Another Weapon vs. AC Table

A friend of mine recently showed off his copy of 1st edition Oriental Adventures, expressing an interest in playing. I have to admit, I am not much of a fan of these rules, because I am not much enamored with the proficiency rules, and never have been. I would, however, be interested in doing a Ruins & Ronins campaign.

Like many, I am fascinated by medieval Japan (Yojimbo is one of my all-time favorite movies). What many may not know, Christianity did exist in Japan prior to the Tokugawa era. As many as 250,000 Japanese became Christian, particularly in the South where Europeans made the most contact. They were wiped out, however, by Tokugawa, who saw them as being a negative foreign influence. Thus, I would be able to explore this aspect of Japanese culture — its mystery and its own fascination with and repulsion of a Christian theology.

My inner geek, however, relishes in the idea of applying weapon vs. AC adjustments in a new way. Ruins & Ronins does three things that are significant in this regard. First, there are no shields, so there doesn't have to be any debate about how to understand them in terms of AC. Second, AC is determined cumulatively by pieces of armor. Finally, characters are given a Base Hit Bonus which goes up as they level. This allows for the weapon vs. AC table to consist of target numbers instead of bonuses and penalties.

Using the weapon vs. AC table in Oriental Adventures as a starting point, I immediately ran into a problem. The Nodachi has vastly superior bonuses across the board than any other weapon in the game. In a European context, this works because there is a tactical choice between the offensive power of the 2H Sword and the defense of a shield (especially if you use a house rule where shields can be used as ablative armor to negate a hit). In R&R there are no shields, thus there is no tactical choice — the nodachi is a vastly superior weapon that everyone will want to use because it makes no tactical sense to do anything else. Thus, I had to start over from scratch.

As I see it, there are four possible patterns for weapons vs. AC that allow for a tactical choice in combat:
1) Weapons that are better vs. heavy armor but worse vs. light or no armor.
2) Weapons that are worse vs. heavy armor but better vs. light or no armor.
3) Weapons that are worse vs. heavy, light and no armor but better vs. medium armor.
4) Weapons that have no bonuses or penalties vs. any armor.

Traditionally, 3 & 4 do not exist in D&D weapon vs. AC tables; however, there is some semblance of them in Chainmail. Since the point of this whole exercise is to add a layer of tactics to weapon choice, I want to use all four patterns.

Weapons can be categorized into three basic types based on damage: Blunt, Slashing and Piercing. These neatly fit into patterns 1, 2, and 3 respectively. This, however, does not allow for the use of pattern 4. I am contemplating using pattern 4 for martial arts, given that Asia is famous for its unarmed combat and it has techniques that can ignore armor — the abstract nature of 0e combat can understand these techniques as holds and throws, for example. Weapons can be further categorized by being one-handed or two-handed.

Here is a rough draft of a Weapon vs. AC table for Ruins & Ronins:

--------Weapon Type
AC-----2HB-----1HB-----2HS-----1HS-----2HP----1HP-----MA
-1.......17......18.......23......22.......22......21......20
0........16......17.......22......21.......20......19......19
1........16......17.......20......19.......18......18......18
2........15......16.......19......18.......16......17......17
3........15......16.......17......16.......14......15......16
4........15......15.......15......15.......12......13......15
5........15......14.......13......14.......12......13......14
6........15......14.......11......12.......12......13......13
7........14......13.......10......11.......12......12......12
8........14......13........8.......9.......12......11......11
9........13......12........7.......8.......12......11......10

Please note: All numbers are target numbers. MA can also be understood to be AAC. In terms of missile weapons, a Daikyu is considered to be a 2HP and all others are 1HP.

2H=2 Handed; 1H=1 Handed
B=Blunt; S=Slashing; P=Piercing
MA=Martial Arts/Unarmed Combat