"That spear would have skewered a wild boar!" : Should Heavy armor negate crits?

[Ridley's Cohort]

I voted yes for plate.

There seems to be resistance to making heavy armor as relatively good as it should be, because it would blow the flat math -- I have seen that very argument made in older editions. Making its advantage be in related but orthogonal direction is a good thing.

While we are on the topic, we should ditch Mithral and Adamant as non-magical special material that stack onto magic. Special materials should be prerequisites that allow certain kinds of enchantments to be added, not a pseudo-magical property. IMNSHO, Frodo mithral shirt would be modeled as +5 Medium Fortification.

 

[Abstruse]

To me, platemail means, you can't be critted. You still take incremental damage...but two horses charging at each other with +extra damage on a crit weapons like lances, that to me is the definition of "auto-crit". If platemail didn't negate that, poor Henry the VIII would have died many times over. In fact, a hit was determined by the lance shattering on impact.

Definite boar-skewering damage every time. vs plate guy? Not so much. Let's do another round, good chap!

Holy crap, you posted a picture that proves my point! For one thing, tournament lances and the sort of lances they used in actual warfare are two different things. The lances were made to shatter on a clean hit so it would be easier to tell (no instant replay or electronic sensors back then).

But let's look at that armor for a moment. If an attack was going to get through that armor, were would it go? I see 1) Eye slits 2) Neck/under the helm 3) Under the arm (which leads to the heart and lungs) and 4) between the thigh and knee (which takes out the leg and can bleed a lot...don't ask how I know, just trust me). So if you get through those defenses other than just hitting with a strong blow, you're going to do some serious damage.

Now look at someone in leather armor (I tried for 10 minutes to find an image of historical leather armor and gave up because we pretty much moved to metal armor for most armies as soon as we had the ability to make it and it sort of decomposed so we don't have very many artifacts left...also, turn safe search on, trust me). It's not nearly as effective at protecting all areas of the body as the plate armor above. The softer material doesn't turn away as many blows, so any blows that do get through are less likely (per blow) to hit a vital area.

Therefore, the man in the plate armor is going to be hit with a damaging blow less often than the man in the leather armor, but any blow he does get hit with is going to be far more likely to hit a vital area.

Edit: Oh, and there were fatalities in tournaments, though they were far more rare than shown in movies and TV. But a shattered lance has been known to go exactly into the places I just mentioned far more frequently than I'm sure the jousters would've liked.

 

[Gorgoroth]

I'd like to see monsters crit on occasion and be scary. So I'd lean toward no, though I'd be fine with a specific magical armor that can sometimes negate crits.

It really depends on the rest of the system. If hit points are low, monster crit damage is high, and we're observing too much swing due to crits, then sure, crit can be negated by heavy armor (or there could be a chance for it to be negated). If monsters are challenged because of PC defensive abilities, then the occasional crit to create some swing for the monsters is not a bad thing, and crit negation is not needed.

High level monsters should be able to crit through platemail too...special ability? also someone mentioned specific weapons that are good to pierce through platemail...long bows were good at that. During the reign of Henry the 5th longbows were invented precisely to do exactly that, pierce early platemail. Later plate (e.g. field or full plate), was thicker, so no piercing for you, Mr longbowman.

So all of a sudden, you have a few specific weapons that can negate the crit negation. Opening up tactics. I like the different costs of plate armor gradients to provide different immunity vs crits. And certain monsters can bypass crit immunity, whether it be acquired by mundane or magical means. A dragon can still chomp through your armor with its teeth and get you. Or hook you with its claw as it stomps on you. But for regular plate...full plate should still be like a cat trying to bite into the can of tuna. Not gonna happen.

Henry the 8th full plate covered EVERY inch of his body, including the backs of his legs and his butt. He was locked in, indestructable. Not saying he wouldn't get a concussion if whacked on the head enough times with a mace, but that's more of an argument that bludgeoning damage could bypass the crit immunity than anything else. Similar to how it bypasses the DR or AC in a weapon type vs armor ruleset.

 

[MarkB]

I voted against the concept for two reasons.

First, I think critical hits are an exciting reward for exceptional rolls that everyone enjoys, so I wouldn't want to see entire classes of opponents become virtually immune to them.

Second, I think heavy armour should protect against more than just critical hits.

That would tend to bring us back to DR, which has its own inherent problems, so let me suggest an alternative: All physical attacks against heavy-armoured characters have their damage dice reduced one size.

So a 1d10+5 damage roll becomes 1d8+5, or 2d6+3 becomes 2d4+3.

This would take some getting used to at first, but I think people would become accustomed to having a second set of damage dice set aside for heavy-armour targets soon enough, after which it shouldn't significantly slow down play.

 

[F700]

No.

Any added effects to armor require rebalancing hp for all classes, whether it's dr, reducing damage dice, increasing hp, or anything else.

Not worth the trouble. Starts a slippery slope.

Armor increases ac. Leave secondary effects to magic armor.

 

[Gorgoroth]

...

Holy crap, you posted a picture that proves my point! For one thing, tournament lances and the sort of lances they used in actual warfare are two different things. The lances were made to shatter on a clean hit so it would be easier to tell (no instant replay or electronic sensors back then).

....

Therefore, the man in the plate armor is going to be hit with a damaging blow less often than the man in the leather armor, but any blow he does get hit with is going to be far more likely to hit a vital area.

Edit: Oh, and there were fatalities in tournaments, though they were far more rare than shown in movies and TV. But a shattered lance has been known to go exactly into the places I just mentioned far more frequently than I'm sure the jousters would've liked.

Ok, welll I see we are going to disagree on this, but it's funny you should mention shattering lances and going through openings in the armor, because I just watched a show about Henry the VIII charging without his visor down, and despite the lance shattering and shards flying into his helmet, it did provide him enough to protection to not be seriously hurt on top of that, despite the visor being up!

So I disagree, the hits that do get through those cracks are nonetheless less likely to do critical damage. Look at the size of that lance!! It's huge. They made plate armor fitted so tightly, everything was pinned into plate and there was no where to puncture!! I do get your point about the AC threshold being higher in plate so let the crits though, but I disagree.

To me a crit should be a rare thing...it sucks to have paid all this gold and narratively speaking you get critted all the time. Those are the things the player will remember. You die by crits, not by a thousand cuts. I don't think that's very tank-like. I guess I am still arguing for DR, but in a roundabout way. In Pathfinder, big monsters bypass all DR, so I don't see why they can't also bypass crit immunity, say, if they're two sizes larger than you.

This is simple enough to use in real play and has more advantages than not. But the idea that it should be only magical plate that does it...hmmm, they already have that. Nobody goes oooh, and ahhh over some item property that's extremely rare and only provides a small % chance to negate crits.

It doesn't gel well with the KISS philosophy. This is away to get DR on platemail or magic chain/scalemail for "free", in terms of rules complexity.

And it makes the jouster feel like a tank. Sure they'd die historically. But this rule is a LOT more realistic than, every time anyone does damage to you it's a critical. I hate that. (we can just agree to disagree at this point).

 

[DonAdam]

Someone else on these boards suggested expanding the advantage/disadvantage mechanic to damage, and making all damage rolls against heavy armor users have disadvantage.

I like the kernel of that idea since it bypasses the problems of DR. It could also be helpful in damage type vs. armor type modular rules.

 

[Abstruse]

also someone mentioned specific weapons that are good to pierce through platemail...long bows were good at that. During the reign of Henry the 5th longbows were invented precisely to do exactly that, pierce early platemail. Later plate (e.g. field or full plate), was thicker, so no piercing for you, Mr longbowman.

That's actually one of the oddities of the historical soup that is D&D, with armor and weapons used through pretty much every era of history especially European history.

In the real world, pretty much every advance in armor or weapons was in response to the other. You have armor made from thick leather that my sharpened stick or stone axe won't get through? I'll make a metal sword. You made a metal sword? I'll make little bits of interlocking metal rings your sword can't cut through. You made chainmail? I'll make a heavy weight on a stick. You made a mace? I'll make overlapping bits of metal plate. You made plate armor? I'll make a bow with metal arrows that can punch right through it. You made a longbow? I'll make my plates thicker and with chain under it to deflect and catch your arrows. You made full/field plate? I'll make an automatic bow that can fire with more mass and velocity that can punch straight through your new armor. You made a crossbow? Well I'll...ummm...I'll...screw it, give me a gun and I'll just shoot the bastard.

That's also where we get all the umpteen thousand polearms used in D&D. Army A used one type of weapon or shield, so Army B would figure out a way around it, so Army A would change their armor/shield design to counter that, so Army B changes their weapon design to fight the new armor/shield, so Army A changes their armor/shield to protect from that weapon and on and on. You also got more varieties of polearm because it was easier, faster, and cheaper to carve a pole and mount a metal tip on it than it was to make an entire metal weapon. It was also lighter, which meant you could either add more length for greater reach at the same weight (and level of exhaustion for your soldiers) or you could keep it lighter and the same length and have your solders get exhausted for less quickly.

 

[Blood & Bones]

I voted "Yes - Magic/Special Only." I think it would be a neat feature for some magic or special armor, but I don't think mundane armor should have it. No real logic... just how I feel.

 

[Argyle King]

Ok, welll I see we are going to disagree on this, but it's funny you should mention shattering lances and going through openings in the armor, because I just watched a show about Henry the VIII charging without his visor down, and despite the lance shattering and shards flying into his helmet, it did provide him enough to protection to not be seriously hurt on top of that, despite the visor being up!

So I disagree, the hits that do get through those cracks are nonetheless less likely to do critical damage. Look at the size of that lance!! It's huge. They made plate armor fitted so tightly, everything was pinned into plate and there was no where to puncture!! I do get your point about the AC threshold being higher in plate so let the crits though, but I disagree.

To me a crit should be a rare thing...it sucks to have paid all this gold and narratively speaking you get critted all the time. Those are the things the player will remember. You die by crits, not by a thousand cuts. I don't think that's very tank-like. I guess I am still arguing for DR, but in a roundabout way. In Pathfinder, big monsters bypass all DR, so I don't see why they can't also bypass crit immunity, say, if they're two sizes larger than you.

This is simple enough to use in real play and has more advantages than not. But the idea that it should be only magical plate that does it...hmmm, they already have that. Nobody goes oooh, and ahhh over some item property that's extremely rare and only provides a small % chance to negate crits.

It doesn't gel well with the KISS philosophy. This is away to get DR on platemail or magic chain/scalemail for "free", in terms of rules complexity.

And it makes the jouster feel like a tank. Sure they'd die historically. But this rule is a LOT more realistic than, every time anyone does damage to you it's a critical. I hate that. (we can just agree to disagree at this point).

I don't really see how the part I bolded proves what you are trying to prove. During combat tours I've done, I've been in situations where IEDs exploded near me. Some of those had shrapnel incorporated into their design and/or exploded in such a way to send debris in my direction. The armor I wore covered my torso; my face and extremities were exposed. On one of my arms, I have several scars from shrapnel; I don't have any marks on my face.

My point is that -if we're looking at realism, armor, and pieces of things flying around- I think the behavior of lance fragments not hitting someone in the face during a joust is more a product of chance than a quality of plate armor negating a 'critical hit.' I do believe armor helps, and my own experience makes me agree that armor will deflect shrapnel. However, I do not feel what your saying necessarily proves the point you're trying to make.

Armor helps; armor typically doesn't make weapons irrelevant.