Natural Armor by Type

[Viktyr Gehrig]

Aside from Dragons, what creature types generally have the best natural armor values?

I'm using a variant of Armor as DR and Class Defense Bonus in my house rules, but I've noticed that my rules break down in spectacular fashion when dealing with anything with a particularly large natural AC bonus.

One thing I'm considering is taking monsters of certain types and halving their natural armor (before calculating DR and Conversion), and making up (some) of the difference with a form of Class Defense Bonus based on their Monster HD.

Obviously, Outsiders and Dragons should have at least Medium Defense-- I'd say Good, but few are noticably dextrous and nearly all have some natural spellcasting ability. Constructs and Undead generally have other benefits, including DR, so I don't need to compensate them as much-- they can probably sit on Poor Defense. I'm torn on how to handle in-between creature types.

 

[Drowbane]

It might be easier to adjust the Variant so that Natural Armor is still an AC/Defense modifier rather than DR. Dragons (at least the High HD ones) usually have both High Natural Armor and some DR...

Sorry if this doesn't help

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

It might be easier to adjust the Variant so that Natural Armor is still an AC/Defense modifier rather than DR. Dragons (at least the High HD ones) usually have both High Natural Armor and some DR...

Star Wars Revised does this; it's one of the few irritating rules I can think of about it.

At this point, I'm allowing them to use half their natural armor, following my "standard" natural armor rules-- using the new natural armor value, half rounded up becomes Damage Conversion and half rounded down because x/adamantine Damage Reduction. If they're attacked by a non-magic adamantine weapon, they can still benefit from their x/magic DR, but they don't get to add it to their natural armor.

For this purpose, it seems that Dragons and Outsiders are the only creatures that cause this problem-- nothing else has natural armor values quite that insane. Earth Elementals are tough, but they can generally at least be beaten into unconsciousness (which is generally all that's necessary, unlike Dragons), and the weapons that would be most effective against them also tend to be armor piercing.

Had to rework Constructs, mainly Golems. They halve their natural armor, and only get to use the DR portion of it-- but their natural armor is X/-, and they use either their X/- or their x/adamantine against any attack, depending on which would be more effective.

 

[DanMcS]

Aside from Dragons, what creature types generally have the best natural armor values?

I'm using a variant of Armor as DR and Class Defense Bonus in my house rules, but I've noticed that my rules break down in spectacular fashion when dealing with anything with a particularly large natural AC bonus.

One thing I'm considering is taking monsters of certain types and halving their natural armor (before calculating DR and Conversion), and making up (some) of the difference with a form of Class Defense Bonus based on their Monster HD.

Obviously, Outsiders and Dragons should have at least Medium Defense-- I'd say Good, but few are noticably dextrous and nearly all have some natural spellcasting ability. Constructs and Undead generally have other benefits, including DR, so I don't need to compensate them as much-- they can probably sit on Poor Defense. I'm torn on how to handle in-between creature types.

You made armor work as DR/adamantine, right?

Natural armor is thick hide. Make it DR/piercing. Then you can make it as high as you like. Dragons have nothing to fear from clubs or axes, but a well-placed arrow or lance will ruin their whole immortal-lounging-on-a-pile-of-gold day.

Edit: Then for stuff for which DR isn't hide, but is natural toughness, like earth elementals and iron golems, make it work like armor and remove the distinction.

 

[Sir Brennen]

Natural armor is thick hide. Make it DR/piercing. Then you can make it as high as you like. Dragons have nothing to fear from clubs or axes, but a well-placed arrow or lance will ruin their whole immortal-lounging-on-a-pile-of-gold day.

You might also want to check out the variant combat rules of Sonofapreacherman's website (he was one of the authors of Weapons of Legacy). It's pretty interesting, with the main changes being Armor as DR and Dex substituting for Str on all attack rolls (not just ranged.) Piercing weapons typically halve DR.

And in answer to your other question, outsiders generally have very high natural armor.