Class Based Defense and Armor as Damage Reduction

[big teej]

Greetings playgrounders,


I'm going to attempt to truncate my usual verbosity.


for my next Dnd game, I intend to use the Class Based Defense and Armor as DR variant rules from Unearthed arcana

I was giving this some thought and I wondered if it would be completely wacky (and pushing things too far) to increase the DR provided by armor to a 1:1 ration instead of the .5 ratio it would normally have under the Armor as DR variant.

example: Plate mail normally provides + 8 AC
under the stock Armor as DR it provides +4 AC, +4 DR

would increasing this to +8 DR really be so tragic/overloaded/crazy?

am I just not seeing the god-awful ramifications? or does this tweak work as well as I think/hope it will?

I've been away from DnD 3.5 for a long (LONG) time, and my ability to spot the flaws and ramifications of my tinkering is..... diminished.

[Spore]

DR +8 is as okay as DR/AC +4 and yet:

1) D&D punishes multiweapon fighting and mundane melee and ranged characters hard anyway.

2) And yet I find it okay because a heavy armor wearing character gets something in return for bearing with high armor penalties.

3) This does not reflect the impact of improved archery on armor wearing targets. You really shouldn't try to do this because of the added realism. Not only is this a game of Wizards, Dragons and Magic, but also the accuracy and usefulness of different weapon categories is oversimplified to add to the flow of the game.

4) Speaking of flow of the game: I've had some fights that elongated needlessly because of DR. DR slows down combat and sometimes this is a very welcome thing. But grasp this. Two average dudes (Str 14 is pretty generous for squires) for attacking each other with longswords in Breast Plate literally fall over from fatigue (and nonlethal damage) before dieing from wounds.

I'd say DR = AC bonus for armors is okay as long as it is not DR x/- but excludes some weapon categories. Full Plate would have 8 DR/Piercing, Chainail would have DR/Bludgeoning.

[A_S]

I don't think there's anything hugely game-breaking about this. It's just, at low levels (like, before level 5), DR 8/- is quite a lot. So if you use this rule, heavily armored characters will be at a substantial advantage against physical attackers in the early game.

[Spore]

I don't think there's anything hugely game-breaking about this. It's just, at low levels (like, before level 5), DR 8/- is quite a lot. So if you use this rule, heavily armored characters will be at a substantial advantage against physical attackers in the early game.

Well being able to buy decent armor does this.

[big teej]

DR +8 is as okay as DR/AC +4 and yet:

1) D&D punishes multiweapon fighting and mundane melee and ranged characters hard anyway.

2) And yet I find it okay because a heavy armor wearing character gets something in return for bearing with high armor penalties.

3) This does not reflect the impact of improved archery on armor wearing targets. You really shouldn't try to do this because of the added realism. Not only is this a game of Wizards, Dragons and Magic, but also the accuracy and usefulness of different weapon categories is oversimplified to add to the flow of the game.

4) Speaking of flow of the game: I've had some fights that elongated needlessly because of DR. DR slows down combat and sometimes this is a very welcome thing. But grasp this. Two average dudes (Str 14 is pretty generous for squires) for attacking each other with longswords in Breast Plate literally fall over from fatigue (and nonlethal damage) before dieing from wounds.

I'd say DR = AC bonus for armors is okay as long as it is not DR x/- but excludes some weapon categories. Full Plate would have 8 DR/Piercing, Chainail would have DR/Bludgeoning.


so................ :smallconfused:

are you... for? or against?

[Khedrac]

I'd say DR = AC bonus for armors is okay as long as it is not DR x/- but excludes some weapon categories. Full Plate would have 8 DR/Piercing, Chainail would have DR/Bludgeoning.

Before doing this I would ask in the "Real World Armor and Weapons Questions" thread up one forum. The main weapon used in melee against full plate armor was the mace because the shockwave transmitted through the armor fairly effectively. Against mail I think people didn't care very much, but archers would find mail much easier to penetrate that plate (longbow arrows went through most things until the Italians invented arrow-proof plate). Initial assumptions about what is effective against what are usually wrong.

[big teej]

uhm... for the record guys, I wasn't really considering this from a 'realism' perspective....

just... kinda tossin that out there

[A_S]

Well being able to buy decent armor does this.
I am saying that, at very low levels, the advantage you get from DR 8/- is much greater than the advantage you get from +8 AC. Thus, implementing this rule shifts the balance of the game in favor of heavily armored characters, and away from those who rely on other forms of defense. For instance, in the base rules, you might expect a lightly armored level 3 Swordsage and a heavily armored level 3 Crusader to have roughly comparable survivability. With the OP's house rule in play, the Crusader would gain a substantial advantage.

It's no worse than lots of other imbalances that already exist in the game, and it tapers off as levels get higher and damage numbers get bigger. But it is a new source of potential imbalance and frustration.

[big teej]

I am saying that, at very low levels, the advantage you get from DR 8/- is much greater than the advantage you get from +8 AC. Thus, implementing this rule shifts the balance of the game in favor of heavily armored characters, and away from those who rely on other forms of defense. For instance, in the base rules, you might expect a lightly armored level 3 Swordsage and a heavily armored level 3 Crusader to have roughly comparable survivability. With the OP's house rule in play, the Crusader would gain a substantial advantage.

It's no worse than lots of other imbalances that already exist in the game, and it tapers off as levels get higher and damage numbers get bigger. But it is a new source of potential imbalance and frustration.

doesn't the class based defense AC bonus mitigate that problem?


that's kinda what this thread is (hopefully) exploring

[avr]

doesn't the class based defense AC bonus mitigate that problem?


that's kinda what this thread is (hopefully) exploring
The class based defense also favors those who can wear heavy armor. Using it without armor as DR it makes wearing armor vs not wearing armor less of a big deal.

Compare the numbers for a fighter in full plate to a rogue in a chain shirt and you'll see the difference.

[ExLibrisMortis]

If you feel that pure damage reduction makes combat too slow, the damage conversion system is pretty neat. You could even go all crazy and give full plate +4 AC, DR 4/- and conversion 4.

Damage conversion has one of my favourite role-playing consequences (UA page 113):
"Another effect is [...] it also introduces the potentially ugly postcombat scene of the characters feeling it necessary to slit the throats of their unconscious foes. Some characters, particularly paladins or other chivalrous types, may suffer serious moral qualms."

[Knaight]

On game balance - the scaling is really weird with this, and I strongly recommend it being DR against everything for armors, instead of leaving giant holes. The big issue is that damage scales upwards quickly enough for the DR that started really impressive to get pretty minor. A multiplier based on level or similar could help here. Another scaling issue is the interaction with power attack. I'll use +2 plate as an example, for simplicity's sake. That gives 10 DR instead of 10 AC. Power attacking for 10 thus restores the original hit chance, and with a two handed weapon adds 20 damage, making it strictly superior by 10 damage. Class based AC mitigates this some, but it's still a prevalent problem.


Before doing this I would ask in the "Real World Armor and Weapons Questions" thread up one forum. The main weapon used in melee against full plate armor was the mace because the shockwave transmitted through the armor fairly effectively. Against mail I think people didn't care very much, but archers would find mail much easier to penetrate that plate (longbow arrows went through most things until the Italians invented arrow-proof plate). Initial assumptions about what is effective against what are usually wrong.

Both of these are wrong. The melee weapons that characterized the warfare involving plate were initially those of shock cavalry (particularly when it was just emerging), with lances being particularly notable. There was then a general trend towards more infantry, more firearms, crossbows, and other things. Among the infantry in particular pole arms began to rise in usage. Pikes were extremely common, and pike blocks were generally seeded with some amount of halberds. The mace wasn't ever the primary anti-plate weapon, and the armor is useful against it. Better contenders are the dagger (generally used in grappling to go through gaps), the halberd, and the pole ax.

As for longbow arrows going through most things, the penetrative powers are exaggerated. Perfectly dead on shots at very close range were quite impressive, but historical documents and artifacts clearly indicate armor working just fine, with near impermeability in shock cavalry in particular as early as the 1300's outside of extremely close ranges. At longer ranges, there are tons of accounts involving lots of people wearing mail, with lots of arrows sticking through, being completely fine - the arrows consistently didn't penetrate far enough for real damage. That doesn't mean arrows were useless, as head to toe armor has generally been comparatively rare, but it does indicate an exaggeration. The longbow is also exaggerated - it wasn't some sort of super weapon, other bows were just as good if not better. Mongol bows were quite impressive, Turkish bows impressive, so on and so forth.

[Seharvepernfan]

It works way better in fantasycraft than in D&D, for many, many reasons. I think it's best to just let it go.

[A_S]

doesn't the class based defense AC bonus mitigate that problem?
I'd say no. Normally, the Defense Bonus alternate rules favor less armored characters, since the class-based bonus doesn't stack with Armor bonuses to AC. But since you're eliminating all Armor bonuses to AC anyway, and replacing them with DR, everybody is going to benefit from the AC bonus. And, would you look at that, the classes that typically wear heavy armor are the ones who get the biggest class-based AC bonuses.

So combining the two just doubles down on "heavily armored characters are way more durable than lightly armored characters early on."

[Spore]

so................ :smallconfused:

are you... for? or against?

To be honest I don't care how you play your game. I wanted to add to your decision process.

We tried this and it ... changed the game up. TWFing sucked, Sword and Board was insanely defensive (but we decided to give Shield to AC rather than DR) and Twohanders were okayish. You should be aware that you stop some attacks completely. You enforce critfishing, discourage TWFing further and make an oversimplified system that is quickly played a tad bit more complicated while not really improving the realism.

You basically break the dexterous and quick fighting style because your average Str 14 Swashbuckler gets outclassed by an armor for 300 GP.

I would not advise to use it. But mainly because I would be simply too lazy to rebalance EVERY encounter in which NPCs play a role.

[JusticeZero]

Beyond that, it's not realistic - the weapons that were created for the purpose of dealing with heavily armored foes are among the lowest damage weapons in the game, and include daggers, warhammers, and maces - all designed to do damage to that guy in full plate where the swords had trouble. DR doesn't support that very well.

[Flickerdart]

I agree that the DR should scale - DR 8 is godlike at level 1 (hence the popularity of Mineral Warrior) but feeble at level 20.

Consider something like this: in addition to the "standard" DR from armor in the existing UA rule, characters get DR as follows - light armor is BAB/3, medium armor is BAB/2, heavy armor is BAB. So everyone starts out about as squishy as they are right now, but end up with heavy armor and BAB making a huge difference in how well a character can defend themselves. Rogues are running around with minor-but-helpful DR5, while fighters roll in with impressive DR20 that makes them the sort of tank they deserve to be.

[Extra Anchovies]

Mandatory Conan RPG (from Mongoose Publishing) comparison. Armor provides only DR and it uses a class-based AC system (an admittedly less precisely implemented one, but whatever), and it works mostly fine. However, in that system archery can't do anything to a person in armor, and characters have lower hit points (they increase much slower after level 10) to make up for all the damage they aren't taking thanks to the DR.

[big teej]

The class based defense also favors those who can wear heavy armor. Using it without armor as DR it makes wearing armor vs not wearing armor less of a big deal.

Compare the numbers for a fighter in full plate to a rogue in a chain shirt and you'll see the difference.

I did. and.... I'm not seeing that much of a hang up, in my opinion.

if we assume level 1 (for sake of discussion) and full dexterity bonus allowed by armor.

under the normal AC rules:
the fighter's AC is 1 higher than the Rogue's

under the Stock Armor as DR + Class Based Defense Rules
both characters have the same AC (dropping to 17 for both characters)
and the fighter takes a mystical 2 less damage than the rogue per hit.

under my proposed houserule
both characters still have an AC of 17, and the fighter takes 8 less damage per hit while the rogue takes 4


maybe this is overstepping the point being made by several people, but is it *really* so bad for the poor lowly fighter (and other melee, plate clad fellows) to get something in their favor for a change? :smallconfused:

[Flickerdart]

both characters still have an AC of 17, and the fighter takes 8 less damage per hit while the rogue takes 4


maybe this is overstepping the point being made by several people, but is it *really* so bad for the poor lowly fighter (and other melee, plate clad fellows) to get something in their favor for a change? :smallconfused:
It's absolutely not in their favour even remotely. Consider a level 1 rogue (1d6 short sword + 1d6 SA) trying to do in a goblin rogue. His average damage normally is 5, meaning that he can do in the enemy in ~2 hits. Under your scheme, his average damage is 1. When facing an orcish fighter with DR 8, he only deals damage 1/3rd of the time even if he lands every hit.

Meanwhile, Sleep/Color Spray + CdG is just as powerful as ever. Grease and Entangle are still awesome. Magic Missile and Conjure Flame ignore all this DR everyone suddenly has.

[VincentTakeda]

I actually did this in the Skulls and Shackles adventure path for my group in pathfinder and it worked out swimmingly.

The things that folks will be very leery of early on is that a d8 arrow shooting archer can only hurt a guy in full plate with a critical hit and even then only half the time.

Really made the big bruisers feel big and bruisy. Helped us get away from what felt like too much twf and ranged plinking.

Didnt make the plinkers totally useless, but they definitely were forced to use different tactics when a heavy hit the field, and I really really liked that.

The aggravation folks are expressing here does happen a bit. Casters doing elemental damage not being hindered so much kinda thing.

Then again there are so many ways to bypass dr anyway... In pathfinder everyone could just get adamantine weapons and the whole rule becomes moot pretty quick.

One thing that happens when you replace ac as 'aesthetic dodge' is that suddenly everyone is hitting each other like 99% of the time. Nobody ever misses.

So what we did is we made it so the players could choose... When you bought armor you could decide how many points went to ac and how many went to dr.

Then we made it so when you bought a magic weapon you could choose if your +5 was at hitting, or if the +5 went to damage.

Really gave the players a renewed sense of agency and made each persons armor feel 'very tailor made'

Now your +5 plate mail could either be 'really well fitted and designed, so you're both decently well protected and really maneuverable, or your +5 plate mail is designed to be thick has hell and super resistant to pokings and slashings and bashings...

Its not that one philosophy is better than the others... it can be even cooler if you let your players choose how to apply it for themselves.

[Flickerdart]

Then we made it so when you bought a magic weapon you could choose if your +5 was at hitting, or if the +5 went to damage.

You do know that a magic weapon does both, right?

[ILM]

What I've done is a variant on the armor as DR rule: in addition to normal AC, every character gains DR/piercing equal to their armor + shield bonus (and any enhancement bonuses that apply to those), which stacks with all other DR. Makes tin cans more durable but still vulnerable to an arrow to the chest or a dagger through the ribs... I've been using that for a couple years, no complaints so far.

edit: though realistically, maybe it should be DR/slashing or bludgeoning, now that you guys mention it.

[VincentTakeda]

You do know that a magic weapon does both, right?

Yes. This was simply a houserule to give people's choice in power/accuracy to be more meaningful in the same way that giving them a choice in armor's nimbleness/level of resistance to power became a more meaningful choice.

[Flickerdart]

Yes. This was simply a houserule to give people's choice in power/accuracy to be more meaningful in the same way that giving them a choice in armor's nimbleness/level of resistance to power became a more meaningful choice.
I'm not sure that creating a choice out of "which of these things do you want to lose" is actually helping anything.

[big teej]

Hey Guys, I'm back with a related question.


Unearthed Arcana also gives the 'math' for altering critter's Natural armor into DR.


if memory serves (away from my book at the moment)

you divide the critter's natural armor by 5 and convert this amount of it into DR, subtracting it from the AC bonus.

so, let us say we have a critter with Natural Armor of +10

dividing by 5 gets us a whopping 2.

so the critter ends up with an AC bonus of +8 and DR2


given that I'm increasing the armor:dr ratio to 1:1 for non-monster critters (so a chain shirt gives +4 DR and no AC bonus)


should I tweak the formula for converting critter AC/DR from Natural Armor? or just leave it be?

[Seerow]

Honestly monster conversions are messy as hell because they aren't built to anything resembling a standard, and are often not balanced even against other monsters on the same CR. I'd highly recommend doing any conversions on a case by case basis rather than trying to make a one size fits all conversion rate (trust me, I've been there, and it almost always ends up messy).




Regarding some of the problems raised earlier in the thread: Why not have the DR scale with level or BAB? Say give 1/2 the armor bonus in DR for every so many points of BAB/so many levels.

Say you went with increase DR for every 6 points of BAB (or basically every time you get an extra attack on a full attack, gain some extra DR)

Level | Fighter | Rogue
1 | 4 | 2
6 | 8 | 2
9 | 8 | 4
11 | 12 | 4
15 | 12 | 6
16 | 16 | 6


It keeps the DR relevant at high levels (especially for heavy armor wearers), without making you completely immune to damage for your first few levels.

[squiggit]

This change sort of exacerbates the degrading nature of heavy armor as the game progresses.

At level 1 if I can finagle some way to get plate, a bandit with 16 strength and a long sword can only damage me on a 6. But at level 20 taking 8 points off an attack in the high triple digits might actually leave you better off naked.

[big teej]

Honestly monster conversions are messy as hell because they aren't built to anything resembling a standard, and are often not balanced even against other monsters on the same CR. I'd highly recommend doing any conversions on a case by case basis rather than trying to make a one size fits all conversion rate (trust me, I've been there, and it almost always ends up messy).




Regarding some of the problems raised earlier in the thread: Why not have the DR scale with level or BAB? Say give 1/2 the armor bonus in DR for every so many points of BAB/so many levels.

Say you went with increase DR for every 6 points of BAB (or basically every time you get an extra attack on a full attack, gain some extra DR)

Level | Fighter | Rogue
1 | 4 | 2
6 | 8 | 2
9 | 8 | 4
11 | 12 | 4
15 | 12 | 6
16 | 16 | 6


It keeps the DR relevant at high levels (especially for heavy armor wearers), without making you completely immune to damage for your first few levels.

I'm trying to avoid the messy, and tedious, case-by-case method.

our current plans, after discussing it with the other rule/mechanic saavy players of my group is to tentatively try out 2 alternate approaches, and see what we feel fits best.

1: Convert NA to DR at a 1:1 ratio, just like characters wearing armor

2: change nothing, let critter NA and DR numbers remain exactly as they are


3: there was a third one, but I have forgotten it. :smallredface: it *might* have been the suggested formula in the book, or a modified version of it... but it escapes me.

[prufock]

I use this variant in an E6 setting I'm running now (a homebrewed "Weird West" setting). It uses class defense bonus (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/defenseBonus.htm), and armor = DR at a 1:1 ratio. Shields are still AC bonuses. So far it's working, but there are caveats.

Caveat 1: This is an E6 setting, and the characters are thus far only at level 2. I can't say how this would work at higher levels.
Caveat 2: No character as yet has any armor higher than leather.
Caveat 3: I apply armor check penalty as a penalty to endurance checks, so it is detrimental to your ability to resist environmental heat (which is more of a factor in this setting than most, save Sandstorm/Athas type desert campaigns). This is in place of the flat +4 for wearing heavy armor.
Caveat 4: I also apply armor check penalties as a penalty to class defense bonus unless you're trained in the armor. This theoretically makes armor proficiency slightly more meaningful, but it hasn't come up yet.
Caveat 5: I allow multiple sources of DR (ie those from races, magic items, etc) to stack. So far this only means a +1 at max, but could be an issue when they get some more magic items and spells.

I'm will probably adapt this variant to all E6 settings I create from this point on, including the upcoming all-bards game and the pirates game I plan to run. It's still open to adjustment depending on how it goes with this game, so the specifics might change. So far, so good, though.