Armor Class vs. Damage Reduction - Your preference

[griffonwing]

I started out, like many players, with ADnD2e. I then moved on to 3e. The D&D franchise seems to cater towards the AC. Heavier armor and Shields add to your target Armor number, making you harder to hit. It can be argued that the bonuses for armor and shileds should be interpreted NOT that you are harder to get hit, but that you are harder to get hit with a strike that actually causes damage. With this style, you either get hit with full damage, or you dont.

I then started playing games that used DR instead of AC, and I find that I actually prefer DR over AC. In HackMaster, and other systems, all armors make you easier to hit, and shields practically guarantee a hit, since you are actively blocking with it. You are much easier to hit, but the damage is greatly reduced. This, to me, seems a much more realistic approach, and it's one that I favor above AC.

I suppose that you can, perhaps, house-rule AC so that each armor type (light/med/heavy) gives a respective 2/4/6 point window of receiving half-damage. So, for example, if an orc misses your AC by 4 points or less, you take only half damage. While this isnt as realisatic as DR, it does help offset the "full or none" unrealistic approach to AC.

What are your thoughts on AC vs. DR? Which do you prefer?

 

[delericho]

In principle, I agree with you that Armour-as-DR is somewhat more realistic.

In practice, I've found that Armour-as-DR creates a lot of problems (even in games designed to use it from the outset). Armour-as-AC just works better.

So I'll take Armour-as-AC, please.

YMMV, of course.

 

[Janx]

In principle, I agree with you that Armour-as-DR is somewhat more realistic.

In practice, I've found that Armour-as-DR creates a lot of problems (even in games designed to use it from the outset). Armour-as-AC just works better.

So I'll take Armour-as-AC, please.

YMMV, of course.

I don't like the mathematical back and forth it causes between attacker and defender. I never liked Paladium's Dodge mechanic either for the defender to roll after the attacker rolled.

 

[Obryn]

I've found I don't much care... When it comes down to it, an armor-as-DR system needs to be built that way from the ground up, since it will cascade to attack rolls, hit points, etc. Armor as DR always feels like a clumsy hack to me in D&D whereas it seems natural in games like Earthdawn and WFRP2 because they're designed around it.

I'm perfectly happy for different games to tackle the issue in different ways.

-O

 

[delericho]

I don't like the mathematical back and forth it causes between attacker and defender.

Yep, that's my biggest objection. That, plus the seeming need of every Armour-as-DR system to then give weapons some sort of Penetration rating, allowing them to bypass some or all of the armour worn. The effect being that a damage roll then requires three subtractions, rather than one:

- In Armour-as-AC, you roll damage, then subtract it from hit points.

- In Armour-as-DR, you roll damage. They, you subtract the Pen value from DR, then subtract that result from the damage, and then subtract that total from hit points.

It also gets very frustrating when you see most of your attacks being negated outright by the target's DR. Especially if you also have difficulties hitting in the first place.

(WHFP 2e is a great game, but I really hate that particular aspect of it - most of my monsters missed most of the time, most of the 'hits' were then either dodged or parried, and then most of what was left saw the entirety of their damage negated. And then, as if that wasn't annoying enough, the few times the damage wasn't negated entirely, it seemed to one-shot a PC every time. Dice behave strangely when I roll them!)

Finally, in the specific case of 3.5e, the Armour-as-DR rules quickly turned Power Attack into a game-breaking option. But that was a specific oddity because those particular rules weren't very good.

 

[Cleon]

I quite like systems that use both - so an attack could miss (no damage), hit the AC (weapon damage minus armour DR) or slips through a gap in the armour (weapon damage ignores DR) depending on how good the relative rolls where.

Furthermore, I'd like their to be more of a roll for combatant's defensive skill. In regular AD&D a 1st level Dex 13 fighter in chain has an identical AC to a 21st level Dex 13 fighter in chain. Surely the high level fighter should have nigh godlike skills at parrying and dodging attacks? That's supposed to be (partially) covered by hit points, but the implementation of it sometimes doesn't gel very well with me. Why does it cost, say, 2d6 hit points to "dodge" a greatsword and only 1d6 to avoid a heavy staff? They are both more-or-less the same reach, speed and there's similarities in their weapon technique.

I handwave that away by viewing hit points as being some kind of chi "force field" that is literally absorbing the blows, since that seems the best fit I could come up with to the AD&D mechanics, but it doesn't have to be that way. It might work to have a "glancing blow" between a "miss" and an "AC hit" where the defendant spends a few hit points and parries/dodges the attack.

So the result of an attack might be something like this:

MISS (fails to beat Dex) => no damage
DEFENDED AGAINST (beats Dex, fails to beat Dex+Parry/Dodge) => reduced damage.
SOLID HIT (beats Dex+Parry/Dodge, fails to beat Dex+Parry/Dodge+Armour) => weapon damage minus DR.
PRECISION HIT (beats Dex+Parry/Dodge+Armour) => weapon damage.

However, I prefer a Parry/Dodge mechanism based on separate actions. e.g. you spend an opportunity attack to Parry a blow, or a move action to Dodge an attacker, and the success or otherwise is determined by some sort of contest (e.g. if you beat an opponent's attack roll with a parry roll you parry their assault and take no damage).

The problem is it's easy to make a system that's so complicated that it slows down play, and I'd want D&D combats to be quick and, preferably, simple. Or, if not simple at least intuitive enough to make decisions quickly.

 

[Michael Silverbane]

I am ok with either type of implementation. When using armor as DR though, I like for both armor and damage to be random, rather than one being random and the other static.

 

[Cleon]

I've found I don't much care... When it comes down to it, an armor-as-DR system needs to be built that way from the ground up, since it will cascade to attack rolls, hit points, etc. Armor as DR always feels like a clumsy hack to me in D&D whereas it seems natural in games like Earthdawn and WFRP2 because they're designed around it.

I'm perfectly happy for different games to tackle the issue in different ways.

-O

Yes, I agree with all of that. Whichever you use it works better if it's one integrated system. Taking one approach (DR/AC) and bolting the other (AC/DR) onto it rarely works well.

Not that it stopped me trying now and again. I have a inordinate fondness for rulesmongering.

 

[Cleon]

I am ok with either type of implementation. When using armor as DR though, I like for both armor and damage to be random, rather than one being random and the other static.

Yes, random DR at least gives a chance for a feeble weapon to get through without having to crit, and it makes partial and full versions of an armour easier to model - e.g. a breastplate and helm over a suit of padding might be 1d8+2 DR, while a full coat-of-plate might be 1d4+6 DR. Both have max DR 10, but the full plate's thinner portions are a lot harder to get through than the lighter version.

 

[Neonchameleon]

What do I want from the system? If going for speed and drama, Armour Class every time. If going for realism, option C: Rolemaster-style weapon vs armour charts.