D&D 5E Discussing Mr Rhexx Homebrew Armor

[Chaosmancer]

So, I've seen two videos now, one from Mr. Rhexx and one from, I believe it was the Dungeon Coach (who had talked to Mr Rhexx) and they both designed a homebrew armor system with the same basic rules. And Mr Rhexx just released a video announcing this and saying he's playtested this system over three campaigns, but.... I don't think it would actually do many of the things he is claiming it does.

Now, I'd test it, but all the games I have that sort of control over ATM are with brand new players and I've got no space to try messing with the rules. So, I figured the next best thing was to talk about it here, because... I don't know. I feel like there is a good idea here, but that this fundamentally doesn't work as designed.

Now, to be even more fair, I've not purchased his rule set, so maybe there are details missing from his explanation in the video, but here is the basics that I've got.

All AC is 10+Dex mod. If a monster attacks you and rolls less than 10 + dex mod, they miss you.

Putting on armor does not actually increase your AC, instead it gives you damage reduction.

Now, I want to pause here for a second. I think Dungeon Coaches proposed rules were that if the attack hits between your 10+dex mod and the AC the Armor would give you, then it still hits and you get the damage reduction, but you take full damage if it is over the Armor Class of the Armor. Mr. Rhexx's seems to be that AC is always 10+Dex mod and that getting hit at all while wearing armor gives you the damage. However, the damage reduction is "minimum 1"

Shields still increase AC as normal. Magical armor gives a +1 to AC and +1 to the damage reduction.


So... it would work like this, and I want to focus on Rhexx's rules for right now, because they are just simpler.

If a Rogue with a +4 Dex puts on Studded Leather armor, they have an AC of 14 and a damage reduction of 2 (12-10 = 2). If an attack would roll below a 14, they dodge. If it is over 14, they take the hit, but reduce the damage by 2.

The Paladin on the other hand, with a Dex of 10 has an AC of 10, and if they put on Platemail and a shield, then their AC increases to 12, and they have a damage reduction of 8.

Now, he claims this makes the Paladin "really feel like a tank" because they reduce the incoming damage so much, but they are getting hit constantly. And here is where I find my big initial problem with the base system. Let us say that these are mid-level adventurers. They are fighting an Owlbear, pretty standard. The Rogue still has an AC of 14, and with the Owlbear's +7 to hit, they are getting hit about 70% of the time, for nearly full damage. But, the Rogue could have only had +2 more AC, which would have dropped it to 60%. Meanwhile, the Paladin has an AC of 12, meaning that they are getting hit 80% of the time, and while they are reducing the damage by 8, the Owlbear averages 10 and 14 damage respectively, meaning that they are still taking 8 damage on average every turn. Meanwhile the rogue is not getting hit.

So, to me, while you take very little damage, at low-levels where you don't have a lot of health, you are just going to get smashed while the rogue is going to be doing about the same, and dodging attacks. (Also of note, Shield of faith and similar spells are supposed to increase the DR, not AC)

But, unless you start adding magical armor, this is it, these are the best armors. So what happens at CR 10 or so? Let's take a Behir, CR 11 and assume that the normal ASI progression has occured. The Rogue has maxed Dex, and the Paladin has focused on Cha, Con and Str. Rogue's AC is 15, with 2 DR. Paladin's AC is 12, with 8 DR

A Behir has an attack mod of +10. Now, the rogue, again, is not too far off from where they were before. They are only down two AC, and they are taking about the same damage. But, the paladin? They are getting hit 95% of the time. They will never not be getting hit. And while they reduce the damage by 8, the Behir is dealing 22 and 17/17 damage per turn. That means that you will basically always be taking 14 and 26 or 40 points of damage. That doesn't feel like a tank to me. That feels like a dead character. Even if we cast shield of Faith that only brings it to 36 points of damage.

But it gets worse.

There are two other rules he mentioned, and they are devasting for this paladin. The first is that if an attack has advantage, say from being restrained because you where constricted by a Behir, then your DR is halved. The second is that if the attack rolls 10 pts higher than your AC, then your DR is halved. That means the Behir needs to only roll a 12 or higher, to get a total of 22, and the paladin is only reducing 4 or 5 damage from that attack. Which means that they are taking between 48 and 46 damage every turn.


He's explained why he wanted a system like this, he's expressed a few frustrations. The limits on armor progression, caused by armor only having a single meaningful stat, the ability for even low to mid level characters to get ACs in the 20's which are nearly impossible for low CR creatures to hit. And worse if you have an AC stacking build like what a paladin or Artificer can do.

I like the idea of adding DR to special armors, giving more of a range of options where you can buy armor that is better than the standard, or with differing abilities so it isn't just purely "which gives best AC" but this method just seems to nerf strength based builds into the ground. Especially since he proposes to do the same for the monsters, so that Behir would be easy to hit, but have a DR of 4 I think, which of course a Barbarian could cleave through with advantage, but a fighter? A fighter is just dealing less damage and getting hit more.

Do people think I'm missing something here? I've seen a few places where this seems well-received, but it seems like it is just brutal to me.

Linking the video, if people want the source:

 

[Stoutstien]

As someone who came up with a similar system it does change the overall feel of how HP works. I personally still kept the general AC ranges of armor the same due to this.
Light armor ranges from 11-13+dex, medium armor ranges from 12-15+ dex(with caps) with DR ranging from 1-3, and heavy ranges from 14-18 with DR 2-5.

Shields are broken into 3 categories buckler (1AC), kite(2 AC),and full/tower (2AC-need 16 str to wield-adds 2 DR)

Where I addressed AC stacking is the back end. No Generic +X armor, shield spell adds DR not AC, generic infusions are also replaced with more flavorful options, and I introduce a logarithmic scale on any AC that goes over 25.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

@Chaosmancer, I have not double checked your math, but it seems legit. I own feeling is that armour as DR would be more realistic but need a compete reworking of the hit points and damage system and probably also the whole attack/defence mechanics also.

I would not simply drop such a system into the game without reworking all the maths of the game. It also changes the tone of the game fairly radically.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

This is exactly how Fantasy Age from Green Ronin works, but you have to be careful with damage reduction in D&D. In FAGE, the damage die are higher, so there's always a chance to deal some damage on a hit.

In D&D you quickly fall into the weird in-between where some enemies cant damage some characters at low level or damage reduction is barely useful at higher level.

There's also the problem that now every class will need to pump Dex to have somewhat of a chance to dodge an attack, no avoiding it by dumping it and wearing heavier armor.

Imagine some poor MAD class having yet another ability to augment, having to choose between their spell DC, their to-hit or not being squashed.

@UngainlyTitan as the right of it: it can work quite well, but it requires a reworking of damage and hp and ability score generation.

 

[Stoutstien]

This is exactly how Fantasy Age from Green Ronin works, but you have to be careful with damage reduction in D&D. In FAGE, the damage die are higher, so there's always a chance to deal some damage on a hit.

In D&D you quickly fall into the weird in-between where some enemies cant damage some characters at low level or damage reduction is barely useful at higher level.

There's also the problem that now every class will need to pump Dex to have somewhat of a chance to dodge an attack, no avoiding it by dumping it and wearing heavier armor.

Imagine some poor MAD class having yet another ability to augment, having to choose between their spell DC, their to-hit or not being squashed.

@UngainlyTitan as the right of it: it can work quite well, but it requires a reworking of damage and hp and ability score generation.

You just need a soft cap on reduction. So even if your DR could reduce it to 0 it deals X damage.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

You just need a soft cap on reduction. So even if your DR could reduce it to 0 it deals X damage.

But it does create a problem where reduction is barely worth it:

• it cant be too high to avoid being immune to low level attacks
• if a roll is 10+ over your AC, the DR is halved. But, if you dumped Dex and wanted to go for higher DR, your AC will be low, so qui easy to beat by 10+.
• if you are flanked, the DR is halved. Flanking is pretty basic since you dont provoke AoO while moving around a target.

Meaning, at higher level, not having pumped Dex will be hugely detrimental, because DR will barely do anything most of the time. Imagine a dragon claw attack: who cares if you have a DR of 7-10, if your AC is 12 because as a Paladin you already have to pump Str, Con, Cha (not mentioning Wis to avoid nasty saves), the adult white dragon you are facing will halve your meager DR 50% of the time. Anyway, with 2d10+6+1d8 3 times in a round, a DR of 10 is still pretty minimal.

In such a system, I can see Rogues (single stat Dex +Evasion + Uncanny Dodge) + Medium Armor feat (Shield + Medium armor for medium DR) being the best tanks.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I think you have the right of it.

Damage in D&D has too wide a range for something like this to work well. Against high level monsters with one or two attacks even 8 points of DR is practically meaningless. While against something like a Marilith, with a huge number of small damage attacks, it's a little too good.

Moreover, such a house rule ignores the important role that (RAW) armor plays in mitigating secondary effects from a hit. A creature that automatically grapples on a hit is going to have a much easier time doing so against AC~10 than AC 20, meaning that those kinds of effects are far more powerful under such a change.

 

[Mecheon]

I think the worst thing about this is the absolute benefits it gives to Dex, the one stat that absolutely does not need more buffs in 5E

 

[Ancalagon]

Another factor to remember is that this slows the game down.

Before: the average attack:
1: roll to hit
2: If hit, roll for damage
3: Apply damage to HP

Now we have:
1: roll to hit
2: If hit, roll for damage
3: reduce damage
4: apply damage to HP.

Sure, just one extra step... that is going to occur very frequently.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I have thought of another problem. In 5e low level monsters can act as minions at higher level encounters due to bounded accuracy. If you introduce DR and DR scales, which it would have to, or else you have to drastically flatten the power curve, then that use of low levels as minions becomes void.

 

[Ancalagon]

armor as DR definitely can be done - warhammer frpg 2nd ed for example does it quite well. BUT

1: It does slow down the game
2: It requires the game balance to be built around it.

I think it would require a "convertor" that would convert both damage and monster/PC hitpoints to new values. It's quite the undertaking...

also

3: what to do about barbarians?

 

[Fanaelialae]

I have thought of another problem. In 5e low level monsters can act as minions at higher level encounters due to bounded accuracy. If you introduce DR and DR scales, which it would have to, or else you have to drastically flatten the power curve, then that use of low levels as minions becomes void.

You could mitigate this issue somewhat by changing the DR to a range. For example, instead of a flat 8 DR, it could be 2d6+1. This would keep minions viable longer by giving them at least a chance to harm heavily armored targets.

That said, such a change would obviously slow down combat significantly more than even flat DR would.

 

[Stoutstien]

DR does slow down combat a tad but I haven't seen a big issue with it yet. It's faster than doing the math for resistance by a long shot.

A variant I've been playing with bit haven't paned into anything solid is DR reduces the static damage added to damage so they keep the random variable of dice but also give h armor the feel of DR. So a skeleton would attack the PC and thanks to heavy armor of DR up to 4 they only take 1d6 rather than 1d6+2.

the goal is a fast way to add in DR while also make sure low CR does and critical hits feel right.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

You could mitigate this issue somewhat by changing the DR to a range. For example, instead of a flat 8 DR, it could be 2d6+1. This would keep minions viable longer by giving them at least a chance to harm heavily armored targets.

That said, such a change would obviously slow down combat significantly more than even flat DR would.

Maybe but you are adding fixes to other fixes and I think that rebuilding the game with DR at the center of armour as a concept would be better but would it still be D&D

armor as DR definitely can be done - warhammer frpg 2nd ed for example does it quite well. BUT

1: It does slow down the game
2: It requires the game balance to be built around it.

I think it would require a "convertor" that would convert both damage and monster/PC hitpoints to new values. It's quite the undertaking...

also

3: what to do about barbarians?

I dunno about WHFRPG 2 but I played and ran version 1 for years and it also was DR system in effect. It worked well but the power curve in WHFRPG was very shallow compared to D&D.

I think to really make DR work in D&D you finish up with something that is not D&D.

I think that AC, HP and escalating HP per level are part of the core identity of D&D, among other things. This pretty quirky mess is out of the mind of Gygax and you mess with it at your peril.

I am not saying that cannot have a good game build around DR or that MrRhexx's system is enjoyable for some but to do it properly is it still D&D?

 

[Art Waring]

In D&D you quickly fall into the weird in-between where some enemies cant damage some characters at low level or damage reduction is barely useful at higher level.

This.

Armor as DR was a variant rule for 3e for a long time, I am not sure how their system is different than the original in 3e, but the concept has been around for quite a while. We tried it, I noticed that the players often barely noticed minor DR (1-2), but naything higher and lesser minions and monsters start to drop off in effectiveness pretty quickly.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I think if such a system would be implemented, the best way to do it would be to:
1) Have higher armors still add some defense, (+2 Medium, +3 for heavier) in addition to their reduction so that non-dex build arent auto-hit.
2) Have various shield give more defense against ranged attacks.
3) Instead of a flat reduction, reduce the damage die size instead by varying increments. So a hit will always do at least some damage (minimum 1+static mod).
4) Critical hit damage dice are never reduced in size.
5) Variant: have different DR against different damage type. (Chainmail: DR 3 vs Slashing, DR 1 vs Piercing, 0 DR vs Bludgeoning)

So a goblin with its 1d6+2 short bow, on hit against a DR 1 armor (say a leather armor), would only be 1d4+2. But against a DR 2 or 3, it would be reduced to 1 (minimum die reduction) +2.

 

[Cruentus]

I don't think it works particularly well with how DnD handles weapons and monster attacks. They'll "balance" monster attacks by giving more lower damage attacks, or less higher damage attacks, etc., which doesn't work well with a DR system.

I tried several different iterations of DR, and while they looked like they might work on paper, you'd have to re-do monster attacks to more closely mimic character attacks (and damage). Likely adjusting them all so that they do some damage on good rolls, but not too much on higher.

Its also difficult in DnD due to all the riders/extra damage that gets piled onto attacks (primarily from PC's, but some monsters) - smite, sneak attack, elemental damage add ons, etc. Monsters tend not to have those, but also tend to have damage all over the map.

The closest I've seen to a system that "feels" more "realistic" is in Wolves of God, an RPG in Britain after the fall of Rome. Shields provide +5 AC (so AC15 for all), I don't think Dex does anything, and armors can bump up this number to around 18 or so (heavy armors). And each time you miss an attack, you still do "shock" damage for the blow, amount varies by weapon, usually 1 or 2 points + str bonus. So a fight, even if you miss every round, still will end over several rounds as the shock damage wears down combatants. The other thing is has is the balance factor of it being mostly humans against humans. So all the values end up the same.

As for DR in 5e, as mentioned, it'd take a huge overhaul of how the system works to implement it, or at least re-working how Damage is done across the board.

 

[Stoutstien]

We do have a little bit of a baseline with the H armor master feat. I don't believe anyone has claimed it broke the system so DR can work within a certain tolerance.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

We do have a little bit of a baseline with the H armor master feat. I don't believe anyone has claimed it broke the system so DR can work within a certain tolerance.

Maybe but it has the failing other have already pointed out. It is over effective a low levels and useless at high levels.

 

[Chaosmancer]

There are a lot of good responses here, and a lot of things worth considering.

I do think "armor as DR" can work as a system, when that system is built for it from the ground up. DnD wasn't built for it, and I feel that leads to some bizarre things. Sure, DR helps you reduce low-damage attacks, but even by level 5 you have enemies like Hill Giants that hit HARD, but have slightly less accurate attacks. A fighter now would just get smashed by anything like that, because they cannot dodge and the DR isn't as effective against the high average damage.

I also agree that making Dex even more important for all builds is... rough.

Like the idea of, if you implement this, increasing the bonus from shields.

You just need a soft cap on reduction. So even if your DR could reduce it to 0 it deals X damage.

Pulling this out, I actually find this kind of a problem, and he did suggest a soft cap of 1. And maybe this gets to the different philosophies between me and the designer.

Previously, if a level 2 Paladin had chain, a shield, defensive style, and Shield of Faith, they could get an AC of 21. If they were then facing a squad of goblin archers, let's say four of them, then even if the goblins are hiding and firing from cover, they are very unlikely to hurt the paladin. They may get a lucky shot, but most of these blows just bounce off.

Now, this can be frustrating. As the DM, I hate missing and feeling like my monsters are powerless as much as I dislike it as a player. It is human nature, but the moment is awesome for the party.

Under this new system, the Paladin may only have an AC of 12, with a DR of 9. Now, especially with advantage, the Paladin is in deep trouble. Those goblins aren't going to miss, they are going to consistently hit that 12. If they have advantage, that reduces his DR to 4. So, he's taking 1 or 2 damage from every single shot.

Where before, the goblins were fleeing, because they could not hurt this terrible juggernaut, now the paladin will be forced to flee because they can't survive this onslaught for long.

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I do like the idea of including DR into armor. Heavy Armor Master is a fun feat and I like the idea of expanding on it, maybe making it a function of special armors, but I think adding DR without lowering AC is pure buffing to some strong classes, while lowering AC feels bad to me.