Creating a magicless AC system

[Gort]

In my experience in standard D&D, most of the magic items that get bought are those that increase AC. (Magic armour, magic shields, rings of protection, amulets of natural armour, bracers of armour) If a character does not have these, they're going to die pretty damn sharpish, no matter what class they are, once high enough levels are reached.

Since they're essential, why make it necessary to purchase them as characters level? In my eyes, this "standard" magic simply makes magic feel cheap and predictable. So, my aim is to replace all the natural armour bonuses, deflection bonuses, magical armour bonuses with a class AC bonus, ala D20 Modern, or Starwars.

Ideally, I want a class AC bonus for each class at each level, and then I can do away with all the AC enhancing magic. (Permanent stuff, that is. Naturally, mage armour and suchlike will still work)

So, the first step is to decide what magical bonuses a character "should" have at certain levels. The three major areas characters spend their equipment cash on are:

Weapons
Stat improving items
AC enhancement

I reckon characters spend roughly half their money on AC enhancement and the other half on stats and weapons. There are a few other items, but they're not major. (IMO)

So, we look at the character wealth by level table, halve the values, and buy the best combo of AC improvement with what we've got.

But, before I go into the nitty gritty, has anyone done this before?

 

[RangerWickett]

I just don't have AC-boosting magic items in my world. All magic armor provides nifty abilities, not AC boosts. I give everyone an automatic +1 bonus to AC for every 3 character levels.

 

[S'mon]

You could give (N)PCs a Conan RPG style Dodge/Parry type bonus equal to say half their BAB, which they lose when flat-footed.

 

[Piratecat]

Off to house rules!

 

[nothing to see here]

I hear ya...

for anybody trying a low-magic OR light armour campaign AC's will often become a big problem.

There are some feats out there which provide non-magical bumps to AC, but to be useful they end up being unbalancing (players who burn a feat on a 'super dodge' end up far more powerful than those that don't.

Next campaign we run will probably use a class based defense variant...the question is, which one?

Unearthed Arcana had a so-so variant, but pretty wonky in how it was front-loaded. D20 modern seems outright arbitrary. I've heard decent things about the Second World Sourcebook, though I don't have it.

Here's the variant what we're using...

1) Every class gets a defense bonus as it goes up in level.

2) Rather than look up a separate table, all you do is the following, for each class you have add the BAB + REF save and divide the result by 4.

3) Total the bonuses for each class.

And there you have it -- a moderate little AC bump.

As an example. If you were to compare 7th single class characters with this formula you'd find Fighters, Paladins, Rogues, and Bards and monks would have +2 Defense. Rangers would have a +3 Defense. Wizards, Sorcerers, and Clerics would have a +1.

By 20th level the highest AC bump a class could have (if it had the best BAB and REF save progression) would be +8.

Mind you, I admit it ain't perfect...so if anybody has a better variant, I'd love to hear about it.

EDIT...math mistake corrected.

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

I hammered out something a while back that I never got to play with. I added up all the magical AC bonuses of the NPC characters in the 3.0 DMG, averaged them, and distributed them over 20 levels. Your levels in various classes didn't matter, just your total HD.

 

[Gort]

Post a link, or email me it, I'd like to see it.

I think +8 is too low, personally. After all, an armoured character can have +5 on his armour alone! A starting character at level 20 can easily afford:

+5 armour
+5 shield
+5 Natural armour item
+5 ring of protection

...and get +20.

I think it should be based on whether the character is armoured, and whether they have a shield. So possibly +1 bonus per level for armoured, shielded characters, +.075 a level for armoured non-shielded characters, and +0.5 for unarmoured, unshielded characters?

 

[nothing to see here]

well, in our case...the defense bonus is not intended to be a full replacement for heavy armours and magic...just a supplament so that characters need not rely on these tools as much...So your 20th level fighter is not a lame duck when he wears +1 leather armour instead of +5 full plate.

Again, it may not be what you're looking for...just thought I'd float it out there..

 

[PennStud77]

The following ideas are not my own, they are a combination of many different sources I have read, as I combine sitting here at work without any of my sources in front of me. I know some of it is from UA, which I have and have read, and some is from several posts on a class-based defense system I have read on these boards.

Let's start simple at a +1 per level. I have read several systems that subtract the armor check penalty from the class defense when wearing armor, which I think is a good idea to somewhat limit the stacking of armor AC bonus and class AC bonus. This works best when you use armor as damage reduction, also, since (IIRC) the better armors have a very similar armor check penalty and AC bonus, which would make wearing armor at best the same AC bonus as going without, if using the class bonus. The way I see it, shield bonuses should stack with the class and armor bonuses, without going through the same armor check penalty reducing the class bonus, since it is extra; that will make wearing a shield still a benefit. The last thing is that I read an optional rule somewhere on these boards for parrying rules that was based off of dexterity. The reason I mention it here is that it adds a further reason to use light armor as the max dex for armor regulates your ability to do this.

 

[nothing to see here]

Now Pennstudd...those ideas I like!

I'm going to pitch them being adopted in our game...