Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Holmes & Cook: Armor Class

In his monster section, Holmes only has stats for four types of dragons (black, brass, red and white). Though dragons do not appear in Cook's monster section, he does include them in his wandering monster tables, including three not found in Holmes (blue, gold and green). While this is interesting in and of itself, one of the more intriguing discrepancies between Holmes & Cook on dragons is armor class. Holmes gives all dragons an AC of 2, whereas Cook gives them an AC ranging from -2 to 3.

This prompted me to look at the armor class ranges of all monsters in both editions. I discovered something very interesting: there are no monsters in Holmes that have an AC lower than 2. While there are eight monsters in Cook that do, they have an average of 18 HD and only two (the dragon turtle and the 16HD elemental) have a negative AC.

Further, in Holmes, the lowest AC found in the combat tables is AC 2. This emphasizes the reality that in Holmes there are really only four armor classes:
  • No armor
  • Leather
  • Chain mail
  • Plate
I say this because, what does one do with the bonuses of magical armor? If the lowest AC found in the game is AC 2 and one is armored with a +1 shield and plate +1, what good does all that magic do? The traditional answer in D&D to this problem is to continue out the combat table to include lower ACs; however, if one accepts the reality of only four types of AC, this leaves open the possibility of penalties to the attacker's roll.

Conceptually, understanding the shield and any magical bonus as a penalty to the attacker's roll transforms the shield and the magic bonus from being AC to being things the attacker must overcome in order to be able "to hit" the target AC.

In other words, if I were a 1st level character trying to hit an NPC wearing leather and carrying a magic +1 shield, I would normally hit on a '12' (according to Holmes); however, I would have to overcome the shield and the magic because I would be subtracting 2 from my roll. This penalty could be easily be understood and noted as a Defensive Bonus.

This implementation has a couple of consequences and a rather cool implication:
  1. There can be major simplification of combat tables with only four types of AC.
  2. There has to be a conversion of monster ACs that do not fall into these four types. For example, AC 4 becomes Chain/DB 1.
  3. For those that want shields to play a larger role in D&D combat, this concept of shields giving a Defensive Bonus rather than affecting the AC allows for a greater range of bonuses than the meager +1 that normal D&D allows. These bonuses could be tied to size and/or material. For example:
Buckler +1DB
Small Shield +2DB
Large Shield +3DB
Tower Shield +4DB

I have yet to playtest such a system, but a imagine a major complaint might be the math. A reminder: there are very few bonuses in Holmes. Strength has no bearing on combat. Most encounters would require only the penalty due to a Defensive Bonus. For those so inclined, I imagine that implementing a house rule where rolling the exact number you need to hit (a 14 in the example above) would result in maximum damage or some kind of critical hit would give enough incentive that players would adapt very quickly.

8 comments:

Erin Smale said...

There are lots of possibilities once you decouple shield from AC. Given the lack of bonuses in Holmes, I'd favour a system whereby all attacks are made against No Armour, with an attack penalty equal to the DB, and damage reduction based on the armour worn.

Magical plusses for armour increase the DB (shields) or damage reduction (armour). Magical plusses for weapons simply add to the attack roll.

I think this would also scale well to Cook, even with the STR and DEX bonuses (i.e., STR increases melee "to-hit" and damage, while DEX increases missile "to-hit" and DB).

It also gets rid of the "plusses are good, even though you want a low AC" thing, which has upset my sense of order since 1981. ;)

FrDave said...

@Erin
What kind of DR would you give various kinds of armor (given d6 universal damage vs variable weapon damage)?

Clovis Cithog said...

Shields

A house rule I used in my DnD days is to have shields reduce damage from successful hits with results less then -1- being treated as one

Damage reduction was based upon shield construction

1 point for light wood or wicker
2 points for timber or reinforced wood/ buckler
3 points for iron, acrylic or reinforced timber

Magic bonus would apply to damage reduction;
Therefore,
a +2 iron shield reduces damage 5 points; however,

a small shield only applies against one attack,,
a medium shield only applies against two attacks, and
a large shield only applies against three attacks per combat round

Paul said...

I say this because, what does one do with the bonuses of magical armor? If the lowest AC found in the game is AC 2 and one is armored with a +1 shield and plate +1, what good does all that magic do?

Gary must have recognized this problem early, because Monsters & Treasure specifically dictates that magic armor be treated as a penalty to the attacker's ability to hit.

Zenopus Archives said...

Holmes page 20 has:
"Magic armor and shields subtract from the the combat die roll of anyone striking at them, and the armor and shield bonuses are simply added together to determine the subtraction".
(Same type of rule Paul pointed out).

By the time of B2, Gygax had gone the other way, and details AC of less than 2 (pg 3, 1st print) for the Holmes ruleset.

Erin Smale said...

What kind of DR would you give various kinds of armor (given d6 universal damage vs variable weapon damage)?

I'd base DR on weapon type against the armour worn (especially if you're using d6 for all damage).

Categorize each weapon as blunt, sharp, or pointy; you might have something like:

WEAPON (DR VS. LEATHER/CHAIN/PLATE)
Blunt (DR 1/2/3)
Sharp (DR 2/1/2)
Pointy (DR 3/2/1)

Not playtested, but I think this might actually enhance the universal d6 damage approach by lending just a smidge of differentiation to each arm.

FrDave said...

@Clovis
I'd be very interested to see how this compares with Erin's suggestion of armor being a DR...I see some play testing in my near future...

@Paul @ Zenopus
Thanks for the references! This is what I love about our little corner of the blogosphere...

@Erin
I am very intrigued (as I am ever interested in weapon vs. AC charts); however, I wonder if this set-up doesn't essentially make all armor equal. Why should I wear Plate when I can carry more gold out of the dungeon by wearing Leather?

Erin Smale said...

Why should I wear Plate when I can carry more gold out of the dungeon by wearing Leather?

I don't think equal, but certainly pros vs. cons. While Leather lets you move faster, Plate is more durable*:

WEAPON (DR VS. LEATHER/CHAIN/PLATE)
Blunt (DR 0/1/2)
Sharp (DR 1/0/2)
Pointy (DR 0/2/1)

Second, I'll improve the performance of heavier armour vs. non-weapon damage (e.g., fire, acid, green slime) by either reducing overall damage by the above, by limiting the number of such attacks the armour is useful against, or by applying the DR to the wearer's save**.

I think you can smooth out any min/maxing by providing an opportunity for players to think strategically about armour. Leather lets you move faster, but after 1 fire attack, it's useless. Plate slows you down, but fast and dead is still dead.

_______________
* A revision of my earlier table, starting with a minimum DR 0 instead of DR 1
** Though this could be reversed against electric attacks