Armor as DR
- Thread starter JVisgaitis
- Start date
GreatLemur
Explorer
That's interesting, because I'd actually been thinking that it's blunt weapons that ought to be able to bypass DR. That sounds completely backwards, of course, but I think that flexible armor types--leather and chain, as opposed to rigid plate--would do a lot less to absorb the impact of a mace than they would to resist the cutting edge of a sword. I'm not sure what kind of rules I'd actually impose, here.Sir Brennen said:
But, yeah, it stands to reason that piercing weapons would be particularly good at penetrating all armor types. At least piercing melee weapons would. It's a bit harder to imagine with arrows, I think. I'm not sure. Maybe piercing weapons could ignore an amount of DR equal to the strength bonus behind them (meaning good news for the strong guy with a spear or a good compound bow, but not for the DEXy fencer with a rapier, or somebody whose bow is just their crappy backup weapon).
GreatLemur
Explorer
I think the idea is that AC should stay pretty much the same, since armor--including natural armor--isn't providing AC anymore. But, yeah, it would definitely mean some crazy-high touch ACs. Not sure how to solve that. Maybe if defensive bonus progression looked more like a saving throw? Or maybe those ranged touch attacks just need to get more accurate. Caster level check instead of BAB? Balance issues well beyond the limits of my experience, I'm afraid.Pyrex said:
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ValhallaGH
Explorer
You can always change natural armor into some kind of DR.Pyrex said:
Keep in mind, the result will be that two characters of equal talent, training and experience (same stats and levels) will have about a 50% chance of hitting each other. With HP and armor to absorb the pain, this sounds like how things are supposed to be and so rarely are.
Have to go back to relying upon Fireball and Magic Missile.
Somehow I just can't work up any sympathy.
I developed and used a method that was mentioned earlier; having armor provide DR, but counting as "Cover"; your base AC is only whatever your Dex+mods is, and your armor provides a range of cover where an attack can hit you but be absorbed by armor, or hit you and also bypass the armor.
As previously mentioned, this falls down when going to higher levels, as damage increases faster than DR does normally, and "Max Dex Bonus" can kill you if your AC stays so low.
Basically, here's how it works. You have a class defense bonus, sure. And like a Dex bonus, its limited by your armor. However, there are two add-on factors; the first would be a feat (class feature for Fighters and possible Clerics) that allows you to get full class armor bonus in any type of armor. Then, for lighter armor-wearing types, you'd have it so that a character could, instead of using the Max Dex factor, instead apply the Armor Check penalty to his AC. Thus, a Dex 18, Class Defense +10 Rogue could wear his leather armor +3 without really hindering himself and still affording some protection for the attacks that hit.
When your determining the "Cover" and "DR" value of armor, its done simply by how much of the body the armor covers. If a suit of armor literally covers the entire body; no holes whatsoever that a normal weapon could breach; then it has total cover, and any attack goes through it. If it covers the whole body but has gaps, its +8 cover. If it covers almost all of the body, its cover is +6, only the torso would be +4, and any smaller coverage, like only the arms and legs or some such, would be +2.
The DR value of the armor would be where things would get interesting. Obviously, in order to be worthwhile, the DR needs to increase pretty heftily by the time you get to fight monsters who deal 30-damage attacks. The best way to do this is to base the DR value off of both the armor's magical bonus and its material type; Design it so that a suit of Adamantine Full Plate +5 would have a DR of 25, and only the big and truly nasty monsters can hit you through it without a very lucky roll.
Each +1 Enhancement adds +2 to an armor's hardness, so use that value; +5 Armor = +10 DR. Give the armor a DR of its base material type -5 (Or halved, whichever is higher) and let it retain its Enhancement bonus to AC as well as its new DR mods; magical armor could make you better at dodging attacks as well.
Thus, your Adamantine Full Plate +5 has a DR of 25 which protects from attacks that hit you by 8 or less, if your a fighter gives no penalty to your class/dex AC, and if your a non-fighter gives you a -5 to your class/dex AC, or limits it to +8, whichever leaves your stat higher. (To be magical, it has to also be masterwork, hence -5)
You could tack in feats/options to reduce the armor penalty to class AC, or to give the character a better coverage rate with his armor (knows how to absorb blows with his armor?) or so forth, and design it so that a heavily armored character is more likely to be hit, but when hes hit, he'll tend to take less damage.
(Note: Actually, these seem a bit high of DR ratings. A Tarrasque would whack at you all day without much luck till it scored a critical hit. I originally made the "Armor as Cover" rules for a modern setting where they were used for bulletproof vests and ballistic shields, so you'd need to scale the material type and enchantment bonus advantages so that a monster would be able to actually hurt the fighter past his DR. If you made the DR = 1/2 the armor hardness period, and each +1 armor was +1 DR, then Adamantine full plate would be DR 15, and would reduce the average blow from a CR 20 creature into the 2-6 damage area.)
As previously mentioned, this falls down when going to higher levels, as damage increases faster than DR does normally, and "Max Dex Bonus" can kill you if your AC stays so low.
Basically, here's how it works. You have a class defense bonus, sure. And like a Dex bonus, its limited by your armor. However, there are two add-on factors; the first would be a feat (class feature for Fighters and possible Clerics) that allows you to get full class armor bonus in any type of armor. Then, for lighter armor-wearing types, you'd have it so that a character could, instead of using the Max Dex factor, instead apply the Armor Check penalty to his AC. Thus, a Dex 18, Class Defense +10 Rogue could wear his leather armor +3 without really hindering himself and still affording some protection for the attacks that hit.
When your determining the "Cover" and "DR" value of armor, its done simply by how much of the body the armor covers. If a suit of armor literally covers the entire body; no holes whatsoever that a normal weapon could breach; then it has total cover, and any attack goes through it. If it covers the whole body but has gaps, its +8 cover. If it covers almost all of the body, its cover is +6, only the torso would be +4, and any smaller coverage, like only the arms and legs or some such, would be +2.
The DR value of the armor would be where things would get interesting. Obviously, in order to be worthwhile, the DR needs to increase pretty heftily by the time you get to fight monsters who deal 30-damage attacks. The best way to do this is to base the DR value off of both the armor's magical bonus and its material type; Design it so that a suit of Adamantine Full Plate +5 would have a DR of 25, and only the big and truly nasty monsters can hit you through it without a very lucky roll.
Each +1 Enhancement adds +2 to an armor's hardness, so use that value; +5 Armor = +10 DR. Give the armor a DR of its base material type -5 (Or halved, whichever is higher) and let it retain its Enhancement bonus to AC as well as its new DR mods; magical armor could make you better at dodging attacks as well.
Thus, your Adamantine Full Plate +5 has a DR of 25 which protects from attacks that hit you by 8 or less, if your a fighter gives no penalty to your class/dex AC, and if your a non-fighter gives you a -5 to your class/dex AC, or limits it to +8, whichever leaves your stat higher. (To be magical, it has to also be masterwork, hence -5)
You could tack in feats/options to reduce the armor penalty to class AC, or to give the character a better coverage rate with his armor (knows how to absorb blows with his armor?) or so forth, and design it so that a heavily armored character is more likely to be hit, but when hes hit, he'll tend to take less damage.
(Note: Actually, these seem a bit high of DR ratings. A Tarrasque would whack at you all day without much luck till it scored a critical hit. I originally made the "Armor as Cover" rules for a modern setting where they were used for bulletproof vests and ballistic shields, so you'd need to scale the material type and enchantment bonus advantages so that a monster would be able to actually hurt the fighter past his DR. If you made the DR = 1/2 the armor hardness period, and each +1 armor was +1 DR, then Adamantine full plate would be DR 15, and would reduce the average blow from a CR 20 creature into the 2-6 damage area.)
I used the armor as DR rules from UA, as well as the Class Defense bonus rules (though I reduced the starting bonuses) for a brief campaign and it worked pretty well, though we never got above low levels.
The way I worked it was you always recieved the DR from armor worn and you applied the AC bonus from your armor, or your Class Defense bonus, whichever was higher. The Class Defense Bonus was a dodge bonus, so you lost it when flatfooted or denied your Dex, which meant there be a point for wearing something like studded leather, which had the same DR as regular leather (1) but added +2 to AC instead of +1. Shield bonuses added directly to your AC.
Yes, it made it tougher on spellcasters since touch AC was higher, but magic items were extremely hard to come by, so characters didn't have any boosts to their saving throws. Plus they could still nail flat-footed foes with touch spells and rays if they needed to, or hit them with something like Grease and then follow it up with a ray.
Ultimately we're not going to bother with the armor as DR in the coming game I'm working on because it was we had a lot of trouble remembering to apply the DR to every hit. It was a really cool concept, but it ended up being an unneeded complication in practice.
The way I worked it was you always recieved the DR from armor worn and you applied the AC bonus from your armor, or your Class Defense bonus, whichever was higher. The Class Defense Bonus was a dodge bonus, so you lost it when flatfooted or denied your Dex, which meant there be a point for wearing something like studded leather, which had the same DR as regular leather (1) but added +2 to AC instead of +1. Shield bonuses added directly to your AC.
Yes, it made it tougher on spellcasters since touch AC was higher, but magic items were extremely hard to come by, so characters didn't have any boosts to their saving throws. Plus they could still nail flat-footed foes with touch spells and rays if they needed to, or hit them with something like Grease and then follow it up with a ray.
Ultimately we're not going to bother with the armor as DR in the coming game I'm working on because it was we had a lot of trouble remembering to apply the DR to every hit. It was a really cool concept, but it ended up being an unneeded complication in practice.
Aus_Snow
First Post
I use armour as DR, as well as a form of Base Defence Bonus that scales with BAB. Also, weapons have AP values. In addition, there are called shots, including a general ´ármour defeating´ type. Another thing that springs to mind from my house rules is the uniform reduction of innate AC (Defence) bonuses in critters. Amazingly, it all works smoothly, and seems to be remarkably ´balanced´, to the extent that I can use almost any 3e supplemental material - when I wish to - with only a small amount of very quick and easy alteration required.
In creating the subsystem, I´ve used sources from ´Conan OGL´ to ´A Game of Thrones OGL´ to ´From Stone to Steel´ to ´Iron Heroes´, and others. Mainly though, I devoted a fair amount of my own time and thought to the combat system I wanted to have. I´m glad that I did so.
Best of luck with it!
In creating the subsystem, I´ve used sources from ´Conan OGL´ to ´A Game of Thrones OGL´ to ´From Stone to Steel´ to ´Iron Heroes´, and others. Mainly though, I devoted a fair amount of my own time and thought to the combat system I wanted to have. I´m glad that I did so.
Best of luck with it!
Viktyr Gehrig
First Post
I use a modified Armor as DR variant. Like Unearthed Arcana, the DR from armor is halved... but instead of contributing to Defense, the remaining points are applied as a bonus to saves vs. Massive Damage. (I use d20 Modern-style Massive Damage.) I also use a form of Class Defense.
I'm still trying to "fix" dagger-fighters. I'm liking the idea of Piercing criticals ignoring armor.
I'm still trying to "fix" dagger-fighters. I'm liking the idea of Piercing criticals ignoring armor.
Aus_Snow
First Post
Oh, a couple of other things: I treat armour as being essentially piecemeal, for the most part. Not everyone gets around in "full suits" of whatever type of armour. Also, you can (to some extent) mix and match, which makes certain types of called shot very handy indeed, sometimes. Also, armour wears down, comes apart, breaks, bends and so on. As do weapons and other things, for that matter.
