Houserule Armor as Damage Reduction variant

[exelsisxax]

So we all know that both 3.5 and PF alternate rules for armour-as-DR don't work outside of a certain level range, and are not great even there. But I’d like to get such a system to work well, even if only under certain conditions. I’m aiming for functionality maybe up to 14th level, in semi-low magic setting. Secondary goals of this implementation are to make PCs less likely to die from single extremely lucky crit rolls, and eliminating the necessity for a dedicated healer character for both healing and resurrection. Sometimes nobody wants to play a divine caster, y’know?


I know that this kind of houserule always favors 2H and power attack a lot and nerfs TWF even more. In circumstances where this is not intended(yes rogues, you are supposed to suck against iron golems) the issue can be alleviated by other house rules - like not feat taxing anyone that does anything other than 2H power attack, for starters. It also necessarily requires changing monster attack bonuses so PCs don’t get hit by everything.


So here's the general framework for PCs: no permanent armour or natural armour bonuses, including enhancements, apply to your defenses. Instead, they add together to get your AC. You gain 1/2 of your AC as armor DR, and 2/3 of your AC as damage mitigation. Damage mitigation downgrades lethal to nonlethal damage (think ablative barrier), but does nothing against attacks already dealing nonlethal damage. Armor DR stacks with any other DR.


That doesn’t make sense for anything but PCs and important NPCs though, so everything else just converts all armor and natural armor into armor DR. No point in recording nonlethal damage and doing extra math for monsters. Temporary effects will also convert any armor bonuses fully to armor DR as well to save time.


Either armor DR or damage mitigation should probably be DR/adamantine or DR/precision except on monsters with other typed DR, where it combines (i.e.dragons should receive extra DR/magic and precision in addition to their DR/magic).


So damage is reduced before being shifted into nonlethal which heals on its own, so the heal skill is actually capable of doing the work of out of combat healing like it’s supposed to. Armor does a lot more to prevent death than published variants, but doesn’t prevent unconsciousness to the same degree.


Thoughts? Is it horrifically broken by something I failed to take into consideration? Did someone already try to make armor as DR work and do a better job than I? Can someone suggest a simple method for reducing monster attack bonuses in line with loss of armor to defenses? Does anyone know why splintmail exists?

[Sneak Dog]

Can I ask why you want this? Both times getting extra AC reduces the damage you take. Sticking to the system that is already balanced for you by many others might be easier.

Now, for an unintended side-effect, I'd like to tell a bit of a story: So there was this group of orc barbarian berserking at the players for defiling their holy site. They were throwing themselves suicidally at the group, continuing on even after falling to 0 hit points with their orc ferocity. The party kind of wanted one alive though, for interrogation, but due to orc ferocity they couldn't just knock one unconscious and stabilize him as they had done to capture enemies before.

So, agreeing they now would have to resort to their pitiful non-lethal options, one dealt five points of non-lethal damage on a damaged orc. I, the DM, looked up the rules for non-lethal damage, since noone had ever bothered with it before.


when your nonlethal damage equals your current hit points, you're staggered (see below), and when it exceeds your current hit points, you fall unconscious.

The orc his current hit points were -3. The orc went unconscious immediately. My players were as amazed as I was.

With your system, players would take non-lethal damage frequently. This means you just nerfed player orcs.

[exelsisxax]

Can I ask why you want this? Both times getting extra AC reduces the damage you take. Sticking to the system that is already balanced for you by many others might be easier.

Now, for an unintended side-effect, I'd like to tell a bit of a story: So there was this group of orc barbarian berserking at the players for defiling their holy site. They were throwing themselves suicidally at the group, continuing on even after falling to 0 hit points with their orc ferocity. The party kind of wanted one alive though, for interrogation, but due to orc ferocity they couldn't just knock one unconscious and stabilize him as they had done to capture enemies before.

So, agreeing they now would have to resort to their pitiful non-lethal options, one dealt five points of non-lethal damage on a damaged orc. I, the DM, looked up the rules for non-lethal damage, since noone had ever bothered with it before.


The orc his current hit points were -3. The orc went unconscious immediately. My players were as amazed as I was.

With your system, players would take non-lethal damage frequently. This means you just nerfed player orcs.

I acidentally buffed orcs. Ferocity overrides that general rule, so nonlethal damage can do nothing except stagger the orc, after which the damage mitigation acts as full DR. You misplayed that.

This is a houserule. The entire point is changing a system.

[Aimeryan]

I've always been interested in a system that would change 3.5 AC into something more resembling separate systems for avoiding hits and for mitigating hits. A Heavy Tank for example would be extremely easy to hit in most cases, but near impossible to get through the armour without a weapon designed specifically to do so.

Why would it matter? Well, if you made an unwieldy but extremely damaging attack (say a shot from a L30A1 tank gun), well that would hit the Heavy Tank and deal damage, where as, it may not hit that Pixie that is flying around at high speeds. If it did hit the Pixie... but it probably wont. Something like a UltraShKAS gun (very high rate of fire), or Robocop/PGFs (computer-assisted aim), however, would highly likely hit - dealing damage to the Pixie, but nothing to the Heavy Tank.

Back to 3.5, I think damage reduction would work for mitigating based on armour, size, etcetera. Would this system favour 2H and Power Attacking? Not necessarily. Just make sure there is also a mix of difficult-to-hit but low/zero DR enemies (and therefore, low effective health), since this would favour those that pump Attack Rolls rather than Damage Roll, as well as those that throw in more attacks in general.

In relation to the last point, I would probably base extra attacks and the Attack Roll on Dexterity (as well as the weapon), with lesser gains made from levelling up. Similarly, I would have the Damage Roll based on Strength (as well as the weapon), with lesser gains made from levelling up. Change Power Attack to factor in Strength, maybe as a multiplier on the Strength bonus damage (as otherwise a pure Dex user could exchange Attack Roll for Damage Roll very successfully) - the idea here is for a Strength user to be able to further push the "I can only hit the broadside of a barn and not much else, but when I do you will know about it". Add in something that does essentially the opposite of Power Attack (exchange Damage Roll for Attack Roll), make it be based on Dex (as otherwise a pure Str user could exchange Damage Roll for Attack Roll very successfully) - the idea here is for a Dexterity user to be able to further push the "I can slice the wings of the back of Fly, but I'll probably bounce right off your armour, if you have any".

You could also model the affect of different weapons on armour by ignoring some of the DR (or not doing so), with slashing being largely ineffective against equivalent armour but generally dealing more lethal damage when damage is actually inflicted, piercing being highly effective against such armour if appropriately sized but dealing lesser damage in general, and blunt attacks damaging armour causing penalties to mobility and function while also inflicting some lethal and some non-lethal damage. Smaller piercing weapons like daggers would be ineffective against armour in most cases, but should be effective on crits due to exploiting weak spots in the armour (and should have a greater chance at making a crit) - although enemies which have no particular weak spots, oozes say, and golems, should be immune to crits under such a system (meaning daggers are always going to be ineffective against them, but that makes sense really).

[Droopy McCool]

Just a random thought I had: DR equal to your base Con bonus (meaning permanent bonuses only, no item stacking). Reflects how "tough" you are. Could be really good on that Dwarf Barbarian at level one, decent for most others, but trails off by about level 6 (when iteratives come into play).

BUT! At BAB +6, you could have double your Con bonus as DR, triple at BAB +11, and quadruple at BAB +16!

Or not. Thought of that while I was typing. I don't know. I've tried "armor as DR", using the 1/2 the armor's AC bonus as DR, plus a scaling bonus with level; point is it doesn't work too well when the system wasn't built with it as a factor. You even said that changes to monster attack bonuses would need a revision, plus much more.

Eh,
McCool

[Sneak Dog]

How is a PC now supposed to defend against a hard-hitting enemy? They just lost one way to do so, without gaining a new one.


I acidentally buffed orcs. Ferocity overrides that general rule, so nonlethal damage can do nothing except stagger the orc, after which the damage mitigation acts as full DR. You misplayed that.


Ferocity: Orcs possess the ferocity ability which allows them to remain conscious and continue fighting even if their hit point totals fall below 0. Orcs are still staggered at 0 hit points or lower and lose 1 hit point each round as normal.

The orc overrides the general rule for going unconscious due to hit points falling below 0. Non-lethal damage doesn't change your hit points though. You count how much non-lethal damage you've taken and when it exceeds your current hp, you fall unconscious.

You could house-rule it so that when someone has ferocity/diehard they add their con score to their current hit points for the sake of non-lethal damage. That'd be sensible, but still a house-rule.


This is a houserule. The entire point is changing a system.

But why do you want to change the system? What flaw or fault are you trying to get rid of? What good are you trying to accomplish?

Change for the sake of change is chaos. If I know what you're trying to accomplish, then it's easier to help. Right now I'm just left wondering why you wish to change a core mechanic.

[exelsisxax]

How is a PC now supposed to defend against a hard-hitting enemy? They just lost one way to do so, without gaining a new one.

The orc overrides the general rule for going unconscious due to hit points falling below 0. Non-lethal damage doesn't change your hit points though. You count how much non-lethal damage you've taken and when it exceeds your current hp, you fall unconscious.

You could house-rule it so that when someone has ferocity/diehard they add their con score to their current hit points for the sake of non-lethal damage. That'd be sensible, but still a house-rule.

But why do you want to change the system? What flaw or fault are you trying to get rid of? What good are you trying to accomplish?

Change for the sake of change is chaos. If I know what you're trying to accomplish, then it's easier to help. Right now I'm just left wondering why you wish to change a core mechanic.

That PCs relying on armor bonuses are somewhat disadvantaged against single high-damage enemies is not an accident. Armor helps keep you alive, it doesn't help you not get hit. When the damage is out of scale with the armor, it isn't as good.

Nonlethal damage is not a separate rule, and if it was frenzy would do nothing. All the orcs already had nonlethal at least equal to current health. The rule is that having nonlethal damage equal to current health staggers (0health+0nonlethal, 60+60, etc), having nonlethal damage exceed your current health reduces you to unconsciousness (0+1, -1+0, etc), and having your current health lower than your CON score as a negative kills you.

Orcs ignore rule 2. If you still don't understand why, here's an example of why you misplayed that.
You would rule that an orc that took lethal damage equal to its health +1 was not unconscious. You would rule that an orc that took nonlethal damage equal to its health +1 was unconscious. Obviously, that's wrong and not how it's supposed to work.

Armor as DR is always trying to fix one thing: simulation of armor as evasion is wrong. Otherwise, my reasons are listed in the OP.

[Sneak Dog]

Nonlethal damage is not a separate rule, and if it was frenzy would do nothing. All the orcs already had nonlethal at least equal to current health. The rule is that having nonlethal damage equal to current health staggers (0health+0nonlethal, 60+60, etc), having nonlethal damage exceed your current health reduces you to unconsciousness (0+1, -1+0, etc), and having your current health lower than your CON score as a negative kills you.

Orcs ignore rule 2. If you still don't understand why, here's an example of why you misplayed that.
You would rule that an orc that took lethal damage equal to its health +1 was not unconscious. You would rule that an orc that took nonlethal damage equal to its health +1 was unconscious. Obviously, that's wrong and not how it's supposed to work.


Effects of Hit Point Damage

Damage doesn't slow you down until your current hit points reach 0 or lower. At 0 hit points, you're disabled.

If your hit point total is negative, but not equal to or greater than your Constitution score, you are unconscious and dying.

When your negative hit point total is equal to your Constitution, you're dead.

Might be separate, not sure. Doesn't really matter anymore anyway, as we've since moved on to a different system/setting/GM entirely and houseruling this is entirely sensible.


Armor as DR is always trying to fix one thing: simulation of armor as evasion is wrong. Otherwise, my reasons are listed in the OP.

Armour isn't simulating evasion, it's simulating a hit glancing off of the armour and being negligible. It's simulating a shield parrying a blow, a blow being too weak to punch through, a fighter parrying with armoured bracers.
On top of that, hit points too are an abstraction, meaning a loss of hit points doesn't represent an actual wound per se. It's wearing down your opponent so you can finally manage that mortal blow.

I'm not sure you want to break the entire balance and spend a great deal of time reaching the same balance again, because this layer of abstraction doesn't sit well with you while the others do.


That PCs relying on armor bonuses are somewhat disadvantaged against single high-damage enemies is not an accident. Armor helps keep you alive, it doesn't help you not get hit. When the damage is out of scale with the armor, it isn't as good.

A plate armour is hard to get through and will protect a fighter significantly, even when getting his by a tree wielding troll.

Now mechanically, either melee attacks hit nearly always, or you also reduce the to-hit bonus people get as suggested earlier. Then you get an issue that a fighter will likely either be hard-hitting or often-hitting, and counters a specific kind of foe. Do you really want to nerf martial that way?

Defensively, players don't even have the choice. There are very little ways of gaining AC that you haven't converted to DR. There's dexterity. This means the grand strength-based fighter will just get obliterated in encounters with a single, strong foe, because his defence is DR, not AC. meanwhile he will trivialize any encounter against a horde. This might also inadvertently buff casters, as they have spells like mirror image to be sturdy, but can just use the right spell for the right encounter.

This system promotes martials specializing, trivializing one kind of encounter while getting countered by the other.

[exelsisxax]

No, in this game armour is evasion. It DOESN'T simulate deflecting a blow. Armor as DR does. When a strike intersects with the wearer's body, it reduces harm by dispersing the kinetic energy and deflecting any edges and having a structural integrity sufficient to absorb that strike. That's DR. A good stab with a dagger might not exceed that defense, but a dragon's claw following exactly the same trajectory is going to leave a big mark. The capability of the armor to absorb and deflect the attack is exceeded, and so serious injury ensues.

[exelsisxax]

Just a random thought I had: DR equal to your base Con bonus (meaning permanent bonuses only, no item stacking). Reflects how "tough" you are. Could be really good on that Dwarf Barbarian at level one, decent for most others, but trails off by about level 6 (when iteratives come into play).

BUT! At BAB +6, you could have double your Con bonus as DR, triple at BAB +11, and quadruple at BAB +16!

Or not. Thought of that while I was typing. I don't know. I've tried "armor as DR", using the 1/2 the armor's AC bonus as DR, plus a scaling bonus with level; point is it doesn't work too well when the system wasn't built with it as a factor. You even said that changes to monster attack bonuses would need a revision, plus much more.

Eh,
McCool

Changing one number on the fly isn't at all difficult. It'd just be inconsistent without some systematic way of doing so across the huge range of existing monsters. There's a lot of potential ways to do so: by CR, HD, fractions of existing BAB or attack bonus, or just try to subtract out the armor bonus lost. 2+1/3 party level corrects for minimum armor and enchantments. Bump it to 2/3 if amulets of natural armour are super important to the PCs, adjust the base value as necessary for party optimization level. Already more systematic than the nonsense that is HD in the bestiaries.

What's the "much more" that would need revision, though? Damage is supposed to go down, nothing else is relevant on a system level.