Pretendo Games

Armor rules are, for me, the most vexing part of designing D&Dish games. I don’t need games to “realistically” simulate fantasy worlds, and I do need rules to be simple and approachable. Even so, the binary “you get hit or you don’t” default rule of armor has always seemed far too clean and boring to me for something as scary and brutal as somebody trying to hack you to pieces.

Now, as I work on updating my most “D&Dish” game, Grave, I am thinking a great deal about how I want armor and defenses to work. [1] I know all too well that no matter what I choose, somebody’s going to hate it. I hope I can reach some decisions that I don’t hate, at least.

Let’s review some options.

Armor helps avoid damage entirely

This is how armor works in D&D, Knave, and the original version of Grave. Roll well (or see your opponent roll poorly), and you avoid being hit at all.

It’s … fine. It feels not-very-soulslike to me, though, so I’ve never liked it for Grave. Instead of waiting for enemies to roll to attack, by the Knave/Grave rules, players can roll to defend. I want to encourage people to describe their ridiculous dodge rolls and parries. I want it to feel active. And to me, that means using ability scores to see if you avoid getting hit, rather than using armor as if it’s an ability score.

I could technically have armor provide a bonus to defense rolls, rather than be the sole modifier, much as D&D has (in some editions, with some armor) calculated armor class as a combination of armor and Dexterity. But I struggle with mental arithmetic, so I really prefer to limit things to one modifier per roll in my games (if that).

Armor reduces incoming damage

I’ve seen some people online criticize Grave for not working like the Dark Souls video games, in which armor reduces (but does not entirely eliminate) incoming damage. And indeed, this is my preferred way for armor to work in tabletop RPGs. Just not this tabletop RPG.

This is how armor works in Into the Odd (and its various hacks, including my own). It works well in those games because you only roll once for attacks — a damage roll, minus a small armor value. If you like the sound of that, and want a soulslike game already based on Cairn’s combat rules, I recommend Runecairn.

Grave, in contrast, is my take on adapting super-simple D&D rules to take advantage of the mountain of compatible adventures many of us already have lying around, and to entice your buddies who are tough to lure away from 5e. And that means using the dreaded (but comfortingly familiar) to-hit roll.

For my purposes, reducing incoming damage, potentially on every successful attack, slows down combat way too much for a game with classic D&D combat rules.

First, it’s simply more number-crunching (without a computer taking care of it for you, like when playing a video game).

Second, if not every attack hits, and the ones that do hit might not even do damage, combat can really drag on.

You can correct for this somewhat by having HP totals be extremely low, so few attacks cause damage, but the ones that do are very scary. That feels to me more like Bloodborne than Dark Souls, though — lots of smaller hits until you can pull off a decisive “visceral attack.” I love that kind of combat in Bloodborne, but it’s not what I’m looking for here.

In other words, “armor as damage reduction” is off the table, as far as I’m concerned.

Armor provides extra HP

My personal favorite alternative armor rule for D&Dish games comes from the first edition of The Black Hack: Armor provides a secondary layer of “armor points” that act like hit points. When it runs out, you start losing hit points, which are harder to regain. It reminds me, too, of how damage works in Into the Odd, where fast-refilling HP absorb damage first, and excess damage reduces your much slower-healing Strength.

I like this approach for a few reasons. How hard you get hit matters (more damage equals more point loss). The weight of armor you wear matters (heavier equals more points to soak damage). And it’s not a lot of extra bookkeeping: No matter what, when you get hit, you’re lowering a number on your character sheet. You just need to make sure you’re adjusting the right number (which should be obvious once one of them reaches zero).

For reasons I don’t understand, I know that “armor as extra HP” rules are widely hated in some circles. (If you know why this is, please tell me. And if the answer is “those people just really like the original D&D rules,” I’d feel better about not caring.) That’s the only thing really holding me back from using this in Grave. [2]

Armor shall be sundered

I believe a particular blog post from 2008 led to a popular rule in OSR circles: You can declare a shield “splintered” to block a blow entirely, rendering it useless. Something like this forms the basis of The Black Hack‘s second edition armor rules, and it is effectively how all armor works in my 2400 games. I’ve wondered whether a simple version might make sense for Grave, too.

I think the 2400 approach makes less sense for a more combat-oriented game like Grave. To offer a bit more granularity, you could break armor down into multiple pieces, with heavier armor having more pieces, taking up more inventory slots. In the (work-in-progress) second edition of Knave, you get +1 armor per armor item in your inventory; in Grave, perhaps each piece of armor simply lets you shrug off a blow entirely, but then it needs to be repaired outside of combat.

I think I’m less a fan of this approach than the “armor as bonus HP” approach because “block a blow entirely” is a pretty powerful thing to be able to do repeatedly, and some blows should be too big to block. I’m also leery of the fact that it’s simply inconsistent with how damage works against HP, but perhaps that’s exactly why some folks prefer this; maybe damage against armor should work completely differently from damage against flesh.

Something else…

I imagine I’ve forgotten some other options, and that others still haven’t occurred to me. If you’ve got any suggestions and/or opinions, feel free to send them my way. (Especially if you have strong feelings about armor as bonus HP.)

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1️⃣ Just in case this made you go, “Wait, you’re updating Grave?”: I’m using the Classic Explorer Workshop jam as an excuse to revamp the layout, fix some errors, and try to add a bit of clarifying language here and there. I might update how armor works.

The only other rules updates I’m currently considering are quicker weapon degradation (as in Knave 2e — weapons or armor simply break on an unfavorable crit) and removing the phrase “ability defense” (instead just saying “ability + 10” as needed). Both of those changes already exist in Wastoid, too.

I would love to also include more material for generating creatures and locations, perhaps even a sample adventure, but some or all of that might have to wait until I finish the adventure I’m working on for Dungeon23. My goal for this game jam is just to tidy this thing up a bit. ⤴

2️⃣ (I’m probably still using it for Wastoid, though.) ⤴