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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DulothS" data-source="post: 3152702" data-attributes="member: 13731">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.)</blockquote>

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