Armor with damage reduction and a little trick against recoil

The armor and weapon-changing mods are the most numerous category out there, so someone has likely tried to do this kind of revamp of even succeeded. Still, I'll ask: has anyone implemented a response to the most common complaint about the AD&D armor system, that it represents dodging when it should represent damage reduction? The official rejoinder to this is that in AD&D successful blows are those that come through, so misses on the dice should be interpreted by Dungeon Master as glancing strikes. The problem with this sly explanation is that a creature that dodges and a creature that shrugs off attacks should behave and be played differently, and they don't. A monk's improving AC in the system, for example, works as if the monk grew scales or invisible armor suits thickened over him. Now 3E takes care of that problem, but in these games we are stuck with AD&D. But even within these rules there is no obstacle to changing armor so that it offers greater and greater damage resistances but reduces, in moderation, actual AC (this should probably be offset by a free bonus of a few AC points to everyone).

How would a full suite of plate circa the 15th century perform? I've never worn one, but from history I know that slashing weapons like falchions or broadswords were practically useless against plate, and arrows useless completely. We can make a proviso for the English longbow, but generally at the time when whole armies wore plate it was considered good to have 1 arrow in 100 find a weak spot, let alone kill someone. I actually heard this statistic. Bows were out and crossbows were mildly useful. One's best chance against plate was with a lance, a warhammer, a greataxe or one of those 10-foot-long Hungarian two-handed swords I've seen in a museum in Istanbul - and they probably smashed with the weight as much as cut.

Given all that, I made a suit of plate as an approximation of how armor could work. It gives high (probably too high without a helmet and shield) resistances to slashing and missile weapons, not such high ones to piercing and crushing. It increases elemental damage, especially from fire and electricity (baking and conducting), but to a lesser extent cold and acid. Magic damage should probably remain unchanged. AC is worsened by 3 points in my version.



It's brass-covered.

Now, if a tank doesn't leap around like a Shaolin monk and his AC is bad, he is going to be hit, frequently but for very little damage or no damage (in combination with a helmet and shield). He is going to be scratched. This would be inconvenient if the character recoiled, interrupted, every time, so I added a little mechanism I had developed for my zombies in Animate Dead. I had wanted them to advance relentlessly, so I had invented a self-renewing contingency that had blocked the recoil animation. I added it to this suit. The wearer will still groan but not flinch.