Which of these two methods would you choose for implementing armor DR rules... ?

[Azlan]

An additional option you might wish to consider is to allow "Targetted shots" (usable by anyone, no feat required) which allows you to take a penalty to hit of up to your BAB, and add it to damage. Power attack is still useful, since you can double the amount you shift over, but it no longer becomes necessary.

Going with method #1, we say that anyone can take a -2 attack penalty for each point they want to reduce an opponent's armor DR by. Using the Power Attack feat is a more effecient way to get damage past an opponent's armor DR, of course, since you get +1 damage for each -1 attack penalty you take.

The problem is, you need Str 13 to have the Power Attack feat. So, we have a new feat, called Bypass Armor. (Prereq: Dex 13.) With this feat, you can take a -1 attack penalty for each point you want to reduce an opponent's armor DR by.

 

[Spatzimaus]

If you use the straight armor-bonus-as-DR rules, you run into a lot of balance headaches since it makes the lower-damage weapons (daggers and such) almost worthless, and makes size even more important. Plate armor giving a DR of 8 means anything smaller than a greatsword needs a critical hit to do any damage, while in reality the best weapons against plate armors were the dagger, crossbow, and mace.

That's why you basically have to keep DR to low amounts (2-3 for heavy) if you want the system to still be usable, OR you'd have to give some weapons a "penetration" stat. That might be a good idea anyway; a Penetration stat that only works against armor DR would be okay, so a Dagger could be 1d4, 19-20/x2, P2 (which makes it as damaging as a longsword against a heavy armor wearer)

Better yet, make a Feat that does this, with Weapon Finesse as a prerequisite, and that gives this penetration ability to all light weapons or projectile weapons.

Or maybe you'd have an AD&D-style setup where armors give different ACs to different weapon types.

It also provides a logical headache: the plate of a Breastplate is the same as the plate of Plate Armor, the difference is in the extremities, so why should the DR be any different? In a perfect world, we'd have a Hit Location system, but we can abstract a bit. I'm working on a Build-Your-Own-Armor system where you pick Cloth, Leather, Chain, or Plate for each of 4 slots (Torso, Legs, Arms, Head), and each gives a little AC, maybe a little DR, an ACP, Arcane Failure, and lowers Max DEX.

 

[Azlan]

If you use the straight armor-bonus-as-DR rules, you run into a lot of balance headaches since it makes the lower-damage weapons (daggers and such) almost worthless... Plate armor giving a DR of 8 means anything smaller than a greatsword needs a critical hit to do any damage

True enough. But, hey, unless you score a critical, what chance should you have for penetrating plate armor with a dagger?

Who uses a dagger in combat, anyway? Halflings? A halfling rogue with a dagger, against a knight in plate armor... ?! Well, then, that halfling better have the Weapon Finesse and the Bypass Armor feats, if he's to have any chance at all. (It would also help for the halfling to flank the knight, thereby getting his sneak attack damage bonus.)

...while in reality the best weapons against plate armors were the dagger, crossbow, and mace... you'd have to give some weapons a "penetration" stat.

With method #1, the following weapons are considered to be "penetrating": maces, flails, picks, hammers, and crossbows. On a successful hit, a "penetrating" weapon halves (rounded down) armor DR.

Better yet, make a Feat that does this

Did that, with the Bypass Armor feat. (Read my previous post.)

Or maybe you'd have an AD&D-style setup where armors give different ACs to different weapon types.

We believe that goes too far. Sure, it's more realistic, but we're looking for a happy medium between realism and playability, here. Besides, we believe "penetrating" weapons addresses this issue, without a detailed "armor types vs. weapon types" table.

It also provides a logical headache: the plate of a Breastplate is the same as the plate of Plate Armor, the difference is in the extremities, so why should the DR be any different?

We want to maintain the heroic, "abstract" qualities of D&D combat. We do not want to complicate and slow down things by having to implement a "hit location" system. (Again, we're looking for a happy medium between realism and playability, here.)

With a "hit location" system in place, "variable criticals, according to hit location" naturally follows, and that would make things even more complicated. Furthermore, with "variable critcals, according to hit location", you'd practically be forced to also implement a "vitality/wound points" system.

 

[Spatzimaus]

True enough. But, hey, unless you score a critical, what chance should you have for penetrating plate armor with a dagger?

Who uses a dagger in combat, anyway?

As I was trying to say: historically, before they invented longbows and crossbows powerful enough to punch through the plates themselves, aiming for the joints with a dagger was the main way to kill a knight. Saying that this is represented by critical hits isn't fair to the dagger user. Critical hits are where in the course of a normal attack you hit a vital area, and that's just as common with a longsword as a dagger (10% of the time). What we're talking about is aiming for the chinks in a suit of armor, which is what their increased AC was all about in the first place.

As for your Bypass Armor Feat, it favors the greatsword user just as much as it does the dagger user. You're not going to be able to jab a greatsword into the joint of a suit of armor as easily as you can a small blade.

What I was talking about was more like "All light weapons gain the ability to penetrate 2 points of armor-based DR automatically, and all medium weapons penetrate 1 point automatically" as a standard rule, with a Feat that doubles this bonus, for all weapons you have Weapon Finesse for.

 

[Azlan]

historically, before they invented longbows and crossbows powerful enough to punch through the plates themselves, aiming for the joints with a dagger was the main way to kill a knight.

Historically speaking, peasants armed with daggers were able to stab through the joints of plate armor only when those knights were outnumbered and overwhelmed, and pinned down to the ground. Oh, one might get a lucky shot and stab a plate-armored knight through an open joint. (But even then, the dagger would have to deal with the mail armor inside. Easier to deal with than plate, true; but still.) But, really, it's extremely difficult to aim for such a small opening while the knight is moving around -- and all the more so while he's swinging a bastardsword at the wretched dagger wielder.

As for your Bypass Armor Feat, it favors the greatsword user just as much as it does the dagger user.

Not necessarily. The greatsword user can afford to be less reliant on the Bypass Armor feat (or the Power Attack feat, for that matter) to penetrate armor than the dagger user, since the former weapon with its d12 damage inherently has a better chance of getting damage past armor DR than the latter with its d4 damage.

What I was talking about was more like "All light weapons gain the ability to penetrate 2 points of armor-based DR automatically, and all medium weapons penetrate 1 point automatically" as a standard rule, with a Feat that doubles this bonus, for all weapons you have Weapon Finesse for.

What constitutes a "light" weapon, anyway? All tiny and small weapons? But with such a blanket policy, halfling nunchakus, daggers, and light picks all have the same armor penetrating capabilities, which isn't realistic or historical. Beside, with such a blanket policy, you're making armors that give DR 2 or less (4 or less if the attacker has the Bypass Armor feat) worthless.

Leather armor, which would give DR 2 (using method #2, above), should give full protection against halfling nunchakus.

 

[Norfleet]

The use of a dagger for driving through visor slits, joints, etc., already exists in the D&D rules independently of AC, armor DR, and anything else: The CDG rules. In fact, this is exactly what CDG comes from.

If you're implementing armor DR, critical hits should be armor-piercing. Since all CDGs are critical hits, this behavior is therefore covered.

 

[Azlan]

If you're implementing armor DR, critical hits should be armor-piercing.

Perhaps. But what about creatures immune to critical hits? While they certainly have no vitals, and thus cannot suffer double or triple damage; is their armor invulnerable to armor-piercing?

I can see ghosts, spectres, and wraiths as being invulnerable. (They don't have any "armor" bonus to AC anyway, right?) But what about skeletons, zombies, ghouls, and wights?

What if you had, say, a skeleton knight in plate armor, being that it's immune to critical hits?

Perhaps, if implementing an armor DR system, you need to specifiy which creatures are immune to criticals, and which creatures are immune to criticals and invulnerable to armor-piercing. I would think an iron golem and an earth elemental would fall into the latter category.

 

[Fenes 2]

We kept the AC bonus, but added DR 1 to medium armor, DR 2 to heavy armor, with an additional +1 DR for masterwork medium or heavy armor.

 

[Afrodyte]

I had a system something like this, but instead of a flat DR, I made more variables for certain types of materials and added an armor bonus to that. It made organic armor less resilient than steel, mithral, or adamantine armor.

However, for the system to work, there had to be other defense options. Combining armor as DR and adding a class-based Defense bonus (making it harder to hit opponents) was an idea I had. To make this more interesting, I think using called shots (which I believe are detailed in the PHB) can also bypass the DR of armor.

One if the ideas some people at the Wizards board had for making armor as DR work is to apply damage at the end of the round, instead of after each hit. So, instead of this:

• A party of 3 go against a powerful fighter in plate mail (AC/Defense = 11, DR for plate mail = 13/magic). Player 1 hits. Player 1 rolls 12 damage. DR absorbs damage. Player 2 hits. Player 2 rolls 8 damage. DR absorbs damage. Player 3 misses.

You get this:

• Player 1 hits. Player 2 hits. Player 3 misses. Player 1 and Player 2 roll damage; total is 20. DR absorbs 13 damage, so the fighter sustains 7 points of damage.

One of the benefits of this system is that it would probably make combat go by faster, and I think it can show the real danger of fighting (especially when outnumbered). In this way, even a gang of orcs or kobolds can become deadly because damage is applied as a group, rather than as a series of individuals. It would be ideal for a gritty campaign, but with higher levels of magic, things would probably have to be modified. Now, in cases when tactics are not really an issue (such as when opponents are not aware of one another).

What I should probably do is just use the CODA system for skills and combat instead because it handles these things much more cleanly than I do.

 

[Norfleet]

Perhaps. But what about creatures immune to critical hits? While they certainly have no vitals, and thus cannot suffer double or triple damage; is their armor invulnerable to armor-piercing?

Obviously, a critter who's immune to critical hits that takes an AP hit doesn't take extra damage, but doesn't get armor DR, either.

Personally, I think that the "immune to critical hits" thing may have gone a bit far, as there is clearly a difference between a zombie and an ooze in terms of critical hit immunity.

On one hand, zombie are deemed immune to critical hits because they clearly are largely unaffected by organ perforation. On the other hand, being dismembered is as harmful to a zombie's effectiveness as it is to a human's.

An ooze, on the other hand, has true critical hit immunity, because it is amorphous and simply lacks differentiable vitals or specialized functional units.