Dodge vs Armor?

#1

Hey there, Shield Wall! There’s an idea I’ve been kicking around in my head and I’d like your opinion on it.

The subject is differentiating between dodging out of the way or taking a hit for a chance to reduce the damage.

In Mork Borg (an excellent OSR RPG) when you wear armor it actually is represented by a die type. When you get hit, you roll that die to see how well your armor absorbs the shot. Now I’m a fan of giving players more defensive options, and I’m also a huge Dark Souls fan, so you know I’d love to have a “dodge roll” in there somewhere, haha.

So I’ve been thinking when an enemy attacks a player could have a choice to say, “That baddie looks beefy, I think I need to dodge that attack,” or they might say, “I’ve got some pretty kick-butt armor, I don’t like my chances at dodging so I’m going to tank this hit.” There’s something of a risk/reward in that for having a chance to dodge the entirety of the attack, or soaking most of the damage through your armor.

If you choose to Dodge and get hit, you’ve made some bad timing and got smacked hard and take the full damage (anybody that’s done some kind of combat sport knows how bad it sucks to zig when you should have zagged, lol). If you choose to use your Armor you’re definitely going to reduce the impact by some amount, and if you’re geared up for it you might even shrug it ALL off in a clutch moment.

Somethings to consider would be:

  • Armor types associated with a die

  • How might heavy armor affect the “Carried” or “Equipped” slots of personal storage

  • Maybe enemies do static damage to speed things up and give difference to light, medium, and heavy attacks

  • Tons of other stuff depending on how deep you want to get and it’s totally cool to do so

I like showing a little specialty in my games when it comes to characters, so I dig on the idea of a character who’s totally shielded up and tanking hits, or a wizard who needs to carry a bunch of cool equipment and can’t afford to be wearing that bulky armor so they get really good at dodging.

What are your thoughts? Let’s find out what’s good and bad about this.

#2

As long as the players are fans of extra rolling, I think this is intriguing. If i use this idea, I will probably do a simple setup: Light Armor (d4), Medium (d6), and Heavy (d8). However, I’d include a bonus so if only wearing light armor, you get +3 Dodge, Medium (+0 dodge), and Heavy (-3 dodge). I’m liking the sound of this as I play games where I like more advanced loot decisions and a little extra rolling. I would either adjust my Monster damage to fit this or just add more abilities such as acid that weakens heavy armor or fire attacks that disintegrate light armor.

#3

A few thoughts here…

Rolling for armor will likely slow down gameplay, not only from the rolling but also from the potential high values of damage reduction. If armor rolls were used for the opponents this could extend combat scenarios even longer. I do like the idea but I think think it would make combat too long for me personally.

Instead of using static damage for the opponents and an armor reduction roll for armor why not use armor with static damage reduction? I’m not sure if the numbers would be right but something like light (1 HP), medium (2 HP), heavy (3 HP). A trouble that could come up with this is when you consider upgraded armor.

A dodge roll would be similar to the armor roll in that it would add extra rolling and probably slow gameplay a bit. I think this gets into the neighborhood of opposed rolls in combat that could result in a lot of designing to setup of-turn and on-turn actions. Would dodging burn an action since it is a roll?

Something to consider implementing would be to use Surge Dice in your games. Surge Dice allows players to negate damage and could simply be narrated as a “dodge”. Just a thought.

#4

Seems like an Eternal RPG question :-p
Let me adjust the discussion a tad.

Defence= anything to avoid damage or taking a hit.

Standard flavors that we see.

AC accuracy must hit better than this number to do any damage.

Threshold damage must overcome to “penetrate”, if damage overwhelms threshold full amount is taken.

Mitigation reduces damage by set amount (may act as a threshold, but threshold takes full if over amount)

Reduction takes lesser damage, (half is the typical type)

Ablative acts as temporary hit points but gets reduced by said amount.

Avoidance A counter roll us used to avoid damage, (in D&D this combined with reduction is normal for AOE attacks)

Contested roll and counter rolls are used to view who wins, loser takes damage.

Then there are some “special types”.

Brownie Points = the limited ability to use special maneuvers (ICRPG uses Hero Points, but even an ability that is used once per combat fits, or Surge in Altered State, shattering your shield, shattering your armor).

Immunity certain damage types don’t damage the individual or for a time don’t damage the character.

When these and a few others I am not including for the sake of brevity are mixed and tied with varied attack types, combat becomes very intellectually demanding. (some call it tactical, others long and boring after 4 rounds or 30 minutes).

Adding extra rolls and or math always complicates and makes combat longer. But it might make it more enthralling.

I like what @Shadymutha has done in some of his games…providing choices…you can avoid it but end up prone, loose you weapon, off-balance and easier to hit next attack…

I have used Hero Points as a catch-all effect any roll type thing. That seems fun.

@DSMyers did something interesting in Ancient Crypts & Creatures, an ICRPG Add-On
He adjusted the effort dice depending on the classes. You can add this to armor types. heavy armor reduces damage by D6, light by D4, dodge maneuver by D8 on a successful attempt or adds half that on a failure.

Another thing @Shadymutha did was make my character roll to catch something (my character is in plate). This fit the narrative elegantly.

Ultimately, add whatever you want, if your players enjoy it…you chose correctly!!!

But, from experience, the more that’s added the slower combat becomes, and needs to be balanced with healing, and other resources…So that there is a stake in the outcome!

If adding your system, I’d have a set Target Number for Dodge, with a penalty for failure, and not let those over 12 Armor to perform Dodges…or dodge can be the reverse hit roll???

OK, new idea.

Dodge Maneuver

Roll Dex Vs. TN for physical and CHA Vs. TN for magical effects/social, (fireball would still be a physical attack) If you succeed hit avoided, if not you take damage without a needed attack roll by the attacker.

In essence, this becomes a saving throw, to avoid damage. Same number of rolls, just an interjection and a few words exchanged…15 seconds per attack or so, less as it becomes routine.

#5

There is a 5e setting and rules supplement called Dragon Heresy (and dungeon grappling) that uses a system of defense options like this. There is a Threat DC, the number that needs to be hit or it misses. A Hit DC, the number that needs to be hit in order to bypass defenses. The Hit DC is generally pretty high. There are also a number of different defense options and HP works a bit differently than normal 5e.
I haven’t had a chance to play this rule set yet, but it seems interesting…maybe a bit to crunchy for my needs atm, but i should play it once since i did kickstart it.

#6

I speak from a lot of experience when I say this: Dodging attacks, as an ability, is a terrible concept. Dodging (with a roll) slows down play and ultimately makes it nearly impossible to challenge that player as a DM. Meanwhile, players roll their eyes every time the high Dex character interrupts play and announces for every attack, “I’ll just dodge that.” Dodging is a major fun-ruiner in my experience, both on the player and DM side. It seems fun in theory, and it plays fun for a moment, and then it snowballs in a bad way fast.

But. If you’re hell-bent that you have to have dodge as a mechanic, then use a system like the surge system in Altered State where a player is limited to up to just a few of these per session, and they happen automatically with no roll required (so play isn’t slowed). Or insert a dodge mechanic but put a strict limit on it: once per session or once per location should be good.

As for armor soak, the surge system would work for that too. Or, put a limit on that ability too. Or just make all armor soak until it breaks like Blood and Snow. Again, less is more, imho. In any event, those are my thoughts on the topic. But, I recognize that there are folks who enjoy more mechanical crunch to their games and don’t mind the slowdown.

#7

Yup!!! Brownie points are better, but save before attack roll isn’t so terrible. Though it does make the 7dex shooter obnoxiously tempting as as the Target Number tone setter…so TN 17 becomes a norm…and the game spirals into an arms race.

I hate dex as used in D20 games.

#8

This is all good stuff. I haven’t played with a Dodge mechanic aside from something like Evasion from d&d, so it’s good to hear a lot of feedback from players with experience with it.

#9

This is what we are using in our ICRPG RIFTS game (its very crunchy)… It seems to work well but there are a lot of high damage rolls and attacks flying around…

ARMOR

Thanks to Big Grump and Lon from the ICRPG Discord for this great idea!

  • Max Armor has 10 HP.
  • ARMOR is ablative LOOT gained from donning body armor.
  • Every time you take damage, you reduce the damage by the amount of armor worn, to a minimum of 1 pt. of damage per hit.
  • You can choose to destroy 1 HP of ARMOR, to resist 1 die of damage. This reduces your ARMOR permanently until repaired. If your ARMOR is reduced to zero HP, the ARMOR is destroyed and cannot be repaired.
  • ARMOR is wearable LOOT. It can be repaired given time, tools, and materials. See REPAIRS for more info. It can be stolen. It can be lost. It can be destroyed if it reaches zero.
  • Environment and Cover can provide temporary ARMOR points.
  • ARMOR can be ablative (soak till destroyed), resistive (soak per hit), protective (immune to…), and reactive (retaliation, redirection effects).

For example, if something hits you with 3d10 (18 points) of EFFORT, and you have 5 HP in ARMOR. You reduce the damage by 5 pts (18-5=13 dmg) and your ARMOR stays intact.

OR*

You can reduce your ARMOR by 3 pts (from 5 to 2) to take zero damage. You could also choose to spend 1 or 2 pts of ARMOR and reduce the amount of dice rolled for damage inflicted.

DEFENSE

Defense is your innate ability to dodge and defend yourself from attacks.
DEFENSE = 10+DEX. Tags, Keywords, and Powers or Special Abilities can add to it.
DEFENSE is used to determine how hard you are to hit.
Your DEFENSE is what the enemy rolls to hit you.
ARMOR does not add to your DEFENSE.

Game On!

#10

I love this level of crunch! Very cool stuff, thanks for sharing.

#11

In my ICRPG, ARMOR can be effected by EASY and HARD clauses too. A player that is HARD to hit essentially has +3 ARMOR

Are you prone, stunned, restrained or blind? You are EASY to hit just like the enemy! Are you behind Cover, faded, Blipping or under a spell? It’s HARD to hit you. Same natural language, same flow.

Conversely, I let ppl take their ACTION to become HARD to hit for 1 ROUND (start if next turn) the equivalent of the DODGE action from DnD 5e. Ofc this won’t stop a crit but waste not want not. If on-demand Dodge action sounds too stronk, They could roll VS the TN to succeed, the Roll depends on how they describe it…

  • Repelling with low Shield Stance? STR
  • Entering Bullet Time to dodge? DEX
  • Want to just TANK with Physique? CON
  • Calulate arrow paths or try a makeshift Ward? INT
  • Pray for Protection? WIS
  • Are you so Just so dayum Charming/Sexy/Intimidating That they second guess hitting you? CHA

As for Heavy armor, the way I interpret the game is that every armor Piece that gives you a +1 is one Equipped gear slot, exception is some LOOT Armors state they take up 2-5 slots.