Armor granting renewing temp HP?

[Seharvepernfan]

I saw a thread a while back where somebody had this idea, but it was never fleshed out. I'm curious how it would affect things.

Basically, what if armor granted temporary HP equal to it's AC bonus, that renewed every round? And for every iterative attack you have, you gain the bonus again (so a 3rd level fighter in banded mail would get 6 temp hp, whereas a 6th level fighter in banded mail would get 12). No extra points from enhanced armor. Only armor works like this, not mage armor, not natural armor, etc.

It specifically isn't DR; it works against fireballs and scorching rays and breath weapons and falling damage and basically every type of damage that comes from an injury. I haven't thought much about shields. I think sneak attacks should bypass it.

How would this affect the wider game?

[Arbane]

Interesting idea. I'd have to see it in play to judge its effects.
It'd make heavily-armored people harder to stab to death, but it wouldn't do anything about save-or-cry spells.

[Necroticplague]

This would be ridiculously potent at low levels, but insignificant at higher levels. For the first few levels, this would render you effectively immune to most attacks. Crusaders have a much weaker version of this as one of there 'tricks', and its considered pretty good for the first few levels. However, at later levels, because of the rate damage scales at, the temp HP will become insignificant.

[Seerow]

Not sure if you saw it from me, but it is something I have tossed around on the forums here, and used in my games. But I reworked how AC and Armor work as well as part of the package for my implementation.


As the quick and simple version, the temporary HP refreshing each turn is referred to as your Guard value. Guard = armor bonus to AC * number of attacks gained from BAB, refreshes at the start of your turn. So at level 1 characters have 2-6 (usually around 3-4) guard., by level 20 it caps out around 50ish guard.


If you're interested in a more detailed version, I'd be happy to go into it some more.

[Blackhawk748]

Not sure if you saw it from me, but it is something I have tossed around on the forums here, and used in my games. But I reworked how AC and Armor work as well as part of the package for my implementation.


As the quick and simple version, the temporary HP refreshing each turn is referred to as your Guard value. Guard = armor bonus to AC * number of attacks gained from BAB, refreshes at the start of your turn. So at level 1 characters have 2-6 (usually around 3-4) guard., by level 20 it caps out around 50ish guard.


If you're interested in a more detailed version, I'd be happy to go into it some more.

I certainly am, this seems very interesting.

[Seharvepernfan]

I certainly am, this seems very interesting.

Me too.

No, I didn't see it from you, Seerow. I didn't know you had fleshed it out already.

[Ashtagon]

I toyed with the idea a long while ago for my d20 revision, but ultimately decided that a revision of hit point scaling would better serve my purposes.

A key question in any such revision is, "what result are you hoping to achieve?" vanilla 3.pf does a create jobof fulfilling heroic fantasy superhero genres.

I'm told that grim n gritty (http://riivo.talviste.ee/dnd/grim-n-gritty/GrimNGrittyHitPointRules3.3.pdf) (v3.3 is free I am told; the v4 is a for-money pdf) covers the other end of the trope.

[Knaight]

This has fairly major scaling issues, and just feels odd on a round to round basis - it's the sort of thing that feels right for energy shields on spacecraft, and feels off for armor. With that said, if the amount of temporary HP is scaled up and recovery rates are scaled down (maybe to per rest, maybe to per encounter), it starts to seem like a better fit.

Then there's the book keeping. On a round to round basis, it's pretty hefty. On a per encounter basis, it works a lot better.


I'm told that grim n gritty (http://riivo.talviste.ee/dnd/grim-n-gritty/GrimNGrittyHitPointRules3.3.pdf) (v3.3 is free I am told; the v4 is a for-money pdf) covers the other end of the trope.
There are a lot of ways to cover the other end of the trope, and this one is honestly a bit of a mess. It's a modification to a system which completely breaks with how the system handles a lot of other things, it's riddled with bizarre design decisions (such as the crippling defense penalty taken by wearing armor, which accurately models irritating Victorian misinformation about armor and not armor), so on and so forth.

[Ashtagon]

This has fairly major scaling issues, and just feels odd on a round to round basis - it's the sort of thing that feels right for energy shields on spacecraft, and feels off for armor. With that said, if the amount of temporary HP is scaled up and recovery rates are scaled down (maybe to per rest, maybe to per encounter), it starts to seem like a better fit.

Then there's the book keeping. On a round to round basis, it's pretty hefty. On a per encounter basis, it works a lot better.


There are a lot of ways to cover the other end of the trope, and this one is honestly a bit of a mess. It's a modification to a system which completely breaks with how the system handles a lot of other things, it's riddled with bizarre design decisions (such as the crippling defense penalty taken by wearing armor, which accurately models irritating Victorian misinformation about armor and not armor), so on and so forth.

I didn't saythatwas a good example of grim n gritty, justthatits a worked example. d20 Warheart (link (http://warheart.rpg.sk/d20.php)) is another worked example.

[Seerow]

Alright incoming long post. Warning this is a pretty substantial change to the overall system. I enjoy it, but it is not for everybody. I'll do my best to comment on things as I go along.



Defenses
Armor Class (AC)
The first line of defense for all characters is their armor class. A character’s AC represents their ability to evade or harmlessly deflect enemy attacks. A character’s base AC value is 5+dexterity modifier. Any time an enemy makes a to-hit roll against the character, it is measured against that character’s AC. If the resulting roll is lower than their AC, then the character successfully evades the attack, taking no damage and suffering no other ill effects of the attack. The character’s AC is increased by their base attack bonus.

Guard
The second line of defense for all characters is their guard. A character’s guard represents their toughness, their ability to shrug off damage, and their ability to guide enemy attacks away from vital areas towards more protected ones. A character’s base guard value is their constitution modifier plus any bonus gained from armor.
Characters have a Guard Multiplier equal to 100% + 20% per point of BAB they possess. So at +1 BAB they have 120% Guard, at +10 BAB they have 300% guard. At +20 BAB they have 500% Guard. A +1 BAB character with 6 base guard would have that affected by their Guard Multiplier of 120%, bringing them to 7 guard.
Any time an enemy’s attack successfully hits the character, the damage is first applied to the character’s guard. The character’s guard is reduced by the damage dealt by the attack until the start of their next turn. At the start of the next turn, the character’s guard value is restored to max. If an enemy’s damage exceeds the character’s remaining guard value, any excess damage is applied to the character’s hit points.

Hit Points (HP)
Hit points are the life essence of all characters in D&D. Characters who drop below 0 hit points fall unconscious and prone, and are dying. When an enemy attacks a character who has no guard remaining, the damage is applied to their hit points. A character’s hit points are determined by their class. Every class has a hit die. The character’s hit dice are maximized at first level. Every level thereafter they roll a hit die appropriate to their class, and add that value to their maximum hit points. Characters recover their level plus constitution modifier in hit points after an 8 hour rest.

Wounds
A character may have up to 3+con mod wounds without becoming incapacitated. A character takes 1 wound any time they are dropped below 0 hit points, or any time they are subject to a critical hit. If a critical hit or some other source of wounds brings the character’s total wounds up to their maximum, they fall unconscious and prone as though they had reached 0 hit points. If the character’s wounds exceed their maximum, they are dead.

Stabilization
While a character is below 0 hit points, each round they roll a stabilization check. On a 20, they stabilize and no longer need to roll, and will recover their hit points naturally normally. On a 1, the wound that drops them worsens and they take an additional wound.


Notes:
-While above I simplified to making the multiplier 1 per attack from BAB, here it is a % that is directly based off BAB. It adds a little more math at level up but makes a MUCH smoother curve, and provides an extra reward for someone who stays in a full BAB class.

-For my games I recently started experimenting with shifting Con's benefit from HP into con, bringing hp pools down while still making con important to survivability (arguably more important, depending on incoming damage levels). The result is characters have a much lower HP, but a high guard to cover for it. For example a 20th level fighter will likely have only 115 hp, but will have a passive guard of around 100 (assuming heavy armor, no shield, and +7 con). Compared to currently the Fighter has 255 hp.

-Wounds are honestly just something I prefer, my system for them here is pretty generous and tends to make sure even if a character gets knocked out, they aren't likely to be killed by accident (as opposed to the "oops did 10 more damage than I intended, sorry")


Armor Terminology
Armor Class (AC)
Armor increases AC by deflecting blows away from the character, allowing the armor to turn potentially fatal strikes into non-damaging attacks that slide off the armor harmlessly. The AC value of armor is added as an armor bonus to the character’s AC.

Guard
Armor increases Guard by providing protection to vital areas and making it harder to directly damage the character, so an enemy has to hit harder and more precisely to effectively damage the character. The guard value of armor is added as an armor bonus to the character’s base guard (this is multiplied as normal if the character has additional attacks or a shield).

Max Dex
Armor is heavy and can restrict mobility in more dexterous characters. The Max Dex value of armor indicates the maximum dexterity bonus that may be applied to AC while wearing armor. This value does not restrict dexterity for any other purposes, such as initiative rolls or skill checks.

ACP
Armor is restrictive, heavy, and noisy. Armor’s ACP is a penalty that is applied to all Strength and Dexterity based skills while wearing armor.

ASF
Casting spells takes great finesse and precision to make the correct somatic components. The restrictiveness inherent in armor can cause a slight mistake that causes the spell to fail. ASF represents the % chance that an arcane spell will fail while wearing armor.

Weight
Armor can easily encumber even a strong individual, making them slower than usual. If a character’s armor weighs more than half of their light load, the character is treated as encumbered. An encumbered character moves at 2/3rd their normal movement speed, has an additional -1 ACP, and -1 Max Dex.

Armor Proficiency
Characters must train with armor extensively to become proficient in its use and be as effective in it as possible. A character who is not proficient with armor they are wearing takes the ACP penalty (if any) as a penalty to Attack Rolls and Reflex Saves. Additionally the armor’s ASF is doubled (minimum +10%). Finally, the armor’s AC and guard values are both reduced by 1.

Notes:
The only big surprise here is the Weight/Encumbrance change. Basically I hate how Heavy Armor slows down guys pick enough to effortlessly lift 5 suits of full plate with their pinky finger. This change makes it so a sufficiently strong dude can wear heavy armor and be unencumbered.


Armor Listing

Armor TypeGuardACMax DexACPASFWeight

Light Armor

Padded21+1005%9lbs

Leather22+705%10lbs

Studded Leather23+6-215%11lbs

Chain Shirt33+5-320%14lbs

Medium Armor

Hide53+5-110%29lbs

Scale Mail63+4-320%35lbs

Chainmail55+3-530%33lbs

Breastplate36+4-530%23lbs

Heavy Armor

Splint Mail67+2-635%47lbs

Banded mail77+1-740%62lbs

Half-Plate66+3-425%50lbs

Full Plate86+1-635%68lbs


Special: Armor may be enchanted like normal. A +X Enhancement bonus to Armor provides its value to both AC and Guard.

Notes: This is pretty much just a rebalancing of armors. While you could just use the standard armor table and say AC = Guard, I took the opportunity to make sure the various armors had a reason for existence by being slightly different and focused on different things.

Not Included: A few subsystems for modifying/upgrading armor independent with magic. If anyone is still interested after this wall of text in that, I can provide it.


Shields
Shields are not actually armor, but provide benefits that are superficially similar to wearing armor. Enchanting a shield may be done only to apply special properties, not increases to AC/Guard in the way Armor can. Shields come in four varieties:

Buckler-A buckler provides +1 AC. While wielding a buckler, you may use the hand the buckler is strapped to for other things, including wielding a weapon. If you use a weapon while wearing a buckler, you take -1 penalty to hit. A buckler may not be used for shield bashing.

Light Shield-A light shield provides +2 AC. While wielding a light shield, you may use the hand holding the light shield for holding an item, but not to actively use it. For example you could hold a torch with a hand holding a light shield, but not use it as a weapon. While wielding a light shield, your Guard multiplier is increased to 25% per point of BAB (so if you have +10 BAB your guard multiplier goes from 300% to 350%). A Light Shield may be used for shield bashing, as a 1d4 light weapon.

Heavy Shield-A heavy shield provides +3 AC. While wearing a heavy shield, the hand holding that shield may not be used for any other task. While wielding a heavy shield, your Guard Multiplier is increased to 30% per point of BAB (so if you have +10 BAB, your Guard Multiplier goes from 300% to 400%). A Heavy Shield may be used for shield bashing as a 1d6 one-handed weapon.

Tower Shield-A Tower Shield provides +4 AC. While wearing a tower shield, the hand holding that shield may not be used for any other task, and you take a -2 penalty to attack rolls even if they do not involve that hand. While wielding a tower shield, your Guard Multiplier is increased to 35% per point of BAB (so if you have +10 BAB, your Guard Multiplier goes from 300% to 450%). Additionally while wielding a tower shield, you are always treated as having soft cover, and if taking a total defense action, you can gain total cover. A Tower Shield may be used for Shield Bashing, but only if wielded with both hands. It deals damage as a 1d10 two-handed weapon.

Special: When wielding a shield of any kind, if you fight defensively, the bonus granted is added to your guard value (these extra points are not affected by your guard multiplier). If you use the Stone Power feat, the temporary hit points gained are doubled.

Notes:
-Shield Enhancement bonuses got removed in part to counter-balance the addition of BAB to AC from the first section. I'll deal with other bonuses in the next session. The idea is to have an overall tighter control of the AC curve

-This section could get cumbersome if regularly swapping between Sword and Board and a Two Hander. Most likely any character planning to do that should already have their guard value for both calculated. This section was a big part of why I eventually moved away from flat guard multipliers, as it gave me more flexibility to make shields important without being overpowered at low level or useless at high level (as a flat +1 multiplier would do)



[size=4]Defensive Fighting
Fighting Defensively no longer incurs a penalty to-hit, but instead requires an action. In addition to Defensive Fighting and Total Defense, there is now a third option, Focused Defense. If more than one of these actions is taken on the same turn, their effects stack. While the effects of different defense stack, if you gain extra actions from any source, you may not take the same defensive action twice. (So while you can Fight Defensively and Total Defense, you cannot use RKV to get 5 swift actions and Fight Defensively 5 times)

Fight Defensively
A character can spend a swift action to Fight Defensively until the start of their next round. While fighting defensively the character gains a +2 to AC and Guard.

Focused Defense
A character can spend a move action to use a Focused Defense until the start of their next round. Doing so grants +3 AC and Guard, and additionally increases their guard multiplier by 50%.

Total Defense
A character may dedicate his standard action to full defense. Doing so grants +4 AC, Guard, and all Saving Throws, and increases guard multiplier by 100%.


Misc
Charge- While charging in addition to your -2 penalty to AC, your guard multiplier is reduced by 100%.

Combat Expertise- Now is a feat that lets you use Fight Defensively as a free action in exchange for a -2 penalty to hit.

Armor Boosting- Magic Items that permanently boost AC with bonus types other than armor and natural armor are removed. Armor and Natural Armor now overlap, not stack. Temporary non-armor AC bonuses are all considered as if they were the same bonus type for stacking purposes. So for example using Shield of Faith (Deflection Bonus) and Protection Devotion (Sacred Bonus) would normally stack. Under these rules, they do not.


Notes: Okay last section of rules changes
-Defensive fighting changes are intended to make the fighting defensively options more attractive, especially to low level characters who might not have much to do with swift actions, or move actions after engaging. Full Defense I doubt will ever really be attractive, but at least now if you want to burn a full rounds actions on defense you can get a more meaningful benefit from it.

-Armor Boosting changes as noted above were part of my effort to control the RNG. There's still a pretty wide range, but it's narrower, and you no longer have to invest all of your money into rings of natural armor and deflection to keep up. Fighting types in particular will have competitive AC (45ish) without trying, and if they try will hit around 50-55.
--I haven't gotten to run this up to very high levels, but offhand it seems like high level AC could be very high for a baseline. I'm considering modifying how BAB gets applied (whether it's something like half BAB, or you get the better of the base 5 or your bab to AC), but want to get to play some high level games with it as is first. YMMV.



I don't have an official write up of this in my docs already, since I mostly do this off the cuff as needed while DMing.

The simplest way to do it is to use them as is, don't give them BAB to AC or reduce their HP and set Guard equal to Natural Armor (or Armor if they have it). This gives quick easy to run monsters who are more durable against an opening burst but less durable overall than the players.

The other option is a full conversion. For these I use CR in place of BAB to keep numbers sane, and pick an armor value that seems appropriate to complement the monster's dex (usually ~9-dex mod). From there, set base Guard = Natural Armor, and apply a +1-5 bonus to Guard and Natural Armor separately as feels appropriate.

So taking a Greater Barghest as an example. It has dex 15, and CR 5. So its natural armor becomes 7, and its base AC then is 5+5(CR)+2(dex)+7(natural)-1(size) = 18. Its HP drops from 67 to 40. It has 10 base guard and a 200% guard multiplier (CR5), for 20 guard. Arbitrarily I decide to add a +2 bonus to AC and leave its guard alone, so its stats look like:
HP: 40
AC: 20
Guard: 20

[Elkad]

Dude, that is sweet.

What's the effect of other ac modifiers? Mage Armor, Deflection bonus, Natural Armor?

Can you wound a creature immune to critical hits? With a Critical? With dropping him to 0hp?

Stacking up defensive actions looks like a great way to stay alive in a critical situation.

Well equipped 1st level warriors (scale+heavy shield) would have a seriously hard time killing one another. Add a shield wall feat and a formation and it gets even worse.

[Seerow]

Dude, that is sweet.

What's the effect of other ac modifiers? Mage Armor, Deflection bonus, Natural Armor?

Can you wound a creature immune to critical hits? With a Critical? With dropping him to 0hp?

1) Mage Armor is an armor bonus so works as normal. Natural Armor can be gained, but overlaps with normal armor. Deflection bonus counts as one of the "other" bonuses, so you can't get an item with it, and if you get it from a spell it does not stack with any "other" bonus types. (Note that as far as natural armor goes, this means anything characters want polymorph into needs to be actually converted, or it'll get silly fast. My players usually avoid transformation spells)

2) As a general rule immune to crits is immune to wounds, such a creature either dies at 0 hp (most undead and constructs), or requires a coup de grace to kill (crit immune creatures that are living).

edit:


Stacking up defensive actions looks like a great way to stay alive in a critical situation.

Well equipped 1st level warriors (scale+heavy shield) would have a seriously hard time killing one another. Add a shield wall feat and a formation and it gets even worse.

Yeah a first level warrior with scale + heavy shield is running with AC 13 (5+3(armor)+1(BAB)+1(dex)+3(shield)), but will have a base guard of 8 (6+2 con) and a guard multiplier of 135%, for a total of 10 guard. Using a Longsword with 16 strength (d8+3) they'll deal real damage only when maxed, unless it's a crit.

On the one hand this means it'll take probably a good 10 rounds on average of back and forth to kill each other. On the other hand, for a one on one situation between two defensively oriented characters, I'm not sure the fight lasting 1-2 minutes is a bad thing. And if you make it a group situation with focus fire (far more common in D&D) and one character is likely to drop by round 2 or 3, even when defensively fighting.

[Elkad]

I was just working on the warriors too.

Warriors (str12, dex10, con12) would have AC:1512, Guard:9 if I figured it right.
If they pull up toe-to-toe and stop taking move actions (freeing up both the swift and move defensive actions for fighting defensively), AC goes up +5 to 2017, guard goes up to (12*1.8)+3=24

Even if it's a line with reach weapons behind them and 6 opponents target one guy, they need an 1815 to hit. And then they still have to get through 24 guard, which means 4 hits the same round.
Probably better to sunder the shield first.

Edit, whoops I got the AC wrong. Scale is only +3. So AC12 and 17. Hit on a 15. Still pretty hard to get through swift+move defensive actions.

[Seerow]

Edit, whoops I got the AC wrong. Scale is only +3. So AC12 and 17. Hit on a 15. Still pretty hard to get through swift+move defensive actions.


Yeah the defensive actions may be a bit overtuned. I put them high to try to encourage my players to use them more, and I've found it helps offset the AC loss at low level (characters are 5-8 AC lower than normal at level 1), but I tend to see a lot of THFers and casters, people with more damage output and less defense, so it doesn't get thrown out of whack so much as bring them closer together. I'll check some more numbers and mess with it.

[Ravens_cry]

The trouble is, this isn't how armour feels like to me. Kinaesthetically, it just doesn't quite work as armour as active (parry) style or inactive (cover) style of paradigm. I can see it being an amour property in its own right, Ablative or Renewing might be good titles, but as the whole smash? It just doesn't work for me.
It also has the disadvantage of DR of being even more optimisation sensitive than armour, which is saying something.

[Seerow]

The trouble is, this isn't how armour feels like to me. Kinaesthetically, it just doesn't quite work as armour as active (parry) style or inactive (cover) style of paradigm. I can see it being an amour property in its own right, Ablative or Renewing might be good titles, but as the whole smash? It just doesn't work for me.

Difference of opinions I guess. Personally I latched onto it because it really fits the whole active defense mentality to me. As someone who generally considers HP as being more than meat, and instead in large part the character's skill and/or luck at defending themselves, then the refreshing temp HP represents the character at the start of their turn effectively resetting themselves and being able to brace against a fresh wave of attacks.



It also has the disadvantage of DR of being even more optimisation sensitive than armour, which is saying something.

I disagree with this. DR is optimization sensitive because you can very quickly go from "this is useless" to "I can wade through an army without taking damage". Refreshing temp hp does not have that issue. You can pretty quickly become immune to a single enemy, but it's damn near impossible to make yourself immune to everything in the same way a high DR value would. It is also less punishing to two weapon fighters, archers, and anyone else with lots of smaller attacks.

[Elkad]

I dunno. Having to beat the shield off someone in TurtleMode�™ to kill them isn't the worst thing in the world.

In my example, give the back row guys 14str and glaives and they can chip away at the 10 hardness shield doing 1d10+3 damage. Drop the shields to Heavy Wood instead (hardness=5), and they will chew the shields up quickly. Or have them Power Attack for -1/+2

With low level PCs (and thus higher stats/damage), shields will go very quickly.

Maybe lowering the defensive stacking just a bit? +2 swift, +2 move, +2 standard for 6 total instead of 9?

Animated Shields and Shield spells need some thought.
Maybe full AC bonus, but only half the Guard bonus? Or a static guard bonus (no BAB multiplier, since you aren't using your own skill to wield it).

Regarding Armor/Natural Armor stacking. If you put chain mail on a rhino, it should get some benefit. Higher bonus plus half lower? Or only adds to AC but not guard?

Other bonuses. I'd be inclined to let them count (and different types stack), but like the shield spell, not be multiplied?

Actually, I like that a lot. Armor and shield bonuses multiply at full value when you are wearing them(and proficient). (including force shields attached to your arm, mage armor, etc).
Independent (including animated) effects simply add a flat bonus. Guard bonus = double AC bonus or something. So a Ring of Protection +1 would give you +1AC and +2Guard. Not a lot, but useful.

I'm wandering afield from your original post... Maybe I should just steal half your post and start over :)

[Ravens_cry]

Difference of opinions I guess. Personally I latched onto it because it really fits the whole active defense mentality to me. As someone who generally considers HP as being more than meat, and instead in large part the character's skill and/or luck at defending themselves, then the refreshing temp HP represents the character at the start of their turn effectively resetting themselves and being able to brace against a fresh wave of attacks.

You don't really anything to make this system, you have no active participation. There is a static amount of quasi-healing each round with no input from you.
I'd rather have a parry system if I was going to for a truly active feeling defence. I roll a number, you roll a number, like opposed skill checks.





I disagree with this. DR is optimization sensitive because you can very quickly go from "this is useless" to "I can wade through an army without taking damage". Refreshing temp hp does not have that issue. You can pretty quickly become immune to a single enemy, but it's damn near impossible to make yourself immune to everything in the same way a high DR value would. It is also less punishing to two weapon fighters, archers, and anyone else with lots of smaller attacks.
If you are a game where optimization says 100 damage a round is the norm at level 10 for damage dealing types, then this is less valuable in a game where 50 damage a round is the norm. That's what I mean when I say it's optimization sensitive.

[Seerow]

Maybe lowering the defensive stacking just a bit? +2 swift, +2 move, +2 standard for 6 total instead of 9?


I'd rather make it 1/2/3 than 2/2/2, to make the higher action progressively worth that much more.

I also considered keeping the numbers as they are, but removing Focused Defense's guard multiplier bonus, and dropping Total Defense's down to 50% from 100%.


Regarding Armor/Natural Armor stacking. If you put chain mail on a rhino, it should get some benefit. Higher bonus plus half lower? Or only adds to AC but not guard?


I'd actually lean towards it adding to Guard, not AC, if going that route. Remember the point of limiting the stacking was to try to enforce a bit of control over armor RNG, especially with the addition of BAB scaling. Personally I have little problem with high natural armor creatures getting no benefit from stacking barding on top of it. You'll still see barded horses and dogs (their armor is relatively low), but stuff with higher natural armor can't get boosted up to high values.

You could probably cut out the BAB to AC scaling and ignore most of what I said about armor bonus stacking and be fine... it'd create some weird places with monsters with high natural armor at high levels that would need smoothed over, but it'd be workable. I just posted all that I had relating to defenses because editing out various references would have taken longer. I stopped posting/updating a lot of my homebrew content in this area a year or so back when I realized just how far astray from standard D&D I had gotten in my updates.

[Elkad]

If you are a game where optimization says 100 damage a round is the norm at level 10 for damage dealing types, then this is less valuable in a game where 50 damage a round is the norm. That's what I mean when I say it's optimization sensitive.

If you are optimizing damage that highly, I can probably optimize Guard in a similar way, especially with a bit more fleshing out of the system.

[Ravens_cry]

If you are optimizing damage that highly, I can probably optimize Guard in a similar way, especially with a bit more fleshing out of the system.
Perhaps, but if it's only affected by unenchanted armour. there ain't a lot of places for it to get fleshed out. Those were arbitrary numbers anyway, though hitting 100 damage at level 10 isn't terribly hard.

[Seerow]

You don't really anything to make this system, you have no active participation. There is a static amount of quasi-healing each round with no input from you.
I'd rather have a parry system if I was going to for a truly active feeling defence. I roll a number, you roll a number, like opposed skill checks.

On the other hand adding extra rolls and such slow the game down that much more. There are games out there where you roll your active defense and soak dice... it doesn't actually lend itself to making you feel more involved, but slows the game down considerably.

This system works as an abstraction.


If you are a game where optimization says 100 damage a round is the norm at level 10 for damage dealing types, then this is less valuable in a game where 50 damage a round is the norm. That's what I mean when I say it's optimization sensitive.


The same is true of the existence of hit points at all, AC and to-hit rolls, saving throws, and would certainly be true of a parry system. What you're talking about happens literally any time you have a system with more than one input or anytime the system's numbers are even half as flexible as they are in any edition of D&D. That's why they gutted so much of the game for their bounded accuracy in 5e.

[Elkad]

Perhaps, but if it's only affected by unenchanted armour. there ain't a lot of places for it to get fleshed out. Those were arbitrary numbers anyway, though hitting 100 damage at level 10 isn't terribly hard.

Enchanted armor adds to guard (and then gets multiplied according to your BAB). Same with shields. Shields also raise your multiplier, for even more effect.

Simple look

Fighter 10. 20 con, 12 dex, Plate+2, Greatsword. AC=5+1+10+8=24 Guard=300% times 5+10=45
Same armor, Heavy Shield +3 and a Longsword. AC=5+1+10+8+6=30. Guard=400% times 5+10+6=84 So not only do you make your opponent give up power attack (or miss more, reducing damage either way), you nearly double your absorption. That guy doing 100 dmg a round just went from taking 50hp to taking nearly none.

If two identical guys are fighting (except s/s vs 2h), if the s/s guy can manage to stay above half the damage output of the 2h player, the odds are in his favor.