Making my own system; how protective should certain armors be?

[System Ufera]

Hello! I'm making my own PnPRPG system from the ground up, and I'll often seek advice from fellow gamers and such for designing content. Currently, I'm trying to design stats for armor in my game. The problem I'm having so far is trying to find the "ideal spot" for how protective armor should be for the purposes of my game. My game, by the way, as explained by perspective of the GNS theory, is going to try to be "Gamist," but I'm also trying (with dubious success) to make it as "Simulationist" as possible while still maintaining Gamism as its primary goal. That said...

In my game, armor doesn't contribute to an "Armor Class" defense, unlike other games. Instead, armor provides damage reduction against physical attacks. With that in mind, I'm not sure how much DR each type of armor should provide relative to other types of armor and the character's HP.

So far, I have the following types of armor in my game, with their DR values listed to the side:

Light Armor:
-Leather Armor (DR 2)
-Hardened Leather Armor (DR 4)
-Light Hides (DR 2)
-Quilted Cloth Armor (DR 0, or DR 2 vs. Piercing damage)

Medium Armor:
-Chainmail (DR 7, or DR 5 vs. Piercing damage)
-Heavy Hides (DR 4)
-Scale Armor (DR 6)

Heavy Armor:
-Field Plate Armor (DR 7)
-Full Plate Armor (DR 11)
-Regular Plate Armor (DR 9)
-Splint Armor (DR 8)

I have no idea what the values should be relative to each other. Furthermore, I'm wondering how long any given "build" of character should ideally last in each armor, given the Gamist goal. In testing, I've had a skirmisher-ish character fall in three hits while wearing Hardened Leather armor. While the character wasn't optimized for defense, she did have moderate consideration given to her HP, so she wasn't a glass cannon.

As usual, any additional information can be provided if requested.

 

[GMMichael]

To answer your question, "how protective should certain armors be?" I'm gonna ask another one:

From what are they protecting people?

You mentioned HP in the post - does HP only represent physical wounds? Are all types included: piercing, slashing, bludgeoning...burning, freezing, infecting? What about exhaustion (can HP be healing surged)?

That's your first clue to how protective they should be. Next up - can a dagger in just the right place kill through plate mail? I believe that longbows made armor largely ineffective against arrows...can an arrow go straight through armor?

My homebrew armor reduces damage too - it doesn't avoid it. But I don't use a wide range of protection. My armor DRs range from 2.5 (or 1d4) to 6.5 (or 1d12). So even the best protection, at 1d12, could roll a 1, and allow a 1d4+1 dagger to cause 4 damage (5-1).

 

[System Ufera]

To answer your question, "how protective should certain armors be?" I'm gonna ask another one:

From what are they protecting people?

You mentioned HP in the post - does HP only represent physical wounds? Are all types included: piercing, slashing, bludgeoning...burning, freezing, infecting? What about exhaustion (can HP be healing surged)?

That's your first clue to how protective they should be. Next up - can a dagger in just the right place kill through plate mail? I believe that longbows made armor largely ineffective against arrows...can an arrow go straight through armor?

My homebrew armor reduces damage too - it doesn't avoid it. But I don't use a wide range of protection. My armor DRs range from 2.5 (or 1d4) to 6.5 (or 1d12). So even the best protection, at 1d12, could roll a 1, and allow a 1d4+1 dagger to cause 4 damage (5-1).

Armor just protects from physical damage. There are other types of damage in my game, but armor does not normally protect from them (usually enchantments or special training can provide protection against non-physical damage).

Fatigue and Exhaustion are status effects which are separate from HP loss. They can be suffered through one of two ways: either by failing a check at the end of a long period of hard labor, or by being hit with an attack or spell that causes Fatigue (already Fatigued creatures would then suffer Exhaustion).

I do have a healing surge-like mechanic, called "HP Reserves," but it's not nearly as effective or important as in DnD 4th edition; they heal less and are only regained 1/day, unlike surges, which are regained all at once. On the plus side, being healed (as though by first aid or spell) does not use surges.

Piercing by default ignores 1 point of DR; this may have to be adjusted along with the armor DR values, since 1 extra point of damage in a game where most characters deal 15 or more points of damage per hit at level 1 is almost inconsequential.

While I like your idea of using dice to determine DR at the moment, my game is already rather "clunky" (if that word means what I think it means), and so I'd prefer not adding more rolls to the average round whenever possible.

 

[HRSegovia]

ARMOR STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES
I, personally, loved Rolemaster's approach in that some armors were stronger/weaker versus certain attacks - but their method of "a chart for everything" was a little lacking. Part of the excitement was choosing what weapon to use against what enemy and realizing you had to count on your teammates and some level of wit when you didn't have the right one.

There are countless ways you can approach this. My advice, take simplicity over realism and to hell with anyone that starts arguing that its not realistic enough. People will be less likely to try a complex game that is not mainstream than a simple one. Complex/Realistic games are like Art films - they are usually not picked up mainstream and only accepted by a few people. Look at Harnmaster and MERP (both GREAT games BTW).

For example, if you were going with a D&D-like AC system, you would probably use something like:

Plate (Strong/Slashing) 20AC, (Normal) 18AC, (Weak/Piercing) 16AC
Better quality armors do not change the normal AC, but adjust the Weak, Strong, or both.

Additionally, piece-armoring is fun and adds a sense of realism, but you may want to avoid it as you will run into two problems:
You convolute your system a little bit with hit location (which really slows combat - perhaps optional will make people happy, but you may need a separate character sheet)
You open yourself up to powergamers (consider what piece armoring did in 2nd Ed D&D)

 

[Michael Silverbane]

My own armor as dr variant uses the following values...

Cloth Armor - 1d4
Leather Armor - 1d6
Hide Armor - 1d8

Chain Mail - 2d4
Scale Mail - 2d6
Splint Mail - 2d8

Banded Mail - 3d4
Half Plate - 3d6
Full Plate - 3d8

Light weapons deal 1 die of damage, one-handed weapons 2 dice, and two-handed weapons deal 3 dice

 

[System Ufera]

My own armor as dr variant uses the following values...

Cloth Armor - 1d4
Leather Armor - 1d6
Hide Armor - 1d8

Chain Mail - 2d4
Scale Mail - 2d6
Splint Mail - 2d8

Banded Mail - 3d4
Half Plate - 3d6
Full Plate - 3d8

Light weapons deal 1 die of damage, one-handed weapons 2 dice, and two-handed weapons deal 3 dice

The damage system you're using is somewhat similar to my system - depending on what you're attacking with, you have an attribute modifier that determines how many damage dice you roll, and, in the case of weapons, you roll one less die with light weapons, or one more die with 2H weapons. I should probably have a similar system for spells.

 

[System Ufera]

Okay, so I've updated the values of the armor in my game. These values are going to be tested during the next campaign, hopefully beginning next Tuesday if the weather permits. The values are as follows:

Light Armor:
-Leather Armor (DR 4)
-Hardened Leather Armor (DR 7)
-Light Hides (DR 4)
-Quilted Cloth Armor (DR 0, or DR 5 vs. Piercing damage)

Medium Armor:
-Chainmail (DR 12, or DR 7 vs. Piercing damage)
-Heavy Hides (DR 8)
-Scale Armor (DR 10)

Heavy Armor:
-Field Plate Armor (DR 15)
-Full Plate Armor (DR 20)
-Regular Plate Armor (DR 18)
-Splint Armor (DR 15)

Don't worry, a character at level 1 isn't going to be able to afford any heavy armor (well... they COULD if they bought Splint armor and absolutely nothing else), so there's that. Also, I increased the amount Piercing attacks ignore from 1 to 3.

Damage output at level 1 has been recalculated; according to my friend's math, the average level 1 warrior will do an average of 17 damage per round with a Longsword, or 20 with a Greatsword. Rogues will do, on average, 22 damage with daggers, assuming they're applying their sneak attack bonuses (11 if not).

 

[Meatboy]

Does damage output increase with level? What about armor? What are the drawbacks to armor?

 

[System Ufera]

Does damage output increase with level? What about armor? What are the drawbacks to armor?

Damage output, like just about everything else, increases depending on how much you invest in it. The only stat bound to your actual level is HP and AP (points for spells), and even that is still influenced a lot by your investment. Other than that, levels really just influence caps for how high your stats can go, as well as serving as a measurement for how challenging encounters should be.

The only drawbacks to wearing armor are penalties to movement and certain skill checks.

 

[Meatboy]

Well if damage output increases over levels but the DR of armor doesn't then armor is a poor investment as the game progresses. Characters who spend the game primarily fighting will take armor that is effective but with the least draw backs possible and they will probably increase what ever defensive skills they can instead.

As is armor looks moderately effective at level 1. By how much does damage increase each level?