I'm thinking something different first off the players get the choice to either try to dodge the attack or attempt to take it. (they can't always dodge an attack) if you choose to dodge you use your reflex save, if successful, you avoid the attack. you don't add DEX to AC anymore, instead you add CON. If you choose to take it your AC is DR so your AC is subtracted from Damage. "What!?!" you say "That is so over powered!" BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE! Each type of armor is bypassed by by a type of damage example Chainmail is bypassed by piercing (possibly bludgeoning as well..but we will see) and so we can have a scenario:
joe the Rogue has a 12 Con and he's wearing a chainshirt so his ac is 15 (10+ Con mod 1 + Armor 4) an orc swings a falchion at him we assume it does max damage 2d4 max= 8+4 (very burly orc) 12(damage)-15(AC) he takes no damage
This time same thing happens but Mr. Orc has a Ranseur so 12(damage)-11(CON+10) he takes 1 damage
My only issue is that he didn't really take a lot of damage, perhaps when against the "weakness" type the victim only gets their CON, he then takes 11 damage instead of 1
Thoughts? I feel I'm on to something with this but I'm up for some help refining it!
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There's about 3 or 4 other threads quite similar to this one that have popped up recently. You might want to look in those. In general, its not a good idea.
That said, I've always been a HUGE fan of getting your Con bonus as your natural armor bonus to AC.
I believe there's a PrC around here somewhere, in which you can substitute your Con for your Dex bonus. Though I think Con would be much better suited as natural armor, that might be something you want to look into.... though I can't remember the name or source :/
I'm thinking something different first off the players get the choice to either try to dodge the attack or attempt to take it. (they can't always dodge an attack) if you choose to dodge you use your reflex save, if successful, you avoid the attack. you don't add DEX to AC anymore, instead you add CON. If you choose to take it your AC is DR so your AC is subtracted from Damage. "What!?!" you say "That is so over powered!" BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE! Each type of armor is bypassed by by a type of damage example Chainmail is bypassed by piercing (possibly bludgeoning as well..but we will see) and so we can have a scenario:
joe the Rogue has a 12 Con and he's wearing a chainshirt so his ac is 15 (10+ Con mod 1 + Armor 4) an orc swings a falchion at him we assume it does max damage 2d4 max= 8+4 (very burly orc) 12(damage)-15(AC) he takes no damage
This time same thing happens but Mr. Orc has a Ranseur so 12(damage)-11(CON+10) he takes 1 damage
My only issue is that he didn't really take a lot of damage, perhaps when against the "weakness" type the victim only gets their CON, he then takes 11 damage instead of 1
Thoughts? I feel I'm on to something with this but I'm up for some help refining it!
If you dodge the attack, you get to make a Reflex save. Okay, then riddle me this: why would a cloak of resistance (which improves your Reflex save) make it easier for you to survive being slashed at by a fighter with a great-axe?
Another thought: Reflex saves go up at a maximum rate of +1/2 levels, but BAB goes up at a maximum rate of +1/level. Dodging is going to be harder and harder to do over time. Much like AC.
Taking it: why does my superior physical training (Con) make it so that I can utterly ignore being attacked? The best marathon runners in the world have high Con scores, that doesn't mean that when a greatsword gets swung at them they are better able to ignore the damage.
How do you handle monsters? I mean, they don't have armor in many cases. What bypasses a dragon's scales? The rubbery hide of a kraken? How does DR factor into this?
Your idea reminds me a bit of Rolemaster, with its tables where you miss, hit, or hit and roll on a crit table. I hope all your bad guys use weapons of the same type, or else the resolution of combat could take a while....
I'm thinking something different first off the players get the choice to either try to dodge the attack or attempt to take it. (they can't always dodge an attack) if you choose to dodge you use your reflex save, if successful, you avoid the attack. you don't add DEX to AC anymore, instead you add CON. If you choose to take it your AC is DR so your AC is subtracted from Damage. "What!?!" you say "That is so over powered!" BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE! Each type of armor is bypassed by by a type of damage example Chainmail is bypassed by piercing (possibly bludgeoning as well..but we will see) and so we can have a scenario:
joe the Rogue has a 12 Con and he's wearing a chainshirt so his ac is 15 (10+ Con mod 1 + Armor 4) an orc swings a falchion at him we assume it does max damage 2d4 max= 8+4 (very burly orc) 12(damage)-15(AC) he takes no damage
This time same thing happens but Mr. Orc has a Ranseur so 12(damage)-11(CON+10) he takes 1 damage
My only issue is that he didn't really take a lot of damage, perhaps when against the "weakness" type the victim only gets their CON, he then takes 11 damage instead of 1
Thoughts? I feel I'm on to something with this but I'm up for some help refining it!
I don't think the system supports it very well because of the limited range of possibilities on a d20, and the fact that your defenses don't scale very well with level. By 8th level, everything you fight will hit you every time and do many times more damage than your armor can soak.
I also wouldn't let characters actively dodge. Nothing is more frustrating than rolling a great hit at a crucial time and then the monster dodges it after you get your result. I would make dodge a passive trait, as a factor of the character's Dex and dodge-related feats.
If you really want to implement this and keep the fatality/survivability of the game roughly the same as it is now, you should give PCs a defense score that scales with level, representing their ability to avoid more attacks. It doesn't have to be one for one. If armor soaks damage and you want to differentiate between characters who don't get hit vs characters who can take it, give fighters an armor bonus that scales with levels instead.
Your idea of "this attack bypasses this kind of armor" reminds me of that huge (and unexplained) table in the 1st edition PHB which gave different weapons entirely different modifiers against different armor classes. Just as a word of advice, there's a reason that table didn't even survive into 2nd edition.
But in my opinion, you're changing so much of the fundamental combat mechanics that you might as well not be playing Pathfinder anymore, and would probably be happier playing in another system that already handles hits and damage in this way. I believe RuneQuest and Warhammer (at least Dark Heresy, one of my most hated games) both do this, and probably many more.
ETA: I can't believe I did a your/you're error. Shoot me now.
I'm thinking something different first off the players get the choice to either try to dodge the attack or attempt to take it. (they can't always dodge an attack) if you choose to dodge you use your reflex save, if successful, you avoid the attack. you don't add DEX to AC anymore, instead you add CON. If you choose to take it your AC is DR so your AC is subtracted from Damage. "What!?!" you say "That is so over powered!" BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE! Each type of armor is bypassed by by a type of damage example Chainmail is bypassed by piercing (possibly bludgeoning as well..but we will see) and so we can have a scenario:
joe the Rogue has a 12 Con and he's wearing a chainshirt so his ac is 15 (10+ Con mod 1 + Armor 4) an orc swings a falchion at him we assume it does max damage 2d4 max= 8+4 (very burly orc) 12(damage)-15(AC) he takes no damage
This time same thing happens but Mr. Orc has a Ranseur so 12(damage)-11(CON+10) he takes 1 damage
My only issue is that he didn't really take a lot of damage, perhaps when against the "weakness" type the victim only gets their CON, he then takes 11 damage instead of 1
Thoughts? I feel I'm on to something with this but I'm up for some help refining it!
If you dodge the attack, you get to make a Reflex save. Okay, then riddle me this: why would a cloak of resistance (which improves your Reflex save) make it easier for you to survive being slashed at by a fighter with a great-axe?
Another thought: Reflex saves go up at a maximum rate of +1/2 levels, but BAB goes up at a maximum rate of +1/level. Dodging is going to be harder and harder to do over time. Much like AC.
Taking it: why does my superior physical training (Con) make it so that I can utterly ignore being attacked? The best marathon runners in the world have high Con scores, that doesn't mean that when a greatsword gets swung at them they are better able to ignore the damage.
How do you handle monsters? I mean, they don't have armor in many cases. What bypasses a...
it would make it easier to "survive" because if you succeeded at the reflex, you avoided the attack. Its not ignoring being attacked, it's not being injured by the attack a bit of a difference there, perhaps it glances off you. it feels like you are asking me "if I have a higher con why do I have more hit points?", your CON is endurance, but it is also toughness.
This concept would need a lot of other little changes but could I ask why your post seems kind of unnecessarily hostile, I may be misreading the "tone" as text is notorious for that sort of thing but, sorry if this bugs you or something :/ I simply had an idea I wanted to share, it's all in good fun. I'm not saying all or perhaps any of this Idea should be implemented in this already very functional game, but I felt those with more experience could help me tinker with this concept till it was something that would be fun and allow for things like, people being able to do something when being attacked, not have to use armor/ be able to actually be quick and dodgy, etc.
it would make it easier to "survive" because if you succeeded at the reflex, you avoided the attack. Its not ignoring being attacked, it's not being injured by the attack a bit of a difference there, perhaps it glances off you. it feels like you are asking me "if I have a higher con why do I have more hit points?", your CON is endurance, but it is also toughness.
This concept would need a lot of other little changes but could I ask why your post seems kind of unnecessarily hostile, I may be misreading the "tone" as text is notorious for that sort of thing but, sorry if this bugs you or something :/ I simply had an idea I wanted to share, it's all in good fun. I'm not saying all or perhaps any of this Idea should be implemented in this already very functional game, but I felt those with more experience could help me tinker with this concept till it was something that would be fun and allow for things like, people being able to do something when being attacked, not have to use armor/ be able to actually be quick and dodgy, etc.
First, to address my tone. I apologize for my tone. Stresses in the real world are slowly driving me up the wall, across the ceiling, down the other side, out the window, and into traffic, so my tone is starting to reflect that.
To your point(s):
I am not asking you the question "if I have a higher Con, why do I have more hp". What I am asking is instead "if I have a higher Con, why am I harder to damage" in a literal sense. Mechanically, that is what I'm seeing with your 'take it' option. To me, that's your natural armor bonus to AC, not a function of Con, so I wanted to hear your thoughts on the matter.
To the 'dodge it' option, I still don't see an answer to my original question about cloaks of resistance (which might apply to other bonuses to saving throws as well).
I also wonder how long this will take in actual in-game combat to resolve. Now every successful attack roll has one more die roll potentially attached to it, the Reflex save.
I would also like to hear still how this works with creatures that lack armor to soak damage and with normal damage reduction.
I've heard of systems that let you actively dodge attacks (e.g. Rifts, which I've played and enjoyed) as well as mechanics for armor soaking up damage. There's some merit to these ideas. What are you exactly hoping to do with these changes? What's causing you a problem in combat that has you here, now, changing things?
it would make it easier to "survive" because if you succeeded at the reflex, you avoided the attack. Its not ignoring being attacked, it's not being injured by the attack a bit of a difference there, perhaps it glances off you. it feels like you are asking me "if I have a higher con why do I have more hit points?", your CON is endurance, but it is also toughness.
This concept would need a lot of other little changes but could I ask why your post seems kind of unnecessarily hostile, I may be misreading the "tone" as text is notorious for that sort of thing but, sorry if this bugs you or something :/ I simply had an idea I wanted to share, it's all in good fun. I'm not saying all or perhaps any of this Idea should be implemented in this already very functional game, but I felt those with more experience could help me tinker with this concept till it was something that would be fun and allow for things like, people being able to do something when being attacked, not have to use armor/ be able to actually be quick and dodgy, etc.
First, to address my tone. I apologize for my tone. Stresses in the real world are slowly driving me up the wall, across the ceiling, down the other side, out the window, and into traffic, so my tone is starting to reflect that.
To your point(s):
I am not asking you the question "if I have a higher Con, why do I have more hp". What I am asking is instead "if I have a higher Con, why am I harder to damage" in a literal sense. Mechanically, that is what I'm seeing with your 'take it' option. To me, that's your natural armor bonus to AC, not a function of Con, so I wanted to hear your thoughts on the matter.
To the 'dodge it' option, I still don't see an answer to my original question about cloaks of resistance (which might apply to other bonuses to saving throws as well).
I also wonder how long this will take in actual in-game combat to resolve. Now every successful attack roll has one more die roll potentially attached to it, the Reflex save....
First I will say thanks, it takes a big person to apologize and I completely understand the stress issues.
I decided CON because it seemed the most appropriate stat and since I removed DEX I felt it needed a stat. Do you have a suggestion that you think would work better? (no sarcasm there general interest)
I guess I'm not certain what you are asking about the cloak, we might be having a break down in communication :). If you mean how would the cloak make the person better at dodging an attack, then I'm not certain because that is something the creators came up with my assumption would be the ever-loved cop out "Magic does it".
If that doesn't answer it I will try to describe my concept better and maybe that could clear it up for you. First off you get attacked, you really have two basic options, try to block the attack, or avoid it all together. If you choose to avoid it than you get a bit of a high risk high reward gamble situation, the person rolls their attack and you make a regular old everyday reflex save, if you roll higher you avoid the attack, if the attacker rolls higher than you take full damage. If you decide to try to block the attack (block being the best way to describe it besides the informal "Take it" I used) the attacker rolls just as usual against your "AC" which has changed a bit. It reduces the damage you take (unless it is the weakness type of your armor). I'm considering even giving each armor a type of damage they are good against a type that you get half your armor for and a type you get none, but I don't know.
As for the creatures that don't wear armor, I quite frankly don't know, perhaps make a chart type or an all encompassing armor type per creature type EX: animals have hide armor, something like that. I also don't know how that would work for creatures without CON scores at all! Have any suggestions? I hope that clears it up a bit for you.
What is the DC of the dodge Reflex save? The opponent's attack roll? Just wanted to be sure.
In your proposed rule, people with good REF saves will become very hard to hurt. Combatants with bad REF saves will settle for taking lots of little paper cuts. Both approaches will turn the current slow combat system into an agonizingly long, amazingly slow combat system.
Let's consider:
A basic ogre by your system has an AC of 20. His REF save is really bad so he will always choose to "take it". He is CR 3 so he will often be opposed by players with 3rd level characters.
A 3rd level fighter with a longsword and shield will probably have a 20 STR and let's say he has a +1 sword. He might even get a Bull's Strength spell from his wizard friend. His maximum damage is 16 HP. Even if he has Power Attack, his max damage is 18. He cannot possibly, ever, EVER, damage this AC 20 ogre without rolling a confirmed critical hit.
(Side note: how do you confirm critical hits now, if the target "takes the hit" - how do you even know if you have rolled a threat?)
If he drops the shield and goes with a +1 greatsword, his damage on an average hit, with Power Attack, is 18 points - he has to roll way above average (a 10 on the d12 damage roll) just to deal one point of damage to the ogre, and that is assuming he has that Bull's Strength spell. That means that 3/4 of his successful attacks will do no damage. Only 1/4 of his successful attacks will even scratch the ogre. Or put another way, out of every 12 successful hits, he will do 6 damage to the ogre.
Let's work that out:
I will assume his attack roll is +11. He must roll an 9 to hit the ogre's AC 20. (that's probably a bit low, but 60% is easy to work with).
(Why does the ogre's CON make him harder to hit? Harder to Crit? Harder to confirm a Critical Hit?)
So he needs to attack 20 times to score 12 hits. Those 12 hits will inflict 6 TOTAL damage to the ogre. OK, factor in critical hits, two of those 20 of those attacks will threaten but only one will confirm for around 15 damage, which brings us statistically to the following:
A 3rd level fighter needs 20 rounds of melee to inflict about 19 points of damage to a 30 HP ogre.
I hope the rest of this guy's group are clerics because he's going to need them...
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As for the reflex save, consider that same 3rd level fighter attacking his own twin brother. They each have an average fighter DEX of 12, and they have a base REF save of 1.
Their average attack roll is at least a 21, probably more like a 22 or 23. How will these guys ever even consider trying to "dodge" an attack when their only chance is to roll a natural 20 on the REF save?
Even a 20 DEX rogue with a base REF save of +3 would probably need to roll a 16 to dodge an AVERAGE attack from such a fighter. Only a 25% chance. And, really, since that rogue probably has around a 17 or 18 AC, it works more like this:
Fighter's Roll: Rogue's chance of dodging
1-6 misses anyway
7: 40%
8: 35%
9: 30%
10: 25%
11: 20%
12: 15%
13: 10%
14-20 Needs a natural 20 REF save: 5%
So, really, if the fighter rolls high enough to hit the rogue's AC, there is almost no chance at all for the rogue to dodge unless the fighter just barely hits him.
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Some other questions:
What about Concealment? How does a 20% or 50% miss chance factor into DR from AC?
How is it that if my fighter in Full Plate with 16 CON can "take it" and absorb 22 points of damage, but if I try to "dodge" and fail, I cannot absorb even 1 point of damage?
How does this all work with Touch attacks? These attacks are supposed to be easier to hit, so do they reduce your REF save to represent this? Do they reduce your CON score when you "take it"?
Why do we use CON to represent our ability to avoid taking damage and also use our CON to add to our HP to represent our ability to survive more damage? Doesn't this make CON 2x as powerful, increasing our defense and our HP? Double duty here...
How does all this affect CMD?
That's just off the top of my head.
Summary:
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This system isn't built for what you're trying to do.
If you do this, you will have to completely rewrite just about the entire combat chapter, rewrite a bunch of feats and class abilities and spells, and you will have to modify every monster in the bestiary.
And when you're done, I am afraid it will be horribly imbalanced and will cause amazingly long and painful (for the players and DM) combats.
Are you really ready for that?
What is the DC of the dodge Reflex save? The opponent's attack roll? Just wanted to be sure.
In your proposed rule, people with good REF saves will become very hard to hurt. Combatants with bad REF saves will settle for taking lots of little paper cuts. Both approaches will turn the current slow combat system into an agonizingly long, amazingly slow combat system.
Let's consider:
A basic ogre by your system has an AC of 20. His REF save is really bad so he will always choose to "take it". He is CR 3 so he will often be opposed by players with 3rd level characters.
A 3rd level fighter with a longsword and shield will probably have a 20 STR and let's say he has a +1 sword. He might even get a Bull's Strength spell from his wizard friend. His maximum damage is 16 HP. Even if he has Power Attack, his max damage is 18. He cannot possibly, ever, EVER, damage this AC 20 ogre without rolling a confirmed critical hit.
(Side note: how do you confirm critical hits now, if the target "takes the hit" - how do you even know if you have rolled a threat?)
If he drops the shield and goes with a +1 greatsword, his damage on an average hit, with Power Attack, is 18 points - he has to roll way above average (a 10 on the d12 damage roll) just to deal one point of damage to the ogre, and that is assuming he has that Bull's Strength spell. That means that 3/4 of his successful attacks will do no damage. Only 1/4 of his successful attacks will even scratch the ogre. Or put another way, out of every 12 successful hits, he will do 6 damage to the ogre.
Let's work that out:
I will assume his attack roll is +11. He must roll an 9 to hit the ogre's AC 20. (that's probably a bit low, but 60% is easy to work with).
(Why does the ogre's CON make him harder to hit? Harder to Crit? Harder to confirm a Critical Hit?)
So he needs to attack 20 times to score 12 hits. Those 12 hits will inflict 6 TOTAL damage to the ogre. OK, factor in critical hits, two of those 20 of those attacks will threaten but only one will...
Those are a lot of questions that would have to be answered you could answer both issues first off characters with good REF saves wouldn't be unstoppable, there would be times where it is impossible to dodge an attack, also anytime a person would normally be flatfooted they would be denied the opportunity to dodge, other times there would be no way you could absorb the damage (a redwood falls toward you) a good GM could sculpt situations where everyone is challenged.
CON wouldn't make him harder to hit just harder to hurt substantially when you hit, I don't think it should affect critical stuff at all. The "paper cuts" issue wouldn't be to hard to remedy as they would have some form of "armor" that can be penetrated by a damage type.
Let's say Mr. Ogre and all his giant friends are weak to slashing (just for the heck of it) if he doesn't have any armor, to most types of damage he would have essentially 20 damage reduction, but if someone attacked him with a slashing weapon it drops dramatically, some would say too dramatically so perhaps we should boost their health a little. It is FAR from perfect but this is just a first step to some kind of homebrew rules.
And yes I think the DC would be the opponent's attack roll. My purpose would be to allow for classes to be able to avoid attacks and not have to be covered in metal, it also seems at times that martial classes have nothing else to do on their turn other than try to roll higher than mr. bad guys AC, perhaps this isn't the way to approach those issues but it was an Idea I though had some merit. Feel free to make suggestions to improve it, there have been a few comments that this wouldn't work with the current combat system and quite frankly, they may be right but it might be worth looking over.
First I will say thanks, it takes a big person to apologize and I completely understand the stress issues.
I decided CON because it seemed the most appropriate stat and since I removed DEX I felt it needed a stat. Do you have a suggestion that you think would work better? (no sarcasm there general interest)
I guess I'm not certain what you are asking about the cloak, we might be having a break down in communication :). If you mean how would the cloak make the person better at dodging an attack, then I'm not certain because that is something the creators came up with my assumption would be the ever-loved cop out "Magic does it".
If that doesn't answer it I will try to describe my concept better and maybe that could clear it up for you. First off you get attacked, you really have two basic options, try to block the attack, or avoid it all together. If you choose to avoid it than you get a bit of a high risk high reward gamble situation, the person rolls their attack and you make a regular old everyday reflex save, if you roll higher you avoid the attack, if the attacker rolls higher than you take full damage. If you decide to try to block the attack (block being the best way to describe it besides the informal "Take it" I used) the attacker rolls just as usual against your "AC" which has changed a bit. It reduces the damage you take (unless it is the weakness type of your armor). I'm considering even giving each armor a type of damage they are good against a type that you get half your armor for and a type you get none, but I don't know.
As for the creatures that don't wear armor, I quite frankly don't know, perhaps make a chart type or an all encompassing armor type per creature type EX: animals have hide armor, something like that. I also don't know how that would work for creatures without CON scores at all! Have any suggestions? I hope that clears it up a bit for you.
All right, got it. No suggestions as to what to replace Con with. I'd probably just use the Unearthed Arcana rules for armor as DR myself, makes things simpler. Also, no suggestions regarding how to deal with monsters.
Other people have made good points, but I had one other thought. At low level, you're dealing with straight Reflex save vs. modified BAB. But at higher levels you then get into iterative attacks. An 18th level fighter might have a modified BAB of +30/25/20/15, for example (+18 class, add in Str, Weapon Training, weapon enhancement bonus, Weapon Focus, etc.). Let's say his rogue opponent has +28 on Reflex saves (+11 base, +2 Lightning Reflexes, +5 cloak-ignoring my comments here, +10 Dex, etc.). The fighter has the advantage on the 1st swing: +30 vs. +28. But then the rogue gets an edge starting with the 2nd attack. By the 4th attack, the rogue is still rolling 1d20 +28 vs. the fighter's 1d20 +15. A high-level fighter could well spend eternity trying to kill that rogue. It's just like the case DM_Blake described, but far worse, because the rogue, alone, isn't going to do much to the fighter either, as the rogue is unlikely to be able to do much damage to the full-plate-wearing fighter.
Your ideas do harken back to 1E a bit, as well as to some other sources. I just wonder if they'll be worth it in terms of the gains (nimble fighters) vs. the losses (longer combats).
Sounds a lot of effort to reinvent the Armor as DR and Class Defense Bonus combo from Unearthed Arcana and the Parry feat from Skull & Bones.
I too would direct you to the existing systems that cover reactive defense and armor as damage reduction.
I do not think that those particular rules from UA are good, but they make for a good starting point. In another recent thread, someone pointed to the Parry feats of Dragon #301.My question is, why do the characters have to chose between taking (blocking) the blow and avoiding it ? It would be easier and more effective to do both.
There's some blows you just can't block or avoid, but those are already simulated by the success of the attack roll.
The problems of the reflex saves used in combat have already been pointed out.
I would advise to use a Defense value based on BAB (or some other base bonus, according to how you want to differenciate the classes), modified by all AC bonuses except armor (which still limit the Dex modifier), and armor as DR. Attacks are rolled against a fixed number for Defense, and if they pass they deal damage, reduced by the armor bonus.
If you base it on BAB, you'll have to take into account the problem of iterative attacks. You could leave it as it is, which means only the first and maybe the second attack will hit (after all that's already the case against high-AC monsters). You could give a -5 penalty to Defense against each consecutive attack (that's perfect for appropriate CR, one-on-one fights, but a character can be overwhelmed easily by numerous opponents, as it could be IRL). You could give that penalty only against consecutive attacks from the same opponent to not make multiple ennemies far more dangerous than they are now, but that doesn't make much sense. You can create new feats that give a bonus in exchange of one less iterative attack (power attack and combat expertise can be converted in that direction too) to use with the first option (with the side effect of making combat a little faster).
Anyway, a 10+... is better than 1d20+..., since there's already a roll for attack.
If you make your own progression rates, that gives you the problem and the advantage of adding an important stat to the classes and creature/creature types. How does a fighter defend himself compared to a rogue ? or to another fighter ? A blue dragon compared to a storm giant ? or to a pseudodragon ?
The damage reduction offered by armor should be equal to the armor bonus except for natural armor (half ? maybe less if you add constitution to DR). And they should stack. I suppose. So the ogre has only DR 6/-, and valeros (fighter 14) against an adult gold dragon deals 1d8+1, with a first hit on a 4 and a second on a 9, before feats and buffs on each side (these numbers make me think that adding the full natural armor bonus to DR might actually be better balanced).
That does make combat last longer. There's a few solutions. You can make critical hits automatically bypass DR, or add random wound effects (there's ressources around for this too). Or maybe a attack failed by a certain number is damaging to the attacker.
You could also make it last longer yet by adding a parry system : instead of "taking 10" with his Defense, the character can use an attack of opportunity to oppose its own attack roll to the incoming blow, and if he succeeds, it fails. This is a more central option if the defense bonus is based on a different progression than BAB.
There's a lot of small issues with that, and small adjustments to make. For example, the paladin's smite ignoring DR becaomes a huger advantage than it was. Some bonuses and penalties to attack should apply to Defense : you can't block blows well with a weapon you're not proficient with, but a magic weapon could make it easier. You could add a small deflection bonus (shield-like) to armor to simulate the active use of it.
Ranged attacks should logically be harder to block with a weapon (except shields) than a melee attack, but I don't really know how to rule that in.