Hey, thinking of starting up a campaign using some/all of the Optional rules from Ultimate combat in it. I'm aware, though, that too many cooks spoil the pot, and some of these may not work very well with each other. What combinations would you suggest to avoid? Which ones work well together? Here is my preferred list of options.
1. Called shot
2. Armor as DR
3. Vitality/Wounds
4. Peicemeal ArmorWhich one of these work well with the other?
Armor as DR has a problem in that it causes BaB to scale much faster than AC, so pretty quickly you have everyone hitting all the time.
If you're going to use Armor as DR, I recommend adding the Class Defense system found here.
Doing this will keep ACs high enough that combat isn't just a complicated game of bloody-knuckles where one side sits there and hopes they can just take it a little longer than the other guy.
A potential drawback is that it makes combat last longer than usual. Personally I don't mind this but YMMV.
The Armor as DR rules as presented in Ultimate Combat include the Defense Bonus. In regards to your other part, yeah, Combat either takes too long or last too short, depending on the dice. I'm willing to "roll" with that possibility.
You did read those rules, right? The Defense bonus in UC is only 10 + Dex mod + shield bonus + enhancement bonuses from armor (but NOT the armor bonus itself) and other random defenses like deflection or dodge. So no matter what level you are, it's always lower than standard AC. Whether you're at low levels or high levels, that's basically going to translate to auto-hits, even with a high Dex. I admit I haven't used it yet, but I seriously don't see how it could work out.
As for the rest of it, I haven't had a chance to use any of these rules in play yet, but I personally like the called shots rules. Board consensus seems to be that piecemeal armor is broken, but you'd have to search the threads for reasons why.
The Defense bonus in UC is only 10 + Dex mod + shield bonus + enhancement bonuses from armor (but NOT the armor bonus itself) and other random defenses like deflection or dodge. So no matter what level you are, it's always lower than standard AC. Whether you're at low levels or high levels, that's basically going to translate to auto-hits, even with a high Dex.
This is exactly what I meant.
Basically, in order to keep things from going into auto-hit mode you need to make up the AC bonuses normally granted by armor some other way.
Class based defense is a good way of doing that.