[d20 Fluff] Why is melee combat so weird?

[AnonymousD&Der]

Probably as a result of me posting something when I -desperately- need more sleep, but something about melee combat just doesn't sit right with me. A couple of things, actually. This is

First of all, your Armor Class. If the enemy fails to roll a result higher than your Armor Class, their attack misses. Wearing 50 Pounds of Full Plate Armor that borderline restricts all movement helps you -dodge- things. It can be said that you're blocking it, but what about touch attacks that the car you're wearing doesn't help defend you against? You're still considered having dodged the attack in said situations. Which makes being unable to use your dexterity to dodge and yet enemies -still- miss you, despite the fact that you've got the refined innards of a mountain covering you, even weirder.

Maybe it's because I'm up late, but the entire dodge system seems weird. I'd expect my armor to reduce the damage I take, not help me be able to dodge stuff easier. I don't see why one wouldn't use your Reflex Save to respond to attacks (using a natural result of 1+any applicable modifiers for situations in which you wouldn't be able to react). Armor would be used to give you a damage reduction quality. Heck, I don't see why the ability to Block Attacks hasn't been implimented. Players could get the afforementioned 1+modifier result to the Reflex save to dodge attacks (leaving room for error that the attacker has crappy aim or that nature doesn't want you to get hit), and would then roll a Fortitude Save against the same attack roll. You'd get a bonus to your afforementioned damage reduction for every certain amount you succeeded on the Fortitude Save (with a Natural 1 on the roll meaning your attempt to block actually left you even more exposed to the attack).

I doubt such a system would catch on. Just the musings of a random gamer. But when you're wearing a train, it shouldn't be counted as dodging. You don't dodge stuff in Gears of War. You take the hits and just power on through before you take a breather.

[Daremonai]

Wearing 50 Pounds of Full Plate Armor that borderline restricts all movement helps you -dodge- things. It can be said that you're blocking it, but what about touch attacks that the car you're wearing doesn't help defend you against? You're still considered having dodged the attack in said situations.

Maybe I'm misinterpreting you here, but your 50lbs of plate mail WON'T help you dodge a touch attack - only limit your maximum dex bonus, potentially making it harder. This is represented by your armour bonus not being applied to touch AC.

On a related note, plate mail may indeed have been quite heavy, but it's not nearly as restrictive as you might think. See all the various anecdotal and video evidence of people running, doing cartwheels, etc. while fully plated up that's been mentioned in other threads.

I do agree though, armour as damage reduction does make more sense

[Croverus]

My interpretation is that when they don't roll high enough to beat your AC, how they miss can vary: If you have a high Dex and other dodge bonuses, they simply miss as you dodge, duck, dip, dive, and dodge away. If its heavy armor, the blow might have hit you but glanced off the armor or simply was unable to penetrate like so (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0593.html).

How they miss is purely a descriptive explanation for the mechanic. It's really up to the DM and players how their hits and misses happen.

edit: There is an alternate armour rule sin Unearthed Arcana that uses armor as Damage Reductuion instead of lowering the chance an opponent hits you.

[tyckspoon]

Active defense (dodge/block/parry) mechanics are a pretty popular homebrew topic, but by default, they exceed the level of detail D&D combat uses. Just as your attack roll subsumes most of the ways you might try to make an attack, your AC covers all the things that make it harder to score a blow on you.

For what it's worth, 'miss' is just the general shorthand for 'did not strike in a way that inflicts damage.' A missed attack roll doesn't mean you literally did not make contact; for creatures whose AC is based primarily on non-touch-AC factors (heavy armor and monsters with big Natural Armor bonuses most commonly), the most common 'miss' will in fact be "you put your sword on him easily enough, but you weren't able to power through his armor/the creature's thick hide to make him feel it."

[Soren Hero]

i think AC represents more than just "dodging" attacks...hitting ac represents attacks that do some form of damage...missing by 1 could mean that the opponent landed a blow, but it didn't inflict any damage because it was intercepted by a shield or something like that...maybe that touch attack was deflected by a shield, or even more epically, cut in half by your sword...it really is up to how the dm decides to tell the story

actually, according to the SRD:

Armor Class:
Your Armor Class (AC) represents how hard it is for opponents to land a solid, damaging blow on you.

->http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/combatStatistics.htm

so technically, you aren't dodging at all

[Veyr]

Armor AC represents your ability to deflect blows by allowing them to strike your armor but glance off. If you were dodging, that'd be your Touch AC.

[NNescio]

Probably as a result of me posting something when I -desperately- need more sleep, but something about melee combat just doesn't sit right with me. A couple of things, actually. This is

First of all, your Armor Class. If the enemy fails to roll a result higher than your Armor Class, their attack misses. Wearing 50 Pounds of Full Plate Armor that borderline restricts all movement helps you -dodge- things. It can be said that you're blocking it, but what about touch attacks that the car you're wearing doesn't help defend you against? You're still considered having dodged the attack in said situations. Which makes being unable to use your dexterity to dodge and yet enemies -still- miss you, despite the fact that you've got the refined innards of a mountain covering you, even weirder.

Maybe it's because I'm up late, but the entire dodge system seems weird. I'd expect my armor to reduce the damage I take, not help me be able to dodge stuff easier. I don't see why one wouldn't use your Reflex Save to respond to attacks (using a natural result of 1+any applicable modifiers for situations in which you wouldn't be able to react). Armor would be used to give you a damage reduction quality. Heck, I don't see why the ability to Block Attacks hasn't been implimented. Players could get the afforementioned 1+modifier result to the Reflex save to dodge attacks (leaving room for error that the attacker has crappy aim or that nature doesn't want you to get hit), and would then roll a Fortitude Save against the same attack roll. You'd get a bonus to your afforementioned damage reduction for every certain amount you succeeded on the Fortitude Save (with a Natural 1 on the roll meaning your attempt to block actually left you even more exposed to the attack).

I doubt such a system would catch on. Just the musings of a random gamer. But when you're wearing a train, it shouldn't be counted as dodging. You don't dodge stuff in Gears of War. You take the hits and just power on through before you take a breather.

AC includes both dodging and 'blocking'. An attack which fails to hit a given AC is not a meaningful hit, and as such has no effect.

Shield bonuses are also included in AC. Dexterous characters are more capable at avoiding attacks, and hence gain a Dex bonus to AC. A flat-footed character loses his Dex bonus to AC because he is unable to react against attacks.

Bulky (read:heavier) armour restricts movement. Characters in armour may not be able to achieve their full range of movement while unarmoured. The degree of movement armour allows is reflected in its Maximum Dex Bonus value.

Touch attacks ignores armour. A touch attack merely needs contact to have an effect, and therefore Touch AC does not factor in Armor, Shield, or Natural Armor bonuses.

[Knaight]

Maybe I'm misinterpreting you here, but your 50lbs of plate mail WON'T help you dodge a touch attack - only limit your maximum dex bonus, potentially making it harder. This is represented by your armour bonus not being applied to touch AC.

On a related note, plate mail may indeed have been quite heavy, but it's not nearly as restrictive as you might think. See all the various anecdotal and video evidence of people running, doing cartwheels, etc. while fully plated up that's been mentioned in other threads.

Accurate on both points. Plate armor really doesn't restrict movement much, you can't jump as high, swimming and climbing are going to be an issue, but moving around on the ground when not trying to sprint is just fine. You will tire a bit faster, that's about all. Moreover, against human and near human entities armor basically forces people to attack in a more difficult manner.

Now, where it gets weird is when armor still works against gigantic monsters. An ogre doesn't need to maneuver a weapon into the gaps of plate, they are twice as tall and thus eight times as heavy if proportional. It doesn't matter how much the armor dissipates the force, there is so much of it that it really doesn't help much. Maybe some, maybe 1/2 the armor bonus should apply or some such, but it is really odd that one gets full armor. This just gets worse as entities get bigger. If a dragon with a tail ten times as heavy as you are smacks you with it, you go flying backwards and injure yourself on the landing. Force dispersion is worthless when it is already spread over a massive chunk of the body, and there is absolutely no way something that big is going to be deflected due to armor geometry.

The other big point is stuff like capacity to block and dodge. Sure, hit points do help here, but fundamentally it should be harder to hit a guy with a sword than an unarmed guy when you are armed, since they can block and threaten meaningfully.

[NNescio]

Now, where it gets weird is when armor still works against gigantic monsters. An ogre doesn't need to maneuver a weapon into the gaps of plate, they are twice as tall and thus eight times as heavy if proportional. It doesn't matter how much the armor dissipates the force, there is so much of it that it really doesn't help much. Maybe some, maybe 1/2 the armor bonus should apply or some such, but it is really odd that one gets full armor. This just gets worse as entities get bigger. If a dragon with a tail ten times as heavy as you are smacks you with it, you go flying backwards and injure yourself on the landing. Force dispersion is worthless when it is already spread over a massive chunk of the body, and there is absolutely no way something that big is going to be deflected due to armor geometry. ...
Bigger monsters tend to have higher Strength. This helps them land meaningful hits through armour.

The key thing to note is that DnD combat rules are highly abstract; it is certainly possible to create houserules to go further in-depth, but for most people it's too much of a bother.



... but fundamentally it should be harder to hit a guy with a sword than an unarmed guy when you are armed, since they can block and threaten meaningfully.

This is reflected in AoO rules, Fighting Defensively, Defending Weapons, and certain feats or maneuvers that allow a character to use opposed attack rolls to avoid attacks (e.g. Melee Evasion and Wall of Blades).

[Draz74]

Here (http://forum.faxcelestis.net/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=405) is the latest draft (posted just a couple days ago) of the system I've been working on to fix these issues.

Basic ideas:

Alongside your Fortitude, Reflex, and Will saves, you have a Defense save that represents your parrying/blocking ability. Armor doesn't improve Defense Save, but shields do.
You also have an Armor Value, which is affected not only by the armor you wear, but also your physical girth and toughness. This Armor Value acts like the Damage Threshold in Star Wars Saga Edition.
When you are attacked, the consequences of the attack depend on whether you're in a situation to defend yourself reasonably well (i.e. not fatigued, helpless, or surprised), as well as whether you make your Save.
Consequences of an attack can include damage to your Vitality Points (like Hit Points, the things that measure whether you've been fighting too long; when you run out of Vitality Points, you're fatigued), but attacks can also lead to things like getting Wounded or temporarily Staggered. Or, eventually (of course) getting dropped or killed.
At each level of attack resolution, the attack consequences become worse for the defender if the attack rolls high enough damage to beat the defender's Armor Value.


I like this implementation of armor a little better than Damage Reduction because DR, in my experience, tends to slow down the game as players perform subtraction and communicate ("Did you already subtract DR from that, or do I need to?").

[Knaight]

Bigger monsters tend to have higher Strength. This helps them land meaningful hits through armour. It helps just as much when it comes to hitting fast moving targets. What it doesn't do is specifically reduce the impact of armor, which is an odd quirk of the AC system as opposed to DR, which has its own quirks.


The key thing to note is that DnD combat rules are highly abstract; it is certainly possible to create houserules to go further in-depth, but for most people it's too much of a bother.
They are much more abstract than some, calling them highly abstract is pushing it. Moreover, being abstract isn't a universal excuse for quirkiness, lighter and more abstract systems may manage to avoid the oddities just fine. The quirks exist, but that is hardly a value judgment, whether that is a minor point that is considered of trivial importance or a glaring flaw in the system is really up to individual interpretation.


This is reflected in AoO rules, Fighting Defensively, Defending Weapons, and certain feats or maneuvers that allow a character to use opposed attack rolls to avoid attacks (e.g. Melee Evasion and Wall of Blades).
Sure, but it isn't really a default assumption built into the system, its something that involves special feats most don't have. If every weapon gave a +x to AC bonus or similar it would be (it would also integrate the shield and weapon system well). Granted, this gets back into the odd quirks regarding size, as the capacity of a weapon to block doesn't matter when blocking just means the weapon gets hit first and smashed into the person.

[AslanCross]

See modifier types. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/theBasics.htm#modifierTypes)

An armor bonus (from the armor you wear) deflects the blow or weakens it so that when it lands, it doesn't hurt you in any way. An armor bonus (from Mage Armor, for example) does the same, except it's a body-hugging field of energy.

A deflection bonus is usually a field of energy that operates at all times regardless of how aware you are of the incoming attack. This is literally a deflector shield as seen in sci-fi.

Your Dexterity modifier to AC determines how your natural agility reduces chances of a solid hit. Most armor hampers this, although the reason why full plate (harness, an intricate system of plates and straps meant to move relative to each other) is better than half-plate (a breastplate plus a few other plates with mail in between) at allowing mobility because mail bunches up at joints and is mostly dead weight.

A divine bonus (usually for gods only) is your deific awesomeness making you invulnerable.

A dodge bonus helps you dodge the blow; it tends to come from mundane sources such as feats which augment your natural ability. You lose this if you're denied your Dex bonus to AC.

An enhancement bonus to AC is magically boosted armor.

A sacred bonus is divine favor directly protecting you.

A shield bonus comes from a shield, naturally.

etc.

Many of these sound like they overlap, and in real life probably should---the modifier types are most likely made to allow for stacking and non-stacking; ie, balance issues. Some are easier to get than others.

[Mattias]

The Iron Heroes d20 system deals with these issues. I much prefer it over D&D. It gives damage reduction to armors and makes a difference between active and passive defence modifiers. The active defence modifiers are those that you need to actively use (such as the dex. bonus), while the passive defence modifier are things like natural armor.

Any system using 20-sided dice to represent something as chaotic, stressful and dangerous as life-and-death combat is bound to be weird, but the Iron Heroes system comes close to making it more realistic and also more cinematic. After a couple of years of only playing D&D I grew really tired of the roll-n'-hit type of melee combats that are so typical of it. Iron Heroes allows you to make skill challanges so that you can make such iconic actions as jumping attacks, staggering blows, but also allows you to take a more tactical approach to melee combat.

It's D&D for people who love melee-fighting and are tired of the swiss army-knife that is the magic system of D&D.

[Greenish]

Now, where it gets weird is when armor still works against gigantic monsters. An ogre doesn't need to maneuver a weapon into the gaps of plate, they are twice as tall and thus eight times as heavy if proportional. It doesn't matter how much the armor dissipates the force, there is so much of it that it really doesn't help much. Maybe some, maybe 1/2 the armor bonus should apply or some such, but it is really odd that one gets full armor. This just gets worse as entities get bigger. If a dragon with a tail ten times as heavy as you are smacks you with it, you go flying backwards and injure yourself on the landing. Force dispersion is worthless when it is already spread over a massive chunk of the body, and there is absolutely no way something that big is going to be deflected due to armor geometry.Well, as you get higher levels (and thus often fight bigger creatures), AC starts to fall by the wayside or at best work as damage reduction (since the enemy can't PA so much).

But yeah, armour works as it does not for realism, but for gaming.

[olthar]

If there were one thing that I found weird about melee combat it would be heavy armor, but not how you put it.

Heavy armor basically destroys your ability to dodge. Since that is the case, why, if you have a negative dex "bonus," do you still lose your dex to AC? You should essentially be an immobile tank that swings a sword (since you can't get a dex bonus).

[Greenish]

Heavy armor basically destroys your ability to dodge.No, it doesn't. It just makes it harder, but to some extent you can still do it (max dexterity bonus 1 on full plate).

Losing your dex bonus to AC is quite different, and can happen to anyone regardless of whether they actually have a dex bonus.

[Doug Lampert]

I do agree though, armour as damage reduction does make more sense

Only if you COMPLETELY redo the combat system, including ALL weapon damages. Seriously, one of the most common causes of death for people in full plate was a dagger strike. Armored combatants carried daggers SPECIFICALLY to finish people off because you can not cut through plate armor with any practical hand-held weapon. You NEED to hit a gap, and that normally means disabling and then carefully inserting a small blade into the gap.

Similarly the Roman Gladius (short sword in D&D terms) was an exceptionally good weapon in combat against armored foes. This doesn't work with armor as DR and D&D damage values.

The fact is that ANY two knife like weapons more than 8" or so in blade length inflict quite comparable wounds on a solid stabbing hit, and stabs do far more damage than slashes all else being equal. And NONE of these weapons is actually cutting through plate armor. Which means that avoiding the armor is a key aspect to getting an effective hit, and we're back to D&D combat where armor makes you harder to effectively hit rather than giving you DR.

DougL

[SlashRunner]

I had a random idea recently because it struck me that AC is totally unrealistic. My random idea was that instead of all attack rolls under your AC missing, all attack rolls under half your AC would miss (a poor enough blow that your armor can fully deflect it.) If the attack roll is more than 1/2 of your AC but still less than your total AC, it gets implimented as DR equal to AC-Atk roll (E.G. If one has 10 AC, and someone rolls a 4, it does nothing. If they roll a 6, there is 4 DR. If they roll a 9, 1 DR etc...).
I have no idea whether this would be imbalanced or not, but it certainly makes much more sense than the current version.

[erikun]

I would like to argue the opposite stance and say that armor as damage reduction is weird and ridiculous.

The major peril of combat generally involves having a pointy metallic objects enter your body cavity. The point of armor is to keep the pointy metallic out. As a general rule, if there has been something forcefully shoved into me far enough to cause damage, it isn't going to matter very much how far in it went. A spear that went halfway through my liver is just as deadly as a spear going fully through it. Cutting one carotid artery is just as bad as cutting both. Something tearing muscle fibers will do just as much damage to a limb if it tears one major group as if it tears them all.

I suppose you could say "but armor that lessens the impact might prevent a blow from punching through the body to damage the spinal column!" I suppose that it true, but spinal-column damage seems to be overrated to me - I don't know about any fighting styles that specialize is attempting spinal damage. And besides, anything going through your chest to hit your spine will be doing major organ damage anyways.

On the other hand, most superficial wounds are, for the most part, superficial. If I get a cut along the arm that just broke the skin and is bleeding, it is not going to impar my abilities or make me more prone to future damage. An arrow that just grazed a cheek or produced a minor cut won't cause any damage. We could say "those arrows could be poisoned and the AC system wouldn't represent that!" but the DR system does not either - unless you want every mook with a poisoned dagger to kill anyone in full plate instantly.

If anything, the problem with the AC system is that it is unrealistic to weapons designed to get around armor. Bludgeoning weapons, such as maces, aren't going to care about most armor types. Neither is a lance on a mounted charger. And, of course, the idea that armor can protect against someone throwing a mountain on your head is silly. However, while the AC system can be modified to take these factors into account (for example: bludgeoning weapons -2 to hit for being awkward, ignores AC from light armor) the DR system does not. The damage reduction from leather armor works just as well against a mace to the face as a dagger to the gut. This hardly seems to make melee combat any "less weird".

[olthar]

No, it doesn't. It just makes it harder, but to some extent you can still do it (max dexterity bonus 1 on full plate).

Does the max dex bonus of 1 apply for both positive and negative dex scores? If it does, then at least one player at my table has reason to be unhappy with the dm.

[NNescio]

I had a random idea recently because it struck me that AC is totally unrealistic. My random idea was that instead of all attack rolls under your AC missing, all attack rolls under half your AC would miss (a poor enough blow that your armor can fully deflect it.) If the attack roll is more than 1/2 of your AC but still less than your total AC, it gets implimented as DR equal to AC-Atk roll (E.G. If one has 10 AC, and someone rolls a 4, it does nothing. If they roll a 6, there is 4 DR. If they roll a 9, 1 DR etc...).
I have no idea whether this would be imbalanced or not, but it certainly makes much more sense than the current version.

This seems... overly complicated, and will lead to people abusing proc-on-hit effects (including poison) and rampant use of Power Attack.

And how would you handle Touch Attacks?

Also, it makes less sense, as noted by erikun.

[Greenish]

Does the max dex bonus of 1 apply for both positive and negative dex scores? If it does, then at least one player at my table has reason to be unhappy with the dm.Nope, it's the maximum bonus. Negative score gives a penalty.

[NNescio]

Does the max dex bonus of 1 apply for both positive and negative dex scores? If it does, then at least one player at my table has reason to be unhappy with the dm.

No. RAI it doesn't make sense (heavy armour makes you less clumsy?), and by RAW a negative modifier is a penalty, not a bonus. Also, negative numbers are always less than any positive Max Dex Bonus. (e.g. Half-plate has a Max Dex bonus of 0, and a negative modifier of say, -2 is still less than 0, as -2< 0. Hence, the penalty applies regardless of interpretation.)

[SlashRunner]

I never said anything about my idea being balanced, and there would probably be a whole host of ways to abuse it. However, does it make any more sense that, say, against a foe with an AC of 16, a 15 bounces off harmlessly but a 16, which is only a slightly better blow, punches straight through their armor and can inflict fatal damage?

[Gamer Girl]

the entire dodge system seems weird. I'd expect my armor to reduce the damage I take, not help me be able to dodge stuff easier.


D20 combat is made to be simple: "you need to roll this d20 to hit''. The same way D&D combat has been for 30+ years. You hit or you don't, period.

All the other stuff, armor damage reduction for example, just slows down the game. You could write a d20 book about armor types and what each one does and write up 200 pages of rules. Our you just use the generic 'you hit' or 'you miss'.

[NNescio]

I never said anything about my idea being balanced, and there would probably be a whole host of ways to abuse it. However, does it make any more sense that, say, against a foe with an AC of 16, a 15 bounces off harmlessly but a 16, which is only a slightly better blow, punches straight through their armor and can inflict fatal damage?

Refer to erikun's post, which I have also referred to in my previous post.


Also, it makes less sense, as noted by erikun.

And you haven't addressed how Touch AC would work either. Touch AC= Half AC? Even for unarmoured targets?

[Knaight]

I would like to argue the opposite stance and say that armor as damage reduction is weird and ridiculous.

The major peril of combat generally involves having a pointy metallic objects enter your body cavity. The point of armor is to keep the pointy metallic out. As a general rule, if there has been something forcefully shoved into me far enough to cause damage, it isn't going to matter very much how far in it went. A spear that went halfway through my liver is just as deadly as a spear going fully through it. Cutting one carotid artery is just as bad as cutting both. Something tearing muscle fibers will do just as much damage to a limb if it tears one major group as if it tears them all.

The only reason that this is an issue is that D&D decouples how well one hits from how much damage one deals. If one uses a DR system that reduces damage (say some static number), and an attack system where damage is based on quality of hit (say the amount the necessary hit was bypassed plus a static number) then the AC effect of certain qualities of hits being necessary appears, as makes perfect sense. However, the extent to which the armor is out classed by the weapon reduces the quality of a hit needed, which covers both weaponry that gets through armor well and stuff along the lines of big monsters. Moreover, touch attack like effects are very easy to model.

This may sound more complicated than the D&D system, implementation may be less so, and for most of the systems I've seen that do this it has been.

[NNescio]

The only reason that this is an issue is that D&D decouples how well one hits from how much damage one deals. If one uses a DR system that reduces damage (say some static number), and an attack system where damage is based on quality of hit (say the amount the necessary hit was bypassed plus a static number) then the AC effect of certain qualities of hits being necessary appears, as makes perfect sense. However, the extent to which the armor is out classed by the weapon reduces the quality of a hit needed, which covers both weaponry that gets through armor well and stuff along the lines of big monsters. Moreover, touch attack like effects are very easy to model.

This may sound more complicated than the D&D system, implementation may be less so, and for most of the systems I've seen that do this it has been.

Duly noted here.



... On the other hand, most superficial wounds are, for the most part, superficial. If I get a cut along the arm that just broke the skin and is bleeding, it is not going to impar my abilities or make me more prone to future damage. An arrow that just grazed a cheek or produced a minor cut won't cause any damage. We could say "those arrows could be poisoned and the AC system wouldn't represent that!" but the DR system does not either - unless you want every mook with a poisoned dagger to kill anyone in full plate instantly.

If anything, the problem with the AC system is that it is unrealistic to weapons designed to get around armor. Bludgeoning weapons, such as maces, aren't going to care about most armor types. Neither is a lance on a mounted charger. And, of course, the idea that armor can protect against someone throwing a mountain on your head is silly. However, while the AC system can be modified to take these factors into account (for example: bludgeoning weapons -2 to hit for being awkward, ignores AC from light armor) the DR system does not. The damage reduction from leather armor works just as well against a mace to the face as a dagger to the gut. This hardly seems to make melee combat any "less weird".

[The Cat Goddess]

Oh come on... it's D&D.

Does it need to be realistic?

[MeeposFire]

Oh come on... it's D&D.

Does it need to be realistic?

To be honest it is more fun in general if the rules don't try to be too realistic. Going too far simulating life leads to the game slowing down and often decreases fun.

[Gnoman]

I never said anything about my idea being balanced, and there would probably be a whole host of ways to abuse it. However, does it make any more sense that, say, against a foe with an AC of 16, a 15 bounces off harmlessly but a 16, which is only a slightly better blow, punches straight through their armor and can inflict fatal damage?

A 15 thuds solidly int the pauldron. A 16 hits the gap between pauldron and bracer and cuts into the arm. This makes perfect sense.

[Firechanter]

The defensive mechanics in D&D are historically weird. In most rpgs, experience makes you more difficult to hit and armour allows you to soak more damage. In D&D, armour makes you more difficult to hit and experience allows you to take more damage.

However, that you get used to. In a way, it even makes sense, if you imagine an attack bouncing harmlessly off your pantex where it would have eviscerated you if you hadn't worn the armour.

What I find much more peculiar is that rings and amulets make you harder to hit.

[Veyr]

Those are magical...

[ffone]

First of all, your Armor Class. If the enemy fails to roll a result higher than your Armor Class, their attack misses. Wearing 50 Pounds of Full Plate Armor that borderline restricts all movement helps you -dodge- things. It can be said that you're blocking it, but what about touch attacks that the car you're wearing doesn't help defend you against? You're still considered having dodged the attack in said situations. Which makes being unable to use your dexterity to dodge and yet enemies -still- miss you, despite the fact that you've got the refined innards of a mountain covering you, even weirder.

As others said, this IS how the rules work: armor doesn't help your touch AC, and may decrease it if your Dex mod is higher than the armor allows.



Maybe it's because I'm up late, but the entire dodge system seems weird. I'd expect my armor to reduce the damage I take, not help me be able to dodge stuff easier. I don't see why one wouldn't use your Reflex Save to respond to attacks (using a natural result of 1+any applicable modifiers for situations in which you wouldn't be able to react). Armor would be used to give you a damage reduction quality.

You're assuming that every attack vs an armored foe breaks through the armor.

Maybe, instead, armor tends to force foes to try to attack at otherwise-suboptimal angles and points of the body. They thus are less likely to hit b/c their opportunities and effective target area is smaller.

And armor will indirectly function like DR if it causes foes to use Power Attack less.



Heck, I don't see why the ability to Block Attacks hasn't been implimented. Players could get the afforementioned 1+modifier result to the Reflex save to dodge attacks (leaving room for error that the attacker has crappy aim or that nature doesn't want you to get hit), and would then roll a Fortitude Save against the same attack roll. You'd get a bonus to your afforementioned damage reduction for every certain amount you succeeded on the Fortitude Save (with a Natural 1 on the roll meaning your attempt to block actually left you even more exposed to the attack).
.

Blocking IS implemented in DnD in subtle ways:

- Shield bonus to AC

- Flanking bonuses, flat-footed AC, bonuses for invisible attacking:

If your foe can't effectively see/parry/react to your attacks, you're more likely to hit (and rogues do more damage). Basically, I fluff the LACK of these bonuses or AC penalties as the character parrying or more effectively dodging.

In other words, parrying to AC is right there at the gaming table all the time - we just take it for granted b/c the rules are structured a"you're assumed to be doing this whenever you effectively can", and NOT being able to parry is the exception.

It's the classic rogue fluff: Figther Buddy and Spiky Blackguard Dude are dueling front to front, so the rogue tumbles around Spiky to strike him when and where he can't parry.

(Although it might be nice of the amount of these bonuses differed more by character.)

- Fighting defensively, and Combat Expertise

This is exactly what those represent. They might get more mindshare if they were more often 'optimal' to use. If you really really want more of this in your campaign, consider giving characters the effects of Combat Expertise for free.


Accurate on both points. Plate armor really doesn't restrict movement much, you can't jump as high, swimming and climbing are going to be an issue, but moving around on the ground when not trying to sprint is just fine. You will tire a bit faster, that's about all. Moreover, against human and near human entities armor basically forces people to attack in a more difficult manner.

Now, where it gets weird is when armor still works against gigantic monsters. An ogre doesn't need to maneuver a weapon into the gaps of plate, they are twice as tall and thus eight times as heavy if proportional. It doesn't matter how much the armor dissipates the force, there is so much of it that it really doesn't help much. Maybe some, maybe 1/2 the armor bonus should apply or some such, but it is really odd that one gets full armor. This just gets worse as entities get bigger. If a dragon with a tail ten times as heavy as you are smacks you with it, you go flying backwards and injure yourself on the landing. Force dispersion is worthless when it is already spread over a massive chunk of the body, and there is absolutely no way something that big is going to be deflected due to armor geometry.


This sounds like a great argument for applying Str mod to attack rolls. Which it does.

Maybe this is why big monsters tend to have piles of racial HD (upping their BAB and providing feats that might further help) and insane Strength scores?





If anything, the problem with the AC system is that it is unrealistic to weapons designed to get around armor. Bludgeoning weapons, such as maces, aren't going to care about most armor types. Neither is a lance on a mounted charger. And, of course, the idea that armor can protect against someone throwing a mountain on your head is silly. However, while the AC system can be modified to take these factors into account (for example: bludgeoning weapons -2 to hit for being awkward, ignores AC from light armor) the DR system does not. The damage reduction from leather armor works just as well against a mace to the face as a dagger to the gut. This hardly seems to make melee combat any "less weird".

IIRC some of the DnD RPGs like Baldur's Gate II did a little of this. Certain armor types had extra/less AC bonus vs piercing, slashing or bludgeoning. IIRC leather was less effective vs piercing than slashing or bludgeoning, and plate vs bludgeoning, and so on.

It's cool and flavorful in a CRPG, since the computer can add and subtract +-1s for you without slowing down combat.

[NNescio]

IIRC some of the DnD RPGs like Baldur's Gate II did a little of this. Certain armor types had extra/less AC bonus vs piercing, slashing or bludgeoning. IIRC leather was less effective vs piercing than slashing or bludgeoning, and plate vs bludgeoning, and so on.

It's cool and flavorful in a CRPG, since the computer can add and subtract +-1s for you without slowing down combat.

It's part of AD&D rules. (http://www.legolas.org/items/armor.html) Let's just say it involved lots and lots of tables*, which, similar to what you said, work well on computers. (and even then, the tables are by no means comprehensive.)

On a related note...

http://ompldr.org/vOGU3aQ/irreg0543.jpg (http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/543.html)

[Nashwolfe]

AC works so much better as a concept if you remember that it's just an aid to roleplay.

Consider a fighter with 16 dex wearing chainmail and weilding a light shield (purely for example). He has +3 dex AC, +4 armour AC from the chainmail and +1 shield AC from, yes, the shield, giving him a touch AC of 13 and a total AC of 18.

An opponent attacks him for AC 12, missing his touch AC. DM announces that he's dodged the attack cleanly.

AC 13: This beats his touch AC, but he takes the blow on his shield.

AC 17: The enemy lunges under his shield but he takes it on his greave OR he's surprised and doesn't get his shield up, but his mail saves him.

AC >17, does 2pts damage: The enemy's blow glances off your gauntlet and nicks your bicep.

AC >17, does 10pts damage: The enemy finds a weak point in your armour OR the enemy lands a heavier blow with his hammer than your chain can disperse.

It's not perfect, but it gets the job done, and is far simpler than earlier systems, making the game flow much more easily.

It also makes more sense if players roleplay the after effects - my group actually enjoy that aspect a lot. Once the cleric asked for help taking off her full plate because a hefty blow had dented it and she couldn't reach the buckles. The ranger carries leather patches and makes repairs where his clothes and armour have been nicked.

But then, many parties aren't into the RP side; YMMV.

[ffone]

I do the same as Nashwolfe for roleplaying why an attack missed; put the AC sources in a sequence and it's blocked by whatever it reached. Purely for fluff.

[Aricandor]

After having gone through a load of various house rules to try to get past just that kind of initial weirdness (armor as DR, armor as partial AC/DR, armor as specific types of DR...), we ended up just settling for standard rules but with a d20 roll against each attack in place of the flat 10 base for player/important character AC because we decided just sitting there getting asked "what's your AC?" isn't that much fun when you can at least throw a die.

Bottom line being it's usually best to not look too close at D&D's seams, lest trying to rationalize/fix strange things get in the way of the fun of playing. It works (well enough) in play. The main headache I have is how attack bonuses scale much quicker than AC. :smallsmile:

[ffone]

I'm also considering the "replace the 10 + with a d20 variant for AC", the motivation being that I'm in a high level game where, because modifiers scale up a lot and some scale up faser than others, but a d20 stays a d20, you can easily get situations where one characters hits another 5% or 95% of a time (i.e. only hit on nat20 or only miss on nat1). Ditto with replacing the 10+ of DCs with a d20+.

[Knaight]

AC works so much better as a concept if you remember that it's just an aid to roleplay
So is every other system, that doesn't mean that they are all perfect. Active defenses as opposed to passive defenses do the exact same thing, only without requiring the look up of the exact AC break down. A simple opposed roll where armor and shields give a bonus that causes a win also gives just as much information to work off of, and combat description isn't exactly a difficult task that needs mechanics to supply details.


It's not perfect, but it gets the job done, and is far simpler than earlier systems, making the game flow much more easily.
Comparing the top of the head brainstorms to a finished and polished product is absurd. Moreover, armor as DR with strike damage linked to quality of strike is every bit as simple as the D&D system, and there are simpler systems yet.


It also makes more sense if players roleplay the after effects - my group actually enjoy that aspect a lot. Once the cleric asked for help taking off her full plate because a hefty blow had dented it and she couldn't reach the buckles. The ranger carries leather patches and makes repairs where his clothes and armour have been nicked.

But then, many parties aren't into the RP side; YMMV.
This also works regardless of what the system is. It could be a simple +x better armor bonus* to an opposed combat roll. It could be some fiendishly complex model in which multiple rolls for qualities of a strike are made and plugged into an equation, which is then integrated between two numbers and divided by a constant that is looked up at a table. Roleplaying this is a matter of players, GM, game style, and genre, the specifics of how armor is handled is largely irrelevant.

*I actually really like this system. If someone in mail is fighting someone with no armor the person without armor is having to go out of their way to aim for relatively weak points in the mail, anywhere the helmet doesn't cover well, and angles which can be struck with a lot of force. The person in mail simply needs to hit the other half decently, they have a huge advantage. Moreover, the better armor bonus wouldn't apply if the armor isn't actually better against the opponents arms. It either requires GM adjudication or gets complicated, but if the first is involved it flows well.