armor as hit points

[messy]

the idea of armor making it harder to hit a target has never quite worked for me. on the other hand, the armor as damage reduction adds another step to bookkeeping.

so what about adding an armor's armor bonus as bonus hit points per die (like constitution modifiers) instead? whether damage is absorbed by damage reduction or extra hit points amounts to (approximately) the same thing.

for example, bob the first level fighter has a constitution of 14 (+2) and wears chainmail (+6 armor), giving him 18 (10 base +2 constitution +6 armor) hit points. at 20th level bob would have 360 (18 per levelx20) hit points.

for another example, chuck the first level wizard has a constitution of 10 (+0) and casts mage armor (+4 armor), giving him 10 (6 base +0 constitution +4 armor) hit points. at 20th level chuck would have 200 (10 per levelx20) hit points.

note that, assuming both bob and chuck have a dexterity of 10 and no dodge/deflection/etc. bonuses to armor class, both characters would have an armor class of 10, so all those extra hit points might not last as long as one would expect.

[Zoolimar]

Can't find now but I remember a homebrew on giantitp where armor granted temporary hitpoints that replenished at the start of the turn.

If I remember right formula was something like Armor Bonus x Level

So a fighter in +1 full-plate at level 6 will have 60 temporary hitpoints at the start of each of his turns.

[Kazaan]

You need to understand that "hitting" in the PF system (as well as HP, for that matter) is an abstracted concept that doesn't just encompass contact. A "hit" in this system means your attack had a meaningful effect upon the target. A "miss" means that it didn't. You might "miss" because your aim was bad and you hit empty air, or because you would have hit but the target juked it, or because your attack glanced off their armor. It's that part that really sets the pace; you might actually "hit" your target without scoring a "hit" as far as the system is concerned. The d20 check is boolean in nature so far as hit or miss is concerned. You don't really know if you "missed" because of bad aim on your part, good dodging on their part, or because of a bad angle against their armor. And a hit doesn't really indicate whether you scored a solid, dead-on hit or you barely nicked them. You might rock an attack roll of 55 against their AC of 15, but still roll low on your damage. Likewise, you could beat their AC by just 1 point, but get a max damage x4 crit. Moreover, with HP also being an abstraction for your vigor and "fighting mojo", even if the armor did absorb the hit, it's still fatiguing to get hit even while wearing armor. Even attacks that never contact flesh can bring a target down by pummeling their armor enough.

Ultimately, it's a matter of give-and-take; they abstracted the system to reduce bookkeeping. If you want to make it more realistic, that inherently means more bookkeeping. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Moreover, once you start introducing the concept of armor "taking the damage for you", you start getting into the realm of "how much damage can the armor absorb before the armor, itself, suffers damage? For that, you need a way to determine whether the "miss" was due to you not getting hit, or the attack going *ping* off the armor.

That having been said, personally, I think the armor should give both AC and some DR. If you really want to get down to it, the attack roll should roll 2x d20 rolls. The higher of the two rolls targets AC as normal and the lower of the two targets touch AC. If you score a hit for both, then you deal full damage, no DR applies. If you hit against normal but miss against touch, you deal damage but the armor's DR applies to the damage. If you miss against normal but hit against touch, their armor absorbed the attack and might suffer damage itself. If you miss against both, then it's a total miss; you never touched them.