Fixing the weights of Armor in D&D (and other misconceptions)

Quote from 6thLyranGuard >>

Also, AD&D had modifiers for different types of attacks (slashing, bludgeoning, piercing, or missile) vs different armor types.  It sucked and slowed the game down.

What I recall was modifiers for different weapons against different armor class, which was exceedingly confusing when dealing with monsters or magical bonuses to AC.

Quote from Pantagruel666 >>

Quote from 6thLyranGuard >>

Also, AD&D had modifiers for different types of attacks (slashing, bludgeoning, piercing, or missile) vs different armor types.  It sucked and slowed the game down.

What I recall was modifiers for different weapons against different armor class, which was exceedingly confusing when dealing with monsters or magical bonuses to AC.

That sounds more like Rolemaster than D&D. 

First ... Holy Thread Necromancy, Batman!

Second ... please accept my apologies for not reading all six pages of this.

I find D&D is wonderful because if a table wishes, they can develop tighter rules for armor and weapons, and other tables can do their own thing too.

I like the idea of slowly improving armor rather than jumping to a full set of plate from wherever you were before.  My characters often look for a plate helmet, pauldrons, greaves, sabatons, plate cuirass, gorget, and so forth as they slide up the scale.  As a DM, if my players embraced this, I might let them slide up the AC scale one point here and another point there as they complete their kit.  I enjoy talking about the different parts of armor.  A character in leather armor has a baldric and a wide leather belt to support the weight of their arms.  He has sturdy fencing gauntlets that he keeps tucked in his belt.  He gets his armor treated with oils when he visits a town of city to keep them in good condition and supple, reducing the noise they make.  His helmet is an old reconditioned legionnaire's helmet with a brass ring around the head at the brow, a piece covering the back of the neck and hinged guards over the sides of the face.  It is great for role playing and immersion.

But, if other tables don't want to go down that path, rock on.  It's a game that we can all adjust to our group and make it feel good.

Thanks to OP for providing us a nice synopsis of their research.

Quote from CadenzaTheAdventurer >>

First ... Holy Thread Necromancy, Batman!

Second ... please accept my apologies for not reading all six pages of this.

I find D&D is wonderful because if a table wishes, they can develop tighter rules for armor and weapons, and other tables can do their own thing too.

I like the idea of slowly improving armor rather than jumping to a full set of plate from wherever you were before.  My characters often look for a plate helmet, pauldrons, greaves, sabatons, plate cuirass, gorget, and so forth as they slide up the scale.  As a DM, if my players embraced this, I might let them slide up the AC scale one point here and another point there as they complete their kit.  I enjoy talking about the different parts of armor.  A character in leather armor has a baldric and a wide leather belt to support the weight of their arms.  He has sturdy fencing gauntlets that he keeps tucked in his belt.  He gets his armor treated with oils when he visits a town of city to keep them in good condition and supple, reducing the noise they make.  His helmet is an old reconditioned legionnaire's helmet with a brass ring around the head at the brow, a piece covering the back of the neck and hinged guards over the sides of the face.  It is great for role playing and immersion.

But, if other tables don't want to go down that path, rock on.  It's a game that we can all adjust to our group and make it feel good.

Thanks to OP for providing us a nice synopsis of their research.

 you.. are a genius... i think i would use that, except my players never start at a low enough level to need or want better armour

Quote from Kotath >>

That sounds more like Rolemaster than D&D. 

 AD&D PHB, page 38, "WEAPON TYPES, GENERAL DATA, AND "TO HIT" ADJUSTMENTS" has a table of 45 different melee weapons, listing length, space required, speed factor, and additional 'to hit' adjustments vs AC 2-10. There was a similar table for 15 different ranged weapons. Said table was not well explained, and how it worked against targets with an AC of 1 or lower was undefined. AD&D 2e replaced that table with a significantly simpler system based on bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage. There is a decent overview of the madness at https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2023/06/weapon-versus-armor-from-ad-to-bx.html .

However, that isn't really the type of thing I was talking about. The issue is that armor makes you harder to hit if you must target weak spots to penetrate. If you can just penetrate the thickest parts of the armor, it's not making you harder to hit, though it may reduce the injury somewhat. Now, if all you're modeling is combat between medieval warriors, treating armor as a penalty to hit is not actually a terrible model (and treating it as damage reduction, which by far the most common model for RPGs other than D&D, has its own issues), but once you're dealing with creatures of superhuman capabilities it falls apart. 

Pantagruel,  lone time ...

My problem with implementing that table back in the day is I was never fighting armored warriors unless they were bandits.  I understand that you might be able to think your way through the exercise if you are modeling combat among armored units, but I was fighting monsters.  A monster's armor class was just a number and a concept.  Did the monster have heavy thick scales and moved slowly?  OK, AC is based on hide toughness.  Was the monster fury but real quick?  OK, the AC is based on dexterity.  But monster's armor never had a concept of weakness like a humanoid's armor where the joints were not so well protected.

So, for this reason, I just skipped it.  It never occurred to me this would speed up the game, I just skipped it because I expected to make poor rulings and the game didn't seem to want to be all about finding little exceptions for combat.  I treated it more like a role playing game.  But, in my teens, our roleplaying was pretty darn poor.

One thing to remember about those 1e tables - D&D was just getting started and was growing out of war gaming where those tables made a certain sense. In the war games you were mostly facing humans in various armors not monsters with various ACs. We have progressed considerably in the intervening 40+ years.