Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Dartak 04-11-05, 09:43 PM	Im trying to find a way that replaces armors bonus to AC. what im thinking now is that im going to give each weapon a additional quality. penetration. armor will have its ac bonus replaced with Penetration resistance. for example, full plate may have a 8 PR. a long sword has a P of 4. for each point the PR is above the P, it will count as DR 1/-. so if a long sword was used to strike someone with full plate, and gets a 6 on the dice, they will only take 2 damage. also, i may give missile weapons a separate type of P, and armor a special type of PR against them. please give me your thoughts on this.
Dartak 04-18-05, 10:08 PM	So how does this sound? good idea? worst idea you have ever heard?
Sonn Athion 04-19-05, 11:43 AM	I'm working on a new armor system as well for my players.. So would each type of armor have its own Piercing resistance, Bludgeoning Resistance and Slashing Resistance? (The current armor varient I'm working on is using armor as DR with Class defense bonuses)
sherretz 04-19-05, 01:25 PM	I'm curious why you guys are doing this. It's making a lot of extra work and bookeeping for both you and your players. The whole reason they decided to use AC in the first place was to streamline things. I'm just curious about your motivation is all.
Sonn Athion 04-19-05, 06:17 PM	I'm curious why you guys are doing this. It's making a lot of extra work and bookeeping for both you and your players. The whole reason they decided to use AC in the first place was to streamline things. I'm just curious about your motivation is all. Actually I'm glad you asked :) Well, D&D Compared to other RPGs is fairly basic.. but its a first love for myself and my players. We're looking to great a grittier, more realistic game. Armor and defense varients take into account natural skill of the characters as well as armor's ability to absorb damage. I know it's more work.. but for players that have the PHB memorized its not exactly a hard task.
Sonn Athion 04-19-05, 06:26 PM	I'm curious why you guys are doing this. It's making a lot of extra work and bookeeping for both you and your players. The whole reason they decided to use AC in the first place was to streamline things. I'm just curious about your motivation is all. Actually I'm glad you asked :) Well, D&D Compared to other RPGs is fairly basic.. but its a first love for myself and my players. We're looking to great a grittier, more realistic game. Armor and defense varients take into account natural skill of the characters as well as armor's ability to absorb damage. I know it's more work.. but for players that have the PHB memorized its not exactly a hard task.
Dartak 04-21-05, 09:36 PM	I just had it planed to have missile resistance, and melee resistance, but i could eventually decide to have each type. my motivation for this is because i don't think armor should make you harder to hit. im trying to make a precise way of measuring how effective a weapon is, and in the long run, I don't think it will slow down things all that much. all it is, is adding 3 new boxes to the char sheet. by the way Sonn Athion, could you maybe post your Armor system please?
Sonn Athion 04-25-05, 12:43 AM	Dartak, I haven't created a system as in depth as you're looking at.. (my variant is using armor as DR with class defence bonuses) The main point of armor is to absorb blows (DR) but it also has the added benefit of deflecting some (AC) take for instance the angle of armor plates; they're slanted so that the force of a blow will be pushed away from the body. Alright, so I love the idea of DR specific to damage types (thats a throw back to AD&D so I'll use AD&D to help create the different armor types. Table 52 "Weapon Type vs. Armor Modifiers" page 121 of the AD&D Handbook) So each type of armor will have 3 types of DR 1. /slashing 2. /piercing 3. /bludgeoning Leather armor for instance might have 1/Slashing 0/piercing 1/Bludgeoning Plate Mail 7/Slashing 5/piercing 5/bludgeoning Chainmail 3/Slashing 2/piercing 1/bludgeoning *these are numbers I plucked out of the air using a percentage of the modifiers from the AD&D book and the current DR varient from UE. Realistically I would balance the the DR so that you're not making any armor more powerful than another. For instance in UE platemail has DR 5 so the 3 different types of DR combined should never be greater than 15 If you want to increase the Slashing DR you would either have to reduce piercing or bludgeoning by an equal amount Ie; Platemail 7/Slashing 4/Piercing 4/Bludgeoning So its equal in overall DR to platemail with DR 5/- but more detailed so that its better against slashing but worse against the other two... I hope that was clear enough for you guys!!
Robbo 05-02-05, 07:26 AM	in principle I completely agree with this approach, but isn't there another aspect to take into account as well? The DR is fine when you hit the armour, but most varieties of armour do not provide 100% coverage. Even plate armour has weaker points where chain and padding are all that protects the underarm area for example, and the most extreme example might be the breastplate - fantastic protection against a chest hit, not much good if you are pierced by a spear in the thigh! My feeling (not worked it out in detail) is that the easiest way to account for hit location would be to re-define the critical hit. I also use the VP/WP variant so please bear that in mind in these examples: roll to hit die and apply adjustments: [case a] adjusted result < touch AC a poor attack that misses or is telegraphed so that it can be easily avoided. No damage taken. [case b] touch AC <= adjusted result < fully adjusted AC a better attack that was on-target, and would have hit a less dextrous person, but the defender manages to side-step, etc, without too much effort. No damage taken. [case c] fully adjusted AC <= adjusted result < critical AC (?) an on target strike, against a non-trained combatant, who does not have enough skill to avoid the blow. It hits, and deals WP damage. If the defender is wearing armour, then determine (somehow*) how much, if any, DR will apply. i.e. was he hit on the armour protected parts of his body, or a less well protected part? [case d] fully adjusted AC <= adjusted result < critical AC (?) an on target strike, that would hit a non-trained combatant, but in the case of a fighter with VP he is able to utilise his instincts and skills to parry/roll with/avoid the blow. Doing so is more diffficult than in cases [a] or [b], and the defender has had to expend significant effort, hence he looses VP according to the damage rolled*. Armour DR doesn't even come into it so long as the defender still has VP. [case e] adjusted result >= confirmed critical an on target strike, but in the various cases considered there are different degrees of defensive skill and armour protection, so rather than have a critical do an absolute effect, make it a relative one. In other words, a critical will effectively ignore one "layer" of protection: what would be a loss of VP becomes a hit, (that may cause WP loss and or be absorbed by armour DR) what would have been a hit against armour becomes a hit against the less protected areas, (reduced or no DR) what would have been a hit against skin deals increased WP damage. * Some extra questions for pondering: how to determine hit location and/or a simple % coverage of the varieties of armour? Could allow for a "called hit" against such weaker areas, at a cost of a reduced chance to hit at all. Base the to hit reduction on the difficulty involved - i.e. hitting a man's leg with a spear would be easier than his open visor... should a weapon dealing VP damage cause as much point loss as when it hits? i.e. is there really a direct correlation between how much damage is done by a hit and the difficulty in avoiding that hit? Thats a lot of stuff, and too complicated unless like my group you are striving for a more realistic mechanism (and no doubt more nerdy than average!), but what do you all think?
Arnkel 05-09-05, 01:52 PM	while were talking about damage resistence to different physical blows, it might also be appropriate to factor in the DR for energy damage as well. perhaps a negative DR against Electricity for some metal armors which would really begin to bring armor material into play. just a thought :)
Venom of the Yuan Ti 05-09-05, 02:24 PM	Bear in mind that this, done properly, will REALY mess up the armour system. Why? Because some armours (eg full plate) will plumet in efectivness. During battles between frech knights and welsh longbowmen (I forget the exact war... there were so many) the french found themselves pinned to their hourses by the arrows. Also shields should have very high values against ranged. Why? An arrow has to go ALL THE WAY THROUGH a shield, many will get stuck part of the way through.
Robbo 05-09-05, 08:47 PM	Longbows were very effective against armour up to the quality of plate, but there are then examples where, for example, the bowmen had to be re-positioned on the battlefield so that they could fire into the flanks of horses, rather than direct on to the cavalry's armour, which the arrows were just bouncing off. Modern re-creations seem to prove that longbow arrows would only penetrate plate armour when impacting perpendicular to the surface of the armour, and then at short range. In reality, the bowmen would normally be firing at an angle to achieve distance, the arrows thus fall at an angle, and are then deflected by the curved surfaces of the plate armour. However I think that the armour protecting arms and legs may not have been of the same strength, and there was also the possibility of arrows penetrating joints and other weak points of armour. Also, full plate was so hot that many knights fought without their visors down, to avoid heat exhaustion...and not all men at arms could afford "modern" full plate, making do with older armour that was less effective.
Robbo 05-09-05, 08:55 PM	Agree that armour should provide some protection to energy damage, which incidentally I have directly affecting WP in my campaign, as VP only represent combat ability, not some form of supernatural ability to absorb enough heat energy to melt some metals. However the damage done has to be scaled down - I roll damage as normal then divide by 3.5 (basically 1VP per d6 on average, but with some random variation, and it also differentiates between the different dice of damage some spells do.)