Armors: Getting hit vs Damage reduction

[Jhyarelle]

Im not sure which edition of D&D I read this from, though I'm fairly sure its between 3rd and 4th; but didn't armor rating or AC now used to reduce damage taken form nonmagical means. So leather armor AC 4 can stop nonmagical damage by 4. Would this even work properly in 4th ed? I mean being missed by an attack is always good, but so is reducing damage taken if you do get hit just as goood.

EX: 1d8 sword does 6 damage to leather armor AC 4, damage taken 2.

From what I've read Damage resistance is just plain "Resistance X Element"

 

[Vadriar]

The game is not balanced around that assumption, and it probably would need a lot of work to fix. Also, being missed is better than resisting all the damage, because the other effects (daze/stun/whatever) stilll apply if you resist the damage.

 

[SensoryThought]

No. And I disagree re: that damage resistance is worse than AC/NAD bumps.

Damage resistance is crazy powerful, and I try to limit it to defenders via items or specific elements to pcs of a certain flavor (the ice elf frostmage taking cold resist feats).

Most monsters do low damage compared to pcs as pc hps < monster hps. Particularly minions which usually do 1hp/level. A pc with 5 damage resist can basically ignore all minions at low heroic levels.

 

[luide]

Everything depends on are you playing heroic, paragon or epic.
In heroic damage is low and status effects are sparse. There resist 5 is removes 30% (lvl 10) to 60% of damage (lvl 1), if you're using MM3 math. Slightly less in case of brutes, but in minion case, it's lot worse. During the 10 levels, you get average 80-85% resistance to damage against minions.

Assuming monsters need 10 to hit, resist 5 is approximately same as +4 to all defences during heroic. On other hand, status effects still hit you (but you can ignore ongoing damage) but on other hand, you'll be almost immune to minions and will ignore even larger portion or area/multiattack powers.

In paragon / heroic things chance because of status effects. Resist 10 drops between 35% -50% of damage in paragon and resists 15 drops between 40-50% of damage taken in epic, but the value of AC vs isn't so clear.

But the answer to your original question really is:
If you really want to do it, you can move point of AC to DR on one-to-one basis and make the DR only apply to attacks vs AC. For example half and half. So Leather armor, AC2 -> AC1 and DR 1. Plate armor, AC 8 -> AC4 and DR 4.

Here's quick list what you can except DR x do for heroic tier (averaged over whole 10 levels)
DR1: -8% damage taken (about +1 to all defences)
DR2:-16% damage taken
DR3: -23% damage taken (about +2 defences)
DR4: -32% damage taken (about +3 defences)
DR5: -39% damage taken (about +4 to defences)

Note in this post Damage Resistance = DR = Resist all

 

[SensoryThought]

I also would note DR reduces spike damage compared to defence improvement. With ready healing this significantly reduces the chances of being knocked out.

 

[corwyn77]

I see two significant things which would need to be addressed beyond the values of DR for different armour types.

1) As noted above, minions are trashed using DR. They need to be adjusted in some way, say doing full damage for level and relying on their fragility for the lower xp they grant, or being scrapped together - they are just no threat as written.

2) Different classes of the same role will have drastically varying values of DR. this is bad enough when dealing with leaders (Shaman/Druid vs. Cleric) but gets really nasty when comparing a Swordmage/Warden to a Fighter/Paladin. The former with lower AC combined with low DR (based on their light armour) would be very fragile. Maybe DR values need to be assigned by role.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

This article by Sean K. Reynolds on armor as DR is interesting food for thought.

Armor as DR Isn't Worth the Work

 

[Kynn]

Alternity had an interesting approach to damage reduction. An armor's DR value wasn't a number, but was a roll. So leather might be d6-2 and plate might be 1d6+1. You roll each time you get hit.

 

[El Mahdi]

Alternity's system was likely less overpowered than straight DR, but I prefer to avoid any mechanics that add extra rolls to combat. Extra rolls tend to slow down combat resolution (and lengthen combat encounters in general).

One way to do it without adding extra rolls, is to have damage based on the difference between the attack roll and AC/Defense (or an opposed Defense Roll if used), with possibly the addition of extra Damage Dice (like the 1D10 Monte and Company are proposing for Fighters in 5E). But, this requires a system with incredibly balanced math, where any extra additions (such as specializations, magic weapons, etc.) significantly impact the core system.

Another way is instead of having a DR for Armor, donning armor increases one's Hit Points by a predetermined percentage (based on the Armor). This works kind of like Temporary Hit Points in that your Natural Maximum Hit Points do not change, but unlike Temporary Hit Points in that they aren't tracked seperately (they just improve the overall durability aspect of your Hit Points). If you take your armor off, your current Hit Points are reduced by the same percentage (that way you can't end up with more Hit Points than you would have had left if you hadn't been wearing Armor).

One problem I've encountered with DR (aside from the significant impact DR has on Damage as opposed to AC/Defense), is that some players have a significantly hard time remembering to subtract their DR each time they're hit.

For straight ease of use though, I prefer the Standard AC/Defense model to DR, though the simulationist in me does love DR.

 

[Gorgoroth]

DR seems to be all or nothing

Either they bake it into the system from the start, in Core, or they drop it. I hope it makes it in there, as DR is already used by many monsters, largely to make up for their crappy AC oftentimes that fighters can easily hit anyway.

A rogue with 18 Dex and leather = 17 AC, is not the same as a fighter with 16 dex and scale armor = 17 AC, because leather has higher movement speed, less penalties, and having higher Dex gives you better initiative, higher reflex, and so on.

Why not make Reflex like the old AC stat, and similar to touch AC, and AC is just a DR value based on the type. Forget weapon types vs AC, that does get too complicated IMO (though as an optional module for those simulationists, heck yes). Actually, I'd like a balanced armor / defense system (i.e. not favoring Dex-is-god like 4e does), that incorporates DR as an optional system, but where they took the time and did the math. Or as a an optional book entirely. But plan is from the start, to interact with the rest of the flat math progression. I don't see why DR vs melee weapons or spells can't be variable, in this optional system. Even vs weapons, if you like that type of simulationism. At the very least, having high AC vs puny goblins where they can only hurt you on a crit means it will indeed be the heavy fighter wading through them. The rogue's sneak attack damage should add enough to his total to affect the heavily armored guard well enough, and he should have some abilities to have a high crit range when his opponents are not aware of him. This gives a classic rogue feel while allowing fighters in heavy armor to not feel like they spent all that money and effort to have the same defenses as the lightly armored rogue. 4e system = not realistic, at all. It's more complicated, and in exchange ended up being less realistic at the same time.

That's what I call a lose-lose. Most uber defense builds in 4e do not use plate armor. That's broken, IMO.