Thanks for your replies. I have indeed made an attempt at transmogrifying the original Martial Law DAbA rule into something that accounts for these ideas, and that recalibrates the rule to fit my campaign ideas.
You should of course retain the original one if you prefer that, or if your campaign is closer to the default assumptions of HARP than mine is.
DAMAGE ADJUSTMENT by ARMOR
No Armor: First; you can ignore any critical hit that give you 10H or less (whatever its other effects) altogether.
Then;
a. Any concussion damage (i.e. 11H or more) is increased by +10.
b. Any stun damage (i.e. 11H 1S or more) is increased by +2.
c. Any bleeding damage (i.e. 11H 1B or more) is increased by +2.
Soft Leather: First; you can ignore any critical hit that give you 5H or less (whatever its other effects) altogether.
Then;
a. Any concussion damage (i.e. 6H or more) is increased by +5.
b. Any stun damage (i.e. 6H 1S or more) is increased by +1.
c. Any bleeding damage (i.e. 6H 1B or more) is increased by +1.
Rigid Leather: Foes wearing this type of armor recieve the damage on the critical tables exactly as written.
Chain Mail: a. Any stun damage (i.e. 1S or more) is decreased by 1 (to a minimum of 1).
b. Any bleeding damage (i.e. 1B or more) decreased by 1 (to a minimum of zero).
c. Any maneuver penalty of -10M or less is halved.
Plate & Chain: a. Any stun damage (i.e. 1S or more) is decreased by 2 (to a minimum of 1).
b. Any bleeding damage (i.e. 1B or more) decreased by 2 (to a minimum of zero).
c. Any maneuver penalty of -20M or less is halved.
Plate Mail: a. Any stun damage (i.e. 1S or more) is decreased by 3 (to a minimum of 1).
b. Any bleeding damage (i.e. 1B or more) decreased by 3 (to a minimum of zero).
c. Any maneuver penalty of -30M or less is halved.
Regarding the Bazaar, I understand it to contain exactly those tables I am grateful to HARP for not including in the first place. What I want is a small set of easily appliable modifications, not turning the simple "OB - DB + d100" calculation into a slew of multicolumned tables. Sorry
I might add to explain myself that I am planning a campaign in which access to heavy armor is restricted or non-existent. The main reason for this thread is therefore that I didn't like how the original ML rule would make unarmoured combat strictly deadlier.
Now that I set my eyes on redesigning the DAbA rule I changed several things as my perception of the original rule is that it changes combat too much, and the huge benefits given to Plate Mail pretty much guarantees everybody expecting trouble dons that armor type. It makes a good job of showing why you need to fear the Knight in Plate, but if your campaign has a different focus than punishing characters for not donning heavy armor, it simply is too much, in my opinion.
I have therefore made the following changes for this alternate DAbA rule:
1) death criticals remain unaffected. In campaigns where lifekeeping/ressurrection magic/herbs isn't easily available, it's not worth bothering about tweaking this.
2) maneuver modifications have been toned down greatly. Not getting huge penalties here would otherwise keep Plate the only reasonable option. Besides, if you get MM penalties, you're pretty much done for anyway if unarmed (as your Quickness bonus dries up). Getting another penalty on top of that doesn't make much game design sense (to me).
3) ignoring Stun entirely is too powerful in my opinion, so I've set a minimum reduction on any armor
Any analysis/comments/discussion welcome!
I'm especially interested in balancing issues and potential tweaks and pitfalls to make/avoid.