Armor: Passive Defense vs. Damage Reduction

This week we’re talking about the two most common ways of handling armor in table-top role-playing games and the one I’m going to use in Crowfield.

This post has given me a lot of problems. I know what I want to say, but figuring out how to start it has eluded me. Also, I started out with my preferred position and calculated the numbers to support my case. Looking at those numbers made me realize that I was wrong and that the “inferior” system might actually be superior!

The Terms

I’m stealing two terms from GURPS here:

Passive Defense (or PD) is a way of handling armor that makes the wearer harder to hit. This is the method used in Dungeons & Dragons where wearing armor adjusts your armor class in such a way that your opponent has to roll a higher number in order to score a “hit.”

Example: Swinfar the Barbarian is fighting a goblin. Without armor, Swinfar would have an armor class of 10, meaning the goblin has to roll a 10 or better to hit him. But Swinfar is wearing leather armor, making his armor class 12. The goblin rolls to hit and gets an 11. He misses; he would have hit Swinfar if it wasn’t for that armor!

Damage Reduction (or DR) is a way of handling armor that doesn’t affect the opponent’s chance of scoring a hit, but it reduces (or eliminates!) the damage taken from that hit. This is the method used in Tunnels & Trolls and the fourth edition of GURPS (previous editions used both PD and DR).

Example: Swinfar the Barbarian is fighting a goblin. Swinfar is wearing leather armor, which has a DR of 1. Because armor doesn’t affect the goblin’s chances of hitting, the goblin hits on a 10 or higher. The goblin rolls to hit and gets an 11: a hit! He rolls for damage and gets a 3. Swinfar’s armor soaks up a point of that damage, meaning that Swinfar only takes 2 points.

My Druthers

Does it really make sense that wearing armor makes you harder to hit?

If anything, might it not slow you down just a little bit and make you ever so easier to hit?

Once you’re hit, doesn’t it make sense that the armor would reduce or eliminate the damage you would otherwise take?

These were all my thoughts back in 1985 when Ernie first introduced me to Man to Man, the game that would eventually become GURPS. These were also my thoughts when I sat down to start writing this post.

Thoughts & Numbers

So, if I want to add damage reduction to Crowfield, the rule changes would be pretty simple:

• AC is now equal to 10 + DEX bonus + Shield bonus. Armor doesn’t make you harder to hit. Shields are used to block blows, so I still count them as AC adjustment.
• Armor provides the following DR:
  • Leather: DR1
  • Chain: DR2
  • Plate: DR3
• Magic armor adds the bonus to the DR. Seeing that all weapons do 1d6 damage, a DR of 6 or more would make the character invulnerable in melee except to magic weapons; so DR should never exceed 5

Let’s consider Swinfar and the Goblin again. The goblin does 1d6 of damage, and doesn’t get any bonuses to hit Swinfar.

Case 1, Swinfar is unarmored: The goblin hits 55% of the time. When he hits, he does an average of 3.5 hit points. That means that the goblin inflicts, on average, 1.925 hit points of damage per round.

Case 2, Swinfar is wearing plate (DR3): The goblin still hits 55% of the time. But now when he hits, he does 1d6 - 3 for Swinfar’s armor. Because the roll can’t be negative, the average roll for 1d6 - 3 is 1. In this scenario, the goblin inflicts on average, 0.55 hit points of damage per round.

Excellent! The system is working. By wearing armor, Swinfar is taking significantly less damage from the goblin.

But wait! How does that compare to the original rules? Let’s look:

Case 3, Swinfar is wearing plate (AC16): Because armor makes Swinfar harder to hit, the goblin now hits only 25% of the time. But when he hits, he does the full 1d6 for damage. In this scenario, the goblin inflicts on average, 0.88 hit points of damage per round.

This was my eye opener. Even in the original rules, the armor is effectively soaking damage. And it does it without causing us to have to do subtraction every time the goblin scores a hit.

Conclusion

Back in the 1970’s, when I first started playing D&D, I didn’t fully grok how the combat system was abstracting things. I thought a “to hit” roll was to see if you really hit. I thought hit points measured a character’s health. I covered most of these things in a previous post.

The point is that my dissatisfaction wasn’t caused by the rules themselves, but by my (mis)understanding of them. I won’t take all the blame, because my understanding was based on the way everyone around me understood and played the game as well. I won’t blame them, either, because (as I’ve mentioned before) the original rules are so poorly written the no one can understand them.

Once you get it out of your head that the “to hit” roll is not a single “chop” of the sword against a single opponent the rest of the system starts to make more sense. The abstraction covers the character’s or monster’s performance over the entire round of combat against one or more opponents. The “to hit” roll that indicates a “miss” doesn’t mean that the player didn’t make contact with his weapon, just that any contact he did make was ineffective. Likewise a “hit” that causes “damage” doesn’t even necessarily mean that the opponent was wounded; it just means that the opponent is that much more likely to be defeated.

Additionally, the existing rules are more streamlined.  In the fight above, using the DR system, about half the time the goblin "scores a hit, but it bounces harmlessly off of your armor." So you have to roll to hit, then roll damage only to find out it wasn't good enough to defeat the armor. The single "to hit" roll speeds up play.

I will be leaving the system as is, and not switching to DR.

Living in the Real World

I didn't write a post this weekend. Instead I spent it in the real world.  My wife and I strapped on our hiking books and explored a wonderful waterfall and gorge.

Living in Crowfield

Real life can often inspire us for the game.  What if this was in the deserts of Crowfield?  Where would the water be coming from?  How would people utilize it if they had to live on the top of the gorge? What kind of village would evolve around it?

I don't have the answers yet. It will sit in the back of my brain and someday I'll write something.

Live Life

Life is good.  Let's remember to close the game books, put away the dice, and just live it from time to time.

Hit Locations in D&D

I was talking to James about the way different games handle armor in combat,¹ and he opined “Why doesn’t D&D have hit locations like other games?” And just like that, I had a topic for this week. Thanks, James!

Answer #1: It does!

When D&D was published in 1974, it was in the three LBBs². The next year, two supplements were published, Greyhawk and Blackmoor. The latter book contained Dave Arneson's hit location rules.

The system was bulky and unwieldy. It went something like this:

1. Roll “to hit.” If you don’t hit, your round is over.
2. Roll damage as normal.
3. Roll for hit location (d% roll on different charts based on the opponent’s body shape and the side you’re attacking from).
4. If you’re shorter than your opponent, add your weapon length to your height.
5. Cross reference your modified height and your opponent’s height on the “Weapon/Height Adjustment Matrix.”
6. Based on the matrix, you might³ need to modify the hit location that you rolled in step 3.
7. Assign the damage to the resulting body part.
8. If that part is out of hit points, it is crippled (or, if it’s the head or torso the opponent is dead).
9. Total the damage of all the body parts. If that exceeds the opponents hit point total, the opponent is dead.

Steps 1, 2, and 9 are a normal combat round. This hit location system adds the other 6 steps. As you can see, it’s a lot of work and will really slow down combats.

Probably because of this, or perhaps with the breakdown of relationships between Arneson and TSR, the system was dropped from all future releases.

Answer #2: It’s not Abstract Enough

I feel that hit locations really don’t make sense in D&D’s abstract system. As I’ve pointed out before, combat in original D&D is supposed to be a very abstract system. Each round represents 1 minute of action, not a single action by each combatant.

A real life example. In the Salido vs. Vargas boxing match, Orlando Salido threw 939 punches. That works out to about 26 punches per minute. His opponent, Francisco Vargas, threw 1,189 punches, or about 33 punches per minute. In both cases, about one-third of the punches landed. That means that on any given D&D combat round Vargas actually hit Salido 11 times.

The D&D damage roll is the abstraction of the total damage done by those 11 blows. But it’s silly to assign one hit location to all 11.

Final Thoughts

So that’s the real reason (in my mind) why there’s no hit locations in old-school D&D. Trying to assign a single injured part breaks the abstract nature of hit points and blows in the D&D combat system.

If I were to add one, I would make it a “below zero” thing. When a PC loses all of his hit points, rather than killing them, give them a crippling injury instead. The injury won’t heal naturally, but magical healing will take care of it.

Does that make sense? Do you think D&D needs a more concrete hit location table? How would you make it work without breaking the abstraction of the rest of the system?

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1. Guess what next week’s topic is going to be.↩

2. “Little Brown Books.” The first edition of Traveller also came in LBBs, but those were “Little Black Books.”↩

3. It might be that you have to convert a hit to be a miss instead. The rules are really unclear.↩

Village Book I

We have our fort. We know that the fort is ruled by Ka'Taka, an evil (well, chaotic) anti-cleric and her half-orc minions. We know that the fort is located in farmland. It seems to me that means that the fort is surrounded by a farming village. Last week I named it the village of Konpoke. But what else do we know about it? Nothing.

Judges Guild comes to the rescue again. This time with Village Book 1. We’ll use that to generate our village.

Just like the last series of articles was also meant as a "working review" of Frontier Forts of Kelnore, this post will also be a working review of Village Book 1.

This is one of those books where Judges Guild throws a lot of tables at you with no explanation where to begin. We have to wing it.

Step 1: Wall Sections

The tables in this book are not numbered. Reading top to bottom and left to right, this is simply the first table we come to. It determines the “number of wall sections.” The lowest number possible is “2,” which is weird. Maybe that would be for a “D” shaped village?

Also weird to me is that there’s no roll to see if a village even has a wall. I guess every village is assumed to have one. In a realistic medieval world, this is silly, but maybe it makes sense in Crowfield. With water being such a valuable commodity, maybe everyone walls their oasis.

Finally, this table can generate some big numbers. The largest value is “72.” How big must your village be to be surrounded by 72 wall sections?

I roll a “1.” The means “2-12 wall sections.” A 2d6 roll tells me Konpoke has 3 wall sections. 3? A triangle maybe?

Step 2: Wall Thickness and Type

There’s no indication whether this should be rolled once for the whole wall, or once per wall section. I’m going to assume the former.

This is what I call a “cascading table.” A wall is considered earthen, and you roll a 1d6 to determine the thickness. If you roll a “6,” however, the wall is wooden and you roll again. If that’s also a “6” the walls are brick. In total there are 6 different wall materials, but the chances of making it to type 6 are just under 1:8000.

I roll a “6,” so the walls are wooden. The second roll is 4, meaning that the walls are 4 feet thick.

Step 3: Wall Height

A note tells us that wooden walls are 4 times as high as they are wide. No roll needed.

Our walls are 16-feet high.

Step 4: Wall Length

Finally another note says “To determine the length of each wall section multiply the wall thickness by 1' to 20'.” Again, is this once per wall, or once per wall section? The idea that every village is always a perfect polygon seems overly silly, so I’ll roll once per section. I’m glad I’m not rolling 72 times!

I roll a 2, a 12 and another 2. That means the village is a triangle that’s 8' × 8' × 48'. That’s beyond silly. The entire village would fit in the courtyard of the fort!

I strongly suspect that whoever wrote this garbage never even tried it.

I’m ignoring this note for obvious reasons.

Step 5: Wall Characteristics

This is things like “arrow slits” or “tower both ends.” Seeing that a wall has more than two ends, I’m assuming this means to roll for each wall section. Again, imagine if you had to roll 72 times!

I’m skipping this.

Step 6: Wall Defenses

Things like catapults and cauldrons. I assume this should be by section as well? Again, I’m skipping it.

Steps 7 - 9: Streets

This is a series of tables that pretty much mirror steps 1-4 but for streets instead of walls. You determine the number of streets (I rolled 17 streets), then for each street¹ you determine its type (trail, gravel, stone, etc) and width. The width determines length. The only substantial difference is that roads don’t have a height.

I’m not going to bother with any of this. Having details of 17 streets is still kind of useless if it gives no guidance how to arrange them. Plus, I don’t really play towns like big dungeons. I don’t expect the PC’s to do a street by street exploration.

Step 10: Shop Types

The next section in the book is “Shop Types.” But that section says you need to know the population first. It doesn’t tell you, but the population chart is three sections later, because organization was optional in the 1970’s.

Real Step 10: Population

I roll on the population chart. My roll is “57” which tells me that Konpoke has a population of 210 and can support 5 shops. What it doesn’t tell me is whether that’s 210 households or 210 individuals.

Step 11: Back to Shop Types

Now that we know the population, we go back to the “Shop Types” section. Now it tells us that we also need to know the village’s technology level. Even though it’s mentioned after population, the tech level chart is actually the section before the population chart.

I’m sure glad Judges Guild never published recipes.²

Real Step 11: Village Technology Level

Tech level! That might make sense! Is the village trapped in the stone age, or are they magically advanced beyond the local tech–

Oh, wait. This isn’t that at all. Instead the results from this table are mostly type of governing, like Anarchy, Democratic, Tributary, Oligarchy, Republic, etc.

Not only was organization optional in the 1970’s, so was proper word usage.

Whatever. I roll a “7”–“Oligarchy.” That fits in. The small ruling class is Ka'Taka and her half-orcs. It also tells us that there will be 3 government buildings.

Step 12: Shop Types, Finally

Now that we’ve determined the population and the government type “technology level,” we can finally return to the Shop Types section. Oh, but we don’t actually do anything in the section.

Real Step 12: Village Shops

The next section reads “…roll on the chart in the technological level indicated. Roll for no more than one-third of the shops in that category. The remainder shall be rolled for from the lower technological levels.”

So we have 5 rolls to make. Only 1/3 can be from the Oligarchy table. The rest mast be from lower tables. But there are 6 lower tables, and no guidance how to split up the remaining rolls.

Instructions were optional in the 1970’s.

So one third of 5 is 1, I guess. So I’ll make one roll on that table: I get a 10: “Body snatcher’s.” A Body snatcher’s shop? What is that?

Descriptions were optional in the 1970’s.

I’m going to guess that it’s a grave robber’s shop where they sell body parts? (To who?)

So four more rolls, with 6 tables to chose from. I’m going to make a roll, read which shop is on each table for that roll and pick the one I like.

1. Rolled 15. The Anarchy table has a spear maker, and the Religious table has “Religious symbols shop.” I’m picking the latter, because I can use it to let the players know that most the inhabitants of the village are neutral rather than chaotic.
2. Roll of 17: The Tribal chart has a Fur Trader listed. I often talk about the treasure value of various pelts. This could be a place to actually sell them.
3. The dice say 6: I pick “Goldsmith” from the Tributary table.
4. I rolled 20. The Agrarian table has “Horse Trader” for that roll. I can see the players wanting to buy horses. Or camels. Or whatever. I’ll pick that one.

Step 13: Government Buildings

The next set of tables are for government buildings. Unlike the shops, there’s no note to say only one third comes from the appropriate tech level, so I’ll take all three on the Oligarchy table.

1. Bathhouse
2. Marketplace
3. Sentry station

Step 14: Name the Village

A big set of charts to name the village. You roll a prefix and a suffix. They say that there’s 386,000 possibilities.

I know the name is “Konpoke,” but that’s an orcish word. What would the village name be in English? Let me make some rolls.

Five rolls later produces the name “Boxwater.” Not great, but it’s good. I’ll use it!

Steps 15+: Building generation

There’s 7 charts left that let you randomly generate a building. No need for this, but it might be fun to play with at some point.

Final thoughts

I think Frontier Forts of Kelnore is a brilliant work. Village Book 1, however, is a steaming pile of trash. It’s hard to believe that they were produced by the same company.

Still, I think I’ll use most of the work above for the village.

I'll add some details: The village is populated by orcs that have no particular love for Ka'taka. Ka'Taka views the villagers almost as slave labor. Most of the villagers are farmers, and they grow grain that Crowfield could desperately use.

Ka'taka will freely trade grain to the players at a good price. Does that make the player morally complacent in the villagers treatment? On the other hand, defeating Ka'Taka will be difficult. Does the necessity of feeding Crowfield take precedence of the treatment of a bunch of smelly orcs? Plus it’s not like Ka'Taka would be nicer to the orcs if the players weren’t buying the grain.

Maybe the player will try to lead the orcs to rebel against Ka'Taka. But then the prices might go up for Crowfield…

So much role-playing potential.

What do you think?

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1. I guess for each street. Maybe you roll once and all 17 (or however many) streets are the same.↩

2. Except for this one.↩