Armour as extra hp variant

[Ashtagon]

Default d20 is armour as AC bonus, making you harder to hit. A common variant is armour as DR, reducing damage per hit. One system I've seen in other games is armour as damage soak, effectively giving extra hp.

(Context note: I am explicitly using "hit points are a hero (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PlotArmor) shield (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MadeOfIron)". Characters also have "body points" equal to their Constitution score, which represent actual physical damage to flesh and bone).

Very loosely, I am suggesting that each point of AC bonus translates to 5 "armour points". Damage strikes at ap and hp equally until ap run out, then go entirely to hp. Attacks that would normally ignore armour (energy attacks, generally) also ignore ap. Armour points are restored in full after a five-minute rest, during which it is assumed the character is adjusting armour plates, tightening straps, and re-aligning any loosened hooks in the armour. A consequence of this is that armour no longer provides an AC bonus.

Any obvious problems with this idea? Any ideas on how this could be improved?

[DracoDei]

Well, first off, is this for 3.X or 4E?

I assume 3.X from the writing style you use, but very very little in 3.X uses "5 minute rest" as a mechanic. I would substitute Craft(Armorer) or whatever that skill is called, with very low minimum DCs, huge bonuses for doing things in an actual smithy (well, except for the lowest 3 armor types and hide armor), and hitting higher DCs improving the time-to-hitpoints ratio.

The other thing I would say is that for this to work AT ALL, you almost certainly need to make it a function of character level... a simple (AC bonus it would have granted) x (character level) calculation would be an OK place to start... if you use a static amount then Full-Plate is going to be ridiculously powerful at level 3 and worthless at level 20 (even accounting for translating magical pluses into more hitpoints). Then again, I hear that armor becomes a losing proposition at higher levels (the attack bonuses of the monsters are just too high).

[Ashtagon]

First up, yes, this is intended to be for 3.x/PF. five minute rest is just a convenient way of saying "any convenient respite between combats in which you catch your breath, patch your wounds, check for unnoticed injuries, and make sure you know which direction you were heading in". (and I do believe ToM/ToB premièred the term, making it just as much 3.5 as 4e).

I want to avoid using skill checks to recover ap. The intention is that these will be at full strength any time the characters enter a new fight, and out of combat, this just means PCs will make as many skill checks as necessary anyway. Plus, ap doesn't represent actual damage to the armour, just superficial damage (similar to how my hp don't represent actual bodily harm). Once ap are exhausted, your armour is in no way "destroyed", or even damaged in any meaningful way.

Having ap scale with level is an idea, but since damage goes 50:50 to ap and hp anyway, it effectively caps out as doubling your hp. This makes the heavier armours useless to very low level characters, which is an unintended consequence.

[Volthawk]

First up, yes, this is intended to be for 3.x/PF. five minute rest is just a convenient way of saying "any convenient respite between combats in which you catch your breath, patch your wounds, check for unnoticed injuries, and make sure you know which direction you were heading in". (and I do believe ToM/ToB premièred the term, making it just as much 3.5 as 4e).

Term you're looking for is 'per encounter'.

[DracoDei]

and I do believe ToM/ToB premièred the term, making it just as much 3.5 as 4e).
Two splat-books count much less than core rules... thus "very little". Also, ToB's uses of it come up only very very rarely in actual play. I don't own ToM, so I am not familiar with it.


I want to avoid using skill checks to recover ap. The intention is that these will be at full strength any time the characters enter a new fight, and out of combat, this just means PCs will make as many skill checks as necessary anyway.
Well, the DCs should perhaps be a little higher than to always allow THAT without some nail-biting (did I mention trying to repair armor while it is on the person generally gives a penalty) in my opinion (which you probably don't share).

Plus, ap doesn't represent actual damage to the armour, just superficial damage (similar to how my hp don't represent actual bodily harm). Once ap are exhausted, your armour is in no way "destroyed", or even damaged in any meaningful way.
Never meant anything even remotely close to "destroyed".


Having ap scale with level is an idea, but since damage goes 50:50 to ap and hp anyway, it effectively caps out as doubling your hp. This makes the heavier armours useless to very low level characters, which is an unintended consequence.
Ah, must have missed that.

[Ashtagon]

Zero armour points might represent a strap that needs tightening, the armour's weight shifted a little uncomfortably with all your ducking and weaving, a button that came undone, your codpiece shifting awkwardly, or any of a number of other trivial issues. It doesn't represent damage as such. In this light, a Craft check just doesn't make any sense. It's much like making a Craft (tailor) check to put on a shirt properly.

I'm not sure I want heavier armours to be useless unless you have the personal hp to back them up. Equally, I don't want a character to be able to entirely shrug off all damage from a combat that didn't do enough to get past the ap at all. Some kind of leaky ap rule is needed to ensure attrition remains a valid concept. I'm just not sure how best to marry this with having heavier armours useful for plebs.

(Although, historically, heavier armours were only worn by veteran soldiers. Maybe it all works out well).

[Thrawn183]

If doing this, I would still include AC, probably 10 + character level.

[Dilb]

Then again, I hear that armor becomes a losing proposition at higher levels (the attack bonuses of the monsters are just too high).

That's only true of the tarrasque and similar things with ridiculous piles of HD. Armour is relevant against anything with iterative attacks, and outsiders tend to have fairly modest BAB.

That said, 65 HP for +5 full plate is a lot weaker than 13 AC. Suppose this drops you from 40 AC to 27: that's the difference between a titan doing 95 compared to 165 (100 'real' damage) per full attack. The HP is gone in a single full attack, and the fighter is doing strictly worse. This means the fighter goes from almost certainly surviving two full attacks, to almost certainly being killed in two full attacks.

At level 10, with say 25 AC vs 15 AC, a fire giant does 45 vs 70 (35 real) attack, so over two full attacks the armour is gone, but the damage is the same (35 real + 55 real = 45/round). Either way the next round would probably kill him. As long as in-combat healing isn't used, the fighter is doing about the same.

At level 5, 19 vs 11 AC, a large earth elemental does 24 vs 32 (16 real) per full attack, so the fighter is only taking 2/3rds damage, and is at no real risk of his armour running out between fights. The fighter goes from surviving two rounds to surviving 3 rounds.

Of course, there's also the effect that low level enemies are much more dangerous. Something that goes from hitting on 15+ to hitting on 5+ has tripled it's damage, so the fighter becomes more vulnerable to hoards of enemies.

So: it greatly helps low level fighters, who don't need the help, and it hurts high level fighters quite a lot, unless they fighter under-CR things and take frequent armour breaks.

[Ashtagon]

Hmm, a possible tweak...

* Armour provides 10 ap per point of AC that would have been provided.
* A critical hit ignores armour points (and hit points damage goes directly to body points (aka vitality and wounds).
* An attack roll that is an even number (counting just the number on the die) leaks 50:50 through armour points. Other attacks do not leak. ("armour piercing" can then be a weapon quality which lets it always leak through armour; useful for certain small piercing weapons).

Can massaging the basic numbers or leak rules fix this idea, or is it inherently broken? I recognise now that the initial numbers I gave were woefully low.


I'm not too worried about frequent "armour breaks". The standard 3e combat model assumes an encounter has one level-appropriate monster per PC.

I'm also dropping iterative attacks from my homebrew. That may affect the relevant calculations on whether this system is painful to use.

[Dilb]

It's not necessarily that 5/AC is too few, it's that it doesn't increase enough at high levels. 5/AC is actually overpowered at low levels, 2/AC would be about right at level 5, and roughly reasonable at level 10. By level 20 though, AC has really fallen behind, while HP has increased quite a bit. To be the same as the AC fighter after two full attacks the fighter would need 150 armour points.

If armour points are supposed to be an alternative to healing in-between daily encounters, then the numbers above should be doubled, and armour should absorb more like 3/4ths of the damage.

Dropping iteratives makes AC nearly pointless at high levels, especially with this change in armour. In that sense, trading AC for anything is basically a gain: you need (enemy to-hit +3) AC for AC to do anything at all, and that's hard to hit without optimizing AC:
+5 mithral full plate with 16 DEX, and +5 ring, and +5 amulet = 36 AC
Balor - +33 to hit
There are a lot of temporary buffs you could stack, but making up for 13 AC would not be easy.

[DracoDei]

Thus my concept of (AC bonus)x(Character level).

[ericgrau]

I've seen a similar system and the way they handled attack rolls was to make them always opposed attack rolls, so people who are good at fighting are also harder to hit. The way I would keep this balanced in D&D would be to find some way to make AC scale without using armor. IIRC around 1-1.25 per level is typical for all classes regardless of armor, with simply less AC to start with for the less armored classes.

To make the HP scale, you could simply make magical enhancement bonuses grant more HP.

[erikun]

Do characters still have an AC value? If not, then anyone with a decent attack bonus is pretty much guaranteed to hit, and there is high encouragement to power attack for full to get through the extra armor-HP. What about other forms of AC, such as from natural armor?

[imp_fireball]

A common variant is armour as DR, reducing damage per hit.

What about armor as hardness + much smaller armor bonus? Armor only offers bonus to AC under its tendency to veer away attacks and magic items early on can even ignore this bonus (at +2 enhancement around).

The highest AC bonus is possibly +3 with full plate (leather would offer no bonus at all - but both it and cloth offer hardness) - but conversely, it'd offer something like 15 hardness and better material armors could have even higher hardness (mithril could have possibly 25 hardness, adamantium could have 30+ hardness). The only way to get through hardness automatically is sneak attacks, critical strikes and armor piercing weapons that bypass certain amounts of hardness.

Shields do not veer away attacks, but apply hardness when blocking - which can be done when fighting defensively, total defense or as readied action against certain attacks that the wielder anticipates. Armor does not block energy damage but shields do. Some armor has different properties like 'energy resistance' which applies to the wearer.

'Armor as hp' is good for wear and tear but note that collossal full plate has something like 5000+ hp.


Characters also have "body points" equal to their Constitution score, which represent actual physical damage to flesh and bone).

Injury system is prolly better. Con is good for fortitude against poison and such.

[Ashtagon]

Do characters still have an AC value? If not, then anyone with a decent attack bonus is pretty much guaranteed to hit, and there is high encouragement to power attack for full to get through the extra armor-HP. What about other forms of AC, such as from natural armor?

Yes, characters still have an AC value, although (as with d20 Modern), I plan on renaming it to Defence, because armour is no longer an integral part of avoiding being hit. There will problem be something similar to Modern's level-based Defence bonus, if needed to maintain balance (quite likely).

I should have mentioned it earlier too, but most of the standard ways to pump damage up, such as uber charging and power attack, are getting nerfed. Damage will rely primarily on the weapon you are using.


What about armor as hardness + much smaller armor bonus? Armor only offers bonus to AC under its tendency to veer away attacks and magic items early on can even ignore this bonus (at +2 enhancement around).

The highest AC bonus is possibly +3 with full plate (leather would offer no bonus at all - but both it and cloth offer hardness) - but conversely, it'd offer something like 15 hardness and better material armors could have even higher hardness (mithril could have possibly 25 hardness, adamantium could have 30+ hardness). The only way to get through hardness automatically is sneak attacks, critical strikes and armor piercing weapons that bypass certain amounts of hardness.

Shields do not veer away attacks, but apply hardness when blocking - which can be done when fighting defensively, total defense or as readied action against certain attacks that the wielder anticipates. Armor does not block energy damage but shields do. Some armor has different properties like 'energy resistance' which applies to the wearer.


I don't mind a Defence (AC) bonus where the armour actually functions to make you harder to hit. This would most likely apply to shields and other forms of 'cover', but not so much to body armour (shields as armour points doesn't make much sense to me, as the concept that ap represents doesn't apply so much to shields). Maybe full plate and other heavy rigid armours that have what amounts to a 'sloped surface' would grant a Defence bonus.



'Armor as hp' is good for wear and tear but note that collossal full plate has something like 5000+ hp.


Armour points don't represent wear and tear. They represent straps slipping, buckles and clips coming loose, shoulder straps shifting, codpieces catching painfully, and the weight shifting awkwardly.



Injury system is prolly better. Con is good for fortitude against poison and such.

Although modified slightly, and terms renamed (hp/bp are hero/body points), I am in essence using vitality and wounds.

[Aran Banks]

a) You missed the "5000+ HP" thing by imp_fireball.

b) This doesn't make much sense to me. I assume armor can be put on and taken off, and in order to prevent annoying loops, you need to make it so the HP granted by armor does NOT disappear first (the way normal temp HP does). This results in a not-so-bright person getting injured, taking off their armor, and then collapsing to the ground (or DYING) due to the huge loss of HP.

[imp_fireball]

This results in a not-so-bright person getting injured, taking off their armor, and then collapsing to the ground (or DYING) due to the huge loss of HP.

I suppose that would be like removing all skin and muscle tissue as well. :)

*riiiiiip!*

"Oh my god! Why did I do that?! Now I have no face!!! And I have no blood! And I... I'm dead aren't I?"

Death: :smallsigh: "Yes."

[Ashtagon]

a) You missed the "5000+ HP" thing by imp_fireball.

That joke flew right past me, sorry.


b) This doesn't make much sense to me. I assume armor can be put on and taken off, and in order to prevent annoying loops, you need to make it so the HP granted by armor does NOT disappear first (the way normal temp HP does). This results in a not-so-bright person getting injured, taking off their armor, and then collapsing to the ground (or DYING) due to the huge loss of HP.

Uh, that's why I'm calling them armour points and not hp. Take off your armour, and you lose any remaining armour point it may have granted you. Your hp aren't affected.

I'm trying to find a system in which damage may be counted against ap or hp, depending on how lucky the attacker was (and whether you have ap remaining of course). A straight even split results in the heavier armours being ineffective for low-hp characters.

[imp_fireball]

Uh, that's why I'm calling them armour points and not hp. Take off your armour, and you lose any remaining armour point it may have granted you. Your hp aren't affected.


The point is, if you're using the D&D system, you gotta work with the rules - if you're creating new rules, you've still gotta work with the existing rules.

Right now it looks like you're largely taking from modern, what with reference to 'defense' instead of AC.

IMO, totally unecessary to refer to AC as 'defense' - unless your intention is to use d20 modern and not D&D. I'd still just go with the traditional AC armor bonus that armor gives - it's just now 'armor bonus' means a lot less; it's kind of like the other lesser bonuses to AC like 'morale bonus' or some other bonus that's slipped my mind.

You don't need to explicitly indicate to players that armor bonus means less by calling it something different or overhauling the AC rules entirely.

Again, if you want to go your own way, that's perfectly fine too.


That joke flew right past me, sorry.


It wasn't really a joke, considering sunder rules really consider collossal full plate to have something close to 5000+ Hp - even though armor can't be sundered, you can see that D&D has been pretty thorough when they gave every armor an Hp and hardness value just to accommodate the 'rend armor' ability of some higher ECL creatures out there.


I don't mind a Defence (AC) bonus where the armour actually functions to make you harder to hit.

Yah but if heavier armor has lots of hardness, than power attacks and uber chargers become that much more useless, like you intended.

30+ hardness can really put a dent in an uber charger.

Especially if the wearer of the armor has something like 30+ strength themselves so that they can modify their armor to have close to 100+ hardness in exchange for making it very heavy - like 1000+ lbs.; hardly anything in encumbrance for high strength characters like Krog the Orc Fighter with adamantine full plate that's 5 inches thick at the breast.

The physics still make sense too - it has to be very thick to have 100+ hardness that can absorb that much shock from a hit. Krog still takes energy damage as normal.

Also defenders don't dump point buy solely into ability scores like Dex and Con because now it is actually feasible to make defenders very strong too - at least with the ultra heavy armor thing I'd personally allow (sure a squire handling the armor could never lift it in there lives, but how many 10th level fighters have just one squire?).

Crafting very thick armor requires a lot more effort so the gold cost would be almost exponential - almost like making a magic item, but a bit cheaper perhaps. And still longer. Professional crafters would need many many helpers for it to not take years and years to build (instead of weeks for regular full plate) - but that's the point. Technology has more meaning in D&D than just magic all the time.

In a more industrialized setting, a crafter could utilize a factory to build the 100+ hardness armor. They'd still need helpers to operate the factory, but now they don't have to hire nearly as many - when before it would have taken hundreds of first level helpers to construct the mighty 1000+ pound armor down to every detail, the head crafter now only needs a dozen or so helpers to operate the factory (maintenance costs add to the total cost of crafting) and get the crafting done in the same amount of time (which is the desired 'build armor in weeks instead of years').

Another problem though is that 1000+ pound armor, assuming the wearer can move perfectly in it, would have a much higher armor check penalty. There are multiple alternatives - dual applied checks (craft mechanical) to construct spokes and manipulators and actual heavily shock-proof rotating cuffs for the joints and allow the wearer better precise manipulation - all major costs since such technology is very new, especially in the middle ages.

To know even about it, the head crafter would need a very high modifier in knowledge (science and technology), otherwise they'd be stumped, no matter how many ranks in craft (mechanical) they have. The DC for knowledge (science and technology) would be reduced when attempting to recall vague knowledge from the local geniuses - of which there are 1 in a million; perhaps there are some creative, high level wizards who live out there lives in boredom of using magic and wish to experiment with the mundane. They use their remarkable intelligence scores to make few discoveries, and then publish them with their own finances (probably using magic to dictate the books, duplicate the finished copies and then teleport them safely to various privately ordained libraries in different kingdoms they have been to; they aren't well known knowledge because they are locked away by these wizards or the kingdoms don't trust them or whatever; after all they are wizards, they're godly to more than just commoners (lords and other rulers included), and they aren't political figures and they spend periods in isolation) of the land.

A recent very vaguely known discovery may be one that a high enough DC in knowledge (science and technology) would recall. Or perhaps the top crafter of the armor is personal friends with the wizard themselves (hence they would hear of a discovery before anyone else).

Regardless, the application of craft (mechanical) to insert a new scientific application into the 1000+ pound armor to lower its vast armor check penalty and maximum dexterity modifier (which could be as low as -8 with its clunkiness and thick digits on each gauntlet, etc.), would largely increase the craft (mechanical) DC. Applying to the armor may so much as double the final cost of the armor - except that since there is more than one craft check, there is two components and the final result is combining them together to make the improved armor.

An alternative is craft (alchemy) to perhaps devise a new metallurgical ingrediant - perhaps the armor can remain equally as heavy, or even heavier but not as thick (thus, incredibly dense); hence it would still retain its 100+ hardness value without having the vast armor check penalty and maximum dexterity modifier. The same rules apply again for two or more craft checks to make one item - craft (alchemy) to create the chemical that will produce the new alloy and craft (armor) to create the new 1000+ armor.

Although the creation process is different - the material must be created before the armor, and mistakes can lead to the vast wasting of GP as a player's character may find that they have to craft the armor twice (as always a GM can help players through this with 'are you sure?') which is why creation specifics can never be ignored.
----

Anyway, you can use the above rant - or you don't have to.

Either way I think what the OP has said so far has given me permission to use it myself.


during which it is assumed the character is adjusting armour plates, tightening straps, and re-aligning any loosened hooks in the armour.

Any half decent armor won't fall off due to loosened hooks. Full plate in real life (I think) was often very secure - basically it'd never come off unless the wearer had it removed, which was a long process (which D&D already covers). Any sort of trauma should never really knock it out of place - it's designed to take on trauma and immense shock, such as falling off a horse, getting stamped on by a war elephant or getting knocked by a lance or being thrown 40 feet by a giant. Or being thrown repeatedly by a giant.

Thing is, it's not the lack of armor that kills the person, it's the fact that - while the armor can absorb the shock (after all, medium full plate has something like 160+ hp and good hardness), it's the fact that shock tends to transfer to the wearer. So falling 40ft. will still probably kill some one wearing full plate if they're thrown with force.

Even simpler armors such as cloth, leather and breast plate are pretty secure.

Breast plate itself doesn't fall off because it isn't tied together by something easily cuttable like 'hooks' or 'leather straps' - something which applies more to items the person is carrying; hooks and leather straps for items are something that's assumed in D&D, like cooking a meal or taking a biological break.

Breast plate is usually adorned to conform to the wearer's body. In greek times, (again I think), it was pretty much just a solid piece of bronze and actual soldiers had to be fitted by armor smiths. Armor was a special thing.

And all so simple, but that was the brilliance of it - simple things are less likely to malfunction.

Leather is sort of the same as breastplate - it conforms to the body and is all very hardened. Boiled leather is probably the simplest.

Chain shirts are solely composed of chain (weaker riveted, stronger interlaced, whatever).

Chain mail may contain a few additions such as a helmet and gauntlets (pauldrons and such might be more loosely attached though; I don't know) - typical pre 14th-15th century european knight gear.

The only example of 'hooks and leather straps' I can really see is something like 'half plate' but even that can probably be afixed to never malfunction by a skillful donner.

In short, this is all why armor making is such a finesse trade. Armor doesn't malfunction because it was doing its job, unless the striker intends to cut off the armor (which is much more difficult than just wounding the person wearing it and already covered by disarm rules for 'cutting off loosely hanging items/etc.').

[Ashtagon]

I want to avoid DR as the primary armour model, primarily because it makes low-level opponents utterly irrelevant once you have enough to make yourself vaguely survivable against hard hitters.

One thing I want to move my game away from is the idea that at high levels, you are immune to attacks from the plebs. A squadron of ten city guards with crossbows drawn and pointed at you should always make you pause and consider your options. Armour as DR just doesn't allow for that at all.

As for taking from Modern, about the only thing I'm specifically taking is renaming AC to defence, and possible consideration of a level-based Defence bonus.

Yes, I know I could just keep the existing AC rules. But I want something that reflects how armour doesn't mean "harder to hit" but "can take more punishment". And I know if you cross your eyes just so, the lower hit chance amounts to the same thing. But more verisimilitude is my goal here.


Yah but if heavier armor has lots of hardness, than power attacks and uber chargers become that much more useless, like you intended.

This also makes you utterly immune to the city guard, which defeats my primary goal.

And yes, I am fine with the idea of a solo 20th level sword fighter being cut to ribbons by a small army of bandits with crossbows. Even if the bandits also had swords, he can only fight for so long before one of them gets a lucky break. The vanilla rules don't allow for that, and armour as DR even less so.

[imp_fireball]

primarily because it makes low-level opponents utterly irrelevant once you have enough to make yourself vaguely survivable against hard hitters.


That's how it applies in real life though. And besides, at low level, enemies will want to fight smarter - they can't fly in, wailing away at a man in full plate. They'll probably want to take advantage of his lack of speed by standing upon cliffs up above and throwing down heavy rocks that can do enough damage to get through his hardness. Or plinking away with ranged weapons in hit and run until one of them critically confirms.

Also, any kobold worth his weight would take a level in rogue for sneak attack - otherwise, they'd stand no chance against any knight in full plate. Kobolds are typically cowardly and paranoid after all. It makes sense that a single inexperienced human knight could slaughter them by the dozens. As a GM, just don't let it happen. Kobolds aren't really that stupid (despite their horrendous CR).

Also, maybe flatfooted AC will use the standard armor bonus - so when flat footed, a character has +8 armor AC with regular full plate (attacks are likely to just bounce off unless they're well aimed) and attacks that don't get through the AC still count against the hardness (but those that do get through the hardness) - when actively aware, he has +1 touch AC and +3 armor AC but the full plate applies its hardness against attacks.

Say, the guy is a level 1 warrior/flat footed - even if he is wearing a helm, a rock dropped from a above that does only 4 damage can still hurt him severely. Especially if he make no effort to dodge - because he's unaware of it! If he's aware, it won't hit him on the head unless it's a natural 20 and critical confirmation.

If he hasn't the reflexes to avoid rocks hitting him on the head, he never was a good warrior to begin with.

Conversely, if a 500 pound boulder were to rapidly descend on him (I don't know... let's say, 90 damage), assume he doesn't notice it. It makes it through his touch AC (he's a large man) but isn't necessarily well aimed. It doesn't strike him on the head - in fact, striking where the armor is strongest (maybe awkwardly along the back).

The problem though is that it is so heavy and descending at such speed that the shock of the impact immediately kills the wearer anyway, since it did enough damage to go through his armor's hardness.

[Ashtagon]

That's how it applies in real life though.

No. In real life, ten guys with loaded guns pointed at you means you cooperate or you don't live. This equally applied to knights in full plate armour facing off against archers.

[Latronis]

hp are an abstract system so 'that's how it works in real life' holds as much water as a vegetable strainer

[Ashtagon]

hp are an abstract system so 'that's how it works in real life' holds as much water as a vegetable strainer

Yes, and my goal is to make the system conform more to real life. If you don't have anything useful to contribute to a thread, feel free not to derail it.

[Zom B]

Here's the way we did it in another game system: All damage went to armor. Armor was simply divided into three categories: light, medium, and heavy. The category determined how many hit points it had, and then the material it was made of determined its hardness. Since it was a futuristic setting, different materials were rated differently for energy attacks and physical attacks.

[Aran Banks]

No. In real life, ten guys with loaded guns pointed at you means you cooperate or you don't live. This equally applied to knights in full plate armour facing off against archers.

Yeah, that's because You're A COMMONER without DAMAGE REDUCTION.

So I don't see how your rebuttal contradicts anything.

If I've got armor, it decreases the amount of damage I take. Just like steel might stop a bullet, but has weak bits, D&D armor can stop an arrow (but it has weak bits). Either it reduces the damage you take, or it makes you harder to hit. Those are the only viable options.

... and now that you've said that attacks will do a little AP damage and a little HP damage, it sounds like you're going on the Damage Reduction track, except you need to repair your armor every once in a while. So why not just say "you have DR, and need to repair your armor every once in a while,"?

[Ashtagon]

Yeah, that's because You're A COMMONER without DAMAGE REDUCTION.

So I don't see how your rebuttal contradicts anything.

You don't appear to have commented on the bit where I mentioned that this equally applies to knights in armour. The battle of Agincourt wasn't a historical fluke. French knights got slaughtered by English archers, and not just Agincourt. Crecy and many other battles repeated the theme.

[Spiryt]

You don't appear to have commented on the bit where I mentioned that this equally applies to knights in armour. The battle of Agincourt wasn't a historical fluke. French knights got slaughtered by English archers, and not just Agincourt. Crecy and many other battles repeated the theme.

And it was discussed thousands times, even at this site, that it's not because longbow was some super medieval weapon, or because it was very effective at penetrating armors.

And that those battles were some kind of "flukes" because in many, many others archers/infantry was getting trampled.

Battle of Patay, to not search long. All depending on tactics, situation, and many other things.

Ten normal archers, without some really good skills and heavy/good bows, could be very well trampled by one bad knight, especially in a bit silly, RPG like situation when they meet like that somewhere from whatever reason.

One of the (sadly) few sensible test of accurate arrows against fairly accurate mail, for people's enjoyment.

Here. (http://www.cotasdemalla.es/ma1.htm) (Test Cotas)

[Ashtagon]

Here. (http://www.cotasdemalla.es/ma1.htm) (Test Cotas)

Sadly, I don't read Spanish. And my browser isn't too fluent in Plugin either :(

[Spiryt]

Sadly, I don't read Spanish. And my browser isn't too fluent in Plugin either :(

You click "Test Cotas'' and test is fortunately in English also.

If your browser can't view it, I saw Word version somewhere.

[Dilb]

You click "Test Cotas'' and test is fortunately in English also.

If your browser can't view it, I saw Word version somewhere.

The guy is using a 50-lb bow. Most estimates I've seen put longbows at 100 lbs or more. Plate armour did make someone nearly immune to arrows at long range, giving the arrows time to slow down, and making aiming impossible, but bows, crossbows, or pistols could all kill someone at close range.

The battle of Patay is a wonderful example of a surprise attack on an unfortified position. 1500 charging knights attacking ~3000 exposed longbow men is not at all the same as 1 guy in town surrounded by 10 guards.

[imp_fireball]

hp are an abstract system so 'that's how it works in real life' holds as much water as a vegetable strainer

So your saying it's flawed from the get go because hp is an abstract system and thus D&D should not ever be realistic.

That seems to be a lot of what you're suggesting.

Sorry, but your logic is a little wonky.


Plate armour did make someone nearly immune to arrows at long range, giving the arrows time to slow down, and making aiming impossible, but bows, crossbows, or pistols could all kill someone at close range.

Okay well unless you want a called shots system, it's generally assumed that a knight in full plate will typically be very cautious against a dozen kobolds to the point that only 1 in 20 arrows will go through, if they let every projectile hit them.

Even a level 1 warrior is tougher than you or I. They're soldiers. It's their unwritten job to try to anticipate how the enemy thinks.

Alternatively, you could double the value of full plate - the +3 armor bonus mark is the point where hardness applies when the knight is aware. But when the knight is aware, the enemy must get through a +16 armor bonus to nail them appropriately - reflecting that an enemy of absurdly better skill can take them down.

Alternatively (again) - long bow arrows can have armor piercing tips. That means they already automatically get through some of the hardness of full plate anyway. If they're made to be pulled by stronger hands (like the composite's +1, +2, etc.), they do even more damage.


The guy is using a 50-lb bow.

That's pretty darn heavy for a bow. More like a hand held ballista of some sort - would probably do a lot more damage if it was made right.

EDIT: Even if it were called a long bow - if it happens to naturally shoot farther, chances are it flies faster and thus more damage anyway. Still quite like a ballista. I don't think they're meant to stand up and aim - probably seat themselves down and pull back somehow.


No. In real life, ten guys with loaded guns pointed at you means you cooperate or you don't live. This equally applied to knights in full plate armour facing off against archers.

Well in real life, those guns probably propel bullets fast enough to automatically get through some of that hardness. And bullets don't immediately get through full plate anyway, unless high enough caliber (which is a lot more damage). A blunderbuss is ridiculously high caliber for a hand held gun and it can seriously crumple full plate - but the bullet still doesn't get through (I saw it on deadliest warrior; it created a big dent but the breast plate of the french knight's plate mail wasn't in dire need of repair after wards). It crumples the wearer though purely due to the force of impact.

If you wanted to get even more intricate - make the hardness of the armor more vulnerable to bludgeoning damage to reflect that bludgeoning weapons such as maces and blunderbusses (the impact of a round creates a shock wave enough to bludgeon) would shock the wearer. Since that's the main problem of bullets impacting on a guy with full plate.

You could counteract bludgeoning weapons by making swords and spears and the like easier to wield - give a sword user a higher attack bonus per BAB or whatever (or maybe weapon focus gives them more attack).

Armor additions such as extra layers of interlaced mail, could reduce the bludgeoning vulnerability of an armor's hardness.

Note that full plate alone arguably competes with modern armor (such as composite kevlar and ceramic plates) in terms of resisting penetration (which is why hardness is so high usually).


1500 charging knights attacking ~3000 exposed longbow men is not at all the same as 1 guy in town surrounded by 10 guards.

Charging knights are practically indestructible.

Perhaps if there were some sort of aiming mechanic, then the archer would have a lot more of a chance against the knight.

Maybe 'absolute aim' requires a full round with no distractions and continued line of sight undisrupted (if disrupted or distracted, they need to roll a concentration check) - after which the archer gets to take 20. Or receive a +20 bonus and still roll against the knight. If they roll high enough (+16 armor bonus?) they get through the knight's hardness automatically and the knight suffers hp damage directly.

Very rarely, they could roll critical confirmation (but they'd apply the +20 bonus to critically confrim as well) - a critical strike would be like getting the knight between the eyes from long range. Which is why it only occurs on a chance of 1 in 20. Quite rare.

Maybe the archer needs +1 BAB and proficiency in the bow to get a +20 bonus on absolute aim - otherwise it's take 20. Which means if they only have +2 attack with the bow, then taking 20 would never get through the knight (they'd probably deflect it with their sword or tilt their head slightly, etc.).

In an open battlefield, this is reasonable - a knight won't notice every archer aiming at them.

But when a knight is against a few archers, they can easily take cover while the archers are aiming if they can't move and reach them immediately.

A knight on horse back could probably slaughter 10 archers this way - especially if they were a fighter 1. Trample + Mounted Combat + Ride by Attack (improved overrun for the mount).

They could charge and overrun the first archer in the line, and attack another archer in reach and then stop in the space.

The archers might try to aim. But then the knight would just charge and overrun as many as they can get in a line, trampling each and every one of them. If they took a second level in fighter and a level in lion totem barbarian they could get two weapon fighting and attack as many times as they overrun with their mount and with both their swords - so they could slay three archers in a line or more per round.

Or they could be a 2nd level fighter/1st level lion totem barbarian with a greatsword, power attack and cleave as well as ride by attack, trample and mounted combat. So they could effectively charge in and attack the same number of archers but with more damage and rage.

Although the above build is terrible since in order to have a guy on a mount with a great sword slaughtering everything in one line he needs to be 4th level fighter/2nd level barbarian for Ride by Attack, Mounted Combat, Trample, Power Attack, Cleave, Great Cleave, and Monkey Grip (or Exotic Weapon Proficiency for a spiked chain).

But... if he were 6th level fighter/3rd level barbarian, he could have Ride by Attack, Mounted Combat, Trample, Power Attack, Cleave, Great Cleave, Exotic Weapon Proficiency (spiked chain), Two Weapon Fighting and Monkey Grip (to wield two spiked chains).

Yeah, he'd need to be super human (better than genghis khan) to slaughter something like a line of 20 - 30 archers in one round.

And he'd probably be wearing mithril full plate with enhancement bonus by then and I'm thinking some substitution for rage for the barbarian.

Which is a bit silly, but then again archers are warriors who know how to avoid you.

Then again, commoners on the other hand should be easy - the only way to make them easily killed though is to cluster them in more than one commoner per space.

[Latronis]

So your saying it's flawed from the get go because hp is an abstract system and thus D&D should not ever be realistic.

That seems to be a lot of what you're suggesting.

Sorry, but your logic is a little wonky.

^textbook example of a strawman (logical fallacy)

I'm not suggesting anything I'm saying the premise that real life armour functions as damage reduction so it should in D&D too is flawed because the measure of ability to stay alive (hp) is unrealistic(abstract).

Armour keeps you alive longer be it by 'not getting hit' (AC) 'getting hit for less' (DR) or 'being able to be hit more before succumbing' (this proposed system, which has functionality similiar to temporary hp)

[Aran Banks]

You don't appear to have commented on the bit where I mentioned that this equally applies to knights in armour. The battle of Agincourt wasn't a historical fluke. French knights got slaughtered by English archers, and not just Agincourt. Crecy and many other battles repeated the theme.

THAT DOESN'T EXPLAIN ANYTHING!!!!!

This doesn't show that DR is an inappropriate system for the game, it shows that Agincourt and Crecy had archers that killed off charges (I'm not even looking into the history since it's so off-topic). That means the knights didn't have good protection, not that they were using armor points v. damage reduction.

The fact is that having armor means you ignore blows. This is represented in something static, either a reduction of to-hit or a reduction of damage. Giving AP is neither of those--it's some nutty "I wanted to add HP but you guys told me it was a bad idea so now I'm changing it" concept.

Seriously, just drop the AP thing. And stop jumping from topic to topic, as it will not help your case.

@Imp_fireball: Why... so much write... is too much to read...

[Ashtagon]

The guy is using a 50-lb bow.
That's pretty darn heavy for a bow. More like a hand held ballista of some sort - would probably do a lot more damage if it was made right.

EDIT: Even if it were called a long bow - if it happens to naturally shoot farther, chances are it flies faster and thus more damage anyway. Still quite like a ballista. I don't think they're meant to stand up and aim - probably seat themselves down and pull back somehow.

At one of my old archery clubs, a guy was using a genuine traditional long bow. Single piece of wood with a straight staff. It was an 80 lb draw weight, and he commented that it was rather weak compared to the more historically accurate long bows that would have been used in warfare. 40-50 lb is about where the typical sport enthusiast compound bow archer was at.

Hand ballista? Maybe by modern standards. It wasn't by accident they said you train a longbowyer by beginning with his grandfather.

[Latronis]

100lbs draw seems reasonable for a 6ft tall bow, but they they weren't exactly used to point and shoot as in most D&D games

[Aran Banks]

. . . don't encourage jumping from topic to topic.
{{scrubbed}}

[Ashtagon]

Does anyone have any useful comments regarding the original goal of making "armour as extra hp" work?

[Latronis]

It's going to be a lot of work

[Spiryt]

You always could add this " artificial " HP, in addition to normal or slightly dereased HP to medium and heavy armors.


If you want to make all


Yes, and my goal is to make the system conform more to real life. If you don't have anything useful to contribute to a thread, feel free not to derail it.

"More conform to real life" - adding boosts to anyway who is not running around with naked butt in front of spears, arrows, and dragon claws would be good idea.

[Latronis]

I like the idea of what amount to a secondary health bar but in the end i think the AP would need some kind of damage mitigation applied to it or you end up with the same problem. Too little help or too much

[Dilb]

Does anyone have any useful comments regarding the original goal of making "armour as extra hp" work?

Well, what exactly do you want to accomplish? Why bother with this change? What level range do you want to use? A guy with 200 hp isn't in any danger from 10 level 1 guys with bows regardless of his AC, and adding more hp on top of that isn't going to improve the situation.

[lesser_minion]

Hmm... I could get behind this, but I think an SWSE-style handling of the issue might be better (where armour does little to reduce the amount of damage you take, but does make damage less likely to slow you down or kill you outright).

Also, by convention, it's one minute's rest to end an encounter in 3rd edition, not five.

[Aran Banks]

Armor Points shouldn't refresh any less often than once/combat, because doing less than once/combat means players will find loops and give themselves veritable infinite HP.

So it needs to be something like AP of some value (I'd say AC bonus) x ECL. When you take damage, you can ignore 1 damage/level at a 1:1 exchange rate for armor points... or you can ignore 2 damage/level at a 1:2 exchange rate for armor points... or you can ignore 3 damage/level at a 1:3 exchange rate.

Armor no longer provides an AC bonus.

Armor refreshes after a minute (10 rounds) of not taking damage or dealing damage, or when the DM decides combat is over.

---------

This system is basically an expansion of Armor as DR. However, it offers more flexibility to a player and makes them consider their resources.

---------

You can do something to represent wear and tear as well, decreasing the value of an armor's AP by 1 after each month of use (or every 10 or so combats... if you wanted to go really crazy, you could keep track of the number of times a player takes a hit. 33 would be a good number.) so that a PC would have to spend a portion of his/her phat loot on keeping their armor decent (which adds a degree of realism).

You make take this if you want, but you need to keep in mind:

Making AP work long-term is giving extra HP... which you might as well just do, so players don't have to keep track of 2 HP bars
Making AP prevent a static amount of damage at all times makes it into DR, which you seem to vehemently oppose. So don't do that.
Making armor capabilities scale by size gives ridiculously unbalanced bonuses
Making armor capabilities scale by ECL is nice.

[imp_fireball]

Making AP prevent a static amount of damage at all times makes it into DR, which you seem to vehemently oppose. So don't do that.

No, hardness behaves differently than DR. For one, it doesn't negate energy damage unless the energy damage is dealt directly at the object providing the hardness. Two, it's better versus ranged damage. Three, there's no need to give every little thing with AP the special quality of bypassing DR because DR/- can mean many different things (ie. the guy could be naturally tough, he has adaptable natural armor, or he's got some magical healing that only works up to a limit immediately upon taking damage, etc.).

For hardness, you just need to say 'this weapon bypasses X amount of hardness when not dealing damage directly to the object providing the hardness' - rather than 'this weapon bypasses X amount of DR/- if the DR provides DR by way of X and Y and Z and AA and BB and blahblahblah as so detailed in the fluff' under the armor as DR system. See?

DR is a much more inflexible take on hardness and generally requires specific types of damage to bypass or forcibly demands more damage.


Making AP work long-term is giving extra HP... which you might as well just do, so players don't have to keep track of 2 HP bars

In all honesty, I don't think that's very much book keeping compared to the GM paying attention to every character sheet, present status condition, what the latter means, magical items equipped and how they might effect the current encounter, remembering anything that they or the players forgot to write down on their own character sheets, how a single spell might affect things or turn the tides, movement rules, line of sight, line of effect, circumstance bonuses, combat maneuvers such as grapple, etc.


An hp bar is just a number which corresponds to a ratio of current hp: total hp. Mind you, it applies to every creature and player (and sometimes objects) but then again, so do magic items in applying to every player (and sometimes creatures and objects too even).


Hand ballista? Maybe by modern standards. It wasn't by accident they said you train a longbowyer by beginning with his grandfather.

Well no, see I thought you said the bow itself was supposed to weigh 100lbs. Which would have been the weight of a small ballista. :smalltongue:

Draw weight of 100lbs. makes a lot more sense.


Making armor capabilities scale by ECL is nice.


I think it's better to make it remain the same and just make it scale with feats and better armor available at higher cost (ie. master work; technological modifications and magic).


Making armor capabilities scale by size gives ridiculously unbalanced bonuses

I agree, unless the OP was referring to hp of the armor itself if it were an object.


Why... so much write... is too much to read...


:thog: Hummy should no panic. When talky people do that it called 'rant', but Nale call it 'slip of tongue' and 'streem of con-shus-nus' and 'or either or' - Thog tell Nale it boring and Nale say 'exactly'. Then Thog confused. *sigh* You get used in time later.
-------

[Latronis]

I think scaling by BAB would work better than ECL

[imp_fireball]

I think scaling by BAB would work better than ECL

I'm going to keep it simple now and say that any sort of scaling would suck balls.

Read above for why.

What I intended to include was, 'adding a system of non-scaling but rather better armor that could be improved magically or technologically or through master work quality would actually provide more options for players rather then represent a boring static scaling'.

[imp_fireball]

Default d20 is armour as AC bonus, making you harder to hit. A common variant is armour as DR, reducing damage per hit. One system I've seen in other games is armour as damage soak, effectively giving extra hp.

(Context note: I am explicitly using "hit points are a hero (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PlotArmor) shield (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MadeOfIron)". Characters also have "body points" equal to their Constitution score, which represent actual physical damage to flesh and bone).

Very loosely, I am suggesting that each point of AC bonus translates to 5 "armour points". Damage strikes at ap and hp equally until ap run out, then go entirely to hp. Attacks that would normally ignore armour (energy attacks, generally) also ignore ap. Armour points are restored in full after a five-minute rest, during which it is assumed the character is adjusting armour plates, tightening straps, and re-aligning any loosened hooks in the armour. A consequence of this is that armour no longer provides an AC bonus.

Any obvious problems with this idea? Any ideas on how this could be improved?

Here's an alternative (again) -

Armor points represent a certain value. This value resets automatically each round. It is different from temporary hp in that it does not negate total hp when removed. It should thus be considered something new like 'armor hp' and not 'temporary hp'.

Fluff

During a round, armor hp represents the armor's ability to resist trauma. It takes damage. When it resets on the next round, this represents a principle of armor physics rather than 're adjusting straps/hooks/etc.' - enemies that are, ie., thrusting a dagger at the armor don't thrust inwards enough and are assumed to have been forced to step backwards and defend on the next round (unless they initiated a grapple), thus the armor resets in stress. The same pretty much applies during a grapple, since it represents an enemy's ability to exert only a certain amount of pressure and trauma on an opponent over a period of time.
-----

Mechanic

Armor points are 5*armor bonus to AC provided by the armor.

When the wearer of armor takes damage from an opponent they are not flatfooted to, the armor points take the damage instead.

If an opponent deals enough damage to bypass all armor points immediately, the armor points are assumed not to have taken the damage, and the damage instead applies to the wearer's main reserve of hitpoints.

Armor itself is an object - precision damage (such as sneak attack) and critical confirmations ignore armor points. However in order to do this, they must bypass the armor's armor bonus to AC - this is in fact the only time this bonus applies, aside from when the wearer is flatfooted.

Ie. Grissom the first level human fighter wears full plate, giving him 40 armor points. He has max CON, the toughness feat and max Hp for his HD, thus giving him 17 total Hp (thus his stats are Hp Current/Total, 17/17; Ap Current/Total 40/40).

He takes 3 damage from Sliker, the kobold warrior's dagger. Sliker won initiative in the first round against Grissom. Grissom quickly slays Sliker with a stroke of his sword on his own turn. Grissom's Ap is now 37/40.

The round ends, and Grissom carries on his merry way. But the combat isn't over - on the next round, Grissom is surprised by a kobold rogue (Yurtz) who rolls a 19 (Grissom's flat footed AC is 18) and sneak attacks him for 5 damage. Grissom responds by winning initiative (he has improved initiative) and slaying Yurtz with another sword stroke.

Grissom's vitals are now Hp 12/17 and Ap 40/40 (the new round reset his Ap value).

A few minutes later, Grissom meets a big orc (Tek'ron), who happens to be a 1st level barbarian. Grissom is rudely provoked by the orc to make the first move. Grissom obliges, but the orc surprises him (readied action) by attacking when Grissom charges, right before he makes his own attack. Grissom isn't flat footed though so his Ap applies, but since Tek'ron's attack is a regular attack, Tek'ron must beat only an AC of 8.

Since Tek'ron activates his rage in the same instance that he charges and has rolled top strength (22 for an orc; boosted to 26 with rage), he is able to attack with a +9 to his roll; even if he power attacks and lowers his attack to +8, he's still able to make a hit inevitable (unless he rolled a 1).

So, Tek'ron hits and power attacks. He strikes Grissom for 18 damage - normally this would affect Grissom's Ap value as normal, but Tek'ron also rolls a critical threaten and confirmation! Tek'ron rolls greatsword damage again, a 7 this time.

Since critical confirmations bypass Ap value - that 7 damage is dealt against Grissom's Hp. Grissom's vitals are now Hp 5/17 and Ap 22/40 (latter of which will become 40/40 on the next round).

But say Tek'ron were a high enough level to take leap attack? Say he dealt over 40 damage to Grissom? Then all that damage would apply to Grissom's Hp instead of his Ap and immediately end his career with death by something close to massive damage.

Say, instead of the leap attack scenario, a dozen kobolds pounced on Grissom right after Tek'ron power attacked him? Say each kobold deals 2 damage in the same round and all hit.

10 kobolds hitting Grissom, none of which he is flatfooted to (say, he knew they were there beforehand and he's overconfident that he can take them all on as well as the orc) - would be 20 damage. It would knock his Ap value down to 2/40. The next kobold that hits, say, does 3 damage. That bypasses Grissom's Ap value, meaning that no damage is dealt to it at all and instead the 3 damage applies to Grissom's Hp, knocking him down to Hp 2/17 and Ap 2/40.

If Grissom survives until the beginning of the next round, his Hp will still remain at 2/17, but his Ap will be knocked back to 40/40, as the armor naturally protects him somewhat against the continuous trauma imposed against him.
----

Does the above system make sense at all?

Additional rule ideas -

- Bludgeoning weapons can be used to damage the wearer of the armor without having to completely go through armor. If they are two handed relative in size category to the wearer, 50% of the damage goes to the armor and 50% directly to the Hp and if one handed relative to the size category of wearer 25% of damage goes directly to Hp and 75% to Ap (light bludgeoning weapons only affect Ap), however sneak attacks and other precision damage (but not critical confirmations) with bludgeoning weapons are treated the same way (so they do not have the advantage of ignoring Ap like other weapons). Ap applies against bludgeoning weapons, whether or not the wearer is flatfooted - but on the upside, the wearer's armor bonus never applies against bludgeoning weapons.

- Armor only has hardness (using my specific hardness rules I already detailed), which only applies to Ap, when it can resist a certain amount of continuous trauma on the wearer that can be prevented always, no matter how fast or continous - so hardness 1 could resist many weaker dagger thrusts that deal only 1 damage every attack, even if 100 or 100,000 different daggers each deal 1 damage to the armor; neither armor nor wearer would be affected; as you can (hopefully) see, hardness is even more significant under this system. Usually hardness only results from superior crafting technique, magic or much more durable material that the armor mostly consists of (such as adamantine). Ie. Very thick and heavy adamantine full plate with interlaced adamantine mail could have hardness 8 and 40 Ap.

- Certain weapons can get through the above detailed hardness if they have hardness bypassing qualities.

- A quality similar to how light/heavy fortification applies to opposing critical confirmations could apply to armor opposing bludgeoning weapons. Hardness piercing weapons are usually only opposed by greater hardness or a specific damage type resistance (such fire resistance or slashing resistance).

[Aran Banks]

Imp... I... No.

Just no. WHY would you make a system that much more complicated? And WHY would you do it like that? With a heavy steel shield and full plate, you have the ability to ignore 50 points of damage. That's fireball from a 15th-level caster, or disintegration from a 7th-level caster.

Which means it's ridiculous. So NO THAT'S A BAD IDEA.

So I finally decided to actually read your rebuttal, and here are my arguments in order:

1) DR v. AP v. Hardness
Alright, I have no idea where this hardness thing came up. Seriously, no idea. It's not my beef with the system, and I really don't care about it. Ignored.

2) AP, HP, and bookkeeping
You used the example "well the DM does a lot of work, so it's OK" which is sort of straw, sort of not. I'm just gonna say, a lot of people I know are players because they don't like the work involved. Soooo "the GM does it" kind of doesn't work as a rationale.

3) Armor and ECL
Your post right after the one I'm responding to said "scaling sucks, read above". So I read your rationale, and it consisted of "scaling shouldn't happen because it would be better to scale with equipment improvements". Firstly, that's an ENORMOUS hyperbole, but I'll discount such a thing since I'm used to it. Secondly, masterwork gives -1 ACP, and magic armor scales to max +5 enhancement, normally. Most games don't do the "more technology" thing anyways.

Now, if this is your rationale, I would recommend creating a system superior to or even on par with my system (your system < my system. See above) that forsakes improved granularity for something better or equally good.

I'll be waiting for it.

[imp_fireball]

With a heavy steel shield and full plate, you have the ability to ignore 50 points of damage. That's fireball from a 15th-level caster, or disintegration from a 7th-level caster.

Which is why it easily could be explicitly stated that 'energy damage ignores armor points (maybe with a failed reflex save; success indicates damage affects Ap instead)'; and then feats/class features like 'evasion' could have exceptions added to them. A spell like disintegration (and other similar ray spells) might permanently remove Ap for any damage it does (any permanent Ap removal can be repaired with a craft check though) and affect Hp at 50%.

Look, I'm not giving the OP every rule idea to work out for herself - I'm still considering giving her the chance to do her own thing.

This entire brain storm/pitch reiteration I've been displaying is just a starting idea hook. The rest the OP can work with - to be honest, I want her to say, 'that sounds good, maybe I'll work from there with that idea hook' (though I didn't expect her to say that).


Soooo "the GM does it" kind of doesn't work as a rationale.

Listen to what you are saying here.


I'm just gonna say, a lot of people I know are players because they don't like the work involved.

Soooo "the GM does it' does kinda work as a rationale, actually.

If you want to learn how to debate properly, be extra careful not to contradict yourself.
----


Alright, I have no idea where this hardness thing came up. Seriously, no idea. It's not my beef with the system, and I really don't care about it. Ignored.

It started when I realized that there's this notion going around that 'DR' makes more sense than hardness when it in fact, does not. DR is straight 'subtract damage' - hardness is quite alike except that it behaves slightly differently and in more ways than one in regards to varying circumstances. Also DR needs to be specified (where this and this and this bypass DR and everything else does not) - also note that there's only one kind of hardness in the entire game - and GMs just need to familiarize themselves with how it behaves in relation to what it applies to, and how it behaves in relation to everything else.

I know it requires an apt GM, but then again, the entire game almost demands an apt GM to take full advantage of what the game itself offers.

I'm not advocating that the game get rid of DR - fluffwise hardness is just one thing. Something based in a mundane principle of physics, whereas DR is not and could mean many things. So DR can still apply in some situations. General rulewise, it could be said that DR and hardness stack unless explicitly stated otherwise.

And don't give me the argument 'but it is supposed to only work on objects and for sundering and oh noes!'. That holds absolutely no water - it's just an early decision the designers made because they figured sunder rules needed that. They figured players would be naturally thinking about realism when they considered sunder rules.

Out of context, the idea of hardness was basically just thrown into the game and never given much more thought. But since it largely roots itself in fundamental physics, it could go a lot further in the game than just sunder rules.

Now, the whole reason people seem to want to make armor work better is because of verisimillitude (this is why these armor threads keep appearing on homebrew at a dime a dozen; and no offense, but this thread could turn into another one of them if you don't think a little bit more about your rules) - DR is very unfriendly in regards to verisimillitude. Personified, they are basically enemies from unlike houses on campus.
---


You used the example "well the DM does a lot of work, so it's OK" which is sort of straw, sort of not.

How is that straw? You have to back up your claims, man.

-----
I'm sorry, but I don't hate you and you don't have to like me - it's just, y'know? If you're arguing rules (especially house rules), it's important to look at everything. Like a detective.

In D&D terms (since we're all fans after all), I think this is all just a misunderstanding resulting from different ability scores (again, spurring from the ongoing debate that 'abstractly, real life can be compared to D&D').

I probably have a low charisma (or it could be 12 or so and I just haven't learned to take advantage of it properly) - that's why hardly anybody but the more serious of posters listens to me on these forums (you might say it's because I make no sense, but I'll explain in a bit when I get to that).

We all most likely have similar intelligence scores. Intelligence is difficult to guage in an ordinary conversation.

But we all have largely different wisdom scores. No offense, but I believe you're having trouble with understanding my entire pitch since any one of you is disadvantaged in that area.

But you never know, I could just be a loon and I don't have a higher wisdom score than either of you at all.

And if the fact that I'm suggesting this makes me look like an arrogant ******* - it's yet another example of my potentially lowered charisma.

I can't say that I'm entirely humble either though. :smalltongue:


Firstly, that's an ENORMOUS hyperbole

I think you got the definition of hyperbole wrong. Hyperbole is exaggeration (ie. "Your idea is the absolute worst of any I have EVER SEEN") - I don't think I had intended to exaggerate anything.


Most games don't do the "more technology" thing anyways.

It's not really a good idea to make assumptions. That's probably the main reason countless battles in human history have been lost.


Now, if this is your rationale, I would recommend creating a system superior to or even on par with my system

You sure you don't just want to call it 'my (that is, your) system'? I've been pitching you.

Y'know I could easily just create a system of my own - and I am fully aware that I have the power and drive to, but I don't really feel like it. I actually have several other projects I'm focused on currently.

Also, there doesn't need to be a new system for everything (this is a trend that I've seen for months on giantitp now) - you can easily work with an existing system and allow it to merge with the RAW system (AKA a supplement). Supplements are fun, because they don't demand that GMs use them.

This armor points system that the OP proposed could probably be better worded as a 'variant' - that way it indicates that GMs don't have to use it, but if they do, then it will replace or alter a small part of the existing system.


I'll be waiting for it.

Sorry, but you won't see it, because I care only enough to help other people create such a system and perhaps only include me in the 'special thanks' section. I don't like to consider myself a fame whore, unfortunately.

In short, I've been offering to help you with your system and since I have nothing better to do, I will continue to pitch you until you're satisfied.

It's not really worth it to devote any of my time to my own ideas (and wait weeks and weeks to get them peached). I also prefer to do my part to somewhat limit the number of threads on this board.

[Aran Banks]

1) Your example doesn't work because I voided energy!
You know what? Fine. How about this: IT REQUIRES OPPONENTS TO USE DAMAGE TYPES OTHER THAN BLUDGEONING, SLASHING, and PIERCING. Which makes the system useless. Happy?

2) You contradicted yourself...
I don't understand how... I said the players don't like doing extra work, which is why we shouldn't make them keep track of AP and HP.

Did that not come across?

3) You're talking about DR v. Hardness.... skipped it...

4) Straw
If you can't recognize it, I'm not going to bother arguing it with you.

5) What? Hyperbole?? Where???
You said "look at my above post to see why scaling systems suck". When I looked at your above post, you said "I prefer magic/tech advancements over scaling to ECL."

I call that hyperbole. What do you call it?

6) Then some more fluffy arguments. Just so you know, I don't give valid rebuttals to arguments like "I would, but I don't feel like it" and "don't make assumptions because X happened!!!!1!!one!"

TL;DR....

1) Your system is bad. I rephrased why.

2) From personal experience, I do not recommend 2 bars of HP, because players generally aren't avid fans of extra complications. Does that make sense thar?

3, 4, and 6) Ignore them. I'm not going to waste my time with a rebuttal if you respond, unless it's DERPtastic.

5) I kind of want to see what you say about hyperbole here...

[imp_fireball]

I said the players don't like doing extra work, which is why we shouldn't make them keep track of AP and HP.


I indicated the GM should do it.


If you can't recognize it, I'm not going to bother arguing it with you.


I can recognize it. I'm asking you to point out why my argument might be straw. This is a test of your ability to support your accussations, see?


Which makes the system useless. Happy?


I don't think it does. The system just gives more attention to the mundane aspects of D&D, which is what all this verisimillitude arguing is about after all right?

Wait, do you even know what the definition of verisimillitude is? Look it up and tell me if you don't or at least demonstrate that you are aware of what it means.


Then some more fluffy arguments. Just so you know, I don't give valid rebuttals to arguments like "I would, but I don't feel like it" and "don't make assumptions because X happened!!!!1!!one!"


And a good thing too, because those rebutals would be unrelated to the actual girth of the argument itself. Which is about the system, not whether or not I feel like creating it for you guys.


I'm not going to waste my time with a rebuttal if you respond, unless it's DERPtastic.


Why? Is it easier for you to respond to obvious idiocy rather then expend some energy upon finding it for yourself so that you can further argue inanely with me?

Okay, really. No offense, but you're sounding quite ignorant here. You're on the verge of flaming me, and I'm entirely calm. Think about it. So far you haven't given much thought to any of the conversation at all, let alone the actual system itself. How old are you?


I kind of want to see what you say about hyperbole here...

I already had my say regarding that. But you probably skimmed and didn't notice - surprise, surprise.

So far, you'd have gotten a failing grade at the debate club. Sorry, but this isn't about 'the angrier I am, or the more stupid I try to make the other guy seem, the more right I will be'. That's called childish behavior.

[Ashtagon]

Just a quick note to say I have been watching this thread. I also spent most of the weekend arguing with my phone company because they sold me a dud mobile phone. I will write a fuller reply when I get time.

[Aran Banks]

1) The GM Should do it
I apologize for not reading into your post and seeing that.

However, making the GM keep track of AP is confusing unless you make the GM keep track of HP too. Which means the players don't look at their health (unless they ask the GM for updates constantly), which is kind of a trope of D&D.

However, if your games run that way... enjoy them.

2) I told you I wasn't going to bother arguing straw. If you feel like it's important, send me a PM.

3) The system isn't useless! It encourages versimillitude!
Oooohhhh... on the edge of flaming right here. Cool your jets, bro. On a sidenote, it's one L, not two.

Of course, you still haven't addressed the subject of how your system gives immunity to mundane damage at low levels. Tell me why the ability to ignore 50 points of damage from any mundane attack isn't broken at level 1. Please.

4) And then you get a little flamey... ignoring...

5) And then you don't tell me about hyperbole, instead saying "look at my other argument.... over there...
>.>
<.<"

But let's pretend we haven't derailed this, since I know telling you that you haven't explained hyperbole is going to dig us into the ground.

So all I want is a response to (3). Nothing about "oh you're bad at debate". Please, I'm not interested in how much cooler you think you are than me. Just. Address. The Crunch.

[imp_fireball]

is confusing unless you make the GM keep track of HP too.

Most GMs already do that. Especially if every GM keeps track of monster Hp (unless they're willing to let the players decide when the monster dies).

And players can look at Hp at their own option but it's the GMs responsibility to tell them when something occurs as a result of low Hp (ie. player is dead, disabled, a prompt of 'are you sure?', etc.).


Of course, you still haven't addressed the subject of how your system gives immunity to mundane damage at low levels. Tell me why the ability to ignore 50 points of damage from any mundane attack isn't broken at level 1. Please.

It's broken, but on purpose. At earlier levels, players don't have the strength of hercules - you shouldn't ever be able to eviscerate someone in full plate with a 4ft. 8lbs. blade (typical size of great sword), razor sharp or not (in fact, at a certain point, being sharp means it can dull more quickly and has trouble piercing armor). Also, full plate is typically designed to absorb the shock of a 3000+lbs. swing.

Also, most heavy hitter players should be carrying great clubs (bludgeoning damage, if you remember what that does) for slaying armored foes at low levels and then have a great sword as back up for cleaving zombies.

Yep swords aren't as awesome as they used to be - and they're not supposed to be.

If you really want to - treat full plate (and all other armor) as double its armor bonus to AC, but only while the wearer is aware of a target attacking them. This reflects that a target can get through the armor points barrier if they make a very precise attack.

Maybe related damage typically boosted by dexterity can ignore Ap automatically since it reflects finesse targeting of weak points.

And sneak attacks are more important under this variant - and (at least) early on, uber chargers are more useless.

Players are forced to fight smarter as monsters are forced to fight smarter to take them down. Also, big, heavy hitting creatures can be thrown against ECL 1 adventurers in full plate early on - so the epic heroism even starts from the get go.

You could even introduce a new combat maneuver - sabotage against a mobile, aware target. It could be a regular attack at a penalty and adopt somewhat from disarm rules - maybe have a synergy bonus with the disable device skill or another related skill - such as craft (armor smithing) to reflect that you are familiar with the make of the armor and how to take it apart, ie.

Sabotage reflects permanent Ap reduction that must be repaired.

Sabotage would be opposed attack rolls (one to reflect an actual swing, while the other a free action to avoid or parry or whatever; just like disarm). The one using the maneuver does not apply their strength bonus to the attack roll - instead, it's BAB + dexterity modifier + anything else that boosts attack (GM discretion for the latter) + 1/2 skill modifier in disable device + 1/2 skill modifier in related craft/profession skill (GM discretion on what is 'related'; use highest modifier of those skills) and round down (for both skill modifiers).

The one avoiding the maneuver uses a standard attack roll (applying strength modifier to leg it away or strong arm the opponent backwards, etc.).

If the one using the maneuver succeeds - then they get to do damage to the opponent's armor points. This counts as permanent damage (must be repaired) and is not recovered at the beginning (before highest initiative and any free and immediate actions, etc.) of each round.

The actual damage is damage that would be dealt in one regular attack with the weapon used for the combat maneuver + 1/4 skill modifier of the skill modifiers of the skills used in the attack roll portion of this combat maneuver (round down).

Sabotaging with a weapon in two hands or more takes a -4 penalty to the attack roll on a sabotage (unless you have the weapon finesse feat), while light weapons have a +2 to the attack roll. A -4 penalty also applies to attack per size category you are greater than the opponent you are trying to sabotage.

A -4 penalty finally applies to both attack and damage if you are sabotaging with a ranged weapon, unless you have the precise shot feat.

The attack roll during a sabotage combat maneuver always takes a -10 penalty (because it's like performing surgery on a sociopath that is full awake and trying to stab you continuously), however it also always ignores armor or shield bonus to AC from whatever Ap granting equipment it is targeting.

If sabotage is used as a full action, take a -4 penalty to the attack roll instead. You can also sabotage an enemy in several rounds of devoted action, however this is the use of several skills instead of opposed attack rolls (hide to avoid being noticed by the enemy and others, sleight of hand to avoid the enemy feeling you playing with their armor; disable device or related craft or profession check for the actual result).

The actual damage from success if probably just d20 + highest skill modifier instead of weapon damage or a DC determining how badly damaged the armor is and a DC to make the damage go unnoticed (like regular sabotage rules).

A GM can instead declare that these skill checks are all complex skill checks to prevent such an action turning into a roll/opposed roll festival - the enemy could make one opposed roll for each skill that will come into play to set as the standard DC for each skill's complex skill check; or they can use their median opposed roll (a roll of 10 +/- modifiers).

Alternatively, you can sabotage armor when it is not worn with the use of less skills.

You can also sabotage other equipment (as probably already detailed for out-of-combat in RAW), however the way they are affected must either be detailed later or is at GM discretion.
-----

So really, it's broken, but on purpose - to change the way combat is approached early on.


since I know telling you that you haven't explained hyperbole is going to dig us into the ground.

Eh, no it isn't. I already said that I never intended to exagerate anything. What more do you want?


Of course, you still haven't addressed the subject of how your system gives immunity to mundane damage at low levels. Tell me why the ability to ignore 50 points of damage from any mundane attack isn't broken at level 1. Please.

Most people don't have full plate at level 1 - it's probably more like 35 points of damage ignored at level one (money for chain mail + heavy shield) and later on it can go up to full plate + tower shield for ignoring 60 points of damage (not including more money for master work + additional technological/magical/whatever affects related to more Ap and possibly hardness if you wanna use what I proposed). Just a nit pick though.

[Aran Banks]

1) GMs do HP
Yes, sure, GMs should keep track of HP. But (at least in every single game I've played), the player keeps track of his HP too.

According to your arguments, that's not the way you play. Explain.

2) Your system....
... So you just said "Yeah, it's broken. Here's how you fix it" and claimed that was your plan all along. Alright, whatever. Have fun with your needlessly complicated system.

3) Not as much damage!
Yeah, you said it's a nitpick. So long as you acknowledge that the above two problems exist, I've got no beef with you here.

[imp_fireball]

According to your arguments, that's not the way you play. Explain.


I didn't insinuate anything in regards to how I play...


Alright, whatever. Have fun with your needlessly complicated system.


Okay, y'know what?

I'm giving up now. I guess you're smarter than me.

Oh and try imposing a system that is realistic, 'streamlined' and doesn't suck total unshaved balls.

[Aran Banks]

I didn't insinuate anything in regards to how I play...

[quote here]

Okay, y'know what?

I'm giving up now. I guess you're smarter than me.

Oh and try imposing a system that is realistic, 'streamlined' and doesn't suck total unshaved balls.

You never showed how it sucked, my friend. You said it sucked, and your reasoning was "Well, I prefer X and Y." Then, when you tried to show how good your system was, I poked holes in it. You filled those holes with a bunch of overly complicated, situational mechanics.

So let me reiterate: You. Haven't. Proved. Anything. Take that as you will.

---

And as for the "I never said I play that way!" bit, yes you did. But I'm not going to talk about it (assuming you even look back to this thread), because you'd take it and we'd lose the basic argument. Again.