Making dex important but keeping AC=Armor Type

[Zulgyan]

How would you make dexterity more influencial in melee but still keep AC as Armor Type?

I think that AC as Armor Type is one of the reasons OD&D works so smoothly. AC is a fixed valued determined only by armor worn. I think I works very well and simplifies things and makes the combat tables work well. This means of course that DEX affects zero to AC.

Now..

How would you make it influential?

I have tried a penalty to the opponents attack roll. It's nice symbolically, but has proved a little cumbersome in actual play.

How would you do it?

I was thinking in something like having the enemy re-roll an otherwise hitting roll. I dunno, just a wild idea. Some more have popped into my mind.

Ok, any ideas on this??

[busman]

Why fight the dex affecting AC? What is it that you are trying to preserve? A sense of realism for the AC? It seems perfectly legit to me that avoiding blows would affect how easily you got hit, which is what AC really represents, no?

There don't seem like a lot of ways to get the same effect. As you mentioned, affecting the attack rolls is a bit cumbersome (because you haven't distilled the effects of the DEX bonus into a single easily referenced number like incorporating it into the AC).

You could go the other way and only have it aid in offense, adding some chance to hit. This would allow you to create a type of character/class that took enemies down more easily than a fighting man, but might still have a DEX reduction based on Armor Type.

[dwayanu]

Who acts first?

How effective is a dodge, parry, feint or other stratagem?

Can a combatant keep footing or grip in trying circumstances?

[coffee]

I would think that re-rolling would be more cumbersome than changing the dice roll to hit. One is an additional roll, the other is merely an addition to (or subtraction from) a roll (depending on which way you're going with that).

Either way, you're adding a layer of complexity that needn't be there.


For what it's worth, the description in Greyhawk of using Dex to modify melee is a subtraction from the opponent's hit roll. No change to the AC itself.

[Zulgyan]

Jun 10, 2008 14:37:47 GMT -6 busman said:

Why fight the dex affecting AC? What is it that you are trying to preserve? A sense of realism for the AC? It seems perfectly legit to me that avoiding blows would affect how easily you got hit, which is what AC really represents, no?

I'm with Phil on this: odd74.proboards76.com/index.cgi?board=menmagic&action=display&thread=955

I OD&D AC represents what armor you are wearing and nothing else. I works great for handling combat in game. SO I would like to preserve that while giving DEX some input in combat, somehow.

[busman]

Jun 10, 2008 14:42:37 GMT -6 Zulgyan said:

I OD&D AC represents what armor you are wearing and nothing else. I works great for handling combat in game. SO I would like to preserve that while giving DEX some input in combat, somehow.

This breaks down with magic armor/shields as well. It seems like a lot of twisting oneself to try and preserve something that was a rougher system in the first place.

[Zulgyan]

For magic armor, I've been using damage reduction. 1 pip per plus. For shields, I've been using penalty to opponents attack roll (will have to change this so something else).

[philotomy]

Jun 10, 2008 14:50:58 GMT -6 busman said:

This breaks down with magic armor/shields as well.

No, it doesn't. In OD&D, magic armor and shields modify the attacker's die roll, not the wearer's armor class. So do rings of protection.

[busman]

Jun 10, 2008 14:55:33 GMT -6 philotomy said:

Jun 10, 2008 14:50:58 GMT -6 busman said:

This breaks down with magic armor/shields as well.

No, it doesn't. In OD&D, magic armor and shields modify the attacker's die roll, not the wearer's armor class. So do rings of protection.

You're right, I was thinking of Greyhawk.

[Zulgyan]

Phil (and any other): How have you found that in actual play? I have found it rather annoying and often forgetting the -1 or -2, etc. Or having to ask now and then if the PC had a negative modifier for his enemy.

[sham]

I use Fluid AC, so the AC numbers mean nothing more than a defensive value.

Not very OD&D, but it seems to be even more 'abstract' than the true OD&D method of subtracting from an attacker's RTH for DEX or magic bonuses.

In the end, the numbers and odds are all the same.

That said, I respect the attitude of preserving the LBB assumption of AC equaling Armor type. If this is your intent, you don't mind thinking outside of the box, and you aren't satisfied with the DEX 12+ only giving +1 to hit with missiles, maybe something like DEX 15+: +1 on Saving Throws (reflective of reaction speed).

If you are already using magic plusses from items as an ablative value (which is very powerful), DEX 15+ might do the same, absorbing 1 pip from damage, but then you'd suddenly have the possibility of power inflation in the form of damage absorbtion.

If I house ruled in any damage absorb, it would be worded in such a way that it would ONLY limit the upper range from a damage roll. In otherwords, damage absorb of 1 would mean rolls of 5 or 6 on a d6 would equate to 5 damage. Very powerful, but not as potent as straight damage absorb.

[philotomy]

Taking a leaf from AD&D's book, one place Dex could be used is in mitigating the effects of surprise, on an individual basis. (This is more useful if you're using degrees of surprise.)

I haven't found subtracting from the to hit roll to be a problem, but magic armor isn't very common in my current games. I'm fond of the OD&D approach, but to be honest, I think it's mostly because it's different and distinctive. Preserving armor class as a unique type is nifty, but I'm not sure that it's very important, unless you're using the Greyhawk rules for weapon vs. armor class. If you find subtracting from the to hit roll is cumbersome, and you're not using weapon vs. armor class rules, it might be easier to go with a fluid AC.