Armor in RPG's

[Ranger REG]

Since I've been playing Mutants & Masterminds lately, I really have come to prefer armor adding to your toughness, not adding to your defense. Armor makes you harder to hurt, not harder to hit.

Modern armor, yeah. Most [medieval] plate armor usually have rounded edges as well as rounded surface, not to accomodate a warrior's pecs/breasts but to turn a direct blow into a glancing blow.

 

[Enkhidu]

I want a system where the players are rewarded for covering up their soft, yielding human flesh with a skin of steel. The protection armor offers should far outweigh the lack of agility incurred by it. Let those who go without armor die messily. I also want enough granularity from the weapon system where heavier weapons like axes, maxes and picks ARE better at punching through armor than blades.

So... GURPS?

 

[Derro]

Problem with straight DR is it makes small weapons completely useless.

d20 Conan addressed this quite elegantly. All armor provides DR (3 for padded jerkin, 10 for full plate). All weapons have an Armor Piercing rating (nil for primitive weapons up to 7 for the mighty warhammer) which is totaled with STR bonus. If an attacker's AP exceeds the DR then the DR is halved before damage is applied. Certain weapons can be finessed which, on a successful attack, ignores DR completely. Finesse attacks are more difficult to connect but that much more effective when they do.

I haven't tried this but I've always thought it should play into the abstractness of the hit point system. Armor grants temporary "Con". You gain temporary hit points equal to 3 or 4 times the AC bonus of the armor PER Hit Die. The temporary hit points are lost first and recharge between battles when you untwist your greaves, tighten loose straps and unkink tangled chains.

I toyed with this, or something similar to it, for awhile as well. I couldn't reconcile the extra hp with healing magic and some other bugs as well. It also introduced a level of abstractness that I just wasn't comfortable with. I instead concentrated on fixing hit points which combined with DR developed to my satisfaction.

 

[jmucchiello]

I toyed with this, or something similar to it, for awhile as well. I couldn't reconcile the extra hp with healing magic and some other bugs as well.

Actually, this is simple. Healing magic has no effect. They are temporary hit points which regen automatically after each encounter. Healing doesn't restore temporary hp.

Along with this, I would add your AC bonus to any initial Fort save involving post attack effects (poisons, disease, etc.)

 

[Mishihari Lord]

Since I've been playing Mutants & Masterminds lately, I really have come to prefer armor adding to your toughness, not adding to your defense. Armor makes you harder to hurt, not harder to hit.

Eh, for most systems it really doesn't matter if you're hit or not, only if you actually get hurt. In these cases having armor reduce to-hit chance is acceptable since it doesn't change the end result and it simplifies play. This is especially true with abstract systems like D&D where you're not actually hurt until you run out of hit points.

 

[Derro]

Actually, this is simple. Healing magic has no effect. They are temporary hit points which regen automatically after each encounter. Healing doesn't restore temporary hp.

I get that now but at the time my issue was the verisimilitude of armor taking damage throughout combat and then being restored to full in time for the next encounter. While your explanation (unkinking chain, retightening straps, etc.) is totally acceptable the abstraction was just too much for me. It reminded a bit too much of my old LARP days in which armor was a total abstraction. Course the whole bloody game was a total abstraction. I also couldn't reconcile it with progressive armor damage which I am fond of incorporating in some types of games. Like I said I stuck with my trusty DR and just reworked hit points to my liking.

That being said I might try a variant like this in a different sort of game. Perhaps one where I didn't care as much about the source of damage and it's long term effects. Something dungeony, which is quite a bit different than either of the major games I currently run.

Along with this, I would add your AC bonus to any initial Fort save involving post attack effects (poisons, disease, etc.)

This I just don't get. It bothered me in SWSE until someone pointed out things like systems monitors, integrated medpacs, and wound compression patches, all of which make sense for a futuristic game. What is the reason for including it with plain old leather and steel. What is your rationale?

 

[Ranger REG]

d20 Conan addressed this quite elegantly. All armor provides DR (3 for padded jerkin, 10 for full plate).

10? So a plate mail would be about 7, even thought there are chinks in the armor that you can slip a dagger between overlapping plates (and chain links).

All weapons have an Armor Piercing rating (nil for primitive weapons up to 7 for the mighty warhammer) which is totaled with STR bonus. If an attacker's AP exceeds the DR then the DR is halved before damage is applied. Certain weapons can be finessed which, on a successful attack, ignores DR completely. Finesse attacks are more difficult to connect but that much more effective when they do.

Wow, the AP seems like an extra step to resolving damage.

 

[Aeric]

I'd like an armor system that makes armoring up extremely important and useful at low levels, but decreasing in importance as characters grow in skill and power.

Either that, or have the heavily-armored, low-DEX character and the unarmored, high-DEX character to have an equal defense value. 3.5 does a decent job of approximating this, although you really have to suppliment your AC with a lot of magic items in order to get the same bonus from even a nonmagical suit of full plate.

 

[Derro]

10? So a plate mail would be about 7, even thought there are chinks in the armor that you can slip a dagger between overlapping plates (and chain links).

Yes but plate is represented as breastplate and chain hauberk. The armors are a bit different, for flavors sake I imagine. But everything is pretty much there.

Wow, the AP seems like an extra step to resolving damage.

It is but that is the price of a finer grain. Conan also uses two types of defense bonus (Dodge and Parry). The combat system is fast paced despite the extra bits. For example, all characters have access to a lesser Spring Attack and over half of the classes have an ability that improves on this. While not related directly to armor it does change the pace.

The thing about using the AP is just training yourself and your players not to forget it. I call damage as, "12 points slashing, AP 5." If the player pays attention they know what to do. It's not a trainer system, for sure, but again with the finer grain.

Different stroke for different folks, as it were.

 

[Thurbane]

In the core rulebooks, there are really only 3 viable armors: Leather (if you can't wear metal armor), Chain Shirt (if you're restricted to light) or Full Plate (if you can wear heavy).