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Message: <blockquote data-quote="BriarMonkey" data-source="post: 5536530" data-attributes="member: 95387">I've looked at the role of armor a few times in the past, and in so doing did some research.  One of the most telling things I found was a short series on The History Channel, of which I can't recall the name anymore, where a medieval arms expert sought to enlighten the modern world on how things worked back then.  This covered things such as jousting, the crossbow, insert gobs of other bits, and armor.The show on armor was enlightening.  They had various people in various forms of armor, even up to the "plate mail" version (they didn't include the jousting armor - that was in the jousting show).  The common thread - if you were trained in the wearing and use of the armor, you were no less agile.  These warriors could get up, roll around, navigate obstacles, and do whatever else was needed of them.The caveat of course, was that they were wearing properly fitted armor, and that they were trained.However, what did suffer was endurance.  Even in good shape, you can only fight effectively for so long wearing an iron suit.In D&D terms, we have proficiency to demonstrate training;  we have a maximum Dex penalty to demonstrate the idea that you are hampered more by armor (which isn't really accurate); we have penalties if you sleep in heavier armor (sorta nods to endurance); we have arcane casting penalties (again a bit off the mark if you are proficient); and we have times for doning or removing armor.  Those are core bits.Moving toward reality can be done a little, but if it is done too far, then one starts impacting the whole abstraction of the D&D combat environment and trading simplicity for book keeping.To keep things simple, I agree that armor should have a DR rating.  It should both help deflect blows and it should help absorb damage.  Deflection is why things like helmets are rounded.  With that, the afore mentioned UA's armor rules for DR are not a bad place to start (and is something I will prolly be looking hard at for my next game).  Though, you may also want to revist the shield's role in combat as the D&D version is woefully inadequate (but works ok for this level of abstraction).As to the other bits about HP - that is an area that is often railed over and one that for my purposes, is okay the way it is.</blockquote>

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