Natural Armor vs Damage Reduction

[daTim]

I was contemplating how Natural armor and Damage reduction could interact in monsters. Lets take an animal like a Rhino for instance. It has skin several inches thick in some places, and is tough enough to make an attack from a dagger just about useless. Is this just really high Natural Armor, or something more like a small ammount of DR... say 2/-? It doesnt make sense if its just really high Natural Armor to me because something like a longsword could hurt it (since it can penetrate farther) but a dagger couldnt... unless a very strong person weilded it... but that doesnt make sense. Am I just thinking about this too much? How would you represent an animal that had a hide tough enough to turn a dagger?

 

[Bauglir]

Armour in general doesn't make much sense if you look at it too closely. Someone in fullplate is effectively dagger immune too..

 

[hong]

If a human d00d armed with a 3-foot-long sword can't kill a 40-foot-long dragon, it ain't D&D.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

It's the way armor in D&D works. Plus, even an elephant or a big blue whale could be hurt with a dagger - you just have to find the right spot (Go for the eyes, boo, GO FOR THE EYES! )

 

[kramis]

stuff

This is just the simplification the 3e system uses to deal with armor ... all armor adds to AC not DR. While less realistic, it is far simpler to deal with. DR in 3e is left to weird special abilities, either magical or supernatural or extrodinary, but never just because of something being thick (unless someone is shooting at you when you are hiding behind a door, but that's another issue).

As was said earlier, it doesn't make sense if you think about it too closely, but it's convenient for simplified combats. You find other systems that get arbitrarily more realistic, but get more complicated just as fast.

 

[CRGreathouse]

Armour in general doesn't make much sense if you look at it too closely. Someone in fullplate is effectively dagger immune too..

Daggers are extremely effective against full plate. Many types of daggers were specifically designed for this purpose.

(You might be near-immune to a club, though.)