[RMS]

Originally Posted by 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.

The irony here being that random armor is much more realistic than fixed armor values because real armor is full of strong and weak spots that a warrior has to exploit. Additionally, random armor simulates angle of attack and it's affect on armor's ability to protect. Throughout most of history, armor was expensive, but nowhere near the cost of a house. There's a very limited time when that's true and only of the top-end armor, not the armor worn by most of the people on a battlefield.

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.

RQ/BRP hasn't offered the ability to target weak spots in armor in the past, so I'd be surprised to see it now. MRQ offers it, but it breaks down mechanically pretty quickly and I don't see any easy way to implement such a system elegantly in BPR.

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.

Making armor variable is no different than making weapon damage variable. They're both there becasuse there are too many variables to track to accurately simulate what happens in real combat. Does random damage make any sense or should it be tied directly to skill or to-hit roll? Same thing.