Armor as Defense and DR

[The Edge]

I seperated the body into several points, so you can build armour to what you like, such as just a vest or like norman chainmail down to the knees.

That sounds interesting, I pondered about working on something like that once, but it just seemed to tricky. It would be cool to see a well working system though.

For D&D Ive just kept it as the books, not wanting to convert a campain in progress. But in my future game I will be starting soon Im useing the DR method, with a fair bit of help taken from Glass Jaw's rule set (thanks). The result with a bit of tinkering is that equal level characters can hit most of the time, but once the levels start to seperarte it becomes much more one sided but with out the tougher character being able to take dozens of gun shots.

There are certain types of armour or extra gizmos that improve defence/AC such as a 'reflec' coating, but generaly its all DR.

 

[ogre]

Denaes

Yes, I am big on game balance, so I would like it to meld into d20 seamlessly. And yes, work at the same time. Basically, each type of armor material has an advantage against certain damage types. So the DR would only apply when the appropriate damage was being done.

Glassjaw:

This is for a future PA setting using the d20 modern ruleset where there will be primitive armor (leather, platemail etc), futuristic alloys (plasteel etc.) and powered armor. So, the range is vast, hence the thoughts on an augmented system.
Also, where do I find your Grim rules? And are they OGL? This brings up a good point too, the damage system. Right now I am using ole' hit points, but I am thinking a wound system may be better suited, if I make armor more powerful (which is ok with me).

Teflon Billy

Simplicity is very important to me and I like what you mentioned. I could simply make it a die roll (d2, d3 etc.) if I wanted to keep that aspect. Powered armor would be DR1d6 or so. How do you think this would translate into a furturistic campaign, as you mentioned yours was for D&D.

Aussiegamer

So, what system are you using as far as having a Defense value and DR? Is it the standard D and a static or die DR? Does DR apply to just physical attacks or energy too.

The Edge

I am gussing you feel a system that has guns needs a DR armor system, but a medieval game doesn't? I kind of feel that way too, after playtesting the game with just Defense for armor, it just didn't seem right.

To clairify things:

The problem I ran into was, a lot of the futuristic weapons do energy damage and hence is ignored by DR. So I was adding Energy Resistnance to high tech armor and powered armor. This resulted in cumbersome armor stats. DR/ (what bypasses it) and ER: what energy type is negated. It just seemed THAC0-ish, hehe, having two different things, one is negated by the other negates, it's not simple enough. So, I started thinking about a unified damage absorption system for armor.

One of my playtesters had a new take on it. Something similiar to SDC/hitpoints, where armor has a certain amount of HP and it gets damaged as it negates damage. So, I am thinking of a system something like this:
Armor has 'Durability' equal to its Defense value. The armor negates damage (like DR, but against anything. Or just certain things, if I want to complicate it) equal to 1 die equating to its defense score (+2 is 1d2, +4 is 1d4 etc.) on each hit. Everytime it negates the maximum rollable damage it loses one 'Durability' point and consequently 1 Defense value and a lower die. The armor can be repaired of course, until it reaches 0, at which point it is parts.
This of course makes repair and armor a more important part of the game, which I am prepared and willing to do, but I am interested if anyone thinks making armor more important in this game setting sucks.

 

[GlassJaw]

This is for a future PA setting using the d20 modern ruleset where there will be primitive armor (leather, platemail etc), futuristic alloys (plasteel etc.) and powered armor. So, the range is vast, hence the thoughts on an augmented system.
Also, where do I find your Grim rules? And are they OGL? This brings up a good point too, the damage system. Right now I am using ole' hit points, but I am thinking a wound system may be better suited, if I make armor more powerful (which is ok with me).

The rules are in my sig. They were intended to be a variant of Grim Tales but most should be self-explanatory if you don't have Grim Tales. Although if you are interested in variant d20 rules, you owe it to yourself to check out GT.

As far as a wide range of armors go, you should check out Conan as well. Conan uses an armor as DR system and has a fairly extensive list of armors.

I've started to experiment with some armor stacking rules as well. Some armors in Iron Kingdoms can stack. I've also used some concepts from Shadowrun as well.

 

[Anfelas]

Have you ever looked at the d20 version of Traveller by QLI?

Armour provides a bonus to AC and acts to reduce damage. It's explained on page 32 of the free rules lite version which you can download from here.

 

[nerfherder]

That sounds interesting, I pondered about working on something like that once, but it just seemed to tricky. It would be cool to see a well working system though.

RuneQuest's hit location system might give you some inspiration. You had Head, L Arm, R Arm, Chest, Abdomen, L Leg, R Leg with their own HP and DR.

Cheers,
Liam

 

[The Edge]

One of my playtesters had a new take on it. Something similiar to SDC/hitpoints, where armor has a certain amount of HP and it gets damaged as it negates damage...

Before I picked up my D20 modern and future books I was trying to put together a kind of 'frankenstein' system of all diferent systems and quite a lot of bits changed around. Couldn't make it work and it was far to inconsistent, but armour takeing damage was one of the things I was trying to implement.

Armor has 'Durability' equal to its Defense value. The armor negates damage (like DR, but against anything. Or just certain things, if I want to complicate it) equal to 1 die equating to its defense score (+2 is 1d2, +4 is 1d4 etc.) on each hit. Everytime it negates the maximum rollable damage it loses one 'Durability' point and consequently 1 Defense value and a lower die. The armor can be repaired of course, until it reaches 0, at which point it is parts.

so under that would, say a set of medium armour have somewhere around/between 4 to 7 duribility, so would be able to take that many shots then?

 

[ogre]

The Edge

Sort of, but the armor could probably take a few more hits.
I worked on it last night and came up with the following:

Damage Absorption (DA) (named differently so it can easily stack with DR and ER, from talents and mutations)
Some armor is better than other armor at absorbing certain types of damage. The damge types have been catagorized into 4 groups, because there was around 12 different types and it got too cumbersome otherwise. So, damage types for DA are as follows- HP Heat Proof, for acid, fire and radiation damage, IN Insulated for cold and electrical, KI for kinetic, encompassing slashing, peircing and blunt and SA Shock Absorbing which applies to concussive, sonic and ballistic damage.

Armor DA is listed as follows- SA 3 / 1d3
What this means is the armor excels at negating SA damage types. 3 points are always and automatically negated when attacked by a weapon that deals damage that falls within the SA damage type (concussive, sonic and ballistic). The 1d3 is used to negate damage of all other types. If the maximum is rolled on the die roll (a 3 in this case) the armor is damaged and loses 1 durability and its Defense and DA are lowered by 1 until it is repaired. The armor never loses durability when hit by damage types it excels at negating (unless it is not being worn, in which case it is treated just like a standard object), thus this only applies when a DA die is rolled.

So, with this system (which also includes durability being lowered by 1 after a successful critical hit) armor with a 4 durability will be repairable after any combination of 3 crits or 3's rolled when negating non-SA damage. For perspective, here are some armors listed:

leather armor- Defense +2, KI 2 / 1d2, durability 3
steel plate armor- Defense +6, KI 6 / 1d6, durability 6
carbosynth armor- Defense +7, SA, KI 6 / 1d8, durability 8
powered armor- Defense +10, KI, SA, HP 10 / 1d10, durability 10

What this system does...
It brings armor wear and tear into the game (a concious decision) to encourage repair skills, parts usage and variation on found armors.
Gives armor some form of damage reduction that includes both DR and ER damage types. (necessary for a game that is mostly energy weapons, mutations etc.)
Gives armor a kind of hit points, but not as complex and which can correlate directly to the Defense and DA bonus without having to do any math or consulting a chart.

Thoughts?

 

[Aussiegamer]

Pardon me Ranger Reg for trying to get a system that is based around "real" world affects.

I have just about finalised my armour v weapon AC and DR v damage pretty soon. It will be based on average damage not being able to penetrate certain armours.

Since my system will have a base for building armour and weapons then at the end it should be pretty balanced.

I have found that due to the rapid damage increase for higher PL weapons then straight 1 Ac to 1 DR just does not work, and in the end it would not be that way any way. As higher PL armours would be denser and thus able to absorb more damage.

I will be releasing a new version within the month.

 

[Ranger REG]

Pardon me Ranger Reg for trying to get a system that is based around "real" world affects.

"Based on"? I thought you were going for a full-on direct translation.

 

[HellHound]

There are optional rules for making modern body armour provide a mix of Defense and DR in one of the first Modern Dispatch issues.