Armor with damage reduction and a little trick against recoil
chimeric
Member Posts: 1,163
The armor and weapon-changing mods are the most numerous category out there, so someone has likely tried to do this kind of revamp of even succeeded. Still, I'll ask: has anyone implemented a response to the most common complaint about the AD&D armor system, that it represents dodging when it should represent damage reduction? The official rejoinder to this is that in AD&D successful blows are those that come through, so misses on the dice should be interpreted by Dungeon Master as glancing strikes. The problem with this sly explanation is that a creature that dodges and a creature that shrugs off attacks should behave and be played differently, and they don't. A monk's improving AC in the system, for example, works as if the monk grew scales or invisible armor suits thickened over him. Now 3E takes care of that problem, but in these games we are stuck with AD&D. But even within these rules there is no obstacle to changing armor so that it offers greater and greater damage resistances but reduces, in moderation, actual AC (this should probably be offset by a free bonus of a few AC points to everyone).
How would a full suite of plate circa the 15th century perform? I've never worn one, but from history I know that slashing weapons like falchions or broadswords were practically useless against plate, and arrows useless completely. We can make a proviso for the English longbow, but generally at the time when whole armies wore plate it was considered good to have 1 arrow in 100 find a weak spot, let alone kill someone. I actually heard this statistic. Bows were out and crossbows were mildly useful. One's best chance against plate was with a lance, a warhammer, a greataxe or one of those 10-foot-long Hungarian two-handed swords I've seen in a museum in Istanbul - and they probably smashed with the weight as much as cut.
Given all that, I made a suit of plate as an approximation of how armor could work. It gives high (probably too high without a helmet and shield) resistances to slashing and missile weapons, not such high ones to piercing and crushing. It increases elemental damage, especially from fire and electricity (baking and conducting), but to a lesser extent cold and acid. Magic damage should probably remain unchanged. AC is worsened by 3 points in my version.
It's brass-covered.
Now, if a tank doesn't leap around like a Shaolin monk and his AC is bad, he is going to be hit, frequently but for very little damage or no damage (in combination with a helmet and shield). He is going to be scratched. This would be inconvenient if the character recoiled, interrupted, every time, so I added a little mechanism I had developed for my zombies in Animate Dead. I had wanted them to advance relentlessly, so I had invented a self-renewing contingency that had blocked the recoil animation. I added it to this suit. The wearer will still groan but not flinch.
How would a full suite of plate circa the 15th century perform? I've never worn one, but from history I know that slashing weapons like falchions or broadswords were practically useless against plate, and arrows useless completely. We can make a proviso for the English longbow, but generally at the time when whole armies wore plate it was considered good to have 1 arrow in 100 find a weak spot, let alone kill someone. I actually heard this statistic. Bows were out and crossbows were mildly useful. One's best chance against plate was with a lance, a warhammer, a greataxe or one of those 10-foot-long Hungarian two-handed swords I've seen in a museum in Istanbul - and they probably smashed with the weight as much as cut.
Given all that, I made a suit of plate as an approximation of how armor could work. It gives high (probably too high without a helmet and shield) resistances to slashing and missile weapons, not such high ones to piercing and crushing. It increases elemental damage, especially from fire and electricity (baking and conducting), but to a lesser extent cold and acid. Magic damage should probably remain unchanged. AC is worsened by 3 points in my version.
It's brass-covered.
Now, if a tank doesn't leap around like a Shaolin monk and his AC is bad, he is going to be hit, frequently but for very little damage or no damage (in combination with a helmet and shield). He is going to be scratched. This would be inconvenient if the character recoiled, interrupted, every time, so I added a little mechanism I had developed for my zombies in Animate Dead. I had wanted them to advance relentlessly, so I had invented a self-renewing contingency that had blocked the recoil animation. I added it to this suit. The wearer will still groan but not flinch.
Post edited by chimeric on
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Comments
I don't know if it's possible to prevent resistances from exceeding 100%. That's important, or creatures will start healing from blows. Maybe something on the script level...
What's nice about damage reduction instead of AC is that we could let mages wear armor. It's not a balance problem if their spells still get disrupted even by 1 point or 0 points of damage. Let them have some health insurance, at least.
As for Dexterity limitations and such, I think that system from NWN is too complex and unintuitive. Why should full plate take away all of one's advantage from being agile? Would it really? I bet a dexterous fighter in full plate and a flat-footed oaf in full plate move and duck differently. A suit of armor is not some kind of Starship Troopers-style exoseketon with servos that walks you around but stifles your dolphin leaps. It's just heavy (though technically, from what I've read, and it makes sense, a well-made suit of plate is actually easier to wear than chain, which hangs entirely off one's shoulders like a very heavy coat). I think the more straightforward system is simply to have armor reduce AC slightly. For my plate I made it a 3 point penalty, it could be 2 points for chain and 1 for leathers; or maybe 3 for chain and only 2 for plate, considering the above. But Dexterity still applies and helps.
On the whole, I believe that armor, realistically, somewhat hinders movement, so there should be slight penalties. But given that THAC0 20 hits AC 10 half of the time, everybody should probably get a fixed AC bonus of, say, 5 points. To make hits somewhat more rare on all sides. Since most creatures use the fighter THAC0 progression table and get +1 to hit for every hp die, this starting advantage will wear out very quickly as soon as characters start running into ogres, gnoll elite, ghouls and so on. They will really want to get armored up thickly to reduce the damage if they go toe-to-toe, or increase their Dexterity, or play monks. In other words, early on, facing weak and inept enemies, people can count on luck and natural agility, but later enemies will be smarter and tougher and they WILL hit them, so for ordinary adventurers the best defense, in addition to a quick offense, is to put on some thick armor. Or train specially to dodge better and better, which is what the monk class represents (and other classes and kits we could have, acrobats, ninjas etc.). Luck and talent early on, then either steel or special skill - or stay out of the front line. Makes sense, doesn't it?
About chain mail: the problem with chain is in its basic design. It's ineradicable. The idea of chain mail is basically a long coat of metal, it's primitive. Plate is ingenious - it distributes weight around the body. From what I've read, it was not all that cumbersome at all. The same goes for combat armor these days. Soldiers fasten it to their torso, arms, legs, and the weight goes into the ground. If they had to carry it as a shroud from their shoulders, they'd be stumbling and tired as hell... Of course we're talking about changing game balance, what else? The games don't play so well when it comes to AC, it's a boring and unintuitive system, that's why we are talking about changing it. This character made to be agile from your example, if he isn't a monk, has no business dodging all the blows. Why should he? Magic devices, bracers, aids - of course, but they will still exist. Otherwise a character's terribly low AC is simply unjustified, if we are moving away from AD&D thinking that misses glance off. We might extend some bonuses, smaller than what monks get, to fighters to reflect their training (and at last make them better than clerics).
I was walking around in my brass plate, and there were some hobgoblins around. Since the plate penalized AC, they kept putting arrows in me. They weren't doing much damage, but it was annoying. I was receiving all these little scratches, even with missile damage resistance at 70%. There was blood, too, and constant groaning from my character. And then the bugging question of how to avoid having any combination of armor, helmet and shield boosting resistance beyond 100%? No, thought I, we need real damage reduction. But there is no such opcode! Then it dawned on me.
We can't have damage reduction on the armor side, too bad, but we can have it on the weapon side.
To what lengths we go to solve problems that a modern engine would simply take care of!
I updated the archive above with the latest iteration of my plate mail and a short sword. The short sword is ordinary except that it does no damage. I put the damage die at 0-0. Instead it casts a spell on hit, and that spell inflicts 1d6 points of piercing damage. The target screams, the blood spurts... but not if the target is wearing my armor. Because the spell is of the BATTLEGROUND type, and my armor gives immunity to BATTLEGROUND spells. When the strike lands, there is a clanging, but no recoil, no scream, no blood burst. The attack has been absorbed.
All we need to do is this. First, edit the 2DA file or the IDS file that contains spell types and make several new entries - call them BASIC, MEDIUM, STRONG and SUPREME, for example. Then patch all leather and studded leather armor (to start with) with an immunity to BASIC. Then patch all short swords and arrows, both of which do 1d6 damage, as well as daggers, maces, hand axes, even monster claws, in short, everything whose damage potential, unenchanted, does not exceed 6 points. They must:
a) do 0 of 0-sided dice of damage (but leave bonuses from enchantment in place),
b) cast two spells on hit, one with probability 100-50, the other 49-0 (or another breakdown, perhaps 100-70 and 69-0).
One of these spells will do 1-6 points of damage, straight, on the rocks, no school type. The other will do 1-6 points of BASIC, to be blocked.
Thus we'll be making leather and studded leather highly resistant to weak weapons, but not immune. We should also assign to the armor some resistances in the low range, where there is no danger of going to or over 100% in any combination. In this case, good resistance to crushing and some to slashing, perhaps.
The next patching round will take care of weapons that do 1d8 damage, in the MEDIUM range.
Now on the armor side, we'll patch chain mail against MEDIUM in addition to BASIC and give better resistances.
There is an additional option, more difficult technically, where performance may be an issue (or not). Instead of giving armors constant immunities, we can put on them repeating EFFs, to fire every second or every 2 seconds for that same duration, again and again. This way we could control protection with more flexibility for different armor stages. For example, it might make sense to give full plate complete immunity to BASIC. As I've said, there was very little, nothing really, to be done against plate with a simple bow, a saber, a tired old mace or a spear. With a repeating EFF in plate's case we could set the probability of immunity at, say, 60%. Seems low? But helmets and shields would run their own repeating EFFs with their own percentages, if we went this way. Between a full plate, a helmet and large shield, their chances rolled separately, might well make BASIC weapons useless almost at all times (but still allow rare surprises). With repeating EFFS we should be able to calibrate exactly the level of protection we want to give for every armor type and every weapon strength.
You might ask, why make armor immune/resistant to a type of spell instead of a few specific spells for 1-6 damage, 1-8 damage, 1-10 damage and 1-12 damage? Because of Weidu. There is no foreseeing the damage amounts people will put in their weapons, so we couldn't create a separate spell for every case. But we can look at the size of the damage die. I'm sure there are some people who know how to count the totals and multiply better than I do.
Other advantages of damage through spells instead of dice:
a) doesn't interrupt casting if blocked, damage breaks concentration even if 0 points are inflicted,
b) enchantment bonuses remain and will always go through on a hit, even if the spell is blocked,
c) Strength and specialization bonuses will also go through,
d) elemental damage, level draining and so on are from other on-hit effects inside the weapon ability and won't be affected either,
e) finally really stops critical hits. We should patch the damage-less weapons with Critical Hit effects, a double-strength application of the effects, but this system would move the emphasis away from rolling a 20 to breaking through armor,
f) a few weapons can be made into exceptions from their category, as appropriate. Warhammers don't do a lot of damage, but they are excellent against plate, so they could be patched to the STRONG category plate armor won't be very resistant to. Daggers are sneaky and dangerous and the spell they cast may be of the MEDIUM type. On the other hand, various huge clubs such as we might invent or as might exist already do plenty of damage but are bad at armor-breaking. These weapons, like halberds, might be in the MEDIUM category even if they do 1d12 damage,
g) beyond SUPREME damage, which we may cap at, say, 16 points maximum, unpatched damage would all go through (minus the resistances). This is good when fighting Demogorgon, giants, greater fiends... the kind of enemies we want to be exception from the rock-paper-scissors game,
h) allows players to choose whether to lead their characters down the path of AC or the path of immunities. If the repeating EFF idea is feasible, we can make e.g. pairs of armored gauntlets that run their own EFF parallel to the others. Add steel-plated boots, a gorget for the neck, a thick cape... further worsening the character's AC and perhaps fatiguing, but giving a next to complete guarantee against most weapons.
This would have to be tested for balance, of course, but the game Darklands, my inspiration for this, was not unbalanced for making characters in top-quality plate almost invulnerable. They tired quickly and there were still weapons that got through to them, not to mention magic.
I miss that spell, just so darn fun to throw on armor and weapon grips.
Also, Strength and other damage bonus do not apply to weapons that deal a base of 0d0+0 damage, you would need 1d1-1 to retain those bonuses. Aside from elemental damage, most on-hit effects should be stopped by damage reduction if its enough to negate all of the weapons damage. Finally? "Critical Hit Bonus: -20" has been an option for a while now, as has the Toggle Critical Hits flag for items, depending on which aspect your trying to stop (autohit or multiplier). This is easy enough to do if you split armor into the various item categories from IWD2 (#60-68), which Beamdog already setup for use, with some new ones as necessary.
So, I went to test the repeating EFF idea: immunity to a type applying at random. The G3 description for that opcode says that if two EFFs with different frequencies are in effect at once, then only the one with the shortest duration (more frequent) will work. I don't know if that's true, but I know that two EFFs with the same frequency, once a second, off the same item, work fine. I also noticed some strangeness with probabilities with that opcode, in that probability cannot be reduced:
Use EFF File on Condition (always 100-0 no matter what you type) - > EFF, Cast spell (likewise) - > SPL (finally can set probability)
So if you want to test this, remember that you need to change the spell to be cast. I had mine at several probabilities, 30 and 80 included, but I couldn't find out whether more instances of the same effect stack, i.e. whether a plate mail boosting protection from BASIC could be profitably combined with a gorget running the same EFF and pointing to the same spell. But I incline to no. This is a separate question from whether two different SPLs, both improving immunity to BASIC, may combine. If anybody knows how to check this and wants to take it up, I have some pointers. Performance with several EFFs recycling is not an issue.
Then, the problem of 0d0. There are several ways around it, the simplest one is to cure 1 point of damage on a hit and make the weapon do 1d1, outside of the spell it will cast for actual damage. Though the bottom window shows all damage, and messages will be off by 1 point, this works as a sound immunity except for damage to characters with 1 hp - they get killed by that 1 point of damage before the healing effect can come in. The rest of the damage bonuses get applied nicely (and reduced by damage resistance, if any), even if the spell is blocked.
Now, what to do with the damage spell that does the actual 1d6 or 1d10? My original idea with two spells, one regular and the other BATTLEGROUND (or BASIC) was too complex. I have a better one, actually two:
1) Just one damage spell is enough, type BASIC. If the cycling immunity blocks it, then the blow is stopped, if not, it applies minus the resistance. (We need to kill the "Spell Ineffective" string.)
2) Another possibility is to make the weapons themselves belong to a type. In the properties of their Melee abilities you can select a type just as well, or a spell school for that matter. You could have EVOCATION fists, if you wanted, or an ILLUSION blade for some phantom warriors, or a DISABLING arrow, and some special defenses against them to match.
Now, this type/school doesn't do anything about the damage dice in the properties, they always apply, but it makes all of the effects of the weapon belong to that type or school. This means that if you put, say, short swords in the BASIC penetration category, bonus damage will apply, but not effects that may be there, like fire damage, cold damage, special crits and so on. The question is, do we want this or not? I can see armor as blocking everything except characters' skill/strength (expressed in the bonuses), if it stops the blow; but from another angle I can imagine that armor should only stop the physical damage but not other properties. How penetrating is the life-draining or paralyzing touch? Is it enough to just put your hand on steel, or do you need to touch the body somewhere? Or how about fire? If armor only blocks the physical damage but not the sparks/little tongues of flame or whatever, well, that's unlikely. We are considering a fire resistance penalty, but that's to describe extra damage from heated metal when a burning weapon goes through (it's really consequent damage). When the sword has been blocked, why should fire damage apply? But they are both valid approaches. There is also a problem with this choice that the healing effect for 1 point, and somehow even the spell cast as part of the effects, all get treated as BASIC, so they are blocked as well. Probably this will stop at the second spell, if we nest a spell-in-a-spell.
Also, all this testing led me off on a side path with some beautiful flowers... that is, I've invented a new combat mechanic, and I'll be making it in a separate mod.
How about the following
A weapon casts spells of the type of its damage (or multiple if inbetween)
Unarmoured, Leather, Chain, Plate
Caster level of the spell is determined by the type of weapon
Piercing:
Unarmoured 1d4/lvl + strength +specialisation bonus
Leather 1d3/lvl + strength +specialisation bonus
Chain 1d2/lvl + strength +specialisation bonus
Plate 1d2/lvl + strength +specialisation bonus
Slashing:
Unarmoured 1d6/lvl + strength +specialisation bonus
Leather 1d4/lvl + strength +specialisation bonus
Chain 1d4/lvl + strength +specialisation bonus
Plate 1d2/lvl + strength +specialisation bonus
Crushing
Unarmoured 1d4/lvl + strength +specialisation bonus
Leather 1d3/lvl + strength +specialisation bonus
Chain 1d3/lvl + strength +specialisation bonus
Plate 1d2/lvl + strength +specialisation bonus
Piercing no bonus
Unarmoured 1d4/lvl
Leather 1d3/lvl
Chain 1d2/lvl
Plate 1d2/lvl
Slashing no bonus
Unarmoured 1d6/lvl
Leather 1d4/lvl
Chain 1d4/lvl
Plate 1d2/lvl
Crushing no bonus
Unarmoured 1d4/lvl
Leather 1d3/lvl
Chain 1d3/lvl
Plate 1d2/lvl
Throwing knife would deal
Piercing level 1 unarmoured
Piercing level 1 leather
and none other
A short sword would deal
Piercing level 2 unarmoured
Piercing level 2 leather
Piercing level 1 chain
Piercing level 1 plate
An arming sword would deal
Slashing Level 2 unarmoured
Slashing Level 2 leather
Slashing Level 2 chain
Slashing Level 2 plate
A light axe would deal
Slashing Level 1 unarmoured
Slashing Level 1 leather
Slashing Level 1 chain
Slashing Level 1 plate
A battle axe would deal
Slashing Level 1 unarmoured
Slashing Level 1 leather
Slashing Level 1 chain
Slashing Level 1 plate
Crushing without bonus Level 1 unarmoured
Crushing without bonus Level 1 leather
Crushing without bonus Level 1 chain
Crushing without bonus Level 1 plate
Unarmoured would be immune to the armoured types
Leather would be immune to chain, plate and unarmoured
Chain would be immune to unarmoured, leather, plate and have 50% resistance to slashing
Plate would be immune to unarmoured, leather, chain, and have 50% immunity to slashing and 25% to piercing
We'd have to have the strength and specialisation bonusses to apply to only one of the damages with multi damage, but we might have the option to cast it twice for two-handed weapons if we want. Magic bonusses would either not exist, get a different damage type, simply be damage of the type magic, or get a seperate spell.
This does not work well with classes, items and spells that already have damage reduction, these would have to be changed.
Alternatively, one could work with just a single level of base spell and + it where needed.
Piercing:
Unarmoured 1d4 + strength +specialisation bonus
Leather 1d3 + strength +specialisation bonus
Chain 1d2 + strength +specialisation bonus
Plate 1d2 + strength +specialisation bonus
+piercing spell
Unarmoured 1
Leather 1
Chain 1
Plate 1
If you'd want a weapon that's good against unarmoured, but not against plate, you might do something like
Piercing lvl 1 all types
+piercing unarmoured x4
+piercing leather x2
+piercing chain 1
This would deal
1d4+4 + strength +specialisation bonus against unarmoured
1d3+2 + strength +specialisation bonus against leather
1d2+1 + strength +specialisation bonusagainst chain
(1d2+ strength +specialisation bonus)*0.75 against plate (with its damage reduction)
If the damage is listed on a separate line in the combat log, its not affected.
It wouldn't be an issue for stoneskins, it has its own specific 'weapon hit' trigger, rather than using the 'hit', 'hostile action', 'attack', or 'damage' triggers available to scripts/contingencies.
Mirror Image is not consistent to begin with, since there is always a chance of the weapon hitting the real target. Until its behavior is fixed there isn't an ideal solution, even when the game is unmodded the issue arises. You could flag the damage to bypass mirror image while preceding these spells with an immunity check if the target has mirror images up.
One potential problem with critical hit effects is that they bypass weapon immunity.
To Zilber: I think multiplying basic weapon damage per weapon level is too much, a long sword is not twice as destructive as a short sword (if it's more destructive at all). And if you were to add + to Damage Amount depending on level, you would get flat fiat damage, a long sword doing, for example, 1d4 + 3 = 4-7 points. The free points aren't justified, I think, because the damage range shows how big a wound a weapon can cause, not that it always causes it. But this is just a technicality. On the whole it's a good idea, and you could easily patch all long swords to cast several 1d8-and-under spells on hit vs. a custom spell state, just use opcode 326, Apply Effects List. Then you would simply need to patch all armors of a type (going by equipped appearance is the surest bet, this is a propos subtledoctor's point above) with a global on-equipped spell state. That's similar to the patching I'm doing right now, and asking questions about it in the General Questions thread, except that's for a different purpose. So I think you can get weapons to do less or more damage depending on armor without much trouble.
But there are are few features you would need to think about to make your system not just working but interesting:
- Combining armor pieces for even better protection (in my example, a steel gorget, helmet, gauntlets, greaves and large shield to go with a suit of plate). How would you do this, if your weapons reacted only to a yes-no fact of armor?
- Weapons against monsters: most monsters are unarmored and their toughness and nimbleness are both measured by AC. In the system that I've sketched AC and damage reduction would be two different things and different defense paths, but with monsters it's often unclear why they have the AC that they do. You would probably have to either divorce AC and DR at some settlement or take their AC as your benchmark and give them DR to suit, but that would make the tougher monsters extra nimble *and* hard to scratch. This would be a concern for my idea too, not just for yours.
Anyway, why not play around with that brass armor and short sword in the archive and get a better feel for your own thoughts? I'd hate to have so much discussion stay theoretical.
I differentiated the armours by sound, but had only done a few to test them out, and yes, this would not be right for splint.
There was nothing like my sketched system above in the mod yet, just damage reduction percentages.
I actually think full plate is OP, and it should not be in the game (I read all "Plate" as 14th century, not 15th/16th century plate, and splint like COP over mail). I had not yet thought to use the gauntlets and greaves as seperate entities, but this is a very interesting idea. I would like armour to make you a bit slower, say -1 for leather, -2 for chain and -3 for plate, but I have not yet tested out if this works well, it would also work for the armour to fatigue you after a number of hours, but this also has not been tested. I have given mail and plate a small penalty to hit, -1 and -2 respectively. This is due to my own experience, making your arms and legs slower reduces your effectiveness a bit. This could tie well with using boots and greaves.
I disagree that wearing full metal gear is detrimental to electricity damage, it builds a nice conductive shell around you that may burn you, but won't go through you. Heat does make it quite nasty.
In my mod, AC is tied to dex, level and specialisation, and a shield offers AC, armour does not, actually, heavier armours give a small AC penalty to crushing (I thought it was -1 for chain and -2 to plate) because you move slower. I have not yet found out how to max the dex bonus, which would be better than the dex penalty because of the awful no bonus gap of 2nd edition D&D.
Monsters are interesting, I have split the damage reduction and AC in two, but the damage reduction should not exceed 80%. This way would work better or in tandem with the "damage as spells" that is proposed here, but it is quite a bit of work.
To the best of my memory, the current state of my mod is as below, struck through is what is not yet implemented.
Base speed +3 to mitigate speed reductions.
Shields:
I want to have bucklers give a +3 AC, med shields a +4, large shields a +6, but also a -1 and -3 movement penalty for med and large and casting time +2 +4 +8. There may be some save vs spells for larger shields, I'll look into that.
Armour
Armour would have DR and only a small AC difference.
Leather armour -1 movement, +5%DR crush +5% slash. +1casting time 10% arcane casting failure
Studded -1 movement, 1 dex penalty, 10% DR slash, 5% crush, 5% pierce +1 casting time -1 AC 20% arcane casting failureHide -2 movement -2 dex penalty, 15% crush, 5% slash 5% pierce +1 casting time -1 AC 30% arcane casting failureChain -2 movement, 2 dex penalty, 30% slash, 20% pierce, 10% crush (considered gambesoned) +4 casting time -2 AC 40% arcane casting failure
Splint: replace with "Augmented chain" -3 movement, 2 dex penalty, 30% slash, 20% pierce, 15% crush (considered gambesoned) +4 casting time -2 AC 40% arcane casting failurePlate -3 movement, 3 dex penalty, 39% slash, 30% pierce, 15% crush, +6 casting time -3 AC 50% arcane casting failure
Full plate: Not balancable, I'll replace it with regular plate (so it's like the 14th century)
Open helm -1 AC +5% resistances -10% find traps -10% open locks -10% detect illusion -2 initiative +10% arcane spell failure
Closed helm -3 AC +10% resistances -30% find traps -30% open locks -30% detect illusion -6 initiative +40% arcane spell failure
Spells need to reflect armour to keep the balance,enhancements straight improve ACWeapons:
Crushing
Crushing except Quarterstaff -1 or 1 die down, slings do crushing
Staves -2 AC -1 movement
Slashing
Arming swords -1AC 1d10 damage
Two handed swords -2 AC -1 movement 2d6 damage +1d3 crushing
Axe 1 die down and +1d3 crushing
Halberd -1 AC -1 movement +1d3 piercingPiercing
Generally the same
Spears -2 AC -1 movement damage up to 1d8
The rest no bonus
Missile
Throwing axe slashing damage
Sling crushing
rest piercing
Proficiencies
Weapon styles and proficiencies are where you learn to defend yourself:
Shield 1 -2AC +1 save vs spells
Shield 2 -2AC +1 attack +2 save vs spells
1h1 -1 AC +1 attack
1h2 -2 AC +2 attack
2h1 -2AC +1 attack
2h2 -3AC +2 attack
2wf1 -1 AC, +1 main hand2wf2 -1 AC, +2 main hand
2wf3 -2 AC, +2 main hand +1 off hand.
Weapon profs
2 -1 AC +1attack +1/2 apr
3 -2 AC +2 attack +2 damage +1/2 apr total
4 -3 AC +3 attack +3 damage +1/2 apr total
5 -4 AC +3 attack +3 damage +1 apr total
Classes:
Rangers lose the bonus two pips in 2wf, but get a "detect traps" 1/dayWarrior: -1 AC every 4 levels (-2 in BG1)
Priest: -1 AC every 6 levels (-1)
Rogue: -1 AC every 6 levels (-1)
Mage: -1 AC every 8 levels (-0)
Attack:
Warrior +1 every 3 levels
Priest +1 every 5 levels
Rogue +1 every 5 levels
Mage +1 every 7 levels
With fatigue, I've thought of another repeating EFF that would apply a 1% chance of getting a fatigue point, say, every couple of rounds. That way characters would tire out noticeably sooner. I don't like speed reduction, because then it would be more logical to have unarmored characters (and monsters?) move much faster overall, and anyone wearing armor progressively slower. I doubt that could be done well and consistently in the constraints of the games, and just slow speed for heavy armor would be simply annoying. Remember again, people didn't stroll around in plate as though it were clothes the way our heroes do. They only put it on before combat. And they rode in combat, not walked, if they could afford it.
I can also nod towards the Darklands system vis-a-vis fatigue. In that game, plate armor was next to impervious to most weapons, especially if it were high quality, but fighting in it, that is, striking, tired characters out very quickly. Characters also lost some endurance on being hit, armor or no. In combination, for the fully plated, if they did not slay the opposition first, before long lowly enemies would surround these dreadnaughts, knock on the armor with clubs and cheap falchions, the endurance bar would run down, and the character would plummet, alive but unconscious. If the whole party had been knocked out, it was game over in Darklands. I think you might be better off with some Self-directed, custom-spell-state-discerning fatiguing effects on weapons. Then again, the creators of Darklands were smart enough to restore endurance after every won battle. How would we do that here? It's not fun to have a whole party bitching and moaning about bed rest on a permanent basis.
...And why do shields improve AC? Do they make you more nimble?
Combining worse AC with better DR is something that has to stand together, so that I cannot seperate. This also means the to hit will have to change.
About fatigue, would the "diseased" mechanic not work better? It gives minusses, but goes away when after a while (maybe triggered by the "standing around" of an idle character). I run around in a full suit of tailored mail for a few weekends a year, often also toting a large shield. The shield stands about often, but the mail mostly stays on the whole day, it makes you a bit sore, but is quite manageble. About the speed, I made everyone move 3 faster, because I hate being slow. Only then does the penalty apply.
Shields help you not get hit, they are very effective at that.
And personally I just start from the fun factor. What would be fun? Then I pursue this until I run into constraints. I know that to-hit penalties wouldn't be fun for anyone. Missing... well, it's just empty time, staring at the screen. And it allows no interesting response. At least if it were dangerous to miss! Likewise, fun is why I think AC and DR should be quite separate, a bit like Super Reflexes and Regeneration in City of Heroes, in case you've played that. My scrapper character there would get knocked flat on her ass, but only if they could touch her at all. And next to me there were all these slow, impregnable tankers. So, I think, it is with shields - they should be on the DR side. The question is, how do you reflect the fact that with a shield it's either a good protection or none at all, if you didn't raise it on time? And there you might want to go with something like my repeating EFF idea that applies protection randomly every second or 2 seconds. Ideally you'd have a separate raise-shield button, but - not in this universe.
Anyway, it's your system. See what you can come up with... I have unfinished mods up to my neck. If I got the conversation about DR going, that's good enough for me. About disease: I don't know if you can configure it to give general penalties like fatigue does, and it would have that "Diseased" message, and players would use Cure Disease against it... Besides, it only goes away because and if it's a limited-duration effect. You can have temporary fatigue too, probably. Don't see why not. But I can give you a bit of code to remove fatigue from a character after he has stood around a while. It would have to go in baldur.bcs, though, which some people don't like adding to.
Seriously, do what you want. Hopefully a more interesting system of armor than what we've got will materialize.
By the way, about raising a shield. Now that I think of it, that may not be so impossible. We aren't likely to have any half-way appropriate animations for it, though you might make believe with recoil or some other, but as for the action itself, it could work as a spell cast on self and out of turn (using the Increase Spell Casting Speed effect). Then you would just have an icon saying "Raise shield" somewhere in the weapon abilities or the special bar, and if clicked, it would give you instantly complete immunity to physical damage. but only for 2 seconds, or just 1 second (and it might reduce your attacks for a round, too, for balance). This way you could try to block a weapon just before a blow lands. Ogres have morningstars, for instance, and gnolls have halberds, so we know their attacks will come 3/4 of the way into the round. If you have a good time sense, you might raise the shield just then and block them.
Give the shield a couple of seconds to work its magic after you put it on.