Armor as Damage Reduction

One of the first blogposts of the OSR that I remember being widely celebrated and discussed was "Shields Shall Be Splintered!" by Trollsmyth. If you've somehow never read it before, take a moment to follow the link and do so. The post isn't long and the idea behind it is a simple but clever one. 

I found myself thinking about Trollsmyth's post again recently, as I was re-reading a section of Unearthed Arcana that I rarely see discussed. In the Dungeon Masters' Section of the book, you'll find descriptions of new armor types. Among these are field plate armor and full plate armor, which, in addition to filling out the AD&D armor class table all the way to AC 0, introduce two new mechanics into the game that, so far as I recall, doesn't exist anywhere else: armor as damage reduction and damage to armor. 

Here's how those mechanics are described in the description of field plate:

For every die of damage that would be inflicted upon the wearer from any attack, physical or magical, the armor will absorb 1 point of the damage. (On a damage roll of 1, the wearer would take no damage.) For example, the armor will absorb 1 point of damage from the strike of a long sword, and the damage from an ice storm (3–30, or 3d10) would be reduced by 3 points, and the damage from the breath weapon of a 9 HD dragon is reduced by 9 points. However, after the armor absorbs 12 points of damage in this fashion, it is damaged and must be repaired. Until repairs are made, it cannot absorb further damage and is considered one armor class worse in protective power. Damaged field plate may be repaired by a trainer armor [sic] at a rate of 100 gp per point of absorbing power restored, and one day of time per point restored.

Full plate armor functions more or less identically, though its absorption is 2 points per die of damage and it has a total absorption capacity of 26 points before it needs repair. 

A couple of thoughts occurred to me as I re-read this section. Firstly, I had apparently forgotten the rules associated with these new armor types. I suspect that's because, like so many things that later appeared in Unearthed Arcana, I remember more strongly the original appearance of field and full plate in Gygax's "From the Sorcerer's Scroll" column in issue #72 of Dragon. Unless my recollection is gravely in error, those new types of armor did not provide any reduction to the damage inflicted on their wearers. Instead, they were simply better types of plate with accordingly better AC ratings. Damage reduction/absorption is thus something new to UA (though, as always, I am happy to be corrected on this point).

Secondly, I had long understood the rating of a type of armor in AD&D (and D&D, for that matter) to represent how difficult it was to damage its wearer. Characters with lower AC ratings were not "harder to hit," but harder to damage. I know that D&D often speaks of a "to hit" roll, but I take that to be shorthand for "to hit in a way that results in damage." If so, does an additional layer of damage absorption make any sense? Does this addition to the way hits and damage work in AD&D do violence to the combat rules or only to my peculiar interpretation of what hit and damage rolls represent in AD&D?

Armor as damage reduction isn't a new idea. Many RPGs that followed in D&D's wake – RuneQuest being one of the best examples – view armor in this fashion. However, those games broadly divorce the difficulty of striking an opponent in combat from the armor that they wear. D&D has always been a bit more vague on this subject, partly in the interests of efficiency. Whatever else you might say about D&D combat, it's fast. D&D has always sacrificed "realism" for speed of play, which I think is the right call in most cases. That's why I find the damage absorption rules for field and full plate rather odd. To my mind, they don't fit with the overall philosophy of D&D combat.

Of course, re-reading this section of Unearthed Arcana also made me wonder if Gygax's thinking had changed on the matter of armor and/or combat. If so, what might we have seen in his version of Second Edition? Might we have seen a broader implementation of damage reduction in the game? It's a question with no definitive answer, but it's fun to ponder nonetheless.

White Dwarf: Issue #6

Issue #6 of White Dwarf (April/May 1978) features a cover by Chris Beaumont. Looking at Beaumont's piece, I finally realized how much I like these early WD covers – not so much for the art in all cases but for the use of a single background color, which I find very striking. Apparently, I needed reminding that I prefer simple, amateurish covers like those of older gaming products. Speaking of the past, I note Ian Livingstone's editorial, in which he boasts of the fact that, starting with this issue, the text is now right justified. It's easy to laugh at this from the vantage point of the 21st century, but, in 1978, this would have been a genuinely big deal, especially for a amateur/semi-pro magazine like White Dwarf.

"Combat and Armour Class" by Roger Musson is a lengthy examination of the concept of AC in Dungeons & Dragons and proposes various options and house rules to it. Many of the options should be familiar with longstanding players of D&D, such as making it viable for fighters to go largely or lightly unarmored like the heroes of pulp fantasy. More interesting (to me anyway) is Musson's proposal of a series of death saving throws when a character drops below 0 hit points. This approach or something similar to it has become quite widespread in recent years, but Musson came up with this idea in 1978.

"The Fiend Factory" is a collection of seven new monsters for use with D&D. The monsters, created by Ian Livingstone, Roger Musson, and Trevor Graver, are (mostly) familiar to anyone who's made use of the Fiend Folio. "Archive Miniatures" by John Norris is a review of the aforesaid miniatures, of which Norris thinks very highly. Meanwhile, Lewis Pulsipher offers "A Place in the Wilderness," a short article that provides D&D game statistics for creatures derived from Jack Vance's novel, The Dragon Masters. "Open Box" provides reviews of Knights of the Round Table (Little Soldier), Elric (Chaosium), Wilderlands of High Fantasy (Judges Guild), Dungeon Decor and Labyrinthine (both by Falchion Products), and The Endless Dungeon (Wee Warriors). With only a couple of exceptions, I'd never heard of most of these products – but then there have been so many wargaming and RPG products published in the last half-century, that's far from surprising.

Also reviewed is GDW's Traveller, in this case by Don Turnbull in a three-page article that covers every aspect of the game. By and large, Turnbull is favorably impressed by the game. However, he points out two things he considers serious omissions. First, Turnbull wishes there were more examples of pre-generated material for use by the referee. In this, he compares Traveller unfavorably to Metamorphosis Alpha, which is, frankly, a strange thing to do. Nevertheless, I can see his point, at least broadly. Second, Turnbull points out that there are no rules for creating or playing nonhuman aliens. That's a fair point, though I would counter that Traveller was largely inspired by the humanocentric science fiction of the decades immediately following the Second World War and thus it makes sense that the game does not include any discussion of non-human beings in its basic rulebooks. Still, it's a positive and enthusiastic review overall, one with which I wholeheartedly agree.

There's another installment of David Lloyd's "Kalgar" comic, as well as some magic items for D&D by Duncan Campbell. Martin Easterbrook provides yet another "Hit Location in Melee" article. It's not a terrible system, as it goes, but I'm generally of the mind that D&D's inflationary hit points system isn't really compatible with a more "realistic" approach to hit location. The philosophy behind the two approaches are very different and it'd be better to stick with either D&D's approach or, say, that of RuneQuest rather than trying to hybridize them. Brian Asbury continues to detail his alternate experience point system, this time with awards for spellcasting based on the character level and the spell level. While I understand the logic behind such awards – I've been hearing defenses of it my whole time as a roleplayer – I've never been a fan. Asbury's system seems skewed toward providing more XP to lower-level casters and, again, I understand the logic behind it, but it does little to convince me of the value of adopting his overall approach. 

And, with that, we're done another issue of White Dwarf. What strikes me most about this issue is the way it highlights that the first few years after the release of Dungeons & Dragons were filled reckless experimentation with the game's rules. House rules, variants, and options abound, many of them not at all to my taste. Nevertheless, it's good to see the extent to which the earliest players and referees saw scope for adding to – or "improving" in their eyes – D&D. This is at the heart of why I think roleplaying games are such remarkable pastimes: they encourage creative engagement with them in a way that boardgames and video games rarely do (cue howls to then contrary in the comments). So, while this is far from my favorite issue of White Dwarf thus far, I nevertheless found it satisfying and look forward to what is coming in the future.

Historical Armor

The other day I was browsing the website of the Sierra Toy Soldier Company, specifically its Medieval Knights Collection. Their products are much too expensive to even consider buying, but they're nice eye candy. They've got a very wide selection of stuff and I found myself wasting way more time just staring at its images than I ought to have done.  Plus, how can anyone not waste time on a website that includes 54mm miniatures of St. Bernard of Clairvaux and Jacques de Molay at the stake?

Anyway, the website reminded me of just how much I like the look of historical armor. It's one of the things I like most about David Sutherland's early D&D artwork: his fighting men and clerics are usually wearing armor that, while it probably wouldn't stand up to close scrutiny by medievalists, is nevertheless close enough for my purposes. There's a "groundedness" to this sort of armor that I actually think helps to heighten the fantasy elements of the game, something that I think has been missing in it since the 2e era at least.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Mark Allen is doing a historically-armored fighting man for me in an illustration that will accompany my first Dwimmermount release ...

Purely Off the Top of My Head ...

In reading all these comments about the relative ineffectiveness of shields in D&D, I was reminded of the fact that, when Dexterity adjustments to armor class were first introduced in Greyhawk, they were limited to fighting men. I've long liked that limitation, since it provides a small but useful boost to fighters. So, I thought: what if, instead of Dexterity, characters could add their Strength bonus to their AC when using a shield?

Obviously, in such a case, I'd eliminate the Dex-based bonus to AC entirely and replace it with a Strength bonus when a shield is used. Is this idea at all helpful, even as an idea seed, or is it just completely without merit? Feel free to say so if it is, because I only just came up with it after a few seconds thoughts, so odds are that it is useless.

It's Interesting ...

I wonder what it is about the subject of armor class in D&D that makes it such a flashpoint for discussion and argument. I mean, I only mentioned armor class in passing, without any substantive thoughts about it, in a post last week, and it's become not only the primary thing being discussed in the comments to that post but also a continuing source of discussion, since there are still new comments being made about it. Likewise, yesterday's post has, in less than 24 hours, become one of the most commented upon posts I've made all year. I suspect that, in fairly short order, it will become the most commented upon post.

And all about a quirky little mechanic that nearly every RPG after D&D rejected and that even many D&D players don't like very much. It's an interesting phenomenon and I'm honestly not sure what to make of it.

About Armor Class

Dave Arneson is supposed to have once said, "Don't ask me what you need to hit. Just roll the die and I will let you know!" What I've noticed on this blog and elsewhere is that, whenever the discussion of D&D's armor class mechanics comes up, it seems as if most referees tell the players the armor class of the opponents they're facing. I find this odd, as I don't do this and never have. At my table, the player rolls 1D20, applies the appropriate modifiers, and then tells me the highest AC his character hits. Then I, consulting my notes, determine whether or not he rolled high enough to score a damaging hit. Is this procedure unusual at most game tables nowadays?

I'm genuinely curious.