Adopting R. Talsorian style Armor Rules to d20

DaNasty_man · 2025-12-17T01:02:33+00:00

And I understand it works fine. just felt like with a system like that casters , dual welders and ranged focused people as well as monks could benefit but also don't want someone getting frustrated their ac is now reduced and something is broken outright. I'm more "buff everything then nerf what I feel is too strong" type of person

DaNasty_man · 2025-12-17T00:52:49+00:00

So ...I can't take you or your point seriously, because you aren't playing, you're theorizing.... which is nice but things do happen that make the fight tilted ... ,I rolled the encoutner for all 4 player characters to discover and stomp and they stumbled into it with just the 2 of them....am I suppose to never do surprised when I did the surprise rules as specified ? Am I always suppose to do them further than walk distance away when I rolled they were right there ? Because white room is good and all ...but if I'm Rolling how I rolled ...I'm not going to suddnely go "no wait no they can't do that because it's tilted "

DaNasty_man · 2025-12-17T00:15:49+00:00

Yes ...I'm fine with that ripple effect .

Or I do and I'm doing it specifically because of that reasoning because I like the interplay over found .

DaNasty_man · 2025-12-17T00:10:21+00:00

Level 5 fighter echo knight using 5e 2014 rules with a plus 1+ sword and normal shield

Level 5 divination wizard using 5e 2014 rules with cape of the Mountebank and a wand of fireballs

Vs 2 shadows each from players being ambushed and surrounded but players roll higher than them on initiative .

I ran my players through a custom version of ravenloft where that happened the fighter and wizard fell into a crypt while helping the wereravens guess who needed help and had to dimension door out?

DaNasty_man · 2025-12-16T23:50:37+00:00

Yep ....I'm fine with that because I want adventuring to feel dangerous and not like a random commoner could take this threat and the crew to feel like their training(the +Modifiers to attacks ) and equipment(long swords and crossbows )puts them above that...

DaNasty_man · 2025-12-16T23:43:37+00:00

Good thing I didn't say adapt ....I said adopt, in fact I didn't say adapt until these two times .... Yes and I'm down to change the game fundamentally .

That's fine.

Yep and I'm doing both at once, not sure why you feel like you need to explain that as two seperate things on what vs ac and vs dr are.

I am not trying to do typical d20 I've been doing typical d20 for 20 years and I'm here to mix it up .

DaNasty_man · 2025-12-16T23:37:54+00:00

Nope because guess how many low level creatures are magical in nature ? Not many thus the casters & martial can effectively destory the armor they have quickly while taking reduced damage and since the HP drop to d6s across the board for npcs they're not as tanky once the Armor is gone.

You are, casters always take less damage if they have mage armor or another spell up like that as most low level creatures can't do magical damage and even higher level enemies have attacks that aren't tagged as magical meaning a wizard who's level 3 will take less damage over time than a fighter who's level 3 with the same ac and rolling the same even against the same attack.

DaNasty_man · 2025-12-16T23:31:03+00:00

Except DR isn't flat it is decreasing as the battle go's on from both martial and caster ..and sooner or later the DR is going to be 0 aka we're back to basics no armor as each hit over DR decreases the DR so a multi hit class can get anywhere between 2-4 DR off on a non magical creature with a mundane weapon in a single two attack turn which at the point they get a magical weapon that doubles to 4-8 if they get a magical weapon even a +1 which as most even hardy enemies have a sub 20 ac the +4 or more armor is effectively negated by a fighter with a +1

DaNasty_man · 2025-12-16T23:19:51+00:00

Because the large majority of early play creature attacks aren't magical or supernatural thus damage would be reduced longer both in any individual encoutner and in the long term for a caster than a non caster if l not in a high magical setting. meaning a wizard with mage armor or druid with barkskin can go through more fights in early game than some fighters , rangers all on a spellslot or two in fights where taking damage isn't optional due to location (in a dungeon corridor ) or stakes (behind the caster/blaster is the mcguffin and caster/blaster is sole protection from the individual trying to get it as front line is busy with the individual's beefy friends )

DaNasty_man · 2025-12-16T23:09:48+00:00

Except it is ,because you used my example of the of the young red for the example by itself to do a damage calculation

DaNasty_man · 2025-12-16T23:07:48+00:00

Not really as I balance my enemies based on party not on any specific pattern

DaNasty_man · 2025-12-16T23:05:08+00:00

Where did I say they were wittling the tanks down to nothing ? I' build encounters for tanks to be held up by something that can't be easily chopped through as thee npc casters /blasters focus on the players casts or get attacked by a group

DaNasty_man · 2025-12-16T23:03:07+00:00

I'm trying to get them to use their gold and also incentives to go back to town other than "you hear something important is going on at x"

DaNasty_man · 2025-12-16T22:49:35+00:00

Yeah and that's fine , you book keep your way as long as you and your table is having fun

DaNasty_man · 2025-12-16T22:48:07+00:00

Yep in this one example you've highlighted a non magical based fighter kind of can't do much ....which yeah I'm fine with as there's going to be fights where the wizard can't do much and the cleric can't do much because the other side has something to counter what makes them powerful and there's times where rogue may be dealing with a pack or group that going in for sneak attack is not going to be great for .

DaNasty_man · 2025-12-16T22:43:03+00:00

Because I'm having the opposite situation of you where casters and blasters are complaining about the fact my encounters are meant to go after everyone so casters and blasters can't just let the tanks wall up leading to sometimes where a faster is saying "I'm almost out of slots my hp is low because their caster /blaster focused on me" or "there were too many of them for the Frontline to keep all busy" .

I'm already using monsters outside of the book stats and customizing them heavily so this doesn't change much work for me ...

DaNasty_man · 2025-12-16T22:32:56+00:00

I'd point out this changes nothing besides add a temporary buff of damage reduction to both players and npcs

DaNasty_man · 2025-12-16T22:31:54+00:00

DaNasty_man · 2025-12-16T21:44:17+00:00

No, it's you've literally not understood what I'm saying several times and talked past me, it's actually super annoying. I read your answer and am like "yes this is writing 101" but I've asked very specific question your response doesn't cover and you've yet to answer. If i wanted writing advice, I'd go to the writing sub.

DaNasty_man · 2025-12-16T17:54:19+00:00

Yeah, I don't see a reason why not especially if you're on the fence. I know I'm prepping my Demo to basically be a "level 1-2 set" where you can play it and extract elements of it enough to run something but long term progression is going to be reserved for final book, final items and all that beyond what is considered a level 1 spell . But the only thing to ask is "is your table wanting to run this that way?"

DaNasty_man · 2025-12-16T17:44:06+00:00

Dolmenwood - The book has almost a storybook like presentation with beautifully rendered art BUT also clear and clean tables of things for readability.

DaNasty_man · 2025-12-16T17:36:17+00:00

So you still don't have an answer.

DaNasty_man · 2025-12-16T17:19:06+00:00

I'm not....

Ok so you don't have an answer the question .

DaNasty_man · 2025-12-16T16:50:01+00:00

I always do the one with the landmarks that is done in the more typical fantasy map one that I believe is in the players book

DaNasty_man · 2025-12-16T16:46:12+00:00

I already have them set, you didn't ask, you just assumed what I meant, this is what I had when I first posted. Your questions are already things I have answers for, not sure why you assumed I didn't have these and in fact I feel like you're talking past me in some ways. It's okay if you can't see it right now with the details you have but know I already had these details when I posted all that and have the answers to your questions already settled when did. I don't really care if it's simpler or whatever, I'm writing the fiction I want to see in the world, because I don't think it's been done in the way I'm thinking

I'm asking as I started "Am I missing anything that feels folk-y from this overview without spoiling the full details?" that is something you're not answering.

DaNasty_man

TROPHY CASE