I want to run D&D, but…

Best Selling RPGs - Available Now @ DriveThruRPG.com
I want to run D&D fantasy (classic classes, races, monsters, spells, and magic items), but I want it to have:

1. Armor as damage reduction
2. Rolls to cast
3. Magic points
4. Lower hit point totals
5. Saving throws tied to ability scores or some variation of Fortitute/Reflex/Will

it would be nice, but not required, if it also had:
6. Defense rolls/opposed rolls
7. hit locations or called shots or hit locations only on criticals

I am aware of Mythras Classic Fantasy and Hackmaster, but I’m wondering what else is out there and if there’s anything a little lighter.

Is there a rules system like this?

Dragonbane has all that, similar to Mythras but lighter. Late pledges closing shortly - back now to get the pdfs. It does not have Runequest type hit locations but it does have called shots for piercing weapons to avoid armour, and a choice of critical hit effects.

You can get an idea of it from my campaign page http://simonyrpgs.blogspot.com/2023/02/dragonbane-starter-rules.html
 
Last edited:
Another vote for Palladium Fantasy. It checks every box except 2. Rolls to cast, unless you use rules from Mysteries of Magic or Through the Glass Darkly.
 
Re. armor-as-damage-reduction rules:

Obviously, if you like whatever you are doing, then you should keep doing it. But...
1) it isn't intrinsically more realistic (i.e., as opposed to armor reducing the chance of a successful hit). One could blather about all the obvious information we have on the 'arms race' between medieval weapons and armor and the techniques of armored fighting, but the short version is that reducing the damage of a sword cut by some amount is a terrible way to model the match up of sword vs. heavy armors (plate; full mail)
2) I agree that damage reduction 'works' fine, in a gameist sense, for games in which everyone's HP's fall within a relatively narrow range and don't change much over time, but I've never seen a version of such rules for games with D&D-style HP progression that doesn't turn stupid as soon as characters advance beyond some moderate level of experience.
 
Re. armor-as-damage-reduction rules:

2) I agree that damage reduction 'works' fine, in a gameist sense, for games in which everyone's HP's fall within a relatively narrow range and don't change much over time, but I've never seen a version of such rules for games with D&D-style HP progression that doesn't turn stupid as soon as characters advance beyond some moderate level of experience.
Armor as damage reduction works just fine in Cold Iron with D&D like hit point progression. Magic can boost DR. But one thing that keeps high level fighters in armor is that the crit pro that armor gives never becomes irrelevant. So you want magic plate armor not a magic cloak even if the difference in a battle at high level is 14 DR for the cloak vs. 20 DR for the armor. The 3 crit pro of the plate vs the 0 of the cloak is huge.

Seriously, Cold Iron is s D&D type game with armor as DR, skilled defense, spell points, and spell success chance that works. I’m sure there are other choices. The OP’s asks are possible.
 
Cold Iron is a new entry to a very busy marketplace, so I'm afraid I don't know anything meaningful about it. How, exactly, does DR work?
 
Re. armor-as-damage-reduction rules:

Obviously, if you like whatever you are doing, then you should keep doing it. But...
1) it isn't intrinsically more realistic (i.e., as opposed to armor reducing the chance of a successful hit). One could blather about all the obvious information we have on the 'arms race' between medieval weapons and armor and the techniques of armored fighting, but the short version is that reducing the damage of a sword cut by some amount is a terrible way to model the match up of sword vs. heavy armors (plate; full mail)
2) I agree that damage reduction 'works' fine, in a gameist sense, for games in which everyone's HP's fall within a relatively narrow range and don't change much over time, but I've never seen a version of such rules for games with D&D-style HP progression that doesn't turn stupid as soon as characters advance beyond some moderate level of experience.
Which is probably why he also stated he doesn't want D&D-style HP, but lower HP.
 
Which is probably why he also stated he doesn't want D&D-style HP, but lower HP.
That was unclear (to me, at least). Lower HP totals could mean B/X, in contrast to 5E. Or it could mean something else. Actually, a Runequest or GURPs character starts with substantially more HP than a B/X D&D character. The important point is that they stay the same in the former whereas they rise in the latter.
 
That was unclear (to me, at least). Lower HP totals could mean B/X, in contrast to 5E. Or it could mean something else. Actually, a Runequest or GURPs character starts with substantially more HP than a B/X D&D character. The important point is that they stay the same in the former whereas they rise in the latter.
Agreed. One 5E "fix" that I've tinkered with is dice type reduction for Hit Dice. Wizard types go to d4 instead of d6, fighters go to d8 instead of d10, and so on. Little stuff like that can add up quickly, and a more AD&D-style HD type helps keep hit points lower. Also, I play at lower levels.
 
That was unclear (to me, at least). Lower HP totals could mean B/X, in contrast to 5E. Or it could mean something else. Actually, a Runequest or GURPs character starts with substantially more HP than a B/X D&D character. The important point is that they stay the same in the former whereas they rise in the latter.
To be honest, I took it to simply mean "lower totals than D&D". Hence, I assumed he means 5e, because in OD&D we had a character starting with 1 HP...:grin:
 
Cold Iron is a new entry to a very busy marketplace, so I'm afraid I don't know anything meaningful about it. How, exactly, does DR work?
Now that I'm at my computer, maybe a bit more of a description.

Cold Iron armor ranges from DR 1 to DR 6, soft leather to plate. DR 2 and 3 armor gets 1 point of crit pro, DR 4 and 5 armor 2 points of crit pro, and plate is DR 6 crit pro 3. Cold Iron uses the cumulative normal distribution to get open ended random modifiers to add to your attack rating and compare to defensive rating. Meeting the defensive rating gets you a single damage hit (long sword does 1d8). Exceeding by 7 gets you double damage. Exceeding my 9+Crit pro is 3x damage, with each addition 2 margin of success granting an additional multiple of damage. So that 3 crit pro of plate saves you 1 or 2 multiple of damage on a good crit. The DR saves you from the mundane hits, and the crit pro saves you from the nasty hits.

Now armor can be enchanted +1 DR or better (usually +5 is about tops). This is a permanent enchantment. Crit pro can't be improved. And bonus, armor and weapon enchanments are basically the only magic items other than potions that don't require the magic item user to power the magic with magic points.

Further, there is a series of spells Stone Flesh (3rd level), Iron Flesh (5th), Steel Flesh (8th), Dragon Flesh (12th), and Mithril Flesh (17th) that add 4, 6, 8, 10, or 12 DR, but they are one of the more expensive spells for magic points, costing 1 per round. But fighters love these spells being a good use of their magic points. They can be put in an oil (basically a potion that can be rubbed on an object). There's some advantage to the spell being on the armor rather than the person (on the other hand, when on the person, the X Flesh spells DR reduces energy damage).
 
Re. armor-as-damage-reduction rules:

Obviously, if you like whatever you are doing, then you should keep doing it. But...
1) it isn't intrinsically more realistic (i.e., as opposed to armor reducing the chance of a successful hit)
Uh, yes it is. The whole point of armour is to absorb and lessen impact from any blow you cannot avoid. Both medieval and modern armour is designed to lessen or stop any damage from getting through. That is exactly what DR is. It reduces the damage you take.

It doesn't need to get any grittier or in depth than that, like the hows or whys are unnecessary..

As an Aside: Taking damage doesn't mean that the armour was punctured. A lot of blows still do damage because the force of impact transfers through the material.

Now, before I continue, IF you're using any variation of D&D, I would recommend adding either your level or (If the system has this) base attack bonus (Or whatever it's called) to your 'AC', mainly for both the Rogue and Fighter type classes. As a way to show the increase in skill at avoiding damage (Because armour may not be able to stop it all, like with say... A dragon).

Also, depending on how much time you have to do this (I have plenty, because I'm crippled and easily bored, you may not), some monsters may benefit from having their Natural AC bonuses change over to DR (like the aforementioned Dragon among other beasties) or leave it as an innate avoidance reflex. And you may also compensate by making certain magic weapons able to go through it, but not artificial, as a balancer for PCs.

Again, a lot of this depends on how much free time you have and your players. Mine were cool with anything. But if you're willing to go with another game system, everyone has already suggested most of the ones I would, so have fun and happy gaming.
 
I have just skimmed the thread, but it appears nobody has suggested Savage Pathfinder. It checks all the boxes except 6.

Tailor made to run D&D-like games (classes, treasures, familiar monsters) with a lighter set of rules.
 
Uh, yes it is. The whole point of armour is to absorb and lessen impact from any blow you cannot avoid. ...
Yoiks. This is genuinely not right.

The relatively well engineered steel armors created in late medieval europe were basically unbreachable by most pointed or edged hand weapons and missiles (excepting a few things created for that purpose, like a seige arbalest). No one, of any size or strength, can cut through a steel breastplate or helm with a longsword. That's why 'harnesfechtung' fighting manuals from the era almost exclusively focus on driving a point into an armor gap. I.e., the whole idea is to deliver a specialized, difficult attack that bypasses the armor, not a blow that blows past the armor. And the impact injuries from getting hit by a sword on the helm or steel harnass are not what you imagining either.

As awkward as it was, in terms of rules mechanics, pretty much the only attack resolution system I've seen that can be resolved without a complex hash of rolls and modifiers yet captures the arms race of the late european middle ages is the weapon vs. armor type table from 1E AD&D. The modifiers in that table are obviously made up and a few of them seem peculiar, but the concept is right: Some weapons are great 'can openers' (e.g., the estoc) that will deliver full damage if you hit the right spot, whereas others actually can batter someone enough to seriously hurt them through their armor (i.e., when the blow lands on an armored surface; e.g., the goedendag), but others that look roughly similar were essentially useless against someone in a full-coverage steel armor (e.g., any 1 or 2 handed sword that lacks a stiff, narrow thrusting tip).
 
Now that I'm at my computer, maybe a bit more of a description.

Cold Iron armor ranges from DR 1 to DR 6, soft leather to plate. DR 2 and 3 armor gets 1 point of crit pro, DR 4 and 5 armor 2 points of crit pro, and plate is DR 6 crit pro 3. Cold Iron uses the cumulative normal distribution to get open ended random modifiers to add to your attack rating and compare to defensive rating. Meeting the defensive rating gets you a single damage hit (long sword does 1d8). Exceeding by 7 gets you double damage. Exceeding my 9+Crit pro is 3x damage, with each addition 2 margin of success granting an additional multiple of damage. So that 3 crit pro of plate saves you 1 or 2 multiple of damage on a good crit. The DR saves you from the mundane hits, and the crit pro saves you from the nasty hits.

Now armor can be enchanted +1 DR or better (usually +5 is about tops). This is a permanent enchantment. Crit pro can't be improved. And bonus, armor and weapon enchanments are basically the only magic items other than potions that don't require the magic item user to power the magic with magic points.

Further, there is a series of spells Stone Flesh (3rd level), Iron Flesh (5th), Steel Flesh (8th), Dragon Flesh (12th), and Mithril Flesh (17th) that add 4, 6, 8, 10, or 12 DR, but they are one of the more expensive spells for magic points, costing 1 per round. But fighters love these spells being a good use of their magic points. They can be put in an oil (basically a potion that can be rubbed on an object). There's some advantage to the spell being on the armor rather than the person (on the other hand, when on the person, the X Flesh spells DR reduces energy damage).
Thanks for that, though I'm not sure I really understand how it works because I don't understand how, specifically, the cumulative normal distribution modifies various rolls, how crits are resolved or what 'crit pro' means or does. Also, what is the difference between DR and defensive rating? Are you saying that there is something like an armor class as well as damage reduction?
 
Yoiks. This is genuinely not right.

The relatively well engineered steel armors created in late medieval europe were basically unbreachable by most pointed or edged hand weapons and missiles (excepting a few things created for that purpose, like a seige arbalest). No one, of any size or strength, can cut through a steel breastplate or helm with a longsword. That's why 'harnesfechtung' fighting manuals from the era almost exclusively focus on driving a point into an armor gap. I.e., the whole idea is to deliver a specialized, difficult attack that bypasses the armor, not a blow that blows past the armor. And the impact injuries from getting hit by a sword on the helm or steel harnass are not what you imagining either.

As awkward as it was, in terms of rules mechanics, pretty much the only attack resolution system I've seen that can be resolved without a complex hash of rolls and modifiers yet captures the arms race of the late european middle ages is the weapon vs. armor type table from 1E AD&D. The modifiers in that table are obviously made up and a few of them seem peculiar, but the concept is right: Some weapons are great 'can openers' (e.g., the estoc) that will deliver full damage if you hit the right spot, whereas others actually can batter someone enough to seriously hurt them through their armor (i.e., when the blow lands on an armored surface; e.g., the goedendag), but others that look roughly similar were essentially useless against someone in a full-coverage steel armor (e.g., any 1 or 2 handed sword that lacks a stiff, narrow thrusting tip).
So you've used a common fallacy about armour, a lot of people believe as you do. Point: You said 'cut through'. But you don't need to penetrate armour to damage someone. There are people who have died of gunshots despite the fact the vest was never penetrated. What happened is that the concussive force went through the armour and damaged their internals enough to shut their body down. Same principle applies to medieval armour.

It's not a wall that just stops all damage, you want it to, of course but at best it's there to the lessen it as best it can. Sometimes enough impact can still break bones, damage muscle or whatnot. I'm going to repeat myself, the point of armour is to REDUCE DAMAGE to the point of nothing as BEST IT CAN. The best way to not get hurt is to NOT BE THERE. The SECOND best way is make sure there's something to ABSORB the impact.

And in the context of D&D, how the damage gets through is description. You don't need to get into the weeds. I repeat: Armour is there to reduce damage to the wearer. That's what it's historically been for.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for that, though I'm not sure I really understand how it works because I don't understand how, specifically, the cumulative normal distribution modifies various rolls, how crits are resolved or what 'crit pro' means or does. Also, what is the difference between DR and defensive rating? Are you saying that there is something like an armor class as well as damage reduction?
The defensive rating is your parry or dodge. Go to my overview for an explanation of the normal distribution as used in Cold Iron (it's a bit long winded to properly explain and rather than type it up every time, I try and refer folks to the overview).

Basically, there is a table for the cumulative normal distribution that turns a random number between 0 and 1 into a modifier (a CA or chance adjustment). To borrow Hero terms, a character has an OCV and a DCV. To see how an attack resolves compare OCV + CA to DCV. If the margin of success is 0 to 6, single damage. If the margin of success is 7-9+C (C is crit pro, 0-3 for normal armors, monsters might have more) double damage. MoS 9+CA to 10+CA is triple damage. 11+CA to 12+CA is 4x, etc.
 
So you've used a common fallacy about armour, a lot of people believe as you do. Point: You said 'cut through'. But you don't need to penetrate armour to damage someone. There are people who have died of gunshots despite the fact the vest was never penetrated. What happened is that the concussive force went through the armour and damaged their internals enough to shut their body down. Same principle applies to medieval armour.

It's not a wall that just stops all damage, you want it to, of course but at best it's there to the lessen it as best it can. Sometimes enough impact can still break bones, damage muscle or whatnot. I'm going to repeat myself, the point of armour is to REDUCE DAMAGE to the point of nothing as BEST IT CAN. The best way to not get hurt is to NOT BE THERE. The SECOND best way is make sure there's something to ABSORB the impact.

And in the context of D&D, how the damage gets through is description. You don't need to get into the weeds. I repeat: Armour is there to reduce damage of the wearer. That's what it's historically been for.
and still is, as far as i know. I don't think the cops are wearing kevlar to make them look sexy, and I don't think the soldiers are putting in ceramic plates to help their cardio.
 
and still is, as far as i know. I don't think the cops are wearing kevlar to make them look sexy, and I don't think the soldiers are putting in ceramic plates to help their cardio.
You can't dodge bullets.
 
Blurg. For some reason, discussions of the actual engineering and historically documented uses of medieval weapons and armor is among the least understood things in the fantasy rpg community. Based on what's written above, I'd say it is completely not worth arguing about further. Please proceed thinking whatever it is you want to think about these issues.
 
So you've used a common fallacy about armour, a lot of people believe as you do. Point: You said 'cut through'. But you don't need to penetrate armour to damage someone. There are people who have died of gunshots despite the fact the vest was never penetrated. What happened is that the concussive force went through the armour and damaged their internals enough to shut their body down. Same principle applies to medieval armour.

Yes, however the energy delivered by a longbow or crossbow arrow, or melee weapon, is much less than a modern rifle round (from what I recall, typically about an order of magnitude difference), and a fair bit less than even a pistol round, so I'd be wary of overstating blunt impact trauma in a fantasy game. Still, some medieval anti-plate weapons were primarily percussive and designed to do damage without fully penetrating the armour. They could also damage the joints in plate armour, restricting mobility. Swords are if anything a bit of an outlier in being completely ineffective vs plate, to the extent that the hilt made a better weapon than the blade. :grin:

From the tests I've seen, hitting a breastplate on the chest was pretty pointless, probably even with the pointy side of a poll axe, but a head hit could potentially concuss an armoured foe. The limbs were a much more favourable target.
 
Last edited:
Exactly; the posts arguing for the obviousness and informed consensus about armor being a 'damage reduction' system, as opposed to an 'attack stopping/deflecting' system, are rooted in inappropriate analogies with other things, plus inaccurate intuitive guesses. I can't imagine anyone who has trained in full steel armors and/or learned the techniques from the relevant 15th-16th century manuals would agree (though there is plenty of nonsense posts in the HEMA-adjacent communities as well, so I won't be surprised by anything I see!).
 
Exactly; the posts arguing for the obviousness and informed consensus about armor being a 'damage reduction' system, as opposed to an 'attack stopping/deflecting' system, are rooted in inappropriate analogies with other things, plus inaccurate intuitive guesses. I can't imagine anyone who has trained in full steel armors and/or learned the techniques from the relevant 15th-16th century manuals would agree (though there is plenty of nonsense posts in the HEMA-adjacent communities as well, so I won't be surprised by anything I see!).

It's a bit of both, but I basically agree with you that for medieval combat a D&D style 'all or nothing' AC system is not obviously less realistic than a Runequest style DR system. For modelling armour in modern-day combat DR makes a lot more sense I think.

I've been dealing with this issue running my first few sessions of Dragonbane. Being BRP based it has armour as DR, but piercing weapons (only) can do called shots (attack wih a Bane, ie Disadvantage) where they bypass armour DR completely. I'm not sure how I feel about this, it seems to make piercing weapons a bit too good vs heavy armour. Aside from that, the difference between unarmoured and armoured N/PCs is *much* more palpable than in (current) D&D. Unarmoured characters get carved up into meaty gobbets of flesh while armoured characters just get knocked about a bit. I do like that.
 
Last edited:
Exactly; the posts arguing for the obviousness and informed consensus about armor being a 'damage reduction' system, as opposed to an 'attack stopping/deflecting' system, are rooted in inappropriate analogies with other things, plus inaccurate intuitive guesses. I can't imagine anyone who has trained in full steel armors and/or learned the techniques from the relevant 15th-16th century manuals would agree (though there is plenty of nonsense posts in the HEMA-adjacent communities as well, so I won't be surprised by anything I see!).
Now, you're just splitting hairs. 'Deflecting' damage is still LESSENING, REDUCING IT. If you don't 'deflect' it enough you still take damage. It's more realistic because it doesn't assume that you magically avoid ALL the damage if someone doesn't beat an effectively 'Yes/No' switch.

No matter how you want to describe it, REDUCING DAMAGE, AKA DR is what armour does. That's all it's there to do, historically and realistically. D&D is pretty loosy goosy with it's description of combat as it is, so you don't need to break it up, but if a person wants something that's slightly more akin to how armour actually works, DR is the best method for it. It doesn't mean it's perfect, just that it's closer to how it does work in real life.
 
Folks are forgetting that Armor Class rose out of miniature conflict resolution for wargames. With mass combat at the scale of chainmail, you are not concerned with the effects of injury, only whether the figure is alive or dead. It is obvious that wearing armor increases your odds of staying alive on the battlefield.

More so a successful hit meant that the target was dead. Wearing armor meant that the odds you dying in a particular round were less. From a miniature wargame to D&D things were tweaked to make it more interesting for a campaign focused on the exploits of individual characters. One hit became 1d6 damage, and one 1 hit to kill became 1d6 hit points. But the thing that didn't change was the "alive or dead" nature of combat resolution and the fact that the mechanics of wearing armor allowed you to remain alive longer.

This persisted because like much of D&D it was good enough for running a campaign adventure. It was quicker to grasp as a game mechanic and quicker to resolve in actual play.

If you want an accurate representation of injury then play GURPS or better yet Harnmaster. But the mechanical complexity they introduce comes at a price in playability. But being critical of how D&D on the basis of how armor worked is bullshit in my opinion despite my love for those two systems. Because D&D is not concerned with the in-between status of being injured. It only concerned whether you can fight as a combatant or you can't. Armor Class is perfectly adequate for a system with that kind of focus. If limbs flying off bodies and one shot kills are important for your sense of verisimilitude then D&D is not the system for you.

This is not the late 90s Usenet we were all left guessing at why various arbitrary mechanics are what they are. We know why now and that is OK not to like a system like D&D because of its assumptions and focus.

And to stir the shit even further, I find Runequest's handling of injury and armor to be insipid compared to GURPS and Harnmaster. The core of the system does little to solve the problem except by dividing the character into bags of hit points. Something that was introduced way back in Supplement II Blackmoor. While they use DR it is still a or nothing system of injury for various hit locations.
 
Last edited:
Yoiks. This is genuinely not right.

The relatively well engineered steel armors created in late medieval europe were basically unbreachable by most pointed or edged hand weapons and missiles (excepting a few things created for that purpose, like a seige arbalest). No one, of any size or strength, can cut through a steel breastplate or helm with a longsword. That's why 'harnesfechtung' fighting manuals from the era almost exclusively focus on driving a point into an armor gap. I.e., the whole idea is to deliver a specialized, difficult attack that bypasses the armor, not a blow that blows past the armor. And the impact injuries from getting hit by a sword on the helm or steel harnass are not what you imagining either.

As awkward as it was, in terms of rules mechanics, pretty much the only attack resolution system I've seen that can be resolved without a complex hash of rolls and modifiers yet captures the arms race of the late european middle ages is the weapon vs. armor type table from 1E AD&D. The modifiers in that table are obviously made up and a few of them seem peculiar, but the concept is right: Some weapons are great 'can openers' (e.g., the estoc) that will deliver full damage if you hit the right spot, whereas others actually can batter someone enough to seriously hurt them through their armor (i.e., when the blow lands on an armored surface; e.g., the goedendag), but others that look roughly similar were essentially useless against someone in a full-coverage steel armor (e.g., any 1 or 2 handed sword that lacks a stiff, narrow thrusting tip).
Blade of the Iron Throne does that*...but I'd argue that's not a good fit for fantasy, where you can face a 4-meters tall giant wielding whatever the fuck a giant like this would be wielding (likely a stone bar). In which case, yes, the armour would act as DR:thumbsup:!


*What is the DR of armour vs cutting, you ask? "Impossible". It downgrades all cutting damage to blunt trauma, and lowers the damage. But only stabbing can penetrate it, and it's still hard.
 
I would recommend GURPS 2nd edition as being just right but the lack of a formal "monster manual" and magic items and the fact it is a collectors item now puts a bit of a damper on things.
Seriously this. Sadly no pdf versions or current print versions. ::mutters:: :::spits:: ::curses:: ::wanders off::
 
Banner: The best cosmic horror & Cthulhu Mythos @ DriveThruRPG.com
Back
Top