D&D 5E (2024) Armor as THP?

[Charlaquin]

I understand the concept as a mechanic. I just struggle with an understanding how that could be explained as anything other than a game mechanic.

Does it need to be?

 

[Horwath]

One of my biggest pet peves about D&D is rolling to hit and then rolling for damage. So what if Armor was just a form of THP?

All attacks always hit.
THP first, Armor Points Second, HP third
Armor points are (AC-10)* your level, regained after a long rest.
(Dis)advantage means rerolling damage twice.
Any AC boost (shield spell) is now damage reduction.

have fixed damage,
add bonus damage depending on how much you beat AC.

I.E:

Greatsword, base damage 8, +5 STR

damage 13.

Hit: deal 100% damage, 13 damage
beat AC by 5, deal +50% damage, 19 damage
beat AC by 10, deal +100% damage, 26 damage
beat AC by 15, deal +150% damage, 32 damage
beat AC by 20, deal +200% damage, 39 damage
graze mastery, miss AC by 5 or less, deal 50% damage, 6 damage

other examples of damage bonuses.

Sneak attack, +2 damage per rogue level
Smite: 10 damage for 1st level spell, +5 per spell level above 1st.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Have you ever actually missed when you swung a sword at something

I’ve hit my thumb with a hammer often enough. Those nails must have a lot of stamina to keep dodging like that.

They don’t let me use swords.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I don't care for the idea myself - it it ain't broke, and all that - but why not try it and see if you like it better? I do think it will add a lot of unforeseen complications that you will have to balance.

The thing about the D&D is the numbers have had decades of work getting to where they are now. It’s far from the only way to do things, but starting from scratch is going to take a huge amount of work to get it to a place where it doesn’t suck. Fortunately, there are a bunch of other role playing games that do armour differently, so you (the OP I mean) can always borrow from those.

 

[mellored]

I’ve hit my thumb with a hammer often enough. Those nails must have a lot of stamina to keep dodging like that.

They don’t let me use swords.

So if you don't have proficiency, and attack a extremely tiny target, then you can miss, sometimes.

That's far enough outside normal D&D combats to not worry about IMO.

 

[mellored]

have fixed damage,

I guess that is the other way of reducing die rolls.

 

[Deset Gled]

Does it need to be?

The OP already gave an answer for the long rest version. Even if I don't consider it a great answer that meshes with the rest of D&D well, there was already a consensus that it's a reasonable discussion. I also intentionally worded my question to be open ended and allow any answer from the highly abstract, to story based, to versimilitude, or anything else.

 

[AlViking]

Yeah I'd thought THP's as armour for a homebrew class already, but the idea is clearly magical.

For mundane armour, it would break any immersion I had if it 'healed' every rest.

One of the issues I see is that if you have high quality armor, it's difficult to significantly damage. Most blows that do damage are either doing concussive damage that the armor can't spread out adequately or that find a gap in the armor.

Also how does the system OP is proposing work with dextrous characters who can dodge attacks? Both that and armour go into AC currently.

Good point.

 

[Umbran]

One of my biggest pet peves about D&D is rolling to hit and then rolling for damage. So what if Armor was just a form of THP?

All attacks always hit.

I've seen several games do away with separate attack and damage rolls. Most of them use armor as a form of damage reduction on every hit, rather than as temporary hit points.

From a simulation standpoint, I can see an argument for temporary hit points - basically, the wearer takes n damage until the armor is toast, and then they take full damage going onward, and the armor needs repair after that. This might be most fitting if armor is worn for, like, one pitched battle every once in a while - like it is in a war. However, it doesn't really support dungeon crawling or adventuring for weeks or months away from forges and craftsmen who repair armor.

 

[AlViking]

The proposed solution feels like trying to replicate personal shields that show up in sci-fi. Except those make sense because they aren't physical armor, they're personal force fields (another magical tech fiction, but that's another issue). How does anyone repair physical armor? For most armor it could take days, weeks or even months to do an adequate repair. There could be minor damage that could be repaired quickly, but damage that means the armor is not useless? I don't see it.

Other systems that may work better would include some sort of AC preventing most damage but a person having endurance points which act like temp HP and physical HP or some variation (I'm sure different games have different labels). Endurance points can be recovered relatively quickly with rest but physical HP is actual cuts, bruises and contusions. Physical HP without magic could take days, weeks or months to recover from.

There is no simple solution, maybe it would be enlightening to give examples of how other games handle it.