Low armor campaigns, why "compensate"?

[WizarDru]

But aurance makes and excellent point. Being "quick" doesn't necessarily translate to being able to survive in combat. A very fast swordsman who hasn't studied swordplay won't know what to expect from his opponent, won't be able to anticipate his opponent's attacks and won't be able to adequately deflect those attacks. There's a difference between being able to put your sword in a particular place quickly and knowing where to put it to best block your opponent's blow. Fighters know this, Rogues don't. The only flaw is the Monk class, who really (IMO) should get bigger hit dice.

I think the issue is that, all things being equal, when two equally skilled fighters clash, the one wearing the heavier armor will generally win more often, on average. What if that swordsman above has studied swordplay, and is equally as good with his rapier as the fellow wearing chain in front of him is with his rapier? I don't consider it a problem, but some folks see this as a problem...namely that one can't build an effective Dex-based swashbuckler style fighter with the same level of skill as a 'turtled' warrior of similar skill. If Inigo Montoya was wearing full-plate when battling the Dread Pirate Roberts, in d20 terms, he's more likely to win. Is that realistic? In some cases yes, and in others, no. That's why some folks use AC enhancement for low/no-armor characters.

Now, if dogbrain is running a game where everyone is running around without armor or low-armor, then he should make sure that his players understand either that combat is dangerous or make sure that his players aren't hoping to play a swashbuckling game, because the core rules don't encourage that without some modification, such as mook rules, action points, an alternate damage system or the like.

 

[smetzger]

Why is there so often an idea that one must "compensate" for a low-armor campaign by inventing AC substitutes? Why not make it plain to the players that it's going to be DANGEROUS to get into fights? That's what I've done, and it's worked rather well.

I don't think you need to compensate if you are running a Human Centric or a PC Race Centric campaign where most of the opponents are Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Orcs etc with only the occasional monster. However, if you try to run a more beastial campaign the players will get cut to shreds.

For example, it would work with Freeport but not RttToEE.

 

[Aaron2]

I think the issue is that, all things being equal, when two equally skilled fighters clash, the one wearing the heavier armor will generally win more often, on average. What if that swordsman above has studied swordplay, and is equally as good with his rapier as the fellow wearing chain in front of him is with his rapier? I don't consider it a problem, but some folks see this as a problem...namely that one can't build an effective Dex-based swashbuckler style fighter with the same level of skill as a 'turtled' warrior of similar skill.

My question is, if you have two characters of equal level, one of which is forced to depend on his equipment, why should both characters be equally effective?

I'm suprised no one has mentioned Expertise. I found that be removing its prereqs and +5 limit, it becomes an effective tool for low armor characters.


Aaron

 

[WizarDru]

My question is, if you have two characters of equal level, one of which is forced to depend on his equipment, why should both characters be equally effective?

I'm suprised no one has mentioned Expertise. I found that be removing its prereqs and +5 limit, it becomes an effective tool for low armor characters.

Someone did, unless you're saying something about Mustrum Ridcully. Expertise is fine and good, but it's value is somewhat mitigated by the -5/+5 cap, as opposed to power-attack, for example. Further, since it requires an Int 13, it's somewhat restrictive. Expertise is, for the most part, a poor substitute for armor...and it scales quite poorly.

My point was that D&D isn't granular enough to support certain combat scenarios, and that's why some folks look to modify it...and some folks don't like the D&D character dependence on equipment, either. I can see where, in the rapier vs. rapier/chainmailer, where it falls down in some folks eyes. But D&D is an abstract system...I think it's asking too much of the system to be granular and streamlined to that degree.

I don't happen to have a problem with either, as it happens....I'm just putting forth my opinion on why others have a desire for it.

 

[Endur]

While I agree that the argument below is the one most often cited, I disagree that it is true.

First, in a min-maxed high armor environment, every blow that matters will hit anyways. It is very easy for the party to min-max the barbarian's attack bonus to the point that the barbarian hits automatically unless he power attacks too much. Having played a number of melee oriented characters, I've never had a problem hitting targets (presuming they were supposed to be hittable).

Second,The high level fighter classes in a low armor campaign don't have to worry about excess hitting bonuses, since they have power attack and expertise to redirect their excess BAB somewhere else. And their iterative attacks may still miss.

Third, I prefer to keep rule changes to a mininum. So I don't see a need for a "defense bonus". I'm comfortable with using the usual rules in a no armor game (ship-board or desert).

Fourth, the rules are very complex. If you add a sophisticated parry and dodge system, the rules get even more complex and combat bogs down even further. If anything, I'd prefer a simpler system; I'm tired of high level large party combats that take over two hours to resolve.

First and foremost, without an AC "substitute" you very quickly get into a situation where just about every blow hits - and far from making combat dangerous and exciting, it makes it a predictable and dull HP contest.

The rest of it can be summed up in one sentence - removing armor makes it impossible to play the game as written.

 

[Umbran]

I'm suprised no one has mentioned Expertise. I found that be removing its prereqs and +5 limit, it becomes an effective tool for low armor characters.

In a standard game, anyone who can use armor and gets into melee a lot will use armor.

Given your suggested change, in that low-armor environment, anyone who can take the feat and gets into melee a lot will use the feat. If you make the feat indispensible, you've probably made it too good.

 

[Dogbrain]

What if that swordsman above has studied swordplay, and is equally as good with his rapier as the fellow wearing chain in front of him is with his rapier?

The guy wearing the chain shirt has a distinct advantage. This was well-known in the days of the duel, which is why professional swordmasters warned their students to make sure that their opponents proved that they were not wearing concealed armor, and the amount of armor that could be concealed under a padded doublet could be fairly considerable. There was loss of speed and mobility, but men whose lives depended on the matter considered the benefits of armor to outweigh the liabilities. Non-use of armor in duels was a matter of social convention, and only the monumentally ignorant would conclude that the rapier or "swashbuckling" could somehow "defeat" the armor of its day or that a "swashbuckler" was somehow innately better protected against the threat posed by his enemy than would be a man in armor.

I don't consider it a problem, but some folks see this as a problem...namely that one can't build an effective Dex-based swashbuckler style fighter with the same level of skill as a 'turtled' warrior of similar skill. If Inigo Montoya was wearing full-plate when battling the Dread Pirate Roberts, in d20 terms, he's more likely to win.

Armor was NOT defeated by the rapier, it was defeated by the gun.

 

[mmu1]

While I agree that the argument below is the one most often cited, I disagree that it is true.

First, in a min-maxed high armor environment, every blow that matters will hit anyways. It is very easy for the party to min-max the barbarian's attack bonus to the point that the barbarian hits automatically unless he power attacks too much. Having played a number of melee oriented characters, I've never had a problem hitting targets (presuming they were supposed to be hittable).

Second,The high level fighter classes in a low armor campaign don't have to worry about excess hitting bonuses, since they have power attack and expertise to redirect their excess BAB somewhere else. And their iterative attacks may still miss.

Third, I prefer to keep rule changes to a mininum. So I don't see a need for a "defense bonus". I'm comfortable with using the usual rules in a no armor game (ship-board or desert).

Fourth, the rules are very complex. If you add a sophisticated parry and dodge system, the rules get even more complex and combat bogs down even further. If anything, I'd prefer a simpler system; I'm tired of high level large party combats that take over two hours to resolve.

Hitting what? Monsters tend to have rather low ACs, and the main issue here is how the PCs (and NPCs) are affected by the removal of armor. I've had high-level characters with an AC in excess of 40 without even trying very hard.

And who's talking about a "sophisticated parry and dodge system"? It's a Class Defense Bonus we're talking about, about as "sophisticated" and complex as BAB and save bonuses... It's a much simpler solution than the alternative, which is the mess a game becomes when AC's suddenly drop through the floor.

 

[barsoomcore]

Well, you don't NEED to "compensate". But you do need to offer your players compelling reasons to NOT wear armour if you don't want them to wear armour. I mean, I guess you can say, "You can't wear armour, nah nah," if you like, but I know as a DM I like to provide REASONS for the decisions I make.

Barsoom is a low-armour world because I think that's cool. But I had to face the fact that in D&D, armour makes sense. There aren't many reasons to NOT wear armour, so if I want a less-armoured world, I need to come up with a new model in which armour is less helpful than it is in D&D.

There are two ways to do this: 1) by making armour "cost" more (providing less value for more pain) and 2) providing better alternates that relatively make armour less valuable.

I made the Armour Dex Penalty more restrictive on Barsoom -- armour makes you very clumsy and you can't do much of anything in it on Barsoom. And I provided a set of feats that allowed characters to improve their AC -- ones that let them use other ability score bonuses (like the Duelist's Canny Defense ability), one that let them use their base Reflex Save bonus (it rocks to be a rogue on Barsoom) and stuff like that. I also took away Heavy Armour Proficiency for fighters -- they have to take that as a feat like anyone else.

I got pretty much what I wanted -- a campaign where acrobatics and quick, clever, charismatic heroes outwit, outfight and outmaneuver crusty old tanks and dull strong-arm thugs.

The D&D model makes armour valuable. If you want a low-armour campaign, I don't see how you can do that without changing the model somehow, other than by meta-gaming DM fiat. Which isn't to my taste.

 

[aurance]

Which is why hit points are modifed by Constitution, ancient dragons are known for their ability to nimbly dodge blows, a hit from a scorpion you "dodged" by spending HP still forces you to make a save vs. poison, narrowly "dodging" a giant's club that's the size of a tree takes less effort than dodging a high-level halfling rogue's surprise attack with a nasty hat-pin, and a high level character can survive hitting the ground after falling from a 100' cliff by weaving (a crude parachute, perhaps?).

Hit points are an abstract mish-mash that's not represented by avoiding blows well at all, especially when you consider the nature of D&D healing magic as well.

Vitality points represent what you're talking about perfectly, but that's a different system.

Well, 2 concerns with what you're saying here:

1. Dodging and weaving is obviously not the entirety of hit points, but scaling evasion skill is built into hit points, along with all the systemic damage you are talk about, and some amount of luck. It's a combination of things. If there was no skill reflected in hit points, it wouldn't scale with class level.

2. Vitality points may reflect what I was talking about perfectly, but there's another problem. Systems with vitality points also have defense bonus, to compensate for the ability to bypass vitality points. Defense bonus measures combat dodging, so what do vitality points measure? The same thing? Why have vitality points then?

Just for clarification, I rather like the idea of a defense bonus. But having both a skill-scaling defense bonus and a skill-scaling hit point total seems really redunant. If you introduce defense bonus as your combat dodging mechanic, then you should probably remove combat dodging ability from hit points and leave only systemic damage capacity.