I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
It's considered optional for monsters, too...you could use damage conversion, or just keep that a unique feature of constructed armor that natural armor can't benefit from.
And yes, critters with a high natural armor + damage conversion = unconcious things. You just coup de grace them, so no biggie, but some campaigns and character types may be iffy with it.
They recommend not using it for creatures that don't take subdual damage, since that basically gives them an obscene DR (they negate damage = to their natural armor), and just use regular AC for 'em.
Which is why when I implement damage conversion IMC, it's not going to apply to natural armor, it's just a feature of manufactured armor. Also going to use that for Armor as DR.
Basically, I want there to be a reason other than expedience for a guy to traipse around in full plate, or even a monster to do it. Armor, IMO, has kind of gotten the shaft, and I want to help it along a bit. Wearing full plate with DR and Damage Conversion means that you ignore 4 points of damage, and 4 is only subdual, so that if you're in full plate, an average goblin can't hurt you without getting really lucky (rolling a crit). But someone with Mage Armor wouldn't have that benefit, despite being able to add +4 to someone's AC. And monsters with tough skin also wouldn't have that benefit. It means there's finally an *edge* with armor, and that I like.
As far as I can tell, rules like Domain Wizards (where you don't give up anything in exchange for some power, thus applying power creep) are not in the common, and usually happen only when trying drastic overhauls of the system. For instance, the Spell Points system by 'default' issues power creep by having wizards prepare their list of spells for the day (instead of, when they're preparign spells, dictating how much SP to devote to any one spell). This adds versatility to them, and, in compensation it is suggested to give Sorcerers and Bards slightly more power (one extra spell per day of every spell level except their highest). This means that the PC's will be better prepared, and can last slightly longer. It's not likely to have a GIANT effect, but it's enough that it'll play havoc with adding something sorcerer-esque to the system. If you use the Dragonlance spontaneous divine caster, for isntance, they're now weaker than other spellcasters in your campaign.
A way to solve that is pretty simple -- instead of preparing their spell list for the day, make prepared spellcasters assign specific SP to specific spells when they're prepping. This works like preparing in slots, except the slots are measured in points (which still makes them slightly more flexible in general terms, since they could cast two of their highest instead of one highest and half a dozen others, but all classes benefit from that). Unfortunately, that's prolly not going to make the Wiz or Cleric happy, but it does preserve the original balance without tempting y ou to add more spells/day to the Sorcerer. Though, again, it might not be worth the anger and frustration just to save you from one extra Magic Missile at fourth level...that's not really very powerful, y'know?
And yes, critters with a high natural armor + damage conversion = unconcious things. You just coup de grace them, so no biggie, but some campaigns and character types may be iffy with it.
They recommend not using it for creatures that don't take subdual damage, since that basically gives them an obscene DR (they negate damage = to their natural armor), and just use regular AC for 'em.
Which is why when I implement damage conversion IMC, it's not going to apply to natural armor, it's just a feature of manufactured armor. Also going to use that for Armor as DR.
Basically, I want there to be a reason other than expedience for a guy to traipse around in full plate, or even a monster to do it. Armor, IMO, has kind of gotten the shaft, and I want to help it along a bit. Wearing full plate with DR and Damage Conversion means that you ignore 4 points of damage, and 4 is only subdual, so that if you're in full plate, an average goblin can't hurt you without getting really lucky (rolling a crit). But someone with Mage Armor wouldn't have that benefit, despite being able to add +4 to someone's AC. And monsters with tough skin also wouldn't have that benefit. It means there's finally an *edge* with armor, and that I like.
As far as I can tell, rules like Domain Wizards (where you don't give up anything in exchange for some power, thus applying power creep) are not in the common, and usually happen only when trying drastic overhauls of the system. For instance, the Spell Points system by 'default' issues power creep by having wizards prepare their list of spells for the day (instead of, when they're preparign spells, dictating how much SP to devote to any one spell). This adds versatility to them, and, in compensation it is suggested to give Sorcerers and Bards slightly more power (one extra spell per day of every spell level except their highest). This means that the PC's will be better prepared, and can last slightly longer. It's not likely to have a GIANT effect, but it's enough that it'll play havoc with adding something sorcerer-esque to the system. If you use the Dragonlance spontaneous divine caster, for isntance, they're now weaker than other spellcasters in your campaign.
A way to solve that is pretty simple -- instead of preparing their spell list for the day, make prepared spellcasters assign specific SP to specific spells when they're prepping. This works like preparing in slots, except the slots are measured in points (which still makes them slightly more flexible in general terms, since they could cast two of their highest instead of one highest and half a dozen others, but all classes benefit from that). Unfortunately, that's prolly not going to make the Wiz or Cleric happy, but it does preserve the original balance without tempting y ou to add more spells/day to the Sorcerer. Though, again, it might not be worth the anger and frustration just to save you from one extra Magic Missile at fourth level...that's not really very powerful, y'know?
