Armor as DR help [Archive] - Wizards Community

Armor as DR help [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Atreides77
06-21-05, 07:47 PM Hello Everyone

I'll be starting a brand new chronicle this Friday, and I intend to use a variety of rules from UA, as well as some rules of my own. The original armor table from the 3.0 and 3.5 PHB have always bothered me as a gamer (not from a historical perspective, great history design, but poor game design). I intend to use a modified Armor table, taking advantage of the Armor as Damage Reduction from UA.

Any ideas/comments/improvements on this talbe would be most helpful.

Thanks!

Atreides

Name AC DR Max Dex AC Penalty
Padded +1 - +8 0
Leather +1 1- +6 0
Std. Lth. +1 2- +5 -1
Chn. Srt. +2 2- +4 -2

Hide +3 1- +4 -3
Scale +3 2- +3 -4
Chainmail +4 3- +2 -5
Brst. Pt. +3 3- +3 -4

Splint +3 4- +2 -6
Banded +4 4- 0 -7
Hvy Plate +6 4- 0 -7
Full Plate +5 5- +1 -6
DrakaraGM
06-22-05, 08:03 PM May I ask what issues you have with the UA table as provided, that you need to tweak it? Just curious, not disagreeing with those tweaks really.

Note that DR definitely lengthens combats in the early game especially -- when a lot of monsters and PCs are not yet up to large damage dealing but do have some DR, although hits may happen a little more often they tend to do less damage each, which often results in lower damage per round and hence longer combats...

Another non-obvious impact is that combat favors larger damage weapons much more so than before. Weapons that do lower amounts of damage on a hit get hurt much worse by these DR rules, which really hurts small characters and characters who like using "finesse" type weapons. This also further encourages two-handed weapon use compared to use of a shield or two weapons.

For example, lets take a 16 STR character wielding a longsword and a shortsword vs that same character wielding a greatsword. Not even counting the fact that the latter is much better off when getting only one attack, or the fact that the former takes a to hit penalty, and ignoring criticals and so on, lets compare average damages...at low level, so just one base attack.

No DR -- with both weapons hitting once, the two-weapon fighter does d8+2 and d6+1 for a total of about 11 points of damage, while the greatsword wielder does 2d6+3 for 10 points of damage. The former has a penalty of -2 to hit, which sort of balances out the extra point of damage that the latter does. (And when they move and attack, the former only gets the longsword attack, so is definitely inferior.)

Now lets take a mere DR 2/-. The former does d8+2-2 and d6+1-2 for about 7 points of damage total, the latter does 2d6+3-2 for about 8 points of damage. So now, even if the two-weapon fighter gets two attacks, and even if he had no penalty to hit, the two-handed weapon user does more damage. And as DR rises, so does the advantage of "big and heavy" or "light and quick". You can easily get to a point where a light weapon user is effectively useless while a heavy weapon user is merely slowed down a little.

Now, if that is what you want, go for it. Just realize that unless a character using light or small weapons has some additional way of adding damage -- sneak attack, skirmish, dervish-dance, etc. -- there may be many situations where such a character is only going to damage targets when he criticals. And against some foes, that is not an option. So warrior types will rely even more on big heavy weapons than they did before (and it was already a stroing tendency anyway). Also, the power-attack feat becomes more relevant, and it too favors those big weapons. Armor trades AC for DR on a one for one basis, while power attack trades hit bonus for damage on a more advantageous basis for the big heavy weapons, while helping the light weapons not much at all...

Additionally, magic becomes more important. Not only for the fact that it can still dish out damage just as quickly as before, but also because adding to damage in some way -- flaming, enhancement bonuses, keen for more criticals, etc. -- becomes even more important. For instance, take that greatsword-wielding character. Against no DR, a +1 enhancement bonus changes damage from 10 to 11 on a hit -- a 10% increase in damage, not counting the extra hits gained from the +1 bonus to attack rolls. Against DR 2/-, that +1 increases damage from 8 to 9, a 12.5 % increase. Against DR 4/-, that +1 increases damage from 6 to 7, a 16.7% increase. Similarly the extra d6s from energy or other sources matters more when base damage is reduced by DR.

I have played in a couple of different games where armor absorbed damage -- one game, in fact, was based on armor subtracting from defense while adding to absorption of damage, rather than adding small amounts to both AC and DR. Battles did take longer, and characters without STR bonuses to damage really suffered a significant melee disadvantage -- it can be very frustrating to hit time after time and do no significant damage to the foe! A 'strong' fighter might end up doing ten times as much damage as a 'quick' fighter in some cases. So it really does cut down on the swashbuckling type of warrior's effectibveness compared to the tank.

Anyway, think about all the ramifications -- and if they don't bother you, or are even what you are looking for, then go for it, and have fun! But I would be wary of increasing DR too much -- the UA values may be good enough.
The Human Target
06-22-05, 08:56 PM Those look pretty good. But I'll say what I always do, and this is in no way me trolling. I don't think Armor as DR works very well at all in standard DnD. Damage eventually gets so high that its much more important to be missed by an attack than it is to be hit and shrug a bit of it off. It works better for games with low damage, like Conan that deals with mostly human opponenets.
Atreides77
06-23-05, 07:04 PM DrakaraGM,

Thank you for the insight you brought up some points I hadn't considered, as well as some that I had. I already knew that Power Attack would become a near essential feat for most melee fighter types, which I am ok with. I am considering increasing the AC value from shields by +1 AC to increase the value of the SnB fighter vs the 2hf. If the 2wf's have problems, I'll need to
consider something for them as well (see below for my other fighter changes)

The reason for the 'tweaking' of the Armor table is two fold - to increase a variegy of 'valuable' armors, from my experience you pretty much have Mithral Chain Shirt, and Mithril Plate Mail, all the others are just window dressing. I would like to change that, and hopefully see other armors selected. The second attempt is to increase the value of the Heavy Armors. Clerics will not have access to heavy armor (House Rule, everything else with them is unchanged), and I would like to see the heavy armor fighter be more viable as a concept. I am somewhat concerned that dr 5- may be too much, but currently I'm willing to take the chance and see how it plays out.

As for the flaming, icing etc. weapons - not something I had considered, but I think I'm cool with them so long as they don't stack (which I can HR). Holy/Unholy will certainly be more useful, but we'll see if my players catch on
to that.

Also, on the 2wf, most will probably take the feat that allows dual long sword, instead of long/short, so that should help at least on the off hand, I also allow full str on both attacks instead of str, 1/2 str.

My fighter is the other big change, it's decidedly different, 6 bonus feats, 6 weapon feats, and a few other goodies. The weapon feats are basically wf, gwf, ws, gws and weap. optimization which counts iterative attacks at +4 BAB instead of +5. The key component being I intend to allow wf and gwf to stack and ws and gws to stack. So the 2wf should be ok.

It's not really a UA issue, but I wouldn't mind seeing what you though of my Fighter, I could post it over in classes I suppose.

Human target - humanoids (Dark Elves, Orks, etc.) will make up most (but not all) of my bad guys - some undead and demons tosses in as well.....

Atreides
mahaxxx
07-14-05, 01:42 PM the only way DR works for armor is if you also alow for the "old" ac to count for bypassing the dr altogether. if your fast fighter is good anough he just hits between the cracks in the fullplate. still adding DR in just slows things down IMO. slap Full plate on a vampire troll and you have only one choice: raw spells, anything elce is just too weak. heck a dwarven barbar in ady breast plate at 10th is just about as bad except him you can crit and sneek (usually)
Pryrates
07-14-05, 05:28 PM DR is only good at mid levels when the damage is such that shrugging of a bit of it can be especially useful, yet when the damage comming from both the PC's and their opponents is high enough to keep what would have been otherwise a relatively short encounter from turning into one that drags on forever. Thus I'd say your plan all hinges on what level the PCs are going to be and what sort of foes they'll be facing.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Atreides77 06-21-05, 07:47 PM	Hello Everyone I'll be starting a brand new chronicle this Friday, and I intend to use a variety of rules from UA, as well as some rules of my own. The original armor table from the 3.0 and 3.5 PHB have always bothered me as a gamer (not from a historical perspective, great history design, but poor game design). I intend to use a modified Armor table, taking advantage of the Armor as Damage Reduction from UA. Any ideas/comments/improvements on this talbe would be most helpful. Thanks! Atreides Name AC DR Max Dex AC Penalty Padded +1 - +8 0 Leather +1 1- +6 0 Std. Lth. +1 2- +5 -1 Chn. Srt. +2 2- +4 -2 Hide +3 1- +4 -3 Scale +3 2- +3 -4 Chainmail +4 3- +2 -5 Brst. Pt. +3 3- +3 -4 Splint +3 4- +2 -6 Banded +4 4- 0 -7 Hvy Plate +6 4- 0 -7 Full Plate +5 5- +1 -6
DrakaraGM 06-22-05, 08:03 PM	May I ask what issues you have with the UA table as provided, that you need to tweak it? Just curious, not disagreeing with those tweaks really. Note that DR definitely lengthens combats in the early game especially -- when a lot of monsters and PCs are not yet up to large damage dealing but do have some DR, although hits may happen a little more often they tend to do less damage each, which often results in lower damage per round and hence longer combats... Another non-obvious impact is that combat favors larger damage weapons much more so than before. Weapons that do lower amounts of damage on a hit get hurt much worse by these DR rules, which really hurts small characters and characters who like using "finesse" type weapons. This also further encourages two-handed weapon use compared to use of a shield or two weapons. For example, lets take a 16 STR character wielding a longsword and a shortsword vs that same character wielding a greatsword. Not even counting the fact that the latter is much better off when getting only one attack, or the fact that the former takes a to hit penalty, and ignoring criticals and so on, lets compare average damages...at low level, so just one base attack. No DR -- with both weapons hitting once, the two-weapon fighter does d8+2 and d6+1 for a total of about 11 points of damage, while the greatsword wielder does 2d6+3 for 10 points of damage. The former has a penalty of -2 to hit, which sort of balances out the extra point of damage that the latter does. (And when they move and attack, the former only gets the longsword attack, so is definitely inferior.) Now lets take a mere DR 2/-. The former does d8+2-2 and d6+1-2 for about 7 points of damage total, the latter does 2d6+3-2 for about 8 points of damage. So now, even if the two-weapon fighter gets two attacks, and even if he had no penalty to hit, the two-handed weapon user does more damage. And as DR rises, so does the advantage of "big and heavy" or "light and quick". You can easily get to a point where a light weapon user is effectively useless while a heavy weapon user is merely slowed down a little. Now, if that is what you want, go for it. Just realize that unless a character using light or small weapons has some additional way of adding damage -- sneak attack, skirmish, dervish-dance, etc. -- there may be many situations where such a character is only going to damage targets when he criticals. And against some foes, that is not an option. So warrior types will rely even more on big heavy weapons than they did before (and it was already a stroing tendency anyway). Also, the power-attack feat becomes more relevant, and it too favors those big weapons. Armor trades AC for DR on a one for one basis, while power attack trades hit bonus for damage on a more advantageous basis for the big heavy weapons, while helping the light weapons not much at all... Additionally, magic becomes more important. Not only for the fact that it can still dish out damage just as quickly as before, but also because adding to damage in some way -- flaming, enhancement bonuses, keen for more criticals, etc. -- becomes even more important. For instance, take that greatsword-wielding character. Against no DR, a +1 enhancement bonus changes damage from 10 to 11 on a hit -- a 10% increase in damage, not counting the extra hits gained from the +1 bonus to attack rolls. Against DR 2/-, that +1 increases damage from 8 to 9, a 12.5 % increase. Against DR 4/-, that +1 increases damage from 6 to 7, a 16.7% increase. Similarly the extra d6s from energy or other sources matters more when base damage is reduced by DR. I have played in a couple of different games where armor absorbed damage -- one game, in fact, was based on armor subtracting from defense while adding to absorption of damage, rather than adding small amounts to both AC and DR. Battles did take longer, and characters without STR bonuses to damage really suffered a significant melee disadvantage -- it can be very frustrating to hit time after time and do no significant damage to the foe! A 'strong' fighter might end up doing ten times as much damage as a 'quick' fighter in some cases. So it really does cut down on the swashbuckling type of warrior's effectibveness compared to the tank. Anyway, think about all the ramifications -- and if they don't bother you, or are even what you are looking for, then go for it, and have fun! But I would be wary of increasing DR too much -- the UA values may be good enough.
The Human Target 06-22-05, 08:56 PM	Those look pretty good. But I'll say what I always do, and this is in no way me trolling. I don't think Armor as DR works very well at all in standard DnD. Damage eventually gets so high that its much more important to be missed by an attack than it is to be hit and shrug a bit of it off. It works better for games with low damage, like Conan that deals with mostly human opponenets.
Atreides77 06-23-05, 07:04 PM	DrakaraGM, Thank you for the insight you brought up some points I hadn't considered, as well as some that I had. I already knew that Power Attack would become a near essential feat for most melee fighter types, which I am ok with. I am considering increasing the AC value from shields by +1 AC to increase the value of the SnB fighter vs the 2hf. If the 2wf's have problems, I'll need to consider something for them as well (see below for my other fighter changes) The reason for the 'tweaking' of the Armor table is two fold - to increase a variegy of 'valuable' armors, from my experience you pretty much have Mithral Chain Shirt, and Mithril Plate Mail, all the others are just window dressing. I would like to change that, and hopefully see other armors selected. The second attempt is to increase the value of the Heavy Armors. Clerics will not have access to heavy armor (House Rule, everything else with them is unchanged), and I would like to see the heavy armor fighter be more viable as a concept. I am somewhat concerned that dr 5- may be too much, but currently I'm willing to take the chance and see how it plays out. As for the flaming, icing etc. weapons - not something I had considered, but I think I'm cool with them so long as they don't stack (which I can HR). Holy/Unholy will certainly be more useful, but we'll see if my players catch on to that. Also, on the 2wf, most will probably take the feat that allows dual long sword, instead of long/short, so that should help at least on the off hand, I also allow full str on both attacks instead of str, 1/2 str. My fighter is the other big change, it's decidedly different, 6 bonus feats, 6 weapon feats, and a few other goodies. The weapon feats are basically wf, gwf, ws, gws and weap. optimization which counts iterative attacks at +4 BAB instead of +5. The key component being I intend to allow wf and gwf to stack and ws and gws to stack. So the 2wf should be ok. It's not really a UA issue, but I wouldn't mind seeing what you though of my Fighter, I could post it over in classes I suppose. Human target - humanoids (Dark Elves, Orks, etc.) will make up most (but not all) of my bad guys - some undead and demons tosses in as well..... Atreides
mahaxxx 07-14-05, 01:42 PM	the only way DR works for armor is if you also alow for the "old" ac to count for bypassing the dr altogether. if your fast fighter is good anough he just hits between the cracks in the fullplate. still adding DR in just slows things down IMO. slap Full plate on a vampire troll and you have only one choice: raw spells, anything elce is just too weak. heck a dwarven barbar in ady breast plate at 10th is just about as bad except him you can crit and sneek (usually)
Pryrates 07-14-05, 05:28 PM	DR is only good at mid levels when the damage is such that shrugging of a bit of it can be especially useful, yet when the damage comming from both the PC's and their opponents is high enough to keep what would have been otherwise a relatively short encounter from turning into one that drags on forever. Thus I'd say your plan all hinges on what level the PCs are going to be and what sort of foes they'll be facing.