Dungeons & Delvers: Composite Armor (Still as DR)

Currently in Dungeons & Delvers, armor operates similar to Dungeons & Dragons with a bit of DR added on (ranging from 1-3). Previously I talked about just handling it as pure DR, ranging from something like 1-8.

I had originally intended to handle it this way from the start, but while characters were easy to hit due to a lack of an AC modifier (it was all based on Dexterity) they took little to no damage once they got heavier armor. I recall a cleric got plate around 5th-level, and subsequently fought off a horde of lizardmen without any particular risk: they had to roll pretty high to inflict all of one damage, which over time was easily addressed by a single use of the Healing Domain.

I've since found a way to resolve these issues through a combination of auto-scaling, class-based Defense, a damage bonus based on how much you exceed the target's Defense modifier, imposing various conditions--Slow, Dazed, and Stunned all provide a bonus to attack and/or damage--and tactics, such as grappling, using lighter weapons to get an Armor Penetration bonus, and even simply removing helmets and the like to bash unprotected skulls.

This led to another issue: armor types. Currently it's based on categories: light, light reinforced, medium, medium reinforced, heavy, and heavy reinforced, and you get to more or less determine what a type of armor counts as based on some guidelines. For example, a gambeson is light, mail shirt would be light reinforced, slapping a breastplate and some vambraces on that would get it up to medium, etc. But that doesn't lend itself to a more granular DR range of 1-8, or even more.

For awhile I thought about going back to specific armors, such as a gambeson and mail hauberk, plate armor, etc, but then wondered: what would happen if you wore a mail hauberk over a gambeson? It's not only possible, but something that--presuming weight isn't an issue--you would logically do for the added protection (or even wear some sort of cloth armor over metal).

And then, what if I describe armor as assuming, say, a gambeson as part of the set, but you didn't want to wear it? There's definitely a difference in terms of weight and protection. Also, a pair of metal vambraces could weigh ten or more pounds. Ditto for greaves. So what if a player doesn't want those, possibly due to weight limitations, what then?

After awhile I came up with a pretty simple and somewhat abstract composite/layering system, where you can wear different armor components and determine your final DR based on that. The core armor types I would expect most adventures to typically utilize--due to ease of use and maintenance--are the gambeson, mail hauberk, and brigandine, and you can optionally slap on a pair of vambraces and/or greaves to round things out.

It's not fully realistic (you'd want to up DR all around, do DR by location, and set it up so that you roll to determine where you hit), but it makes more sense than all-or-nothing Armor Class, while still being quick and easy to deal with.