🛡 Armour as Wound Reduction
Armour as Wound Reduction, Not Damage Reduction
I love Into the Odd and all its offshoots such as Cairn, Electric Bastionland, and Mausritter. They do so much with so little. Something I really like that has evolved from that style of game is how they reframe HP as hit protection, not health points/hit points. It is the character's ability to avoid being hurt, not a measure of their health.
This framing in addition to not rolling to hit in combat creates a quick and lethal fight. Every combatant has a finite amount of HP which is guaranteed to decrease if an opponent chooses to attack them. This makes each choice matter and make an impact on the fight. Only once HP is reduced to 0 does damage affect a character's health, either in the form of wounds or ability loss.
Something else that happens during an attack is that armour reduces the damage dealt. This makes sense. A character wearing heavy armour should take less damage per attack than a character wearing light or no armour.
Something that never stood well with me was the idea of AC (armour class) from D&D and its derivatives. It is the singular value that determines how difficult you are to hit, but it represents both how well you can avoid a hit and how well your armour stops a hit. I have always felt that being able to avoid an attack should be separate from being able to soak up an attack. Into the Odd games made this separation, but I want to take it further.
What if we change the order of events? What if armour only reduces damage once HP is reduced to 0?
This would de-emphasize armour's importance by making it not applicable for the majority of combat. Armour won't reduce your HP loss, but it will reduce your physical wounds or actual health loss. This further separates avoiding hits and soaking hits, as HP would then become the primary measure of avoiding a hit. Now this change alone might work out and make combat even quicker or more lethal, but I think that while we are changing things we should change a few more for fun.
Hit Prevention 💨
A character's ability to avoid being harmed. Light, nimble, skillful, and lucky characters should have higher HP. It is made up of a random luck roll, like a d6, and a value based on a stat, weight, or inventory.
For example:
d6 + DEX bonus, d6 + (6-weight or encumbrance), d6 + empty item slots, or some combination of such.
Damage 🗡
Damage reduces a character's HP. Once a character's HP is reduced to 0, armour reduces the damage dealt. Any remaining damage is converted into wounds.
Wounds 🩸
Wounds are direct physical harm dealt to a character. Once a character has a certain amount of wounds they die. Adjusting the amount of wounds needed to kill will alter the system's lethality. In an item slot-based inventory system, wounds can be placed in these slots to render items unusable and reduce HP.
Resting 😴
Resting for a few moments will restore HP by the static value plus the luck roll. This means that HP is constantly changing per rest because of the random value of the luck roll.
Withdraw 🏃♀️
Moving away from enemy combatants and taking a breath will restore 1d4 HP. This breaks up the combat, encourages disengaging and moving around, and gives players a survival option.
Weapon Types ⚔️
Different weapon types can play with the system in interesting ways. Slashing weapons attack in a wide area, reducing a character's chance of avoiding a hit, but struggle to penetrate armour. Piercing weapons are very focused and powerful, but easy to avoid. Bludgeoning weapons are slow but brutal and can hurt a character through their armour.
Slashing Swords and axes deal an extra +1 damage to HP.
Piercing Spears and projectiles deal an extra +1 wound.
Bludgeoning Blunt weapons ignore 1 point of Armour.
Lets see how all this works out as a thought experiment in the form of a little example encounter. For this we'll say that 3 wounds means death. A party of three adventures encounter two hostile creatures in a crystal cave. Combatants are as followed:
| Combatants | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jacob | Lucy | Anna | Creature 1 | Creature 2 |
| 4 HP | 2 HP | 5 HP | 3 HP | 5 HP |
| 2 Armour | 3 Armour | 1 Armour | 3 Armour | 1 Armour |
| Bearded Axe 1d6 | War Hammer 1d8 | Longbow 1d8 | Rusty cleaver 1d6 | Spiked pole 1d6 |
Referee: You delve down into the near pitch black cave. Amber crystals hum and emit a feint glow. You hear a scuffle ahead of you as two pairs of glowing green eyes rush towards you. As they near, the crystals brighten and illuminate the cavity, revealing the rushing humanoid creatures and their drawn weapons. The creatures are attempting to charge at you, Jacob, because you are ahead of the party.
The PCs make a DEX save and all fail, allowing the creatures to act first.
Referee: The 1st creature has a rusty cleaver and goes for an overhead slash.
Creature 1 targets Jacob with a rusty cleaver, rolls 1d6 and gets a 3.
Referee: It goes for a wide slash and you just avoid a bad hit, but because they used a slashing weapon it deals 4 damage to your HP.
Jacob: Okay I am down to 0 HP, I won't be able to avoid another hit.
Referee: The 2nd creature has a spiked pole and goes to skewer Jacob.
Creature 2 targets Jacob with a spiked pole, rolls 1d6 and gets a 3.
Referee: It stabs you with its spiked pole, dealing 3 damage. If it wounds you, you'll take an extra wound because of its piercing weapon.
Jacob: Yeah I only have 2 armour so I take 2 wounds. I'm at death's door guys! But it's my turn now and I'll back off behind Lucy and get some HP back.
Jacob rolls 1d4 and gets a 3, restoring their HP to 3.
Lucy: I'll protect you Jacob! I swing my war hammer at the creature with the spiked pole.
Lucy targets creature 2 with a war hammer, rolls 1d8 and gets a 6.
Referee: Your hammer slams into the creature's side reducing their HP to 0. Your weapon ignores their armour and deals them a wound.
Anna: Ok that one is wounded so I'll try weaken the other one by firing my bow at it.
Anna targets creature 1 with a longbow, rolls 1d8 and gets a 7.
Referee: Your arrow flies true and pierces it's armour. Its HP is reduced to 0 and it takes 2 wounds. The creatures are both wounded and scared. They fail their morale roll and flee down into the darkness of the cave from where they came.
Thanks for reading. I got this idea while writing a different blog post and just had to get it out. I'm thinking aloud, as it were. I'd love to test the system at the table some time, but won't be able to for a while. So if you have any ideas, critiques, or opinions let me know what you think on my socials.
Cheers!
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