Matt Colville has announced that MCDM is writing its own table-top fantasy role-playing game, and among his first descriptions is that armor may be done differently from Dungeons & Dragons and other games. (It’s evolving quickly, tho, so things are in flux.) This got me thinking about my own ideas of how armor should work.

I’ve long liked the idea that when you attack, you are first trying to get past the opponent’s defenses–their ability to defend themselves with a weapon and/or shield. And only once you do that does it matter if they are wearing armor, which should logically mitigate the damage they take.

You should have to wear down the opponent’s defenses before dealing a serious injury but sometimes be able to bypass their defenses and deal damage directly, like managing to hit an armored viking in the unarmored face.

Attack & Damage Rolls

As shorthand, I’ll use 1d20 to refer to percentile-like attack rolls and 1d8 to refer to weapon damage-like rolls.

Body vs Fight Points

I’ll use “body points” to mean hit points that largely represent your physical body and are usually based on size and strength, and “fight points” to broadly represent your fighting prowess and stamina. Traditionally, “hit points” are a bit of both–mostly fight points for PCs but mostly body points for most monsters.

You can rest to regain fight points, but body points heal at 1 hp per day. Magic healing returns body points first.

Injury

Per my previous post on injury and healing, “injured” means you are significantly injured and suffer disadvantage for any attack or physical ability or skill check.

And “seriously injured” means you take a sword to the guts (or whatever), fall down, and could lose consciousness. If you fail a constitution check, you die the next round.

The Dice Chain

Certain examples mention bumping up (or down) the dice, so I should mention my dice chain:

1, 1d3, 1d4, 1d6, 1d8, 1d10, 1d12, 1d12+1, 1d12+1d3, 1d12+1d4, 1d12+1d6, 1d12+1d8, 1d12+1d10, 2d12

Examples

In these examples, you will be a character fighting Shenzu the Wanderer.

D&D

Now, in D&D, defensive capability is modeled by giving characters extra hit points as they advance and become better at withstanding or fending off attacks. But it’s backwards: you roll 1d20 against Shenzu’s armor class to see if you get past his armor, then roll 1d8 damage to see how much of Shenzu’s defenses you wear down.

That makes sense for monsters but not for PCs, who can grow to have dozens and dozens of hit points. Nevertheless, players and DMs have generally treated hit points as body points. The old game backed that up by giving only 1 hp healing per day, despite specifically saying that hit points represented more than just physical injury. This is made worse by the fact that there is no game mechanic to keep characters from fighting at full capacity all the way down to 1 hit point, when they are a pin-prick away from death. (I fixed this.)

But this system has stood the test of time, because people like the simplicity of rolling to hit and then rolling damage. Any system that replaces it needs to offer a similar level of conceptual simplicity.

D&D But With Fight Points

An obvious choice would be to simply separate fight points from body points. Heroes would start with a small number of body points and a few fight points (more for fighters; fewer for wizards). Monsters would be mostly body points.

You roll to hit and damage as normal for D&D and do damage to Shenzu’s fight points first. When he is reduced to zero fight points, he is injured. (This is reminiscent of the old D&D rule about being bloodied at half hit points.) At zero body points, he is seriously injured.

If you roll a natural 20, you get a critical hit, which deals double damage. The extra damage roll goes entirely to body points. This is not as punishing to monsters as it is to heroes, who never have more than a few body points.

Falling damage is 1d6 per 5 feet fallen, split evenly between fight points and body points. This makes falling much more lethal than in D&D.

With this system, you know when a creature has been hit versus when it is just being worn down. But it doesn’t solve the problem with armor class being your whole defense.

D&D but Even Most “Misses” Hit

It’s not actually hard to hit someone with a sword, so in this system your attack roll is measured against the opponent’s armor class because it determines if the spot you hit was well protected or more vulnerable.

To attack, you roll 1d20 and two damage dice.

• If the d20 is less than the opponent’s armor class, you have physically hit but not gotten past the opponent’s shield/armor/hide, so your damage is the lesser of the two weapon dice.
• If your attack roll equals or beats the opponent’s armor class, you hit a more vulnerable spot, so your damage is the higher of the two damage dice.
• If you roll a natural 20, you’ve achieved a heavy hit and apply both damage dice.
• If you roll 5 or less, you miss and do no damage at all.*
• If you roll a natural 1, you suffer a mishap (dropped or broken weapon, fall down, etc.)

At zero fight points, your defenses are compromised to the degree that subsequent damage goes to your body points.

At half body points, you are injured. At zero body points, you are seriously injured.

Falling damage is 1d6 per 5 feet and always split between fight and body points. Save vs half the height in feet or you are seriously injured with a broken bone.

Archery would be treated just as melee attacks but with advantage on the d20 at close range, normal at medium range, and disadvantage on long range.

* While attacks normally hit above a roll of 5, very agile creatures are only hit on an 11 or better. Slow creatures get hit on anything but a natural 1.

Defense with Armor Saves

In this scenario, you have a “defense” value based on your fighting ability (class level), dexterity, and shield. Shenzu rolls 1d20 to equal or beat your defense and physically hit you. But you get to roll a saving throw based on your armor/hide to take only half damage (or, if you roll a natural 20, no damage). If Shenzu rolls a natural 20, you do not get an armor saving throw.

At half hit points, you are bloodied. Below 10 hit points, you are injured. At zero hit points, you are seriously injured.

An orc with an ascending AC of 16 might have a defense of 13 and an armor saving throw of 6. This produces the same average damage as standard D&D. But now you have the option of creatures who are easy to hit but hard to hurt (crocodiles) and those who are hard to hit but easy to hurt (fairies).

With this system, all characters and creatures would have a few more hit points, because they take damage almost every round, even with a good armor class.

Note that if both damage dice are the same, it doesn’t matter much if you hit a vulnerable spot or not. But that seems like a minor issue. To fix it, you always give a successful hit a +1. Then even if both rolls are 5, a failure does 5 while a success does 6.

Damage First

A damage-first system might say you have body points and fight points as well as “defense” that all grow as you advance as a combatant. Shenzu rolls 1d8 (or whatever, depending on the weapon) with damage bonus, and that reduces your fight points as you defend yourself. (So, yes, it’s not really “damage” first.)

If the damage is higher than your defense, the attack gets past your defenses and hits you. Shenzu rolls 1d20 with any attack bonus against your armor class; if successful, you subtract your defense from the damage, and the remainder reduces your body points.

At zero fight points, you’re exhausted (and/or Shenzu has figured out your defenses), so now all attacks automatically get past your defense. So every attack is with both the damage die and the d20 against your armor class.

At half body points, you are injured. At zero body points, you are seriously injured.

Defense starts out low, like 1 or 2 or even 0, and rises gradually. A high-level hero might have a defense of 8. You need to get attacked with a serious weapon to be hit, and the weapon’s damage will be greatly reduced. A tough monster might have a lot of body points but few fight points and a defense of only 2 or 3, meaning it’s pretty easy to hit, but it can soak up a lot of hits.

Falling damage is 1d6 per 5 feet and always split between fight and body points. Save vs half the height in feet or you are seriously injured with a broken bone.

This method avoids one-shot kills for creatures with high fighting ability or body points but allows it for those with both low defense and low body points. However, it might be tough to balance, since a creature with a high defense and high body points would be extremely tough to kill.

AC over Defense

This system says you have body points and fight points as well as (very high) armor class and (quite low) defense (a measure of dexterity, shield, and fighting ability from your level).

When you attack, roll 1d20 and your weapon damage die. If the d20 beats Shenzu’s defense, the damage reduces his fight points. If the d20 also beats Shenzu’s armor class, your attack gets past his armor/hide and your damage is split between his fight points and body points. Armor class in this case is 20 for heavy armor down to 12 for none; this acts as a type of critical hit.

At zero fight points, your defenses are compromised to the degree that subsequent damage goes to your body points.

At half body points, you are injured. At zero body points, you are seriously injured.

Falling damage is 1d6 per 5 feet and always split between fight and body points. Save vs half the height in feet or you are seriously injured with a broken bone.

Archery would be treated just as melee attacks but with advantage on the d20 at close range, normal at medium range, and disadvantage on long range.

Attack & Damage Together

This method uses defense and body points again, but you roll 1d20 to meet or beat Shenzu’s defense and roll 1d8 damage at the same time. If you hit, you subtract Shunzu’s armor class from the damage.

• No armor: 0
• Light armor: 1
• Good armor: 2
• Medium armor: 3
• Heavy armor: 4

If the damage roll is low, it tells you the attack bounces off Shenzu’s armor. If it’s high (and you might actually use 1d10 for long swords with this method), you got thru his defenses and hit him in a lightly armored spot to hurt him.

However, this makes armor almost useless against high-damage attacks–common at higher levels–because subtracting 3 or 4 from 20 hp damage just isn’t very meaningful. One way to address that is to subtract the AC from each die of damage and ensure that high-damage attacks in the game are multiple-dice damage (if armor matters). You might need to boost the dice size or else you risk a heavy armor wearer taking no damage from an 18 hp fireball because the dice were 4, 4, 3, 3, 2, and 2. You would use fewer d8s, so the roll might be 7, 6, 3, and 2, yielding 18 hp to an unarmored opponent but 5 hp to Shenzu in his heavy armor.

Alternatively, you could say that armor doesn’t absorb damage from area affect magic and instead just provides a saving throw bonus (good is +2, medium is +3…) that makes it more likely Shenzu only takes half damage.

Defense Die

In this method, you have a defense die (d4, d8, d10, or d12, depending on whether you have a weapon and/or shield). Shenzu attacks by rolling 1d20 and 1d8. If your defense roll beats Shenzu’s damage roll, you block or dodge the roll and avoid getting hit. Otherwize, Shenzu’s blow lands. If Shenzu’s attack roll fails to beat your armor class, the blow bounces off your armor/hide. If it beats your armor class, the damage roll reduces your hit points.

At 9 hp or less, you are injured.

At zero hit points, you are seriously injured.

Falling damage is 1d6 per 5 feet, and you must save vs half the height in feet or be seriously injured.

No Hit Points

A hybrid approach might say you have a “defense” that must be breached but your armor requires a second attack roll to breach it. You roll a 1d20 attack against Shenzu’s defense, with success meaning he fails to block or parry, and you physically hit him. Then you roll 1d12 to breach or bypass Shenzu’s armor and deal a light injury. A second success deals a serious injury.

With this system, there’s no whittling down the opponent’s hit points, but you could say that each attack reduces Shenzu’s defense until he can rest. This makes it easier and easier to hit.

Falling damage is 1d6 per 5 feet, divided evenly between fight points and body points, and you must save vs half the height in feet or be seriously injured.

The problem, of course, is that a lucky pair of attacks to take out any opponent in one round. But also, getting thru a goblin’s defense and armor to deal a serious injury is virtually the same as getting thru a dragon’s defense and armor to deal a serious injury, just more likely. And a lot of failed attacks is boring. (That’s why Gygax and Arneson invented hit points in the first place.)

But if we include actual hit points and say a successful attack merely does 1d8 damage, then we’d lengthen combat considerably. It basically becomes the D&D method with an extra attack roll for every hit.

Fight & Body Points with Two Attack Rolls

As above, you roll a 1d20 attack to get past Shenzu’s defense and 1d12 to try to meet or beat his armor class to get by his armor. If you beat his defense but not his armor, your attack bounces off his armor, and your damage roll only reduces his fight points. If you beat both defense and armor, you hit a vulnerable spot, and so your damage is split evenly between his fight points and body points.

Armor class would be scaled to make sense for a d12 attack roll–needed to allow you to roll 1d20, 1d12, and 1d8 at the same time, speeding up the combat.

At zero fight points, Shenzu’s defenses are defeated, and you only need to roll 1d12 to beat his armor class. All damage then goes to his body points.

At half body points, Shenzu is injured. At zero body points, Shenzu is seriously injured.

Falling damage is 1d6 per 5 feet, split evenly, and you must save vs half the height in feet or be seriously injured.

Archery would get advantage on the 1d20 roll, since dodging and parrying are less effective against arrows.

This is one of my favorites of the ideas in this list. The dice tell a story that D&D mechanics never could. You can have traps that do damage to body points directly. It’s a bit more complex than D&D, because of the extra roll and extra defense stat, as well as splitting hit points into fight and body.

D&D with Two Damage Rolls

This method gives creatures both fight points and body points as well as armor class.

Shenzu attacks by rolling 1d8 to whittle down your fight points as you tire by defending yourself.

At zero fight points, Shenzu’s attacks are now a 1d20 roll to meet or beat your armor class, with success reducing your body points.

At zero body points, you take a serious injury.

Falling would reduce your fight points (knocking some of the fight out of you) and, if you’re reduced to zero, you roll a save against the height of the fall to see if you take a serious injury in the form of a broken bone.

Archery would ignore fight points and just be a 1d20 attack against armor class but with a bonus if you have a shield. Certain missile attacks, like a giant’s thrown boulder or a dragon’s breath weapon, would allow a dexterity save to avoid.

The advantage of this system is that each side whittles down the other’s hit points in a very satisfying way, but armor or thick hide does what it’s meant to do: stand in the way of you getting hurt by a hit.

No Attack Rolls

In this system, you have fight points and body points. Shenzu attacks by rolling 1d8 to reduce your fight points. You roll a die that represents your armor class: d3, d4, d6, or d8. Magic armor bumps up the die. You subtract your roll from Shenzu’s damage roll and take the difference as damage.

At zero fight points, you are injured, and his attacks are now dealing physical injury to you, reducing your body points.

At zero body points, you are seriously injured.

Falling damage ignores your fight points and directly reduces your body points, and you must save vs the height of the fall or take a serious injury in the form of a broken bone.

Archery must roll 1d20 to meet or beat your size (modified by distance and your shield, if you have one) to do damage. Your armor roll reduces the damage, but archery ignores fight points and does damage directly to your body points.

The problem here is that every attack is roll-off and requires subtraction math to determine the damage taken. However, the numbers are small, so the math is easy, so this is still a pretty good system.

Dice Pool

With this method, your class and level determine the number of d6 dice in your dice pool. You also have fight points and body points and an armor class.

In melee, you split the dice in your pool between attack and defense. To make an attack, roll your attack dice while Shenzu rolls his defense dice. Rolls of 5 count as successes; 6s count as 2 successes. You must get at least one success to hit Shenzu (otherwise, you simply miss), but if Shenzu gets equal or more successes, he fends off your attack. If you get more than he does, you hit him.

If the total of your attack dice is less than Shenzu’s armor class, roll your weapon die to reduce his fight points. If it’s equal or more, you’ve hit a vulnerable spot, and half your damage reduces Shenzu’s fight points and half reduce his body points.

At zero fight points, you have worn down Shenzu’s defenses, and, if you equal or beat his armor class, all your damage goes to his body points. At zero body points, Shenzu is seriously injured. Roll for hit location.

Since you can split your dice pool however you like, if you are fighting much smaller creatures, you might not bother with a defense, trusting your armor to keep you from being hurt too badly. You may also split your attack dice to make multiple attacks.

For archery, you can use all your dice for attack, so you can split them between up to two arrows. Instead of Shenzu’s defense roll, your target is based on the distance and size of your opponent.

Falling damage is 1d6 per 5 feet fallen, split between fight and body. Also, save vs half the height of the fall in feet or you are seriously injured.

Dice Pool 2

As above, but rolls of 5 or 6 count as successes. You must get at least one success to hit Shenzu (otherwise, you simply miss), but if Shenzu gets equal or more successes, he fends off your attack. If you get more than he does, you hit him.

If you hit, you can choose from among your extra dice what opportunity you get.

• none: If you needed all your dice to beat Shenzu’s defense, you have no other dice to choose an effect from.
• 1 or 2: overbear (both combatants go down; you’re on top)
• 3: rend armor/hide (opponent loses 1 dice pool die)
• 4: knockback 5 feet
• 5: move opponent 5 feet in any direction
• 6: knockdown

Addendum: DC20 System

Dungeon Coach has just posted a video explaining the combat system for his forthcoming DC20 RPG. You have hit points and armor class, much as in D&D, but with fewer hit points than 5th Edition.

If Shenzu has an AC of 14, and you roll a modified 14 or better, you hit and do 1 point of damage in addition to your weapon’s base damage value, which is up to 4 points for 2-handed weapons. If your modified roll beats Shenzu’s AC by 5 or more, you do +1 damage and by 10 or more, +2 damage.

A natural 20 is a critical hit, which does an additional +2 damage and allows for an effect against the opponent, such as knock back, knock prone, disadvantage on next attack, or bleeding condition (presumably 1 point of damage per round).

It seems to me that beating Shenzu’s AC for 5 or 10 is good enough as a critical hit. Why not attach the special effects to those? Natural 20 tradition, I suppose.

Also, I’ll be interested to see how the system deals with big monsters like dragons, which should have a lot of hit points. Presumably, they would be scaled way down to just 30 or so hit points, which would be a problem if damage was rolled (big hits would take a dragon down in one round), but with damage being flat, it could work.

Flat damage seems a bit boring, tho. It takes away the high highs and lows of big and little rolls. But maybe that’s transferred to the attack roll, since higher rolls automatically mean more damage.

Addendum: MCDM System

Matt Colville has now released a video discussing his team’s attempts at a combat system. In their system, they went back to basics and asked “Why bother letting people miss?”

He doesn’t go into detail on their current system, but he talks about the idea of having characters make an attempt at an attack (or spell or whatever) and succeeding but with some successes being better than others. In fact, poor outcomes–which would be misses in other systems–instead allow your opponent to do something to you.

This is an interesting concept, and it will be fun following along as they refine the system. But in the meantime, we can speculate on the hint that it involves not rolling to hit at all.

Perhaps you just roll damage and, on a low result, the opponent gets a free attack against you or perhaps a bonus to its next attack. This makes sense, if you consider a loss of hit points or fight points to mostly mean getting fatigued or losing your edge–something that realistically should happen at least a little every round.

It’s hard to imagine how you determine what a particular low damage roll is, tho. It can’t be just a flat 1 or 2, because a d6 weapon gets a 1 or 2 one third of the time, while a d10 weapon gets a 1 or 2 only one fifth of the time.

He also talked about their second try at a system (their first being more D&D-like). That version had you roll an attempt roll independent of the defender, and poor rolls had weaker effects and possibly even allowed the defender to do something (again, perhaps a free attack).

I like this idea quite a bit. Let’s say hitting a man-sized target in melee is a difficulty 8 on a d20. You have a 65% of hitting and doing normal damage–subject to Shenzu’s ability to defend himself. If you fail, you roll to recover (simply roll your d20 again). You have a 65% of succeeding this time, but only for half damage. Together, you only have a 12.25% chance of failing both rolls, which we might say does minimal damage (1 plus your strength bonus, perhaps) and allows Shenzu a free attack with no chance of recovery. So, if that attack fails, you just take minimal damage yourself.

Personally, I prefer attacking against Shenzu’s defense skill, eliminating the step where he gets to make some roll to defend himself after you have “succeeded” at hitting him. Matt wanted to eliminate the need to get information from the other player (or GM), but since that person gets to do something (defend themselves or make a saving throw against your spell or whatever), all you’re really doing is separating them. It will be interesting to see how his system comes together.