the fact that armor bonuses and force armor bonuses can exist at the same time, allows EC to be raised by mage armor, shield, or bracers of armor, while also benefiting from wearing armor as damage reduction.

Finessable weapons no longer exist under this system, because all attacks are based on Dexterity.

Very true. Which is why I converted Weapon Finesse into using your Wisdom bonus instead, not unlike the Zen Archery feat.

As an example.

Rolph, a dexterous fighter with a dagger, rolls a hit and threatens a critical against Justin, a not so dexterous fighter in full plate. If he confirms the critical(with the armor's armor bonus added to the AC, to reflect this particular armor's resistance to such attacks) all of the damage goes through, obviously Roplh has found a hole in the armor, and scored a very damaging hit, perhaps driving his dagger into Justin's armpit.

This requires keeping up with the different AC's. The Evasion Class to hit, the Armor Class to absorb damage, and the Crit Confirmation Number, but it does reflect things like the dragon. Very easy to hit with an arrow, very hard to damage with an arrow, but when you do, man it hurts.

let me know what you think.

This idea of adding the Armor Bonus to the critical hit confirmation roll, in order to circumvent the damage reduction of that armor, has merit. Let me think on it.

Is this what you meant by your earlier suggestion Spatzimaus?

 

[Sonofapreacherman]

Spatzimaus.

Sorry for that ugly, ugly reply. Talk about formatting hell. I cleaned it up and made it painlessly readable. That's what happens when I post and run (without checking the preview first).

 

[Spatzimaus]

I disagree here. If you are executing a sneak attack, then your opponent is flat footed. You are just as likely to hit them as your would to strike their EC.

I think you're confusing touch attacks with flat-footed in the math there. The sneak attack only works if your DEX bonus is denied, which means the EC will still be lower than the old AC by a number equal to your armor AC.

Let's take a high-end example. I've got a character with an EC of 20 (6 of which is tied to your DEX bonus and is lost if flat-footed) and an AC of 10. The attacker has an attack bonus of +13.

OLD SYSTEM:
Normally your AC is 30, but Sneak Attack only works if you're denied your DEX bonus (AC 24). To hit, you'd need to roll an 11 or higher (50% chance). Of course, your rolled damage isn't reduced.

NEW SYSTEM:
Normally your EC is 20 with an AC of 10, but Sneak Attack only works if you're denied your DEX bonus (EC 14). To hit, you'd need to roll a 1 or higher (basically automatic), although each hit would be reduced by 10 damage.

So, your system is based on the assumption that these two situations are balanced, that the extra damage dealt on the additional 50% of the attacks that hit is counteracted by the extra 10 DR you apply. Fine. I may not agree (see below), but that's okay, it's close enough for most situations.
My point was, add in 9d6 Sneak Attack and it gets lopsided. In the first situation, that 9d6 happens on 50% of the attacks. In the second, the 9d6 happens on EVERY attack, and is only affected by the AC in the unlikely occurrence that the DR soaks up all of the base weapon damage. This is not a small difference. If the majority of a Rogue's damage comes from his Sneak Attack dice, you could be doubling his per-turn damage output or worse.

A simpler way to say it: this balance assumes that for your character, +1 attack balances +1 damage (since you're trading your armor and natural armor to DR on a 1-for-1 basis). It's back to the 3E Power Attack math; if I can only hit 50% of my rolls, it's not worthwhile to Power Attack unless I'm doing less than 10 damage per hit. In general, Power Attack was counterproductive since the average damage was almost always higher than 20*(your chance of hitting), which means that allowing everyone to effectively "Power Attack in reverse" by trading damage for attack bonus will increase damage. In most cases this is relatively minor.

For high-damage classes like Rogue and Monk, they do a LOT of damage with a low attack bonus. Reducing the enemy's AC by X is VERY good, even at the cost of X damage. If I'm hitting only 30% of the time but doing 25 damage per hit (average 7.5 damage per attack), and then the system changes so that 5 AC is traded to DR, I now average 11 damage per attack (55% hits at 20 per). 50% more damage is not negligible. Since your attack rate raises slower than your damage, this gets worse at high level.
At the other extreme, the "finesse" type of fighter that has a very high attack bonus but low damage per hit (like most archers) are severely hurt UNLESS they have a Power Attack-like ability that lets them trade attack bonus for damage. By your system, someone in plate armor is basically immune to all arrows unless they were from a Mighty Composite bow or a magical one. While there may be a certain realism to this, it sucks for balance.

The same logic applies to critical hits, although it's not as pronounced since average crit damage is never as high as the weapon's base damage. But, I wasn't talking about critical hit DAMAGE, I was talking about all those other effects that kick in on a crit. Critical hits would increase in the same ratio as normal hits, so any effect that only happened on a crit would occur far more often. 3E Vorpal was the best example of this, but there are others.

 

[Sonofapreacherman]

I think you're confusing touch attacks with flat-footed in the math there. The sneak attack only works if your DEX bonus is denied, which means the EC will still be lower than the old AC by a number equal to your armor AC.

Let's take a high-end example. I've got a character with an EC of 20 (6 of which is tied to your DEX bonus and is lost if flat-footed) and an AC of 10. The attacker has an attack bonus of +13.

Sure thing.

OLD SYSTEM:
Normally your AC is 30, but Sneak Attack only works if you're denied your DEX bonus (AC 24). To hit, you'd need to roll an 11 or higher (50% chance). Of course, your rolled damage isn't reduced.

NEW SYSTEM:
Normally your EC is 20 with an AC of 10, but Sneak Attack only works if you're denied your DEX bonus (EC 14). To hit, you'd need to roll a 1 or higher (basically automatic), although each hit would be reduced by 10 damage.

Well, right away, having an AC/DR of 10, while still enjoying a +6 Dexterity bonus doesn't make much sense to me. If I'm wearing enough armor to warrant an AC/DR of 10, then without the specifics, I can only assume that my Dexterity bonus should be close to nonexistent. The same goes for your OLD SYSTEM example. I need more specifics. What is being worn exactly? How much is magical? Is a shield being used? I need to know all of these things, as each detail plays an important role in this variant combat system. It makes a huge difference to the whole equation.

Especially when you factor in the standardized rules for parrying.

You see, while you have stacked the example with a 17th level rogue who caught their victim flatfooted, I could stack the example, rather simply, by giving your victim the Combat Reflexes and Defensive Focus feats (the latter of which is outlined in the variant combat system). These two feats alone would allow your victim to parry a number of attacks equal to their Dexterity bonus (and from the same opponent) even when flatfooted. Indeed, there are prerequisites involved in taking those two feats (let me assure you), but its not an unlikely scenario. Suffice to say, a fighter with an Intelligence of 13 could have them both by 2nd or 4th level (if they focused on defense and little else right away).



So please, get back to me with those armored details (if you like), and we'll go from there.

 

[Arc]

Was actually thinking of this sort of thing today while eating dinner, and I came up with this system (round everything down):
Armor Class is DR, with DR being 1/2 total of (armor bonus + natural armor)

I like the idea of parrying, but wasting an AOO on this seems (as well as rolling more dice) seems a bit time consuming, so the Evasion Class should include this modifier.
Evasion Class = 10 + 1/2 base attack bonus + total weapon enchantment bonuses + dex mod + deflection bonus + shield bonus + size mod. (Misc. modifiers that don't logically increase the strength of a character's armor should increase EC.)

With this, the two weapon fighter gains benefit from having that second weapon to block blows, the sword and board fighter gets to actually block blows with his shield, and the two handed sword fighter gets hit quite a bit, as his weapon can't be everywhere at once. Of course those Drizzt imitators who also have an animated shield and mithril chain shirts... well, they'll just be smacked by their DM.

Characters will get hit more often, but not so much as to make critical confirmation a sure thing, and while fighters wearing decked out in adamantine full plate can soak a bit of damage, they won't be unstoppable tanks.

I find it a bit simpler than the system above, but both have strong merits. I'd like to see mine torn apart, because I'm tempted to run it in my next campaign.

 

[Sonofapreacherman]

Was actually thinking of this sort of thing today while eating dinner, and I came up with this system (round everything down):
Armor Class is DR, with DR being 1/2 total of (armor bonus + natural armor)

I don't understand why you would round these values down. If you are going to be easier to hit, then you have to be harder to damage.

I like the idea of parrying, but wasting an AOO on this seems (as well as rolling more dice) seems a bit time consuming, so the Evasion Class should include this modifier.

Only slightly time consuming. And the time consumption is worth it.



You see, one of the goals of this variant combat system is to create tactics that cause combat to be more than simply rolling dice and dealing damage; it incorporates give and take.

The moment a character uses their attack of opportunity to perform a parry, they leave themselves wide open to a whole host of special attacks that can now be made with impunity (as you can only perform one attack of opportunity per round). The parry attempt has to be measured carefully. Is it worth it to parry an attack? Or does it make more sense not to parry, causing your opponents to hold their special attack at bay (for fear of provoking an attack of opportunity from you).

So who gets the advantage?

The two-weapon fighter.

I haven't talked about this yet, not wanting to overwhelm people with too many changes all at once, but two-weapon fighting has been modified with this system as well.

Basically, the Two-Weapon Fighting feat only allows the off hand weapon to be used an additional "parry" attempt. Not an attack. Meaning, you can parry without using up your attack of opportunity (which, if used, would open you up to all those special attacks). The Two-Weapon Fighting penalties and the Two-Weapon Fighting feat have consequently been changed a little bit. All the penalties are reduced by 2, and the Two-Weapon Fighting feat only lowers your off-hand parry penalty by 4.

Meaning, if your off-hand weapon penalty is light, and you have the Two-Weapon fighting feat, neither your primary nor your off-hand weapon suffer *any* penalty to their attack roll (primary hand) or parry roll (off-hand). But that is only when your off-hand is used to parry.

For those who still want to attack with their off-hand, I have created a new feat which will sound very familiar to everybody. Flurry of Blows. This feat increases the Two-Weapon Fighting penalties to both your primary and off-hand by -2, and allows the character to use their off-hand parry as an attack. You can't attack with your off-hand otherwise.

There are more feats still, but you probably get the idea by now. Keep in mind, this makes *attacking* with two weapons at the same time a much more rare and unusual combat form than it is now (as it requires two feats to even attempt).

Lastly, shields have become their own category in this variant combat system, and can serve one of three purposes every combat round. They can increase your Evasion Class, they can be used a parry weapon, or they can be used as a bludgeon weapon (as normal). There are now six types of shields to choose from in this system: buckler (+1), round (+2), heater (+2), kite (+4), banner (+4), and tower (+8), and all come in both metal and wooden configurations. The bonuses listed beside each can either modify your evasion class or your parry roll, but banner and tower shields cannot be used to parry. Each shield has their own unique specific qualities as well, to make them unique.

There. That's enough to absorb for now.