Lately I’ve been trying to decide if I should have attack rolls in my ruleset or not. I’ve played both ways and like auto-hit attacks for two reasons: they’re fast and missing is boring anyway. However, I recognize that the threat of a miss might encourage players to be more creative in combat and the ability to differentiate between a good fighter and a bad fighter just by looking at one number on a character sheet has some value.
But that’s a decision for another day. Were I to remove attack rolls I’d need a mechanic to represent armor in place of AC. Armor as damage reduction comes to mind and I did briefly trial it last year.
Here’s a look at the effects of DR:
| Armor | d4 average damage | d6 average damage | d8 average damage |
| None | 2.5 | 3.5 | 4.5 |
| DR-1 | 1.5 | 2.5 | 3.5 |
| DR-2 | 0.75 | 1.66 | 2.625 |
| DR-3 | 0.25 | 1 | 1.875 |
| DR-4 | 0 | 0.5 | 1.25 |
DR is absurdly powerful at the damage scales commonly used in D&D and similar games. Any more than a couple points and you’re nigh unkillable.
The Mad Cartographer 