Armor as Damage Reduction -- Can It Be Done in a Magical Setting?

[wayfare]

The title says it all -- can AC be replaced by Damage Reduction from armor.

Instead of Armor contributing to defense, characters would get a defense bonus (a'la d20 modern). Armor would grant typed damage reduction.

For Example:

Studded Leather Armor
Slashing: +1
Piercing: +0
Bludgeoning: +1

Chain Mail
Slashing: +2
Piercing: +4
Bludgeoning: +1

Plate Mail
Slashing: +4
Piercing: +2
Bludgeoning:+5

Thoughts?

[jiriku]

You'll face several issues.

1. This makes armor useless against attacks that require hit rolls but deal energy damage, or don't deal damage at all. This means that you're giving another advantage to casters, who already have all the cool toys. To compensate, you'll need to include feats, gear and class features the allow characters to improve their defense bonus. This will allow players to use defense bonus tweaks to improve their AC and touch AC just like they can currently use armor bonus tweaks to improve AC and touch AC.
   
2. Also, making DR common and cheap devalues the benefit of armor enhancements and class features that offer DR. You should improve those things so that they offer something better than what anyone can get off-the-shelf with a suit of armor.
   
3. The DR amounts you're quoting are too small to have any impact at higher levels. Enhancing the armor should increase its DR. I'd say an improvement of, say, +2 DR per point of enhancement bonus is about right. Armor made from special, expensive materials should also have better DR than normal (for example, the DR from adamantine armor should stack with this new DR).
   
4. You'll need to decide how this armor-as-damage-reduction rule interacts with natural armor.
   
5. Classes, builds, and monsters that rely on many attacks for relatively little damage each (e.g. monks, TWF builds, hydras) will be significantly less effective. OTOH, anything that relies on a few strikes for individually heavy damage will take less of a performance hit (warblades, uberchargers, rhinoceri).
   
6. If the level-based defense bonus is more than a point or two worse than equivalent-level traditional armor, the entire game will become more deadly for armor-wearing classes. If the defense bonus is about equal to equivalent-level traditional armor, then armor-wearing classes will see a mild improvement in survivability.

[Mulletmanalive]

I've been using something similar in my games but it took a little fine tuning.

First off, it would be better for "Armour" to be a seperate type of quality. I just made it synonymous with Hardness [in my own version of events] and took it from there. Applies against Slashing, Piercing, Bludgeoning and Acid damage normally, Ignored by Sonic, double against Fire and Lightning and tripled/quatrupled against Cold.

Secondary damage [Courier weapon effects, Sneak Attack, Warblade Manoeuvres] apply only if the attack deals damage without them [Power Chargers get a hand here but whatever].

Three, there aught to be the ability to get around it via to hit penalties, the magnitude of which are up to you. I'd suggest -4 for Light, -8 for Medium and -12 for Heavy. Natural Armour counts as a bonus and has a penalty equal to it's own value divided by 4 as a penalty to negate.

The light weapons/manyhit things were saved by the fact that Flatfooting can be a real bitch if you lose your class AC bonus when "denied your dex bonus." The Hydra was saved by giving it my modified version of Rending for this armour system:

Rending: A creature with this ability gains additional benefits if it hits with multiple attacks. All of the creature's attacks against a given target count as one hit for purposes of penetrating armour and causing massive damage. If the attack gets through their armour, the target suffers +1d6 additional damage per 4 HD the creature possess.

This last clause is not in my version, that goes into wounding and other nasty things instead. I just D&Ded it for you.

As a minor quibble, plate armour is actually pretty bad at stopping bludgeoning attacks; mauls were designed to allow archers to defeat knights by hitting them like bells and liquifying their insides.

[Ziegander]

Those are actually pretty thorough and well thought-out fine tunes to such a system, Mulletman. I may have to explore this notion a bit myself.

[Mulletmanalive]

Those are actually pretty thorough and well thought-out fine tunes to such a system, Mulletman. I may have to explore this notion a bit myself.

Sweet! Compliment for something other than my wacky ideas!

You're welcome; let me know how they turn out in a higher magic environment [most non-blasting spells are non-damaging in my games]

[The_JJ]

There is a variant in the SRD...

[wayfare]

There is a variant in the SRD...

Sweet! I'll go looking right now!

I was thinking that Defense bonuses would progress the same as attack bonuses -- Good (+20 max), Average (+15 max), and Poor (+10 max).

Enhancement bonuses add 1 point to all DR -- so in the example I gave above, +1 Studded leather would grant:

Slashing: +2
Piercing: +1
Bludgeoning: +2

Question: Should armor chek penalties reduce your defense bonus?

If so, do enhancement bonuses reduce Armor Check penalties?

[Ziegander]

I think it's entirely simpler to say that armor as DR has the same amount of effectiveness against all types of attack, however I understand that you might want to try and emulate something a bit more realistic. Toward that end I definitely think that you should include energy resistance in the things that armor protects against. Perhaps:

Leather Armor
Piercing DR 0/--
Slashing DR 2/--
Bludgeoning DR 1/--
Cold ER 3
Electricity ER 3
Fire ER 0

Studded Leather
Piercing DR 1/--
Slashing DR 2/--
Bludgeoning DR 3/--
Cold ER 3
Electricity ER 0
Fire ER 2

Chain Shirt
Piercing DR 3/--
Slashing DR 2/--
Bludgeoning DR 0/--
Cold ER 1
Electricity Vulnerability 1 (not sure what this would mean exactly)
Fire ER 2

Breastplate
Piercing DR 5/--
Slashing DR 3/--
Bludgeoning DR 3/--
Cold ER 2
Electricity Vulnerability 3
Fire ER 2

etc...

[wayfare]

Vulnerability is done decently in 4th edition, but it could be a penalty to saves against those types of attacks as well.

My philosophy with creating the numbers for damage reduction is to keep it within a 5 point range (to account for strength bonuses), + another 5 points for enhancement bonuses. On of my fellow gamers suggests that I should set the numbers higher than that.

Any thoughts?

[DracoDei]

Bypassing light armor with a -4 to attack is very bad at around 2nd level. That is the same as the armor bonus for Chain, and the attacker gets to chose which way to go with it.

I would agree that giving armor some sort of protective value against energy attacks is very appropriate, but I can't comment on the particular Mulletmanalive methodology advised.

[Mulletmanalive]

Bypassing light armor with a -4 to attack is very bad at around 2nd level. That is the same as the armor bonus for Chain, and the attacker gets to chose which way to go with it.

I would agree that giving armor some sort of protective value against energy attacks is very appropriate, but I can't comment on the particular Mulletmanalive methodology advised.

[shrug] - you say potato, i say that that's a more impressive deal when everyone has a class based defence bonus. Most of my players have sided with the statistical advantage and gone for not bothering to ignore armour and investing in the Two Weapon Rend feat if they took that track.

It's been tested in about 70 hours of gameplay, so i'll stand by it.

[Temotei]

What would happen if someone was using a double-type damage weapon, such as a morningstar (bludgeoning and piercing)?

[Mando Knight]

This makes armor useless against attacks that require hit rolls but deal energy damage, or don't deal damage at all. This means that you're giving another advantage to casters, who already have all the cool toys. To compensate, you'll need to include feats, gear and class features the allow characters to improve their defense bonus. This will allow players to use defense bonus tweaks to improve their AC and touch AC just like they can currently use armor bonus tweaks to improve AC and touch AC.

Most armor is useless against spellcasters anyway. Without specific enhancements, no armor applies its bonus to Touch AC.

[wayfare]

What would happen if someone was using a double-type damage weapon, such as a morningstar (bludgeoning and piercing)?

I would go with the highest DR, give the player the benefit of the doubt.

In regards to Touch AC -- isn't a defense bonus system even better for non-casters? Do you ever lose the defense bonus?

[DracoDei]

I would go with the highest DR, give the player the benefit of the doubt.

In regards to Touch AC -- isn't a defense bonus system even better for non-casters? Do you ever lose the defense bonus?

For Skeletons and such, I think you give the attacker the advantage(or choice) in such cases.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Why are people so in love with Armor as damage reduction?, it simply doesn't work in this system. You'd have to rewrite the whole thing to make it work. In a system where you roll to resist damage armor as DR works. Like say

Armor as DR isn't any more realistic, to be realistic armor would have both DR and an AC bonus.

A chain shirt would provide an AC bonus vs slashing and piercing but because its a soft armor only its padding would provide protection from a bludgeoning attack in the form of DR.

But that gets a little to complex, to me armor as AC is superior in this system, unless you plan to rewrite the whole game why switch to armor as DR.

[Ziegander]

I agree that Armor as DR should also provide some armor bonus to AC (maybe even an armor bonus to Spell Resistance?), but why do you say you might as well rewrite the entire game if you use Armor as DR. I'm all for rewriting the entire game, but that's a pretty bold statement.

[Lord Vukodlak]

I agree that Armor as DR should also provide some armor bonus to AC (maybe even an armor bonus to Spell Resistance?), but why do you say you might as well rewrite the entire game if you use Armor as DR. I'm all for rewriting the entire game, but that's a pretty bold statement.

I'm saying that the system is designed around armor being used to avoid attacks, from the damage scaling, to base attack bonuses. If you change armor to function as DR instead of avoiding being hit the whole game is put of kilter and even more power put in the hands of casters whose spells that avoid being hit become even more important.

[wayfare]

I'm saying that the system is designed around armor being used to avoid attacks, from the damage scaling, to base attack bonuses. If you change armor to function as DR instead of avoiding being hit the whole game is put of kilter and even more power put in the hands of casters whose spells that avoid being hit become even more important.

Defense bonuses aren't exatly "re-writing the game." Almost every d20 system aside from D&D uses them.

As for the whole realism thing -- armor makes it harder to move and thus easier to get hit. That said, I wouldn't be opposed to granting armor a "hard protection" bonus to Defense if necessary.

My idea is to essentialy transport d20 modern into a heroic fantasy setting, but with DR armor.

[Mulletmanalive]

Draco, i'd like to apologise for snapping; long day, late night. Sorry.

You'll probably want to increase the defence progressions if you're using the d20 Modern system, simply because it was designed around armour being the defence. Plus, in my experience, it's really, really easy to hit people in modern anyway. In Future, it gets silly hard but it's really, really easy in modern...

[Notreallyhere77]

The rules for this are in Unearthed Arcana, but if you want something else, you can find another version in Iron Heroes. The difference there is that the DR/-- becomes DR/magic (magic weapons are rare and seldom used by their owners, and magically charged natural weapons like dragon claws are meant to rip through armor like paper anyway), but the values go up a little.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Defense bonuses aren't exatly "re-writing the game." Almost every d20 system aside from D&D uses them.

As for the whole realism thing -- armor makes it harder to move and thus easier to get hit. That said, I wouldn't be opposed to granting armor a "hard protection" bonus to Defense if necessary.

And none of the defense bonuses really work do they? You might as well not have them without easy it is to hit. Damage also doesn't get quite as high in standard d20 modern as it can in D&D. Well made armor doesn't impede movement that much especially for people trained in wearing it.[*cough proficiency*]. D&D represents this by limiting your dex bonus to armor class.

Many other d20 games are adaptations of games that used to use their own systems like Starwars used to be d6. Those games used armor to reduce damage however you also tended to roll your body or equivalent stat on top of that.
in d20 you have many kinds of DR which throws a big wrench in armor as DR.

Just because your hit with a sword doesn't mean it will do anything. If theirs a steel plate between you and the sword having the attack negated makes sense.

Armor as DR works best under two conditions, first when you already roll or have an innate DR system built into a naked character.[like in Shadowrun how you roll body to resist damage and add armor is applicable].
And two in a more fragile system not the super hit points of d20.