UA: Damage Reduction for VP/WP

[lord_banus]

I was having a read through the VP/WP variant in Unearthed Arcana and something struck me as very odd. It says that Damage Reduction is not counted on a critical hit. I find this a very odd ruling as I have always considered Damage Reduction to be more of an effect to reduce Wound Damage rather than vitality anyway. Damage Reduction has always been especially tough hides like stone skin. To me its more natual to include Damage Reduction in Wounds and Vitality. Wounds being the ability to reduce the effect of hits actually getting through and for Vitality to represent the character utilising the added toughness more effectively.

Do others agree or am I missing something.

 

[Jhulae]

I was having a read through the VP/WP variant in Unearthed Arcana and something struck me as very odd. It says that Damage Reduction is not counted on a critical hit. I find this a very odd ruling as I have always considered Damage Reduction to be more of an effect to reduce Wound Damage rather than vitality anyway. Damage Reduction has always been especially tough hides like stone skin. To me its more natual to include Damage Reduction in Wounds and Vitality. Wounds being the ability to reduce the effect of hits actually getting through and for Vitality to represent the character utilising the added toughness more effectively.

Do others agree or am I missing something.

A critical hit is supposed to represent 'punching through the armor'. With normal rules, even though your weapon damage is doubled to quadrupled, the DR remains the same.. your weapon will usually overcome the DR (poor rolls nonwithstanding). With the wounds/vitality system, weapon damage is *not* muliplied, and therefore DR is removed from the crit equation.

If something had DR 10/(whatever), there would almost be no way possible to do wound damage with a dagger or similar weapon. That's why it doesn't apply to wound damage, only vitality.

 

[lord_banus]

A critical hit is supposed to represent 'punching through the armor'. With normal rules, even though your weapon damage is doubled to quadrupled, the DR remains the same.. your weapon will usually overcome the DR (poor rolls nonwithstanding). With the wounds/vitality system, weapon damage is *not* muliplied, and therefore DR is removed from the crit equation.

If something had DR 10/(whatever), there would almost be no way possible to do wound damage with a dagger or similar weapon. That's why it doesn't apply to wound damage, only vitality.

I consider a critical hit to be hitting a vital location (head, heart, neck etc) rather than just getting through armour. This also explains why undead are immune to crits as these locations are not vital to them.

I do however see your point of DR being more effective if being applied to WP. However I think it makes DR too ineffective. I think a CR adjustment is in order, then again the CR on a creature with DR is going to be wildly different depending on whether the party can overcome or not.

I think that a dagger not being able to effect a 10/(whatever) creature is the whole point or DR. Sometimes you are just not going to be effective with weapons and you have to think of alternatives to deal with the situation.

 

[Jhulae]

I consider a critical hit to be hitting a vital location (head, heart, neck etc) rather than just getting through armour. This also explains why undead are immune to crits as these locations are not vital to them.

I do however see your point of DR being more effective if being applied to WP. However I think it makes DR too ineffective. I think a CR adjustment is in order, then again the CR on a creature with DR is going to be wildly different depending on whether the party can overcome or not.

I think that a dagger not being able to effect a 10/(whatever) creature is the whole point or DR. Sometimes you are just not going to be effective with weapons and you have to think of alternatives to deal with the situation.

Actually, it makes *any* weapon that does a D6 or lower in the hands of a character with strength 18 or lower, as well as almost every ranged weapon, ineffective.

It also makes any D8 or 2d4 weapon ineffective in the hands of someone with a strength of 16 or less.

Etc, etc.

So, it's not just a dagger, even though that is the extreme example.

Note also, that small characters, with their weapons scaled down as they are, also become ineffective in such a situation.

DR wasn't applied to wounds for a reason, and that's the reason.