Magic Armor and Shields

[makofan]

Let's take somebody wearing plate and shield (AC 2). Now lets look at the quote from pg 31

Armor proper subtracts its bonus from the hit dice of the opponents of its wearer. If the shield's bonus is greater than that of the armor, there is a one-third chance that the blow will be caught by the shield, thus giving the additional subtraction.

This is quite confusing. Lets look at three cases:
1) plate mail +1, normal shield
2) plate mail +1, shield +1
3) plate mail +1, shield +2

In case 1, you assume the monster attacking subtracts one from the attack chance.

In case 2, the bonus is not greater than the armor so the monster still subtracts one.

In case 3, there is a 1/3 chance that the monster subtracts 2 instead of 1

Is this how most people play it?

[foster1941]

I really like the idea of magical armor and shields not having straight "stacking" bonuses like they do using the Supplement I system (rampant AC-inflation is IMO one of the biggest flaws in later versions of the game) but I must confess that I really have no idea how this rule is supposed to work Your interpretation seems to match what the text says, but leads to the troubling fact that the character in case 2 doesn't have any bonus over the character in case 1, despite having a magical shield. Could that really be correct?

Anyone else have any thoughts on this?

[philotomy]

I dispense with the 1/3 chance, which simplifies things to "magical bonuses from armor and shield do not stack, but the PC enjoys the higher of the two bonuses."

I like the "non-stacking" rule for magic armor and shield bonuses because it helps to suppress bonus inflation.

[philotomy]

Another issue with the 1/3 chance:

4) non-magic plate mail, shield +1.

The PC would only receive the +1 benefit from the shield 1/3 of the time.

[foster1941]

Perhaps we could add a (wholly arbitrary) rule that if you're wearing magical armor your shield must be at least as magical as the armor -- so if you're wearing +1 armor you can't use a normal shield, only a +1, +2 or +3 shield, and if you're wearing +2 armor you can't use a normal or +1 shield, only +2 or +3.

So if you're wearing +2 armor without at least a +2 shield you're at AC 3 with a -2 on opponents' hit rolls; if you have +2 armor & shield you're AC 2 with -2 on opponents' to hit rolls; and if you have +2 armor and a +3 shield you're AC 2 with -2 on opponents' to hit rolls and a 1/3 (2 in 6) chance of -3.

That would work, I think. Of course players would complain "why can't I use my +1 shield with my +2 armor," but the answer there would be the old reliable "because that's not how the rules work." Perhaps magical armor has some sort of magico-magnetic property that "repels" shields of lower properties?

[coffee]

I regard this more as a matter of common sense than any arbitrary 1/3 chance. If Joe Fighting-Man is facing one or two opponents, he can get his shield in the way and thus get the bonus. If he's surrounded, some of his opponents will be able to get at his unshielded flank or back and thus avoid his shield bonus.

I try to think of it as a game and not a simulation, so I tend to give the benefit of the doubt to the player character.

And as far as bonus inflation goes, that can be controlled by what you give as treasure; if the fighters only find +1 shields, they can only use +1 shields.

[dwayanu]

That's one rule I tossed right away in favor of "stacking" per Supplement I (and Holmes Basic?). I may reconsider, though

[philotomy]

dwayanu said:

That's one rule I tossed right away in favor of "stacking" per Supplement I (and Holmes Basic?).

Yes, Holmes rules allow the bonuses to stack.

[philotomy]

coffee said:

I regard this more as a matter of common sense than any arbitrary 1/3 chance. If Joe Fighting-Man is facing one or two opponents, he can get his shield in the way and thus get the bonus. If he's surrounded, some of his opponents will be able to get at his unshielded flank or back and thus avoid his shield bonus.

A sensible approach. I much prefer that over the 1/3 chance.

And as far as bonus inflation goes, that can be controlled by what you give as treasure; if the fighters only find +1 shields, they can only use +1 shields.

That's not exactly what I mean, though. I'm talking more about ways the system, itself, helps to keep bonus inflation in check, all other things being equal.

[coffee]

philotomy said:

That's not exactly what I mean, though. I'm talking more about ways the system, itself, helps to keep bonus inflation in check, all other things being equal.

Ah, got it. My bad; I knew I should have actually clicked the link!

BTW, I have read that article before. I've read them all and enjoyed them very much. Thanks for having your musings online!

[philotomy]

coffee said:

BTW, I have read that article before. I've read them all and enjoyed them very much. Thanks for having your musings online!

You're welcome; I'm glad you enjoyed them. I've been meaning to post more of them, but haven't had a lot of spare time for working on the page, lately. My campaign log entries are way behind, too.

[jrients]

The paragraph quoted in the opening post makes more sense to me if "hit dice" = "damage dice", rather than "to-hit dice". So plate +1 would use the same plate line on the to-hit matrix as always, but one pip would be subtracted from each damage die inflicted. Armor and shield bonuses would not stack, but the shield +2 could intercept 2 points of damage on those occasions (1 in 3) when it interposed.

A radical re-interpretation, but I really like how this take makes armor +2 or +3 really potent, making further bonus armor unnecessary and steering one away from ever-deeper negative ACs.

[coffee]

jrients said:

The paragraph quoted in the opening post makes more sense to me if "hit dice" = "damage dice", rather than "to-hit dice". So plate +1 would use the same plate line on the to-hit matrix as always, but one pip would be subtracted from each damage die inflicted. Armor and shield bonuses would not stack, but the shield +2 could intercept 2 points of damage on those occasions (1 in 3) when it interposed.

A radical re-interpretation, but I really like how this take makes armor +2 or +3 really potent, making further bonus armor unnecessary and steering one away from ever-deeper negative ACs.

Wow, I never thought of looking at it that way. Curious. I'll have to think about that.

It would add a bit of fiddly to the whole thing, but I don't think the players would complain since it would help their characters.

[dwayanu]

I'm beginning to like the idea of ditching the 1/3 chance and keeping the bonus limited to the better of armor or shield.

Some ramifications, perhaps: When armor and shield +n come up in a treasure, they're less likely to have belonged to the same worthy. Upon acquiring such a set, it would probably be most advantageous to give or sell a +1 shield to someone lacking magical armor, a +2 to someone whose armor is only +1 or normal.

[Deleted]

As a rule IMC, the piece with the greater bonus is the one that applies, be it armor proper or a shield.

[dwayanu]

Jrients' idea of soaking pips of damage is pretty neat. It makes that 1/3 chance not so bad, and puts armor more in line with those magic weapons that get bonus damage.

[brumbar]

The Damage reduction idea makes sense to me too. +2 plate is no less cumbersome than +1 plate or normal plate, so why would it be harder to hit your opponent. More difficult to penetrate yes. More difficult to do damage yes.

[dwayanu]

That's an old and perennial cavil over AC. In D&D, the roll to "hit" is a roll to damage -- with the caveat that for high-level characters, most hit point loss reflects wearing down of "edge" rather than taking wounds. The whole scheme may be a bit counter-intuitive in rationale, but it does what it's supposed to do. Just remember that you've got saving throws versus death, and even referee fiat, if players try jumping off cliffs or such because they can "afford" the hit-point loss.

[makofan]

I had a bizarre thought

Magic armor always gives its bonus
Magic Shields add their bonus against missile fire

Fairly simple

[coffee]

brumbar said:

The Damage reduction idea makes sense to me too. +2 plate is no less cumbersome than +1 plate or normal plate, so why would it be harder to hit your opponent. More difficult to penetrate yes. More difficult to do damage yes.

Okay, in reference to the bolded section above, here are my thoughts. And I have thought about this, long and hard, back in the day.

My first fantasy roleplaying game (owned, not played) was The Fantasy Trip. Whether you hit or not was based on your own adjusted Dexterity, only.

Coming from that to D&D was confusing: Why should the other guy's armor determine whether I hit or not?

I wrestled with that problem for a long time. Finally, I noticed (at least in AD&D, which I played at the time) that any "hit" does at least one point of damage.

So, in short, a hit in D&D doesn't mean you got your weapon into the same general area as the opponent, it means you have successfully penetrated his defenses.

That cleared the whole thing up for me; I just wish it had been explicitly spelled out somewhere.

So in reference to the bolded section above, the two different terms mean the same thing in D&D. At least as far as I'm concerned.

Your mileage may vary, however.

[coffee]

(Okay, apparently you can't bold something in a quote. The bolded section I meant was " so why would it be harder to hit your opponent. More difficult to penetrate yes. ")

[dwayanu]

It's bold, just not so obvious in small type.

[Deleted]

For D&D, I'll probably always stick with the standard rules on this one. However, for my d20 Star Wars game, I do like the method of Vitality Points & Wound Points. For those not familiar, VP are equivalent to standard HP's (you gain them every level, as determined by your character class). WP are calculated by your Constitution Score (i.e., Oltekos has a Con. of 12, so he has 12 WP). VP are defined as a near-hit, a glancing blow, your hair being singed by a blaster, etc. Any damage taken always comes from VP first (unless otherwise stated by your GM [i.e. a critical hit, you have no more VP to deduct, etc.); WP are summarized as actual "physical" damage (like a wookie ripping your arm out of it's socket, a blaster bolt in the back, the Force Grip power, etc.). Once you reach 0 WP (no matter if you still have 1VP or 100VP remaining), your dead (at least in my game). Armor, OTOH, is calculated as Damage Reduction (if you are wearing a Leather Jerkin with a DR of 1, & your opponent scores a critical hit with his blaster rifle, inflicting a total of 16 WP against you, you only apply 15 to your character. If it wasn't a critical hit, the damage is applied to your VP, & DR doesn't come into play. I don't see why you couldn't apply Damage Reduction rules to D & D (it kind of makes since, since Armor doesn't really make you any harder to hit anyhow, it just absorbs the blow), but I haven't tried, & I probably never will. I'll keep my D & D the same; Star Wars for me is a completely different animal. ;D

[badger2305]

oltekos said:

For D&D, I'll probably always stick with the standard rules on this one. However, for my d20 Star Wars game, I do like the method of Vitality Points & Wound Points. For those not familiar, VP are equivalent to standard HP's (you gain them every level, as determined by your character class). WP are calculated by your Constitution Score (i.e., Oltekos has a Con. of 12, so he has 12 WP). VP are defined as a near-hit, a glancing blow, your hair being singed by a blaster, etc. Any damage taken always comes from VP first (unless otherwise stated by your GM [i.e. a critical hit, you have no more VP to deduct, etc.); WP are summarized as actual "physical" damage (like a wookie ripping your arm out of it's socket, a blaster bolt in the back, the Force Grip power, etc.). Once you reach 0 WP (no matter if you still have 1VP or 100VP remaining), your dead (at least in my game). Armor, OTOH, is calculated as Damage Reduction (if you are wearing a Leather Jerkin with a DR of 1, & your opponent scores a critical hit with his blaster rifle, inflicting a total of 16 WP against you, you only apply 15 to your character. If it wasn't a critical hit, the damage is applied to your VP, & DR doesn't come into play. I don't see why you couldn't apply Damage Reduction rules to D & D (it kind of makes since, since Armor doesn't really make you any harder to hit anyhow, it just absorbs the blow), but I haven't tried, & I probably never will. I'll keep my D & D the same; Star Wars for me is a completely different animal. ;D

The Wound/Vitality points model has been around in house rules for D&D for pretty much as long as I can remember. Early disties of Alarums & Excursions and The Wild Hunt had variations on this theme cropping up pretty much right away, if I recall correctly.

That having been said, I can understand keeping it for Star Wars and not necessarily for D&D. But I would suggest that - like so many things we're rediscovering about our early game - some of the preference for straight up "hit points" is a kind of nostalgia triggered by overly-complex rules of today. Frankly, to me, the Wound/Vitality point model is much more elegant and easy to use than the Feat-driven metastasized combat system found in D&D 3.14159Ed. - they had to come up with a way to deal with the general stat inflation that they had developed:

"I'll use my Butt-Stomping Aerial Blade Attack to do three attacks at quadruple damage!"

"Wait, he gets an Attack of Opportunity before that, right?"

"But I have Cloak of Evasiveness AND the my natural ability as a Dark-just-before-Dawn Elf to deny the AoO!"

"Was that in that expansion book for Eberron or somewhere else?"

etc. etc. etc.

In the current system (3e), the rules have overtaken creativity and thinking and obliterated them in the process.

[ffilz]

badger2305 said:

The Wound/Vitality points model has been around in house rules for D&D for pretty much as long as I can remember. Early disties of Alarums & Excursions and The Wild Hunt had variations on this theme cropping up pretty much right away, if I recall correctly.

I don't remember what all was published in the Wild Hunt, but I know I did publish my system.

Frank

[ffilz]

I just thought of a way to handle mismatched armor and shield.

If shield is better than armor, then 1-2 on d6 the shield bonus applies.

If shield is not as good as armor, then 5-6 on d6, AC is treated as if without shield (i.e. 3 for plate, modified by the armor bonus).

Optional, adjust the shield probability depending on how much worse the shield is than the armor.

Optional, treat a parrying weapon similarly, perhaps a parrying sword is effective 1-3 on d6, while a dagger is only effective 1-2 on d6, a cloak might be effective 1 on d6 (perhaps better if you really want to encourage this style of swashbuckling).

Frank

[aldarron]

Nov 26, 2007 21:00:47 GMT -6 jrients said:

The paragraph quoted in the opening post makes more sense to me if "hit dice" = "damage dice", rather than "to-hit dice". So plate +1 would use the same plate line on the to-hit matrix as always, but one pip would be subtracted from each damage die inflicted. Armor and shield bonuses would not stack, but the shield +2 could intercept 2 points of damage on those occasions (1 in 3) when it interposed.

A radical re-interpretation, but I really like how this take makes armor +2 or +3 really potent, making further bonus armor unnecessary and steering one away from ever-deeper negative ACs.

Well, not so radical. The rule is actually straightforward. It is not pips subtracted its dice, that is whole d6's. The term "Hit Dice" as used by Arneson in the First Fantasy Campaign, and his Adventures in Fantasy meant damage dice. Hit points were not determined by a die roll but were fixed values, as for example in Temple of the Frog or the FFC, translated directly from the point values in Chainmail or invented where necessary. You can follow our discussion of this in the Blackmoor combat threads.

So sometimes in the 3LBB's the terminology is confusing, following the Arnesonian meaning, and one has to look closely at the context to catch it. What happened was that Arneson converted the Chainmail Hits needed to Kill into hits used for damage. For example a hero in Chainmail must be hit 4 times to be killed, but Arneson changed that to the hero rolls 4d6, and adds the total for the damage he inflicts. If the creature our hero is attacking is wearing +2 armor, then two of the hero's "hit dice" aka damage dice are removed, leaving a 2d6 damage roll. At some point Gygax used "Dice for Accumaltive Hits (Hit Dice)" to determine Hit points as well and switched entirely, mabey before OD&D was even published, to the weapon based damage we see in Greyhawk and after.

This quote from "Monsters and Treasures" should clear it up:
"Attack/Defense capabilities versus normal men are simply a matter of allowing one roll as a man-type for every hit die, with any bonuses being given to only one of the attacks, i.e. a Troll would attack six times, once with a +3 added to the die roll. (Combat is detailed in Vol. III.)" p5.

Edit: I should say that whether your d6's are attack dice and damage dice, or just damage dice would apparently depend on whether you were using the Chainmail (d6's to hit and damage) or Alternative (d20 to hit, d6's for damage) combat systems.

[spacemonkeydm]

To jump on this train cause I can find the answer any where. So if it is removing one hit dice, a kobold would never have a chance to hit a player in plus one anything. Am I reading that right?

[cooper]

This is discussed in CHAINMAIL as well, using the mass combat system, magic armor reduces your enemies attack dice by 1d6. This means an ogre attacking a hero in magic armor only rolls 3d6+1 instead of 4d6+1. This assumes, +3 armor. For lesser armor (+1 or +2) reduce the enemies attack by pips. This is why 0d&d limited magic weapons and armor to +3. Likewise, an ogre with a magic sword rolls 5d6+1/6

Yes, a single kobold is no threat to a hero. Two kobolds would roll 1d6/6 against a hero in magic armor however.

This only applies when using the mass combat system, when using the d20 attack, treat magic armor and weapons as we normally do.