Stacking ACs and attacks

[David]

What is a minotaur's AC if he dons chainmail? How much damage does an alaghi proficient in boxing do? What is the result if someone with body weapontry is also proficient with martial arts? How do you determine the AC of someone in armor but with natural base AC?

So, these are pretty unusual questions but also very reasonable. Sure, lizard men, minotaur, and half-dragons have tough hide, but shouldn't they be EVEN TOUGHER if they wear additional armor? I mean, a horse has base AC 7, but wearing leather (base AC 8) barding is an improvement for them.

Here's how I do it...and his ONLY applies to BASE ACs:

Shields: always apply. They're a totally separate "blocking" defense and are always fully cumulative.

Martial Arts: start with the best base AC and add +0 for hard, +1 for mixed, and +2 for soft, assuming FULL proficiency. The concept is that the softer the martial art, the more you can use it to defend yourself, but there are serious limits in any event.

Material Armor: take whichever armor is best and if the worse AC is greater than or equal to 1/2 the higher AC, add the square root of AC bonus (round down). The logic is that kinetic energy is the square of velocity, so a small increase in power has a large increase in penetration power (rather than a linear scale). What's more, it's good game logic.

For example: Garlok bathed in dragon's blood and now has base AC 5 (+5 bonus). He dons leather armor (AC 8 or +1 bonus). Because the bonus for his armor (+1) is less than 1/2 of the bonus of his higher armor (+5) and therefore of no benefit. If, on the other hand, Garlok put on some chainmail (AC 5), he'd get a +2 AC bonus. Note, this works the exact same way minotaur work by the book...!

Magical Protections: see oerdian.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=gameplayrules&action=display&thread=59

As for attacks, that's a bit trickier, if only to be fair. Among other things, it depends on the base damage of the attack.

For instance: Harbinder knows boxing (AC 7 and d6 punches). Harbinder also has body weapontry (AC 1 and d8+2 strikes). Using the previous AC rules, she's AC 0 (boxing is a mixed martial art, so +1). For her attack, however, she adds a d3 (half of her d6) to d8+2 and rounds DOWN to the nearest, natural die for d10+2. Against size large, she does 2d8+1 (d3 + d12+2 = d15+2 which is the same as 2d8+1)

[Jeff]

Can you check this example to make sure that I understand the way that the new system works

Garlok (still base AC 5 from the Dragons blood) wears a suit of platemail (AC 3). His new AC is 1 (3 [platemail]-2 [sqrt5=2.2, round to 2]).

[Andy]

Lessee -

I think you're saying that Tyris=Flare dons her Splint mail +4, (AC 0, bonus of 10) and turns on her Body Weaponry (AC 4, bonus of 6). So she then gets an AC bonus of 2 or AC -2...not counting combat dodge, shield, fighter bonus, dex, and other mysterious bass ass Goddess bonuses?

Since sqrt of 6 is ~2.44, when she levels again as a jedi and has a bonus of 7, she'll be able to be AC -3 BFA...

Yes? If so, that works for me.

[David]

Jeff, your math is correct. As you can see, the benefit is pretty small.

Andy, your math is incorrect. This isn't Champions; you ALWAYS round down. So, until Tyris=Flare's AC bonus goes to AC 1 (+9), you won't see any more benefit. Also, this is NOT BFA for Tyris=Flare...she has to have her body weapontry active.

Now, I'll be honest, even this small bonus seems rather large to me, but I can't in good conscious ignore that a rhino in barding should have better AC than a rhino in the buff. And of course, certain types of base AC PRECLUDE the use of armor (lizard man hide, naamar fur, etc). What do you think?

[Van]

Okay, now I'm confused. Andy's math looks right to me--

Body weaponry gives her AC 4 (bonus +6)
Splint +4 gives AC 0 (bonus +10)
The lesser bonus (6) is greater than 1/2 the greater bonus (10)
The better AC becomes the base: AC 0
Take the square root of the lesser bonus, round down (sqrt 6 ~ 2.45 = 2)
AC 0 - 2 = -2

What am I missing?

[David]

Andy's second to last paragraph mentions that when Tyris=Flare levels to 7th, her bonus will go to +7 and the square root would round up to +3. But, as I noted, you ALWAYS round down (so Tyr must wait til 9th lvl for that bonus).

[Andy]

Mmm - okay always round down. That's why I asked. It is a pretty small benefit, albeit better than nothing. The main problem is that there are only 20 degrees of protectiveness - the game system is rather limited in this regard even if we expand upon AC's description when necessary.

So, she'd be AC -2 BFA, assuming BW was up and ready...

Shouldn't anything be able to wear armor? I can't really see why (cultural, class, phobic and engineering reasons notwithstanding) that a crat, lizard man, horned devil or whoever couldn't wear really any sort of armor that were designed around their particular body type. If not those Warhammer 3000 guys have some revisions to do.

[David]

Don't EVEN start me on WarHammer 3000...!

Oh, sure, with the right engineering, almost any body-plan should be capable of wearing armor. But that's not the same as saying it's easy, accessible, or even culturally acceptable! Lizard men have scaly hides that catch of stuff and already move slowly. Naamar are the same cuz of their fur AND have a little of a psychological issue (plus it screws up many of their perks). Finding armor that would actually be of benefit to a horned devil would be tough -- personally, I prefer NOT to wear a ski parka if I don't need to...! 8-P

[aaronthecow]

Thank you very much for putting this up!!!!!

[Andy]

So, what you're saying is that even though a by-the-book interpretation of the rules doesn't allow Lizard-men to wear armor, should a particular lizard man show that he

- has no cultural predisposition to not give it a try
- persuades someone to make some custom lizard man body sized armor
- trains in said armor

Then he could be a plate-mail wearing lizard man, right?

[David]

I will say "yes, it's possible" but "no, glossing your way over cultural mountains isn't covered by 'my tribe is taught to be open-minded'" as well as "no, the mechanics are tough enough to challenge Rhom, so again, it's not easily glossed."

But, if a HUMAN BEING retaining the majority of his/her memories were reincarnated as a lizard man and had a buddy like Rhom actively working to forge custom armor and loads of time, then, it's plausible. But for a swamp dwelling lizard man that moves slowly and has no experience with the CONCEPT of protective clothing as well as scales that catch on stuff and an annoying-and-ponderous tail...

[Andy]

In general, I'd think the more heavy and slow-moving a sentient creature, and the more danger they're in, the more likely they'd be to think about attiring themselves in some sort of protective stuff. At some point in their development I'm sure Lizard men didn't consider weapons an issue, they had perfectly serviceable teeth and claws. Most of them use spears, nets, and simple weapons, but even in the MM it paves the way for 'advanced' lizard men that use worked swords and shields and have a more advanced social structure.

Sure, presenting a platoon of plate armor attired lizard men shock-troopers to the DM for approval might be a bit much at this point. But I don't see why certain individuals that chose 'fighter' as their class mightn't train and accomplish that. The major sticking point would be the armor itself, which I'd agree would take R&D that isn't normally available.

Anyhow, you say it's possible above, so I'm good with that.