Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 cranewings Mar 13, 2008 1:40:20	In this system, armor doesn't make the character any harder to hit. The only benefit of armor is the damage reduction it provides. Sense the character's AC isn't improved by his armor, it will be raised by his skill. As the character's BAB improves, so does his AC. It is possible to make an attack with a high enough degree of success that the armor provides no protection. The stat "defeat" is the number that an attack roll must succeed by to bypass the defender's DR. Armor as DR Light Armor DR Defeat Padded 1 3 Leather 2 4 Studded Leather 2 5 Chain Shirt 3 5 Medium Armor DR Defeat Hide 2 5 Scale mail 3 5 Chainmail 3 6 Breastplate 4 4 Heavy Armor DR Defeat Splint mail 5 6 Banded mail 5 7 Half-plate 6 8 Full plate 7 10 AC Bonus based on BAB BAB AC 1 0 2 1 3 2 4 3 5 3 6 4 7 5 8 6 9 6 10 7 11 8 12 9 13 9 14 10 15 11 16 12 17 12 18 13 19 14 20 15 Other Modifiers to AC All deflection, dexterity, and shield modifiers still benefit the character’s ac. Damage reduction is only obtained from body armor. Recording AC A character will have two AC numbers, recorded as X/Y. The first number is the character’s true AC. The second number is his AC plus the defeat number of the armor he is using. Successful attacks meeting X but falling short of Y deal damage minus the armor’s DR. Attacks meeting or exceeding Y deal full damage to their victim.
#2 cranewings Mar 13, 2008 1:42:14	I don't know HTML so I can't get it to format correctly, but it should be easy enough to decipher.
#3 killy Mar 13, 2008 12:13:14	Why don't you make the AC bonus equal to half the BAB (rounded down), just like it is in 4th Edition, it's easier to remember than "what would be my BAB if my actual BAB were my level". The defeat value sounds like a nice idea, but what happens to touch AC and flat-footed AC? what about stacking DR, does this armor DR stacks with other kind of DR or not? To format a table you don't have to know HTML, you just have to wrap what you want to format into [CODE] [/ CODE].
#4 cranewings Mar 13, 2008 12:54:03	I used a higher than 1/2 ratio because if the ratio is that low, then an average roll at level 10 against an equal will bypass chainmail, and I didn't like that fact. Flat footed AC would be 10. A character in chain would still get his dr if the attack was under 15. Touch AC would include the level bonus, because the level bonus has to do with skill. Touch AC is higher in this system, flat footed is lower. I don't see why it wouldn't stack. I'd have to have a specific example.
#5 cranewings Mar 13, 2008 13:34:25	Combat Maneuvers Variant Trip Rule Attempting to trip an enemy requires a contested attack roll. The tripper gets a -6 penalty. If the attacker wins, the defender must make a reflex save with a difficulty equal to 10+ the tripper's level. If the save is passed, the defender staggers back five feet, granting AoO to anyone in reach. In this instance, the defender is flatfooted. If the save fails, the defender falls prone. Variant Disarm Rule Disarming an opponent requires a contested strike roll with a -4 penalty. If the defender has gauntlets on, increase the penalty by 2. If the weapon is designed to protect the hands, subtract and additional 2. Finally, if the defender is using both hands to hold the weapon, increase the difficulty by 2 for a possible total of -10. If the attacker wins the contest, the defender makes a Reflex saving throw with a difficulty of 10+ the attacker’s level. If he makes the saving throw, the attacker gets to make a single attack of opportunity where the defender is considered unarmed (the weapon is knocked out of place). If the defender fails the saving throw, the weapon is thrown aside and the attacker gets an attack of opportunity.
#6 holy_beholder Mar 18, 2008 22:51:40	You might want to make some armor harder to defeat the DR for. Another possibility would be to have armor check penalty be based on the defeat for the DR. So plate might be DR 7, with an armor check penalty of -1 per 2 defeat levels. This also would allow full plate to cover breastplate. Hide and leather would be the same thing. DR 2, Defeat -1 per 3.5 defeat levels. This way you would only have to cover 4 armors-Mail, Scale, Plate, and Leather. Then the Defeat and ACP would be linked to allow for customization. Padded armor could just be less leather.
#7 Dog_O_War Mar 19, 2008 10:58:26	No matter what you do you will continually run into power attack as being worth twice its weight in gold. two-handing anything means 1.5 times your STR, and 2x PA bonus, which means that at the mere sacrifice of 7 points of BAB I hit the fullplate guy as often as I do using the standard "armour as AC", except I'm getting an extra 7 points of damage out of the deal. But now on top of this I can just roll above his AC as well and get my PA hit to have no DR applied against it. The DR system has always applied to much emphasis on strength-based characters. My suggestion is to have armour as AC, with DR as a minor feature (akin to adamantine) which applies against certain types of attacks. This was pioneered as AC bonus versus weapon type in 2nd Ed. An instance of this would be to have padded offer 1 point of DR against bludgeoning weapons, while a chainshirt offer 4 versus slashing and 2 versus piercing, while giving no protection against a bludgeoning weapon. This offers an element that makes previously unattractive armours - armours like hide, splintmail, halfplate, and chainmail.
#8 cranewings Mar 20, 2008 23:59:00	That's some good ideas I'll think about. We are starting to play with the Conan rules, which includes a death save at 25 damage. Two handed weapons deal two dice of damage. A strong man with a two handed sword and power attack, or a high level rogue can hit that pretty easy. The real killer is the mage. Fail a saving throw... make a death save. By the Conan rules, we had a 4th level rogue 1 hit a dragon for 25 damage and kill it. It was nice.
#9 asurya Mar 21, 2008 5:57:34	as the OP requested some format, here it comes (sblocked not to pollute the thread) Show Armor as DR
#10 cranewings Mar 21, 2008 8:10:58	My idea was that the ac bonus would improve with the bab bonus. Everyone with a +6 bab will have the same ac bonus, it just takes some classes longer to get there.
#11 asurya Mar 21, 2008 11:25:14	ok, my bad, I understand now. in this case, you can say: AC Bonus: you gain a bonus to your AC equal to three quarter (3/4) of your BAB, rounded down. oh, BTW, did my format suited you?
#12 cranewings Mar 21, 2008 18:22:38	Asurya, yeah, that formatting looks really good. I'm still iffy on this rules set. It is basically just an addaptation of the Conan rules without armor piercing rules. The game might be better off to just play conan and export dnd character classes and feats, than play dnd and import the conan combat system.
#13 michaelk Mar 28, 2008 12:23:52	Up until the day before yesterday I thought that armour should be DR instead of an AC bonus. Then I was watching a documentary (Conquest) and it had a demonstration of axes cutting through mail, maces breaking a block of wood under mail, spikes being shoved through plate mail, etc. All it really took was a good solid blow and the armour did little to protect the person inside. However it would make the person harder to attack since you'd have to be sure it was a solid blow. After seeing that I came to feel that armour as a bonus to AC had a bit more versimilitude to me.
#14 cranewings Mar 28, 2008 22:48:17	Makes sense.