Concentration for Martials

[Just to Browse]

Taking this thread on a related tangent, I am less concerned about the "Concentration space" than the "Reaction space".

This is probably me just being in the honeymoon period of design, but I've been loving rest-gated reactions for martials, particularly defenses. Forcing re-rolls of enemy attacks, getting a free re-roll on a save or an outright use of Legendary Resistance, triggered attacks for movement through a sizeable zone.

That said, if 4e taught us anything, it's that reactions slow the game down a ton when everyone has them. I think maximizing your use of reactions should be a core element of high-optimization play and ideally all classes get some, but they need to be opt-in the way spells are.

[Amechra]

I am not so much interested in rehashing the power level of Counterspell, Shield, Absorb Elements -- for purposes of this discussion I accept that the Wizard get great stuff at the cost of a slot is okay by some reasonable definition of okay. That said, I do think there is a serious Action Economy misbalance here. Casting two spells in a round is casting two spells in a round, and that is super powerful.

The thing is that this whole issue boils down to "they screwed up Shield and opportunity attacks".

If you look at the classes that get direct access to Counterspell and Shield in core, they're collectively the classes with the worst default passive defenses. They have tiny HD, no real armor proficiencies, and can't just slam their Dexterity to the maximum to compensate like a Rogue can. It seems pretty clear to me that the intent is that Sorcerers and Wizards feel squishy because they have to spend spell slots and their reaction on defending themselves against a concerted attack. Meanwhile, the Fighter's got good HP and AC pretty much by default, and can spend their reaction to punish anyone who tries to move away from them and towards the squishy guys. Feels nice and fair, right?

Then they made it trivial to pick up armor proficiency through the "optional" feat subsystem, and made opportunity attacks deal such a pathetic amount of damage that no-one's going to be terribly bothered if they get hit by one. Oops! I definitely agree that martial classes should get more features that buff opportunity attacks and/or broaden the number of situations where you can make them, because "don't ignore the fight-y guy with a weapon" is definitely something that 5e is missing. I kinda like the idea of making it so opportunity attacks auto-crit at around the point where Extra Attack comes online — threatening someone with 2d10+Str damage is going to be scary longer than 1d10+Str, it does fun stuff with Crusher/Piercer/Slasher, and it would mean that the tanky frontliner classes (read: Barbarian and Paladin) would have some nasty opportunity attacks (Paladins could smite, and Barbarians would actually have a good use-case for Brutal Critical...).

...

Personally, I think the big gap that I'd like to see filled is damage types and the different saves. Namely, it's kinda lame that spellcasters have such a pseudo-monopoly on targeting alternate saving throws or exploiting damage vulnerabilities. I don't have a good solution to this.

[Witty Username]

Once per turn affects on attacks could help some.

Rogue gets a decent amount of talk because its opportunity attacks sting like a mo fo. I have heard monk gets some cred with being able to stun and hand of harm off turn.

Similar things to these to make opportunity attacks a bit scarier could be fun.

[Theodoxus]

Personally, I think the big gap that I'd like to see filled is damage types and the different saves. Namely, it's kinda lame that spellcasters have such a pseudo-monopoly on targeting alternate saving throws or exploiting damage vulnerabilities. I don't have a good solution to this.

I agree with the rest of your post 100%.

That said, 4th Ed went this route. I don't know if targeting defenses other than AC was part of the whole 'Fighters and Wizards are the same, so bleh!' complaint or if allowing martials to target things other than AC was the bath water that was tossed out with everything else blatantly 4th Ed because 'bleh'.

It is definitely an opportunity lost; something that weapon mastery could take into account. Instead of bludgeoning weapons dealing auto damage on a miss, maybe they target Constitution saves instead, and deal half damage on a save. Yeah, they can't crit when used that way, but they are going to HURT no matter what (and it's not like the 'Ringing Bell' effect has to always be used - fighting a low AC, high Con Ogre, it would be silly to not target AC - likewise, fighting a high AC, lowish Con Life Cleric, use that Ringing Bell to the fullest!)

But having weapon masteries with the option to target specific saves? That'd be kind of fun. Nets targeting Dex saves; whips targeting Cha saves; etc.

[Amechra]

That said, 4th Ed went this route. I don't know if targeting defenses other than AC was part of the whole 'Fighters and Wizards are the same, so bleh!' complaint or if allowing martials to target things other than AC was the bath water that was tossed out with everything else blatantly 4th Ed because 'bleh'.

The thing about 4e is that you really can't trust people to be objective about it, because WotC messed up the PR for that edition so badly that a lot of existing D&D players were mad about it before they even opened up the book and tried it out. Don't get me wrong, the game was far from perfect... but I used to joke with my friends that people would've loved it if some 3pp had published it under the name Magic Sword (or whatever).

[Witty Username]

Obligatory smile nod, as I am still unable to comprehend 4e on some basic points.

[GeneralVryth]

I agree with the rest of your post 100%.

That said, 4th Ed went this route. I don't know if targeting defenses other than AC was part of the whole 'Fighters and Wizards are the same, so bleh!' complaint or if allowing martials to target things other than AC was the bath water that was tossed out with everything else blatantly 4th Ed because 'bleh'.

It is definitely an opportunity lost; something that weapon mastery could take into account. Instead of bludgeoning weapons dealing auto damage on a miss, maybe they target Constitution saves instead, and deal half damage on a save. Yeah, they can't crit when used that way, but they are going to HURT no matter what (and it's not like the 'Ringing Bell' effect has to always be used - fighting a low AC, high Con Ogre, it would be silly to not target AC - likewise, fighting a high AC, lowish Con Life Cleric, use that Ringing Bell to the fullest!)

But having weapon masteries with the option to target specific saves? That'd be kind of fun. Nets targeting Dex saves; whips targeting Cha saves; etc.

Attacks able to target different saves are interesting, need to be sure they don't break verisimilitude too bad, that shouldn't be too hard. One thing I haven't thought about in a while, but this made me think about is the Star Wars Saga System. It was the bridge between 3.5 and 4e in some ways. A bounded accuracy version of that, plus Armor as DR instead of AC (or reflex defense in this case) would be really interesting. If there is one sacred cow I would really like to see die it's armor as AC instead of DR. Having DR be a more standard thing allows for the difference between many attacks and big attacks to be actually meaningful. And it's another thing you can use to differentiate weapons (maces better at overcoming DR etc...). I also kind of liked the DT system, but that can be more iffy as it adds more complexity.

[Amechra]

Obligatory smile nod, as I am still unable to comprehend 4e on some basic points.

If I may ask, what rules don't click for you?

If there is one sacred cow I would really like to see die it's armor as AC instead of DR.

Sadly, I think we're stuck with that one unless they completely rethink how scaling works in D&D. Armor-as-DR tends to work best in games with very limited HP and damage scaling, since having one of your core defensive features be "attacks deal X-Y damage instead of X damage" limits what X can be pretty heavily. Like, it can work, but you'd have to rethink how weapon damage works and balance the math pretty tightly around it.

One solution to the Armor-as-DR thing that I've always kinda liked but never really caught on was how an old British game called Dragon Warriors handled it. It was kinda like a damage threshold set-up, except weapons dealt a flat amount of damage after checking to see if you bypassed armor. To quote the example of combat...

[GeneralVryth]

Sadly, I think we're stuck with that one unless they completely rethink how scaling works in D&D. Armor-as-DR tends to work best in games with very limited HP and damage scaling, since having one of your core defensive features be "attacks deal X-Y damage instead of X damage" limits what X can be pretty heavily. Like, it can work, but you'd have to rethink how weapon damage works and balance the math pretty tightly around it.

Oh I am sure it's not going anywhere, which is why I don't bring it up in a lot of these martial discussions. It's also hard to retrofit on to the current system while still keeping things balanced.

The way I would probably do it though, is give armor DR values (probably starting at 1 or 2 for leather, and then going up to 10ish for plate, magic armors would just increase this value), and then give weapons and other attacks a minimum damage they can't be reduced below (another way to differentiate weapons). Reducing health scaling would also be nice. I would start by looking at HP being equal to Con Score + (Con Mod * Prof Bonus) + (0-3 per level in a given class). That would give characters a lot more starting health, making the early levels less swingy. Obviously you need to figure out another source for AC growth, the easiest answer is to just pull from an even older SW system (d20 revised), and just have being X level of a class give you an AC bonus (along using things like a Shield, and gathering AC increasing features or reactions for temporary increases). If Fighters go from getting +1 AC at level 1 to +10 at level ~19 over the career, while Wizards go from 0 to +5, that solves some of the AC imbalance of casters in "heavy armor". If you want to be a high spell caster, you aren't getting good AC from your class period.

There is still more work from there, you would want a built in power attack option (or at least have it be a standard class feature for martial oriented characters), ideally you wouldn't be able to use the power attack and some kind of rapid strike option in the same turn.

But this is all even more of a pipe dream to hope for than a lot of other martial ideas out there.

[Skrum]

Oh I am sure it's not going anywhere, which is why I don't bring it up in a lot of these martial discussions. It's also hard to retrofit on to the current system while still keeping things balanced.

The way I would probably do it though, is give armor DR values (probably starting at 1 or 2 for leather, and then going up to 10ish for plate, magic armors would just increase this value), and then give weapons and other attacks a minimum damage they can't be reduced below (another way to differentiate weapons). Reducing health scaling would also be nice. I would start by looking at HP being equal to Con Score + (Con Mod * Prof Bonus) + (0-3 per level in a given class). That would give characters a lot more starting health, making the early levels less swingy. Obviously you need to figure out another source for AC growth, the easiest answer is to just pull from an even older SW system (d20 revised), and just have being X level of a class give you an AC bonus (along using things like a Shield, and gathering AC increasing features or reactions for temporary increases). If Fighters go from getting +1 AC at level 1 to +10 at level ~19 over the career, while Wizards go from 0 to +5, that solves some of the AC imbalance of casters in "heavy armor". If you want to be a high spell caster, you aren't getting good AC from your class period.

There is still more work from there, you would want a built in power attack option (or at least have it be a standard class feature for martial oriented characters), ideally you wouldn't be able to use the power attack and some kind of rapid strike option in the same turn.

But this is all even more of a pipe dream to hope for than a lot of other martial ideas out there.

So I know you're just spitballing and I just wanna be clear that I'm not trying to like bang the table about something offered here, but your ideas (and 5e as well) really makes me consider the value of "highly balanced" systems. 5e as we know isn't really balanced, or at least not well, but to some degree it is driven by bounded accuracy. That kind of system essentially by necessity puts a big damper on scaling, as bigger numbers can screw up the carefully balanced numbers.

My thought/concern though is like...how do characters differentiate themselves in a system that doesn't allow scaling. Ability checks are something of an example; like imagine if scaling in 5e was even more constrained, and ability scores was the only factor for skill checks. Well, my character might've been a blacksmith before he become an adventurer. So I made sure he has good str, as that's what he'd roll for smithing. Another character could have even more str...and just be "better" at blacksmithing, even if they've never narratively done blacksmithing.

That's just like a super simple example, but that's the idea. It makes me rethink the wisdom of something like bounded accuracy, or tightly balanced game systems.

*this problem is even worse in a game like DND which tends not to give some classes very notable or distinct abilities

[GeneralVryth]

So I know you're just spitballing and I just wanna be clear that I'm not trying to like bang the table about something offered here, but your ideas (and 5e as well) really makes me consider the value of "highly balanced" systems. 5e as we know isn't really balanced, or at least not well, but to some degree it is driven by bounded accuracy. That kind of system essentially by necessity puts a big damper on scaling, as bigger numbers can screw up the carefully balanced numbers.

My thought/concern though is like...how do characters differentiate themselves in a system that doesn't allow scaling. Ability checks are something of an example; like imagine if scaling in 5e was even more constrained, and ability scores was the only factor for skill checks. Well, my character might've been a blacksmith before he become an adventurer. So I made sure he has good str, as that's what he'd roll for smithing. Another character could have even more str...and just be "better" at blacksmithing, even if they've never narratively done blacksmithing.

That's just like a super simple example, but that's the idea. It makes me rethink the wisdom of something like bounded accuracy, or tightly balanced game systems.

*this problem is even worse in a game like DND which tends not to give some classes very notable or distinct abilities

You're right to a degree. Though I also think the point of Bounded Accuracy gets forgotten to a degree as well. Bounded Accuracy isn't about removing scaling, it's about keeping scaling from driving things (and combat abilities in particular) off the edge of the die range. With the goal of keeping lower level enemies relevant for a much greater scope of the game. In essence if an attack without circumstantial modifiers can only hit on a nat 20, or miss on a nat 1, or if DR is involved, damage is reduced to 0, that is bounded accuracy failing. Skills suffer from this because there should be more nuance and less randomness there, the problem is the game doesn't properly divorce skills from combat, so you can't just use a separate system for them or allow much higher bonuses (and 5e does do that some, and you can see some of the issues with the grappler with Expertise in Athletics). Ironically the Saga System I mentioned earlier had this a major pain point, because using the Force was tied to skill use, and you could scale skills faster than normal combat bonuses, and force abilities could allow you to substitute your Force skill for some offense or defense.

The fix for skills is to completely remove from any combat use (or at least make it some they can't be used against someone, or be used to evade or get out of attack). Then you can allow larger bonuses to better differentiate characters. Though for your Blacksmithing example, that just sounds like you should have had Smithing Tool's prof which would have helped in the comparison. Another thing you can do if you want to minimize changes is make skills roll 3d6, that significantly reduces outlier rolls so bonus matters more (and revert to d20 for combat related pieces), another is borrow from BG3 and only allow certain check if a character is proficient, or provide bonuses or alternative check options when proficient.

At its core, I really do like Bounded Accuracy, I like the idea that plain Hobgoblin Soldier can still sting a dragon if there are enough of them, and especially if they are led well. On the differentiation front, I do think that is possible, but you need to have a clear idea of what the themes of your classes are and make sure you have enough levers where you can achieve the same result through different means and making different classes good at those different means. That's part of why I like the DR thing, it's a lever for differentiation, it also has a nice verisimilitude bonus.

[Skrum]

only allow certain check if a character is proficient, or provide bonuses or alternative check options when proficient.

Really good point, and just one part of the development of skills that was left incredibly underbaked. Some things I would strongly favor/consider
- there should be a limit on untrained checks, something like 10 + modifier, or even just flat 10. I know this kind of parsing was mostly abandoned in 5e, but automatic disadvantage on checks above that DC, or just not being be able to try at all, would really raise the value of proficiency
- guidance on DC's, including examples of various common tasks
- some system of total failure, partial success (near miss?), success, and smashing success (or something). I would favor something like missing by more than 5, missing by 5 or less, just succeeding, and succeeding by more than 5 for mechanical categories

At its core, I really do like Bounded Accuracy, I like the idea that plain Hobgoblin Soldier can still sting a dragon if there are enough of them, and especially if they are led well. On the differentiation front, I do think that is possible, but you need to have a clear idea of what the themes of your classes are and make sure you have enough levers where you can achieve the same result through different means and making different classes good at those different means. That's part of why I like the DR thing, it's a lever for differentiation, it also has a nice verisimilitude bonus.

I think I would like it more if a few things were changed

1) AC was better managed
Between casters easily stacking full plate with shields and shield spells, and gishes combining heavy armor with haste or blur, and then randomass builds that have a flat 25 AC...bounded accuracy kinda falls apart. It doesn't even matter how hard a creature hits; if +5 to +7 is supposed to be relevant into t2 and t3, PC's simply can't have AC that's well into the 20's. Most monsters get to attack 4-9 times ever. With a 15% chance to hit (and that's before factoring in further defenses like silvery barbs and runic shield), 4-9 attacks adds up to .6 to 1.35 hits. Over an entire combat. That's simply not bounded accuracy in any meaningful sense.

2) Level cap was lower than 20
This is tied to a ton of other problems (casters scaling vs martial scaling), but as far as bounded accuracy goes, I don't want or need hobgoblins to be relevant enemies at level 15. 10, maybe, if there's a whole army of them. Between AC, HP, and sheer number of resources, at some point the characters are basically superheroes, and yah know what? Street thugs don't threaten Spiderman. I'd prefer to not pretend that they should. I really think that for bounded accuracy to remain true, characters would have to scale a whole lot less than they do...in which case, why have 20 levels? Why grind through 20 levels of extremely marginal changes, when 12 or 10 or 8 or 6 would bring you right up to the correct power level?

[GeneralVryth]

Really good point, and just one part of the development of skills that was left incredibly underbaked. Some things I would strongly favor/consider
- there should be a limit on untrained checks, something like 10 + modifier, or even just flat 10. I know this kind of parsing was mostly abandoned in 5e, but automatic disadvantage on checks above that DC, or just not being be able to try at all, would really raise the value of proficiency
- guidance on DC's, including examples of various common tasks
- some system of total failure, partial success (near miss?), success, and smashing success (or something). I would favor something like missing by more than 5, missing by 5 or less, just succeeding, and succeeding by more than 5 for mechanical categories

I like all of the above frankly. On the variety of success front another thing you could do with proficiency, is limit any successes to partial or basic success, and require proficiency for the greater successes.

1) AC was better managed
Between casters easily stacking full plate with shields and shield spells, and gishes combining heavy armor with haste or blur, and then randomass builds that have a flat 25 AC...bounded accuracy kinda falls apart. It doesn't even matter how hard a creature hits; if +5 to +7 is supposed to be relevant into t2 and t3, PC's simply can't have AC that's well into the 20's. Most monsters get to attack 4-9 times ever. With a 15% chance to hit (and that's before factoring in further defenses like silvery barbs and runic shield), 4-9 attacks adds up to .6 to 1.35 hits. Over an entire combat. That's simply not bounded accuracy in any meaningful sense.

I agree with all of this. One of advantages of armor as DR is takes some pressure off AC as the primary mitigation option. It should still be harder for casters to get heavy armor prof, but that is another topic. Imagine if the top of line tank Fighter at level 10 was only rocking 18 to 20 AC, but had 10 DR on top of that? While the friendly Wizard is at more like 15 or 16 AC, 3ish DR, and access to something like the Shield spell?

2) Level cap was lower than 20
This is tied to a ton of other problems (casters scaling vs martial scaling), but as far as bounded accuracy goes, I don't want or need hobgoblins to be relevant enemies at level 15. 10, maybe, if there's a whole army of them. Between AC, HP, and sheer number of resources, at some point the characters are basically superheroes, and yah know what? Street thugs don't threaten Spiderman. I'd prefer to not pretend that they should. I really think that for bounded accuracy to remain true, characters would have to scale a whole lot less than they do...in which case, why have 20 levels? Why grind through 20 levels of extremely marginal changes, when 12 or 10 or 8 or 6 would bring you right up to the correct power level?

I don't think lowering the level cap is necessary. The basic Hobgoblin isn't seriously expected to be a threat by level 15, or really likely tier 3 in general. But when you compare to prior editions, where they would be obsolete by level 7 or sooner it's an improvement. Also, I think the place it's more noticeable, are things like the Knights, Veterans, or more "elite" warriors. A CR 2 to 4 stays dangerous for a long time if there is a sufficient number of them. So to use your Spiderman example, street thugs can become obsolete but he still has to respect the SWAT team that gets called in (or following comic book logic maybe not, but you get the idea).

[Witty Username]

Then they made it trivial to pick up armor proficiency through the "optional" feat subsystem,

In fairness, feats is a pretty fair way to get armor.
Lightly armored into moderately armored does take into 8th level at the earliest. And means not getting anything else. Unless you already have lightly armored

One level in cleric for heavy armor without losing spell progression is pretty jacked though.

[Skrum]

I agree with all of this. One of advantages of armor as DR is takes some pressure off AC as the primary mitigation option. It should still be harder for casters to get heavy armor prof, but that is another topic. Imagine if the top of line tank Fighter at level 10 was only rocking 18 to 20 AC, but had 10 DR on top of that? While the friendly Wizard is at more like 15 or 16 AC, 3ish DR, and access to something like the Shield spell?

I vibe with that. Obviously we're well into rewrites of large portions of the game, but I'd probably start by curtailing some of the random +1, +2 AC bonuses (looking at you warforged and forge cleric), reintroduce something like arcane spell failure, and nerfing the shield spell. I'd probably also try to tinker with something like reducing the headline AC of armor, and then let some classes apply their proficiency bonus to their AC once they reach a certain level. Finally, give armor DR but have it scale differently if the character gets their prof bonus to their armor. It would be a lot of fine tuning.

I don't think lowering the level cap is necessary. The basic Hobgoblin isn't seriously expected to be a threat by level 15, or really likely tier 3 in general. But when you compare to prior editions, where they would be obsolete by level 7 or sooner it's an improvement. Also, I think the place it's more noticeable, are things like the Knights, Veterans, or more "elite" warriors. A CR 2 to 4 stays dangerous for a long time if there is a sufficient number of them. So to use your Spiderman example, street thugs can become obsolete but he still has to respect the SWAT team that gets called in (or following comic book logic maybe not, but you get the idea).

Maybe...I still think the problem is deeper than that. Consider HP bloat. Like monsters with 300+ hit points can't reasonably be taken down by weapon damage + modifier. So characters have to do A LOT more damage as they gain levels. And they do, to the point where they're one-shotting low level stuff. Conversely, a CR 2 that does ~7 damage a round after miss chance (this is being extremely generous to the CR 2 BTW), well that meant something when the characters had 45 hit points. But now they're level 14 and have 145 hit points. In a 3-4 round combat format, that's not meaningful damage. And yes, no one thinks CR 2's are supposed to be a threat by themselves, and not every combat has to be deadly++. But still like, what is the DM spending time on. Rolling for the 15% chance they inflict 2d6+3? C'mon.

My opinion, WotC set out to make a bounded accuracy game but with 20 levels to fill and a ton of legacy things to keep in the game (like 9th level spells), they lost the thread. And that's before factoring in the likelihood that magic items get involved and make the PCs superheros even sooner. In my experience, bounded accuracy stops working around level 8. This is ironically close to 3.5's E6 solution to out of control character growth - and that's comparing an edition that "solved" crazy numbers bloat to the edition that is most known for it.

Side note, DR would mostly end low-level monsters as threats. With reduced AC lets say the hobgoblin veteran now has a 40% chance to hit. But they do 2d8+3 damage, or 5 - 19. A 3rd level fighter with DR 3? Sure, that hobgoblin is credible. But if the fighter has DR 10? Now the average damage roll of the hobgoblin does 2 damage. 32% of the time, the hobgoblin does no damage even on a hit.

[Theodoxus]

I prefer ablative armor over DR (or at least large DR numbers). If I were to use DR, I'd run it as HAM, but using PB instead of a blanket amount. Heavy armor DR = PB; Medium armor DR = PB/2, and Light armor DR = PB/3.

I think that would keep DR functional without wrecking bounded accuracy. But I would definitely add an ablative nature to armor, which would allow for higher ACs (if desired) - but could also allow for better fine tuning of effects. (Beyond the complexity of B/P/S vs armor types, which definitely slows down combat sans an artificial DM.) But if you had a rule that say, Fighters and Paladins in Heavy Armor had double the DR (or twice the Armor Hit Points) for attacks that hit armor, then a Wizard getting Heavy Armor Proficiency via a Cleric dip isn't getting as much benefit as the same starting Fighter or Paladin instead (and thus losing spell slot progression for the sake of added armor protection). Likewise, something like a rule for Barbarians where their DR is doubled when they're NOT recklessly attacking, as they're getting more defensive value when they're not opening themselves up to retaliation, adds a bit of tactical decision making for the Barbarians player.

Of course, something should probably be granted to unarmored defense in lieu of DR; though probably just adding PB to AC would be sufficient. Makes Monks in particular more evasive.

As for how ablative armor works, my current version is a baseline AC of 8+PB, called Defense. So, anything that rolls below that is a full miss, no damage. Armor then provides an AC value that is added to that number. Take the current AC of an armor, subtract 10 and add the remainder to your Defense (+ Dex if the armor is Light or Medium (max Dex +2/+3 with MAM). That is your AC. Anything that hits between your Defense and your AC hits armor. Armor is rated with a number of Armor Hit Points (AHP) that absorb damage from a hit. If a hit deals more damage than the remaining AHP value, the remainder carries through to the PCs HP pool, and the armor is currently useless (proving neither DR (if applicable) nor AC - so the Defense is now 8+PB+Dex. Obviously, a hit that is higher than the AC ignores the AHP completely and goes straight to PC HPs (whether it also bypasses DR is another question - I rule it does).

The amount of AHP provided is more campaign specific than fixed; for players, they're always wanting more - but taking other forms of 'temporary HP, from THP to the arcane shield provided by Abjuration, I wouldn't recommend more than 10 AHP per AC provided. It shouldn't make it longer to take out a PC than normal.

Of course, spells with saving throws bypass armor as normal. Spells with attack rolls can hit and deal damage to armor. If DR applies or not, is again, a DM call. In a simplified version, I'm ok with DR working.

Repairing AHP can be as simple as an appropriate skill check (Leather working, smithing) over a short rest. Might repair 1 AHP per point of the roll; no minimum DC. Might repair a fixed amount per rest. Using something like Mending might work (despite the spell description not accounting for it). I'd recommend no more than 10 points per casting. Even completely rent armor should be repairable, though you might need to scrounge up additional material if you're not using magic.

For monsters that wear armor, I use a simple formula of 1/2 HP = AHP, and 1/2 HP = new HP value. The AC, I keep the same, and just have a range of 10 to AC hit armor. This does make monsters generally easier to kill (especially with saving throw spells), but I see that as a plus anyway.

[Snowbluff]

The thing about 4e is that you really can't trust people to be objective about it, because WotC messed up the PR for that edition so badly that a lot of existing D&D players were mad about it before they even opened up the book and tried it out. Don't get me wrong, the game was far from perfect... but I used to joke with my friends that people would've loved it if some 3pp had published it under the name Magic Sword (or whatever).

This. I think 4e has a lot of issues in terms of system variety but I think it's a fine game on its own. It'd fit right in with other game families that focus more on board game combat like ICON etc.

[Amechra]

My opinion, WotC set out to make a bounded accuracy game but with 20 levels to fill and a ton of legacy things to keep in the game (like 9th level spells), they lost the thread.

The irony is that pre-WotC D&D arguably handled scaling way better, since the "soft cap" was far lower. So, sure, you could get to level 20 (or further), but you would've been feature complete by around 10th level, with HP scaling dropping to a crawl (I believe 1e Fighter were the only class that got HP after 9th level, and it was only 3 per level? It's been a while, so don't quote me on that). Name level was effectively retirement age, and the rules for playing past that point were mostly aspirational.

[Witty Username]

This. I think 4e has a lot of issues in terms of system variety but I think it's a fine game on its own. It'd fit right in with other game families that focus more on board game combat like ICON etc.

I think on the 4e thing, if it fell closer to Star Wars Saga Edition than it did it would have groked better.
In the first set of things I had trouble groking was AC vs Reflex Defense. Saga Edition had a similar set up to defenses rather than saves but they cut AC with Reflex Defense applying to standard attacks.
Also classes having a much shorter list of abilities, and groupings of those abilities into archetypes so that you could get a sense of what your characters range was helped alot.

[GeneralVryth]

I vibe with that. Obviously we're well into rewrites of large portions of the game, but I'd probably start by curtailing some of the random +1, +2 AC bonuses (looking at you warforged and forge cleric), reintroduce something like arcane spell failure, and nerfing the shield spell. I'd probably also try to tinker with something like reducing the headline AC of armor, and then let some classes apply their proficiency bonus to their AC once they reach a certain level. Finally, give armor DR but have it scale differently if the character gets their prof bonus to their armor. It would be a lot of fine tuning.

I also agree on the need to reduce the number of random AC bonuses. But I think you may have missed a key point about my suggestion. Armor wouldn't give AC at all. It would be purely a source of DR. Then put a basic AC bonus progression on different classes. The standard AC formula becomes 10 (or whatever) + Dex + Class Bonuses. With maybe some option to replace the Dex mod in some cases, or adding another stat if your not wearing armor. It creates the ability to approach mitigation by a combination of not getting hit and not taking as much damage. Something like a Monk can be actual evasion tank (tossing them an ability like Defensive Duelist or Shield with maybe a Ki cost would be elegant here), while Fighters use a combination of Armor and Skill (Class defense bonus) to both avoid getting hit and mitigating hits. Reaction options to reduce damage for a hit would also fit nicely in a Fighters wheel house. Barbarians of course lean more in to the mitigation front, likely getting some kind of natural armor (DR) plus rage bonuses.

On the caster front, part of the point of this is to put more of the defense bonuses and abilities into the classes themselves. This reduces that value of armor profs, and if you can combine that with making them a little harder to get (or requiring higher stats to use) casters getting access to those armor profs become a lot more balanced.

Maybe...I still think the problem is deeper than that. Consider HP bloat. Like monsters with 300+ hit points can't reasonably be taken down by weapon damage + modifier. So characters have to do A LOT more damage as they gain levels. And they do, to the point where they're one-shotting low level stuff. Conversely, a CR 2 that does ~7 damage a round after miss chance (this is being extremely generous to the CR 2 BTW), well that meant something when the characters had 45 hit points. But now they're level 14 and have 145 hit points. In a 3-4 round combat format, that's not meaningful damage. And yes, no one thinks CR 2's are supposed to be a threat by themselves, and not every combat has to be deadly++. But still like, what is the DM spending time on. Rolling for the 15% chance they inflict 2d6+3? C'mon.

Obviously in the DR system I am talking about there would need to be some re-balance of monster statblocks. Another nice thing about DR though, is you can reduce the HP bloat on both the PC and monster side. The trick of course is keeping baseline values in check. You don't want passive DR (from armor etc...) from going over 15, anymore than you want passive AC going over 25 by level 20 (And probably more 10 and 20 for level 10).

Side note, DR would mostly end low-level monsters as threats. With reduced AC lets say the hobgoblin veteran now has a 40% chance to hit. But they do 2d8+3 damage, or 5 - 19. A 3rd level fighter with DR 3? Sure, that hobgoblin is credible. But if the fighter has DR 10? Now the average damage roll of the hobgoblin does 2 damage. 32% of the time, the hobgoblin does no damage even on a hit.

That's why I talked about weapons and other attacks having a minimum damage that they can't be reduced below. It keeps lower level monsters relevant longer because of the risk of the death of a thousand paper cuts (also casters are less likely to be sporting DR so while a basic hobgoblin may more or less be forced into minimum damage against a Fighter or Barbarian, the Wizard or Sorc is still going to feel pain if they are hit). It also is another differentiation point for weapons. A longsword may be a d10 weapon but with a min damage of 1 or 2, while a warhammer could be d8 with a min of 3 or 4 (or maybe they would be 0+str mod and 3+str mod respectively).

As for how ablative armor works, my current version is a baseline AC of 8+PB, called Defense. So, anything that rolls below that is a full miss, no damage. Armor then provides an AC value that is added to that number. Take the current AC of an armor, subtract 10 and add the remainder to your Defense (+ Dex if the armor is Light or Medium (max Dex +2/+3 with MAM). That is your AC. Anything that hits between your Defense and your AC hits armor. Armor is rated with a number of Armor Hit Points (AHP) that absorb damage from a hit. If a hit deals more damage than the remaining AHP value, the remainder carries through to the PCs HP pool, and the armor is currently useless (proving neither DR (if applicable) nor AC - so the Defense is now 8+PB+Dex. Obviously, a hit that is higher than the AC ignores the AHP completely and goes straight to PC HPs (whether it also bypasses DR is another question - I rule it does).

The amount of AHP provided is more campaign specific than fixed; for players, they're always wanting more - but taking other forms of 'temporary HP, from THP to the arcane shield provided by Abjuration, I wouldn't recommend more than 10 AHP per AC provided. It shouldn't make it longer to take out a PC than normal.

Of course, spells with saving throws bypass armor as normal. Spells with attack rolls can hit and deal damage to armor. If DR applies or not, is again, a DM call. In a simplified version, I'm ok with DR working.

Repairing AHP can be as simple as an appropriate skill check (Leather working, smithing) over a short rest. Might repair 1 AHP per point of the roll; no minimum DC. Might repair a fixed amount per rest. Using something like Mending might work (despite the spell description not accounting for it). I'd recommend no more than 10 points per casting. Even completely rent armor should be repairable, though you might need to scrounge up additional material if you're not using magic.

For monsters that wear armor, I use a simple formula of 1/2 HP = AHP, and 1/2 HP = new HP value. The AC, I keep the same, and just have a range of 10 to AC hit armor. This does make monsters generally easier to kill (especially with saving throw spells), but I see that as a plus anyway.

While I kind of see the value in this from a verisimilitude perspective, I wonder if it's over-complicating things. It's adding a couple more logical checks per attack. Where as a more basic DR system is just adding a mod on the damage roll (with a min value if you use my above example). It's also adding another value to track. While I do think 5e made some things too simple, the general idea of simplifying things where possible, and streamlining things does have value.

I think on the 4e thing, if it fell closer to Star Wars Saga Edition than it did it would have groked better.
In the first set of things I had trouble groking was AC vs Reflex Defense. Saga Edition had a similar set up to defenses rather than saves but they cut AC with Reflex Defense applying to standard attacks.
Also classes having a much shorter list of abilities, and groupings of those abilities into archetypes so that you could get a sense of what your characters range was helped alot.

I agree with this completely. A 4e that would have been more like Saga would have been received a lot better. Saga just suffered hard from the skills being used to attack/defend with (while following a different progression), and also the lack of bounded accuracy is even more noticeable in the Star Wars universe where characters in the stories are routinely driven off by basic soldiers.

[Pex]

I don't think a DR system would work due to fun factor. Sure, it's nice when taking 14 damage it's reduced to 2, but I think a player would rather not be hit at all. Combat becomes a long haul chore because it takes a lot longer to drop someone. Reducing hit points won't help because then that 2 damage starts to look a lot bigger despite not having taken 14. It becomes annoying and disheartening to keep reducing hit points 2 or 3 at a time as the combat progresses. It's slow torture. Players also will not be happy when their attack doing 15 damage gets reduced to 3 because of the monster's DR. Then of course what about spells? Do nothing then Fireball is still doing 8d6 damage while greatsword warrior is doing 4 points after DR. Include spell damage and watch spell casters master debuffing and terrain control maintaining their power. Meanwhile the warrior does 4 damage.

Maybe it is possible to create a game system that uses DR well. Ars Magica has Soak. Rollmaster has its tables where you're hit more often in heavier armor but could receive only 1 damage where in lesser armor you're hit a lot less often but when you are hit you take 30 damage where as the heavy armor wearer would have received only 10 damage on the same attack. You have to make the game system revolve around it. 5E is not wrong for not doing it this way and does not have to apologize for it.

[NichG]

I think per-round DR is nicer than per-attack for some of these issues. It means that coordinating attacks (and doing things to prevent attacks from being coordinated) becomes more important.

I guess the way I'd do it is, attacks have almost 100% hit rate by default - you're rolling d20+Dex modifier against an AC equal to the target's Dex modifier and thats (mostly) it, which means mostly you're looking for crits or natural 1s. Monks and Rogues get to increase their AC with level-scaling bonuses when wearing no armor or light armor respectively, with the Monk bonus capping out at 60% evasion against an equal Dex attacker and the Rogue bonus capping out at 30% (but these would stack if you cross-class). Maybe magic items or some spells can also fiddle with this, but leaning towards attacker Disadvantage rather than directly adding to the AC. Ring of Protection probably has to go away.

But now you have per-round DR from your armor instead, equal to say your Proficiency bonus (if proficient in the armor type) multiplied by 1 for light armor, 2 for medium, or 3 for heavy. If you aren't proficient, you just get the 1, 2, or 3 base value. Magic item plusses add to the effective Proficiency bonus being applied, so a +5 plate mail would give you a flat extra 15 per round soak. Sneak attacks and critical hits bypass this DR. Maybe some special things could 'break' or 'restore' this DR pool in multi-round fashion? You could have 'sunder' type mechanics but instead of destroying the item they do half damage but the DR pool cap is lowered by the damage dealt until repairs are made...

Tempted to let armor also block elemental damage with this DR, except perhaps certain thematic vulnerabilities - plate varieties are vulnerable to electricity and cold, chain/ring to acid (gets through the gaps), padded armors to fire, and scale and leather and splint are fine against all elements? Maybe necrotic gets through everything? Dunno... I'm also not sure where I want shields to go in this picture - I feel like a reaction to replace your AC with 5 + the shield's AC rating (rather than stacking) for the rest of the round could work but its a little messy, with early shields being worthless and stuff like +5 shields being way too good... Spells that would grant AC instead temporarily boost the DR pool for the round, or give Disadvantage to the attacker's roll.

Gotta rebalance some class features. There's stuff based on advantage on attack rolls or things like that, which is a lot less relevant with this. Reckless attack could just be 'deal 25% extra melee damage, take 25% extra melee damage', upgrading to 50%/50% at a later level. Unarmored Defense would give extra DR pool based on your Constitution rather than giving AC. Defense fighting style maybe upgrades the armor proficiency bonus by +1? Protection probably should just let the Fighter use their shield on someone else's behalf. Archery maybe just becomes a damage bonus? Case by case...

[Skrum]

I think per-round DR is nicer than per-attack for some of these issues. It means that coordinating attacks (and doing things to prevent attacks from being coordinated) becomes more important.

Agreed. I started spitballing a system that sorta worked like that....
Each character would have multiple pools of "hit points." Something like health, stamina, and will. All attacks and spells would deal damage to one of those pools. If a pool gets reduced to zero, they suffer the effect.

Ex: hypnotic pattern deals 4d6 Will damage. If that reduces someone to 0, they become incapacitated.

Pools would regain some value at the beginning of each turn, representing the character shaking off previous damage. Weapons could have different "reduce to 0" effects, and classes could also add options, like "when reducing a creature's health to 0 with X, you may do Y."

Honestly it's probably too complicated though xD. Tracking an entire battlefield's 3 pools, like that's a big yuck for the DM.