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Yet another thought experiment, here.
Say I want to run a Hyborian Age, Bare-chested-barbarians-fighting-giant-spiders-and-snake-cultists, style game. A game where your characters run around attempting to solve the riddle of steel. Where they sneak into towers dedicated to ancient gods to steal the fire-gems of Hash-Seth-Ta, used as eyes in the mighty statue of the two headed God of Pain, Raman-Kur.
A game in which, it goes without saying, running around in heavy armor (or, for that matter, ANY armor) is just not going to happen. This would have to be a game that would result in copious amounts of single-warrior-against-hordes-of-foes, cackling wizards duking it out by summoning flocks of crows and bolts of lightning, and super sneaky thieves and archers sniping at one another from behind the stones of ancient ruins. Suffice to say, my players are all over this idea.
I'd thought about perhaps using MM3E, or Savage Worlds, or Interlock or Fuzion... heck, even HERO, but my players are really keen on getting back into PFRPG. And thus, the conundrum!
So here's the question - Anyone have any experience running a Pathfinder game in which Defense Bonuses (perhaps a-la Star Wars Saga or D20 Modern) are used instead of Armor Bonuses? Sure, you could have Karmag The Northman running around in Plate Armor and a Large Steel Shield, but would that truly work for the feel of the game? I think not.
I suppose one could use Bracers of Armor and Rings of Protection and Necklaces of Armor, sure, but would that truly evoke the feel? Maybe?
My thoughts were to work up a series of "Base Defense Bonuses" for each available Class, most likely equivalent to each Class's BAB - so a Full BAB would get a Full BDB, a 3/4 BAB would equal a 3/4 BDB, etc. The more combative classes would of course be better at fending off blows from their foes, while the poorly trained classes (Wizards, for instance) would of course be in a world of hurt without hordes of minions or magical protections to keep the swords of their enemies off of their frail mortal forms (which, if you think about it, is absolutely perfect for the genre).
Anyone have any thoughts, suggestions, or tales of success or failure to share?
I'd really appreciate it.
The 3.5 Unearthed Arcana book had a defense bonus. You only get the to use one system or the other though if you are wearing armor.
I would push the medium and heavy armor equivalents up by one. The system may also be online at an SRD site.
+1 to what Wraithstrike said.
Have defense bonuses based on armor proficiencies, not BAB. Restrict the defense bonuses according to each classes' armor restrictions, no heavy progresion for barbarians and ranger, rouges are limited to ligth, monks, sorcerers and wizards use the slowest, etc. You can change your progression via proficiency feats.
Remember to add a mitigation factor to the armor, either as flat DR/- equal to the armor bonus or as a conversion of the first X points of damage into non-lethal damage, the last being the most recomended, because its kinda realistic and makes healing spells useful in combat (healing spells heal lethal and nonlethal damage at the same time).
Also, spells and items like mage armor or bracers of armor shouldn't add armor class, but mitigation.
Humbly,
Yawar
Edit.- played in a game with armor as DR, its kinda weird, also by no means try to implement natural armor as DR the system falls apart
*goes to dig out UA3.5*
I don't remember being particularly impressed with that particular system, but I'll give it a shot.
Time to re-read!
Anyone else have thoughts? Gimme!
Say I want to run a Hyborian Age, Bare-chested-barbarians-fighting-giant-spiders-and-snake-cultists, style game. A game where your characters run around attempting to solve the riddle of steel. Where they sneak into towers dedicated to ancient gods to steal the fire-gems of Hash-Seth-Ta, used as eyes in the mighty statue of the two headed God of Pain, Raman-Kur.
Sounds very cool, exactly the type of campaign I like to run myself:
http://xoth.net/blog/2011/04/by-these-rules-i-axe/
So here's the question - Anyone have any experience running a Pathfinder game in which Defense Bonuses (perhaps a-la Star Wars Saga or D20 Modern) are used instead of Armor Bonuses? Sure, you could have Karmag The Northman running around in Plate Armor and a Large Steel Shield, but would that truly work for the feel of the game? I think not.I suppose one could use Bracers of Armor and Rings of Protection and Necklaces of Armor, sure, but would that truly evoke the feel? Maybe?
I haven't introduced any alternative AC rules (such as defense bonuses) into my campaign, just going by the book.
I do allow "Training", which takes time and costs money, and grants the character an inherent bonus to AC (similar to Bracers of Armor). Sure, it's expensive compared to normal armor, but it can't be removed or stolen (the players like that!) and besides, characters need something to spend money on in a low-magic world without magic item shops.
That said, for "bare-chested barbarians", you could use the Savage Barbarian archetype, which gets Naked Courage, and take the Guarded Stance rage power, and combine it with a high Dex.
- thulsa
The Hyborian Age d20 Campaign Website
http://hyboria.xoth.net/
The Spider-God's Bride and Other Tales
http://xoth.net/publishing/xp1/
Hunger - I will check out your link when I am not at work, but it sounds like your game would be right up my players' alley. :)
Helaman - Thanks! I will consider these options and see what can be seen. :)
I used the Defense Bonus system in Unearthed Arcana in a campaign where all of the PCs were ninjas. It worked out quite well, though I would alter the system to not apply the defense bonus to touch AC, as that makes it quite tough if you're playing a spellcaster. It would also work well in swashbuckling or intrigue-heavy games, I believe.
Gwuh, woke up to a moved thread!
Anyway...
I used the Defense Bonus system in Unearthed Arcana in a campaign where all of the PCs were ninjas. It worked out quite well, though I would alter the system to not apply the defense bonus to touch AC, as that makes it quite tough if you're playing a spellcaster. It would also work well in swashbuckling or intrigue-heavy games, I believe.
I read through this, and while I find that it quite clearly favors armored characters over unarmored at the higher levels, which is kind of the reverse of the way it works in Star Wars (on which the system was based), at the lower levels it would appear to work quite well.
I'll have to do some number crunching and metagaming with one of my players before I decide if this is the way to go, though. I may simply remind them (thanks, again, Helaman) that armor WAS in prolific use in Howard's novels - although I suspect they're more in the mood for Movie Hyboria than Book Hyboria...
A Fist Full of Denari (great book, btw) also has a feat that scales AC with levels for unarmored characters.
A Fist Full of Denari (great book, btw) also has a feat that scales AC with levels for unarmored characters.
Where do I find this fabled item?
Yet another thought experiment, here.
Say I want to run a Hyborian Age, Bare-chested-barbarians-fighting-giant-spiders-and-snake-cultists, style game. A game where your characters run around attempting to solve the riddle of steel. Where they sneak into towers dedicated to ancient gods to steal the fire-gems of Hash-Seth-Ta, used as eyes in the mighty statue of the two headed God of Pain, Raman-Kur.
A game in which, it goes without saying, running around in heavy armor (or, for that matter, ANY armor) is just not going to happen. This would have to be a game that would result in copious amounts of single-warrior-against-hordes-of-foes, cackling wizards duking it out by summoning flocks of crows and bolts of lightning, and super sneaky thieves and archers sniping at one another from behind the stones of ancient ruins. Suffice to say, my players are all over this idea.
*childlike look of wonder* Man, I would LOVE to play in your game.
I used a Defense Bonus homebrew thing briefly a few years back, but my players sometimes want to strap me down to a fire ant mound when I start to tinker with rules too much. I can't remember exactly how I did it, but I think it was a BAB-based system, with actual armor reducing the Defense Bonus by its protection rating in exchange for non magical Damage Reduction. It actually worked for us, but that game had to be put on hiatus and we just never resumed it.