Passive Defense and 4e

[Glimmerman]

To recreate PD in 4e you could subtract PD of an armor from an attacker's successes instead of adding to the armor-user's defense roll. If Successes-PD is less than zero, the blow has been deflected from the armor after defender's unsuccessful or non-existing defense roll.

For more tweaking you can readjust PD penalties: hard leather/wood has PD 1, chain/scale has PD 2 and basic plate armor has PD 3*.

For even more tweaking for each 3 dice of damage that an attack does, it eliminates 1 point of PD from the target's armor. And 1-handed crushing weapon removes PD penalty by 1, 2-handed by 2.

*PD 4 for TL4 Maximilian armor with more curves and narrower ridges (ribbed plate), which creates better deflecting angles.
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Glimmerman
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[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by BaHalus

And the +3 defense aura that everybody has.

That's not an aura, its part of the formula. They could have just as well said that dodge is 1.5 x Basic Speed and parry/block is skill-4

A weapon glancing off armour is one possible description of failing to do enough damage to penetrate.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Glimmerman

To recreate PD in 4e you could subtract PD of an armor from an attacker's successes instead of adding to the armor-user's defense roll. If Successes-PD is less than zero, the blow has been deflected from the armor after defender's unsuccessful or non-existing defense roll.

If trying to adapt a PD-like function to 4e, I wouldn't allow it to completely negate damage. If PD represents armor contours, it should either factor in to how often a hit occurs at a poor angle, or how much "extra" DR such a poorly angled hit faces. Fluted Maximilian armor can make a spear that could penetrate on the flat glance off, but an anti-tank round will barely even know the armor was there.

Perhaps make it if the margin of success is less than (whatever PD-like number you are using) double DR. Against most TL4 personal weapons, doubling plate's impressive DR is pretty much proof. Or, if you use the glancing hits rules from tbone's games diner (which I believe appeared in the Alternate GURPS Pyramid issue) either increase the margin at which a glancing hits occurs or increase the DR increase.

[BaHalus]

Originally Posted by Bruno

That's again, not "passive". It only protects you when actively defending.

Originally Posted by Polydamas

That's not an aura, its part of the formula. They could have just as well said that dodge is 1.5 x Basic Speed and parry/block is skill-4

A weapon glancing off armour is one possible description of failing to do enough damage to penetrate.

I should've put a smile there :-(
Yes,I know it, like DB, is not passive. But the function of this +3 plus the DB is pretty much replacing PD. Pretty much like an active version of passive defense.

[DouglasCole]

Were I to try and make a passive defense in 4e, I'd do it in one of a few ways.

If you basically have a force field or aura that absorbs energy, you have DR at some level.

If a blow either glances off completely, or you risk taking the full brunt of an attack, you have the analog of an active defense that automatically gets rolled when someone attacks you. But you don't need to see it coming, and it doesn't use an active defense. You could model it as any of parry, block, or dodge depending on the special effects, if any.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by BaHalus

But the function of this +3 plus the DB is pretty much replacing PD. Pretty much like an active version of passive defense.

The function of the +3 is to increase defense numbers into the range where defense is relevant to moderate skill combatants, much like 3e gave 2/3 parry to combat skills that were normally used with little or no armor.

[JCurwen3]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

That's not an aura, its part of the formula. They could have just as well said that dodge is 1.5 x Basic Speed and parry/block is skill-4

I use both of these. The skill-4 is one part of tbone's FEND rules; Parry and Block can be improved per weapon as techniques. Actually for Dodge, it should be 1.6 x Basic Speed to get an exact 8.

These resolve identically at Basic Speed 5.00 (human average) and skill 10. This puts low skill combatants at a significant disadvantage vs high skill combatants (which makes more sense to me); the Dodge change makes Dodge scale linearly with Basic Speed, which makes much more sense to me than a flat +3. And yet within the normal human range of values there isn't too much difference from one another.

[muduri]

Sincere apologies for thread necromancy. Found this thread on PD from about a year and a half ago and there's one thing I'd like to find out more about, here:

Originally Posted by malloyd

...the "cheap" increase to Dodge may have undesirable effects on the relative (in)effectiveness of character concepts that are built around being lightly armored - remember 4e also lacks some of the stuff 3e provided to boost Fencing.

What was it exactly that boosted Fencing in 3E? Was it just that Parry was higher (2/3 of skill?), or were there bonuses that applied specifically when you were lightly armored? Have experimented with dropping the +3 and re-introducing PD, and it's had the desired effect on knight vs. peasant, but one player's poor 75-point monk keeps getting brutalized, ha. Before I just drop it and get closer to RAW I thought I'd see if there was anything else balancing things in 3E.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by muduri

What was it exactly that boosted Fencing in 3E? Was it just that Parry was higher (2/3 of skill?)

It was 2/3 of skill, but only functioned properly while at Light or No encumbrance.

Originally Posted by muduri

Have experimented with dropping the +3 and re-introducing PD, and it's had the desired effect on knight vs. peasant

There are plenty of ways of changing the balance of knight vs peasant without reintroducing the nonsense that was PD. Start by realizing that the peasant probably has either default or 1 point in his weapon skill...

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by muduri

Sincere apologies for thread necromancy. Found this thread on PD from about a year and a half ago and there's one thing I'd like to find out more about, here:

What was it exactly that boosted Fencing in 3E? Was it just that Parry was higher (2/3 of skill?), or were there bonuses that applied specifically when you were lightly armored? .

Nope. Nothing except that people generally made fencing characters with a high enough skill to go for the eyes. Barehanded fighters no matter what were toast.