Awfully Alarmed About Armour

[GMforPowergamers]

Too complex. Just too complex. Keep it dead simple. This is D&D.

-YRUSirius

How complex is take x less damage if the attack targets AC?

Where x is equal to armor number+ magic enhancement

 

[YRUSirius]

It's too complex. It adds a whole another layer of complexity that isn't really needed.

Always do the mother test: "Would your mother find this too complex in actual play, would she understand it? Would she need it to enjoy the game?"

-YRUSirius

 

[GMforPowergamers]

It's too complex. It adds a whole another layer of complexity that isn't really needed.

Always do the mother test: "Would your mother find this too complex in actual play, would she understand it? Would she need it to enjoy the game?"

-YRUSirius

Um I asked my mom thought that was way less complex then choosing a race and class

 

[YRUSirius]

Yeah, for sure.

"So, wait, what is magic enhancement again? Why do I get magic enhancement on this AC number but not on this DR number? And why does only the heavy armor get this DR number, why not light armor too? Shields? Are there spells to increase this DR number?"

"Wait, why does this goblin only take 4 damage? Oh, heavy armor I forgot..."

etc. etc. etc.



Instead: "Hey, cool, heavy armor gives me this AC number, I'll note it down right here."



-YRUSirius

 

[GMforPowergamers]

So how do we make heavy AND light armors both useful and diffrent?

 

[Derren]

So how do we make heavy AND light armors both useful and diffrent?

Why should light armor be as useful as heavy armor?
It has the advantage of one being faster and it can be worn on more occacions. Isn't that enough? Heavy armor is for protection. Light armor is for when you can't wear heavy armor.

 

[jadrax]

Always do the mother test: "Would your mother find this too complex in actual play, would she understand it? Would she need it to enjoy the game?"

This seems a very bad idea, as my mother's favourite systems are GURPs and Rolemaster.

 

[Abstruse]

How complex is take x less damage if the attack targets AC?

Where x is equal to armor number+ magic enhancement

Because damage reduction rules have never really been presented that cleanly, especially when there are exceptions (silver, cold iron, +1 enhancement, etc.)

It also really screws around with game balance. Look at the Stirges from the Next playtest. They're supposed to be nothing more than an irritating swarm that does a tiny bit of damage...until they latch onto you and start draining away. Adding DR to armor negates that sort of monster. Or ones that do a small amount of damage but poison you for lots of damage. If they can't do that 1 point on a hit, they don't get to do the 1d6 damage every round until you make a Constitution save or get an antitoxin. Then you get into arguments with the player stating that their armor covers everything and the DM who wants the monster to be worth the XP reward states that there's going to be gaps in the armor somewhere and the player saying "nuh-uh!" and so on and so forth.

Armor made out of specific harder materials getting DR like adamantine, that's a different story. But that's also a pretty nice reward akin to a magic item and can be controlled more easily than just any heavy armor granting DR.

For the record, I'm going to state my bias on this one...I've got a soft spot for stirges as enemies since I live in Southeast Texas and get to deal regularly with mosquitoes that come pretty damn close to them in size and ferocity.

 

[YRUSirius]

This seems a very bad idea, as my mother's favourite systems are GURPs and Rolemaster.

Hehe.

Does "archetypical" mother work better for you? I doubt that all the mothers of the world who just play monopoly with their kids would play rolemaster as their RPG of choice.

-YRUSirius

 

[ianleblanc]

I’m late to the party, I though I’d poke at a few ideas and see if they get more creative juices flowing.

Shields could be a straight up % to deflect a blow, and maybe keep its piddly AC boost it has traditionally had. Makes you harder to hit, and can even turn a "hit" into a miss on %. example: Buckler 5% + 1% per level (cap 25% at level 20), Medium Shield 10%, Tower Shield 30%... whatever, those numbers are merely illustrative at this point. The point is that when it comes to shields... size matters.

I think having a second percentile role gets rather complicated and gamy. Also it neglects the fact that blocking with a shield can still be rather painful (certainty bruising and winding the user and even potentially breaking ones arm). This would neglect HP being (at least partly) an abstraction philosophy that the designers have adopted.

I know about that table, but adding and subtracting from AC was a bit annoying.

Instead adding damage reduction vs certain types would be a simpler mechanic.

So light armor could give DR vs no type, medium vs one and heavy armor vs two types.

I totally get where you are coming from (having lived it as well), but I think that calculating DR on every hit is much longer than adding AC once at the beginning of the fight.

Players are fighting orcs with spears, ok everyone with piercing resistance gets +2 AC for the duration of the fights.

OR

Players are fighting orcs with spears, every hit against players with piercing resistance requires an additional subtraction (This calculation is also much easier to forget).

Also, making the DR scale with damage is night impossible. But with flat math, armor resistance in the form of +AC is much more feasible.However I very much like the idea of each kind of armor providing 0, 1 or 2 types of resistance. I just think that that resistance should be expressed as + to AC instead.

I'm not saying AC should be traded for DR; rather DR should be in addition to a high AC (at least higher than light armor: i.e. a high dex rogue should approach a heavily armored fighter in AC, but the tank gets DR as well))

The problems with DR (as much as I agree that it is intuitive), is that:
- It doesn’t scale well with damage.
- Doesn't account for very precise but low damage attacks.
- It requires significantly more additional calculations, which make it very gamey and prone to forgetting.

On the "difference between armor being better AC means you need more gold". My experience is that this is not a good approach. The thing is you dont really have that much trouble getting the gold together. Then you get it, and by level X you have Dragon plate. So everyone who is a heavy armor wearer wears dragon plate. Then what? There is only really 3 armor types in the entire game : the best light, the best medium, the best heavy.

I just find this a really boring result. I would much prefer that armors have reasons to wear them and reasons not to wear them. That each type of armor you came up with could stand on its own merits and not be defined by its (irrelevant) cost.

Definitely agree that this is a problem!

Possible solutions:
- Different armors offer different resistances (all heavy armors would resist 2 types of weapons, but it would be 2 different types depending on the armor.)
- Different armors affect different skills (chain mail -5 to sneak, scale mail -5 to athletics, plate -10 to swim, etc).
- Different armors break or are repaired differently

I really like the idea of having armors and weapons occasionally break. When a mob rolls a critical hit, there be a flat 10% chance that the players armor or weapon breaks. (broken armors could lose half of their AC bonus or something)
Might not be worth having this happen to mobs, as it could get long and distracting, but on PC’s it could justify the whole having to keep back up weapons and having to purchase new armors, with the best maybe not always available or affordable. Would also open up interesting skills like weapon/armor smith.