| CarnageCreed |
I very much agree that armor as DR is a much more satisfying approach to physical protection, But I don't think the path towards an elegant solution is very clear, at least not under a d20 system, and not in a game such as pathfinder who's core math doesn't exactly allow for DR to be generally effective.
As stated by other posters, DR in its current form tends to make light blows very effective, and everything else tends to relatively cut straight through it. The relative rarity of DR for players makes it something that is harder to design around when designing threats to level against players. You cant really assume people will haveit. It also becomes hard to design monsters/traps that BOTH threaten PC's with DR but also don't outright kill those without, that is unless DR is a relatively slight advantage. Whether that is necessarily a bad thing or not is up for debate.
On another note: A game that I think handles Armor as DR Fantastically is Shadowrun(A near future Cyberpunk sci-fantasy RPG). That said it definitely pays a price in complexity for what it achieves. A price that is mitigated by player familiarity, but price nonetheless. First off it is not a D20 System, success and degrees of success is determined by building pools of d6's from relevant stats, rolling said pool and looking for 5's & 6's (Successes) (too many 1's is bad, but let's not dive toooo deep here)
An action as simple as shooting someone/thing is as involved as this:
Attempt to Hit -->
Target attempts to dodge --> If hit, how well placed was the blow? (net difference between the quality of the attack and dodge) -->
How much damage does the target take? ( Depends on Their inherent toughness (body) and how good their armor is, Also, Does the weapon they were hit with have some degree of armor piercing? be sure to figure that in! Okay! now that we know how much raw damage they are potentially facing, Is that amount of damage enough to cause them serious bodily harm? or is it just stun? compare the amount of damage to their armor minus the armor piercing of what they were attacked with? is the damage more? if so they take physical damage! if not then they take Stun damage? wait... whats the difference between those? Oh yeah, everyone has 2 separate health bars...... hmm this is a lot.... Now, do this process every time someone shoots someone. Can it be very satisfying? Yes! is it for everyone? Probably not.
Also Sorry to Shadowrun fans for some definite misquoting of rules, I am less familiar with them than I have been in the past.