I agree concerning the realism. What I thought was that, once a blow is strong enough to penetrate the worn armor, maybe the skin isn't that much of a help.
The fact that DB is a number implies that you can add or subtract it, but maybe in real life armor means it can stop blows up to a certain strength. Soft Leather helps against scratches and badly handled knives, but not against a battle axe. Two layers of soft leather aren't as much help as chain mail would be.
Still, I'm always for simplicity, so I really like that DB is simply a number. Unfortunately, as Rasyr pointed out, this is one example where this is a little problematic.
Just an idea: When wearing multiple layers of armor, the 2nd layer doesn't add it's full DB to the protection. To reflect that any blow that can penetrate the stronger layer will probably be able to go through the weaker layer as well, count the weaker layer only with 1/2 of the DB. The penalties remain.
Thus, a Nagazi (+20) wearing a plate shirt (+24) will have a total DB of 34.
A Nagazi wearing a rigid leather shirt (+12) he'll have a DB of 26.
Bye,
Jan
PS: Hm. I just read the quote in the 2nd post. Sorry, I believe this is exactly what I oh so creatively came up with. I probably read it unconsciously. Can anyone please post a difficult solution to physics, so I can read it absent-mindedly, then write it down and feel clever? Thanks!