[Joseph Paul]

I find variable armor points to be terribly unrealistic and they are one of the reasons that I never did get into Stormbringer.

I can't see anyone investing in armor that has as large a spread of vulnerability as represented by a random die roll. Real warriors did not spend the equivalent of a modern house for armor that didn't protect reliably.

If you are going to get past the armor roll a crit or work harder for it by targeting gaps or thin spots at appropriate skill reductions.

Here is a tip for reducing the pain of using some of the options all together-roll all of the dice at once. That's right- color code a pair of D10s as the percentiles, a D20 (red) as the hit location, and the damage dice as appropriate, perhaps they should be steel colored. Throw'em, read the percentiles and decide if it is a hit. If it is a failure play progresses to the next player. If it is a success you have all of the info you need already in front of you, hit location and damage.

Want to avoid the math for figuring if the hit is a fumble, crit, or special?
Add another D20 (don't forget to make it a different color!). The percentiles are then used as pass/fail while this D20 is used to determine if you have critted on a 1, specialed on a 2-4, and on a 20 you have fumbled.

When RQ came out it was lightyears ahead of other games in terms of tactical play and verisimilitude. I can't help but think of variable armor as the antithesis of that.

Joseph Paul