Goodman Games

In my DCC world there is no Platemail, I struck it from the rulebook. The best you can get is a Breastplate, for which I use the Half-Plate stats.

Now in the Pulpy appendix N world, there are many instances of the Hero using nothing more than a shield or even a helm and shield. I'm not a real numbery rulesy kinda guy, and I want a way to make having a shield be a bit more worth it than a measly +1AC bonus.

So I was thinking that maybe if you are wearing armor then shields work as written. However if you choose to forego armor and just use a shield then the AC bonus should be more?!?!? But how much more ? And should you have maybe a D3 fumble die if using just a shield? or none at all.

All in all, I would like for a player who wants to run around in fur underwear with a shield not have to feel like a chump as he goes up in level. What is a simple quick way to handle this?

any thoughts, ideas, or house rules already in use for this kind of thing?

Someone (I forget who) posted that they allow non-armored warriors to use their agility as their AC, so an 18 Agi warrior would have AC 18, possibly 19 (or more) if they were using a shield. I'm not sure if the Agi bonus would factor into that or not (I probably wouldn't).

I actually really like the idea of using base AC as Agi... except it kinda sucks for less than 10 Agi, especially if you factor in the negative modifiers (another reason I wouldn't).

But you could get around that by doing something different with armor: either damage reduction, or damage absorption ("soak"). Easiest would be something like the following:

Padded -1
Leather -2
Studded Leather -3
Hide -4
Scale -5
Chain -6
Banded -7
Half Plate -8
Full Plate -9
Shield -1

from each hit. That would make armored characters pretty hard to kill though with regular ol' weapons or small monsters. So perhaps a better way to approach it would be to do something like this:

Padded -1d2
Leather -1d3
Studded Leather -1d4
Hide -2d2
Scale -1d5
Chain -1d6
Banded -2d3
Half Plate -1d8
Full Plate -2d4
Shield -1d3

from each hit. You still get some good usefulness out of armor, but it's a bit more variable and now it is possible (though difficult; unless backstabbing / burning luck) to kill someone wearing full plate and a shield with a dagger.

Damage absorption for the shield would be a good idea. Also the Shield and Helmet rules in CRAWL! may be a good base line to expand into a limited armor system.

Thanks for the ideas. I'm staying away from the reduction/soak thing, as I don't really want to "change" the armor charts or anything.

Floating the Agility as AC idea in my head though. I agree no Agi bonus is added to AC if you use it that way. Also thinking that if you choose to go armorless and only use a shield, then shields have a new subset of stats:

Buckler +1AC
Wooden Shield +3AC
Metal shield +4AC

and you can do the "shields will be shattered" thing as well.....

still thinking....

An easy houserule: A Warrior who foregoes a Mighty Deed may add his Deed Die roll to his AC (until the next roll), so long as he is wearing Light Armour or less.

Deed die for armor option... I like it.

There's a deed that gives you and possibly allies +AC. But you have to succeed on a deed roll...

Sure.

But, if your goal is to have lightly armoured Warriors, and you don't think that the Fumble tables offer enough balance for a better AC, then using the Deed Die in this way makes an okay houserule. It is easy, and it takes away opportunity in exchange for a bonus. Moreover, when that Warrior wants to perform a Deed, he must make himself more vulnerable to do so.

Nor should the houserule be allowed to extend protection to allies; that should require an actual Deed.

(Mind you, I'm happy with the system as written on this, thus far, but if I wanted to give Warriors a bonus to AC, I would want to take something away to achieve it. Ye Olde Faustian Bargain. So, you get to choose between a Deed or better AC. If you choose the Deed, you might get something better than good AC, but the Deed might fail. A Deed Die roll that would have failed as a Deed is only a +1 or +2 boost to AC until high levels, and so isn't that big a deal.)

Yeah... I don't dislike your solution. I'm going to play through an entire campaign before I make any changes to the AC system. But if I were to change it RIGHT NOW, I'd probably go with the Agi-as-AC idea and make armor soak, perhaps apply the armor check penalty in some form, perhaps nerfed slightly (which is based on weight/encumbrance, after all), to the Agi-as-AC model... that way a 16 Agi Warrior in Plate mail isn't basically indestructible.

In my current game I'm trying a little twist to this.

I wanted a low-armor swashbuckler-style world but also wanted to decrease the lethality, so I allowed characters in armor to add their reflex bonus and characters without armor to add the reflex bonus twice. This has really encouraged my players to avoid armor use.

I haven't played enough sessions to decide if this "breaks" the balance or not. So far it doesn't seem to bad...

here is what i came up with.

plate armor is +5 ac with a -5 action penalty
half plate is +4/-4
chain and scale are both +3, but, chain is -3 while scale (the cruder version of chain) is -4
hardened leather and hides are both +2 hardened leather is -2 while hides (the cruder version of hardened leather) is -3
soft leather and padded armor are both +1 again the penalty is -1/-2
shields add +2/-1
helms add +1/-1 and by helm i mean serious head protection, not a skull cap of leather.
i'm also contemplating adding the luck bonus (good or bad) to ac as well.

now a "pulpy" fighter in soft leather, shield and helm starts with ac14 before any agility/luck/deed bonus.

Another option is to change the armor classes of monsters to be no better than the armor available in your campaign.