Ablative Armor

[peterlind]

I was thinking off adding Ablative Armor / Damage Absorption as an optional rule that can be invoked by the player. The rules otherwise stay the same. Here is my first draft. Your comments and thoughts are most welcome:

Armor Damage Absorption (Optional): This is an optional rule that allows a player to choose to have his or her PC’s armor absorb some of the damage taken by the PC. Depending on the class of armor worn, there will be a limit as to the amount of hit points’ damage that may be absorbed by the armor per attack. In addition, any damage absorbed by a character’s armor is recorded against its hit point reserve. Once a suit of armor runs out of hit points, it has been damaged to such a state that it will no longer provide meaningful defense to the character, unless it is repaired (or replaced).

The amount of damage that may be absorbed by a suit of armor per attack, and the total amount of hit points that may be absorbed by the armor, are as stated on the following table:

TABLE X: ARMOR DAMAGE ABSORPTION TABLE

Armor Class - Damage Absorption/Blow - Armor Hit Points
Leather - 1 - 10
Chain - 2 -20
Plate - 3 - 30

[arkansan]

I like the idea but it seems a little book keepy. How about invoking a saving throw of some sort based on the armor type, if it succeeds no damage is done, but if it fails damage is done and the armor is destroyed.

It reduces the booking keeping and maintains the original purpose of your idea. With the way you have it players at lower levels maybe too apt to simply allow their armor to shrug off damage until it is shot and then replace it at their convenience, this effectively gives them an HP cushion at lower levels that removes a great deal of risk.

By making it a "do or die" saving throw they run the risk of every time they invoke the rule losing their armor in the heat of battle or a possible deflection of damage. They have to make the judgement call of "do I try my luck here and hope I deflect the damage or run the risk of taking the hit, losing my armor, and being vulnerable in combat" instead of just saying "well my leather can take 10 hp so I'm just gonna let it eat the hit and at worst I have 4 points left on it".

If I were going to do something like this I would increase the cost of any armor above leather and shields a good amount to offset it.

[Fearghus]

I fully support house rules and doing your own thing. Play your campaign the way you want to play it.

As a player that likes to play fighters, I am all for the DM arbitrarily tossing me buffs like extra armor soaks. I wouldn't leave the table if the option was offered, and would snatch it up in a heartbeat. It makes rolling a 1 for HP less of a concern.

I enjoy studying game mechanics and game theory. Adding in armor absorption does not fit with the current mechanics of D&D. It starts the power creep of double dipping. For instance, attributes already provide an experience modifier, so it is not recommended to add in additional die roll modifiers. In the same manner, armor already provides an armor class (AC). This represents the armor "soaking" in the abstract combat of D&D. An opponent already has to strike at weakened part of the armor, and damage absorption would further increase the armor's usefulness.

There are systems that use damage absorption. Check out the old world of darkness by white wolf (like vampire: dark ages), or Warhammer Fantasy (the one from the 80's or 90's). In those systems one typically rolls to hit without regard for the defender's armor: it is either based on the attackers offense score, or a combination of the attackers offense score and defender's defense score. If the roll to hit is successful, then the attacker rolls damage against the defender's armor. Either or both of the scores can be static or dynamic. To summarize these systems, offense rolls to hit, then offense rolls to damage, then defender rolls to soak.

[arkansan]

Apr 29, 2016 18:45:57 GMT -6 Fearghus said:

I enjoy studying game mechanics and game theory. Adding in armor absorption does not fit with the current mechanics of D&D. It starts the power creep of double dipping. For instance, attributes already provide an experience modifier, so it is not recommended to add in additional die roll modifiers. In the same manner, armor already provides an armor class (AC). This represents the armor "soaking" in the abstract combat of D&D. An opponent already has to strike at weakened part of the armor, and damage absorption would further increase the armor's usefulness.

This is my main issue with something like this, it sort of breaks the abstraction of D&D combat.

[krusader74]

Shields shall be splintered!

Arise! Arise, Riders of Theoden! Spears shall be shaken, shields shall be splintered! A sword day... a red day... ere the sun rises!

--Theoden, LoTR

What about extending J. Brian Murphy's "Shields Shall Be Splintered" house rule to armor?

The "Shields Shall Be Splintered" rule was described in Fight On! magazine - Issue #2, Summer 2008. Here's the basic idea:

• Shields give the usual -1 to your AC
• Any time you take damage from an attack, you can opt to say that your shield bore the brunt of the blow, the shield shatters, and it must be discarded, but you don't take any damage from that strike.

Note that we're only talking about non-magical shields and non-magical attacks. You can't expect a wooden shield to "bear the brunt" of a fireball!


Armor breaks!

Mail, if a warrior could afford it, could provide a significant advantage to him when combined with competent fighting techniques. However, a good sword blow arriving in exactly perpendicular angle to surface could cut through the links; when the mail was not riveted, a well placed thrust from a spear or thin sword could penetrate, and a poleaxe or halberd blow could break through the armour.

--Medieval Warfare Armour & Shields

So the idea would be to extend Murphy's house-rule to armor too:

• Armor has the usual AC
• Any time you take damage from an attack, you can opt to say that your armor bore the brunt of the blow, and it's effective AC increases by 2, i.e., Plate effectively goes to Chain, Chain to Leather, Leather to No Armor.
• Once your AC increases to (8 or) 9, your armor is ruined and must be discarded.
• Ruined armor is beyond repair. Other armor may be repaired, but repairing armor is expensive. It requires time, money, and a town with skilled workers capable of making the repairs:

Armor	AC	Cost to repair	Time to repair
Plate	3	40 gp	1 month
Chain	5	20 gp	2 weeks

Disclaimer: This is all off the top of my head -- I haven't tried it. Just seems like this might require less book keeping than ablative armor.

[Deleted]

I've been thinking about "absorptive" armor instead. I use OD&D and do NOT differentiate damage by weapon, so everything does 1d6. I've been thinking of changing it to all weapons do 2d6-6, and leather armor absorbs 1 point of damage, mail absorbs 2, and plate absorbs either 3 or 4. It would make even leather or padded armor a LOT more useful than no armor, since over 50% of all "hits" would be 1 point hits.

But the drawback is it would make combat take longer.

[talysman]

I'm partial to a simplified extension similar to Shields Shall Be Splintered. Instead of tracking changes to AC as in krusader74's example, if a player opts to have armor absorb the blow, any damage roll less than or equal to the AC damages the armor. Damaged armor provides no protection against attacks from most opponents (they aim for the vulnerable spot.) Repair costs around 1/3rd the price of new armor, adjusted up or down for reaction rolls.

If you are using Ascending AC, you have to adjust the damage test, but otherwise the rule is usable with almost any old school system.

[peterlind]

Great comments, and I like the Armor Breaks! rule, thanks! My main reason for the rule is to give the player some extra resource for those close cases, so that they might stay in the fight a bit longer rather than be forced to retreat. For example, your 3rd level fighter is one on one vs. an ogre, and the dice are not going your way, and support is not forthcoming. You have something to draw from that might get your fighter through the fight, and some glory in the process. I also like the Shields Shall Be Splintered Rule for the same reason. And the rule does not add to the DM's bookkeeping, which to me is a necessity.

Another thing that occurs to me is that if you are going to use a D&D engine for a far future sci fi game, then your space marines will need a rule like this to survive some of the heavy weapons damage and nasty alien damage that flies around in those kinds of settings. . .

[cooper]

Ablative armor by Luke Crane (from his RPG miseries & misfortunes):

In melee, the armor class of your opponent is their strength score (basic D&D 3d6 str dex con int wis cha apply) if your opponent is not attacking, but rather defending fleeing or casting a spell, their AC, rather, is their dexterity. Armor absorbs damage. A breastplate, for example, absorbs 1d3 points of damage from a hit, after 3 points have been absorbed it is destroyed; a helmet absorbs 1 point of damage and is destroyed after 1 hit. A shield does add +1 to your AC, but only against melee. shields do not break.

[Deleted]

I am not keen on ablative or absorbent armor.

But if I was going to implement it, I’d modify the original proposal. Under the original proposal, plate mail can absorb 30! points of damage. Given the traditional character hit die of 1d6, the ability to soak 30 points of damage amounts to five maxed out levels of additional hit points. The magnitude of this benefit may be ameliorated somewhat by the fact that plate mail can only soak 3 hit points of any given hit, but the average roll on a 1d6 is only 3.5 anyway. So I think the original proposal would confer way to much benefit to the classes that wear heavy armor.

Here’s my proposal for modifying it:

Unarmored AC is 9. Leather reduces armor class by 2 (AC 7), chainmail reduces armor class by 4 (AC 5), plate mail reduces armor class by 6 (AC 3), and a shield further reduces armor class by 1. So a character may choose to have his armor bear the brunt of a successful attack as follows:

Leather: reduce damage sustained by 1d2 damage;

Chain mail: reduce damage sustained by 1d4 damage;

Plate mail: reduce damage sustained by 1d6 damage;

Shield: reduce damage sustained by 1 damage.

Doing so destroys the armor or shield (i.e., it no longer confers any AC benefit on the wearer). A shield may be sacrificed in the same round as armor. Variant: large shields reduce damage sustained by 2 damage; small shields reduce damage sustained by 1 damage.

Obviously, this is a much more limited rule than the one originally proposed, but it still gives players some additional protection in a pinch without conferring a huge benefit on the more heavily armored classes relative to magic-users and thieves, if you are using thieves. And it avoids bookkeeping associated with damaged armor and armor repair. (Though I do not think it would be unreasonable to allows players to have "destroyed" armor repaired at some cost less than full purchase price, rather than requiring purchase of an entirely new suit of armor.)

I’m not sure I’m in love with my proposal, and I’m not sure it represents an improvement over the very simple Shields Shall Be Splintered rule (which I like). But I might playtest it sometime.

[Starbeard]

I like the idea of armour absorbtion and the Armor Breaks! rules, but most especially I like being able to give padded and leather armour more usefulness in game.

I usually don't do the whole critical hit = extra damage thing, so my own way of implementing ablative armour would probably be to make criticals roll damage as normal, and also reduce AC permanently. Each armour type would have a starting AC rating and a rate at which it sheds AC every time it's critically struck, so even a padded gambeson has some usefulness. If you wanted to differentiate between weapons, you could also just say that any weapon especially effective against a certain armour type would critically hit on a 19-20 instead of just a 20.

Natural armour could either be immune, or reflect a solid hit to an important lmb or general weakening of the body, still reducing the monster's AC by 1.

Generally, this rule would actually makes armour worse, unless you up the starting ACs. But it would also give players something to sink their money into! Gotta keep that armour in good condition!

[snorri]

A possible variant is damage by armor :

Plate 1d4
Mail 1d6
Leather 1d8
No armor 1d10

Substract 1 for Shield.

[cooper]

May 5, 2016 8:17:05 GMT -6 snorri said:

A possible variant is damage by armor :

Plate 1d4
Mail 1d6
Leather 1d8
No armor 1d10

Substract 1 for Shield.

Or HD=armor worn. If you are 4th level and you're naked, d4 hit points. If you are wearing plate armor you have d10 hit points. All weapons do d6 damage...

[Deleted]

May 5, 2016 11:13:52 GMT -6 cooper said:

Or HD=armor worn. If you are 4th level and you're naked, d4 hit points. If you are wearing plate armor you have d10 hit points. All weapons do d6 damage...

That could work. So a fourth level fight in mail has 4d8 hit points.

I'm ok with ablative armor as long as it replaces the regular AC value. Since plate blocks half of all hits (at low levels at least), having plate armor double your hit points (to a max of say, +20) would be a simple enough solution while still keeping the same general protective value. Mail adds +50% to hit points while leather only adds +25%.

This has the added benefit of removing armor from the to-hit process so you just have a single number you need to roll to hit versus everyone.

[sepulchre]

The abstraction and what is assumed by it is very much in play in this thread - worth revisiting:

Link: Critical Hits