Damage reduction instead of AC? Please Help.

[Seaver]

Hey all,

Okay here's the situation. We're going to be starting a new campaign this weekend.

Something we have been discussing is using certain armor bonuses to provide damage resistance rather than AC. For example armor, shield, natural armor, and armor enhancement bonuses may provide damage reduction. Bonuses to AC from deflection, insight, divine, and so on would still provide bonuses to AC.

Can any of you out there point me towards some resources that would provide some example methods of handling this?

Published resources are preferred over house rules due to the belief by some in our group that published sources have been play tested to some extent and are therefore more likely to be balanced.


Thank you.

 

[Henry]

Moved to D&D Rules.

 

[Seaver]

*sigh*

So no resource advice Henry?



Oh and now I have Herman's Hermits singing in my head over and over and over.

 

[kreynolds]

Something we have been discussing is using certain armor bonuses to provide damage resistance rather than AC.

Spycraft uses DR based armor.

 

[IceBear]

Moved to D&D Rules.

Shouldn't this be in house rules? Maybe I'm not reading the question right, but it seems like they want to change the way armor works in 3E *D&D* which would be a house rule.

IceBear

 

[The Halfling]

Well, Arsenal from Perpetrated Press has rules for using armor as damage reduction. I also believe that the REVISED Star Wars d20 handles armor in this fashion also.

 

[Seaver]

Shouldn't this be in house rules? Maybe I'm not reading the question right, but it seems like they want to change the way armor works in 3E *D&D* which would be a house rule.

IceBear

Nope. We aren't so interested in house rules as I mentioned, nor are we wanting to change how things work in 3E.

We aren't playing 3E D&D, we are playing d20.

I can understand there being some misunderstanding though. The examples of what we were thinking about are just ideas we were coming up with off the top of our heads, not actually what we are going with.

We would prefer something that's hopefully been tested so that we don't have to, hence the desire for a selection of established, published rules to pick from.

Speaking of which thanks for the advice all. By the way I did a search on "d20 damage reduction instead of AC" and Arms and Armor from Bastion Press came up as having damage reduction rules for armor. Anyone out there that can provide additional feedback on how they handle it?

One review that I saw said it seemed to overly complicate things a bit. No need to explain how they do it or anything, just a simple, "I do/don't like it," will do.

Again, thanks all.

 

[IceBear]

Yes, but *this* is the *D&D Rules Forum*, not the D20 Rules Forum, and hence why I said it's a house rule (I immediately assumed you were talking about a rule for a D&D campaign just because it was in this forum)

Since there isn't a D20 Rules Forum I can see why it was moved here. However, since most people in here are probably more familar with D&D than the other D20 products, maybe if this question was in the D20 Publisher's Forum you would get some better responses.

IceBear

 

[AuraSeer]

The problem with giving DR instead of increasing AC (or Defense) is that it becomes trivially easy to hit people at mid-to-high levels. Even noncombat characters will have attack bonuse that increase faster than opponents' AC. That skews the balance of all kinds of other things-- spells, weapon properties, even class special abilities. (Assassin types just love low-AC characters.)

 

[Seaver]

Hey what the heck I'll help hijack my own thread, I'm on lunch break now anyway so productivity be damned.

I agree, I don't think it really belongs here. I didn't really have a question about rules, it was supposed to be a question to collect book titles where this type of rule existed. Again I can easily see how my goal was misunderstood.

I kinda agree with you about it belonging in Publishers because of the desire for titles. Either that or I think better yet d20 System & OGL Games to get some simple feedback as well as names.

Hey if a mod wants to be really nice they could drop it in Publishers for a few hours then off to d20 System & OGL Games to get all sorts of input.