Why NOT to use damage resistance for armor...

[Kobold Avenger]

D20 modern does not use damage reduction for armour.

As for an actually system of damage reduction, use the AC bonus of the armour divided by 2 (+1 for metal armour) to get a damage reduction value as a general rule. I call damage reduction from armor, Armour Fortification which is like a special version of Adamantine Damage Reduction. Armour Penetration subtracts from Armour Fortification by the appropriate amount. Masterwork weapons, modified weapons, specific feats and specific magic weapon abilities raise Armour Penetration. Adamantine weapons ignore Armour Fortification all together.

All Classes get class defence bonuses to AC, which cap out at +7, +9 or +11 at 20th level depending on the class. The Max Dex rating of armour is also the Max Class Defense value of armour. You can't use a defence bonus higher than its max dex value. This is because I don't want everyone going around in plate mail, none of the classes are in fact are proficient with heavy armour (or shields), they have to get the feat first. However every class can use some sort of firearm, as they're mainly simple and martial weapons. Against non-bulletproof armor firearms ignore half of the armour penetration value, any armour can be modified to be bulletproof. Magical enhancement bonuses to armor still add to AC.

This system tends to favour light armour more, and is generally made to fit my campaign.

 

[Pbartender]

D20 modern does not use damage reduction for armour.

No one said it did.

What it does do is provide an OGL means of adding a class Defense bonus to compensate for the system's lack of armor (or, by the same means, armor that provides a DR instead of a defense bonus).

 

[KarinsDad]

What you guys appear to be missing (which is not missing in some games which do use damage reduction equivalents for armor) is that there are certain game elements when combined fail when using damage reduction.

For example, hit points out the gazoo. Hit points work for DND because BAB gives a 5% increase in chance to hit virtually every level (assuming same AC).

But, in a damage reduction system, the high level of DND hit points does not work as well. So, one way to implement a damage reduction system is to also drastically decrease hit points. This also has the advantage of allowing a low level Fighter with a dagger to seriously damage a high level Wizard with no protections up yet. Of course, then you would have to change a lot of spells and monster attacks so that they did not do mega-damage either, so this is not the best of solutions.

Another possible way to balance out a damage reduction system is to increase the amount of damage done by weapons as the BAB of characters increases combined with a mechanism for characters to "dodge more". There are solutions, you just have to go look for them as opposed to just throwing up your arms and saying "There is no way to balance it without totally rebuilding the entire gaming system".

But, DND is one of the "least realistic" games out there due to the high hit points. For example, any medium to high level character with no armor or protections up is immune to death by a single weapon attack (unless there is something special about the weapon or attacker or he is being coup de graced). While surviving any single attack can be more enjoyable for the players, it is not realistic.

 

[mmu1]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the Star Wars DR (in the revised edition) only apply to damage inflicted against your Wounds, not your Vitality? That makes the system much more workable (and logical, for those inclined that way) than when you use Hitpoints.

The fact that weapons also deal a lot more damage (on average) does much to alleviate the problem of only the very strong being able to get decent damage through the higher-end damage resistance.

Of course, the fact that the game is centered around humanoid creatures also simplifies things, because you don't have to worry about the DR ratings of dragons and giants...

 

[Gez]

The best system I've seen for armor as "not-making-you-harder-to-hurt" was in Dragon Warriors. Each armor had a protection value. Each weapon had a damage die and a penetration die. If the penetration die was higher than the armor's protection, you inflicted the damage. Otherwise, I don't remember if you substracted the armor or dealt no damage at all.

Of course, this meant that you had to roll 3 dice to beat your opponent -- attack, penetration, and damage.

 

[Plane Sailing]

What good is the Fighter's +20 to hit, if the AC of opponents always stays low, and the damage resistance goes up instead.

One solution which I use is to counter this problem is to allow all classes to take a penalty to hit (up to their BAB) and add to damage, to simulate aiming for more vital spots. This could stack with power attack if necessary.

(the most thorny issue I always found was with dragons and anything else where 3e+ introduced extraordinarily high "natural armour" bonuses)

Sure, the fighter isn't going to be damaging the big 'ole dragon with everyone of his full attack hits (but he probably isn't going to want to be swapping full attacks with a big 'ole dragon anyway, now is he?).

You might want to give this method a go, as it is a neat solution to the problem you highlight here.

Cheers

 

[Plane Sailing]

The other rule that I used (which you may or may not want to consider) was to allow all critical threats to bypass armour DR (as long as the roll would actually hit, which is most of the time when this is relevant).

cheers

 

[mroberon1972]

One solution which I use is to counter this problem is to allow all classes to take a penalty to hit (up to their BAB) and add to damage, to simulate aiming for more vital spots. This could stack with power attack if necessary.

Then why bother? It's still BAB vs AC then, with no real effect. We have only succeded on making the system more complex with zero net gain in play.

Mr. Oberon

 

[ciaran00]

Instead of assigning ridiculously high DR values to armour, like people seem to be doing, why not compare DR values for monsters then assign a value to plate, splint, etc? Nothing but heavy armour should even have DR, and even then it shouldn't be more than a point or two. The point of assigning DR at all is because at present heavy armour looks like more of a penalty (what, with the max dex and check penalty and weight) than an advantage. Obviously people did don these things and go into battle.

Point is, something with DR doesn't break the game. When you so obviously unbalance it, ie... making it too good of a thing... of course the system breaks. What did you expect?

Also, weapon penetration is bad. It's already covered by (A) Weapon types, (B) Weapon damage, (C) Concept of DR, (D) Concept of hardness.

ciaran

 

[Plane Sailing]

Then why bother? It's still BAB vs AC then, with no real effect. We have only succeded on making the system more complex with zero net gain in play.

Because it means that high damage weapons are still useful against high AC. Because it adds flavour and verisimilitude (it is obvious that you bounce off his armour. Big hits are Big hits (rather than "Wow, you hit AC 43! Sucks that you only rolled 3 for the damage"). Because it is not automatically the case that it is BAB vs AC but allows tradeoffs.

So a town could still use a ballista to attack a dragon, while in the standard setting it is utterly useless because there is absolutely no way that the ballista gunners could hit the dragon.

So you can use natural mechanics for falling rockslides - they do a lot of damage, but big creatures with a lot of DR can shrug them off.

To my mind one of the big failings with the existing system is that mechanically a swift dodgy creature and a tough, shelled creature both use exactly the same mechanic for all circumstances, and this particularly falls down when they are attacked by a source of large amounts of physical damage.