Hogsy
2016-11-19, 10:43 PM
I was discussing with a friend the other day about Damage Reduction and armors. I found that I am not very satisfied with how they are represented in D&D and how accessible Damage Reduction is. I feel like DR can minimize some of the problems of rocket tag gameplay but when you struggle to have even DR 5/adamantine or anything like that it just seems like something big baddies have to prove an additional challenge. So, I thought of an idea that I quite like. Damage mitigation. It works much like damage reduction in the regard that "DM 10/(Against) Slashing". Instead of meaning that only slashing can bypass it, it means that slashing damage is lessened by 10. All armors now, depending on material and type(Light, medium or heavy) grant Damage Mitigation. Below is a more "detailed" version, although most of it is still in my head, so to those who do check this out, please inform me of any loopholes, mistakes, typoes or anything weird at all. The system is 3.P(3.5 with Pathfinder, along with tons of our own homebrew rules). The numbers are balanced towards my campaigns and general setting.
Variant Rule for Armors:
Armors grant an amount of Damage Mitigation against slashing, piercing or bludgeoning damage depending on a material's hardness and whether the armor is Light, Medium or Heavy. An armor's Enhancement Bonus is added to its DM and certain materials also add Damage Reduction. This works as a "secondary defense", as per the normal rules for Damage Reduction.
An armor can only reduce a number of damage equal to twice its HP before it gains the broken condition and is in need of repairs. You can repair a piece of armor as per the normal rules for repaining armor, using the Craft skill. The DC varies depending on the material and how complex it is to be processed. I may add additional rules on this, as this rule is not close to being ready for play yet.
An armor's hardness depends on the material that is used to craft it. An armor has a number of hit points equal to its AC x 10.
Damage Mitigation in this sense works as follows: DM 5/ (Against) Slashing, Piercing or/and Bludgeoning.
Additional Rules:
Massive damage against armors and shields: When an armor suffers more damage than its total HP in a single round, it breaks. That means it grants only half its benefits, and double its penalties. Heavy armors can sustain massive damage 3 times, medium armors can sustain it 2 times while light armors can only sustain it once. Likewise, Tower Shields can sustain it 3 times, heavy shields can sustain it 2 times, light shields and bucklers can only sustain it once. Treat these as "strikes", and repairing an armor or shield removes all those strikes. So, a heavy armor that sustains massive damage twice and is repaired, it then again needs sustain massive damage 3 times before it breaks.
Shields: Shields are different from armors. It doesn't matter how tough they are or what material they are from except for special qualities and HP. A shield always grants its AC bonus as additional DR/-. When using a Tower Shield's total cover function, double the DR it gives you. Additionally, while using the Total Defense or Fighting Defensively options and wielding a shield at the same time, the bonus those option grant become shield bonuses which is added to the total DR a shield gives you. Finally, shields from specific materials cost as much as a light armor made from that material.
Now, the materials. There are commonly used materials(in my setting) and then there are rarer and rarer. The further they are down on the table, the rarer they are. I'll add both a table that shows the DM an armor from each material gives along with other qualities, as well as a table for their price and a table for materials that add additional qualities on an armor which are used during the crafting process.
EDIT: Alright, so I have no idea how to create a table, nothing I've tried works. I'll upload a table from my word file as an image.
http://i.imgur.com/tpAgf6M.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/zIAY3yl.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/RSVGa28.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/c2gnoPw.jpg
Variant Rule for Armors:
Armors grant an amount of Damage Mitigation against slashing, piercing or bludgeoning damage depending on a material's hardness and whether the armor is Light, Medium or Heavy. An armor's Enhancement Bonus is added to its DM and certain materials also add Damage Reduction. This works as a "secondary defense", as per the normal rules for Damage Reduction.
An armor can only reduce a number of damage equal to twice its HP before it gains the broken condition and is in need of repairs. You can repair a piece of armor as per the normal rules for repaining armor, using the Craft skill. The DC varies depending on the material and how complex it is to be processed. I may add additional rules on this, as this rule is not close to being ready for play yet.
An armor's hardness depends on the material that is used to craft it. An armor has a number of hit points equal to its AC x 10.
Damage Mitigation in this sense works as follows: DM 5/ (Against) Slashing, Piercing or/and Bludgeoning.
Additional Rules:
Massive damage against armors and shields: When an armor suffers more damage than its total HP in a single round, it breaks. That means it grants only half its benefits, and double its penalties. Heavy armors can sustain massive damage 3 times, medium armors can sustain it 2 times while light armors can only sustain it once. Likewise, Tower Shields can sustain it 3 times, heavy shields can sustain it 2 times, light shields and bucklers can only sustain it once. Treat these as "strikes", and repairing an armor or shield removes all those strikes. So, a heavy armor that sustains massive damage twice and is repaired, it then again needs sustain massive damage 3 times before it breaks.
Shields: Shields are different from armors. It doesn't matter how tough they are or what material they are from except for special qualities and HP. A shield always grants its AC bonus as additional DR/-. When using a Tower Shield's total cover function, double the DR it gives you. Additionally, while using the Total Defense or Fighting Defensively options and wielding a shield at the same time, the bonus those option grant become shield bonuses which is added to the total DR a shield gives you. Finally, shields from specific materials cost as much as a light armor made from that material.
Now, the materials. There are commonly used materials(in my setting) and then there are rarer and rarer. The further they are down on the table, the rarer they are. I'll add both a table that shows the DM an armor from each material gives along with other qualities, as well as a table for their price and a table for materials that add additional qualities on an armor which are used during the crafting process.
EDIT: Alright, so I have no idea how to create a table, nothing I've tried works. I'll upload a table from my word file as an image.
http://i.imgur.com/tpAgf6M.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/zIAY3yl.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/RSVGa28.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/c2gnoPw.jpg