What’s Your Favorite Way an RPG Handles Armor? Let Us Know Down Below!

I always find it interesting how interconnected different decisions in TTRPG design are. Armor is one of the bigger pieces that communicate what kind of game it is. But you can't decide armor rules without deciding a lot about combat overall, character health, and the game as a whole.

Back in the AD&D days, I DM’d armor rules in my games with more experienced players.

When you were hit by an attack, you threw 3d6. This told you exactly where you were hit and if you succeeded in deflecting or dodging the attack.

Armor had a deflection value, and an absorption value.

Deflected hits literally bounced or skidded off, failing to damage. Damage exceeding deflection was applied to absorption, and damage beyond the combined deflection and absorption was damage to the player.

There was a front and back view of the character where damage was recorded, as well as the position of carried items.

Hit points were modified and did not vary on leveling (deflection
/dodging chances increased).

Once armor was fully penetrated, that section of armor no longer provided protection—though it could be repaired or replaced.

There were also rules for limb damage which affected using a weapon or movement (limbs had their own hit points along with the torso and head).

When I first introduced it for a try, I was met with groans. After one game, players were hooked.

It took a little acclimatization up front but was easy to manage once you used it.

Players got off on the times they dragged a party member to safety who had been hit in a leg, or when they used a piece of scrap to cover damage in their armor.

Players learned to aim for legs of giants for example, concentrating fire and crippling their movement. First aid and healing became location specific—do I heal the chest wound or the sword arm, for example.

This was a system with veteran players, and it applied to some, but not all monsters. A giant in armor was far more terrifying than one with none.

The only kind of extra armor rule I’m interested in is one that enhances tactics and story. Like it tells you if you got hit and hurt, hit but not hurt, or not hit. But even that would have to be really simple.

Yes there is: Armors absorb damage, shields use AC to deflect 😊
This is something I adopted in my TTRPG I'm working on!

How could you forget the MAHOGANY!!! King Yama would be ashamed!

Nimble armor reduces damage as an reaction to taking damage. There is no AC in nimble.

The other thing about Mausritter's armor - You can repair it for 10% of the cost, yes. But doing so means you have to lug the armor through the dungeon which isn't giving you any mechanical benefit any more and is taking up precious slots in your papercraft Resi-4 attache case. Which adds to the inventory management that's Mausritter's primary mechanic.

I would love to see a video on the importance of naming conventions in an rpg

After years of players wanting ways to update their armor in 5e, I made a modular armor system that separates D&D's suits into Core, Upper Arm, Lower Arm, Upper Leg, and Lower Leg.  Cheaper cores could also cover multiple parts such as a chain hauberk covering Core, Upper Arm, and Upper Leg (ideally, you would want different armor per area).  Each piece can grant an AC bonus but also has 1-5 HP.  When hit, you can deliberately damage a piece of armor to gain a benefit.  Most armor grants resistance or immunity to physical damage (bludgeoning, piercing, slashing).  More specialized armor could effect other damage types such as Molten Mithral Chain absorbing fire damage.  The system let players absorb massive damage from monsters at the risk of slowly destroying armor.  It also allowed lower level heroes to face larger threats at a cost.  After a long adventure, getting to town mattered for the melees rather than "do you have the starter armor or do you have the best armor for Light/Heavy builds".

I built my own system from the ground up, Armor acts as temporary health that regenerates to its maximum at the start of your turn. If that temporary health is removed it degrades by one. you can repair armor in your downtime using Material, a generic resource used in crafting. Tools can provide free sources of Material that aren't consumed in the repair process.

I'm working on a system where you trade-off Dodge Vs Armor, so you can choose between Face-Tanking and Dodge-Tanking
Shields don't grant a bonus to Armor unless you block as an action for the turn, or reaction against 1 attack

My favorite armor is kind of a homebrew one. I actually made my own system back in the day for me and my friends to play. We didn't really know much about RPGs (aside from what a PS2 game and an MMO taught us), so it was pretty math-heavy compared to current games. Still, it was awesome. There were body parts for targeting (head, torso, upper arm, lower arm, hand, etc.), and armor that covered those body parts. It also had spots for overlapping armor, so you could have a cloth gambeson under your chainmail, which in turn could sit under your plate armor. It let you have interesting combos, like only running just a torso piece and a single greave akin to a hoplite, or trying to cover multiple sections with larger armor (like a single chainmail shirt/hood combo) rather than multiple smaller pieces of armor, or adding extra layers to important spots like the neck. Also, because of the videogame-esque stats/combat worked, unarmored builds focused on blocking, speed, and reduced stamina use could still be viable for tanking hits.

What really made it special, though, was that each body part and piece of armor had its own health values. Armor itself could have a damage reduction stat, but it also had a maximum to how much it could take in a single hit, so it could be "pierced." One of the coolest moments was a boss effectively firing a magical ballista bolt at a wounded player, so another player proceeded to try and block it with his shield. He got there in time; however, the bolt went through the shield, through his bracer, through his arm, through his breast plate, through his chainmail, and then into his stomach...where he survived with a sliver of HP. Slowly tallying up the damage to the armor was super tense, and then him actually surviving what was meant to be a charged-up OHK was one of the most awesome moments we had.

The closest I have seen to this style of armor is probably from a videogame, with XCOM's armor system, namely in the Long War mod or XCOM 2. It doesn't model every body part, but each set of armor can have a damage reduction "armor" value, a temp HP health value (and in XCOM 1 you didn't get wounded if damage you took was under this value), and then various stat bonuses. It was honestly super nostalgic to see, and a great way to reduce the complexity of this style of armor.

But yeah, silly as it sounds, I loved that system.

To actually answer the Pathfinder armor question:

"Flat-footed" AC is just your physical armor (or similar defenses like natural armor or shields), and represents how hard it is to hurt you if you don't or can't see the attack coming - being "caught flat-footed". Touch AC is primarily your Dexterity, and represents how hard it is to touch you - that is, how hard it is to make physical contact with you. This mostly comes up for spells and stuff where the caster just needs to poke you to deliver the effect and don't need skin contact, but there are also some armor-penetrating attacks like close-range firearms.

This feels logical in the simulation (of course it's easier to land a Ray of Enfeeblement on a big bulky knight than a monk doing cartwheels, and someone with a big shield is better able to defend themselves if they go blind than an evasive duelist) and allows some tactical play (using attacks and strategies that are more accurate based on the foe's defense type) but it can also make wild swings in the target's defenses. Since 2e is more obsessed with keeping its numbers stable, this concept was replaced with AC working the same against all attack types and the flat-footed/off-guard condition, which is just a flat -2 to your AC that doesn't stack with itself (even if multiple sources would inflict it). 2e armor is also much simpler - while there are different types with varying levels of AC provided vs maximum DEX, in practice there is an option for literally any Dexterity level that all give you the exact same number except the heaviest armors, which give you 1 more AC and possibly some reduction to one damage type.

Both editions also have damage mitigation (damage reduction/energy resistance in 1e, resistance in 2e) that cuts certain types of damage by a flat amount after a hit lands, but that tends to be the domain of monsters rather than PCs.

As an aside, the 1e spin-off Starfinder has KAC (Kinetic Armor Class) and EAC (Energy Armor Class) that function like 1e's regular AC and touch AC. Both add Dexterity and armor sets increase both types, but usually KAC is higher. This has the balance effect that energy weapons like lasers are usually more accurate than kinetic weapons like bullet guns and axes, but kinetic weapons usually do more damage and are less likely to be reduced by energy resistances.

You know, it's weird that the go-to example of getting attacked when not wearing armor is assassins or monsters sneaking up on you while you're sleeping in camp or at the inn and not in the other places where adventurers may not be wearing their armor.

Bring on the assassins at the bathhouse or the monster attack at the fancy gala or the sore losers at volleyball in the beach episode!

The way you prevent a Gacha for when a character is resting without armor as you give them the opportunity when being followed during the day, etc. to spot the ambush prior to getting into that situation. That way they have to have already failed to spot the ambush and taking off their armor to have this situation come up.

Just for fun, there are rust monsters in D&D 5.5e. I homebrew armor durability for D&D. Daggerheart is my favorite system.

Armor as Damage Reduction. Mythras is one of the best examples of armor done right as it has hit locations, each of which can be armored differently. The combat engine also has mechanisms so attackers can circumvent armor. Shields are also particularly well done in Mythras, so much so that, much like in real history, a shield is pretty much universally used until the most protective forms of armor becomes available.

I'm so early I still have my PJs on

The other paradigm for armor that lets you adjust numbers and then not have to think about it anymore is increasing health, as in Draw Steel and XCOM.