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1 year ago ::
Apr 13, 2012 - 8:20PM
#11
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What if we counte by having armor make you easier to hit?
Low or non armored characters take fewer hits but those that do hurt more, while an armored character takes a lot of hits, and each one hurts less.
That kind of system can be really swingy, sort of like a rogue "evasion tanking" in WoW, if that's familiar. Beyond the mechanics, I dislike armor as DR because it changes the open, abstract nature of hit points.
Ed_Warlord, on what it takes to make a thread work: I think for it to be really constructive, everyone would have to be honest with each other, and with themselves. Quotation of the moment
Show
Areleth: How does this help the problems we have with Fighters? Do you think that every time I thought I was playing D&D what I was actually doing was slamming my head in a car door and that if you just explain how to play without doing that then I'll finally enjoy the game?
Quotation of ALL moments
Show
TD: That's why they put me on the front of every book. This is the dungeon, and I am the dragon.
A word of warning though: I'm totally not a level appropriate encounter.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 13, 2012 - 8:30PM
#12
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Date Joined:
Jan 23, 2012
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Under the idea that AC like HP is an abstraction, I've always figured people in armor get hit but don't take damage. I'll discribe a miss sometimes as, "You hit but it doesn't phase the creature. You just can't get your blade through its hide." Or "You look over at the fighter and there are arrows sticking out of his shield."
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1 year ago ::
Apr 13, 2012 - 8:52PM
#13
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Date Joined:
Jan 12, 2012
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Damage reduction was introduced in one of the boxed sets of 1ed. They also added other extra rules (From memory. feel free to correct)
- A hit would always deal at least 1 damage.
- A hit roll of 18 allowed you to ignore damage reduction
- A hit roll of 19 dealed maximum damage ignoring damage reduction
- A hit roll of 20 dealed twice maximum damage without damage reduction and would always hit regardless of AC
- A fighter could specialize in a weapon to deal much more damage per round.
Each of these rules tipped the balance towards fighters or spell casters, but IIRC you could get a balance by adding all the rules at once. I would personally like to use with damage reduction, if they release it as an optional module, but I fear that it will be difficult to balance.
DISCLAIMER: I never played 4ed, so I may misunderstand some of the rules.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 13, 2012 - 11:18PM
#14
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I like AC and hit points because it's a system that works. AC represents anything that stops you from losing a resource. Hit points are the resource. When you add in other details (armor as DR + AC or armor as DR only) then you are adding steps that don't add meaning. An attack that does damage less than a target's DR does nothing. So why not call it a "miss" and be done? An attack that does very little damage because of DR could have just been taken from a larger resource (hit point) pool, making it less meaningful. If combat has added complexity, I'd rather see it in terms of options than resolution methods.
Ed_Warlord, on what it takes to make a thread work: I think for it to be really constructive, everyone would have to be honest with each other, and with themselves. Quotation of the moment
Show
Areleth: How does this help the problems we have with Fighters? Do you think that every time I thought I was playing D&D what I was actually doing was slamming my head in a car door and that if you just explain how to play without doing that then I'll finally enjoy the game?
Quotation of ALL moments
Show
TD: That's why they put me on the front of every book. This is the dungeon, and I am the dragon.
A word of warning though: I'm totally not a level appropriate encounter.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 13, 2012 - 11:56PM
#15
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Date Joined:
Mar 20, 2003
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The way I see armor is that it's something that prevents you from getting hurt. Plate being able to just stand there and have attacks bounce off the steel and cloth making the wearer dance around an attack. Being hit means that the opponent has overwhelmed your defense or was able to target weaknesses in your suit. Damage reduction can function as an added layer of protection but it shouldn't be straight built in.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 14, 2012 - 12:20AM
#16
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I'd just like to point out that "armor as damage reduction" is the default in virtually every RPG there is, with D&D being one of the few exceptions. Folks who are mainly D&D-players are often very surprised to hear that, since they assume the way D&D does things is the standard.
It's really not difficult to balance, if you design the damage system around the idea.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 14, 2012 - 12:26AM
#17
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Date Joined:
Jan 12, 2012
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The way I see armor is that it's something that prevents you from getting hurt. Plate being able to just stand there and have attacks bounce off the steel and cloth making the wearer dance around an attack. Being hit means that the opponent has overwhelmed your defense or was able to target weaknesses in your suit. Damage reduction can function as an added layer of protection but it shouldn't be straight built in.
If you want realism then the damage reduction should probably depend on the weapon
- Rapiers were initially designed to poke through a weakness in the armor these weaknesses can be diffifult to hit, so ideally the armor should give an AC bonus against rapers
- Morning stars were designed to hit someone through the armor, so armor should give damage reduction against maces
- Slashing swords were somewhat ineffective against plate mail. They couldn't hit through the defenses.
But from a gamist point of view, I like the idea that fact that damage reduction makes the damage received by front line fighters is less swingy. That adds to the predictability of combat but also to to the tension.
DISCLAIMER: I never played 4ed, so I may misunderstand some of the rules.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 14, 2012 - 12:39AM
#18
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I'd just like to point out that "armor as damage reduction" is the default in virtually every RPG there is, with D&D being one of the few exceptions. Folks who are mainly D&D-players are often very surprised to hear that, since they assume the way D&D does things is the standard.
It's really not difficult to balance, if you design the damage system around the idea.
I agree, especially with the bolded part. What we saw in 4E was that giving PCs a larger number of initial hit points was treated by some - regardless of context - as a sign that 4E characters were not "really" level one. DR works best with decently high hit point totals, since lower hp can easily make DR overpowered. It's certainly possible to design the combat system around DR, but I think the base hit point numbers would have to be pretty high, and maybe too high for a lot of people's tastes.
Ed_Warlord, on what it takes to make a thread work: I think for it to be really constructive, everyone would have to be honest with each other, and with themselves. Quotation of the moment
Show
Areleth: How does this help the problems we have with Fighters? Do you think that every time I thought I was playing D&D what I was actually doing was slamming my head in a car door and that if you just explain how to play without doing that then I'll finally enjoy the game?
Quotation of ALL moments
Show
TD: That's why they put me on the front of every book. This is the dungeon, and I am the dragon.
A word of warning though: I'm totally not a level appropriate encounter.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 14, 2012 - 5:27AM
#19
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Date Joined:
Sep 25, 2009
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It is POSSIBLE to do, if you design the system around it. Granted. I would argue many of the systems that do use it have not in fact balanced it successfully, but there's a bigger problem. AC as DR is not going to be in the core. It just isn't, regardless of what any of us here say - this is the edition to bring old-schoolers back into the fold not the edition to strike out in new directions (at least in core). It is NOT possible to balance such a thing as a module, without completely reworking monster attack and damage expressions. Do you really expect a module that requires rewriting every monster stat block they print?
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1 year ago ::
Apr 14, 2012 - 6:47AM
#20
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There's also the issue of relevant HP increase being a staple in D&D, and, for DR to be balanced, it would have to take that into account. I mean, how do you balance something that gives you a very large bonus on level 1 (let's say, for example, DR 10? It makes Level 1 characters pratically immortal) while being completely unimportant at the higher levels (DR 10 when you have over 300 hit points means absolutely nothing).
So, in my view, DR could ONLY work if the values are increased over level (Plate, for example, could give a DR of "5 per tier"). But that is a stretch in most people's imagination ("Why is my leather armor getting better?"), one that I believe would be even worse than just using armor as AC.
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