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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rothe" data-source="post: 2798143" data-attributes="member: 39813">Hi all.  First post here at ENWorld.  Thought I might jump in as I've been using  DR for armor for quite some time.  By DR I assume damage resistance, i.e. the armor reduces damage received.  Although mine is a homebrew approach, I thought it might add some insight even if much of it has been mentioned above.  My personal experiences.General Observations:(1) I agree that armor providing DR makes for better simulation.(2) By going with DR, one can also simulate another aspect of historical weapons: penetration.  Several historical weapons were designed to pentrate armor.  They wouldn't necessarily do any more damage against an unarmored target but they were able to pierce armor.  Thus, I rate weapons with a penetration value as the amount of DR they can ignore.  Natural weapons, e.g., teeth may not have much.  Hence a man in plate armor need not fear the bite of a dog, but a poinard is another matter.(3) Originally I came to this armor=DR from armor=AC.  To provide a mechanism for making a higher level character/creature harder to hit, I base the chance to hit on the skill/level differential between the attacker and defender.  For example, two level 1 opponents have an equal chance to hit each other in melee, a level 2 finds it easier to hit a level 1, and a level 1 finds it harder to hit a level 2.  In the end, I assign attack numbers and defense numbers.(4) As I think I saw above, one detriment I also impose to heavy armor is loss of initiative.  As I use a apply damage immediately system this can make a difference.(5) Another detriment, is armor can make noise.  I use this in my stealth system as another detriment to armor, especially metal armor.  This opened up an area of specialty designed armor to reduce noise.(6)  Initially, I tried to keep track of damage to the armor.  This became a record keeping nightmare.  I ended up just letting the armor remain undamaged unless it suffered a "critical" hit.(7) Initially, I also tried a hit location system.  Also a record keeping problem.  What I now do is use a location system (basically 34 locations on a human body) for custom armor building, then an average armor value is calculated.  The individaul armor values are still there if that level of detail becomes needed.  This is actually not as cumbersome as it seems.(8) Shields.  I allow the DR of the shield to be averaged into the average armor value.  Shields also reduce somewhat the chance of being hit (the old armor=AC).  I also have a rule for covering behind a shield.  Metal shields are heavy but give a good DR and can take a a fair amount of damage without being destroyed if you cover behind them.  Light wooden shields, while light, provide some protection from arrow fire and a "AC" bounus but little DR and do not provide the best cover.(9) Lastly, a DR + penetration provides more options for spells, guns etc.  It allows certain weapons to become more "powerfull" by increasing penetration instead of just total damage.  For example, for firearms, bullets from small caliber arms don't do much more damage than a dagger but they have very high penetrations versus melee type armor and they have a much higher chance of scoring a "critical" hit.Anyway, my two coppers for what they are worth.</blockquote>

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