Modifying 3.5 for Mass Effect

[Salz78]

Hey, so I'm starting in later this month a Mass Effect campaign based on a modified d20 system. We are using the 3.5 rules system. There is a mechanic in Mass Effect that makes do damage a little more difficult, I'm curious if anyone has any ideas on how to implement this. Characters have hitpoints as normal, but they also have shield hit points based on the armor they wear. The shields must be depleted before the actual hit point pool can be damaged. Then once shields are gone, damage reduction from armor (no ac bonus from armor) kicks in.

Any ideas on creative ways to make this work (even a little bit) with the current 3.5 system, or do you think it's something that could be modded in? Thanks!

[Trenloe]

Use temporary hit points to represent the shield hit points?

And a DR effect for the armour. The only issue here is that DR would apply before temporary hit points were reduced. So turn off the DR until temp hit points are gone - there might have to be a little bit of calculation at the point where all temp HP goes.

[Salz78]

Yeah, I probably should have thought of that. Thanks!