Armor class

[Shevek]

Right armor for the right occaision sounds like a good thing to me...

[rjshae]

Right armor for the right occaision sounds like a good thing to me...

Okay, so do you want a system where that decision takes 3 seconds to quickly assess, or 3 minutes to analyze in detail? (This being my point. )

[Shevek]

If it takes you 3 minutes to analyze a d20 armor system, it isn't the system's fault.

[Halric]

D&D's AC mechanic leaves a lot ot be desired, and that stems from a fundamental problem with what Hit Points actually are, because they are a blend of several factors.

There were a few posts that were a bit confused about AC in D&D, AC did not mitigate any damage at all. It was a mechanic that either prevented damage completely, or left it to the mysterious Hit Point pool to deal with. Once you got hit in D&D, that's it, you're taking damage. How much? well there were other things that allowed you to mitigate, like feats, and most importantly, what level you were.

 

For instance: A level 1 fighter with 8 hit points gets hit with an arrow, that attack roll was higher than his AC so he's taking damage now. Long bows weighed in at 1d8 damage and lets say it was a 6. The fighter is almost dead, that was a nasty hit. Maybe he's got an arrow through his thigh or some such.

 

A level 12 fighter gets hit with the same arrow, but his HP is 145. The arrow did 6 damage? that's bearly a scratch, in fact, maybe it actually *didn't* hit him at all and he managed to dodge it. The 6 damage? that wasn't "real" damage, that was just a loss of battle focus.

 

This is because HP are a representation of a characters training, skill, talent, and phsyical toughness. Why? Well there are many reasons, I believe it is because D&D did not offer an opposed roll system for main combat rolls so there was no where else to jam all the modifiers for a character combat ability and prowess. The attacker rolls against a static value.

 

My vote is for a system where Armour more closely represents it's actual role in real combat, to prevent damage to the wearer. In my opinion, this means moving to an opposed roll system where the defender and the attacker pit their rolls against each other. These rolls after modified for factors like skill, training, natural talent and environmental factors. If the defender wins, then it means s/he dodged, parried, or otherwise avoided the attack. If the attacker wins, then a hit of some kind was scored and the armour will determine how serious that hit was.

 

Once in the damage phase, we can evaluate things like armour effectiveness against damage type. These are things we usually stay away from in table top because it slows things down, but a cRPG has no such problem when a computer is doing all the math.

 

Shields are interesting, I'm leaning towards shields being more of a bonus to your defense roll against a ranged attack. Essentially allowing you to parry the projectile. You could also say that shields grant you a cover bonus to your defense roll from ranged attacks. For melee, they offer a defense roll bonus since you use it as a parrying device. The bonuses to defense roll for ranged attacks could be increased over melee depending on the shield.

[Jarmo]

After a bit of thinking, I'm leaning towards Fallout system afterall.

 

With both damage treshold and percentage reduction in addition to damage avoidance by dodgin skill and other factors like dexterity and encumbrance. Only I'd like the damage tresholds a bit higher than in FO. In D&D terms something like 8 points and 50% for full plate would be fine. So without strength bonuses you wouldn't be able to hurt a knight with sword or bow at all, unless you score a critical. And if it'd be a critical bypasses the treshold (but not % reduction), you'd still be looking at 1-4 points max.

 

If that sounds unreasonable, it shouldn't. Crusader knights were described to look like porcupines after battle, with arrows pointing everywhere, unable to penetrate the chainmail but still stuck in padding or the cloth bit over the armor, they'd be fine, besides a few scratches an occasional bleeders. Or how later medieval knights (wearing plate) would abandon shields alltogether, because they were protected well enough to make them practically invulnerable and they needed heavy 2-handed weapons to harm opposing knights.

 

Further, I'm in favor of shields adding to the dodging/deflection skill, and I wouldn't like heavy armor to negate all dodging. Maybe there could be an armor skill, where anyone can wear any armor, but untrained wearer suffers much higher dodge penalties?

 

--

All 3, dodging, treshold and reduction, because that'd make an agile fighter a viable option. And would help with situations where going against big opponents that'd hit 34 points of damage, I'd still like a definite advantage from wearing armor. Taking 30 or 34 points is no big difference if going by treshold alone.

Edited October 26, 2012 by Jarmo

[teknoman2]

I'd prefer parrying/blocking/dodging (as trainable skills) to avoid being hit, while armor absorbs damage if you fail with those. Flat out absorption that is, no % reduction. No special treatment needed for crits, with their increased damage the flat reduction from armor becomes less effective anyways.

 

If you've come into contact with the DSA ruleset, this probably sounds familiar =P

 

I liked Fallout 1/2's system that combined both Damage Resistance (percentile reduction, cannot negate all damage taken) and Damage Threshold (subtractive reduction, can negate all damage taken if it is below the DT,) there's a strong argument for that being unbalanced in the wrong circumstances, but if there were an armor degradation system in place, the DR/DT ratings would gradually decay as the armor takes damage. New Vegas came close with its DT system, but I didn't like the fact that a minimum amount of damage always penetrated.

 

If some stableboy with a **** broom smacks me in the head while I'm wearing a good helmet, I don't want to take a single point of damage unless it was a critical hit that bent my neck in an odd way, leading to a minor sprain and a few days of ache (unless tended to.)

 

i think a combination would be better. each character should have the ability to evade attacks, based on his agility and/or some skill. some items, like shields, boots of avoidance or bracers of defence should add to the evade chance, while actual armor should have a limit to how much evade they allow, with heavier armors allowing none. obviously the heavier an armor the more damage it can block from each attack. so the padded cloth armor, would give no evade limit, but only 3% defence against damage. the leather armor would cut your evade by 15%, while reducing damage by 8%. the chain mail would reduce your evade by 50%, while reducing damage by 20%. the full plate would reduce your evade by 95% and damage by 50%

 

That implies that any/all attacks will penetrate that suit of full plate, though. Damage Resistance is not the ideal solution because the idea that every kind of attack will penetrate that armor and wound the wearer is a given in it. Like my broom example from before, a set of full plate armor vs. the stableboy's brush will necessarily have to leave you taking damage. Let's say this broom swipe does 1 HP damage. Your armor reduced that by 50%, but unless there are decimals in PE, it's going to round up to 1 HP, meaning steel plate armor has no effect against wooden broomsticks.

that would be easily solved if instead of a percentage they put a fixed amount of damage absorbed by the armor, like in FNV. so a leather armor would block 3 damage, allowing for up to 85% evade chance if you have the stats for it and a full plate would block out 15 damage per hit allowing for up to 5% evade

[HansKrSG]

When attacking someone with armor, there should be a chance, depending on how covered your opponent is in armor, that you bypass the armor entirely. If the armor is not bypassed, armor should subtract from the total damage. Some types of weapons should also be more effective at penetrating some types of armor.

[AGX-17]

that would be easily solved if instead of a percentage they put a fixed amount of damage absorbed by the armor, like in FNV.

 

....Which is something I already addressed in the context of Fallout (it's called Damage Threshold,) in the very post of mine you just quoted.

Edited October 26, 2012 by AGX-17

[teknoman2]

that would be easily solved if instead of a percentage they put a fixed amount of damage absorbed by the armor, like in FNV.

 

....Which is something I already addressed in the context of Fallout (it's called Damage Threshold,) in the very post of mine you just quoted.

i didnt read you post though

not all of it anyway

Edited October 26, 2012 by teknoman2

[Shevek]

When attacking someone with armor, there should be a chance, depending on how covered your opponent is in armor, that you bypass the armor entirely. If the armor is not bypassed, armor should subtract from the total damage. Some types of weapons should also be more effective at penetrating some types of armor.

 

Ok, so, you want a chance to go through links in a suit of chainmail and hit the vitals? Most systems have this already... it is called scoring a critical hit. You could just make it so critical hits are not subject to DR from armor but that is not strictly necessary. Also, I would be careful with damage types. That can be hell to balance and get right. GURPS did ok but they ony have like 2 damage types and their effectiveness depends on whether or not the armor is flexible.

Edited October 26, 2012 by Shevek

[general_azure]

I liked Fallout 1/2's system that combined both Damage Resistance (percentile reduction, cannot negate all damage taken) and Damage Threshold (subtractive reduction, can negate all damage taken if it is below the DT,) there's a strong argument for that being unbalanced in the wrong circumstances, but if there were an armor degradation system in place, the DR/DT ratings would gradually decay as the armor takes damage. New Vegas came close with its DT system, but I didn't like the fact that a minimum amount of damage always penetrated.

 

Just to get this DT/DR definition right, actual damage taken would be something like (weapondamage-DT)*(1-DR) ?

 

I agree that balancing is slightly more complicated with DT in the system, as you risk making armor either useless or utterly impenetrable/overpowered. There is some good middle ground though, otherwise there wouldn't be PnP systems successfully using it. And there's certainly no way to make it work well with "large number systems" where your damage scales from 10 to 999 during the game or "tiered equipment", but I don't think we'll have to bother with those anyways.

 

The main reason I'm against pure DR is that it makes all weapons pretty much equal. If someone slaps on pure 50% DR it does not matter at all whether you use a warhammer or a teaspoon to attack him, it takes twice as long as before either way.

 

All 3, dodging, treshold and reduction, because that'd make an agile fighter a viable option. And would help with situations where going against big opponents that'd hit 34 points of damage, I'd still like a definite advantage from wearing armor. Taking 30 or 34 points is no big difference if going by treshold alone.

 

If you look at your example from a slightly different angle, this is why I'd like most of the protection to come from DT, with just some slight DR as added padding: With your numbers (like full plate DT at 8 maing you pretty much immune to long swords), 34 points of damage from a non-crit is probably something like a ballista bolt to the face or a dragon stepping on you. This is not something you should expect to just shrug off, even when wearing plate. In this case, being the agile fighter and trying not to get hit at all might be a better idea.

Edited October 26, 2012 by general_azure

[terryrayc]

Armor should reduce damage only, however the more a set of armor weighs the easier you should be to hit. If you are wearing a simple cloth shirt(Really no protection) you should be able to move pretty freely and dodge attacks like normal, however if you are wearing a full set of plate armor the weight is around 100 pounds to close to 150 pound depending on quality and you are not going to be jumping and rolling around dodging attacks so you'll be easier to hit. I mean it's a known fact that Knights in full plate armor had to be lifted up onto their horses. So hitting them should have been a piece of cake, unless they were on horse and using the horses movement to aid in dodging but that's a different question.

[Jarmo]

If you look at your example from a slightly different angle, this is why I'd like most of the protection to come from DT, with just some slight DR as added padding: With your numbers (like full plate DT at 8 maing you pretty much immune to long swords), 34 points of damage from a non-crit is probably something like a ballista bolt to the face or a dragon stepping on you. This is not something you should expect to just shrug off, even when wearing plate. In this case, being the agile fighter and trying not to get hit at all might be a better idea.

 

You know, I almost added the counterargument about how it's better to just not be hit by a giants 300 pound warhammer right away. But I'm kind of arguing with myself enough already. Anyway, the way I'd see it is even -50% from a dragons strike or ballista shot is still quite a lot! And I'd like to see you be significantly, not just marginally, better off if you do get hit and are wearing a heavy armor. And you're still significantly better off anyway, if you do dodge the attack.

 

Probably not dragon stepping on you though, but slashing with its tail with big pointy spikes. The spikes would penetrate.. a bit, but mostly you'd be tossed to the side, probably stunned and unconscious. While the unarmored one would just be splattered all over the place.

 

Yea, give weapons the stun also.

[Xinxspuz]

Too many posts to quote all at once...

Everyone that keeps talking about having armor only apply Damage Reduction and/or Damage Resistance: You're basing your arguments primarily on FPS games (Fallout 1/2), which by their very nature incorporate a miss chance. You may not SEE the miss chance, because it's not a number in your character's profile, but you can be damn sure that some players are better at dodging and weaving than others, and are therefore harder for enemies to hit. By the same token, some players are just better shots, and hit their target more often.

Having DR (either type) does not mean that you're automatically being hit every time an enemy takes a shot at you. That makes these games a "mix of the first two systems" (Vote Option #3 in the poll). Anyone who is voting for #2 and using Fallout or any other FPS as their argument doesn't understand what they're voting for (Which NEVER happens in America, right? )

 

The point of an RPG, on the other hand, is that your character's in-game performance is NOT heavily dependent on your ability to make headshots from across the map. You're given some skills and abilities which you, the player, get to choose, and those skills and abilities determine whether your character has the marksmanship abilities of Legolas, or an Imperial Stormtrooper. Enter the miss chance. Your character's accuracy at <insert attack form here> attacks is determined by a number, which you, the player, can modify by your skill choices, ability choices, equipment choices, and tactical choices in combat. Conversely, an enemy's ability to hit you is ALSO determined by a number, albeit a different one than yours most of the time, and by the choices that the programmers and AI make for that enemy.

 

What goes into calculating that miss chance is mainly up to the programmers. Want to represent every hit that deals damage by having your character make an "Ow!" sound, and every hit that fails to do damage (whether due to dodge, blocking, or damage reduction) represented by your character visually stepping out of the way of the hit? Ok, but visually, that's a very unrealistic combat. Even older games differentiated between "Hit" (Ow sound), "Blocked by armor/shield" (Clang/thunk/whap, no damage taken), and "Clear miss" (dodge graphic for character under attack). Newer games add in graphics for "Parried", "Glancing Blow", and several other categories, depending on what game you're referring to. Upside: More realistic and entertaining combat. Downside: More programming to do, more sound files to record.

 

My two cents? I think that some armors should protect their wearer by making them harder to hit - shields, breastplates, full plate, and so forth actually do provide a durable physical barrier to incoming attacks. Enemy's miss chance goes up. The enemy can negate (partially or fully) this miss chance IF they have an attack of sufficient power to penetrate your armor - a shield isn't going to do jack against a ballista bolt, and a suit of full plate isn't going to provide any protection at all against being smashed by a falling tree. Weaker attacks can still do damage via the critical hit method - even the best armors have weak spots where weapons can penetrate. Joints, breathing slits, etc.

Conversely, some armors should offer more in the way of damage reduction/damage resistance. A suit of cloth armor provides very little in the way of a physical barrier to most attacks, but it does still absorb some of the kinetic energy of those incoming attacks. Here's where "-1 to all incoming damage" or "-5% to incoming damage" becomes a relevant feature.

Can you have armor that does both? Absolutely. That's one of the reasons plate mail was historically such an effective armor - it both blocked attacks, and mitigated the damage of the attacks it couldn't block. Hit someone with an 8-kilo sledgehammer, and you transfer the same amount of kinetic energy to them whether they're armored or not. Bones shatter and organs rupture if your target is unarmored, but if she's wearing plate mail, the metal of the armor redirects the majority of the force, and distributes it over a much greater surface area, resulting in far less permanent damage to the armor's occupant. Will she still get knocked down? Probably. But she can get back up, suffering only a large dent in her armor, rather than a fatal injury.

All these armors must be balanced by other stats, as well. Plate mail makes you an easier target because you can't move as fast, and your range of motion is impeded. But, as mentioned before, there's a difference between an attack that's a "wide miss" (doesn't even come close to hitting you, armor or no), and an attack that's technically a hit, but just fails to penetrate your armor. Maybe plate mail makes you 30% easier to hit with attacks. But guess what? Attacks that do hit you are going to bounce off with no effect 90% of the time. This still makes plate mail very good armor - your base chance to be damaged by an attack is now 1/8th of what it was before you put your armor on. Problematic if you're fighting a giant who uses a tree as club - then your plate mail doesn't do so well against massive crushing damage, completely negating the armor protection. Suddenly your chance to be hit is 130% of base, and your armor is useless. Time to hide behind a rock, take it off, and impersonate the party Rogue trying to tumble around between the giant's feet.

 

What it boils down to, basically, is that a hybrid system is pretty much a given. The actual details of the system, as far as which armor provides which bonuses, are a matter of game balance, and how much work the programmers feel like doing. The math remains the same - an armor that makes you 80% less likely to take damage from an attack is the same as having a skill that makes you 80% likely to dodge an incoming attack. Over a long combat, you take 80% less damage either way. The way the modifiers and calculations are set up in the software determines whether Dodge becomes more useful than Armor in a specific situation, or vice versa. That's where having A) A balanced game system, and B) A clear explanation of said game system will make the difference. When you have both of those things, regardless of how many variables are included, you can sit down and compare options for yourself, and get what you want out of your character and the gameplay experience (Translation: Munchkin your heart out).

[Angry Chief]

Why heavy armour should affect player speed or evade chance? Modern soldier wears equipment that is as heavy as medieval knights(ofc there are lots of plate armour types), if not more. Medieval plate armor just felt lighter as the weight was distributed over the entire body. Knights doing fancy gymnastics in their armour is well documented, combat armour was more problematic for endurance than agility.

[Xinxspuz]

Why heavy armour should affect player speed or evade chance? Modern soldier wears equipment that is as heavy as medieval knights(ofc there are lots of plate armour types), if not more. Medieval plate armor just felt lighter as the weight was distributed over the entire body. Knights doing fancy gymnastics in their armour is well documented, combat armour was more problematic for endurance than agility.

Do me a favor. Go put on some ankle weights and wrist weights, and try to do a sprint down the sidewalk. See how fast you move. Even the best-designed modern armor still slows down its wearer. Any soldier will tell you this. They don't SEEM slowed down because soldiers throughout history have always been trained to peak physical performance, but I guarantee that however fast and agile a soldier is while wearing armor, they are faster and more agile without it. It's just that a 50% reduction in speed for someone who can run a 6-minute mile makes them, guess what? About the same speed as an unencumbered AVERAGE human being.

[Churchwarden]

I think armor should merely affect whether or not my character is hit, in terms of the mechanic, which is altogether different than whether or not it represents the opponent making contact with my character's body. Characters with high armor class as a result of heavier protection (plate, e.g.) are probably not dodging much, but from the RP perspective, they are harder to hit in a damaging way, whereas agile characters with light armor but lots of dexterity are probably actually dodging the attacks due to their increased mobility. I think that unique items or class specific-powers that mitigate some damage are fun mechanics, but in general I don't think of armor class as a measure of whether or not I'm easy to "tag" by the opponent, but rather, whether he/she makes contact in a damaging way. Rather than armor class, I think of it as "Defense Class." I don't need a million different derived stats for defense (armor, block, parry, dodge, etc.), but if I can increase my defense through different character traits like agility, wit, weapon expertise, or brute strength/endurance, then the reason it's a high defense can be easily justified in terms of my character's awesome training. If I'm carrying a shield, I would love an animation that shows me block an attack, or if I am wielding two daggers, either parrying or deftly dodging, but I think it's better from a mechanic viewpoint to simply have a single defense stat.

[AGX-17]

My two cents? I think that some armors should protect their wearer by making them harder to hit - shields, breastplates, full plate, and so forth actually do provide a durable physical barrier to incoming attacks. Enemy's miss chance goes up. The enemy can negate (partially or fully) this miss chance IF they have an attack of sufficient power to penetrate your armor - a shield isn't going to do jack against a ballista bolt, and a suit of full plate isn't going to provide any protection at all against being smashed by a falling tree. Weaker attacks can still do damage via the critical hit method - even the best armors have weak spots where weapons can penetrate. Joints, breathing slits, etc.

 

You're defining a miss in a radically different way from most everyone else here (and incorrectly, at that.) If a police officer or soldier wearing ballistic armor gets shot in the chest with small arms fire, they don't just brush themselves off and call it a "miss," they call an ambulance or medic to treat the potentially severe blunt force trauma they just suffered to the chest.

 

Power does not equal accuracy. I shouldn't have ever had to type that sentence in my entire life, yet here I am.

 

Why heavy armour should affect player speed or evade chance? Modern soldier wears equipment that is as heavy as medieval knights(ofc there are lots of plate armour types), if not more. Medieval plate armor just felt lighter as the weight was distributed over the entire body. Knights doing fancy gymnastics in their armour is well documented, combat armour was more problematic for endurance than agility.

 

Because you've obviously never carried a significant load in your life. I can't believe you're actually suggesting that 40+ kilograms of added weight wouldn't slow someone down.

 

Fancy gymnastics? They swung swords with little mobility. Where is the well-documented evidence of them doing the uneven bars in steel plate? Burden of proof is on you for making the claim.

Edited October 26, 2012 by AGX-17

[rjshae]

They could perhaps solve the DR penetration issue by employing a non-symmetrical damage distribution scheme. In most games you have an equal chance of rolling the low damage score as the high damage score. But, in all likelihood, the high damage score should be more infrequent: you're targeting a smaller part of the opponent, so there's a smaller chance of hitting it.

 

Example: Rather than rolling a 1d6 for damage, the system could roll, say, two 1d12 and choose the lowest score. 75% of the time the damage will be down in the 1-6 range, but a quarter of the time you'll get damage from 7-12. Hence, even if the opponent has a DR of 8, you'd still have a chance of causing at least some damage.

 

There might be a better mechanism for implementing this, but the point is that a non-symmetrical distribution can be more representative of combat reality and it can allow even a small weapon to inflict damage to a heavily armored opponent.

Edited October 26, 2012 by rjshae

[Shadenuat]

Anyone who is voting for #2 and using Fallout or any other FPS

 

Wat

[Angry Chief]

Do me a favor. Go put on some ankle weights and wrist weights, and try to do a sprint down the sidewalk. See how fast you move. Even the best-designed modern armor still slows down its wearer. Any soldier will tell you this. They don't SEEM slowed down because soldiers throughout history have always been trained to peak physical performance, but I guarantee that however fast and agile a soldier is while wearing armor, they are faster and more agile without it. It's just that a 50% reduction in speed for someone who can run a 6-minute mile makes them, guess what? About the same speed as an unencumbered AVERAGE human being.

I cant deny that without armour you will move faster and be more agile but difference won't be that big. The main problem is endurance because same action will cost you more energy.

 

 

Because you've obviously never carried a significant load in your life. I can't believe you're actually suggesting that 40+ kilograms of added weight wouldn't slow someone down.

Fancy gymnastics? They swung swords with little mobility. Where is the well-documented evidence of them doing the uneven bars in steel plate? Burden of proof is on you for making the claim.

Here is link:

Edited October 26, 2012 by Angry Chief

[GrandMasterJR]

I've always liked "Armor class" systems that actually make sense logically (at least to me, ha ha). For example, I like that if you're wearing plate armor and you get hit, you take less damage because that armor would absorb the damage (possibly negating it completely). Likewise it makes sense to me that dodging an attack would obviously confer no damage. Blocking an attack with a shield may remove a portion of the damage, or something. I'm not really a fan of the you missed, or you hit and that's it, system.

[general_azure]

That split second might be all the difference between parrying with your blade or parrying with your face. The weight does not have to turn you completely sluggish to decrease your performance in close combat.

[Churchwarden]

If people are intent on a system where individual stats explain different aspects of defense, armor should most definitely hinder mobility/chance to dodge. A fighter fully clad in armor is not as agile as a gymnast. Also, fatigue should be affected by heavy armor, such as in Dragon Age: Origins, if realism is the focus of the mechanics.

 

However, along these same lines of thinking, hitpoints should be connected to stamina/fatigue, since hitpoints and stamina are not clearly separatable in "real life terms". If I have one hp and 100 stamina, in most games, I can fight as well as if I have 100 hp and 100 stamina, so hp isn't really a measure of my state of health, right? I mean if hp were a quantized unit of life points, 1 hp would mean I were on my deathbed (not deftly swinging a broadsword). Both numbers are representative of whether I can still fight effectively, and if either runs out, I should be a sitting duck. Why then shouldn't they just be combined (as vitality maybe) for realism? In this way, wearing heavy armor could penalize a character's vitality in a fight against a lighter armored foe who is very deft at dodging.

 

My point is that in a real fight between two opponents who are equally athletic, one who is unarmored is more mobile and less encumbered. His strategy will be to do what he can to outlast a more heavily armored foe, and unless he is cornered, he should be able to wear out the armored guy and then take advantage of his exhausted opponent's exposed weaknesses. It is difficult to account for all aspects of real life in game mechanics, and I usually prefer having room to justify it in my head rather than relying on flawed overcomplex attempts to simulate it with a roll/calculation.

Edited October 26, 2012 by Churchwarden

[GrandMasterJR]

If people are intent on a system where individual stats explain different aspects of defense, armor should most definitely hinder mobility/chance to dodge. A fighter fully clad in armor is not as agile as a gymnast. Also, fatigue should be affected by heavy armor, such as in Dragon Age: Origins, if realism is the focus of the mechanics.

 

However, along these same lines of thinking, hitpoints should be connected to stamina/fatigue, since hitpoints and stamina are not clearly separatable in "real life terms". If I have one hp and 100 stamina, in most games, I can fight as well as if I have 100 hp and 100 stamina, so hp isn't really a measure of my state of health, right? I mean if hp were a quantized unit of life points, 1 hp would mean I were on my deathbed (not deftly swinging a broadsword). Both numbers are representative of whether I can still fight effectively, and if either runs out, I should be a sitting duck. Why then shouldn't they just be combined (as vitality maybe) for realism? In this way, wearing heavy armor could penalize a character's vitality in a fight against a lighter armored foe who is very deft at dodging.

 

My point is that in a real fight between two opponents who are equally athletic, one who is unarmored is more mobile and less encumbered. His strategy will be to do what he can to outlast a more heavily armored foe, and unless he is cornered, he should be able to wear out the armored guy and then take advantage of his exhausted opponent's exposed weaknesses. It is difficult to account for all aspects of real life in game mechanics, and I usually prefer having room to justify it in my head rather than relying on flawed overcomplex attempts to simulate it with a roll/calculation.

 

I'm not really sure I like the idea of a heavily armored warriors vitality being penaltized against a lighter more agile foe. I imagine hit points or vitality as being a measure of toughness. A 250 lb warrior in heavy armor is going to be able to take a lot more punishment than a 150 lb lightly armored agile foe. The warrior I would expect to get hit often, but take much less damage. The agile character should have a much higher % chance of dodging or evading attacks completely... but if he does get hit would take more damage than his warrior counterpart.

 

That's why I like the idea of heavy armor reducing the damage taken, and having dodge, block, parry type stats as well.