Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="John Quixote" data-source="post: 48619" data-attributes="member: 694">And last, but certainly not least....Armor and DefenseThis is more of a late-blooming house rule, since I particularly loathe the idea of d20 Modern's armor giving only damage reduction, and not an AC bonus.  I wondered how the idea could be added to D&D without unbalancing the game and making it near impossible to critically hit someone in full plate worth a damn, and I finally came up with a system of damage reduction based on the material instead of the AC bonus.  Under this system, characters have two defensive qualities: Defense and Armor Class.  They work much the same way, but only one is ever active at a time.   Defense = 12 + Base Reflex Save + Dex Mod + Miscellaneous   Armor Class = 10 + Armor Bonus + Dex Mod + MiscellaneousCharacters wearing armor figure their armor class normally.  Unarmored characters use Defense.  Monks (as usual) are a special case, given that they already have inherent unarmored AC bonuses.  Instead of considering the monk's wisdom bonus an AC bonus, figure the monk's Defense normally, as above, and treat the class based bonus as armor, described below.ArmorArmor remains unchanged from the standard system in that it provides a bonus to a character's AC.  While armor is worn, the AC is used instead of the character's Defense as the target number of attack rolls.  Most of the time Defense is the better number, making the character harder to hit without penalizing spells and skill checks.  The advantage is that armor reduces mortal damage.Hit point damage is unaffected by armor.  Mortal point damage, however, is reduced based on the quality of the armor's material, its hardness, and a function of its general stopping power.  Remember, the AC bonus represents its ability to deflect a blow, while the DR value is its absorbtion (it's for this reason that magical armors' deflection enhancements don't increase the DR, only special materials do).Padded Cloth: 1/-Leather Jerkin: 1/-Studded Leather: 2/-Chain Shirt: 2/-Hide Armor: 2/-Scale Mail: 3/-Chainmail: 4/-Breastplate: 3/-Splint Mail: 4/-Banded Mail: 3/-Half-Plate: 5/-Full Plate: 5/-Armors other than padded, leather, studded, and hide may be made of special materials that increase DR:Mythrill: x1.5Adamant: x2Likewise, dragon-hide doubles the damage reduction value of hide armors to 4/-.A monk has inherent mortal damage reduction euqal to half his Wisdom bonus plus one-fifth his level.  Shields provide no damage reduction, but still grant their AC bonus.Spell Failure: I never liked arcane spell failure.  For one thing, if you use a class-based Defense bonus, it's no longer neccessary because wizards and sorcerers will have okay ACs anyway, to say nothing of bards and their good Reflex save.  Therefore, it's a good idea to replace the percental spell failure with a special "check penalty" equal to -1 per 5% of spell failure.  The penalty applies to the "spell roll" represented by a spell's DC.  For example, studded leather and a buckler used to be AC +4, 20% spell failure.  Under this system, they're still AC +4, but now the studded leather grants DR 2/- against wound damage and a bard wearing these two pieces of armor would have a -4 penalty to all his arcane spell DCs.Epic Heroes Get Theme Songs!This is perhaps the single most important house rule you'll ever hear (I promise!).  Upon reaching level 20, player characters get theme songs.  I don't mean lame songs they make up themselves (Joxur the Mighty, anyone?).  I mean real songs.  Led Zepplin's "Ramblin' On" is a great choice for rangers and Halflings, what with all the LotR references.  Rush (The Necromancer, By-Tor and the Snow Dogs), Pink Floyd (Brick in the Wall Part 2), and Aerosmith (Dream On) also make good choices for the rock & roll type adventuer.  Warrior characters may wish for something more classical, so the Connan sound-track is essential.  As for your religious types, clerics and paladins are best to make do with hyms and chiors, while monks and Buddhist chants go great together.  Finally, I recommend the sound-track of Final Fantasy VII to any character who does not fall into the above categories, such as the aforementioned technologist class.  Hey, if the shoe fits...</blockquote>

Verification