[UA] Armor as DR + Damage Conversion

[Li Shenron]

Do you think it would be possible to combine UA's variants "Armor as Damage Reduction" and "Damage Conversion"? What consequences of using both variants together can bring problems? At least it seems that Natural Armor issues are quite complicated...

Armor as Damage Reduction

Basically, divide the armor bonus to AC in half (round up) and that becomes the new armor bonus to AC, while the other half (round down) becomes DR. For example a Chainmail normally has +5 armor bonus, with this variant it has +3 armor bonus and DR 2/-.

Shields only give armor bonus, same amount as before.

Enhancement bonuses increase only to AC, not DR.

Natural armor basically is converted 80% to armor bonus and 20% to DR.

Damage Conversion

Of the damage taken from each blow, an amount equal to the armor bonus is converted into nonlethal damage. For example, with a chainmail (+5 AC) if you take 15 dmg, 10 is lethal and 5 is nonlethal.

A blow which is nolethal by itself has its damage reduced by the AC bonus. With the chainmail, a 15 nonlethal blow becomes 10 nonlethal damage altogether.

Shields don't convert any damage.

 

[Thanee]

Hmm... Damage Conversion basically makes it impossible, that someone dies in a combat, unless he is CdG'ed while unconscious. That kinda takes the danger out of regular combat, or not? Of course it puts quite an emphasis on death-type spells then.

Bye
Thanee

 

[reanjr]

Do you think it would be possible to combine UA's variants "Armor as Damage Reduction" and "Damage Conversion"? What consequences of using both variants together can bring problems? At least it seems that Natural Armor issues are quite complicated...

Armor as Damage Reduction

Basically, divide the armor bonus to AC in half (round up) and that becomes the new armor bonus to AC, while the other half (round down) becomes DR. For example a Chainmail normally has +5 armor bonus, with this variant it has +3 armor bonus and DR 2/-.

Shields only give armor bonus, same amount as before.

Enhancement bonuses increase only to AC, not DR.

Natural armor basically is converted 80% to armor bonus and 20% to DR.

Damage Conversion

Of the damage taken from each blow, an amount equal to the armor bonus is converted into nonlethal damage. For example, with a chainmail (+5 AC) if you take 15 dmg, 10 is lethal and 5 is nonlethal.

A blow which is nolethal by itself has its damage reduced by the AC bonus. With the chainmail, a 15 nonlethal blow becomes 10 nonlethal damage altogether.

Shields don't convert any damage.

I hadn't thought of that. Could be a good, simple Armor DR system. I think it would work pretty handily. I still like mine better though. I may be biased.

 

[JoAT]

I use both together. It seems to work fairly well. One thing, though - make sure that you use the reduced AC value for armor conversion, as other wise, it would get ugly. - AC +#, DR 2/- and converts 3 points off of each hit to non-lethal damage is not too bad, helps the party survive, but just a small bit longer. But if that came out s 5 points, then things would begin to get alittle hairy.

As a side note, adding in a small amount of Reserve Points for some classes makes armor really appealling, under this system...

 

[Li Shenron]

I use both together. It seems to work fairly well. One thing, though - make sure that you use the reduced AC value for armor conversion, as other wise, it would get ugly. - AC +3, DR 2/- and converts 3 points off of each hit to non-lethal damage is not too bad, helps the party survive, but just a small bit longer. But if that came out s 5 points, then things would begin to get alittle hairy.

Yes I was considering that damage conversion applied only to the reduced AC bonus, I quoted the effects of both variants separately but I should have made it more clear.

Good to hear that someone is already using this system! I am still far from adopting it really IMC, just giving it a first thought for the moment...

UA mentions that Armor as DR makes armored character stronger at low level but weaker later on when monsters deal more damage per blow. Did you find this effect to be very noticeable or not?

I like the idea of DR because it's simple and represents real armor better than the core rule IMO.
OTOH, the good benefit of damage conversion is to more easily recover between encounters (without magic) and to slightly decrease the number of casualties . It could also give arcane spellcasters a reason to risk ASF.

 

[Li Shenron]

Hmm... Damage Conversion basically makes it impossible, that someone dies in a combat, unless he is CdG'ed while unconscious. That kinda takes the danger out of regular combat, or not? Of course it puts quite an emphasis on death-type spells then.

Part of the damage is still lethal however, but it is probably very likely to drop unconscious because of nonlethal damage much before you are close to 0hp.

Also there are those that don't use armor... and conversion applies only to weapon damage, not spells for example.

 

[Thanee]

Well, as long as the DR from armor is higher than that DR x 5% of the average damage the attacker does with a single hit, it's a better deal.

So having a DR of 2/- is good as long as your opponents don't deal more than 20 damage on average. Then it would be better to have +2 AC instead.

Bye
Thanee

 

[JoAT]

It generally depends on what you're fighting - my campaign uses non-standard rules left and right, includeing a Class defence bonus (much smaller than the one in UA, since it's semi-compatable with armor), Gestalt rules, and a 1/4 XP progression. I will say though, that it's made those who are interested in more damage, more powerful, while the stings of a thousand needles are less so - you may want to examine things like TWF and see how to make it more powerful, or slightly weaken things like Power Attack.

 

[hong]

If you're going to use armour as DR, it might be a good idea to allow everyone to use pseudo-Power Attack as an option in combat: maybe -2 attack/+1 damage, or -1/+1 for a 2-handed weapon. Otherwise combat becomes heavily weighted towards whoever has the biggest weapon; this may be "realistic", but not very conducive to supporting a wide array of possible character concepts.

 

[Darklone]

I've seen a similar damage conversion houserule somewhere, it seemed to work fine with yet another change: You're not unconscious when your subdual damage is too high, you're staggered.