Armor as DR Variant Rules

[Valdast]

http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/ultimateCombat/variants/armorAsDamageRed uction.html

What's the general idea for these rules? I'd like to hear what people have done with this system, and just some general experience with the system in comparison to the normal AC system.

(I'm using this in conjunction with the Wounds and Vigor system, so that should be taken into account to some degree)

[ryric]

The biggest problem with any armor as DR system is that they don't scale well with damage as PCs gain levels. Full plate DR is absolutely sovereign against goblins, and nearly worthless against a huge earth elemental. Somewhere around 8th-10th level you'll notice that the DR barely makes a difference. Mostly this is a consequence of PCs getting their final armor "type" (chain shirt, full plate, etc.) by 2nd level and then just adding a +1 every so often to it. Those +1s don't keep up with damage that starts to hit the 30-40 range, unless you make armor +s add huge amount to the DR, in which case you end up with a situation where nomral people with normal weapons can't even hurt the PCs even on a crit.

[gustavo iglesias]

ryric wrote:

The biggest problem with any armor as DR system is that they don't scale well with damage as PCs gain levels. Full plate DR is absolutely sovereign against goblins, and nearly worthless against a huge earth elemental. Somewhere around 8th-10th level you'll notice that the DR barely makes a difference. Mostly this is a consequence of PCs getting their final armor "type" (chain shirt, full plate, etc.) by 2nd level and then just adding a +1 every so often to it. Those +1s don't keep up with damage that starts to hit the 30-40 range, unless you make armor +s add huge amount to the DR, in which case you end up with a situation where nomral people with normal weapons can't even hurt the PCs even on a crit.

It also affect monsters in very different ways. A multiattack monster with relatively low damage, like a Marilith, will suck vs a decent armor. A monster with similar CR that does few hits, but strongers, will be better. You'll need to check CR

[valamon]

I've only ever seen a couple ways to help scale this. The damages would have to be modified as well. Perhaps a few minor feat changes and such. The big problem at that point would be to determine exactly what the purpose of leveling would be if not to generally increase your damage etcetera.

[Juda de Kerioth]

The DR subsystem only can be useful with the vitality from Dark Ages...
I try, and t´was funny, but we drop it away before a lot of monsters making this or that kind of dmage