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I've been talking some on the forums about my wish that we had a more accurate representation of armor based on what we see in the real world, and gave a bit more rock paper scissors approach to combat. I wanted to take a minute to put down my thoughts and see what everyone thinks. This is probably not really balanced as it sits, but my players and I are playing around with it a bit in my online game. For now, the players at my in person game are a bit too new to do much with it.
I've studied HEMA for years, including doing some harnischfechten (in armor) work. Compared to blossfechten (out of armor) work, you'd don't give up much mobility, but you do give up some. I've also tested some armors with historically accurate weapons, and know that most armors are wonderfully effective at defeating attacks.
With that in mind, I've started toying with ideas to make the armor and weapon rules more realistic, without adding a tremendous amount of crunch. My basic idea is to give armors a flat DR vs incoming physical damage, while adding a penalty to AC. This stacks with DR granted by any other means. Characters in armor are more likely to get hit (and may choose to get hit to improve their chances to hit), but are less likely to actually take damage from the attack.
To make the change, every piece of armor gives DR to physical damage equal to twice the armor bonus, but takes a penalty to AC equal to one third the armor bonus, rounded down. This effectively gives light armor no penalty on AC, medium armor a -1 and only the heaviest armor a -2. Flexible armors do give one half their DR vs bludgeoning weapons. Armor runes increase DR proportional to their bonus (potency +1 giving +2 DR, for example), while also reducing the AC penalty by the same amount. Classes with training in armor may choose to give up their training in armor in exchange for expert unarmored defense. When a character who does this would normally be raised to expert defense they get raised to Master, and when they would normally hit Master they get raised to Legendary unarmored defense.
E.g. Seelah wears full plate armor, which under this system would give DR 12 vs physical attacks, and a -2 to her AC. At 5th level, she gains an armor potency rune. This increases her DR to 14 and reduces her penalty to AC to -2. With her class bonus built in this gives her a final AC of 16 (10 + 2 trained, +5 level, +1 rune, -2 armor) and 12 DR to each attack. She still benefits from bastion as normal.
Jirelle, meanwhile, gives up her armor training in exchange for expert unarmored defense, and has 18 dexterity. At 5th level she wears explorer's clothing to which she affixes an armor potency rune, giving her a final AC of 24 (10 + 4 expert + 5 level +4 Dexterity +1 rune) and a DR of 2.
We're also allowing certain weapons to be more effective vs armor. Martial piercing weapons or any weapon in the polearm, two handed crossbow or firearms group ignore one half of the armor DR of the one being attacked. Most monster attacks do not ignore the DR, but some especially tough weapons like dragon claws may act like armor piercers.
There are also some other ways to get around armor. One handed finesse piercing weapons ignore armor if the one attacked is grappled as they're able to find chinks in armor. A character wielding a finesse one handed weapon may choose to spend two actions on a strike and ignore 1/2 of the enemy's DR granted by armor, or three actions to ignore all of the DR granted by armor. The two action version stacks with weapon effects reducing armor effectiveness, but cannot reduce DR below 0. This represents taking time to line up a perfect shot versus a weak point on the enemy, like lining up a shot for stabbing through an eye slit on a helmet. We've also toyed with the idea of ignoring 1/2 the DR for melee strikes against an enemy who tripped, because armor typically doesn't protect against strikes from below, but we're still debating that.
In general, this means that characters wearing armor are easier to hit and take more criticals, but take relatively little damage in spite of that. Unarmored characters are much harder to hit, but when they get hit they take a good bit of damage.
To continue to example above, Seelah and Jirelle get in a fight over some point of law. Both are armed with the armor above. Jirelle holds a buckler with buckler expertise and a +1 striking rapier, while Seelah uses a minor sturdy shield and a +1 striking longsword. Jirelle wins initiative.
Jirelle tumbles past Seelah to gain panache, attacks and raises her buckler. She has an attack modifier of +14 (+4 expert +5 level +4 dexterity +1 rune) and easily scores a critical hit. She rolls (2d8+2)*2 + 1d8 for damage, for an average damage of 27 average damage. The rapier skitters off Seelah's armor before finally finding purchase though, reducing the effective damage to 13.
Seelah staggers back from the attack, raises her shield, and strikes back. She also has an attack modifier of +14, and scores a regular hit. She deals 2d8+4 damage, so with average damage it comes to 11 damage back after the DR. She then demoralizes Jirelle and gets a critical success, leaving her frightened 2.
Jirelle does not like the outcome of this exchange and knows her damage is going to be limited now that Seelah had time to raise her shield, so she chooses to spend 3 actions to line up a shot against a part of Seelah not protected by the armor. She could have chosen to raise her buckler and get +2 defense, giving her a chance of avoiding damage, but knows it is going to be tough to break through Seelah's armor. In spite of her frightened condition and Seelah's raised shield, she still scores a critical hit (Jirelle's attack modifier is +12, and Seelah's AC is now 18 due to the shield, giving a 20% chance to crit. Lucky, but not impossible.) Seelah burns her reaction to shield block. This time, when the attack comes in Seelah takes 19 damage, assuming an average critical hit. Had Jirelle not rolled well and gotten a normal hit (dealing 2d8+2, for an average of 11 damage), Seelah would only have taken 3 damage.
You can see how the interaction goes. Seelah might choose to burn a lay on hands and stay close to Jirelle, or might step away to force her to use an action so she can't use the 3 action ignore armor strike and force her to use the two action strike. Now that Jirelle's defenses are down due to the demoralization and choosing not to raise a buckler, Seelah might choose to attack twice, trying to out damage her. A gymnast swashbuckler might choose to grapple Seelah and get in close with a short sword to poke for holes in the armor. A fighter wielding a pick or ranseur would have an easier time poking through the armor as well.
It also plays nice with some other class interactions as well. A rogue who is attacking a flat footed enemy might take the time to line up a careful backstab to have the best chance of getting past a fighter's armor or invest in strength and athletics to grab the enemy first to keep them from squirming away, and stab twice. The gunslinger gets a bit of a boost in this as most of his weapons will deal with one half the armor, but unarmored enemies have a better chance of getting out of the way of their shots as they dodge away. Armored Barbarians get even bigger DR than they normally would, letting them shrug off many attacks.
What does everyone think? I know this is not going to get changed in this edition, but I like the thought of it as an alternative rule or change when 3e comes out. I feel like this gives martials something like the rules spellcasters have in terms of attacking the weak save. Does the character use their preferred +1 striking longsword when dealing with an armored opponent, trying to bash their way through the armor, or do they drop it and grab their +1 pick to better penetrate the full plate armor of the enemy and hope for a crit?
(Stealth edit: Fixing the damage numbers.)
I think the DR scales to badly to make ups for all the crits you are potentially eating, especially If they have to Fight against enemies who can 'get around the armor'
Against those the characters who usually go Tank the damage gonna droo quickly
Minor note that while probably a good number of people here will understand you anyway, "DR" doesn't exist as a game term in 2nd edition, which is what it appears you're crafting this brew for.
For myself this looks like a familiar but interesting scheme. Especially if renaming and repopulating the armour list with things that have a touch more historicity. There may be a touch too much complexity for my tastes these days (finesse piercing weapons (which ranges from daggers to rapiers) defeat armour but only in close quarters, etc) but the idea seems solid. I'm sure there's some way to crunch the raw damage numbers until something approximating a balanced solution comes out of it.
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I think the DR scales to badly to make ups for all the crits you are potentially eating, especially If they have to Fight against enemies who can 'get around the armor'
Against those the characters who usually go Tank the damage gonna droo quickly
You're probably right. We haven't gotten into high levels in the game we're playtesting it in, so higher DR (or Resistance, as the case may be) per rune or even higher base Resistance may be the better way to go.
Minor note that while probably a good number of people here will understand you anyway, "DR" doesn't exist as a game term in 2nd edition, which is what it appears you're crafting this brew for.
For myself this looks like a familiar but interesting scheme. Especially if renaming and repopulating the armour list with things that have a touch more historicity. There may be a touch too much complexity for my tastes these days (finesse piercing weapons (which ranges from daggers to rapiers) defeat armour but only in close quarters, etc) but the idea seems solid. I'm sure there's some way to crunch the raw damage numbers until something approximating a balanced solution comes out of it.
For real? I guess after learning on 1e my brain still defaults to that. Please consider all references to DR above to refer to resistance instead.
I'm thinking of the ignoring armor effects being specific to player characters and smarter enemies. A wolf is probably not going to be clever enough to aim for unarmored areas, but a bandit might be. It might be better suited to a class ability, feat, or specific monster ability rather than a general interaction. Kind of like how reactive strike works for most martial classes that have it as an option at 6th level, with the swashbuckler and the rogue getting it free at first level or the investigator getting it free when they devise a stratagem. Maybe just have 'armor piercer' as a specific weapon trait and rejigger the numbers so it only really makes sense to use the weapon against armored enemies.