An armor fix.. perhaps?

[ngilop]

see my thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=12803515#post12803515) in the d20 forum to understand my reason for this.

First point. the armor in the PHB is completely bogus and an insult to anybody that has even glanced at real life armors.

second point people over the internet like to be mean and insulting towards random strangers

so i am avoiding the second point by not actually FIXING armor MWAHAH take that!


i have a 2 fold plan to 'fix' armor or in this case AC.

my first is to add a defense bonus, sort of like how d20 modern does it, this applie sonly to BASE CLASSES not any PrCs and applies to any and every form of attack.

a fighter defense bonus tops out at +8 at 20 level while other full base attack bonus classes get a bonus equal to a bad save, while 3/4 BAB classes and hybrids like the rouge, marshal, bard, hex/dusk-blade get +1 every 5th level, while anyclass that gets 9th level spells get none.

why. BECAUSE THEY GET 9th LEVEL SPELLS!!! actually the point is their 1st level AC boost spells are better anyways.

the 2nd way I am attempting to correct this problem is to make armor 'scale' to level

Heavy armor also gets an increase equal to 1/2 character level

Medium Armor get 1/3 character level

and Light gets 1/4 character level.

so at 20th plate gives +19, Breastplate gives +12 and chain shirt gives +9.


anyways, what are you thoughts on this?

[Ashtagon]

The random number generator used in D&D has a range of 1-20. If you make the differences between armours too big, you make less heavily armoured martial character concepts fail badly.

D&D generally operates on rule of cool.

[Idhan]

D&D generally operates on rule of cool.

I'm pretty skeptical about ngilop's solution at the moment, but IMHO, this is an area where D&D fails to operate based on rule of cool, or rule of realism, to its detriment. Rather, it goes by rule of... tradition? I don't know. Something which isn't really cool or realistic.

Take two level 1 average guys. No armor, no weapons, no magic. Give them each a mundane, non-masterwork longsword. Have them fight each other. Say that dexterity, strength, feats like dodge and weapon focus, etc, all cancel out.

Each round, they have about a 55% chance of hitting each other.

Take two level 20 fighter types. No armor, no weapons, no magic. Give them each a mundane, non-masterwork longsword. Say that dexterity, strength, feats like dodge and weapon focus, etc, all cancel out.

Each round, they make three attacks against each other with a 95% chance of hitting, and a fourth attack which has an 80% chance of hitting.

Imagine a cinematic scene between two great fighters. How does the fight go? I imagine a scene full of parries, dodges, and acrobatic leaps. First blood doesn't happen until maybe 30 seconds of elaborate swordplay have passed.

How does it go in D&D? The two fighters hack into each other like butchers. They just have a superhuman ability to sustain so much damage that it doesn't matter.

Some people say that we should just imagine the sort of skillful swashbuckling fights if that happens, and say that losing HP doesn't really mean being wounded -- it could be a narrow miss, and level 20 characters can't really sustain being stabbed repeatedly -- they're just dodging when they lose HP.

This strikes me as rationalization pretty much untethered from how combat works. Why does a cure moderate wounds spell bring an unconscious level 1 character on the brink of death back to full health, while it barely heals a level 15 character?

I think the 4e idea that armor would increase in a manner similar to attack bonus independently of equipment was a solid idea, even though I disagree with many of 4e's design concepts. Overall, I think it would make more sense if HP progressed slowly and uncertainly, while AC steadily improved regardless of circumstances, rather than the other way around.

(UPDATE: Perhaps some of the AC bonuses like deflection, insight, etc, could be eliminated if a consistent increase in AC with level were implemented.)

[Ashtagon]

That's a fairly convincing argument as to why D&D isn't realistic. Good job I never claimed D&D was realistic.

[elpollo]

This strikes me as rationalization pretty much untethered from how combat works. Why does a cure moderate wounds spell bring an unconscious level 1 character on the brink of death back to full health, while it barely heals a level 15 character?

Combat works very much as if hitpoints are not a measure of how many sword hits you can take (see things like Coup de Grace).

The cure spells heals the higher level character a lower percentage of his hit points because he's sustained less actual damage, so there's less that the magic can do to help other than reinvigorate him a little. Done and done.

[Yitzi]

Take two level 1 average guys. No armor, no weapons, no magic. Give them each a mundane, non-masterwork longsword. Have them fight each other. Say that dexterity, strength, feats like dodge and weapon focus, etc, all cancel out.

Each round, they have about a 55% chance of hitting each other.

Take two level 20 fighter types. No armor, no weapons, no magic. Give them each a mundane, non-masterwork longsword. Say that dexterity, strength, feats like dodge and weapon focus, etc, all cancel out.

Each round, they make three attacks against each other with a 95% chance of hitting, and a fourth attack which has an 80% chance of hitting.

You're assuming there's no Combat Expertise; otherwise that'll change things quite a bit.


The cure spells heals the higher level character a lower percentage of his hit points because he's sustained less actual damage, so there's less that the magic can do to help other than reinvigorate him a little. Done and done.

If he's sustained less actual damage, why is he also on the brink of death? Your explanation works for comparing a level 15 character who's down by 9 points to a level 1 character who's down by 9 points, but not for comparing a level 15 character who has 1 point left to a level 1 character who has 1 point left.

[Idhan]

That's a fairly convincing argument as to why D&D isn't realistic. Good job I never claimed D&D was realistic.

Sorry. Perhaps I was unclear in my writing. My point wasn't that D&D isn't realistic (although it isn't). My point was that combat doesn't really follow rule of cool at least as I conceive of it (although, admittedly, whether something follows rule of cools is somewhat subjective). When I imagine combat between two highly skilled gladiators following rule of cool, I imagine a cinematic scene filled with feints and counter-feints, dodges, parries, etc, with clashing blades: Darth Vader vs. Luke, Inigo Montoya vs. Wesley, Zorro vs. Captain Pasquale, etc.

[ngilop]

the whole feints parry dodges and counters is what I was trying to put into game terms via teh defense bonus as well as teh scaling to level bonus.

It just seems to me that as a character getsa higher level ( more skilled, and knowledgable about fighting in generaly) their ability to avoid, counter, withstand or otherwise nullify an opponents attack becomes greater, which is what I was again trying to capture with teh defense bonus.


on math, and I am FAR from even a compentent optimizer.

a level 20 fighters in full plate with 18 dex has at AC of 56 with this system

while that same fighter has at attack bonus of +47. so, even this way its not what I would like, but its better than at lvl 20 a fighter is always getting becuyase his AC is 10 points less than everybody else BAB.

[MukkTB]

If you hold that each round is 6 seconds and then demand that the proceeds of a D&D combat produce an interesting script for a cinematic display then you'll find that you fail. The 6 second round with combats only lasting 2-4 rounds on average will generally produce fights that are too 'short.'

However D&D fights aren't projected on a movie screen. D&D fights happen in the imagination of the players as they screw around on a tabletop. Furthermore 1 round in tabletop play takes much longer than 6 seconds. A common complaint is that combat takes too long. People are getting excited over rumors that 5E combat will be much faster.

[elpollo]

If he's sustained less actual damage, why is he also on the brink of death? Your explanation works for comparing a level 15 character who's down by 9 points to a level 1 character who's down by 9 points, but not for comparing a level 15 character who has 1 point left to a level 1 character who has 1 point left.

He's not on the brink of death (hence why there are no wound penalties). Unfortunately for the character, the next hit could well put him there (or kill him outright), but he's just huffing and puffing, with a few scratches and bruises. It's seen in a lot of media - after a few passes of cutting each others cheeks and shirts open, one of the fighters will inflict a mortal wound on the other (bonus points if it takes a few moments for it to register so that the audience thing that the inflicter might have been mortally wounded instead).

[Yitzi]

He's not on the brink of death (hence why there are no wound penalties). Unfortunately for the character, the next hit could well put him there (or kill him outright), but he's just huffing and puffing, with a few scratches and bruises. It's seen in a lot of media - after a few passes of cutting each others cheeks and shirts open, one of the fighters will inflict a mortal wound on the other (bonus points if it takes a few moments for it to register so that the audience thing that the inflicter might have been mortally wounded instead).

So how does the damage he's taken compare to that of a level 1 character with one hit point left? Is it more, less, or the same?

[Deepbluediver]

I agree that the armors given in the PHB, and the options for improving them, are quite lackluster. It seems to me like WotC decided to go with a stereotypical "real world" armor scenario, which is bad for two reasons: psuedo-realism/fluff should rarely trump game mechanics, and the stereotypes are frequently wrong.
I made a version (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=226980) where pretty much all the armors got DR buffs, and the system for improving them got an overhaul. This keeps you from having to redo too many of the rules by just letting your players get better armor. I try to keep it simple, where possible.


Seerow did a great write-up (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12504580&postcount=1) about the RNG/level-scaling issues when it comes to armor. Unless you already consider yourself an expert on the various failings of armor, I recomend giving it a read when you have a a free moment.