LVL based AC and armor as DR

[pbdr]

I am planning a dark ages campaign, low magic, kind of grim and gritty. I'm planning on using the Lvl based AC bonus and armor as DR rules as well. I thought it might be fun and fit in with the campaign.

Any thoughts? How does it balance? That sort of thing.

[Zman]

I am planning a dark ages campaign, low magic, kind of grim and gritty. I'm planning on using the Lvl based AC bonus and armor as DR rules as well. I thought it might be fun and fit in with the campaign.

Any thoughts? How does it balance? That sort of thing.

You could try my overhaul linked in my Signature. Used a lot of those rules, also uses the Wound Vitality point System. So far it has worked great. You also could look at my E10 Variant.

[SowZ]

I think it works well in a low magic setting. Also, it explains away things like, 'Why isn't the tenth level fighter harder to hit than a 1st level commoner sans magic items?'

[magotter]

Funny that I'd recently been having this same thought and was going to do the same for armor and see if it would work. My general projection is that, akin to a lot of games, people will still tend to favor Light armors, so their AC won't be off by abysmally much. And likewise, the heavier tank-types would get hit, but most blows would bounce off until such a time as magical weaponry comes into play. To be a bit more specific, I wanted to ensure that it was any physical barrier that acted as DR. So my leather cuirass, yes, and even my Natural Armor absorbing blows, but also physical manifestations like the Shield spell, despite that shield being made of force.

That said, I was thinking of building upon the Armor-as-DR to make Armor Enhancements act as Elemental Resistance as well. That is, a beefy Chain Shirt with a +2 Enhancement would provide a full 6 DR (Armor 4+2) and a Resistance 2 against Acid, Cold, Electric, and Fire due to the magic. This isn't a ton, mind you, when comparing the cost of a +5 item to essentially being Resist 5, especially at higher levels. Even with Pathfinder wheren Armor and Shield Enhancements stack, the total Resist 10 for the cost of TWO +5 items isn't alot. But still, it is a buffer, and I'd allow it to stack with the other, more traditional means of Resistance.


Now the one thing I'd not considered was level-based bonuses to avoidance AC. I am not entirely certain it is necessary, as at higher levels one is more likely to hit anyway regardless of the armor used. But it is an interesting suggestion, and one I pondered here while making dinner. Perhaps rather than a flat level-based AC bonus, you make BAB offer an AC bonus instead? It'd smooth out a bit of imbalance the melee-oriented classes receive from not being able to rely on item-based defense, and in my opinion the burly fighter or ranger is going to be better able and better trained to dodge, duck, dip, dive, and dodge than the skinnyfat mage who breaks a sweat climbing stairs. Or perhaps I'm projecting.

[Seerow]

The main problem with Armor as DR is it's typically too effective at low levels, and not effective enough at high levels. Quick and dirty version of a fix I like to use:


Armor DR is not like regular DR. Rather than applying against every attack, it instead applies to all attacks for the round. At the start of the character's turn, their armor refreshes. (I typically refer to the this as Guard instead of DR, to avoid confusion)
A character's guard is increased with magic item enhancements (So +5 Full Plate has 13 effective guard, instead of 8).
A character's guard is multiplied by the number of attacks they gain from BAB.
Shields boost both Guard and AC, shields no longer gain enhancement bonuses (since scaling AC is now taken care of by level based bonuses, and getting +7 guard from a shield is kind of over the top). You can enchant a shield with armor/shield properties normally.


So a first level rogue in studded leather blocks 3 points of damage per round before taking hp damage. The first level fighter in chain shirt and shield blocks 6 points of damage per round. The 20th level rogue in a +5 mithral breastplate blocks 30 points of damage per round before taking hp damage. The 20th level Fighter in +5 Full Plate with shield blocks 60 points of damage per round before taking HP damage (or 68 with a tower shield).

Usually this is accompanied by some other tuning tweaks and rules for how bonus attacks interact with it (generally any bonus main hand attacks boost it. two weapon fighting doesn't), but what's described above is enough to make it work in general better than straight armor as DR does (being more effective at high level in general, and less effective at low level in general)

[Optimator]

That's an awesome idea. I'm gonna run it by my DM!

[ericgrau]

It should work well because AC normally comes from magic items. AC scales at roughly 1.25 per level. Without magic to boost attack bonus it should probably be 1 per level instead to match BAB. 0.5 of that should be free for all, 0.25 should require armor and 0.25 should require a shield. It's not actually a straight line progression. Low levels tend to favor non-touch AC and high levels tend to favor touch AC. But a straight line should work close enough in a pinch especially since attack bonus tends to be a straight line.

AC:
{table] level | Unarmored | Armored | Shield
1 | 0 | 0 | + 0
2 | 1 | 1 | + 0
3 | 1 | 2 | + 1
4 | 2 | 3 | + 1
5 | 2 | 3 | + 1
6 | 3 | 4 | + 1
7 | 3 | 5 | + 2
8 | 4 | 6 | + 2
9 | 4 | 6 | + 2
10 | 5 | 7 | + 2
11 | 5 | 8 | + 3
12 | 6 | 9 | + 3
13 | 6 | 9 | + 3
14 | 7 | 10 | + 3
15 | 7 | 11 | + 4
16 | 8 | 12 | + 4
17 | 8 | 12 | + 4
18 | 9 | 13 | + 4
19 | 9 | 14 | + 5
20 | 10 | 15 | + 5
[/table]

As for light armor vs heavy, you simply add on equipment based AC normally. There are math reasons for this but basically you don't need nor want scaling on top of scaling.

If you need to pull touch AC out of that table for some reason now (dunno why in a mundane world), it's roughly 1/3 per level for both unarmored and armored, and whatever is leftover is non-touch AC.

One thing though. Low magic and D&D don't tend to work well. The system expects magic. You have to remove all casters and most special monsters for starters. Anything that doesn't also stand on the ground and swing a physical weapon. Nor can anything be larger than large. Even then you might not want to go too far into double digit levels.

[Absol197]

I do this in all of my games now. Each class gets a Base Defense Bonus in addition to their base attack bonus. Base Defense Bonus and Base Attack Bonus correspond, so a class with high Base Attack has high Base Defense, and so on.

{table=head]Level|Low BDB|Mid BDB|High BDB
1|+0|+0|+0
2|+0|+1|+1
3|+1|+1|+2
4|+1|+2|+2
5|+1|+2|+3
6|+2|+3|+4
7|+2|+3|+4
8|+2|+4|+5
9|+3|+4|+6
10|+3|+5|+6
11|+3|+5|+7
12|+4|+6|+8
13|+4|+6|+8
14|+4|+7|+9
15|+5|+7|+10
16|+5|+8|+10
17|+5|+8|+11
18|+6|+9|+12
19|+6|+9|+12
20|+6|+10|+13[/table]

I also use the Armor as DR variant, where you take half of the armor's value and make it DR (The higher half goes to AC). When the armor is magical, its enhancement bonus increases both the AC bonus and the DR. The rationale is that a magical weapon increases its attack bonus (chance to hit) and damage (amount of damage dealt), so why doesn't armor increase its AC bonus (chance to negate a hit) and DR (reduce damage dealt)? It just makes sense and makes things fair.

All in all, these work out really well for me. Base Defense Bonus applies to touch AC but not flat-footed, and I switch shields to apply to touch AC as well, but not flat-footed.


~Phoenix~