Homebrew Whacky Half-Formed Idea for Armor as DR...

[JohnSnow]

Okay, I know it's been done a thousand times, but I've started enjoying a lot of the rules I'm seeing in games like Dragonbane, Daggerheart, Nimble, and Vagabond where armor reduces the damage of an incoming strike. But I also know that one of the things I want to avoid is slipping yet another roll into the mix, so here's my crazy, half-formed, idea: the Armor DR Dice Ladder!

In short, armor reduces the damage from attacks by cranking down the damage they do, following the dice ladder.
d12 -> d10 -> d8 -> d6 -> d4 -> d3 -> d2 (1 hp?) -> 0?

As an entirely untested system, light armor would reduce it 1 steps, medium armor 2 steps and heavy armor 3 steps (minimum 1d2). I am totally open to these shifting, but this is just an example to lay out the skeleton of the idea.

A long sword used 2-handed against plate (1d10) would drops down the dice ladder 3 steps -> d8 -> d6 -> d4.

A dagger? Except on a critical hit, or some kind of armor bypassing strike, it's ineffective against a plate-armored knight. I am also open to the idea that, say, d4 (or d3, or whatever) is the bottom of the ladder. So this is the point where knights in armor start wrestling with each other to try to shove a dagger through the other guy's visor.

This is an entirely untried and untested concept, it just hit me as I was perusing ideas for armor as DR, so I'm tossing it out to the community to see if anyone likes it enough to develop it further.

This probably could or should go along with radically altering how hit points work, as well as the damage monsters and spells do. And obviously you'd want to think about effectiveness of armor against different kinds of attacks.

 

[Distracted DM]

That's a very fun idea! You're going to find people arguing with the idea that a dagger isn't going to be able to hurt heavy armor, and I think a lot of peoples first instinct is going to think about how this would work in dnd5e.

This would likely also require reworking weapons though, which would probably just make it a headache. Making it so a mace could hurt plate armor etc.

But I wouldn't say give up on it ... Using the dice chain is definitely an interesting idea.

 

[aco175]

I'm not sure it is an easier idea than just reducing the damage based on the armor. I might just lead to people trying to use the biggest weapon all the time to limit the reduction to nothing. The problem I would have as the DM is the extra time and questions from the players about type of armor the monster is wearing and how much is taken off. Times each combat.

Maybe something with reducing one step for medium and two for heavy armor.

 

[aramis erak]

Okay, I know it's been done a thousand times, but I've started enjoying a lot of the rules I'm seeing in games like Dragonbane, Daggerheart, Nimble, and Vagabond where armor reduces the damage of an incoming strike. But I also know that one of the things I want to avoid is slipping yet another roll into the mix, so here's my crazy, half-formed, idea: the Armor DR Dice Ladder!

In short, armor reduces the damage from attacks by cranking down the damage they do, following the dice ladder.
d12 -> d10 -> d8 -> d6 -> d4 -> d3 -> d2 (1 hp?) -> 0?

As an entirely untested system, light armor would reduce it 1 steps, medium armor 2 steps and heavy armor 3 steps (minimum 1d2). I am totally open to these shifting, but this is just an example to lay out the skeleton of the idea.

A long sword used 2-handed against plate (1d10) would drops down the dice ladder 3 steps -> d8 -> d6 -> d4.

A dagger? Except on a critical hit, or some kind of armor bypassing strike, it's ineffective against a plate-armored knight. I am also open to the idea that, say, d4 (or d3, or whatever) is the bottom of the ladder. So this is the point where knights in armor start wrestling with each other to try to shove a dagger through the other guy's visor.

This is an entirely untried and untested concept, it just hit me as I was perusing ideas for armor as DR, so I'm tossing it out to the community to see if anyone likes it enough to develop it further.

This probably could or should go along with radically altering how hit points work, as well as the damage monsters and spells do. And obviously you'd want to think about effectiveness of armor against different kinds of attacks.

Been tested by others than you. Works OK, but the big flaw is not knowing what dice to roll, so the classic speedup of roll damage dice with the attack roll cannot be used comfortably unless/until armor is revealed, and it automatically reveals the AV.
If AV varies by location, it futher restricts the ability to roll both together.

Not everyone minds revealing the AV. I do, so for me, it's a big problem.

 

[GMMichael]

This probably could or should go along with radically altering how hit points work, as well as the damage monsters and spells do. And obviously you'd want to think about effectiveness of armor against different kinds of attacks.

This would likely also require reworking weapons though, which would probably just make it a headache. Making it so a mace could hurt plate armor etc.

Is there an underlying assumption that this is supposed to apply to D&D? Otherwise, I'm not seeing how hit points, monsters, weapons and spells need reworking.

Armor as DR works just fine as a static number if you're trying to avoid another roll. If it's a reduction of the die type, it loses its extreme value (as an average roll or a high roll): each step of better armor is worth, on average, 2 points off the highest roll, 1 point off the average roll, and 0 points off the minimum roll. Not that there's anything wrong with that!

 

[Distracted DM]

Is there an underlying assumption that this is supposed to apply to D&D? Otherwise, I'm not seeing how hit points, monsters, weapons and spells need reworking.

I suppose OP's examples were what made me think of DnD5e: dagger doing 1d4, and moreso two-handing a longsword doing 1d10. And OP talking about having to rework the system's hit points, monsters, spells, etc.

But if you're making a new system whole-cloth, yeah there's no need to rework anything since you'll be making it all fresh!

 

[JohnSnow]

I suppose OP's examples were what made me think of DnD5e: dagger doing 1d4, and moreso two-handing a longsword doing 1d10. And OP talking about having to rework the system's hit points, monsters, spells, etc.

But if you're making a new system whole-cloth, yeah there's no need to rework anything since you'll be making it all fresh!

I mean, I was kinda thinking of using d20 as a base, but as I noted, it's a half-formed idea, and defaulting to D&D as an example was easy as it's the system I've played the most.

 

[Cergorach]

I assume that Armor DR replaces Armor adjustments to AC. Making people easier to hit and hypothetically harder to damage.

That is fine as long as you're in a decent damage range. But now imagine a Rogue doing Sneak Attack damage once or twice per round. I'm currently building a 10th level Rogue, that would do 6d6+5 damage, your d12 might reduce some damage, but suddenly I'm hitting almost always due to the far lower AC. And due to me hitting more often, I suddenly have far more often Advantage due to Vex. And that bonus attack I would normally use, I suddenly won't even try, because it doesn't have the Sneak Attack bonus, the Finesse bonus and a smaller damage die.

Similar shenanigans with other classes, a Warlock wouldn't use Elderitch blast anymore, as it has multiple beams, thus different attacks, thus multiple DR rolls. But a higher level Firebolt would work perfectly. Flurry of blows from the Monk has similar issues.

That just character => monster, but monster => character is even more dire! Something like a Bugbear Warrior is going to wreck a knight in platemail (3d4+2), especially because now it's very easy to hit. Even Goblin Warriors that make successful hide actions are going to damage that same person in platemail. And most low level characters aren't able to afford that, so they're getting even more wrecked.

Another issue is randomness vs randomness is going to completely mess with the averages. When you throw high damage and the opponent low damage resist, it's wrecking the opponent, but on the other hand someone could be constantly matching or exceeding damage rolls (within reason)... I would also feel that quickly you're not going to be happy with THAT much extra dicerolling. You could mitigate that by giving it a fixed DR.

Honestly, D&D5e is not build around this mechanic, it could work, but it would be a completely different game and people would make completely different choices/builds then in regular D&D. I would never introduce this in a game that was already underway...

in 3.0 Unearthed Arcana they also presented something similar: SRD - Defence Variants But the didn't throw dice, just used fixed numbers and only reduced AC a bit...

 

[GMMichael]

I mean, I was kinda thinking of using d20 as a base, but as I noted, it's a half-formed idea, and defaulting to D&D as an example was easy as it's the system I've played the most.

One of the (gulp!) good things about D&D is that its prevalence makes it easy to playtest. If there's one rule or mechanism you want to tinker, you can probably get 6 players lined up on Roll 20 in a heartbeat.

Hmm, maybe a bad example, because I think Roll 20 has D&D mods, and some players will be turned off by the idea that those mods aren't in use . . .

 

[JohnSnow]

Yeah, I'm coming around to just using a fixed system for it. The Dungeon Coach offered a system for this for 5e in "Alkander's Almanac of All Things," and he just gave each armor a DR of (AC value - 10). Which is a nice and simple idea that many people have done before.

And while I appreciate that it would make low level PCs in heavy armor much easier to hit, I also think the tradeoff might be worth it. I also think that there's an argument to be made for giving PCs a Defense bonus, but reducing the rate at which hit points scale.