Quote from: James McMurrayOne approach you missed is used in Rolemaster: armor makes you easier to hit but harder to damage. I like that one as well.

I'm a DR guy myself, but that's a pretty nifty approach right there.

Quote from: SosthenesBulletproof armor in nWoD converts lethal to bashing damage, for what it's worth.

And, due to the mechanic involved, it acts both as DR and AC.  There's a lot to like about that system

Quote from: James McMurrayOne approach you missed is used in Rolemaster: armor makes you easier to hit but harder to damage. I like that one as well.

Oh, wow, yeah!  RoleMaster's armor system is great.  It has some quirks (leather armors end up protecting worse than none at all in many situations; heavy armors doubly penalize wearers because they also have a major impact on Defensive Bonus; etc.), but the overall philosophy is sound.

I like DR with non-lethal damage rules.

If there's a better use of armor than Iron Heroes' take on it, I've yet to see it.

How does IH handle armor?

I've always been fond of the way that Rolemaster/MERP handled armour.  Armour makes you easier to hit, but much harder to hurt.

So it is far easier to hit, say, someone in plate mail, and inflict a few trivial 'points' of damage, than someone in leather armour.  But if you do hit someone in leather armour, your chances of really hurting them -- i.e. scoring a critical -- are much easier.  (In MERP/Rolemaster 'concussion points' can be healed relatively easily -- the criticals are what constitute 'real damage'.)

The system has aways struck me as a good one.

[EDIT: originally said 'harder' when I meant 'easier'.]

Yeah, say what you will against charts and tables, but it would be really hard to express the armor mechanics of RoleMaster with straight die mechanics and some formulas...

Quote from: James McMurrayHow does IH handle armor?

IH uses armor as a damage reducer, independent of AC.  You roll for damage reduction (better armor = bigger die), subtracting the result from the damage roll.

This allows for dexterous PCs to have defensive capabilities completely different from the tank PCs.

Apart from the roll, how is that different than any of the other "armor as DR" games?

QuoteIH uses armor as a damage reducer, independent of AC. You roll for damage reduction (better armor = bigger die), subtracting the result from the damage roll.

This allows for dexterous PCs to have defensive capabilities completely different from the tank PCs.

I haven't seen IH, but this is a bit like what I've been working on.

Quote from: James McMurrayApart from the roll, how is that different than any of the other "armor as DR" games?

You tell me.  I haven't played any of them.

All the ones I've played have each type of armor prevent a set amount of damage. Basically just like you described IH but a bit more streamlined. It's a little faster because you don't have to roll, but also a little less chaotic since you'll always know how much the armor will protect you.

If I'm not mistaken, Iron Heroes had no set mechanism to bypass DR, and compared to the damage you could inflict, DR was pretty low, too. So mostly you had it to whittle a few points of the damage.

That works fine in IH, as the fighting is pretty over the top (well, western over the top, not anime OTT). But as a general mechanism, it lacked a few qualities if you're asking me. In Game of Thrones or Conan you're IRON MAN in your plate armor. This is compensated by lower hit points  -- and in GOT's case by some neat wound mechanisms.

Another nice thing about DR rules for D20 is that they usually make the shield into something more than a mount point for magical enchantments.

For those who can stand charts, I think that Harnmaster points in the right direction: armor reduces impact depending on the type of blow (blunt,edge,point), and then the final impact has an effect depending on the type of blow, too. Sounds more complicated than it actually is in use. (The really painful complexity in HM comes from assembling your armor piece by piece, layer by layer, and adding the ratings. But once you've got that, you're good to go.)

The GURPS approach is okay: armor absorbs, but the type of blow then multiplies the residual impact by some factor. Unfortunately GURPS has a ton of exceptions and special rules, at least as of 3e.

I think my favorite compromise so far is Elric/Stormbringer (and presumably an option under DBRP when it comes out), where armor is bought by the suit, there's no hit locations, and the variable effect of coverage/composition is represented by a variable absorption. Only critical hits are actually assigned to specific areas of the body.