Armor

[Cadrius]

Given the campaign setting I've been considering reworking the armor system. The typical heroes aren't armed to the teeth and sporting pounds upon pounds of armor. They carry but a few weapons and travel lightly. Thus I thought we could find a way to capture this almost cinematic quality in the campaign.

My initial thought is to remove the entire concept of an Armor Bonus and instead replace it with a suitable damage reduction. The AC penalty would also likely be tweaked to ensure that armor remains appealing.

Example: Leather would likely have a DR of 2/- or something along those lines.

Additionally I might make a list of feats that could enhance or alter these things. Want to have an unarmored warrior? I'm certain a feat that grants you a DR of 2 would be quite fair.

Yet ACs would be lowered quite a bit (inside and out of the party) causing everyone to hit an awful lot (and possibly up the lethality of the campaign). So another thought is to introduce a class bonus to AC. Fighters and Barbarians would receive the greatest benefit while Channelers the least.

However, given that this is quite drastic I won't go ahead and make the alterations without consulting everyone. The system is far from complete, it's merely a rough idea, but what I'm more interested in is whether or not it holds any appeal.

[Cadrius]

I must've skipped the portion of Tome of Sorrows where this was all covered in a much neater package. Basically I'm proposing to adopt that system. Although I admit I'm curious as to why fighters were given "poor" defense. Perhaps because they're expected to already be heavily armored?

[Dirigible]

Although I admit I'm curious as to why fighters were given "poor" defense. Perhaps because they're expected to already be heavily armored?

I'm not certain myself. I think we decided to make Def a function of speed and agility, thus giving rogues a a good bonus, but that doesn't explain why fighters and wildlanders are stuck down in poor, too.

The ToS defence system is designed to augment AC, rather than replace it.

[Cadrius]

Either way it's something to think about.

[Gralhruk]

Okay, I'm the dissenting vote. Well, maybe not dissenting, just different. Okay, maybe not even different as I'm not really sure anymore what it is that you are proposing. And I'm not really proposing anything :).

I like the system from Tome of Sorrows over the Damage Reduction method. The Wheel of Time sourcebook grants a lower Defense Bonus to fighters, but they are the only class where Defense Bonus stacks with an Armor Bonus. I don't quite buy the "quicker reflex" thing - after all, fighters are going to be more adept than anyone at blocking incoming attacks using their weapons and they don't get special consideration for that.

If it was up to me, I'd switch the rating for barbarians and wildlanders - that is, barbarians would have poor defense and wildlanders would have good defense. Then I'd let armor bonuses stack for fighters and barbarians.

The only problem I see is with multi-classing. The numbers could get kind of weird. It's probably best to use total character level to determine defense bonus instead of adding it up for each class. For characters that have classes with both tables, I'd say create a "medium" table and use that instead.

[red_dr4g0n94]

Don't, mean to intrude, but I just can't keep quiet and sit on this one. The Star Wars RPG game has something like a "class defense bonus" that might be kind of like your talking about. It gets replaced with armor if you wear it, but if you don't that's the bonus you get. As for multiclassing, each time you multiclass (except for PrCs) you add the class bonuses together, then subtract 2 for each class beyond your first. So if you have three different core classes, you add all three together and get a minus 4 to that. Can't go below 0 though. Just something you might want to consider.

[Black Plauge]

Considering I don't know the ToS system, I'm putting in my vote for retooling the Wheel of Time system for this campaign world. It shouldn't be too hard to prot over.

[Cadrius]

The most amusing part is we only have three votes.

Anyway, I'm still developing something here. Most of you don't wear much, if any, armor so it won't impact you, but it does have a bearing on Kahluah. I hope to have this ironed out before the first bout of combat...