AC in a world with no magic

[John Doe]

As the title says, I'm looking for how to deal with armor class in a world with no magic. How do you guys deal with AC when the only way to gain AC is through non magical armor and Dex? Unearthed Arcana's alternate defense system doesn't seem to be what I'm looking for.

Noting there starts to become a problem when dealing with melee monsters like ogres or hill giants with class levels. They have higher AC and more hit points then their PC counter parts. The lack of any sort of magical healing compounds the problem.

Trying to make a world with I guess something of a Sword and Sandal/quasi historical dark ages feel. Even the most basic magical item would be akin to an artifact in a regular game.

[Jalor]

D20 Modern has AC bonuses from class levels; each base class gets its own AC bonus progression, and they work like BAB and saves. You could try something like that; give each class an AC bonus progression based on how skilled a member of that class should be at avoiding blows. Barbarian, for instance would have a better bonus than Wizard.

[Retech]

I'm assuming that this means you can't be a caster either?

Edit: Oh, you're the GM. Perhaps give everyone free "armor training" boosts at certain levels where improved armor would be appropriate, adding a bit of dodge bonus and subtracting a bit from WBL.

[Glimbur]

Have you considered a system besides 3.5? GURPS is supposed to be able to do anything decently, Riddle of Steel is obscure but I hear good things about the combat system re: realism. Savage Worlds is pretty flexible.

It's also possible to simply not use monsters. All NPC's, all the time. Then everyone is on similar footing, and Combat Expertise becomes worth considering.

[Silva Stormrage]

Give everyone the benefits of vow of poverty? Just replace the armor bonus to ac with a dodge bonus. That should be good.

[Istari]

Some version of the Defense Bonus (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/defenseBonus.htm) system would be good.

[Eldariel]

Scaling defense bonus is how we've done it in the campaign I'm journaling; ½ your BAB to AC. That's what I run with in high magic worlds too, btw. But in low magic it becomes essential and even higher numbers, like full BAB to defense, could be tinkered with.

I also like accelerated stat growth (1 point per level but no more than 2 to any stat before increasing two others, and +1 to all every 5 levels) and giving players ½ the Dex above Max Dex on Armor to their AC. That and allowing Strength-modifier to be added to the Armor Max Dex Bonus; a strong man cares far less for the encumbrance of the armor, after all.

This essentially means that you get full Dex + Armor most of the time, like in older versions of D&D (and incidentally, thus makes Armor Proficiencies desirable for a change).


So a level 20 character's AC could be, for example:
10 + 8 Armor (Mithral Plate) + 7 Dex (24 Dexterity and 18+ Strength) + 10 Defense = 35. For an unmodified 20 BAB + 8 Strength + 1 Masterwork that's going to be a fair AC especially if using PA or Iteratives (though we play with Iteratives at full).

Another major thing you want to do in a no-magic world is make mundane craftsmanship matter more. There's a world of difference between an Excalibur and a longsword. Same goes for armor.

You can add equivalents to magical enhancement bonuses and attributes that make sense like Keen or Distance to mundane items of exceptional craftsmanship as mundane abilities, by the standard cost guidelines.

This adds more to the itemization side and allows for improving AC and To Hit further.

[ericgrau]

You could buy AC and other such things with points like what's in my sig for a low magic item system. Or here's some expected stats on a vanilla fighter to work off of:
stats: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8888663&postcount=15
build: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8888911&postcount=20

Based on the vanilla fighter I came up with:

{table]BAB|total & flat-footed AC bonus w/o shield|touch AC bonus|shield AC bonus
1|0|0|0
2|0|0|0
3|1|0|0
4|1|0|1
5|1|0|1
6|1|0|1
7|1|0|1
8|3|1|1
9|4|1|1
10|4|1|1
11|4|1|1
12*|6|3|2
13|8|4|3
14|10|5|3
15|11|5|4
16|13|6|5
17|13|6|5
18|17|8|5
19|18|8|5
20|18|8|5
[/table]
*+2 AC bonus to replace mithril starting at this level. Reduce flat-footed AC by 2. If mithril is allowed then reduce total AC and touch AC by 2 as well.

Another option would be to make total & flat-footed AC go up by 0.9 per BAB (0.8 if mithril exists in your world), touch AC by 0.4 per BAB (0.3 if mithril exists in your world), and shield AC by 0.25 per BAB, rounding down in each case. This would favor low levels while making higher levels slightly slower than normal. Heaven help you if you have a monk or other unarmored character, b/c they progress at a different rate and often expect mage armor. You might want to give them a free +4, progress by BAB and hope that's close enough. Missing from the spoilered table is the +1 AC players often get from haste; you might want to add that in too at high levels.

[TurtleKing]

If you are doing that then consider the type of playstyle you want. For this case you might want to do more of a political intrigue where magic and creatures that use magic or require magic to deal with are mostly insignificant in the world. This way you circumvent the need for high AC that would be needed to combat a monster.

[Alefiend]

GURPS isn't your only option if you're open to other systems. Conan D20 has a fairly well made combat system, though it also can leave a lot of characters very dead.

[Aldizog]

Trying to make a world with I guess something of a Sword and Sandal/quasi historical dark ages feel. Even the most basic magical item would be akin to an artifact in a regular game.
If this is the sort of feel that you are going for, and if you choose to use some sort of class-based AC bonus, I would strongly recommend capping the number of opponents that it applies to. Maybe 1 enemy per Dex bonus, or 1 enemy per iterative attack you get, or the total bonus is divided among the enemies faced.

Anything that is "Sword and Sandal/quasi-historical" means, to me, that a high-level PC is not invincible. They cannot take on armies, or even large squads, and wade in counting on their inherent awesomeness to save them from injury. Rather, they should have to fight smart, use tactics and terrain, and engage the enemy one or two at a time. Like Conan at the Battle of the Mounds. So a PC's +6 AC from whatever level-based bonus you use should have a limit as to how many enemies it applies to; being surrounded should be really bad news, even for the greatest swordsman that has ever lived.

[tyckspoon]

Anything that is "Sword and Sandal/quasi-historical" means, to me, that a high-level PC is not invincible. They cannot take on armies, or even large squads, and wade in counting on their inherent awesomeness to save them from injury. Rather, they should have to fight smart, use tactics and terrain, and engage the enemy one or two at a time. Like Conan at the Battle of the Mounds. So a PC's +6 AC from whatever level-based bonus you use should have a limit as to how many enemies it applies to; being surrounded should be really bad news, even for the greatest swordsman that has ever lived.

Strange. To me, it means a 'high level' PC is, like, level 6, which is a low enough level that they generally still care about mundane opponents. This is one of the things you can't really have both ways- if you want your PCs to be strong enough to take on fantastical opponents, they will eventually reach a point where normal enemies just don't worry them any more. If normal human soldiers are supposed to worry them, then they can't expect to go up against a giant or anything more dangerous 1-on-1 with a good chance of winning.

[Aldizog]

Strange. To me, it means a 'high level' PC is, like, level 6, which is a low enough level that they generally still care about mundane opponents. This is one of the things you can't really have both ways- if you want your PCs to be strong enough to take on fantastical opponents, they will eventually reach a point where normal enemies just don't worry them any more. If normal human soldiers are supposed to worry them, then they can't expect to go up against a giant or anything more dangerous 1-on-1 with a good chance of winning.

And I think that allowing a level-based AC bonus to be limited in the number of opponents it applies to means that a large number of normal humans can, in some conditions, be more dangerous to a PC than an equal-CR fantastical opponent. I like that. It feels much more in the vein of "Sword and Sandal/quasi-historical" than the more wuxia/Homeric feel of superhumans mowing the normals down like grass.

I think you can have it both ways by giving the PC a class/level-based AC boost that lets him not get squashed in one blow by a Power Attacking giant, but on the other hand must be divided up against the foes faced, and so is only a minor bonus when facing four normal men. It ends up being a sort of rock-paper-scissors:
PC vs. many normal men: their numbers are a challenge, negating much of the hero's defensive abilities
PC vs. giant: the hero's defensive abilities work best vs. a single enemy, and the PC does very well
normal men vs. giant: they don't have the AC or HP boost that a PC has, and the giant's AC comes from natural armor that they can't negate with numbers, so they get squashed, and need a PC to deal with the monster

[Alefiend]

Conan deals with the issue of keeping low-level enemies as realistic threats by giving multiple attackers a bonus, among other things. Defenses are never astronomical to begin with, and a squad of grunts can overwhelm a solo tough guy. Some kinds of defense don't work if you're surrounded—it's hard to dodge if every square is full of enemies or walls. Massive damage threshold is 20, as well, which isn't that hard to reach.

[Zaq]

Hmmm. I feel like some variant of Combat Expertise is going to be useful here, but I'm not sure how to tweak it to make it less painful to use (since to-hit bonuses are also rare in a no-magic setting) without just giving it away for free.

I mean, I guess you COULD just give it away for free, but I like the whole idea of choosing how much to use in any given scenario.

Maybe (just thinking out loud here, and the numbers would surely need to be tweaked) give everyone double (or perhaps half again) their BAB compared to normal, and let them allocate as much or as little of it to defense (AC) as they wanted? Probably some issues with the idea, but I'm just throwing that out there.

[Eldariel]

If this is the sort of feel that you are going for, and if you choose to use some sort of class-based AC bonus, I would strongly recommend capping the number of opponents that it applies to. Maybe 1 enemy per Dex bonus, or 1 enemy per iterative attack you get, or the total bonus is divided among the enemies faced.

Anything that is "Sword and Sandal/quasi-historical" means, to me, that a high-level PC is not invincible. They cannot take on armies, or even large squads, and wade in counting on their inherent awesomeness to save them from injury. Rather, they should have to fight smart, use tactics and terrain, and engage the enemy one or two at a time. Like Conan at the Battle of the Mounds. So a PC's +6 AC from whatever level-based bonus you use should have a limit as to how many enemies it applies to; being surrounded should be really bad news, even for the greatest swordsman that has ever lived.

This is only a factor of Flanking bonuses not stacking. More flankers should = more To Hit bonus, and any adjacent attacker should count as flanking. Something like +14 from surrounding the opponent entirely. Makes for realistic To Hit chance. Though a level 20 Fighter has no trouble kicking the ass of 20 or 100 level 1 Fighters, still. But that's to be expected.

[Fouredged Sword]

The Avatard20 crafting item system (http://sites.google.com/site/avatard20/itemenhancement) is great for powerful mundane weapons and armor.

Mix and match with Armor as DR (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/armorAsDamageReduction.htm)and varient defence bonuse (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/defenseBonus.htm)as you see fit.

[Ravens_cry]

Some version of the Defense Bonus (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/defenseBonus.htm) system would be good.

That would help a lot. After all, in a world with no magic, there is no magical bonuses to hit or damage either.

[SowZ]

I give a parry bonus. As long as you It is 2/5 of BAB unless you have a shield, then it is 3/5 of BAB or a tower and it is 4/5, (in D&D with the exception of a couple not so good feats fighters never get better at blocking with a shield...) This also makes battles feel more like the epic battles of lore with parries and blocks abound.

[Krazzman]

Another System would be DSA - Das Schwarze Auge.

But it's only avaible in Germany afaik, but it's quite realistic, but for me it doesn't work, for the fact that I want to go into a dungeon and mosh everything in there to tiny chumps and then go to the next dungeon. I want the more surrealistic gaming style.

if you want to Change that you could just power up Armor. Give extra feats for specific armor, can use the interlocking armors and so on. Alternatively you can modify the rules, that will power your characters up. At first level, they get HP for their Constitution Score (like in 4th edition). Additionally you can give Defense Points, for Dexterity Score.
Alternatively you can let the player choose to get a parry system. That means: see through the weapons and if they can parry (with weapon) or block (with shield) through specific percentages (example, parry a dagger with a shortsword has a chance of 30 + 5 for every bab-point over the bab of attacker) and so on.

But you should homebrew this yourself, or you try and search in the homebrew section of this forum.

Have a nice Day,
Krazzman

[Ashiel]

Strange. To me, it means a 'high level' PC is, like, level 6, which is a low enough level that they generally still care about mundane opponents. This is one of the things you can't really have both ways- if you want your PCs to be strong enough to take on fantastical opponents, they will eventually reach a point where normal enemies just don't worry them any more. If normal human soldiers are supposed to worry them, then they can't expect to go up against a giant or anything more dangerous 1-on-1 with a good chance of winning.

I'd recommend checking out the Vitality/Wound Points options, like those found in Star Wars and the Unearthed Arcana. It's been a while since I checked them out, but critical hits deal an amount of Wound damage (usually you have a number of wound points equal to your Con score), while non-critical attacks damage your Vitality (essentially an HP pool). When vitality runs out, all further damage goes to Wounds. Also when you suffer Wound damage you are Fatigued. Weapons don't multiply damage in this system, but may have higher crit % (I think +1 threat for every x1 higher than x2, IIRC).

This can make for a grittier sort of game where an hero can get hit by a lucky strike and suffer some damage. If your Constitution is 16, even a 9th level warrior can be hurt badly by a 1st level orc if he gets a lucky shot, and with enough orcs, the lucky shots will inevitably come.

[Ravens_cry]

I give a parry bonus. As long as you It is 2/5 of BAB unless you have a shield, then it is 3/5 of BAB or a tower and it is 4/5, (in D&D with the exception of a couple not so good feats fighters never get better at blocking with a shield...) This also makes battles feel more like the epic battles of lore with parries and blocks abound.
The trouble is that if you combine that with other suggested systems,, especially with no magic, now hitting is impossible. Combat in D&D is very abstracted. An attack roll isn't a single swipe, it is a series of dodges and thrusts, feeling for the best opening. A hit, especially at higher levels, might not even be an actual hit, but a graze that slows and winds someone.
If you want D&D to be dramatic and legendary, describe your hits viscerally. A Cleave isn't just a Cleave, it is an attack that fells one foe, who falls with a yell of agony into a puddle of gore and slashes into the next one. Power attack isn't just + whatever to damage, it is a desperate lunge at a potential weak point.

[SowZ]

The trouble is that if you combine that with other suggested systems,, especially with no magic, now hitting is impossible. Combat in D&D is very abstracted. An attack roll isn't a single swipe, it is a series of dodges and thrusts, feeling for the best opening. A hit, especially at higher levels, might not even be an actual hit, but a graze that slows and winds someone.
If you want D&D to be dramatic and legendary, describe your hits viscerally. A Cleave isn't just a Cleave, it is an attack that fells one foe, who falls with a yell of agony into a puddle of gore and slashes into the next one. Power attack isn't just + whatever to damage, it is a desperate lunge at a potential weak point.

The parry rule is an alternative to the flat AC bonus scaling with BAB. But I will state that two master swordsman of equal skill each using a short sword and a tower shield without magic should miss/be blocked more than they hit. That is only reasonable.

It is designed to A.) Make fighting classes make more sense since not getting better at blocking as you advance is silly B.) Make shields more viable C.) Make up for the AC loss when using reasonable systems like the Armor as Damage Reduction (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/UA:Armor_as_Damage_Reduction)rule from UA and D.) Keep AC scaling with attack in the absence of easily obtained magic.

[JaronK]

One trick I've done for low magic worlds is giving the numerical bonuses of Vow of Poverty to the heroes free... it's what makes them special. I often give some of the other benefits too (but not the no eating thing, heroes should feast!). It takes a little adjusting but it does help. You can also let the AC bonus stack with worn armor. That ought to be enough.

JaronK

[Curmudgeon]

There's alchemical healing; check out Healing Salve (Tome and Blood, page 72), and of course the Heal skill. Fixing up characters is just going to be more expensive, or more time-consuming, than in standard D&D.

You can still get into the low 30s for AC, and that's better than a hill giant or ogre.

Really, it's just a matter of adjusting the CRs, and (more importantly) adjusting play styles. Wading into melee is going to be an uncommon option, because people (sans magic) really aren't that tough.