Custom AC system

[Maddox99]

Hi everyone

I'm still pretty new to DnD (playing 5e for a few months now), and am really enjoying it. Now started writing my own campaign to play with my friends. The thing is - the armour class system always bothered me.

Inspired by a youtube video from Shadiversity, I plan to homebrew an AC system. The way it will work is that there will be an Armour points (AP) and damage reduction tied into it.

Using chain mail for example; it gives you an AC of 16, but will give the player resistance to piercing and slashing weapons, and have an AP of 20. So if an enemy deals out 10 hp slashing damage, the player will take 5, and 5 to their AP, but if it's 10 bludgeoning damage - they'll take the full 10, and 10 to their chain mail. If the AP reaches 0 the armour is broken and the player's AC reduced accordingly. I think it'll make for exciting gameplay, and the combat encounters will be more intense.

Any advice on how to work this out efficiently and on the Fantasy Grounds system? Many thanks in advance.

[LordEntrails]

Welcome :)

Without an extension to do this (and I'm not aware of any that do) I would do this as a consumable action on the player sheet. Give it an effect of "RESIST: slashing, piercing" (I think) and then 10 uses. The player will have to manually track the uses though. Then when it runs out they remove that effect and add another "AC:-1"

Personally as a player I would not want armor that did that. Sure, at first and second level resisting 10 points of damage is great, but after that 10 points you resist, you are effectively taking 5% more damage on every attack after that. Plus it adds a bunch of stuff for me to track. I'm too old to want crunchy game systems anymore :)

[Zacchaeus]

Yes, as LE says adding in the resistance is easy enough; just create an effect of RESIST: <damage type>,<damage type> and the player will take half damage from whatever damage types you specify. And I'd agree with his method of tracking the hits on the armour - use preparation mode to add whatever number of points the armour has against the RESIST effect and manually tick off the number of hits. Once the dots are filled up then delete the armour from the inventory and the player's AC will autocalculate to what it would be without armour (or make it not worn if it can be repaired).

I would also echo what LE says about this system. 5e uses bounded accuracy and AC is a vital part of that. If you start messing with it then your players are in for a world of hurt. I don't know if the numbers you quoted above are representative but 20 AP is nothing much and the armour isn't going to survive past the first couple of encounters. After it's gone players will die pretty easily. It's also a lot of book-keeping for you and your players for no real reward. However YMMV.

Edit: The other thing I just thought about as well - thinking about my own group. If I introduced this idea then I'd end up with a party of Barbarians, Monks and Wizards.

[Granamere]

Naked Barbarians, Monks and Wizards. :)

I would say have the unequip the armor so it could be repaired verse deleted. Also would the mending cantrip be able to fix the armor. :) It would make it a mandatory spell to take...

[Maddox99]

Thanks for all of your responses!

And yes, the armour will be able to be repaired via mending spell. Will definitely keep your suggestions in mind while I work this thing out, because I want to give it a try.