[4e] Armor as Resistance variant

[Limos]

I've noticed in running 4e games that there is very little difference between someone with high Dex or Int wearing cloth armor and a fighter wearing full plate armor when it comes to damage they receive. In fact it is not all that uncommon for a Rogue or Staff wizard to have higher AC than the armored melee fighters and yet when hit they take the same damage.

This irks me.

In order to rectify this I have the following suggestion. Each variety of armor has it's own Armor Resistance rating, any physical attack (swords, axes, claws, teeth, etc.) has it's damage reduced by this amount on a successful hit.

Cloth has 0 Armor Resistance.

Leather and Hide have 1 point of Armor resistance.

Chainmail and Scale armor have 2 points of Armor Resistance.

Plate armor has 3 points of Armor Resistance.

A Light Shield grants 0 points, while a Heavy Shield grants 1 point.

In addition, the enhancement bonus of armor is added to the armor resistance. So a +2 set of Plate Armor would have 5 points total of armor resistance. This only applies against physical attacks.

Lastly, each level of Masterwork adds a point of Armor Resistance. So if you had a set of +6 Godplate Armor, that would be 6 for the Enhancement, 3 for the Plate armor, and 2 for being the second tier of Masterwork. In total it would grant 11 points of Armor Resistance.

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This system also applies to monsters. If you notice, at the bottom of the monster stats there is a line for equipment. The Human Bandit is stated to be wearing leather armor. This would give him 1 point of Armor Resistance. The Angel of Protection is wearing Plate Armor, so he would have 3 Armor Resistance.

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In order to balance this slightly I am also adding two new keywords to the weapons. Blunt and Piercing.

Blunt- Ignores half of Armor Resistance, rounding down.

Piercing- Ignores 2/3 of Armor Resistance, rounding down.

All Weapons in the Mace, Flail, or Hammer category receive the Blunt descriptor.

All Weapons in the Light Blade, Polearm or Crossbow category receive the Piercing descriptor.


For Example, taking our +6 Godplate armor with the 11 AR points versus a rogue with a common dagger. The Dagger is a light blade, perfect for attacking the joint and seams between his armor and thus the AR is divided by 3 and rounded down. 11/3 = 3 + 2/3. Rounding down gives us a new AR of 3.

If that same rogue was instead using a club it would cut the AR in half. 11/2 = 5 + 1/2. Thus an AR of 5.


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All in all this means that if hit a Wizard wearing cloth armor will on average take slightly more damage than a fighter wearing plate armor. This does not however make either of them more or less likely to be hit.

[TheOOB]

I understand what you are trying to do, but I have to tell you that it simply will not work.

4e, unlike 3e or any of the editions before it has carefully balanced the systems math with the goal of keeping attack bonuses and defenses reasonably close to one another.

You have basically broken this system. You have made it so heavy armor characters do not scale their armor class appropriately with level. Monster attack bonus goes up by 1 a level, your natural bonus goes up by +1/2 a level. You need the enhancement bonuses and masterwork armor bonuses to keep up. In your system, a heavy armor character will start about 4 AC behind what they should be(which means most foes will hit them on 5-7 or better), and by level 10 your character will be hit with pretty much anything other than a 1. The damage reduction helps agienst small attacks, but it's effects are mitigated by high damage attacks and attacks with status effects, not to mention that damage values go up way quicker than you have the DR going up.

To further screw over heavy armor characters, you've made them have a weakness to certain weapons, making them suck even more, and adding a bunch of unnecessary math.

Any fighters or paladins under this system will crap their pants any time a high damage attack gets aimed their way, and they'll spend more time prone, dazed, and being force moved than they will fighting because they can't avoid attacks.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

In your system, a heavy armor character will start about 4 AC behind what they should be(which means most foes will hit them on 5-7 or better), and by level 10 your character will be hit with pretty much anything other than a 1. The damage reduction helps agienst small attacks, but it's effects are mitigated by high damage attacks and attacks with status effects, not to mention that damage values go up way quicker than you have the DR going up.

To further screw over heavy armor characters, you've made them have a weakness to certain weapons, making them suck even more, and adding a bunch of unnecessary math.

Any fighters or paladins under this system will crap their pants any time a high damage attack gets aimed their way, and they'll spend more time prone, dazed, and being force moved than they will fighting because they can't avoid attacks.

You've misunderstood his proposal. AC is absolutely unchanged, as he has stated ("This does not however make either of them more or less likely to be hit."). This is on top of the normal AC the armor grants; any time a high-damage attack gets aimed at a fighter or paladin, they'll thank their lucky stars they decided to go with full plate.

[AgentPaper]

This basically just makes heavy armor classes more powerful. Which is fine, but not really needed, I think. Heavy armor classes are already ahead in terms of AC. Overall, it about comes to Plate > Scale/Hide > Mail/Leather > Cloth. This is assuming you start with 18 dex/int and increase it at every opportunity. If you start with 20 dex/int, hide and leather each move up a step. (cloth is still the worst)

[dragoonsgone]

I like the concept but giving it to monsters too makes combat last that much longer. I think we all agree that the last thing 4e needs is longer combat.

[Limos]

I like the concept but giving it to monsters too makes combat last that much longer. I think we all agree that the last thing 4e needs is longer combat.


Note I also intend to use this with a reduced health variant which makes encounters faster and bloodier. In addition this only makes heavy armor wears 1-3 points more than a light armor wearer of equivalent level. The enhancement bonus gets added to AR regardless of your type.

So a second tier masterwork +6 set of Cloth armor would have an AR of 8, while a set of Plate with equivalent enhancements would be AR 11.

If the rogue is instead wearing Leather with the same enhancements then he would get AR 9 to AR 11, a difference of only 2 points.

But the Rogue doesn't take any movement or check penalties like the Fighter does. That is the balancing factor. Light armor wearers get their Int or Dex to AC, an extra square of movement and no check penalties. While a Heavy armor wearer takes slightly less damage on a hit.


I plan to use this with all health values and healing halved in order to speed up combat. This is one reason why having AR is going to be so vital for PCs. If you only have 25 hp instead of 50 then you will need all the AR you can get to stay alive.