Armor class

[Thezoo]

Regarding the armor ideas I wanted to bring up someting I had merged in AD&D 2Nd Edition at the time I was running a campaign years ago. This isn't anything that hasn't been done in other games as well (both tabletop and computer) in multiple different flavors.

 

I had stumbled across and bought a copy of the Warhammer Fantasy Role Play manual. One really interesting thing they did with armor is not limit it to just an overall stat for the player (like Armor Class in AD&D) but instead they had a simple breakdown of body locations (head, torso and the 4 limbs) so that different armor would effectively cover certain areas or not. Then a simple % would assign where any actual hit would land (15% Head, 25% Torso, 20% on each arm and 10% on each leg) and appropriate armor class (or DR) for that location could be used. It also went into specific critical hits on the body part hit but that is secondary to this conversation.

 

This approach had a net advantage in dealing with different types of armor in that it provided some reality to what the armor covers and lets players decide if maybe they prefer better coverage to limited areas versus lesser coverage everywhere. If you add some armor use penalties then things start to feel very realistic. Someone wearing a "reinforced doublet" could get decent protection for the torso but not arms and legs. A helm should always be a separate option but the game doesn't need to go into bracers and leggings to be realistic. If you wear full plate you get all body parts covered. Using a sleeved mail shirt would only cover arms and body, etc.

 

I don't want to debate AC versus DR but I'll use DR in my example as well as some ideas around penalties that would be likely:

 

So example #1: Reinforced Doublet

No penalties to movement or combat speed. +2 DR for hits to torso only (compared to a basic doublet with say +1 DR)

 

#2: Sleeved Mail Shirt

10% movement penalty but partial combat speed reduction (say 15%). +3 DR for torso and arms.

 

#3 Full Plate Mail

40% movement penalty, 30% combat speed penalty, +5 DR for all body parts (head separate based on helmet).

 

#4 Plate Mail

20% movement penalty, 20% combat speed penalty. +5 DR for torso but only +4 to arms and +3 to legs since there is a lot of chainmail at the joints.

 

These are all just numbers but the idea is that as you go from light to medium to heavy categories of armor, you have better protection to more areas but also as you get better armor in each sub category you can assign better DR to the covered parts. Then you can add magic to increase further the DR to the covered areas, etc. By using movement penalties when the armor covers legs (or weights a lot) and combat speed penalties when your arms are covered - with possible training to offset these penalties for certain play styles, you now provide players with a real trade off to going for heavy armor when they might have better results most of the time from medium or even light armor.

 

As for naming of armor - for looking up the high level description, the "Fine Elven Chainmail" is more immersive than "+1 Chainmail" but when I look at the stats for the item I'd rather see that +1 clearly called out so I can do easy comparison between what I am wearing and an alternative offered to me.

 

Of course all this add a layer of complexity (but also realism!) to picking out the right armor for the right class and play style.

 

As a last example, take the always fun to discuss armor wearing magician - why not translate that combat speed penalty right to casting speed penalty. Just like the fighter hampered by the weight and flexibility of his armor when swinging a weapon about, so is the mage waving his hands trying to cast a spell. If he wants to walk around in full plate, he'll be very slow to move and very slow to cast and likely won't have access to warrior class skills to mitigate these penalties. This helps naturally direct certain classes to specific armor categories without even implementing class limitations. Even if at 1st it seems like a good idea to put a mage in some armor (due to low health), as he levels up, being faster at casting will mean the player will naturally trend away from it. Also if you introduce dual classes (say a warrior/mage) then he'd have access to those skills to reduce penalties for armor (of course taking those skills to the detriment of new magic skills) but you could have the effective front line battle mage who would be less skilled in magic but better armored and capable in close quarter combat. Possibilities are endless...

 

Zoo

[Keyrock]

Other - Armor mitigates damage, reduces the chance to take severe wounds (damage directly to health), and applies movement (dodge, dexterity) penalties in some combination depending on how heavy the armor is, the amount of coverage, and how protective the armor is. Light armors generally mitigate little damage, have a small chance to reduce severe wounds (damage directly to health) and have little or no movement penalties. Heavy armors mitigate a lot of damage, greatly reduce the chance to suffer direct health damage, but have major movement penalties so you get hit more often.

[brtl33]

I think there needs to be balance between whether DR or AC (essentially ability to dodge) is useful. Often games fall into the trap that it's better to not get hit than it is to resist damage, so it creates more incentive to optimize towards a character who doesn't get hit (light armors and huge dex bonus) rather than characters who soak up damage. If they could implement it situationally, where in for one on one fights it's easier to dodge (and generally better to use a dodge type character), but as the number of opponents targeting the character increase, chance to dodge decreases (because it gets harder to dodge all the attacks of the various assailants). In this way a DRing tank would be optimal for standing front line soaking up damage against multiple opponents, whereas a juke build would be optimal for singular duels.

[Shevek]

Well, if folks are content to speak in generalities, I guess I will too.

 

Their armor system should allow for two types of mitigation

 

-Deflection (Stiffer = More Deflection, %Based chance)

-Reduction (%Based, not flat numbers)

 

The effectivenss of two above should vary depending on the weapon

 

Deflection should work...

1. very well against piercing weapons (daggers, arrows, spears, etc),
   
2. somewhat well against cut and thrust weapons (side swords, rapiers, short swords, etc),
   
3. moderately against lighter slash weapons (scimitars, sabers, light longswords,etc) and pierce/bludgeon hybrids (spiked maces, etc),
   
4. not so well against heavy slash/bludgeon hybrids (axes, bastard swords, broadswords, etc)
   
5. poorly against pure bludgeons (maces, hammers, staves)
   

Reduction should work...

1. poorly against piercing weapons (daggers, arrows, spears, etc)
   
2. not so well against cut and thrust weapons (side swords, rapiers, short swords, etc)
   
3. moderately against lighter slash weapons (scimitars, sabers, light longswords, etc) and pierce/bludgeon hybrids (spiked maces, etc),
   
4. somewhat well against heavy slash/bludgeon hybrids (axes, bastard swords, broadswords, etc)
   
5. very well against pure bludgeons (maces, hammers, staves)
   

Rationale:

In other words, some weapons are good against the deflection of the armor, some weapons should be good at getting through the armor reduction. No weapon should be good at both. Basically, light weapons can be deflected easily but can also get through **** in armor well. Heavy weapons cannot be deflected easily but distribute their damage instead of focusing it to get through damage reduction.

 

Next, Weight Penalties

In the above system, lighter armors should still have somewhat less deflection (a hardened leather armor or a scale armor should deflect moderately well but not as well as a suit of plate). However, they will also reduce damage far less effectively. This means heavier armors will be just plain better under the above system. In order to add value to lighter armors, penalties should be attached to armor weight.

1. Evasion Penalties (Heavy = Less Dodging), %Based penalties to dodge stats should be incurred as armor increases in weight. Since the devs have embraced complicated calculations, they can just add X% penalties that better balance things out. A warrior in light armor should have a somewhat larger chance to flat out avoid damage (when evasion and deflection chances are added) than one in heavier armor. As armor gets heavier, sum damage avoidance should decrease. Heavier armor will still reduce more damage.
    
   
2. Movement Penalties (Heavy = Slower), %Based combat movement penalties for heavy armor.
    
   
3. Skill Penalties (Dexterity) 3E did this well. Picking a lock with a large helm clouding your view and clunking arm/hand armor on should not be easy. Skills requiring free movement of the fingers or agile movement of the body as a whole should suffer %based penalties the heavier and stiffer the armor is.This is not just tied to weight. It is also tied to the flexibility of the armor.
    
   
4. Combat Actions Limitation - Certain combat actions (such as dextrous lunges and the like) should either either suffer penalties or be flat out impossible to do as armor increases in weight. Some dude in 60lb Gothic Plate shouldnt be able to run around using a rapier like he's Zorro.
   

Rationale:

The idea here is that Heavy Armors have a moderate defensive advantage but lighter armors should allow for greater mobility, more utility and slightly more offensive options.

Edited October 31, 2012 by Shevek

[cuteLittleRabbit]

==> It makes sense to go as lightly armored as possible to maximize your damage potential.

==> It also makes sense to go as heavily armored as possible to minimize incoming damage.

 

How the hell does that make sense????

 

It makes sense to wear armor to reduce incoming damage. It makes sense that by doing so, you also reduce your damage potential.

 

It makes sense to want to increase your damage potential. It makes sense that by doing so, you increase incoming damage.

 

So you've got:

* Lower incoming damage reduction, higher personal damage potential (light/no armor // some combo's of medium armor and heavy weapons)

* Medium incoming damage reduction, medium personal damage potential (medium armor // some combo's of heavy armor and heavy weapons)

* Higher incoming damage reduction, lower personal damage potential (heavy armor)

[FlintlockJazz]

^^^^

It's GURPS...

 

Similar but not quite: GURPS only lets you use one active defense (block, parry or dodge) per attack, and shield adds to active defense not reduce damage, but other than that he is suggesting a similar system and its one I would quite like, but then I like GURPS so I'm biased. :D

Yes, I'm aware of the details. But it depends critically on how long a game round lasts. If PE uses the 6 second rounds of D&D 3X, then those limitations will most likely need to be glossed over.

 

The use of rounds at all is the most important thing I'd like to see over everything else. I liked how in the IE games I could pause the game, assign all my party members their actions, and then unpause to see them all take their actions before pausing it again for the next turn, since while it occured 'real-time' it was still actually turn-based in the way it resolved actions! DAO on the other hand I hated: it was all cooldowns and you couldn't queue up actions so you couldn't pause and assign all actions at once, you had to keep pausing and checking to see if you could spam attack with a character's abilities again yet...

 

I apologies for going off on a tangent like this, but your mentioning of turns just made me realise just how important how that is done is!

[Delogic]

Their armor system should allow for two types of mitigation

 

-Deflection (Stiffer = More Deflection, %Based chance)

-Reduction (%Based, not flat numbers)

 

Very good post, btw.

 

Hmm, even though the game can use sophisticated math to calculate hit and damage probabilities and potentials, we should take into consideration the players perception on a system. They need to be able to differentiate the different type of armor and evaluate them without needing to resort to math. Flat percentages are pretty good, relative percentages bad, I agree there. Though I prefer a bit more basic approach. Damage Reduction counted in points is more intuitive than percentages, IMO.

 

Generally the lower the range of the numbers you need to compare, the better. That's the only reason I liked THAC0 - it used numbers that usually ranged from 10 to -10, giving the player a clear average-ish good (0), and pretty big steps. D&D 3rd, like many know, gave players stats potentially into the hundreds - god awful.

 

A variant and maybe an improved system of piercing / slashing / crushing would do the trick?

 

You could have a graded system of DR like so:

Piercing §-------------X------------§ Crushing

 

..where the X marks where on the scale a weapon lies.

 

Then you could have armor that gives DR in two numbers:

Damage Reduction: 4 / 9

(4 against pure Piercing, 9 against pure Crushing)

 

So, a weapon like this:

§ ---------X------------------- §

..that lies in the middle leaning towards piercing (say, a shortsword), would yield a DR of about 6 against the armor.

 

Combine this with a personal favorite of mine: Exploding / Penetrating dice for damage, and we're on a roll.

Using that kind of damage ranges, you would see some occasional hits that penetrate the DR even from weak weapons, without it becoming a crit-only event.

 

Next, Weight Penalties

1. Evasion Penalties
   
2. Movement Penalties
   
3. Skill Penalties
   
4. Combat Actions Limitation
   

 

Make the armor count towards a general encumbrance capacity (EV, calculated not only from weight, but also size, shape and general portability, and in the case of armor, freedom of movement), and make that affect all the fore-mentioned, and I think that would be quite agreeable.

 

Many of the minor inconveniences, like penalties to pick-pocketing or spell casting while wearing oven mittens could be included in a list and general assessment when clicking on the EV value in the corner of the inventory screen - not included into the item description.

[Continuum]

I've never seen the logic in armor reducing the chance to be hit. It would be easier to hit someone in heavy armor, not harder.

 

The whole point of any armor is to mitigate the amount of damage incurred on being hit, whether we are talking about a light police flak jacket or a suit of full plate mail. Any game system should reflect this.

 

The idea that armor doesn't affect critical hits makes some sense in the idea of crits hitting weak spots. However, most armor is specifically designed to provide the MOST protection on the most vulnerable areas of the target. Breastplate and helmet being the most obvious example.

 

I can see a lot of frustration with heavy armor being completely ignored in lucky shots. I hate being completely at the mercy of the RNG.

 

One solid way to structure around this is a Damage Threshold concept like the one in Fallout: New Vegas. The armor absorbs a fixed amount of damage rather than a percentage. The upside to this is that it creates a "realistic" feel in that minor damage is completely ignored and crits still offer a major damage spike without completely invalidating the armor.

 

The downside to DT can be in level scaling... If you use a system like some RPGs where EVERYTHING scales up - HP, damage per hit, etc., then it can quickly invalidate a fixed number DT. I'm not real wild about that type of scaling anyway... it often makes the starting parts of a game seem pointless, tedious, and/or frustrating.

[Mikaw]

Why should armour not reduce damage on critical hits?

 

That seems like an awfully arbitrary inclusion in the poll option...

 

EDIT: Also, from Josh Sawyer's formspring:

 

"For P:E are you thinking that armour will make a person harder to hit, or harder to damage? Or a combination of the two?"

 

"Probably harder to damage, but I haven't discussed it in detail with Tim."

 

 

mmmh...

Maybe because a critical hit would be an attack so well placed that it ignores armor? like hitting between armor joints? Or because the blow is so powerful it passes through armor, piercing or slashing through it so the body is hit directly and damages or not lessened.

[Grand_Commander13]

The logic of reducing the chance to be hit when you're wearing armor is for the enemy to succeed in striking you but the blow glancing off the curvature of the armor rather than piercing it or transmitting damaging force through the armor.

[Tamerlane]

Why should armour not reduce damage on critical hits?

 

That seems like an awfully arbitrary inclusion in the poll option...

 

EDIT: Also, from Josh Sawyer's formspring:

 

"For P:E are you thinking that armour will make a person harder to hit, or harder to damage? Or a combination of the two?"

 

"Probably harder to damage, but I haven't discussed it in detail with Tim."

 

 

mmmh...

Maybe because a critical hit would be an attack so well placed that it ignores armor? like hitting between armor joints? Or because the blow is so powerful it passes through armor, piercing or slashing through it so the body is hit directly and damages or not lessened.

Ah, a late response to my objection.

 

1: My specific complaint was that it was an arbitrary inclusion in this poll. Every other poll option is about how armour operates. There is one specific poll choice that is about how armour operates and for some reason also about how critical hits operate.

 

2: It'd be unbalanced as ****? Critical hits are awesome against armour but worthless against the unarmoured? I guess unarmoured people don't have weak points or something.