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A character in full plate should not take the same damage as an unarmored character from the same attack. All creatures gain DR based on their Armor Score. This DR is only bypassed if an attack would explicitly ignore any bonuses provided by normal armor.
______Manufactured Armor
Worn armor increases your Armor Score equal to the AC bonus it provides. Medium armor gains a +2 to the score, while heavy gains a +3. Masterwork improves this score by 1. Enhancement bonus also increase the Armor Score by 1 per enhancement.
(note: this means the bonus is applied twice. Once for the AC gained, and again for the enhancement)
______Natural Armor
Natural armor stacks with regular armor to determine your Armor Score, providing +1 to your score per point of natural armor.
______DR From Other Sources
DR from armor and other sources stack to a lesser benefit. Non-armor DR improves your Armor Score equal to the score it would normally take that receive that much DR.
(for example; DR 5 silver provides an Armor Score of 7, plus natural armor of 5 makes an Armor Score of 12. This provides a DR of 7 vs all attacks)
If an attack would bypass 1 DR source, but not another, its bonus is removed from your Armor Score when determining your remaining DR.
(from the above example, an attack with a silver weapon would bypass the DR 5/silver, so the Armor score is reduced by the 7 it had previously gained. This leaves us with a total score of 5, and a DR 4. Had resimply had the silver weapon bypass 5 DR, we would have only be left with DR 2, and been receiving a penalized amount of DR compared to a creature with the same score.)
______AC From Monks and Such
Any class or ability that provides an AC bonus in lieu of actually wearing armor gains a bonus to their Armor Score equal to the AC gained -1. Any time this bonus to AC would be lost or ignored, they also lose any DR that would be provided.
(example; a lvl 8 monk with a WIS modifier of +4, is adding +6 to their AC. This provides an Armor Score of 6-1=5, thus giving a DR of 4.)
______Shields
By default a shield provides nothing to an Armor Score. However you may spend various actions to ready a shield for a substantial boost. The bonus to your Armor Score depends on the action used. The base value is calculated the same as an armor would be.
__Immediate: Also required 1 AoO. Improve Armor scoreby Base + 4 vs 1 attack.
__Move: Improve Armor scoreby Base + 4 for 1 round.
__Fighting defensive: Improve Armor scoreby Base + 4 + 2 (or your fighting defensive bonus) for 1 round.
__Total defense: Improve Armor scoreby Base + 4 + 4 (or your total defense bonus) for 1 round.
__Full-round: Improve Armor scoreby Base + 11 for 1 round.
*Special: Tower shield can only be readied as a standard action or higher. Bucklers may only be readied as a move action or lower.
Armor Score | DR
___________1 | 1
___________2 | 2
___________3 | 3
___________5 | 4
___________7 | 5
___________9 | 6
__________12 | 7
__________15 | 8
__________18 | 9
__________22 | 10
__________26 | 11
__________30 | 12
__________35 | 13
__________40 | 14
__________45 | 15
__________51 | 16
__________57 | 17
__________63 | 18
__________70 | 19
__________77 | 20
__________84 | 21
__________92 | 22
_________100 | 23
Improving your armor score and thus your DR with other sources of DR over complicates the system. It would be better to leave the separate DR sources alone, unless the DR source is actually the armor itself. For example Padded Armor with its DR 2 vs ranged piercing, or adamantine armor with its DR 1-3/adamantine depending on armor category...
Your example with DR 5/silver would become DR 5/silver and DR 4/armor bypass. If attacked with a silver weapon it still hits DR 4, and non Silver hits DR 5....
Adamantine plate armor would be DR 8/armor bypass then from 9 AC +3 Heavy, +3 DR 3/adamantine.
It makes sense to have innate DR from the armors construction improve the DR granted by simply being armor, but it’s just overly complicated when all sources of DR get factored in... especially if you are stacking all such DR sources even to a limited degree.
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I'm also of the mind that should exhibit some sort of DR, but I've kept my changes shall and within current rules. In fact, I've only made it for shields, to show why shields were so needed in history.
Whatever AC bonus the shield grants, that's the DR bonus. Enhancements add to that number of DR, but not spells that increase shield bonuses.
That's it.
Your system looks kinda awesome! Let me know how it turns out. ;-)
Improving your armor score and thus your DR with other sources of DR over complicates the system...
I honestly agree, and had a REALLY hard time figuring out how I wanted it to work and be easily explainable. The issue I had with your provided suggestion was that a Werewolf wearing armor and a naked wearwolf would take the same amount of damage from an attack from a non-silver weapon, so the armored one didn't get a benefit (outside the AC boost, bu thats a moot point for DR logic). It also creates a situation were your Armor score of 12 gives you DR 7, so your DR 5/silver is wasted and gives no benefit outside of adimantine weapons.
Yes it absolutely complicates the system, but I feel its important to keep it involved.
I can see your point... However, I think at the very least, any source of DR not from the armor itself should be limited to only allowing the highest source of DR applicable to the attack to increase your Armor Score.
So if for example you had a Level 15 Barbarian wearing Chainmail, who has DR 5/Silver (from something) and DR 3/- (from class levels)... they would have an Armor Score of:
Chainmail | AC 6, Medium | 6 + 2 = 8
DR 5/Silver & DR 3/- | 7 & 3 = 7
8 + 7 = 15 = DR 8/Silver & 8 + 3 = 11 = DR 6/-
So the end result is you'd have both DR 8/Silver and DR 6/- while armored at that point... When hit by a Silver weapon you retain DR 6, but otherwise you have DR 8 then...
Basically require them to calculate their DR for each type of DR they possess... You shouldn't get to stack all sources of DR together when wearing armor, after all you don't get to stack them when not wearing armor...
Adding such a restriction would allow someone with a source of DR to gain benefit from their Armor improving their DR while also keeping things from getting out of hand.
You'd be making your system work within the existing rules for DR as an extension to the system rather than contradicting the system and making wearing something as meager as a Haramaki with +1AC extremely strong by gaining DR 20/- from stacking dozens of types of DR together...