Re: [DL] sneaky armour trick

[TobyAkers@aol.com]

In a message dated 11/23/01 10:35:44 AM US Mountain Standard Time, 
munchwolf@yahoo.com writes:

> I'm not sure I like this formula as you appear to be
>  ADDING the armor level to the number of dice.  Does
>  that mean the result of 5 dice against 2 levels of
>  armor should be the same as 6 dice against 1 level? 
>  Or 3 dice against 4 levels?
>  
Yes.  The reason is, when an attack hits something with armor all the dice 
are reduced.  If 6 dice (6d6) hit one level of armor, they all drop 1 die 
type (6d4) so that needs to be taken into account.  The player will not do 
less damage (on average) because he is rolling more dice.  If the rules would 
dictate that the dice rolled cannot pierce the armor, than no damage would be 
inflicted and no math needs to be done.

I did make a small mistake in the average between die's, you should subtract 
1 per die and av not 1.5.

So, taking the example you've given, the number to subtract comes out to 7 in 
all cases.  However the actual damage will vary.

5d6 vs. 2av  avg. of 17.5-7=10.5 damage

6d6 vs. 1av avg. of 21-7=14 dam.

3d6 vs. 4av avg. of 10.5-7=3.5 dam. however since 3d6 cannot penetrate 4 
levels of armor damage should be adjusted to 0.

As you can see more armor still means less damage, and it all works into the 
law of averages.