D&D 5E Armour as Damage Threshold

[Baldurs_Underdark]

I'd want to play a wizard with high-damage spells, and a Rust Monster as a pet. And at least I can finally agree with others that fighters are underpowered. In this scenario, fighters are just a meatshield to protect the wizard.

I don't know what Exploding Dice do, but unless they do at least 8d6 fire damage in a 20 ft radius, they are not going to convince me.

 

[ElPsyCongroo]

I'd want to play a wizard with high-damage spells, and a Rust Monster as a pet. And at least I can finally agree with others that fighters are underpowered. In this scenario, fighters are just a meatshield to protect the wizard.

I don't know what Exploding Dice do, but unless they do at least 8d6 fire damage in a 20 ft radius, they are not going to convince me.

I mean this wouldn't make much difference to a Wizard who uses non physical attacks, Fighters often play the position of Meatshield/Line Defence for the harder hitting yet squishy backline anyway

 

[Blue]

Just to play with this...

Physical armor does not add to AC. Need to make calls for various non-physical armor like Mage Armor. They still apply Max Dex, though for heavy armor that changes to +0.
Shields add to AC and Bastion rating (see below).
Proficiency gets added to AC.

All characters have a Bastion rating. It is physical armor increase over 10 + shield + proficiency + CON mod.
All B/P/S damage equal or lower to Bastion rating is Resisted.
If you would normally Resist the damage (such as a raging barbarian), you ignore it instead.
Heavy Armor Mastery feat is replaced with Solid feat which just adds 4 to a character's Bastion rating.

 

[Stoutstien]

I tried it at one point and it just never works with the 5e framework. Slowed down action resolution too much to make it worthwhile.

I ended up adding DR to heavy armor and just stuck with AC.

 

[Stormonu]

If D&D were to be rebuilt, I'd like to see something like DR done for armor instead of escalating AC. Having a fixed DR would be easiest, but you could also do it with a "reaction" dice. Say:

Light Armor: d4 DR
Medium Armor: d6 to d8 DR
Heavy Armor: d10 to d12 DR
Shield adds to AC & d4 DR

You'd have to go through monsters and recalculate their AC into DR, and it'd likely change CRs.

 

[RuinousPowers]

If D&D were to be rebuilt, I'd like to see something like DR done for armor instead of escalating AC. Having a fixed DR would be easiest, but you could also do it with a "reaction" dice. Say:

Light Armor: d4 DR
Medium Armor: d6 to d8 DR
Heavy Armor: d10 to d12 DR
Shield adds to AC & d4 DR

You'd have to go through monsters and recalculate their AC into DR, and it'd likely change CRs.

I don't think you can just copy the Elric/Magic World armor tables and drop them in D&D without the rest of the context.

 

[Stalker0]

The Dragon Warrior idea is neat. I could see a situation where an Axe is a d10/4 (more armor penetration/less damage) damage where a sword is a d8/5 kind of scenario, etc.

The fundamental issue with armor as DR in the Dnd setting is.... dnd supports a very wide range of archetypes. The rogue with a dagger is supposed to competitive with the berserker with the greatsword. But once you calculate in DR that goes out the window. At that point no sane warrior is going to use a shortsword or dagger, and all of your balance shifts to bigger and bigger weapons and more and more strength/dex (because now your raw damage bonus is double dipping, you do more damage but you also penetrate armor more).

dnd is NOT realistic, it allows for a wide variety of motiffs that are just not viable when combat is realistic.