Passive Defense and 4e

[muduri]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

Out of interest what was the issues with Knight vs. peasant?

Well OK, as long as I'm not the only one doing the re-animating, ha. I guess it wasn't really knight vs. peasant so much as two other scenarios: armored swordsman vs. leather-clad axeman, and knight vs. brittle rock troll.

Basically it comes down to an irrational nostalgia for PD so I won't work hard to justify it - I'm sure people have come up with other solutions for this. But I wanted a sort of bronze-age heroism, where metal items were rare but gave a significant edge - hence bringing back PD and (get ready) a Ready turn for axes and two Ready turns for polearms. And then costs for swords and metal armor were like +50%.

And rock trolls! I guess the 4 and 17 on the critical hit table, plus the Chinks in Armor rule, sort of take care of this, but if the players aren't totally up on hit location you have to admit there's a certain appeal to a creature with say PD10 (I know, I know), DR1, HP15, ha.