dave2008
Legend
I actually find your suggestion to be more complicated (from a certain point of view). In my suggestion armor works just like HP. In fact, you could just call them temporary hit points instead of armor points. The only additional complication is repairing. In your suggestion, every time damage is calculated I have to reduce that damage by the armor's DR value. That is a lot of extra calculations.So based on this table and what you described that AP is like temp HP so on a hit the armor would take the blow first then HP except on crits ?
I posted on reddit and others have pointed out that perhaps AP would be to complicated in the vain of 5e design so perhaps just opting to
Magic armor like a +1 would bump heavy to a 5 and medium to a 4, a +2 would make heavy to a 6 and a medium to a 5 etc.....?
- While you are wearing heavy armor, bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage that you take from attacks is reduced by 4.
- While you are wearing medium armor, bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage that you take from attacks is reduced by 3.
As for armor repair it could be more of a narrative aspect and if I remember to remind the players when they reach a town or city to have to get there armor repaired before the next outing?
Thank you for your very extensive idea though perhaps in the future.
FYI, in our 5e game we actually do give armor a damage reduction value. An armors DR = AC-10. However, the DR is only calculated when your are "bloodied." You are bloodied when your HP = 0. So the extra calculation only comes into play when you reach 0 HP. This significantly reduces the calculation costs.