Armor Piercing - worth the trouble?

slaughterj

Mongoose
I'm just wondering if worrying with Armor Piercing is worth the trouble, or if I could consider just skipping it to speed up the pace of combat.

As it stands, high STR guys get STR damage added anyway, so they're doing more damage that way, without having to halve the armor DR. Further, for low DR, there's a good likelihood of it being halved, but it isn't much anyway, so who cares? For high DR, it probably won't be halved, so why bother worrying about it? Plus one has to remember to not add STR for finesse attacks (i.e., they won't get through armor DR).

Examples:

STR 16 guy with a AP 1 weapon, total of 4 AP - this will have a Leather Jerkin (DR 4), means a whopping 2 extra HP of damage are being done, but won't get through anything more - worth the trouble for the limited extra damage and the infrequency of penetration?

STR 20 guy with a AP 1 weapon, will get through up to DR 6, but still is only getting an extra 3 HP of damage - many won't exceed this level of AP - again, worth worrying about?
 
Considering my PC's are going to soon meet a bad guy with plate armor and a visored helm (DR 12), it's going to be very very important. I have a feeling they'll be scavenging poleaxes and bardiches from fallen combatants to deal with him.
 
Johannixx said:
Considering my PC's are going to soon meet a bad guy with plate armor and a visored helm (DR 12), it's going to be very very important. I have a feeling they'll be scavenging poleaxes and bardiches from fallen combatants to deal with him.

How is it going to be important - how can they get enough AP to overcome DR 12?
 
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi said:
Plus the fact that it can mean the diffrence of getting 20hp damage through so that that armor AP is lowered. *shrug*

Er, do you mean "Plus the fact that if the DR is halved, because the AP was equal to or greater than the DR, might mean the difference between doing 20+ HP damage (and forcing a Massive Damage save) vs. doing less (and not forcing a save)."?
 
If it looks like trouble, why not simplify?


Give each weapon an AP 'Yes' or 'No'

If 'Yes' armor offers only half DR against it.

if 'No' then everything works normally.


And offer this feat for Conan-style armor cleaving attacks:

Armor Piercing Blow
Benifits: Your blows pierce armor even if you are not using an armor piercing weapon.
Prereq: Power Attack, Str 16+, proficiency with weapon

Improved Armor Piercing Blow
Benifits: With an armor piercing weapon, you cleave through an enemy's armor like it were butter. An armor piercing weapon you wield ignors armor DR.
Prereq: Power Attack, Str 18+, Armor Piercing Blow, Proficiency with weapon.




-B
 
slaughterj said:
Johannixx said:
Considering my PC's are going to soon meet a bad guy with plate armor and a visored helm (DR 12), it's going to be very very important. I have a feeling they'll be scavenging poleaxes and bardiches from fallen combatants to deal with him.

How is it going to be important - how can they get enough AP to overcome DR 12?

An STR 18 character with a Pollaxe? A STR 20 character with a Warhammer?
 
slaughterj said:
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi said:
Plus the fact that it can mean the diffrence of getting 20hp damage through so that that armor AP is lowered. *shrug*

Er, do you mean "Plus the fact that if the DR is halved, because the AP was equal to or greater than the DR, might mean the difference between doing 20+ HP damage (and forcing a Massive Damage save) vs. doing less (and not forcing a save)."?

No I mean the fact that your armor starts to lose DR value from damage. Ok, I said AP. MIstype, now I can publish that and call myself Mongoose.

But, massive damage is another reason.
 
Mayhem said:
slaughterj said:
Johannixx said:
Considering my PC's are going to soon meet a bad guy with plate armor and a visored helm (DR 12), it's going to be very very important. I have a feeling they'll be scavenging poleaxes and bardiches from fallen combatants to deal with him.

How is it going to be important - how can they get enough AP to overcome DR 12?

An STR 18 character with a Pollaxe? A STR 20 character with a Warhammer?

Probably would help to list the APs of those, don't have the book memorized yet ;)
 
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi said:
slaughterj said:
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi said:
Plus the fact that it can mean the diffrence of getting 20hp damage through so that that armor AP is lowered. *shrug*

Er, do you mean "Plus the fact that if the DR is halved, because the AP was equal to or greater than the DR, might mean the difference between doing 20+ HP damage (and forcing a Massive Damage save) vs. doing less (and not forcing a save)."?

No I mean the fact that your armor starts to lose DR value from damage. Ok, I said AP. MIstype, now I can publish that and call myself Mongoose.

But, massive damage is another reason.

LOL at the mistype statement ;) Okay, I get your drift, if armor starts to get battered down from big hits, then the DR is lower, and therefore easier to AP. The problems with that are, (1) if you've been hit with several heavy hits, you likely aren't around or won't be much longer, and (2) if your opponent hits that hard, it won't take him long to take you out. Thus the effort of worrying with AP still won't be much of a factor...
 
It's more likely to occur with crits and Power Attacks. Without magic, scoring a 20 on str and dice alone is nigh impossible -- but when a crit does happen, it's likely to ruin your foe's armor.

A nice reason take Improved Crit!

I am still unsure of DR's role in the game and am refraining from suggesting tweaks until I've been able to work with it thoroughly.
 
BhilJhoanz said:
It's more likely to occur with crits and Power Attacks. Without magic, scoring a 20 on str and dice alone is nigh impossible -- but when a crit does happen, it's likely to ruin your foe's armor.

A nice reason take Improved Crit!

I am still unsure of DR's role in the game and am refraining from suggesting tweaks until I've been able to work with it thoroughly.

What's more likely to occur with crits / power attack, an armor's DR getting reduced due to massive damage? As for a crit ruining a foe's armor, do mean because that's what more likely to do the 20+ damage, reducing it by 1d4 DR?
 
slaughterj said:
I'm just wondering if worrying with Armor Piercing is worth the trouble, or if I could consider just skipping it to speed up the pace of combat.

The thing is it really shouldn't slow down combat hardly at all. Your AP value is static, you figgure it out once and write it down on your character sheet right next to your todal attack bonus and damage bonus with the weapon in question, meanwhile the DM should have the villians DR written down as well right next to his DV and HP. You don't need to recalculate any of these numbers every round or cross refrence them with any charts or anything, it should take all of two seconds to resolve armor penetration.

I really like the DR rules in Conan. They are simple and streamlined but add a real depth and tactical consideration to meele combat that I have been craving for a long, long time. What weamon to use, when to power attack, attempting combat manouvers like trip and grapple to gain an advantage, weighing the more usefull dodge mode against the more powerfull parry mode and deciding how much armor to wear, calculating your chances of hitting that massive damage threshold....

Oh yeah, I love this game 8)
 
The answer to when to use Power Attack is simple:

ALWAYS

If you don't use power attack every time, you're no man at all.
 
The problems with that are, (1) if you've been hit with several heavy hits, you likely aren't around or won't be much longer, and (2) if your opponent hits that hard, it won't take him long to take you out. Thus the effort of worrying with AP still won't be much of a factor...
I was just pointing out that it's uncommon for a normal attack to deal enough damage to damage armor -- it'll be crits and higher level PAs that do that. Sure, those attacks will be pretty nasty but they won't be common so it's unreasonable to assume that if someone can damage your armor that you're doomed anyway . . .

that's all
 
Let's see here Bardiche with 18 strength... max damage 26 without power attack, 28 with. Even against full plate, it would damage the DR with power attack. Anything less, pretty much always half the DR. I know that is a max, but avg damage is 16 with the Bardiche and 18 str.

Oh and that is just at 1st level, gets worse after you start throwing in ability increases.

I do see some of the point however, you damage armour, then somebody is making a Fort save with a 1 always failing.
 
argo said:
Your AP value is static, you figgure it out once and write it down on your character sheet right next to your todal attack bonus and damage bonus with the weapon in question, meanwhile the DM should have the villians DR written down as well right next to his DV and HP. You don't need to recalculate any of these numbers every round or cross refrence them with any charts or anything, it should take all of two seconds to resolve armor penetration.

Your AP may be static for each weapon, but the DR for the armor can drop as you damage it, so you do have to do recalculations on occasion.

argo said:
weighing the more usefull dodge mode against the more powerfull parry mode

What do you mean by that? Specifically, why do you say parry is more powerful? Also, why is dodge more useful?

It seems to me that you should be able to use parry against the melee guy next to you, but that your dodge simultaneously apply to the guy with the bow shooting at you from 30' away - is that not correct? If it is, then why would dodge be more useful?
 
It seems to me that you should be able to use parry against the melee guy next to you, but that your dodge simultaneously apply to the guy with the bow shooting at you from 30' away - is that not correct? If it is, then why would dodge be more useful?

I don't have my book handy but i thought you could pick dodge OR parry each round.

Can you do both vs. different opponents in the same round?

Thrack
 
Thrack said:
It seems to me that you should be able to use parry against the melee guy next to you, but that your dodge simultaneously apply to the guy with the bow shooting at you from 30' away - is that not correct? If it is, then why would dodge be more useful?

I don't have my book handy but i thought you could pick dodge OR parry each round.

Can you do both vs. different opponents in the same round?

Thrack

I don't have the book handy either, but if you were to parry in melee, and somebody shot an arrow at you, what else could you be doing but dodging?
 
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