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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Eldritch_Lord" data-source="post: 5863881" data-attributes="member: 52073">Instead of requiring two-party knowledge like 1e attack vs. defense modifications, one could modify defenses so that they generally work well against certain attacks without the attacker or the defender requiring specific knowledge of the other party's weapon/armor types.As an example, take 3e's damage types and damage reduction.  Weapons deal one or more of slashing, piercing, and bludgeoning damage, and DR can be penetrated by one of those types.  So instead of saying "Maces and flails are good against full plate and weak against leather, while rapiers are good against leather but weak against full plate" one can instead grant full plate DR 5/bludgeoning and leather DR 5/piercing.  That way, someone attacking with a rapier just has to say "I deal 10 piercing damage," and the DM subtracts 5 HP from the guy with full plate or 10 from the guy in leather.  The more generality and the fewer corner cases you introduce, the better.Likewise, when dealing with edge cases like daggers going into visor slits of prone opponents or longspears dealing with ogres and dragons better, take a step back and look at the larger picture.  Is is that the dagger a special weakness of full plate?  No, it's that thin weapons that can be maneuvered into weak points are good against heavily-armored people.  Likewise, longspears aren't giant-slaying machines, rather two-handed weapons are good against larger opponents due to their extra reach and force.  So make the rules reflect that, with whatever granularity you find appropriate (e.g. "Light weapons add Dex to damage against targets in heavy armor" or "piercing weapons deal +10 damage when dealing a coup de grace against a prone target" or whatever) rather than trying to recreate the attack-vs.-AC interaction matrices from 1e.</blockquote>

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