A Variant Rule I have thought of to increase the usability and versatility of armors.

[Hogsy]

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. In the more traditional sense, you could say it worked like DR/-, except if your armor doesn't grant DM against bludgeoning, then bludgeoning damage is not decreased.

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.
EDIT: I've made some changes to the tables, adjusted some crazy prices and moved some materials from the effects table to the additional materials table.


http://i.imgur.com/tBgbEXi.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/VYjWsAW.jpg


http://i.imgur.com/AeOIPzq.jpg


http://i.imgur.com/S5tyQTj.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/sA5ySCy.jpg

[Khedrac]

I have to say that to me this looks like a lot of extra bookkeeping for virtually no benefit.

Take a basic suit of metal armour - yes it provides a nice bit of DR at low levels, but is quite likely to need reparing after one day. More downtime for the melee types if they bother to repair it.
Take a suit of leather armour - a much smaller bit of DR for the first fight. Why bother repairing it at all?

When I played RuneQuest at university we thought the rules said armour needed repairing after any blow that went through (not sure if it really did but I thought the rules said that). The first house rule was to ignore this rule - it made armour pointless.

Here you are giving armour a small benefit above its base stats with a lot of complex rules and bookkeeping to go with it.
The benefit is just not worth the hassle.

Worse - I looked at your materials.

Stone would not make good armour - it is brittle, especially when thin. One hit and it will shatter - yet you have it better (in some respects) that steel?
Then Stainless Steel - something very hard to make without modern technology - cheaper than steel (half price) but more effective? Why use steel at all?
Cold iron - why does cold iron go through cold iron more easily? That is just silly

Oh yes, one question - DR N/slashing and piercing. If you mean DR N/- just put N/-; off-hand I can't think of a weapon other than a bite that does both slashing and piercing (I am sure there is one) - some swords do, but not at the same time. As for heavy armour's DR N/slashing and piercing and bludgeoning - bite is the only thing I can think of to ignore that.
Do you mean DR slashing or piercing?
Saying "slashing, piercing and/or bludgeoning" is actually not defined, unless you mean it absorbs damage from no attacks (in which case what is the point?)

[Hogsy]

I have to say that to me this looks like a lot of extra bookkeeping for virtually no benefit.

Take a basic suit of metal armour - yes it provides a nice bit of DR at low levels, but is quite likely to need reparing after one day. More downtime for the melee types if they bother to repair it.
Take a suit of leather armour - a much smaller bit of DR for the first fight. Why bother repairing it at all?

When I played RuneQuest at university we thought the rules said armour needed repairing after any blow that went through (not sure if it really did but I thought the rules said that). The first house rule was to ignore this rule - it made armour pointless.

Here you are giving armour a small benefit above its base stats with a lot of complex rules and bookkeeping to go with it.
The benefit is just not worth the hassle.

Worse - I looked at your materials.

Stone would not make good armour - it is brittle, especially when thin. One hit and it will shatter - yet you have it better (in some respects) that steel?
Then Stainless Steel - something very hard to make without modern technology - cheaper than steel (half price) but more effective? Why use steel at all?
Cold iron - why does cold iron go through cold iron more easily? That is just silly

Oh yes, one question - DR N/slashing and piercing. If you mean DR N/- just put N/-; off-hand I can't think of a weapon other than a bite that does both slashing and piercing (I am sure there is one) - some swords do, but not at the same time. As for heavy armour's DR N/slashing and piercing and bludgeoning - bite is the only thing I can think of to ignore that.
Do you mean DR slashing or piercing?
Saying "slashing, piercing and/or bludgeoning" is actually not defined, unless you mean it absorbs damage from no attacks (in which case what is the point?)

It doesn't work like DR, like I said in the text. DM/Slashing means that the armor has more protection against slashing, not that slashing damage can bypass it. DM/Slashing,Piercing and Bludgeoning means that an armor mitigates a number of damage from all physical damage types.

Stone is alchemically enhanced by dwarves to be made suitable for armor, and stainless steel is simply mentioned in the material index of Pathfinder, so I put it. The cost is indeed a typo though.

Lategame armors can have Damage Mitigation 20 along with 600 HP, meaning it can last for quite a while. And 20 damage off a hit isn't little. They can also grant additional qualities.

Additionally, I don't view this as "more book keeping" although I can see why others would. I like the fact that the fighter has to tend for his armor right now, since I run campaigns that have this kind of book keeping already. A +10(total) Elysian Bronze full plate armor with Aranea Silk has DM 31/Slashing, Piercing and Bludgeoning. Since this is to be used by players first and npcs secondly they won't be facing optimizing uberchargers that deal 200 damage(which isn't even optimized but whatever) on a hit.

Sure, the big baddies will hit you, but that's because they're the big baddies.

[Ashtagon]

Repairing armour: This comes from the "fighters can't have nice things" school of thought. I just subsume weapon and armour maintenance into that hour that the wizard takes out to study his spells. While the pointy hat dude is busy book-worming, the pointy-stick dude is busy tending to his arms and armour. Basically, anything not dramatically significant should not take up valuable playing time.

Damage Mitigation: Unless I am misreading things, you appear to have reinvented energy resistance for physical attacks.

Aside: I find the damage reduction rules, which highlight the item they are weak against, to be confusing by virtue of the fact that their syntax is the exact opposite of the syntax for energy resistance. While the rules "work", they also cause confusion if you're new to it. Had I been in control of design, I would have unified damage reduction and energy resistance into a single system. Re-writing the two into one system would probably break something else at this point, given the sheer volume of material that now exists.

[Mordaedil]

Unearthed Arcana does this better and more simply.

[exelsisxax]

You can't say that it improves usability when armor has to be constantly repaired, nor is any of this at all a more versatile use for armor.

I also prefer armor as DR, but this is another intrusive and high-bookkeeping method of implementing it.

[Firest Kathon]

Unearthed Arcana does this better and more simply.
In case you are not aware of these rules, they are available on the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/armorAsDamageReduction.htm) as well.

[Hogsy]

Unearthed Arcana does this better and more simply.

I want to keep AC though, not just give it as DR, not to mention that even with that variant rule, DR remains highly inacessible to anyone who isn't a meatshield and removing 3 damage from an attack doesn't even hurt full-attackers.


Repairing armour: This comes from the "fighters can't have nice things" school of thought. I just subsume weapon and armour maintenance into that hour that the wizard takes out to study his spells. While the pointy hat dude is busy book-worming, the pointy-stick dude is busy tending to his arms and armour. Basically, anything not dramatically significant should not take up valuable playing time.

Damage Mitigation: Unless I am misreading things, you appear to have reinvented energy resistance for physical attacks.

Aside: I find the damage reduction rules, which highlight the item they are weak against, to be confusing by virtue of the fact that their syntax is the exact opposite of the syntax for energy resistance. While the rules "work", they also cause confusion if you're new to it. Had I been in control of design, I would have unified damage reduction and energy resistance into a single system. Re-writing the two into one system would probably break something else at this point, given the sheer volume of material that now exists.

This is indeed Energy Resistance against physical attacks. However, I think spending an hour or two while the spellcasters are preparing their spells in order to repair armor isn't all that much. The DCs will be small and you can always take 10 on them.
I have always disliked how DR 10/Silver doesn't work as "DR 10 against silver" even though it basically reads like it. That's why I've written Damage Mitigation in this fashion. I have to say though, I agree with everything you've said, and I want to say that I was never planning on making the fighters waste valuable time. Just some time before the party starts the day.


You can't say that it improves usability when armor has to be constantly repaired, nor is any of this at all a more versatile use for armor.

I also prefer armor as DR, but this is another intrusive and high-bookkeeping method of implementing it.

Midgame armors can have tons of HP meaning they would require repair after quite a while. Despite that, mending can always get an armor back to its full HP after a fight, if you have the time for it. Also, I think that the effects many of the materials grant give the armors more versatility as they can now grant Energy Resistance(even if it's a small amount) or completely different effects. I might decrease the costs of some materials though in order to make them more accessible. Especially the higher-end ones.


In addition, I think I'll increase the AC bonus of lighter armors by 1, or create some materials that help those who're wearing light armor, because the only ones really benefitting from these changes are heavy armor users, which surely are the ones to suffer most pain, but not always. Another simpler way to do this probably could probably be "Deduct the armor's hardness from the physical damage you take" so it remains equal among all armors, and only has to do with the material. Finally, I realize this is more book-keeping, but I don't find it of the annoying sorts. It's as annoying as removing temporary hit points. And in case an argument against "frontliner will now need to waste skill points on craft" (Something I personally and many of my mates always do, because crafting is flavourful AND awesome.) I could grant an ability to e.g the fighter that allows them to add their ECL to craft checks relating their chosen weapon groups and all armors.

EDIT: I also realize that this hurts full-attackers, but I have already altered rules in a way that accomodates them(I'm a use TWF fan.). Simple stuff from free TWFing to cheaper enhancements to help them target Touch and other abilities which are called Skill Exploits, which are tied to specific skills.

[Mordaedil]

I want to keep AC though, not just give it as DR, not to mention that even with that variant rule, DR remains highly inacessible to anyone who isn't a meatshield and removing 3 damage from an attack doesn't even hurt full-attackers.
It removes 3 per attack. So for a fighter with 16 BAB, you subtract 3 from all four of his attacks, for a potential loss of 12 damage from his damage output. It's quite substantial.

[HammeredWharf]

A few things:

1) As others have said, this looks unnecessarily complex.
2) Would DR against physical damage even matter at high levels? Most high-level monsters deal at least magical damage, have an alignment-based damage type or just use magic. You have materials that give extra DR vs. specific damage types, but characters can usually not afford multiple suits of armor tailor-made for specific opponents.
3) This would be a buff to armor-wearing classes at low levels, where they're already pretty good. Later on, they need things like teleportation, not extra HP.
4) Some of the effects look very unbalanced. Dragonhide would give full plate 40 Energy Resistance for 10K gold. All the clerics in the world want that stuff.
5) What's "(Base price x300)" like in Umbrite and other similar mats? Does it mean the mat costs 300 times the armor's base price? As in, an Umbrite full plate would cost >300k? That's crazy.

Adding extra functionality to armor sounds like a good idea I could get behind, but IMO this doesn't look like the right way to do it.

[Hogsy]

A few things:

1) As others have said, this looks unnecessarily complex.
2) Would DR against physical damage even matter at high levels? Most high-level monsters deal at least magical damage, have an alignment-based damage type or just use magic. You have materials that give extra DR vs. specific damage types, but characters can usually not afford multiple suits of armor tailor-made for specific opponents.
3) This would be a buff to armor-wearing classes at low levels, where they're already pretty good. Later on, they need things like teleportation, not extra HP.
4) Some of the effects look very unbalanced. Dragonhide would give full plate 40 Energy Resistance for 10K gold. All the clerics in the world want that stuff.
5) What's "(Base price x300)" like in Umbrite and other similar mats? Does it mean the mat costs 300 times the armor's base price? As in, an Umbrite full plate would cost >300k? That's crazy.

Adding extra functionality to armor sounds like a good idea I could get behind, but IMO this doesn't look like the right way to do it.


It's not DR, though, you can't simply bypass it. I should have specified this but the Dragonhide I've created is "unbalanced" because there are like 5 armors in my entire setting and dragons no longer exist. Sorry about that. Umbrite's(and similar) cost is a typo because I took the actual price from the pathfinder index for materials, where Umbrite actually costs 300x the base price, for a much lesser effect too. I've changed it in my pdf, but not here. My campaigns are pretty high-op when it comes to damage, the party and the enemies have high to-hit while dealing a substantial amount of damage. Cutting 20 from each attack seems meaningful against a baddy that deals 50 on a hit. Like I said, I'm thinking of lowering many of the costs of materials that add effects to armor that aren't magical and are not "DR, DM, AC, Energy Resistance" and more defenses, but more versatile effects like Umbrite so the crafter can pretty much create his own custom armor. I'm also thinking of implementing Pathfinder's Item Mastery feat chain into this new armor system, so a crafter could create a unique reaction among materials that activated specific extraordinary or supernatural effects that duplicated magical ones such as Fly, or Invisibiltiy.


It removes 3 per attack. So for a fighter with 16 BAB, you subtract 3 from all four of his attacks, for a potential loss of 12 damage from his damage output. It's quite substantial.

When the fighter is dealing 30 on a hit, removing 3 is pretty minimal. At 16 a fighter can easily do more than 30 on a hit, if he's optimized enough. Stuff like pounce and leap attack aren't even considered optimizing, just general melee feats and abilities.

[martixy]

One thing that is not in the SRD is the "Damage Conversion" variant from UA.

It does increase bookkeeping marginally, but it has both great mechanical and roleplay potential.


Your thing... is violating one of the core tenets of game design - KISS. You seem to fail to realize that all game design is a great, big, giant compromise.
Then there's the fact that you subscribe to the Borderlands school of numbers(lots of pointless minor, numerical bonuses), which, again, is not at all good design.

[sleepyphoenixx]

I agree with others that said it's too complicated for what it does. Especially the repairing part is completely unnecessary.
There's a reason gear maintenance isn't a general part of the rules. It's background stuff. You only need to care about that if enemies deliberately target your stuff.

So you want to give armor DR but still want to have it give AC too. What's wrong with "all armor gives DR/- equal to its AC"?
That's DR 13/- for +5 full plate, which is a substantial chunk even from the attack of a Great Wyrm Gold Dragon. If you feel that's still not enough add shield AC on top of that.
The easy way to not make TWF completely useless is to let it ignore a certain amount of DR. 5 for TWF, 10 for ITWF, 15 for GTWF? Or let crits ignore DR?
You'd have to playtest it. Just don't add even more feat costs to it or make it worse in other ways.

There's also the fact that most of the "rocket tag gameplay" in D&D has absolutely nothing to do with physical attacks, or hp damage in general. That part actually works pretty well.
It's all the stuff that targets things beside hp that leads to rocket tag. More DR for everyone just leads to mundanes being even weaker compared to casters.

[Mordaedil]

When the fighter is dealing 30 on a hit, removing 3 is pretty minimal. At 16 a fighter can easily do more than 30 on a hit, if he's optimized enough. Stuff like pounce and leap attack aren't even considered optimizing, just general melee feats and abilities.
You are basically arguing "well, at level 16 a chain shirt can't defend against the hit bonuses of a fighter. And a level 16 fighter can easily hit upward of 50AC, if optimized correctly."

No ****.

[Martin Greywolf]

Needless mechanical complexity was addressed. Next point, you don§t seem to know anything about how armor works, looking at your materials table.

Hide does protect you, we call hide armor "clothes". Seriously, unless you pile a ton of it on yourself, it offers about as much protection as medieval wool clothes. If you do pile it up, well, that's how gambeson works.

Leather, okay, fair enough. There are many, many kinds of leather, only some of which are good armor, and none of them look the way you think, but leather armor can work.

Iron and steel are massively different materials, with iron being considerably worse. Steel is then further divided into mild and tempered steel, and this is no small difference, we're talking "pollaxe plows right through" vs "pollaxe makes a small dent and that's it".

Stainless steel can't be manufactured, and is a horrible material for both weapons and armor. Even worse than iron. It tends to shatter into sharp shrapnel under stress.

Armor can't be made of stone. That's about it.

Gold is inferior to bronze as armor material, heavily so. There never was an armor made of gold for actual use, most of those are steel gilded with gold.

Bronze is about on par with mild steel when it comes to armor, but is heavier and harder to make, which is why it was phased out as the bronze age ended.

Lastly, you don't have the single most common armor type in all of history - gambesons.