Apparently We're Not Done (Adjusting Armor Yet Again)

Our most recent armor-as-DR model was abandoned partially due to complexity, partially due to a ridiculous difference in durability between fighters and everyone else. As a recap if you don't want to click the link, armor in Dungeons & Delvers is divided into categories based on a combination of material and coverage: light armor is something like a gambeson, which provides a decent DR of 3, while plate armor would be heavy reinforced, granting an imposing DR of 10.

Armor just absorbs damage, though various attacks have an Armor Penetration value, which lets it ignore an equal number of DR points, and some attacks can just outright ignore armor. When you attack, for every 5 points you beat the target's Defense you deal +1 damage, and if it is wearing armor, you also ignore 2 points of DR for that attack.

For example, let's say a creature has a Defense of 14 and is wearing medium armor (DR 6). If you roll a 14-18 you hit, deal normal damage, but 6 points are shaved off. However, if you roll a 19-23 you would not only deal +1 damage, but the target's armor would only reduce your damage by 4. Get a 24-28 and you're not only dealing +2 damage on top of everything else, but also ignore 4 points of DR to boot.

To clarify, it's not that the mechanic is hard to understand, it's just time-consuming. Normally you just roll, and if you get a number or higher you hit, roll damage, and move on. With armor-as-DR you have another calculation to perform, and with Armor Penetration that's yet another. Granted they are minor, but over time it adds up. Still, we find this to be an acceptable cost given that armor-as-DR makes some semblance of sense compared to an alternative where an ogre's club can just bounce off your cloth armor.

However, it's not just that: in our most recent iteration you had to roll, check the total against the target's Defense, and figure out how many points you exceeded it by, so that you can then maybe reduce the target's DR, and if it doesn't get zeroed out then apply Armor Penetration, then the damage bonus, then damage. That can add a lot more time, and ultimately not be that big of a deal when you're fighting goblins with only a handful of Wound Points and an already pitiable DR.

And then there's the fighters.

We had two in the playtest, both weighing in at 11 Wound Points and rocking a 6 DR. Goblins deal 1d6 damage with a spear, and with AP 1 means that they need to roll a 6 in order to inflict all of 1 point of damage. Worse, even if they rolled high enough to get a +1 damage bonus and ignoring 2 points of the fighter DR? There was still a 33% chance they would inflict no damage at all. 

We ran a bunch of fights against mobs of goblins just to try and find some sort of pattern, as well as see how far the party could go without healing items or a cleric, and what we observed was the fighters barely getting hurt, suffering maybe 1 or 2 points of damage in a fight (though there was one where a particularly lucky hit skewered a fighter for 4 points). The rogue and wizard on the other hand would be easily, reliably killed in 1 or 2 hits.

And you might say, well, no shit, stay out of melee then. Well, rogues are largely a melee support class, and while I try to play fair there was more than one occasion where the rogue would slit a goblin's throat from ear to ear, and my thought was that the survivors might panic and take a swipe at him, especially if the fighters whiffed that round, which if successful would tend to inflict some serious damage due to a combination of Armor Penetration and an already low DR.

The wizard on the other hand could be the victim of a ranged attack, or just a charging goblin, so you can't really fault him for that. As an aside, wizards need more Willpower points. Not fun being able to throw out like maybe one or two spells throughout the course of the entire day. Plus, we got rid of Vitality Points and lowered WP all around, so they don't have another renewable point source to tap into.

For our next playtest, we're going with this setup (Melissa had the idea of making some armors resistant to different damage types):

• Light DR 1; bludgeoning and slashing resistance 1
• Light reinforced DR 2; bludgeoning and slashing resistance 1
• Medium DR 3; bludgeoning and slashing resistance 2
• Medium reinforced DR 4; bludgeoning and slashing resistance 2
• Heavy DR 5; piercing and slashing resistance 3
• Heavy reinforced DR 6; piercing and slashing resistance 3

Keeping the numbers closer together makes fighters less durable, but now if we still have an issue with low WP we can just up the base value (someone suggested tacking like 10 onto everyone). It also means we can drop the whole "reduce DR by 2 points for every 5 points you beat Defense" thing. Something to note is that resistances can't be zeroed out, so players will either need to rely on specific weapons or just suck it up because those numbers aren't that big anyway.

Another minor difference is that while previously we've always mentioned the gambeson as an example of light armor, it's now being upgraded to "light reinforced". This is because despite being cloth they were still functional types of armor, and if we keep it as light then they'll offer no protection against any penetrating attack with even a single point of AP. Now, even against such attacks it will still do something. 

Usually, as we're also tweaking weapons based on some of Melissa's suggestions. Here are some notes based on weapon categories:

• Axes: These will still have AP 1, but if you get a 5+ on your attack roll you'll inflict another +1 damage, for a total of +2.
• Bows: AP is lowered to one, but gets +2 AP on a 5+.
• Daggers: Keeps AP 1, but if you get a 5+ it gains +2 AP, for a total of 3. This coupled with the Close Quarters trait, which adds a +2 to hit and another 2 AP, will make it so that daggers can potentially punch through plate when you're grabbing the target.
• Spears: High Reach, so likely to make free attack and AP. Has an Impale trait that ups the AP on a Charge or when making an attack against a moving enemy, and gets +1 AP on a 5+. Not as good as other weapons, but it has a lot going for it, still.
• Swords: Keeps Accurate +1, so more likely to hit, and if you get a 5+ it inflicts a minimum amount of damage on the roll. For example, an arming sword might have it so that if you get a 5+, it inflicts a minimum of 4 damage on the d8 roll. Something like that.

Additionally, some weapons will have different methods of attack. For example, an arming sword can be used to swipe, doing the normal 1d8 damage with an Accurate bonus, but you can also perform a thrust, which deals 1d6 damage and instead has AP 1 (like a short sword).

Primarily this sis because players might opt to utilize different forms of attack to tackle different sorts of defenses, but some attack forms might have to hit modifiers, reflecting how quickly they can be performed or more easily utilized in different circumstances (such as confined spaces, or while climbing on big monsters).