Palladium style armor in Castles and Crusades.

I had the idea of using armor like Palladium system in castles and crusades.

In palladium armor has an armor rating (AR) value that has to be rolled over to bypass the armor. Any roll 5 or greater is a hit on a D20. if the roll is between 5 and the AR value any damage done comes off the armor. Any roll over the AR value goes to the Characters hit points (well SDC then HP in Palladium). Dex bonuses do not add to AR in any way. instead these bonuses go to the players ability to dodge and parry incoming attacks.

I really like how this works. But on further thought I really don't want to keep track of another set of hit point (armor HP). 

So what about mixing this with damage reduction. Damage reduction (DR) is subtracted from any incoming damage. So if armor had a DR of 2 and a damage roll of 4 is rolled the damage taken would be 2.

For example:
A leather jacket might look like AR 8, DR 2.
While a leather duster could look like AR 14, DR 2.
Both give the same protection. Its just easier to hit an unprotected area on the target with a jacket.

So if an attack roll was made against a character in the leather jacket a roll of 1-4 is a miss. a roll of 5-8 hits the armor and the DR is applied to the damage roll. A roll over 8 will hit the character in an unarmored area and do full damage.


The same attack against a character in the duster with a roll from 1-4 is a miss. A roll of 5-14 hits the armored area. So DR of 2 is subtracted from the damage roll. On a roll of 15+ the character takes full damage.


The exact Armor rating and DR of each type of armor needs to be worked out. But this is a start. Still a work in progress.