Re: Gah. My third post is a critique. Don't hurt me.
Hi there oliver!
oliverhenshaw said:
Hi, yes the maximum dex in armour should be X+Strength bonus.
I tend to agree, although I haven't yet been able to do my final testing on this matter since I have been in busy communicating with publishers over the past few days (don't ask me to name names at this stage).
oliverhenshaw said:
That eases the niggling horror I've felt every time I saw this discussion.
My mantra all along has been simplicity.
oliverhenshaw said:
I don't think anybody's realised the problem with the idea of armour reducing dex to a minimum of 10.
And that is - why 10? WHY human average?
The reason 10 was chosen (for the previous rule) was because it denotes neither a negative or positive dexterity modifier.
oliverhenshaw said:
There's nothing special about it from the PoV of a huge sea turtle for example. And what happens if a creature should naturally be slower than a human? There seems to me to be no reason why a naturally armoured creature shouldn't be slower than an average man.
eg. Another reason was that Dragons dexterity does not go below 10.
So from that we can surmise that creatures who evolve natural armour will be so accustomed to their (excess) weight/bulk that it won't
negatively affect them.
Personally I would say they
could go below 10 for some creatures but their natural armour would need to be (proportional to size remember) better than Full Platemail.
oliverhenshaw said:
But the max dex thing is great. Really.
Specifically which bit? The strength thing!? Anubis deserves the lion share of the credit there I think.
oliverhenshaw said:
There are some other problems nobody seems to have pointed out, afaik. Armour as damage reduction screws daggers completely.
Remember piercing weapons halve armour bonus.
Chainmail is only +2 armour bonus vs. daggers (or arrows, bolts, spears etc.)
oliverhenshaw said:
A knife or dagger should command a healthy amout of respect, but anyone wearing chain shirt has little to fear now.
Perhaps you missed the above rule? Easily done. I have often commented that trying to pick up the rules piecemeal from these posts will be a lot more difficult than finally having the work itself in front of you.
oliverhenshaw said:
Perhaps criticals should ignore this 'mundane' damage reduction (from armour and natural armour) instead of providing a multiplier.
This was another factor we used ourselves in 2nd Ed. but I am not sure its necessary for 3rd Ed. That said, I will know better after I finish my testing of this point.
oliverhenshaw said:
Or maybe you should be able to choose whether to penetrate armour or do increased damage (against a lightly or unarmoured opponent) when confirming a critical. Against undead, constructs etc. you can only penetrate armour. I think I read you already have some differences between weapon damage types, so adding this should not cause to much trouble. And at the moment, to me at least, it looks like easing complications.
I agree.
oliverhenshaw said:
Then there's names of bonuses. In short, you've made armour and natural armour give damage reduction.
In effect yes.
oliverhenshaw said:
and added a new bonus, that adds to AC in the normal way and stacks with other named AC bonusses, called Supernatural Deflection.
Yes, necessary to explain Outsider ACs. (the Succubus being the 'ever quoted' and most obvious example)
oliverhenshaw said:
This is simple, but I've noticed you tending to use the word 'deflection' as a catch-all for traditional AC-like bonuses, even though it's already a type of AC-like bonus. Please make sure you avoid this, as it's going to confuse and destroy anything new you try to do with AC/DR.
Within these optional rules everything that adds to AC is either DEFLECTION or AVOIDANCE (like Dexterity).
ARMOUR: be it manufactured, natural or damage reduction (supernatural armour) always reduces damage.
oliverhenshaw said:
And you need to decide how magic item enhancements work.
I have.
Armour enhancement bonuses add to the armour bonus.
eg. +5 Full Plate reduces damage by 13.
Any item that previously added to AC still does and is considered DEFLECTION. So Amulets of Natural Armour still add to AC. (Amulet of Deflection would be a more appropriate name)
Any item that creates DR still does.
oliverhenshaw said:
Armour enhancements would create a force effect that acts as DR and doesn't stack with Armour, Barkskin (and possibly magic items that thicken skin to give NA) would create a Natural Armour DR that doesn't stack with Natural Armour, and there'd be amulets (priced as existing amulets of natural armour) of Supernatural Deflection that add to AC and don't stack with other sources of Supernatural Deflection. All other AC bonuses would remain Ac-like and obey the same stacking rules as before.
I agree. The simplest method is just to have all magic items that added to AC still do this - even if they are called Amulet of Natural Armour. Magic items/Spells that add to ARMOUR create Damage Reduction.
oliverhenshaw said:
So, in total, you have one less source of AC and two sources of armour DR, which stack with each other.
Yes.
oliverhenshaw said:
Oh, and armour DR stacks with traditional 3e DR how?
Simple. They stack.
eg. Balor DR 30/+3, +9 Natural Armour.
Therefore the Balor reduces up to +2 weapons (or worse) by 39, +3 weapons (or better) are reduced by 9.
oliverhenshaw said:
I hope some of that's been useful to everyone on this thread. It seems the best way to explain this whole variant armour business (without rocking low level play to it's core or introducing vagueness into the stacking rules and leaving it open for abuse)and avoids the potential of it souring what looks and sounds like a great, well executed set of rules for high level play.
Thanks!
oliverhenshaw said:
If any of this looks like the bad kind of criticsm, it's because I've been trying hard to be clear, rather than nicely worded.
Don't worry about that mate! I appreciate the interest and/or concern.
