I’ve been thinking about a simple alternative armor system.

I’ve been thinking about a simple alternative armor system.

I’ve been thinking about a simple alternative armor system. As Acritarche pointed out, a flat damage reduction is really powerful: I’d like players who wear heavy armor to feel like there’s a chance their armor won’t protect them. So here it is:

Armor has a value from 1 (thick clothes) to 5 (heavy full-plate armor). When you take damage, roll 1d6. If you roll equal or under your armor value, reduce damage by the amount you rolled. So if you have armor 3 and you roll a 2, reduce damage by 2. On a 3, reduce damage by 3. On a 4, you take the full blow without damage reduction.

Thoughts? 🙂

22 thoughts on “I’ve been thinking about a simple alternative armor system.”

  1. It’s interesting, but you’re tying two aspects of armour together: effectiveness and amount of damage stopped. It makes leather armour not only the weakest in terms of damage stoped but also nearly useless for how often it does that.

  2. It’s interesting, but you’re tying two aspects of armour together: effectiveness and amount of damage stopped. It makes leather armour not only the weakest in terms of damage stoped but also nearly useless for how often it does that.

  3. Tom Pleasant Yep, but I’d say that’s a feature, not a bug 🙂 I like having single numbers with multiple purposes, it simplifies bookkeeping. I totally agree that Armor 1 would be very weak, that’s why to me it would represent not leather armor, but just thick clothes. Leather armor would be Armor 2 or even 3. Overall it does make all armor less efficient in average compared to raw rules, and prices might need to be adjusted.

  4. Tom Pleasant Yep, but I’d say that’s a feature, not a bug 🙂 I like having single numbers with multiple purposes, it simplifies bookkeeping. I totally agree that Armor 1 would be very weak, that’s why to me it would represent not leather armor, but just thick clothes. Leather armor would be Armor 2 or even 3. Overall it does make all armor less efficient in average compared to raw rules, and prices might need to be adjusted.

  5. You could simplify it and say “armor 1 blocks damage rolls of 1, 2 blocks 1 or 2, etc” this has an interesting feature of someone with armor 5 only taking pretty big hits.

  6. You could simplify it and say “armor 1 blocks damage rolls of 1, 2 blocks 1 or 2, etc” this has an interesting feature of someone with armor 5 only taking pretty big hits.

  7. I liked this rule, but I’d probably not use in Freebooters or DW, because I really prefer to keep it simple. One suggestion, based on a hard move by the GM: on a roll of 6- during a melee fight, depending on the enemy, you could tell the player that he took the full blow without armor reduction. Imagine that the player is fighting against a legendary assassin that is expert on exploiting her enemy’s weakness or a powerful demon that is capable of cutting metal like soft butter. On rolls 7-9, the armor could even been halved.

  8. I liked this rule, but I’d probably not use in Freebooters or DW, because I really prefer to keep it simple. One suggestion, based on a hard move by the GM: on a roll of 6- during a melee fight, depending on the enemy, you could tell the player that he took the full blow without armor reduction. Imagine that the player is fighting against a legendary assassin that is expert on exploiting her enemy’s weakness or a powerful demon that is capable of cutting metal like soft butter. On rolls 7-9, the armor could even been halved.

  9. My take on any given armor system is how much extra work it adds at the table. “Subtract a small number from a slightly larger number on every damage roll” is very little work. “Declare a piece of armor ‘destroyed’ to block an attack up to X damage, where X is higher for tougher armor” is slightly more detailed, but requires comparable math and bookkeeping (just marking damage on the armor rather than yourself). “Make an extra roll in response to every damage roll, using a target number system not used anywhere else in the game” is about where I start feeling like it’s more effort than I want — but IIRC, that’s more or less how “resistance rolls” in Blades in the Dark work, so I imagine there’s an audience for it or a version of DW where it would feel like a fine fit. I don’t think Freebooters on the Frontier, which feels like “even more pared down, old-school D&D-ish Dungeon World” is the version of DW with that fit, for my purposes, though, you know?

  10. My take on any given armor system is how much extra work it adds at the table. “Subtract a small number from a slightly larger number on every damage roll” is very little work. “Declare a piece of armor ‘destroyed’ to block an attack up to X damage, where X is higher for tougher armor” is slightly more detailed, but requires comparable math and bookkeeping (just marking damage on the armor rather than yourself). “Make an extra roll in response to every damage roll, using a target number system not used anywhere else in the game” is about where I start feeling like it’s more effort than I want — but IIRC, that’s more or less how “resistance rolls” in Blades in the Dark work, so I imagine there’s an audience for it or a version of DW where it would feel like a fine fit. I don’t think Freebooters on the Frontier, which feels like “even more pared down, old-school D&D-ish Dungeon World” is the version of DW with that fit, for my purposes, though, you know?

  11. Daniel Câmara I like your solution, though I’d be wary of giving the player a fair warning. I know people who would get upset if an enemy bypasses their armor ‘by surprise’.

  12. Daniel Câmara I like your solution, though I’d be wary of giving the player a fair warning. I know people who would get upset if an enemy bypasses their armor ‘by surprise’.

  13. I totally understand the desire to make the higher-tier armors more interesting, and house rules are a good way to address that.

    Personally, I love treating armor as a tangible and meaningful part of the fiction, and a Fight roll of 6- is the perfect opportunity to underline this.

    In our home games, that might mean damage suffered will reduce armor value, if not break a piece of armor outright. Or that an intelligent foe gets in close enough to stab an armored PC in the face or slip a dagger into an exposed joint. Or that a bludgeoning blow to the head is stopped by a helmet, but the wearer is left stunned and reeling.

    The key, I think, is to do your best to imagine the interaction of that specific weapon with that specific piece of armor, and interpret roll results accordingly. I enjoy the way more open (“simple”) mechanics create space for this kind of play.

  14. I totally understand the desire to make the higher-tier armors more interesting, and house rules are a good way to address that.

    Personally, I love treating armor as a tangible and meaningful part of the fiction, and a Fight roll of 6- is the perfect opportunity to underline this.

    In our home games, that might mean damage suffered will reduce armor value, if not break a piece of armor outright. Or that an intelligent foe gets in close enough to stab an armored PC in the face or slip a dagger into an exposed joint. Or that a bludgeoning blow to the head is stopped by a helmet, but the wearer is left stunned and reeling.

    The key, I think, is to do your best to imagine the interaction of that specific weapon with that specific piece of armor, and interpret roll results accordingly. I enjoy the way more open (“simple”) mechanics create space for this kind of play.

  15. Jason Lutes Good one. I guess I was looking for a way to take that kind of decision away from me as the GM: don’t decide that the enemy finds a weak spot, but leave it to the dice. But you’re right that handling it in the fiction is closer to the game’s design philosophy!

  16. Jason Lutes Good one. I guess I was looking for a way to take that kind of decision away from me as the GM: don’t decide that the enemy finds a weak spot, but leave it to the dice. But you’re right that handling it in the fiction is closer to the game’s design philosophy!

  17. Nicolas Francart, I totally get it! I like to let the dice do the work whenever possible. Finding the right balance of mechanics-to-fiat will vary from play group to play group, and you need to find something that works well with your personal approach to GMing.

  18. Nicolas Francart, I totally get it! I like to let the dice do the work whenever possible. Finding the right balance of mechanics-to-fiat will vary from play group to play group, and you need to find something that works well with your personal approach to GMing.

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