|
5 years ago ::
Mar 08, 2008 - 1:28AM
#1
|
Date Joined:
Oct 15, 2006
|
There should be no armor class, just a reflex save and damage reduction. Armor would grant a damage reduction bonus while a shield would give you an evasion bonus to reflex, though maximum dexterity penalties would still apply to the highest bonus to your reflex save you can get from dexterity for wearing armor while shields could also be given a penalty. You would only have 3 saves and a damage reduction score but there would be no minimum damage, if you cannot beat a characters damage reduction then it is effectively a miss. Classes would still gain a bonus to saves with experience which would increase a characters ability to avoid damage which makes more sense and also explains real world reasons of adding and eventual toning down armor, and even enhancement bonuses to armor would add a bonus to damage reduction while enhancements to shields would go to reflex defeating the need for these too stack. Dnd has it wrong and this is a simpler more effective, efficient and realistic system. SW Saga edition tried to go in this direction but I believe they wanted to avoid too much change but it isn’t such a radical system that one couldn’t add it with ease I just wish WotC would recognize a superior system in the core rules, and kill the worst sacred cow of all AC. If you really wanted to get less simple you could also bring back 2nd edition ADND’s weapon vs. armor scores - where a mace would finally get to shine as its real world counterpart as one of the greatest weapons of the middle ages due to its devastating ability to ignore most damage reduction from plate armor – but that is better left as an optional rule for people who love complexity.
any thoughts or suggestions
|
|
|
|
5 years ago ::
Mar 08, 2008 - 1:32AM
#2
|
Date Joined:
Dec 11, 2007
|
Actually, no. Armor Class should definitely stay. In fact, I find it more than relevant.
The idea behind AC is that it represents the possibility of someone dodging (in light armor), the attack simply missing (in light armor), or the attack bouncing off (in heavy armor). You can actually extrapolate this for the real world, since medieval plate armor is known for being able to deflect small-calibur bullets. That's part of why any guns introduced into DnD shouldn't actually make that much of a difference against armor until you get into the more-refined powders (the early powders sucked).
Now, what does that have to do with swords? Metal armor was actually made with the idea of deflecting swords. That's part of why any armor with obvious breasts is incredibly stupid (it would direct the blade straight into a killing blow).
|
|
|
|
5 years ago ::
Mar 08, 2008 - 1:40AM
#3
|
|
|
Apparently armor as DR was something that was tried.
Some problem about HP, damage, hit/miss chance and adding in a fourth variable (the DR) that made the whole thing skew irratically.
Apparently there was a choice between armor being DR and HP being a constant number for all PC's or keeping armor as a miss chance.
|
|
|
|
5 years ago ::
Mar 08, 2008 - 3:48AM
#4
|
|
|
In my DND group we tried something similar to this once... admittedly I KNOW our calculations were off on how much DR each type of armor should give, but it basically boiled down to this:
Our fighter in Full plate: An ogre would hit him for 1-2dmg...
Our Rogue in Studded Leather: The same ogre would miss twice, but then hit him for 15+ damage...
I think the main problem with changing AC->Dr is that one of two things is likely to happen. either a)the monster does no damage 90% of the time, or b)the monster does a crap ton of damage all the time...
I mean, imagine if hit points stayed at about the same values, but AC changed to DR...
A level 3 fighter in Scale mail (lets just assume that AC=DR) gets hit by an orc. [Now he stacked con and str, so his dex is low and he's relatively easy to hit] The Orc does 1d12+4 dmg (average of 10dmg , min being 5, max [non crit] being 16). Now the fighter has damage reduction of 4 (assuming no shield), so the per round AVERAGE a level 1 orc is going to do is 6 damage to the fighter...Even if he rolled max hit points, and has a +4 con score, he only has 42 hit points, which gives him 6 rounds to kill (lets say) 4 orcs who could each hit him every round... And assuming the DM rolls slightly better than average, kill you in ONE round!
Switch to Full plate, and a heavy shield: DR=10... same fighter, same orcs... suddenly its an average of 0 damage per round, with a max of 6... Even if there's still 4 orcs, the MOST (non crit) that they could do to him is 24 damage per round... still a lot, but thats assuming all 4 of them roll max damage. All of a sudden you've gone from standard starting package death to extra armor not gonna die in easy combat.
And how well does it scale with later levels? That +5 full plate in 3.5 rules means they have to roll 13 higher than they normally would to be able to hit you... If it were DR, then sure you can take a 23 damage hit and only actually take 10 damage, but its gonna happen a lot more often. OR, you can keep it as AC, and reduce their overall chance to hit you by approximately 65% ...
I say keep AC as it is with maybe just a few minor tweaks and fixes, but don't change it to damage reduction. As damage reduction at early levels its going to be all or nothing early on, and you'd find much more characters dying easily than if it were simply AC, and at higher levels you'll find armor to be a lot less useful, as your main tactic of survival will be to kill them before they can hit you...
|
|
|
|
5 years ago ::
Mar 08, 2008 - 7:54AM
#5
|
Date Joined:
Oct 15, 2006
|
but your not taking into account that you would still have a version of armor class in your reflex save, therefore you would still have a miss chance so your dex, shield and class reflex bonus would would give you your "armor class"-just like now- and armor would give you DR 8 for full plate or DR 4 for chain shirt and this would also fix the idea that some one punching someone in full plate would actually hurt them unless it was some one really strong. Also the chance of the armor deflecting the blow is represented by the fact that if someone doesnt beat your DR they dont hurt you and even if they do its gonna hurt less than getting hit wearing your boxers. i dont know im gonna try to test it out for a session soon. but if you think about it, your gonna get hit by an ogier alot in full plate but it wont hurt as much some thief in leather isnt going to get hit as much but you can bet your ass he's gonna feel it, but the damage vs landed hits would probably equal out. course you could always test it out on Star wars saga edition as they went in that direction to some extent
|
|
|
|
5 years ago ::
Mar 08, 2008 - 9:23AM
#6
|
|
|
I used to be an advocate for this argument, but I've come around. Mearls had a good post on it somewhere (can't find now).
There are two reasons to keep AC in a fantasy setting:
* It does allow for differentiating getting out of the way (reflex) from deflecting or absorbing damage (AC)
* DR as armor can be made to work for certain scenarios, but doesn't balance well over the range of levels, abilities and damage that D&D should include to be a fun game.
Here is why (disregarding crits):
In the long term you can abstract damage as chance to hit times average damage on a hit. So at low level you may have one creature that hits 80% of the time for 1d4 (2.5) damage and another that hits 25% of the time for 2d6+1 (8) damage. Both of these creatures do an average of 2 points of damage per turn.
Now say we shift to armor as DR 3, so the first creature hits 95% of the time and the second hits 40% of the time. But the first only does 1 damage 25% of the time, so it's average is about 0.23 damage per round. The other creature still averages 2 damage per round.
What this means is that in order to make armor as DR work, you need to narrow the potential ranges of damage so that DR is only ever a fraction of the different. So, if plate armor got up to DR6 you'd want small creatures to do something like d4+4 damage and no less and large creatures to do d8+6 damage and no more. Suddenly the rogue with no DR is hurting. The alternative is just going back to the invulnerable character who can only be hit on a crit which just isn't fun, you want a 20-80% chance that someone gets hurt by an attack just to keep each round interesting.
I can report that I'm currently DMing a homebrew campaign with two characters who have DR (one is a template, and the other a pixie) and I've seen this in action. It is really hard to find encounters that are interesting because anything that can overcome the pixie's DR 10 and do any significant amount of damage could nearly insta-kill another character if it happens to crit them.
|
|
|
|
5 years ago ::
Mar 08, 2008 - 10:21AM
#7
|
|
|
Pet Peeves != Sacred cows.
Armor class works and does not remove from the fun. I think its good that it stays.
|
|
|
|
5 years ago ::
Mar 08, 2008 - 10:51AM
#8
|
|
|
I've always found it paradoxical that armour makes you harder to hit and increased skill (level that is) enables you to take more damage.
I realize that hit points are somewhat of an abstraction.
I wouldn't mind a complete overhaul of the armour class mechanic, as long as it imroved the game play at the same time.
|
|
|
|
5 years ago ::
Mar 08, 2008 - 4:52PM
#9
|
|
|
My group has been trying Iron Heroes ( a Monte Cook d20 variant) lately. My entire group took about 2 sessions to get the hang of the armor & defense differences but they now they work very well for us.
Armor is changed to DR but not a static one. Leather gives 1d3 DR, whereas full plate gives 1d8. Certain feats and class abilities give bonuses to these rolls.
In addition A new stat called defense which functions like AC but has nothing to do with armor is given to each character based on class & level with each class giving a base defense bonus modified by dex.
This sounded like an extra complication when I first read it. But in play we discovered it quickly became automatic and feels satisfying in how it works. You do get hit a bit more often but even light armored classes can soak up more damage over the course of a fight.
It also uses the concept of reserve points. Basically a number of phantom hit points equal to your hp total. These can be used to replace your hit points but only out of combat.
This isn't for everyone or every game. But it feels right for the setting & theme of Iron Heroes (Low Magic, High Action) and it plays smoothly & well for us & we've talked about house ruling this method into our normal d&d campaign albeit with more restriction on reserve points in a setting that has easy access to healing magic..
|
|
|
|
5 years ago ::
Mar 08, 2008 - 5:46PM
#10
|
Date Joined:
Oct 25, 2007
|
Armor class gets played with every couple of editions. Anyone remember the old AC 10 to AC -10?
|
|
|
