Optional Armor Rating Systems

(Version 1.01 - Last Modified: 06/12/2007)


Introduction

I have never liked the way that Palladium Books handles armor in its fantasy worlds. The use of an armor rating to see if either the armor or the person wearing the armor takes damage may seem good, but as characters reach higher levels, wearing armor loses much of its purpose. The armor rating system as it applies to worn armor is supposed to represent that a suit of armor can only cover a portion of the wearer's body at any one time, and therefore, a skilled opponent can find the gap in the armor to strike the wearer beneath. However, if most opponents a character is fighting have a high enough bonus to strike to overcome the relatively low armor rating for some armor, why bother wearing it? If at high levels, major opponents have a high enough strike bonus to overcome the armor rating of even heavy armor, why bother taking the large penalties for wearing it? These questions are not properly addressed in the books.

To compound this problem, as characters gain levels and they have more money to spend on superior or magical equipment or magical enhancements to their gear, spending money on armor almost seems like a waste. Why spend money to buy or improve the effectiveness of a suit of armor with a relatively low armor rating? First, it could not possibly have a high enough armor rating to compensate for the higher strike bonuses of high level enemies. Second, one of the easier types of bonuses is to give a suit of armor a higher amount of S.D.C., but why bother if opponent's never hit the armor in the first place. Finally, the armor could weigh less than normal and be given lower penalties, but those penalties don't usually come up in combat situations and often wouldn't make sense for most character concepts. For example, at high levels, a suit of plate armor could be made that gives no penalties to prowl, but by that point in time, most warriors (the ones most interested in a suit of armor) are not likely to have the prowl skill to take advantage of that. Characters that went an entire campaign clanking loudly when they walked may like the fact that they now move quietly, but they won't often have the skills to truly benefit from that.

There are a few possible solutions to this problem and they all involve eliminating the current armor rating system in favor of something else. This article will go through a number of these possibilities and will present them as optional rules to be used in any fantasy game employing the Palladium Books fantasy system.


Optional Rule: Full Body Armor

This optional rule is the simplest and easiest way to replace the problems with the armor rating system, but it introduces a new set of problems. Instead of using an armor rating to determine if attackers strike the armor or the wearer, all attacks automatically hit the armor until the armor's S.D.C. has been depleted. This optional rule has the advantage of being simple and ensuring that armor remains important throughout the course of an entire campaign. This is also what happens in many of Palladium Books other lines, such as the full body armor used in Rifts, Robotech, Chaos Earth, and others.

Unfortunately, the downside of this optional rule is that almost every battle could see the a character's armor being badly in need of repair. Wearing armor to boost your S.D.C. sounds like a good idea, but if it costs the character to repair the armor after every encounter and requires an additional layer of record keeping, it begins to get expensive in-game and time consuming out of game. Of course, damaging and destroying armor can occur even under the current system, so this drawback isn't a new one, it will just become more common.


Optional Rule: Damage Reduction

The final optional rule as an alternative to the armor rating system used in Palladium Fantasy is to integrate a system of damage reduction based on the type of armor. In this way, wearing armor would reduce the amount of regular damage that a character takes from attacks, which is what armor is supposed to do. Even better, the heavier the armor, the more damage is reduced. However, for balance purposes, only physical damage should be reduced, not energy or fire or cold damage or unspecified magical damage. The damage reduction represents the armor absorbing and softening attacks as they land on the wearer.

A table is provided below for the common armor types found in the Palladium Fantasy main book, but a simple way to convert the armor rating of a suit of armor into the damage reduction used in this optional rule is armor rating / 3. This optional rule also prevents armor from being damaged unless it is specifically attacked with a Called Shot.

Since the damage reduction is applied universally to all physical attacks, even the lightest armor can remain useful throughout a campaign. Unfortunately, like all of the optional rules, replacing the simplistic armor rating system with something else can introduce its own problems. The biggest problem with a damage reduction system is that it can increase the length of combat. By reducing the amount of damage that an attack can inflict, you can run into situations where several very heavily armored, but lightly armed individuals are attacking each other, but because of the damage reduction, they are actually inflicting very little damage with each hit. Foruntately, because the S.D.C. of a suit of armor is no longer taken into consideration and the damage reduction vs. the damage inflicted by most weapons in Palladium Fantasy, combat shouldn't be slowed too much.

This optional rule can also be extended beyond armor rating from worn armor to replace the natural armor rating that many supernatural creatures have. Using the same formula as presented above, a monster could see its natural armor rating replaced with damage reduction. However, this penalty would not be cumulative with the penalty from wearing armor, only the highest damage reduction would apply. For example, if a demon had a natural armor rating of 12 and was wearing half suit of chain mail with an armor rating of 9, the damage reduced from each attack would be -4 (12/3 = 4, 9/3 = 3), as the creature's natural armor is better than the armor it is wearing.


Optional Rule: Strike Penalty

In the Palladium Books combat system a strike roll that is used for many things. The strike roll is compared to three different things simultaneously. First, it is in place and the target of the attack performs his own defensive rolls against it, such as Dodge or Parry. Second, if the target did not block or get out of the way of the attack, the strike roll is compared against the armor rating of the target's armor, to see if it hit the armor or the armor's wearer. Finally, it is compared to the natural armor rating of the target to see that if it did hit the target directly, it actually dealt damage.

Using this optional rule, armor provides a penalty to strike rolls for the attacker against the wearer of teh armor. The exact penalty provided by the armor depends on the type of armor, with lighter armor providing a smaller penalty to strike than heaver armor. This penalty represents attacks that glance off the armor or are absorbed by the armor without hurting the armor's wearer. A table is provided below for the common armor types found in the Palladium Fantasy main book, but a simple way to convert the armor rating of a suit of armor into a strike penalty would be the armor rating / 3, rounding down. This provides a minimum penalty of -1 to strike and a typical maximum penalty of -7 to strike. This optional rule also prevents armor from being damaged unless it is specifically attacked with a Called Shot.

This rule allows armor to remain useful for an entire campaign, but it also has its own problems, most specifically for low-level characters. At lower levels, a significant penalty to strike can make it very difficult for players to hit an opponent wearing heavy armor. This problem can be extremely difficult for combat orientated characters to overcome until they reach higher levels with higher bonuses to strike.

This optional rule can also be extended beyond armor rating from worn armor to replace the natural armor rating that many supernatural creatures have. Using the same formula as presented above, a monster could see its natural armor rating replaced with a strike penalty. However, this penalty would not be cumulative with the penalty from wearing armor, only the highest strike penalty would apply. For example, if a demon had a natural armor rating of 12 and was wearing half suit of chain mail with an armor rating of 9, the strike penalty would be -4 (12/3 = 4, 9/3 = 3), as the creature's natural armor is better than the armor it is wearing.


Optional Rule: Armor Degradation

With the Strike Penalty and Damage Reduction optional rules used, a suit of armor is no longer damaged during the typical course of combat unless it is specifically targeted by a Called Shot. However, this may strike some as a bit unrealistic as armor can become cracked, beaten, and damaged during fights. To reflect this without being forced to use the Palladium Fantasy system of armor ratings, it is possible to use this optional rule for armor degradation, which shows how to properly degrade the abilities of a suit of armor as combat proceeds. Armor degredation must be repaired by an armorer before it disappears.

When using either optional rule, each time a critical strike is made against the wearer of the armor, reduce the armor's penalty to strike or damage reduction by 1, to a minimum 1. For example, a person wearing a suit of Studded Leather with a normal strike penalty of -4 and damage reduction of 4 is hit by two critical strikes during the course of a fight, then the armor's strike penalty would be reduced to -2 and its damage reduction would be reduced to 2 points per attack.


Superior Quality Armor Enhancements

The superior Dwarven and Kobold armor in Palladium Fantasy are designed to work with the old armor rating system and have been changed below to use the optional rules presented above for Strike Penalty and Damage Reduction. Even when using these optional rules, Dwarven and Kobold armor can still increase the S.D.C. of the armor for the same costs as listed in the main book, even though the armor is not as vulnerable as it is without these rules. Dwarven and Kobold superior armor can only be armor made from metal, so suits of armor such as Leather and Cloth cannot receive the bonuses listed below.

  1. Dwarven Armor (using Damage Reduction optional rule):
  2. Dwarven Armor (using Strike Penalty optional rule):
  3. Kobold Armor (using Damage Reduction optional rule):
  4. Kobold Armor (using Strike Penalty optional rule):

Magic Armor Enhancements

The magical enhancements in Palladium Fantasy that are designed to work with the old armor rating system have been changed below to use the optional rules presented above for Strike Penalty and Damage Reduction. Even when using these optional rules, magical enhancements can still be used to increase the S.D.C. of the armor for the same costs as listed in the main book, even though the armor is not as vulnerable as it is without these rules.

  1. Enhance Armor (using Damage Reduction optional rule):
  2. Enhance Armor (using Strike Penalty optional rule):