Armor makes you harder to hit?

[redkobold]

Armor Damage Reduction

This article is to address a notion in the core rules that has been troublesome to me. I find it counter-intuitive that heavy metal armor would make one harder to hit rather than harder to hurt. The following revisions to the Standard Reference Document in my attempt to address this issue are below. Also resented in this article are some changes critical threats/hits, effects of damage to a character reducing him/her to 0 or fewer hit points and the “staggered” condition. These last few are more house rules in my campaign.


Take a look and give me some input on using armor as damage reduction.

I am not looking for a totally realistic system, just something a little more logical. I feel that this will work at lower levels but at higher levels, there may be some problems.

 

[Azlan]

Given how often this subject comes up in House Rules, I am seriously thinking of polishing and refining my own armor DR rules, and then publishing them as a downloadable document, available for a nominal fee. (Anyone out there interested in providing illustrations? )

A professionally published set of armor DR rules, for use with the d20 system and 3rd Edition D&D, should be comprehensive, balanced, and thoroughly playtested. They should strike a happy medium between realism and playability, while still maintaining the heroic, "abstract" qualities of D&D combat. Also, they should be designed to suit the needs of the masses, with flexability to be tweaked for individual tastes.

I've been working on my rules ever since 3rd Edition came out, and I just about have them to that point.

 

[MarauderX]

Hurt or Hit? What's the difference in the game?

I let PCs know when they had a close call vs. an enemy missing by a lot because they rolled really bad. Usually if the blow was close I tell them that their armor/shield/bracers/helmet deflected the blow. But even still the PCs can get hurt through the armor by weapons (such as arrows, other piercing weapons) and let them know that no matter how much armor they pile on they will always get tagged by someone, somewhere with a better BAB.

I see your point about armor damage reduction, but think it's a little bit much for a DM to keep track of along with all of the other things that need to be attended to. However, it doesn't seem all that intuitive to me about why you might want to do it. If the PC would have been hit by a blow if she wasn't wearing armor, then that is still a solid "touch" hit attack, meaning the PC got whacked but the armor prevented the transference of any damage to the PC. Does that make sense?

 

[Azlan]

Hurt or Hit? What's the difference in the game?

I understand why many players like the rules the way they already are. For them, D&D combat is meant to be totally abstract and heroic, like in a comic book or an Anime film. And that's fine.

Nevertheless, for those who want a more realistic, historical, and/or grim feel to combat...

With D&D by-the-book, it's an all or nothing affair: either your attack is successful, and you inflict damage; or it's unsuccessful, and you don't. But with D&D by-the-book, you have the exact same chance to inflict damage with a dagger or a quarterstaff against full plate armor as you do with a greatsword or a morningstar. This should not be, if you want to be even remotely realistic or historical.

Also, with D&D by-the-book, the distinction in defenses between, say, swashbucklers and duelists in light armor, and knights and men-at-arms in heavy armor, is blurred because their defenses are all lumped into "armor class" (which is a bit of a misnomer, anyway, since a lot more goes into this than just the bonus of your armor).

By using armor DR rules, you make those swashbucklers and duelists in their light armor hard to hit, but easy to damage; while the knights and men-at-arms in their heavy armor are easy to hit, but able to soak up lots of damage. In the minds of D&D purists, this may not seem to be a distinction that is worth the added effort of the more detailed "armor DR" rules. But in game play, these rules really do make a difference and enhance the "feel" of combat.

My own campaigns tend to be low- to mid-level, with a historical and somewhat realistic feel to them, while still being heroic fantasy. Thus, armor DR rules are right for me and my players.

 

[redkobold]

"Hurt or Hit? What's the difference in the game?"

I tried to account for this where if a person takes a high amount of damage but the armor absords it all, they are stunned as follows.

Snippet from article:
Massive Damage:
Any single hit causing more damage than 4/level (or hit die) of the character/creature (before the damage reduction) requires a Fortitude Test of DC: 10 + damage to avoid being stunned from the force of the blow.


"By using armor DR rules, you make those swashbucklers and duelists in their light armor hard to hit, but easy to damage; while the knights and men-at-arms in their heavy armor are easy to hit, but able to soak up lots of damage. In the minds of D&D purists, this may not seem to be a distinction that is worth the added effort of the more detailed "armor DR" rules. But in game play, these rules really do make a difference and enhance the "feel" of combat."


This is exactly what I want.

 

[MarauderX]

I guess my main point is armor is there to help a PC avoid damage, not to avoid being hit, hence the higher AC for the tougher armors.

I see the point of DR, and think it could be run that way and be fun and new, but the dice for damage are usually the dictator on how much punishment a character takes. Once you are above 10th level or so it becomes a relatively moot point as you are dishing out and taking blows that can add up to 50+ HP, where even a DR 4 is pretty weak.

And I do try to keep things as real as possible, with down-to-earth stats and such since I also like the grim portrayal of battle. IMO, DR would be one more advantage for the PCs in a game where it is pretty hard for them to die in the first place (-10 vs. Basic D&D of 0=death).

OK, i'll stop my rant; this is the House Rules after all, and I hope the DR works out well for your campaign.

 

[redkobold]

Aslan:
"Given how often this subject comes up in House Rules, I am seriously thinking of polishing and refining my own armor DR rules, and then publishing them as a downloadable document, available for a nominal fee. (Anyone out there interested in providing illustrations?)"

I would be really interested in seeing and perhaps helping you edit this article as well as helping you out with a few illustrations. If you got the first issue of ENWorld Player's Journal, I wrote the "Ambient Events" article and also did the illustrations.

 

[kramis]

This is something I've been wanting to do for a while, but it's never been worth the complication ... not just of figuring out the rules, but for them to work, there comes a whole new set of problems to deal with.

You need to have AC go up with level ... the easiest offhand seems to be BAB counts for AC as well, this would keep class balances roughly equal, however it needs to be playtested.

You need to deal with hit locations, which is one of the bigger annoyances. This can't be avoided if you want to go this rout ... if you are wearing breast plate and get hit in the leg why get DR? Then you get into the problem of aiming for unarmored locations, and if hits against certain locations do more damage, or have any sort of special side effect (too much damage to the leg hinders movement, etc.).

You then should come up with a system for keeping track of how much damage a piece of armor has taken to know when it is destroyed and needs to be repaired.

And lastely, you need to change meele attack bonus to use Dex instead of strength to be consistent, however this will most likely unbalance the stats a bit and overpower Dex.

 

[RandomNPC]

Just my two cents.

I don't like this at all for several reasons. You have a very good point and rational for what you want to do and why but in my opinion this would really involve an entire overhaul of the d20 system. If you were to maybe make adjustments for base attack and maybe a defense bonus that adjusted with level it would begin to work, but I think maybe what you're getting at is represnted in the characters hit die. With your system i can not imagine a rogue living more than 3 levels, what do you do when you have a small hit die and access to only light armor? I'd avoid combat completely, this is going to make it less fun for me. Possibly if you could balance this with extra parry options and other ways to properly defend yourself you have an idea that could work. Take into account that this will keep most characters' ACs below what....maybe....14? So that would mean well before 10th level any fighter will barely have to roll to hit, trade in alittle power attack to counter the appropriate damage reduction and you're set, this is going to throw things way off. Anyways not to knock your idea but I think some more work needs to be done.

 

[Azlan]

You need to have AC go up with level ... the easiest offhand seems to be BAB counts for AC as well, this would keep class balances roughly equal, however it needs to be playtested.

Or, you can do as we've done: revise the Dodge feat, and implement some new feats, such as Parry and Block. That way, you're not messing with any more core rules and concepts than you have to.

You can see some of the ways I've addressed the issue of "high BABs versus low ACs", here, with my own house rules for armor DR.

You need to deal with hit locations, which is one of the bigger annoyances. This can't be avoided if you want to go this rout... if you are wearing breast plate and get hit in the leg why get DR? Then you get into the problem of aiming for unarmored locations, and if hits against certain locations do more damage, or have any sort of special side effect (too much damage to the leg hinders movement, etc.).

I don't see why this added detail and complexity is necessary. You can still implement armor DR rules and maintain a certain abstraction in combat. If breastplate gives you an overall +4 armor bonus in D&D by-the-book, why shouldn't it give you an overall DR 4 (or DR 2, or whatever) if you're using armor DR instead?

You then should come up with a system for keeping track of how much damage a piece of armor has taken to know when it is destroyed and needs to be repaired.

Again, you don't have to go this far. I mean, you can, if you want to. But you don't have to, just because you've decided to implement rules for armor DR. Besides, if you're going to keep track of armor wear and tear, you might as well do the same with melee weapons.

And lastely, you need to change meele attack bonus to use Dex instead of strength to be consistent, however this will most likely unbalance the stats a bit and overpower Dex.

I would agree with you there... if there were no proviso for using Dex with certain melee weapons. But, of course, you can do that via the Weapon Finesse feat. However, with armor DR rules, I'd expand the list of weapons applicable with Weapon Finesse to include shortswords, longswords, ninjatos, and katanas (and perhaps a few other weapons as well).