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LordErebus12
2014-08-01, 11:05 PM
Calculating Armor Class

Armor Class = Base + Deflection + Dodge + Insight + Miscellaneous

Base: Your base bonus represents your experience and skill in combat, which scales as your base attack bonus increases. It is equal to 10 + (1/2 base attack bonus, rounded down).

Deflection: Your deflection bonus is calculated from either spells that grant protection (such as the shield spell) or worn shields, whichever modifier is higher. Deflection bonuses are lost when targeted by a touch effect.

Dodge: Your Dodge bonus is calculated by adding your Dexterity Modifier to any additional dodge bonuses you have from other sources. Dodge bonuses are lost when caught flat-footed.

Insight: Your Insight bonus is calculated by adding your Wisdom Modifier to any additional Insight bonuses. Divination spells should grant them, as should individual abilities from other sources, such as a monk's unarmored ac bonus. These are lost if you are rendered helpless, unconscious or otherwise immobilized.

Miscellaneous: These could come from many sources that fall outside the aforementioned categories. Miscellaneous bonuses always stack.


Armor as Damage Reduction

Armor and Max Dexterity
Maximum Dexterity is no longer a part of armor. Anyone can wear armor if they are proficient with it. You no longer suffer from non-proficiency penalties for wearing armor untrained; you simply cannot use it correctly. You become fatigued if you perform any action more strenuous than a move action, such as a standard or full-round action, until you remove the armor and rest for 1 hour. For those who ignore this fatigue and continue wearing it, you become exhausted after 1 minute.

Natural Armor
Natural armor grants damage reduction, just like Manufactured armor does (see below). However, for each +1 bonus of natural armor a creature has, it instead gains an equal amount of damage reduction.

Manufactured Armor
Manufactured armor grants damage reduction, representing its ability to offer protection that makes the wearer harder to damage, as the armor soaks up most of the punishment and negates it before it can impact the wearer. Magical enhancement bonuses will also increase this damage reduction by an equal amount.

Shields, Cloaks and Kilts
Shields, Cloaks and Kilts add to the deflection bonus for the purposes of calculating Armor Class. Furthermore, these grant a chance of deflecting a spell targeting the wearer automatically, based on the percentage shown on the table. This does not affect Area of Effect spells, such as a fireball or lightning bolt. This deflection chance is only active while the wearer is aware of the caster and is not helpless, paralyzed or otherwise unable to act in their defense.


Table: Armor And Shields


Armor
Cost
Damage
Reduction
Deflect Spell
Chance
Armor Check
Penalty
Arcane Spell
Failure Chance
Speed
(30 Ft.)
Speed
(20 Ft.)
Weight1


Cloth Armor – Light


Padded
10 Gp
1
—
–1
15%
30 Ft.
20 Ft.
10 Lb.


Weaved
35 Gp
1
—
–0
10%
30 Ft.
20 Ft.
10 Lb.


Quilted
75 Gp
2
—
–1
5%
30 Ft.
20 Ft.
15 Lb.


Knotted
100 Gp
2
—
–0
0%
30 Ft.
20 Ft.
15 Lb.


Hide Armor – Light


Rough Hide
15 Gp
2
—
–2
30%
30 Ft.
20 Ft.
25 Lb.


Softened Hide
30 Gp
2
—
–2
25%
30 Ft.
20 Ft.
20 Lb.


Cured Leather
60 Gp
2
—
–2
20%
30 Ft.
20 Ft.
15 Lb.


Studded Leather
120 Gp
3
—
–3
15%
30 Ft.
20 Ft.
20 Lb.


Silk Armor – Light


Woven Silk
200 Gp
3
—
–2
10%
30 Ft.
20 Ft.
5 Lb.


Studded Silk
225 Gp
4
—
–3
10%
30 Ft.
20 Ft.
10 Lb.


Plated Silk
350 Gp
4
—
–4
10%
30 Ft.
20 Ft.
15 Lb.


Wooden Armor – Medium


Hardwood
50 Gp
3
—
–5
30%
20 Ft.
15 Ft.
30 Lb.


Darkwood
75 Gp
4
—
–4
25%
20 Ft.
15 Ft.
15 Lb.


Bronzewood
150 Gp
5
—
–5
30%
20 Ft.
15 Ft.
25 Lb.


Ironwood
300 Gp
6
—
–4
35%
20 Ft.
15 Ft.
35 Lb.


Mail Armor – Medium


Bonemail
100 Gp
5
—
–7
40%
20 Ft.
15 Ft.
45 Lb.


Stonemail
125 Gp
6
—
–6
45%
20 Ft.
15 Ft.
55 Lb.


Chainmail
150 Gp
7
—
–5
35%
20 Ft.
15 Ft.
50 Lb.


Lamellar Armor – Medium


Wooded Lamellar
120 Gp
7
—
–5
25%
20 Ft.
15 Ft.
35 Lb.


Stone Lamellar
160 Gp
8
—
–7
30%
20 Ft.
15 Ft.
45 Lb.


Steel Lamellar
200 Gp
9
—
–6
35%
20 Ft.
15 Ft.
40 Lb.


Plate Armor – Heavy


Wood Plate
750 Gp
8
—
–6
35%
20 Ft.2
15 Ft.2
45 Lb.


Bone Plate
1,000 Gp
9
—
–7
40%
20 Ft.2
15 Ft.2
50 Lb.


Stone Plate
1,250 Gp
10
—
–9
40%
20 Ft.2
15 Ft.2
60 Lb.


Steel Plate
1,500 Gp
10
—
–8
45%
20 Ft.2
15 Ft.2
55 Lb.


Battle Armor – Heavy


Crusader
2,000 Gp
11
—
–8
45%
20 Ft.2
15 Ft.2
90 Lb.


Warlord
2,750 Gp
12
—
–9
55%
20 Ft.2
15 Ft.2
115 Lb.


Emperor
3,500 Gp
13
—
–10
65%
20 Ft.2
15 Ft.2
140 Lb.


Mountain Armor – Heavy


Volcanic Glass
2,500 Gp
13
—
–10
75%
15 Ft.3
10 Ft.3
200 Lb.


Interlocking Stone
3,500 Gp
14
—
–11
80%
15 Ft.3
10 Ft.3
225 Lb.


Tempered Steel
4,500 Gp
15
—
–12
85%
15 Ft.3
10 Ft.3
250 Lb.


Shields
Cost
Deflection
Bonus
Deflect Spell
Chance
Armor Check
Penalty
Arcane Spell
Failure Chance
Speed
(20 Ft.)
Speed
(20 Ft.)
Weight


Bucklers, Cloaks and Kilts


Buckler
5 Gp
+1
5%
–0
5%
—
—
5 Lb.


Gauntlet Shield
10 Gp
+2
10%
–1
25%
—
—
20 Lb.


Rider’s Shield
20 Gp
+2
5%
–1
15%
—
—
15 Lb.


Armored Cloak
15 Gp
+1
+5%
–1
5%
—
—
10 Lb.


Armored Kilt
20 Gp
+1
+5%
–1
5%
—
—
5 Lb.


Light Shields


Wooden
3 Gp
+1
5%
–1
5%
—
—
5 Lb.


Bone
5 Gp
+1
10%
–2
10%
—
—
7 Lb.


Stone
7 Gp
+2
10%
–2
10%
—
—
7 Lb.


Steel
9 Gp
+2
15%
–1
5%
—
—
6 Lb.


Heavy Shields


Wooden
10 Gp
+2
20%
–2
15%
—
—
10 Lb.


Bone
15 Gp
+2
25%
–3
20%
—
—
20 Lb.


Stone
20 Gp
+3
25%
–3
20%
—
—
20 Lb.


Steel
25 Gp
+3
30%
–2
15%
—
—
15 Lb.


Tower Shields


Wooden
30 Gp
+34
35%
–8
45%
—
—
40 Lb.


Bone
45 Gp
+34
40%
–8
50%
—
—
60 Lb.


Stone
60 Gp
+44
45%
–10
55%
—
—
80 Lb.


Steel
75 Gp
+44
50%
–10
60%
—
—
100 Lb.


1. Weight figures are for armor sized to fit Medium characters. Armor fitted for Small characters weighs half as much, and armor fitted for Large characters weighs twice as much.
2. When running in heavy armor, you move only triple your speed, not quadruple.
3. You cannot run while wearing Mountain Armor.
4. A tower shield can instead grant you cover.




Armor Extras

Armored Coat:
Any suit of Light or Medium armor can be made as a coat instead. Doing so reduces the damage reduction provided by 2 (minimum 0) and lessens the armor check penalty by 1.
Furthermore, the Coat can be donned or removed as a standard action if light armor or as a full-round action if medium armor; far faster than normal armor of its variety.

Special Materials:

Starmetal
Mithral
Adamantine
Radioactive Rock
Living Crystal


Padded
Weaved
Quilted
Knotted

Coidzor
2014-08-02, 12:09 AM
So does that mean that a Level 1 Dex 8 cleric or paladin with a heavy shield has 5 base AC - 2 Dodge (-1 Dex*2) + 2 Deflection(Heavy Shield) = AC 5?

And the max AC of a starting character is going to be a Dex 20 Halfling with a heavy shield(or tower shield, I suppose) at 5 + 10(+5 Dex *2) + 2(Heavy Shield or +4 Tower Shield) + 1 Size for 15+2+1= AC 18. Or AC 20 with the Tower Shield.

Versus the default of BAB+Str or Dex to hit? It seems like low level characters are going to be too easy to hit(High Str+BAB1 means that the base AC of 5 is auto-hit save for nat 1s), even by other low level characters. Hmm. I think low-level characters are probably going to use Tower Shields if possible since the penalty to hit is outweighed by the boost to their low ACs and the lowered ACs of their opponents.

Admittedly, DR6+ would be appreciated by many medium armor-users at low levels, and aside from a good crit, it would probably at least mean that characters got dropped in 2, maybe even 3 hits instead of one.

Still, I think this may mean that pumping up dexterity is now obligatory for basically all characters.

LordErebus12
2014-08-02, 12:30 AM
So does that mean that a Level 1 Dex 8 cleric or paladin with a heavy shield has 5 base AC - 2 Dodge (-1 Dex*2) + 2 Deflection(Heavy Shield) = AC 5?

yup, you better have a good set of armor to reduce damage, because you are quite slow. Your shield does help to defend yourself, but when you are slower than the average human, you are gonna get hit easily.


And the max AC of a starting character is going to be a Dex 20 Halfling with a heavy shield(or tower shield, I suppose) at 5 + 10(+5 Dex *2) + 2(Heavy Shield or +4 Tower Shield) + 1 Size for 15+2+1= AC 18. Or AC 20 with the Tower Shield.

Indeed. You've built yourself to be difficult to hit. A fast and small body, with a shield to deflect hits.


Versus the default of BAB+Str or Dex to hit? It seems like low level characters are going to be too easy to hit(High Str+BAB1 means that the base AC of 5 is auto-hit save for nat 1s), even by other low level characters. Hmm. I think low-level characters are probably going to use Tower Shields if possible since the penalty to hit is outweighed by the boost to their low ACs and the lowered ACs of their opponents.

Sounds like many phalanx soldiers in armies, which rely on big shields to stop attacks from meeting their targets. Naturally this does change the name of the game. Let me think on this all for a few minutes. It needs to be tweaked in one way or another im sure.


Admittedly, DR6+ would be appreciated by many medium armor-users at low levels, and aside from a good crit, it would probably at least mean that characters got dropped in 2, maybe even 3 hits instead of one.

This sounds more realistic to me.


Still, I think this may mean that pumping up dexterity is now obligatory for basically all characters.

I dont have a problem with this.

Coidzor
2014-08-02, 12:59 AM
yup, you better have a good set of armor to reduce damage, because you are quite slow. Your shield does help to defend yourself, but when you are slower than the average human, you are gonna get hit easily.

That's not really what Dexterity measures. It's not Speed, as there's already another stat covering speed, per se. And this is being hit easily in comparison with the default, as you've indicated no intention of also rejiggering how to-hit bonuses are calculated, so you're greatly weighting things towards people hitting one another in combat.


Indeed. You've built yourself to be difficult to hit. A fast and small body, with a shield to deflect hits.

Compare to before where a character would go for a Chain Shirt Dex 18 or Studded Leather and Dex 20 for that same 18 AC before bringing shields or size into the mix.


Sounds like many phalanx soldiers in armies, which rely on big shields to stop attacks from meeting their targets. Naturally this does change the name of the game. Let me think on this all for a few minutes. It needs to be tweaked in one way or another im sure.

Unless you like having creatures being very, very easy to hit to the point where they're obliged to haul around tower shields to try to mitigate it to some extent, probably, yeah.


This sounds more realistic to me.

The big test is the Orc Warrior 1 wielding a Falchion at level 1. Especially if it has Power Attack instead of Alertness. 2d4+4 is average 9 damage, or enough to drop many characters. With the change to AC, a critical threat is almost assuredly going to be confirmed, which skews the likelihood that the damage will bump up to 4d4+8 or average 18 damage, which even with DR 5 will kill most lightly armored characters in one go.

I'm a bit rusty with DPR calculations, though.

A Barbarian in scale mail would have DR 7 if I followed your line of thinking correctly, and with a Constitution of 16, they'd have 15 HP. So the Barbarian will survive the average crit from an Orc Warrior with 4 HP left, and if the Orc has Power Attack instead of Alertness, the Barbarian is getting to 0 HP on the average crit and even without PA, a good hit still leaves the Barb with a fair chance of dropping from the blow.

A Fighter/Pally in Scale would have 13 HP with that same set up. So with Power Attack in the mix, they're getting dropped into negatives rather than getting put at 0 HP on the average crit.

When in comparison the average hit from the Orc is scratching off 2 HP, 4 HP with PA, and both Barbs, Pallys, and Fighters are doing, generally speaking, either 4.5+3 or 4(1d8 one-hander, 16 or 18 strength) OR 5-6(2d4 to 2d6 two-handed )+4 or 6(16 or 18 strength) so 7.5-8.5 OR 9-12 average damage versus the Orc's (on average) 5 HP and DR 3.

The choice between sword-and-board vs. two-hander seems to be if the extra AC to try to limit power attack is worth the lower damage to try to drop foes through their DR faster, or a strong chance of dropping such orcs into negatives in one hit versus a fair chance of needing two hits to do so.

Probably depends upon how much of a dexterity they can afford initially, since if they're already low dexterity, they'll probably say screw it to AC and try to make sure they're OHKOing, but if they have a moderate to high Dex, then they can afford to deal a bit less damage and instead be hit less and have their DR take the edge off most non-crits when they are hit as well as better be able to resist being critted.

Oh, actually, that reminds me. What are you doing with Max Dex bonus? Are you multiplying it by 2 and having the max Dodge Bonus from Dexterity?

And with getting hit so easily, the attrition factor is going to go up, leading to increased need for healing, it would seem.


I dont have a problem with this.

It means you'll have to do something to reduce MAD or make it easier to raise multiple ability scores since you've added at least a tertiary ability score to basically every class in the game that didn't already have Dex as a primary, secondary, or tertiary.

LordErebus12
2014-08-02, 01:30 AM
Oh, actually, that reminds me. What are you doing with Max Dex bonus? Are you multiplying it by 2 and having the max Dodge Bonus from Dexterity?

And with getting hit so easily, the attrition factor is going to go up, leading to increased need for healing, it would seem.

perhaps, instead of a maximum dexterity modifier, you have a penalty to their dex modifier?

ngilop
2014-08-02, 02:01 AM
perhaps, instead of a maximum dexterity modifier, you have a penalty to their dex modifier?

while I have to commend you on attempting to use a scaling AC bonus, you are basciall screwing over guys in heavy armor ( even more so that standard D&D 3rd ed) and letting the guys who pump dex as opposed to say Con to have literall unhittable cpt for cit AC while the other are hit on naything that is a 2 or higher.


that's a bit wrong, very wrong.

better armor should protect you better, not make you WORSE as being protected.

LordErebus12
2014-08-02, 04:16 AM
while I have to commend you on attempting to use a scaling AC bonus, you are basciall screwing over guys in heavy armor ( even more so that standard D&D 3rd ed) and letting the guys who pump dex as opposed to say Con to have literall unhittable cpt for cit AC while the other are hit on naything that is a 2 or higher.


that's a bit wrong, very wrong.

better armor should protect you better, not make you WORSE as being protected.

you are right. Max Dex as it is.

Shields now reflect a portion of spell damage, as long as you are not flat-footed. a big complaint about magic in dnd is the damage is so high. if a portion of it is deflected, then the shield-bearer has a better chance to survive a spell.

Carl
2014-08-02, 04:24 AM
The issue here is that whilst there's a range of Dex scores over which this works, there's a lot it doesn't. Even mountain plate is still going to result in high CR creatures dealing huge amounts of damage to you, and many extreme natural armor creatures allready have good DR, increase that by much and only uberchargers and mages will get through. Simply switching armor to DR doesn't work, it really is that simple. You've got to totally overhaul the system in terms of damage scaling for classes and monsters and in terms of to hit rolls. I'd also point out that heavy armor if properly made doesn't restrict movement even as much as the base 3.5's dex penalty implies. There was actually a video posted in the historical thread this forum has of someone in full plate drop kicking someone for example. So just because your wearing lots of armor doesn't mean you can't avoid blows really well if you have the freedom to move. In fact you'll only be slightly worse at it than someone in padded armor.

LordErebus12
2014-08-02, 05:00 AM
The issue here is that whilst there's a range of Dex scores over which this works, there's a lot it doesn't. Even mountain plate is still going to result in high CR creatures dealing huge amounts of damage to you, and many extreme natural armor creatures allready have good DR, increase that by much and only uberchargers and mages will get through. Simply switching armor to DR doesn't work, it really is that simple. You've got to totally overhaul the system in terms of damage scaling for classes and monsters and in terms of to hit rolls. I'd also point out that heavy armor if properly made doesn't restrict movement even as much as the base 3.5's dex penalty implies. There was actually a video posted in the historical thread this forum has of someone in full plate drop kicking someone for example. So just because your wearing lots of armor doesn't mean you can't avoid blows really well if you have the freedom to move. In fact you'll only be slightly worse at it than someone in padded armor.

The problem is that armor is not something that makes a character hard to hit. Its protection that makes him harder to damage, as the armor soaks up most of the punishment and negates it before it can impact the wearer. To include it the AC of the character/monster seems somewhat off.

ace rooster
2014-08-02, 07:34 AM
Firstly, Straight converting armour to simple DR has issues, particularly when fighting mooks. With the values you use even cheapish medium armour will make you all but invulnerable to standard low damage targets. This would be fine if the armour in question covered every part of you, but in most cases it doesn't. When you compare a chain shirt to chainmail, both offer the same level of protection against a dagger. On the other hand full covering leather armour offers very little protection, when against a knife you would be much better off with the leather than the more concentrated protection the chain shirt offers.

One thing that I feel every armour fix should try to do is remove the linearity from the armour types. As is, (even in your system) we can compare any two armours and say which is better. There is no decision in which armour type you go with once you have decided between heavy and light, as full plate and chain shirts are just better in every situation. I would like to see some variety.

Also, have you realised how obscene your DR is? The damage values that are often talked about here (and casters throw around) are not a reference to be used when building a system that has to work at level 4. Your mountain plate will shrug off ballistae, and about 50% of the time heavy catapault stones will bounce off. These are designed to attack buildings.

I am all in favor of a scaling dodge bonus, but I really don't see why you are reducing AC. By level 10 (when characters catch up) mundane combat is ineffective (without powergaming) as monsters will just be plain better at it than you. Below level 10 it is a straight up nerf that makes combat more lethal. Coupled with the DR which forces characters to be more damage focused, combat becomes more offence based (and it wasn't like defense was a good stratagy to start in the system).

The golden rule of AC is that the more you have, the better it gets. A +1 to AC that turns an attack from a 17 to hit to an 18 to hit will make you take 25% less damage. A +1 that turns an attack from 1 11 to hit to a 12 only reduces damage by 10%. By reducing the base you reduce the effectiveness of all methods of getting AC.

The other change I would make is having the dodge bonus based of BAB rather than level. It irks me that a mage that has never left his tower would have the same competence at avoiding blows as a battle hardened soldier of the same level. In my mind BAB should be general competence at combat, which should include your ability to dodge.

I'm still undecided on the partial deflection thing, but it looks hard to work with. Can you work out 35% of 29 quickly? It also suffers from the problem that the mage can just blast more, so the shield provides no protection to low level characters that would get killed twice over. That might make sense for a fireball, but not an orb say. Also, how does it work against status effect rays? A simple concealment type effect could work, but would mean that no matter how good the caster was at aiming, he would still get a flat miss chance. It needs some clarification.

Personally I would be in favor of making armour have no Dex limit at all, just contribute toward encumberance. If you lower the weight limit for medium and heavy load, and put in another max load catagory then being able to use heavy armour becomes about having the strength for it. Maybe have an armour check peralty as well, but have it related to the quality of the armour, rather than the weight. Not related to your stuff, but thought I would bring it up.

LordErebus12
2014-08-02, 12:30 PM
good points. I've decided to scrap the old list and do some slight tweaking.

Kasbark
2014-08-02, 01:43 PM
I like the idea you have here, and it's certainly better than similar rules from Unearthed Arcana. I do however think you've made some slight mistakes.

Firstly, you have way too many armors, which means many of them are completely redundant. (why would you ever pick a studded leather over woven silk? it's worse AND more expensive!) You could easily remove 1/3rd of them.
I also think the DR is too high on some of the heavy armors. You could get a Volcanic Glass armor at level 3, level 4 at the latest, giving you 13 DR which would make you immune to most non-crits at that level, or at least make it so you'd at worst suffer 2-3 points of damage per hit from 90% of the enemies you'll face.
Lastly, i can see why adding wisdom modifier to AC makes sense, but i think this makes wisdom too good - i would make it charisma bonus instead (or change will-save to get charisma bonus instead of wisdom, either thing works)

LordErebus12
2014-08-02, 02:18 PM
I like the idea you have here, and it's certainly better than similar rules from Unearthed Arcana. I do however think you've made some slight mistakes.

Firstly, you have way too many armors, which means many of them are completely redundant. (why would you ever pick a studded leather over woven silk? it's worse AND more expensive!) You could easily remove 1/3rd of them.
I also think the DR is too high on some of the heavy armors. You could get a Volcanic Glass armor at level 3, level 4 at the latest, giving you 13 DR which would make you immune to most non-crits at that level, or at least make it so you'd at worst suffer 2-3 points of damage per hit from 90% of the enemies you'll face.
Lastly, i can see why adding wisdom modifier to AC makes sense, but i think this makes wisdom too good - i would make it charisma bonus instead (or change will-save to get charisma bonus instead of wisdom, either thing works)

I agree with changing will saves to use charisma bonus, instead of using the wisdom bonus.

I upped the cost of woven silk by 100 gp (200 total). Their supposed to be quite expensive and rare, since solely the dark elves produce silk armors in my campaign setting.

Carl
2014-08-02, 09:28 PM
Okay i know you've done a big update while i've been typing most of this below, but i'm gonna drop it in anyway because i think it's still useful to throw at you.

1. You completely missed what i was trying to say. Weather your wearing full plate or padded armor you can still dodge to a fair degree, it may be easier in padded, but only by so much. However under your system the strongest heavy armor doesn't allow a dex modifier meaning by default your as easy or easier to hit than a completely immobile object. Go to a negative Dex modifier and you actually become easier to hit than a stationary object. This is why base AC is 10 + Dex, not Dex * 2. It ensure's no mater how bad your Dex score your always harder to hit than a completely non-evading object.

2. Your variance is far too large.

In Core 3.5 as it is now:

Assuming just Armour + Dex +base AC the minimum AC once you can afford full plate is 10 + -5 +8 = 13 AC. Whilst the maximum AC (Halfling with 18pt base Dex tome, Dex item, and 5 level points), is 10 + 13 + 1 = 27. The maximum is 27 and outside of such a really extreme situation is usually much less. As a rsult the variance is as low as 14 points, and usually no more than 10, (especially if we assume that -5 Dex gets an item and stat tome thrown on to get it to a +0 modifier). Which given a 1D20 can produce a variance of +/-10 around a meridian point is a really ideal number to aim for.

Yours:

Minimum is -5*2 = -10, maximum is (13*2)+1=27. You end up in the same place for top end AC, but your minimum is vastly lower resulting in a variance of 37, even at +0Dex you have a 26 point variance.

A large variance also has issue because of how it interacts with power attack. To deal with that you need 2 points of DR for every point of AC lost, but that's far higher than is sane or balanced for anything else, (see point 4).

3. Whilst i wasn't attempting to address this before i would like to point out that weather armor stops you being hit depends entirely on what you define as a hit. If you define it "as a blow that hit's hard enough to hurt me", then yes armor absolutely does stop you getting hit. Indeed in many ways the current system is the more realistic. Any blow that got through armor well enough to cause injury beyond flesh wound territory was a kill shot IRL. So realistically either the armor held or you died.

Thats not to say armor as DR isn't a valid representation, just that both make sense, they just use different definitions of "hit".

4. Which brings me round to the finial point. Damage varies wildly by level and opponent and optimization. Unless your willing to overhaul every spell, feat, class ability, e.t.c. dealing with mundane damage and every monster entry you'll never make it balanced because damage output varies from build to build, and monster to monster at any given CR too much, not to mention the scalar curves.


Ok had a chance to review. Going back to a a base value + Dex is much better, and i can't help but agree with dropping the dex cap. Also making wisdom a part of things has an interesting effect on things since it makes 2 of the 3 save stats boost mundane defense as well as magical. It also means the average AC shouldn;t have changed much for PC.

Monsters are a whole other story. First they tend to have really variable stats and BAB values, this means some will remain about the same, some will get much worse, and some will get much better. The bigger issue is your conversion factor for DR and your DR for armor. By your conversion a CR 20 black dragon would have a cumulative DR of 53, non-charger builds wouldn't be able to hurt it. Conversely monster damage really varies. a Balor can't hurt you without a crit if your wearing top end Mountain Plate with max Enhancement, (never mind Admantium), whilst a Tarrasque at the other end can hit 60+ damage a bite trivially.

silphael
2014-08-03, 09:10 AM
"The issue with magic is that the damage is so big"? Err Are we playing the same game?

The issue with magic is that it's usually targetting either touch AC (which could be tweaked by your system) or a save, on which AC has absolutely no impact.

Why not keeping the base of 10? Retaking your examples it makes a 15 for our level 8 pally, and around 28-30 for our tanky halfling, while monsters hit around +13-+18.

Have you ever seen any fight and any people moving in armor? The usual "if you fall you don't rise again" and "you're just counting on your armor to soak damage" is usually considered wrong, real armor are made to be as resilient than more primitive armor (like using raw metal plates) while far more flexible. Then more advanced armor are even more resilient while FAR lighter and FAR less costly to create. Armors haven't been abandonned because they couldn't stop mousket... but because they were too pricy to equip to whole armies, with relative easiness of use.

LordErebus12
2014-08-05, 01:42 AM
What if its raised to 10 + 1/2 bab + deflection + dodge + insight + miscellanious? Still too low?

Guard
2014-08-05, 02:22 PM
Personally, I find it very wierd that you have a significant fractionof thee armors be made of wood and stone. Stone in particular is far too brittle and dense to make for proper armour, at least while keeping it thin enough that the comments about not getting up if you fall over will not become true.

Normally, I'd let that be ascribed to "it's an RPG", but since you implemented these changes because of realism in combat, I think it's important that you don't introduce something even less realistic to fix it.

Stone and wood armour is pants on head. It's significantly more grating than armour making attacks miss.