Topic: 'With armor' in Combat Companion

[Dark Schneider]

In new criticals we can see many 'with armor' modifiers, in some cases the armor can reduce most damage.

My question is, should be a breakage roll to see if armor resiste the hit?, for example, it can be extremely good to wear leather protections as they have very little maneuvers penalty and can save you for many criticals.

It is correct that if a mithril weapon hit a soft leather armor you save from critical effects and apply reduced ones?.

IMO it should be a RR material vs material, including the strength of the attack in some form, to see if armor resists.

[Dark Schneider]

Any ideas how to manage this?.

This is not new, but with new critical tables, that always use the same one, I think now we need really a method to manage it as there are many more cases like 'with armor'.

As 1st method, quick and easy, I think in something like:

not open-ended roll + weapon mod. + attack mod. - armor mod. > 100; armor breaks and the normal critical is applied.

Where the mods. are based on AR (armor rating), bonus, and attack strenght. For attack (weapon) we can use an approximate AR, so for metal weapons use 10 (plate), for wooden (arrows with no metal heads, club, staff, etc.) use rigid leather, for whips use soft leather, etc.
I think is not hard to create a link weapon <-> AR.

so we could have something like this:

-weapon and armor mod: (AR * value) + bonus. If bonus is magical apply some extra, maybe double it. value needs to be determined, something like value = 5.

- attack mod: is the attack result, using the critical as value (A=5, B=10...) and substract a quantity, maybe 25. So a result of 23C gives us a mod = (23 + 15 - 25) = 13.

So, an example: we make an attack with a non-magical +10 broadsword, result is 15B and the critical hit the head, the foe wears normal leather helmet (AR5), the critical has a 'with armor result', then we roll:

roll + (50 + 10) + (25 - 25) - (25); so if we roll 66+ the helmet breaks and we apply the normal critical, if we roll 65- we apply the 'with armor' critical.

I think is a simple method and quick to use.

[Fenrhyl Wulfson]

What I always did was to considr the damage done by the critical and decide if the armour is damaged or not.

For example, if you receive an arrow in the eye while wearing a full helm, it has struck you through the arrow slit.
But if you received it in the collarbone while wearing a full steel breastplate, then the arrow pierced it.

I don't use any rule, just common sense. Not the best way to do, but a rule for this would really slow down fights.

[Dark Schneider]

but a rule for this would really slow down fights.

Not much, because it only applies when a critical says 'with armor', I think with a fast and easy rule we have a balanced gameplay detail/speed.

But for faster play, there can be cases where directly we apply 'with armor' or not as mithril vs wood or something like that, extreme cases where is IMPOSSIBLE that the weaker can win by common sense.

[Greyaxe]

I assign a HP value to armor, 3 for helmet, 2 for bracers 7 for breastplate etc and put a check each time the armor saves you from a critical or effect.  When you reach the HP total of the armor piece you need to replace or repair the armor.  Its simple quick and adds an element of realism.

[rdanhenry]

I like Greyaxe's idea. Quick and easy. And I really dislike the idea of rolling for a result that overrules the critical. Unless Combat Companion changes combat more than I have been led to believe, the material difference will have been accounted for before the critical is determined. The initial proposal would then double count the advantage of a mithril weapon. You might as well make a weapon roll to see if it actually pierced the armor material when a critical simply says you damage an area that happens to be covered by the armor is hit.