Weapons as AC: It's about time...

[JVisgaitis]

There's no need to go reinventing the wheel.

Neither one of these address the problem. The issue is when a fighter is unarmed, he is just as easy to hit as when he is armed. AC is still what it is whether a character is defenseless or not. If someone gets disarmed in a movie, they are by nature a lot easier to hit and it makes sense.

Having a separate unarmed AC brings up way too many fiddly issues. Having a class based defense bonus that goes away when a character is unarmed makes no sense either since its more then just parrying incoming strikes.

I like MarkB's suggestion. If you can't threaten a square, your AC drops by X points. It addresses the problem and its an elegant solution that only applies to melee. The reason I like -5 is that 25% more likely to be struck makes more sense to me. Monks threaten squares, so no problem there.

 

[airwalkrr]

Here is my simple version of the rule.

You apply your base attack bonus as a bonus to your AC against melee attacks as long as you wield a melee weapon or shield. This bonus does not stack with the bonus granted by armor.

Armor is still important for defense if you get disarmed or against ranged attacks, but you can still defend yourself adequately with only a melee weapon.

To add a slight level of complexity/realism if you desire, a light weapon grants a bonus equal to your BAB - 4 and a two-handed weapon grants a bonus equal to your BAB + 4.

 

[JVisgaitis]

Here is my simple version of the rule.

You apply your base attack bonus as a bonus to your AC against melee attacks as long as you wield a melee weapon or shield. This bonus does not stack with the bonus granted by armor.

:\ Um, I don't get it as it doesn't address the problem. If it doesn't stack with armor, my armor class is still the same whether I'm using a longsword or nothing as long as I'm wearing armor.

 

[Warbringer]

I like the Unearthed Arcana approach (as it is kinda in the middle of both ideas - class progression and AC), though I'd add...

1) if you do not threaten you suffer a -4 penality...
2) you may choose to parry or to dodge... if you parry add STR bonus, if you dodge add DEX bonus to your AC
3) attacks from creatures or weapons more than 2 size categories larger than you cannot be parried, only dodged.

 

[Ninja-to]

You start out saying it's "really odd" that a character shouldn't lose AC for being unarmed, but you close by accepting that a character can defend himself with a worthless stick. You want realism, but you also want Crouching Tiger kung-fu moves. That's pretty inconsistent. Why don't weapons matter in D&D defense? Because they often shouldn't. It's not realistic that having a knife in your hand should affect someone's chances of shooting you with a ranged weapon, or that the huge chances that some monster's two-ton claw should be parried by a rapier.

In the end, I don't see any benefit really gained here, other than some sense of verisimilitude that starts to fall apart once the combats stop being between humanoids with melee weapons. Mechanically, it doesn't provide any special advantage. Indeed, D&D's combat system really needs to allows for hits to exceed misses, not equal or fall short.

Granted, ranged weapons shouldn't *normally* make a difference against someone who's armed with a sword... but perhaps with a feat? Just like monk's can snatch arrows, why can't a highly skilled swordsman cut them from the air?

A two-ton claw... ok. Let's say this two-ton claw is coming down on your average Joe the Adventurer.

He dies. Chances are, his BaB is not going to be anything close enough to overcome the sheer strength and attack bonus of the creature with the two-ton claw, so the rule survives and your point is moot (god I hate that word but too lazy to think up another).

Now let's take Bob the Epic Paladin (with a Rapier, ok fine). That two-ton claw might well be deflected at least in part by this rapier. This guy is 'epic' after all. He's got skills, and strength to match. The two-ton claw creature might actually have a hard time in an arm wrestle with said epic paladin, he's 'inhumanly' strong (thanks to his epic magic items).

To be honest your points against my suggestion actually supported my idea, though I'm sure you didn't think so as you wrote them.

How is wearing full plate going to stop a two-ton claw from crushing you to death? Wouldn't a rapier perhaps at least have a shred of hope, at maybe stabbing said claw and causing the creature to recoil? Or better yet, someone with epic strength/skill armed with a rapier probably could deflect your two-ton claw without blinking. This is fantasy, and like a good movie, though we know it's fake, we'd still like it 'believable'. A man in full plate and armed with a sword, the man next to him in full plate with no sword... both just as easy to hit is not 'believable' at present. A single knight in shining armour takes on a great worm red dragon in combat and wins. Fantasy, but believable. Nobody complained that Gandalf took out a Balrog while falling into the Abyss with his sword. It was fantasy, but believable because it was 'magic' and didn't violate any established rules. The rules were set within the framework of the story. It was Gandalf the grey, who has magic. Had it been Frodo taking out that Balrog with a whisk I'm sure Mr. Jackson would have gotten far less little gold statues for his shelf.

I'll say it once more for clarity: Fantasy is not a genre above and beyond realism. Without realism, no story will hold together, and D&D is an ongoing story like any novel or movie. Suspension of belief is everything or you lose your audience.

I could play Paychecks and Paystubs if I wanted *just* realism and no fantasy (see 1st edition). But what I wanted was 'more' realism in a fantasy setting, specifically in terms of how being armed or unarmed in D&D makes absolutely no difference to how hard you are to hit.

Rather than rant and attack the suggestion of how to fix it (by using BaB), offer your own ideas like most others. If you think an armed character's AC should be exactly the same as someone unarmed then that's fine. However nearly everyone here has agreed that being armed or unarmed *should* make some difference to how easy a target you are, which is really the only point I was trying to make.

As is what usually happens on forums people forget to read the original post and start ranting on tangents. Using BaB for AC was merely a suggestion and not the point of this thread.

 

[Ninja-to]

The problem with this is it doesn't take into account range weapons. One, a sword would be pretty useless against arrows, unless you allow for jedi-type deflections. Two, it makes no sense that holding a bow or a crossbow would give you extra AC. But if you don't give them extra AC, all the archers would just target each other instead of tanks because it's so much easier to hit other archers.

As I posted just now we could fix this with a feat. Because deflecting ranged weapons with a melee weapon is pretty 'buff' and hard for all but the most skilled, then the feat may require high dex as a pre-requisite or high levels, or simply say that melee weapons don't reduce your AC vs ranged (just as it wouldn't vs a spell saving throw).

As what's been suggested, BaB might be re-written as 'Base Defense Bonus' and could be on a seperate table for each class. Also, a bow could be treated like an improvised weapon. You've seen the crazy stunts Jackie pulls off with skis and refrigerators etc...

If you go with 'feat required' rule then it won't make any difference who the archers aim at. They're just as likely to hit the melee fighters in full plate than the archers in full plate, unless they're unlucky enough to come up against a highly skilled swordsman who can cut them as they fly (which we've seen in movies and read about in fantasy).

I also think that people are kind of forgetting something here. The idea that holding a melee weapon in your hands helping you defend yourself is by no means guaranteeing your safety. If you have a bow in your hand and people are shooting at you with theirs, your bow isn't going to help much (let's say it's an improvised melee weapon) and you're most likely going to get drilled. But perhaps either by amazing fluke (a lucky roll) or by fantastic, epic skill, the arrows lodge or deflect off the length of the wood of your bow?

So make it a feat if you want to deflect using melee vs ranged, or nullify it completely against ranged. Make it vs strictly melee or any melee attacks that come against you. Perhaps this defense bonus doesn't apply to some special cases (two-ton claws) based on DM ruling. It also really depends on how you describe things in game as well. Perhaps that snapping dragon bite from the Huge red isn't being 'blocked' or deflected, the dragon is simply being held at bay by that nasty, glowy sword that only recently stabbed it in the thigh and gave it a grievous wound. The sword is as much a psychological 'shield' as it is a weapon.

It might sound complicated after all these posts, but it can be stated fairly simply:

Base Defense Bonus: Applies only when a medium or heavier melee weapon is wielded by the defender. Does not apply to AC vs ranged attacks or in circumstances the DM does not approve, such as a dreaded 'two-ton claw' (though as stated above this seems perfectly acceptable to me. If I was a monster with a two-ton claw I still wouldn't want to drive it down on the end of a great-sword).

 

[Sir Sebastian Hardin]

An excellent thread on the wizards boards was started here.

http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?p=13788852#post13788852

The basic idea is as the topic of this thread. You can read the original poster's thoughts for the gist.

How many times has the villain stripped the hero of his weapon and then the fight is 'over' as he puts the blade to his neck, then somehow the hero regains his sword and the fight ensues again. Princess Bride had a lot of this, Star Wars (all that lightsaber telekinesis stuff), Rob Roy, all the Zorro films, and on and on. Come to think of it, when Zorro did all his sword work, not a single foe, Zorro included, wore any armour whatsover. In D&D it would have been endless carnage and there's nobody that would've come out unscathed.

A weapon should definitely count as a defense. It's really odd having a fighter in full plate, unarmed, being just as unlikely to hit as when he's wielding his sword.

Player - Ok, I disarm the BBEG.
DM - Ok, his sword drops.
Player - I attack!
DM - Ok... AC is exactly the same. Hmm... hold on. Um yeah... it's the same.

I mostly agree. But this mostly happens when fighting an un-shielded character. With these ideas, I think I come to a valid option:
-When a guy has a shield and he loses his sword, he would still be defending almost as effectively.
-And when you have a Shield, you almost won't parry with your weapon but with your shield.

So here's the thing:
-Make shield bonuses higher (maybe up to +5)
-Give Weapons a shield bonus to armor class, less than most shields depending on the type pf weapon (maybe up to +3) Axes, for instance would deal more damage, but would be worse for defending (maybe +1 bonus)

What do you think?

 

[WhatGravitas]

The easiest thing for that is: If a character is unarmed, opponents get combat advantage against him.

Okay, I have no clue what combat advantage will be, but in the "Core Mechanic"-article, it sounded like a generic bonus you get, when your opponent is surprised (possibly allowing sneak attacks). That sounds very similar!

In 3.5 terms, this would mean, that characters without a weapon for defence are automatically flanked... flanked means you cannot parry the blows of two opponents at once, only of one - if you're losing your weapon (and hence your parries), you are always in that situation, and hence perpetually flanked.

Cheers, LT.