Splitting armor into slash, pierce, and bludgeon

[kenjib]

Has anyone tried breaking up armor class into three different numbers, slash, pierce, and bludgeon? This could add some new dynamics to different armor types and weapon choice - for instance, plate armor would be very good against slash but not as good against piercing, padded armor might be a little better against bludgeoning that it is against slash and pierce, etc.

Dodge bonuses, dexterity bonuses, enhancement bonuses, and the like would not be effected, only natural armor bonuses and armor bonuses.

I'm just curious to know if anyone has thought about this at all.

 

[Crothian]

No, I think this would give PCs less of a reason to wear armor then they already have. As it is few people like to use any armor orther then light. Adding this mechanic makes things more complicated and will slow down combat.

 

[sepulchrave]

Good idea in theory, but in practice bludgeon includes sap and quarterstaff (vs. plate?), whereas a greatsword (slash) is historically good against plate. You'd have to add, say, "chop" and "crush" to the weapons descriptors and reassign things like battleaxes and maces.

This is really a backdoor way of introducing simplified "weapons vs armour type" adjustments. Not that I mind that, but it causes all kinds of problems wrt. natural armour (dragons = plate?). If you want this effect, maybe penetration (a la Grim-n-Gritty) is the way to go.

 

[Thorvald Kviksverd]

No, I think this would give PCs less of a reason to wear armor then they already have.

Actually, not if you're careful to include an armour type "none", with a few bonuses for piercing and/or slashing weapons versus it

Kenjib--

I think it would work fine, just be careful to balance things. As you probably already know, I love the modifiers from 1e, but I think they got things wrong in 2e--why would anyone NOT use a bludgeoning weapon (bonuses with no penalties IIRC).

That table in the 1e PHB would probably be a good starting point, just to get a "feel" for the different weapons' capabilities, before you start simplifying.

Perhaps you could assign each weapon a modifier vs None, Light, Medium, and Heavy, based on the numbers you find there.

Or even take it a step further, and assign Pierce, Bludgeon, and Slash a modifier vs each of these four categories.

Happy Tweaking

 

[Thorvald Kviksverd]

Good idea in theory, but in practice bludgeon includes sap and quarterstaff (vs. plate?), whereas a greatsword (slash) is historically good against plate.

This is why I still like the modifiers from 1e, they treat each weapon on an individual basis.

Incidentally, as long as these values are recorded beforhand on the N/PC sheets, I never found them to slow play.

As for "monsters", I tended to ignore them in all but the most unusual cases--for example, certain obviously armoured monster types might be treated as wearing plate or scale.

With the individual attention many humanoid monster types get wrt armour in 3e, I think these modifiers would be able to be applied even more widely than in previous editions.

 

[sepulchrave]

Incidentally, as long as these values are recorded beforhand on the N/PC sheets, I never found them to slow play.

My experience was the same, and I find it really tedious that people complain about "adding an extra layer of mechanics" or "slowing down game play." It doesn't. You can pregenerate a matrix which is easy to refer to, but in time I found that even this became unnecessary - with practice, you simply remember the values.

The 1e values ARE really hokey, though, and need a lot of tweaking. Some of the penalties are extraordinarily high (-9 etc.). I've dabbled on and off with reviving the system, but never found anything altogether satisfactory. For me, like armour DR and the hit point thing, it's one of those perennial gripes that comes up once in a while, I fiddle with, and then put down again.

 

[Larcen]

One of the things that bugged me about the 1e charts is that they treated ACs with a shield the same as ACs without.

AC4 was AC4 whether is came from chain and shield, or splint with no shield. Excuse me if my numbers or off, but you get the idea.

Seems to me, something like a flail would make a big difference against a shield where it could wrap around (ignore) the shield altogether.

My 2 coppers...

 

[Thorvald Kviksverd]

Larcen--

Yeah, that always bugged me a little too--then I decided it was one molehill that I could ignore
Besides, it's better than the current system which doesn't even attempt to account for the differences--a dagger is as likely to hit vs plate as a mace is vs no armor, and vice-versa...now that REALLY bugs me!

Kenjib--

I'm going to try a little exercise here, hopefully it won't prove pointless--I haven't written it down or really thought about it, I'm just going to convert straight from the 1e PHB as I type

I'll begin by assuming that:

• None=AC10
• Light=AC9-7
• Medium=AC6-4
• Heavy=AC3-2

Then I'll average the old modifiers present in each category (>=.5 rnds up) to generate a new one...

(crosses fingers)

[color=red]

WEAPON       NONE     LIGHT     MEDIUM     HEAVY

Battleaxe     +2       +1         -1         -3

Club          +1        0         -2         -5

Dagger        +3       +1         -1         -3

Fist          +4       +1         -1         -6

Flail(h)       0       +1          0          0

Flail(f)      -1       +1         +1         +2

Halberd        0       +1         +2         +1

Hammer         0        0          0         +1

Mace(f)       -1        0          0         +1

Mace(h)        0        0          0         +1

Pick(f)       -2       -1         +1         +2

Pick(h)       -1       -1         +1         +1

Scimitar      +3       +1         -1         -3

Spear          0        0         -1         -2

1/4Staff      +1       +1         -1         -6

Sword,

 Bastard       0       +1         +1          0

 Broad        +2       +1          0         -3

 Long         +2        0          0         -1

 Short        +2        0          0         -3

 2-Hand        0       +2         +2         +2

Bow,

 Long Comp    +3       +2          0         -2

 Sht Comp     +3       +2          0         -3

 Long         +3       +3         +1         -1

 Short        +2       +2          0         -5

Crossbow,

 Heavy        +4       +4         +2         -1

 Light        +3       +3          0         -2

Javelin       +1        0         -2         -5

Sling,

 Bullet       +3       +1          0         -2

 Stone        +3       +1         -1         -5

[/color]

Hey, that's not as bad as I feared...

There are a couple of values that need tweaking--but, all in all, not bad

 

[trentonjoe]

Have you guys seen the weapon descriptions in 2E Combat and tactics? They pretty much gave every weapon some sort of bonus.
Blunt weapon generally had +1 or+2 to hit vs. plate armors, piercing weapons helped against chain type armors, and so forth.

Hope that helps. Your work so far seems pretty darn good. ALthough I would change the x-bow modifier. Those things seem to ALWAYS go through heavy armor. Well, at least in the movies they do!

 

[Ravellion]

I think you should try and put Armours in different categories for this purpose, something along the lines of:

None
Soft (Leather, Padded, Hide)
Light Metal (Studded, Chain Shirt, Chain)
Plate (Breastplate, Banded mail, full and half plate)

This basically marks Hide down and Breastplate up.

Do with it what you will.

Rav