Armor as Damage Reduction [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

Yora

2013-02-10, 11:32 AM

Pickford

2013-02-10, 11:34 AM

Actually there's a feat for that.

PHB II - Armor Specialization.

FreakyCheeseMan

2013-02-10, 11:35 AM

I like the idea of Armor as DR. Splitting the protection between attacks that just bounce off and those that are reduced in severity if they penetrate seems quite sensible and is closer to what armor actually does. It also makes shields more useful as it's more difficult to get high ACs. (Until at higher level the whole AC thing breaks down completely.)

But I am not sure how the math actually works out. Is giving up 2 points of AC really worth DR 2/-?
Do people have experience with it? Or maybe even actual statistical probabilities?

I've always been in favor of the idea, but I'm not sure how well it works within a D&D framework. For the system I'm setting up, I'm handling damage and attack rolls as a single number, and applying armor directly as DR - so, it ends up working out both ways. Armor reduces the damage from attacks that do hit you, but also means that attack rolls have to be higher, in order to deal damage at all.

Hand_of_Vecna

2013-02-10, 12:14 PM

I've often considered using the rules from UA for armor as DR, for the record, half the armor's base AC bonus rounded down becomes DR instead.

As the book's own sidebar points out this option is rather OP at low levels making goblin arrows and wolf bites bounce relatively harmlessly for 0-2 damage of a character with Chain Mail or a Breastplate. Further -1 AC +1 DR will probably kill more monsters than it saves. In my experience 1st level characters in the business of attacking generally auto-one-shot most monsters they hit, so it may add a number that will hit on a d20 while still killing with minimum damage.

On the flip side at higher levels it tends to hurt PC's when 12 damage over 3 hits is unlikely to be the difference between being above or below 0 hp, but getting hit one extra time is. Though they will be laughing off the attacks of trivial opponents even harder than regular high level characters.

I've actually considered just giving characters this DR as an additional bonus and balancing it with armor hp for added realism, but I've never stuck to my guns. Maybe I'll do it in my current game which is a low magic game where special materials are the main source of item upgrades.

ericgrau

2013-02-10, 12:38 PM

Actually because the benefit of DR scales with more attacks, the comparison is all over the place:

Ogre (CR 3): 1 AC = 0.8 DR
Frost giant (CR 9): 1 AC = 1.25 DR.
Glabrezu (CR 13): 1 AC = 0.46 DR.
A high level foe with lots of attacks can actually suffer more than a low level foe who only hits once.

Maybe it could work, but it would make huge changes on all kinds of foes. Heavy hitters would become way stronger, whereas those with several attacks would become way weaker. Power attack would be a big mess, since everyone would use it against AC that isn't there anymore and then they'd be able to negate DR as well.

It seems like more of a mess than anything, and isn't really any better than AC for that matter. Probably much worse given the way current monsters work; you'd have to rewrite them all.

Bobbis

2013-02-10, 12:42 PM

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/armorAsDamageReduction.htm

Haven't used that, but that gives rules to what you're thinking about.

Alefiend

2013-02-10, 12:43 PM

I've always been in favor of the idea, but I'm not sure how well it works within a D&D framework. For the system I'm setting up, I'm handling damage and attack rolls as a single number, and applying armor directly as DR - so, it ends up working out both ways. Armor reduces the damage from attacks that do hit you, but also means that attack rolls have to be higher, in order to deal damage at all.

How's that going to work? Will lower-damage weapons have a lower attack bonus, and damage dice from other sources will be added to the attack roll?

You could always go old school, and adapt the Arms Law/Claw Law part of Rolemaster. The attack roll was the damage roll, since it involved charts for each weapon type. Cumbersome as hell, but very granular.

denthor

2013-02-10, 12:45 PM

I played in a game that used that. The problem was I ran a halfling so if you had heavy enough armor his full attack and damage did nothing unless he rolled and confirmed a critical then he would do minor damage.

How did gnomes and other small weapons or animals ever survive?

A 1d4 arrow roll a 4 take 2 away for leather armor. Minimum 5 rounds to take down a 1st level fighter.

Fouredged Sword

2013-02-10, 12:54 PM

I would give piercing weapons DR pen 2 for all armor DR, and up the die for damage of all slashing weapons by a single die but give them a 1 point DR penalty. Daggers are good for bypassing armor. Blades bounce off but quickly kill unarmored foes.

FreakyCheeseMan

2013-02-10, 12:55 PM

How's that going to work? Will lower-damage weapons have a lower attack bonus, and damage dice from other sources will be added to the attack roll?

So, this is a system I'm building from the ground up, but here's how I'm having it work.

When you attack, your roll gives you some number of successes; each weapon has a chart showing how many successes indicate how much damage. (In this system, a weapon is a much more complicated thing, and it's generally assumed that you'll attach a weapon page to your character sheet, in the same way mages might attach a spell sheet.)

So, examples. A sword might do a simple one-damage-per-success. A knife might do one damage per-two-successes. A warhammer might do no damage at all without at least three successes, then do Successes + 2 damage past that - indicating that it's harder to hit, but if you do, you're gonna cause some pain.

I realize this makes weapons a lot more complicated, but that's actually semi-intentional - I wanted martial classes to have some more fun/versatility, so now they play differently with different specific weapons. At least some weapons will also have special attacks - think Indiana Jones with his whip.

If you want to use a much simpler model, you could just have a static base damage for each weapon, and add whatever you beat your opponent's AC by to the damage dealt. So, a knife does 2 damage, you get an attack role of 30, your opponent has an AC of 17, so you do 15 damage.

searlefm

2013-02-10, 01:07 PM

the armor as DR/- is designed to work along side called shot, so a wolf should do as i real life and jump for the throat as leather armor or chair mail will stop teeth and claws.

my only recommendation is to adjust what Dr the armors give
so for chain-mail is DR/bludgeoning, magic as chain-mail will stop a sword blade but it doesn't stop the weight of a club or hammer,
and padded armor can stop bludgeoning but most thing like piercing from arrows and spears will go through,
and plate mail stop all but fire, cold, and lightning

and the fact that armor lowers ac seems like quite a good idear to me as ac is described as how hard you are to hit, and then giving DR as a trade off seems ideal as a guy in plate mail is really easy to hit but are really hard to hurt inside there tin cans.

so yes it dose work with called shots and only if everyone knows the optional systems

Darius Kane

2013-02-10, 01:08 PM

A 1d4 arrow roll a 4 take 2 away for leather armor. Minimum 5 rounds to take down a 1st level fighter.
Actually leather armor has only 1/- DR. But if it's just one enemy shooting then it's not really a surprise it takes 5 rounds.

I use Armor as DR in combination with Defense Bonus (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/defenseBonus.htm).

Yora

2013-02-10, 01:13 PM

I kind of have low-magic E6 in mind, so high level monsters and very good armor at low levels are probably not going to be much of an issue.

DMVerdandi

2013-02-10, 02:14 PM

Honestly this is how I would do it.

Armor grants DR and AC. It grants DR equal to it's ac. The AC bonus is a deflection bonus based on things simply not being strong enough to need buffering. The DR comes from damage being soaked by the armor. For example, if an arrow pierces full plate, it still does less damage than it would have if it didn't.

With adamantine full plate, and possibly a few tower shields held in a magic storage item, this would give you quite the juggernaut, which makes sense because armor in the medieval times kind of had that effect.

Tovec

2013-02-10, 02:30 PM

I've been working on my own system for over a year and a half (I think) and I can tell you that armor as DR really works well, but it hugely depends on the system that exists around it.

In traditional DnD/3e/PF it won't help that much because there are too many ways to get around or do higher damage than the DR. But if those kinds of assumptions aren't there then it is great.

Also, an issue I hit with armor as DR (and specifically providing an ACP to my new AC) was that AC became too low, too easy to hit that guy in full plate.. but the damage bounces off as if you weren't there.

But yes a 1to1 ratio can work, my best suggestion would be modifying it .. allowing armor as DR and trying it out and seeing what happens. Expect the game to go sideways immediately but that is good. It becomes a problem when you hate the new results, not when they are just different and you have to be careful of that.

Also, in my experience, armor as DR creates more problems than it generally solves. Yes you have X/- but spells still hit you for full damage, wizards can still affect your weak save, rogues sneak attack is more likely to hit. Those kinds of things. Most of the time when people play around with armor as DR they end up going back, or using some kind of half-measure.

I had been playing around with ideas on armor as DR since about 2006/7 and it was only about 1.5-2 years ago that I figured out a viable way to do it and that was only because I was working on my own d20 system.

Yora

2013-02-10, 02:58 PM

I don't think AC/DR adresses any problem. It's just for a different feel.
I am also considering using Class Defense Bonuses with either the defense bonus or the armor applying to AC, whichever is higher, but DR always benefitting all characters. That way you are always better protected wearing armor than not, but high level characters are better at dodging without armor than low level characters.

Spiryt

2013-02-10, 03:10 PM

SowZ

2013-02-10, 03:12 PM

I use this system when I DM. It works well at low levels. At mid levels, you are definitely missing the AC and don't care about the DR. At high levels, it is irrelevant because AC doesn't work anyways.

Alefiend

2013-02-10, 03:21 PM

One more suggestion for using DR: take a look at Conan D20 from Mongoose Publishing. It had a good system of DR vs. AP (armor piercing) and also accounted for finesse weapons.

Yora

2013-02-10, 03:56 PM

I've seen it, but it also had Dodge and Parry, so I didn't really look further into it.

Darius Kane

2013-02-10, 03:59 PM

Why shouldn't they be able to dodge better with armor as well, though?
Because it doesn't make you better at dodging. Hell, it even makes you worse if the armor's Max Dex Bonus is lower than your Dex.

TuggyNE

2013-02-10, 06:34 PM

the armor as DR/- is designed to work along side called shot, so a wolf should do as i real life and jump for the throat as leather armor or chair mail will stop teeth and claws.

Uh, any particular reason for this assertion? I don't think UA even has a called-shot system, optional or otherwise.

Zman

2013-02-10, 08:32 PM

If you use the Unearthed Arcana Armor as DR rules, try adding my defense Bonus rules, see signature for extra details on my 3.5 Overhaul.

In summary
Classed Characters add 1/2 BAB to AC, including Touch AC.
Monsters add 1/2 CR to their AC, including touch AC.

This bonus stacks with Armor.

This helps keep AC relevant at higher levels especially for Touch Attacks since AC doesn't scale with level, it also helps offset th lost AC from the DR rules. Added benefit of helping BAB dependent classes over casters.

Spiryt

2013-02-11, 08:32 AM

Because it doesn't make you better at dodging. Hell, it even makes you worse if the armor's Max Dex Bonus is lower than your Dex.

Yora is apparently talking about rather substantial homebrewing though, so I don't have to assume that standard 3.5 numbers even are applying here.

They are rather pointless and badly thought-out, after all.

prufock

2013-02-11, 09:05 AM

In my Weird West setting, I wanted armor to be in use, but not common - particularly not heavy armors. The alternate rule in this setting is that armor grants DR equal to the listed AC bonus. AC is determined by the UA class defense bonus optional rule. However, armor check penalty applies against class defense bonus, so armor can give you a hefty DR, it makes you easy as pie to hit.

Natural armor is likewise converted to DR, but at 1/2, so +2 NA is DR 1. I imposed this premium because NA has no check penalty.

All other bonus types (shield, deflection, etc) apply to AC as normal.

Note that this setting is basically E6 with some variant rules. The setting is also a mostly-desert setting, and heat dangers are a very real part of it; ACP applies against Fort saves vs heat as well, so there is another deterrent to wearing heavy armor if you don't have access to Endure Elements somehow.

Yora

2013-02-11, 02:02 PM

Not being able to dodge makes perfect sense. And in standard D&D, AC bonus plus max AC mostly evens out to +9, so you never get actually worse for wearing armor.

With Armor as DR in place, it goes down rapidly to level at about +5. Though splint armor with a maximum of +3 gets even more terrible.
Here the best case numbers:

{table=head]Armor|AC|DR|Price
Padded|+9|-|5 gp
Leather|+7|1|10 gp
Studded|+7|1|25 gp
Chain Shirt|+6|2|100 gp
Hide|+6|1|15 gp
Scale|+5|2|50 gp
Chainmail|+5|2|150 gp
Breastplate|+6|2|200 gp
Splint|+3|3|200 gp
Banded|+4|3|250 gp
Half-Plate|+4|3|600 gp
Full-Plate|+5|4|1500 gp[/table]

Half-Plate becomes completely pointless, unless you have Dex 11 or less. Banded armor is superior in all respects, including price.
Scale beats chainmail only if you have Dex 16, so that's not too bad.
Leather only becomes better than studded leather if you have Dex 22, which is a rather rare occurance.

Again it comes down to the question, how much AC is DR worth?

RagnaroksChosen

2013-02-11, 02:45 PM

My only concern with your chart is that the DR is not worth the AC it looses.

Most of the time when they hit they are going to do more then 4 damage so I would rather take the miss chance then the DR.

Spiryt

2013-02-11, 02:54 PM

Not being able to dodge makes perfect sense.

Actually, 'hard' limit doesn't make any sense.

Someone who is ridiculously dexterous and nimble should still benefit from it in heavy armor.

Some percentage of Dexterity bonus lost would make more sense, but percentages out of +1 to +6 are huge pain in the...

So both options kinda suck. :smallwink:

Greenish

2013-02-11, 03:24 PM

Again it comes down to the question, how much AC is DR worth?Well, Power Attack is two points of damage per point of attack sacrificed. The people who don't get to use PA (TWFers) are also the ones hurt most by the DR.

Plate armour making you easier to hurt doesn't make much sense either, for that matter, but each for their own.