Ultimate Combat has an optional alternate rule for using armor as DR... "who cares there have been awful attempts before?" you say?... this one is a bit different than usual so I wanted to start a thread about it's good points that address problem in the standard 3.5/Pathfinder system and the things it would allow going forward into high & epic levels where D20 tends to start breaking down badly.
System in a nutshell
Traditionally AC represents both how difficult it is to hit you and how difficult it is t hit you in ways tat affect you through the armor, but this splits the avoidance part from the big sheet of metal blocks the attack part into different components (DS, DR, and Crit Defense).
DS
Basically this is touch AC+shield. It works exactly like AC in normal gameplay. Attackers have to overcome the defender's DS to physically hit them.
DR
Ok, ok... you've seen it before and it sucked, how is this any different you say?... read on! The AC (10+shield+base bonus+natural armor/etc)gets converted to "DR/Armor". "What the heck is that you say?" Basiclly the type of DR that /armor grants depends on the source -and- it stacks with existing DR. meaning a defender with DR5/slash using nothing but a 3 AC shield would have DR7/slash and dr3/armor
- Nonmagical armor: (plain/masterwork). Lets face it this is the stuff you replace as soon as possible and never look back, if your still wearing it, anything that counts as magical attacks is probably scary already in the core system. This kind of armor gives you DR/Magic for the /Armor component or attacks from large opponents (which are pretty scary at those levels usually)
-Magical Armor: something so minor as a +1 enhancement bonus changes the DR to /Adamantine or huge attackers. Lorewise, adamantine is supposed to be this awesome cut through anything ignore hardness metal.. in practice, you use it if you are going to face one of the handful of things with DR/Adamantine... plus, anything huge is usually scary anyways.
-Adamantine Armor: Dr/- and Gargantuan attackers. There aren't many things that big, but usually they aren't the sort of thing you go in unprepared for... No change, but spells that shrink big targets down (even a notch) go from kinda meh to really freaking useful under this system.
-Natural Armor: For the most part the natural armor component is good against one step up on the list above from your armor (the catch & attacker size). Natural armor is suddenly really nice.
- Other: There are also some modifiers that adjust your DR/Armor for unusual attackers (incorporeal/amorphous/swarm/etc), mostly in the form of hoe much of it they ignore... Suddenly a whole bunch of critters become more or less scary, some(like ghosts that ignore AC already) going from really frightening to just frightening, Swarms, potentially more scary
Critical Defense
When an attacker gets a critical threat, instead of another attack roll like normal to confirm, the defender gets to defend like so:
* Critical defense check bonus = creature’s DR + Dexterity
modifier + shield bonus to Defense + deflection bonus
* Critical defense DC = critical hit roll + 1/2 attacker’s base
attack bonus + 1 for each critical feat + 1 for each size
category larger attacker is than target
Seems good overall in the crit aspect
The Strange
The whole thing seems to be a bit odd in that it gives the size of the attacker to overcome DR but doesn't mention size difference until critical defense comes up. It seems kinda strange that two large attackers wearing nonmagical armor might as well be naked to each other, so on and so forth up the chart... It should probably be size differences the whole way I think.
The GoodThe system fixes and improves a few things over core.. Specifically:
- Sure, getting that first set of +1 armor at low levels is kinda nice in core. But it's not going to make any huge differences. Unter this system though +1 armor suddenly has a huge difference against the kind of threats you are starting to face now that angry housecats are no longer a real threat to your existence. In short... it's a real upgrade beyond just a 5% lower chance of being hit in most cases. Low level sells like magic weapon suddenly become a potentially significant contribution at low levels.
The Hmmm....
Lets say they adjust it to take into account size difference. This allows for some stuff that should be interesting:
- Dwarves: let them be treated as one size category larger, it only makes sense given their racial bonus'
- Gnomes: They get a tiny nearly meaningless bonus to AC vrs attacks from giants (or someone does) Let them treat giants as = size unless they are somehow larger
The cool
d20 falls apart as it progresses towards and into epic levels because minor differences between full Bab progression and partial/poor progression classes grow to such a huge difference that anything for full progressions to hit is basically impossible for the rest & anything hard for the rest is practically autohit for full progression. this leads to some really bad rocket tag-like encounters the further you progress even with 3.5's epic progression... just look at some of the silly critters & gear in the epic level handbook if you don't believe me.
Along that same vein of moving towards/into epic play, armor in core has some simple steps of improvement... but they abruptly stop pretty early on once you can afford plate. this sort of thing could allow for armors with higher base AC/dex caps (either/both) without breaking things as badly as it would with the normal core rules. Things like "Dwarf crafted" for a bonus to what it takes for larger sized critters to bypass your DR and/or dex cap or maybe adamantine threaded to make cloth/leather armor count as adamantine (dr/- and gargantuan)and or/ bump the base AC or maybe supremework as a mundane step up from masterwork that works... somehow.. like the above examples A whole new world of potential defensive spells and martial buffs opens up under the armor as DR system that would just freaking break standard core rules in half (big armor buffs or just or not apply at all.
The Rest
So did I miss anything or start babbling like a madman?... What do you think about it?
Don't think of it as a patch. think of it as a new baby mutant. We're going to toss it out into he world and see if it survives, if it does it may multiply. If not it will be ground under the heel of a relentless and uncaring universe.
Don't think of it as a patch. think of it as a new baby mutant. We're going to toss it out into he world and see if it survives, if it does it may multiply. If not it will be ground under the heel of a relentless and uncaring universe.
Baby mutant tossed out feel right as it is, but I think it could be raised into something rather nice
Actually, I've seen two such systems that work WELL: Conan and Fantasy Craft.
In Conan, there are two ways to bypass armor DR: power weapons reduce the effective DR to as little as 50% normal. Finesse weapons require a "normal" to-hit roll (the way we're used to seeing AC work) to completely bypass DR. Most war-type weapons scale up one dice type, and the balanced system actually works as a whole.
Fantasy Craft has lower DR than the PF system, has more weapons with AP (armor penetration), and also scales weapon damage up by a dice type.
I think a lot of the size penetration in PF goes back to first edition D&D when some genius realized werewolves couldn't hurt each other because their claws weren't magical or silver. The size category (which, I agree, should be size DIFFERENCE) is intended to represent this.
But in general, as hinted at above, I look at the PF armor as DR as a starting point, not as a completed section of rules.
Actually, I've seen two such systems that work WELL: Conan and Fantasy Craft.
In Conan, there are two ways to bypass armor DR: power weapons reduce the effective DR to as little as 50% normal. Finesse weapons require a "normal" to-hit roll (the way we're used to seeing AC work) to completely bypass DR. Most war-type weapons scale up one dice type, and the balanced system actually works as a whole.
Fantasy Craft has lower DR than the PF system, has more weapons with AP (armor penetration), and also scales weapon damage up by a dice type.
I think a lot of the size penetration in PF goes back to first edition D&D when some genius realized werewolves couldn't hurt each other because their claws weren't magical or silver. The size category (which, I agree, should be size DIFFERENCE) is intended to represent this.
But in general, as hinted at above, I look at the PF armor as DR as a starting point, not as a completed section of rules.
I never played the games you mention, but you bring up some interesting ideas & I agree fully that it's a good a good starting point.
Maybe allow power attack/finesse to count as one size larger or bypass a percentage of DR. since those are typically taken by folks who are rather specialized in hitting things with weapons & giving it to only one would kinda destroy the other if it doesn't also gain something of similar valueAs to the werewolf problem, the easiest solution is to simply say that creatures using natural attacks can always harm others of the same kind or those closely related* with those attacks
*i.e. werewolf/werebear gold/black dragon
What I don't get is why shield bonuses don't stack.
This would work well with increasing AC through leveling. I was thinking every 4th level gain a point, and let armor be something else entirely.
don't stack how? In the UC writeup it talks about how you use a shield for trying to actively stop attacks from missing you and if you fail at doing so it's too late for it to help you reduce the damage once the attack hits your armor. Using that logic, allowing it to count towards defending against touch attacks (even partly) might be reasonable