Why NOT to use damage resistance for armor...

[jaldaen]

That's easy to answer. The fighter uses Power Attack, thus taking an attack (i.e. "to hit") penalty in order to deal out more damage and get past his opponent's armor DR.

This is one of the reasons I like the dual stat system for armor b/c if armor is just DR than power attackers have an edge on finesse fighters... now give the finesse fighters a chance to ignore DR by making an attack at a weak spot and thus requiring a higher attack roll and now you have the best of both worlds with both types using their attack bonus in different, but effective ways ;-)

My dollar and a half,
Joseph
Privateer Press Wordsmith (Monsternomicon)
Mongoose Freelancer

 

[Azlan]

BTW: Here are my variant combat rules that incoporate amor DR into 3E D&D. These rules are comprehensive and balanced, and they have been thoroughly playtested. (Note: There are variant combat rules here than just those that incorporate armor DR.) These rules include varaint weapons and armor tables, a custom character sheet, and a few sample "creature cards".

If you have any questions, comments, or criticisms about these varaint rules, let me know.

[Edit: Nevermind. I couldn't figure out how to get "Manage Attachments" to work. I clicked on the link, and got a panel, but it just hangs there and does nothing.]

 

[Warbringer]

Our House rules

Change one: a critical is when you hit someone by more than 7/9/12 )(depending on weapon). NAtrual 20, roll again and add the total. So crits can stack. Each crit roll an extra die of damage; 1 crit on a long sword (9) 2d8 damage, 3 crit (18) 3d8 etc.

For each die rolled, the target takes con damage equal to the number of dice rolled. This is body damage.

Now armor. Armor provides a Con buffer equal to its armor value (Chainmail 5, Leather 3 etc). This is damage is cum, so chainmail that absorbs 2 buffer from an attack only has 3 points left. This has no effect on AC, but when the buffer drops to 0 the AC reduces by 2 and the armor cannot prevent crtical damage anymore.

Works really well.