This is basically thoughts on paper. 4th Edition D&D has both AC and Ref Defence, I ask is that necessary?
For Dark Era I want the system to be simple and easy for people to get to grips with. So, the Ability Scores come into play like this:
- Dexterity adds to your Reflex Defence
- Wisdom adds to your Willpower Defence
- Constitution adds to your Fortitude Defence
Those of you that have played Star Wars Saga Edition might recognise the above. In addition to these we have Armour Bonuses. Depending of course on what ‘era’ you are playing in will make a huge difference in what armour is available.
Lets take 1463. Leather Armours, Hide Armours, and Chain would be the most popular.
In Dark Era, Armours dont increase your defences unless they have a higher than average quality rating. Seeing that Dark Era is not very ‘fantasy’ orientated and more historical we use Quality Ratings instead of Magic or Enhance bonuses.
Armours instead give you Damage Reduction against all physical damage, and some may grant higher than normal bonuses against certain attacks. Leather armour grants a basic 2 point DR and an additional +1 vs piercing attacks while Chain armour might grant a bonus of 4 DR and an additional +1 vs bludgeoning attacks
Quality Ratings
Many specialise black smiths, scientist or engineers, and even player characters (if they have the time), can make armour and weapons with higher than normal quality ratings.
Essentially a quality is simply a rating between –5 and +5 usually. Some very rare instances will see these bonuses going higher and ‘0’ is treated as average.
For Amour the Quality rating adds to the wearers reflex defence and not the Damage Reduction granted by the armour. Some armours may have special enhancements to the DR however.
Levels
Dark Era is probably not going to use levels at all. So you don’t get the plus level to anything. This means if you want to improve your bonus you need to buy it with Experience Points (these are used similar to character points in Eclipse)
Other options to improve defences are by way of Feats. Some feats may be ‘cheaper’ than buying each +1 defence on its own.
Anyway, I am rambling so will sign off. Need to put this stuff all together some time.