Continuous Armor Divisors

[Tyneras]

Originally Posted by wellspring

I'm still not seeing what we're getting in exchange for adding all this added complexity.

Is some situation better simulated? Does it make the gaming aspect more fun or balanced? Does it give us new potential storylines and roleplaying opportunities?

If you can't answer "yes" to any of those questions, and if it doesn't reduce the complexity of the game, then I just don't see the point of a new rule.

I find this enjoyable, so YES, it is increasing my enjoyment of the game.

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by Tyneras

This makes sense, so just to reiterate:

Final_AD = (Armor_Divisor)/(Hardened + 1)

and if (Hardened + 1) > (Armor_Divisor) just treat it as 1? Or not?

You absolutely must limit Hardened to not reduce effective AD below 1. Otherwise, it's effectively "Total DR = DR x (Hardened+1)".

[Sunrunners_Fire]

Originally Posted by wellspring

I'm still not seeing what we're getting in exchange for adding all this added complexity.

Is some situation better simulated? Does it make the gaming aspect more fun or balanced? Does it give us new potential storylines and roleplaying opportunities?

If you can't answer "yes" to any of those questions, and if it doesn't reduce the complexity of the game, then I just don't see the point of a new rule.

Elegance is a form of pleasure. Also, I'm not seeing the added complexity ...?

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Tyneras

Personally, I can't really think of a chink as an AD so much as a thin bit of armor, the weapon doesn't suddenly get sharper after all.

Armor Divisor doesn't mean "Sharper", it means "Damage Resistance is divided". That's all it means. That's why chinks in armor are an armor divisor, as are various ultratech energy weapons (which aren't sharp - they're energy) and so forth. It's just "divides DR". Specific special effects are just that: special effects.

I really prefer handling Divisors vs Hardened as regular old fractions - in your above example you'd unambiguously have 1/3 * 1/2 * 2/1 = 2/6 = 1/3. "Hardened" would necessarily cap the net effect at 1/1 or no impact on DR.
You could have Hardened DR level 3 ("5") and it would look like 1/3* 1/2 * 5/1 = 5/6 = 25 DR

Keeping simple fractions like that is pretty easy math for me to do in my head so there's no costs for me to resolve it that way, and the benefit is no weird questions at the table :) "How does it work? Just like you learned in math class. Nothing Funky."

[whswhs]

If we're talking about Armor Divisor, don't forget that .5, .2, and .1 are also armor divisor values. Inconveniently, they approximately fit a line with a radically different slope. I'm not going to be happy with a "mathematically elegant" approximation that has an unexplained kink at Armor Divisor 1.

Bill Stoddard

[Tyneras]

Originally Posted by whswhs

If we're talking about Armor Divisor, don't forget that .5, .2, and .1 are also armor divisor values. Inconveniently, they approximately fit a line with a radically different slope. I'm not going to be happy with a "mathematically elegant" approximation that has an unexplained kink at Armor Divisor 1.

Bill Stoddard

The sudden growth in effective DR of hardened armor when the AD drops below one was an unexpected problem. In my defense, I can't remember ever using an AD below one.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Tyneras

The sudden growth in effective DR of hardened armor when the AD drops below one was an unexpected problem. In my defense, I can't remember ever using an AD below one.

It's most useful for degenerate builds that are focused on the non-damaging functions of attacks, mainly corrosive attacks (as the AD has no effect on the rate at which armor is destroyed).

[Bruno]

Outside the question of "builds", fractional armor divisors are sort of a finer-resolution alternative to very very low damage (1d-5 type things) - especially if you use T-Bone's suggestion (I think it's T-Bone? Or is it RAW?) of treating SM 0 "bare skin" as "DR 0.5 round down" or suchlike for this purpose, and perhaps come up with an interesting way of adjusting that with SM.

I think I'd be much more comfortable with 2d (0.1) and treat humans as DR 0.5 than I would be with 1d-4.

But that's in danger of wobbling off onto "making gurps scale with different sizes elegantly" tangents again. A related idea, but I think still a tangent.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by whswhs

If we're talking about Armor Divisor, don't forget that .5, .2, and .1 are also armor divisor values. Inconveniently, they approximately fit a line with a radically different slope. I'm not going to be happy with a "mathematically elegant" approximation that has an unexplained kink at Armor Divisor 1.

There already is an unexplained kink at AD 1 -- hardening. It's something of a general problem with logarithmic systems, though; you wind up either having to shift to linear at some point, or deal with -infinities.

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Outside the question of "builds", fractional armor divisors are sort of a finer-resolution alternative to very very low damage (1d-5 type things) - especially if you use T-Bone's suggestion (I think it's T-Bone? Or is it RAW?) of treating SM 0 "bare skin" as "DR 0.5 round down" or suchlike for this purpose, and perhaps come up with an interesting way of adjusting that with SM.

That may be a T-Bone rule. The GURPS RAW treatment is that any fractional AD turns DR 0 into effectively DR 1. If instead humans had base DR 0.5, this would give them DR 1 vs AD (0.5), DR 2 vs AD (0.2) and DR 5 vs AD (0.1). Not a bad ruling, mind you, just not how GURPS handles it by default.