Fighting skill and AC

[korgoth]

I was wondering if anybody had any house rules to give a bonus to Fighting Men who wear less armor (besides encumberance), or to allow high level Fighting Men to lower their AC via expert use of parries, etc.

As it stands, a basic element of D&D combat is that the difficulty to hit a given target for a given combatant is based upon the armor the target is wearing (with maybe a Dex bonus factored in there). I've often thought that a higher level fighter would be harder to hit due to his skill at parrying, dodging, etc.

Normally I'd have a rules suggestion or two of my own to throw out, but I've been under the weather lately so for now I'm just polling the audience.

[foster1941]

Yeah, higher level fighters have more hit points, representing increased skill in parrying, dodging, and otherwise avoiding being killed by blows that would lay low an ordinary man

More helpfully, allowing characters to "fight defensively" and trade penalties to their attack to bonuses to their defense is a fairly common house rule -- say -2 or -3 to hit for every -1 on your AC (with a cap, perhaps, to prevent mages and clerics who don't care about hitting from rendering themselves unhittable -- say, you can't raise your roll to hit AC 2 above 20).

[dwayanu]

First, ditto Foster.

I once worked out for AD&D a level-based rule along the lines you propose, and it significantly altered high-level play. For one thing, fights took longer. It also added a bit of complication, especially as (for fairness) I gave monsters the same advantage.

As to "trade-off" rules, I'm inclined these days to apply modifications only as notable tactical situations warrant them.

If one wishes to allow for fighters who can go light on armor, then one might apply the Dexterity bonus per Supplement I, provided nothing better than leather and shield is used. Thus, a fighter with a score of 18 could could have AC 2 (if weapon-versus-armor mods are not in use) while lightly encumbered. I recommend applying the bonus only in melee, so that such a fighter would be better off versus missiles if he donned chainmail.

[murquhart72]

The Greyhawk supplement allows a bonus of 1 point to AC per point of Dexterity over 14.