"Old D&D Armour Classes - Unarmoured?" Topic

I'm messing with my house/home brew WWII armour rules (yes, Fantasy RPG is the correct board – read on, please ) and am classifying armour defense factors. I was originally going to have the best armour as the highest class number, but then thought for the fun of it, I'd make a really well armoured tank a class 2 – plate mail and shield sort of thing. As armour protection gets worse, the class will go up.

This makes perfect sense as all my buddies with whom I play WWII games are all D&D players. We are of the 3 booklet vintage but enjoyed the first AD&D books – the one with the spectacular illustration on the Player's Hand Book of that large idol with the thieves prying out the emerald eye, while armoured guys below looked at maps.

I'm trying to remember – what is the armour class for unarmoured in D&D? in the original version it was AC 8, I believe, wasn't it? And then in AD&D it was 10? I realize things may have changed in 2nd edition and later…

Anyway, please jog my memory. All my D&D stuff is with a friend who has moved away for 10 months and I can't get at it…

Thanks very much in advance.
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Tim

In OD&D an unarmoured man is AC 9. In AD&D its AC10.

Yes an AD&D mage or other unarmored character/target was AC10. To hit calculations were based on the THACO. To Hit Armor Class 0. In some bizarre way the big numbers = easy to hit method worked.

Useless bit of trivia … the origins of the original armor class system came from the tabletop miniatures game Chainmail. In that system you rolled low on a 2D6. Unarmored could be wounded on a 9 or lower, pretty easy. Plate mail and shield could be wounded on a 2 … pretty hard.

If you got your target number, you counted a warrior dead (I think the warrior:figure scale was 20:1 or something so that was 1/20th of a figure). More accomplished figures were rated as Heroes, who were the same as 4 warriors in one figure, getting 4 attack rolls and taking 4 wounds before being removed.

That system actually was the original D&D combat system.

What we know today as the D20 system, where the we had to roll high, equal or above a target number on a D20, with each hit doing a die of damage and each target having a dice per level of hit points … that was the Alternative Combat System, recommended as an optional system for player characters to fight monsters. It was all D6s with modifiers too. (Fighter hit points were D6+1 per level, Magic Users D6-1, etc.)

In the first supplement (Greyhawk), the Alternative Combat System was expanded with different weapons doing different size dice of damage, different character classes having different size dice for hit points, etc. Either in that book or a later supplement, different weapons had bonuses against certain types of armor.

That stayed the basic system all the way through AD&D 2nd Edition, with better armor classes having lower numbers. Splint armor (IIRC) was inserted into the lower ranges, so unarmored could go down to 10, and full plate was added at 2, so that plus shield could be armor class 1.

So why was the best armor the lowest number? Because the chart was copied from a game where you had to roll low.

So Ditto, do you have any plans for magic tank armor going into negative AC?

"Chainmail" Man-to-man was AC8
"OD&D" was AC9
"AD&D" was AC10

I thought the Better Armored the lower the AC's were lifted from Dave Arneson's "Don't give up the ship" naval miniatures game.

I thought Dave Arneson stole AC and Thaco from a naval combat game?

Naval wargame indeed. It never bothered us too much

acarhj: "Chainmail" Man-to-man was AC8 …

Hmmm … didn't remember that. Thanks for catching that.

Inari7:I thought the Better Armored the lower the AC's were lifted from Dave Arneson's "Don't give up the ship" naval miniatures game.

I didn't play that game; could be.

A lot of games in those days tended to use a mechanic or several that worked in the designer's previous games.

Will you let the number go negative, or will you set 0 to be something like a Maus with extra armour bolted on and hiding behind a battlecruiser?

Hmmm … didn't remember that. Thanks for catching that.

It also had descriptions as well. "Lether or Padded" Leather or padded and shield" etc…

I had heard the same thing about Arneson and AC. It was a low number for better armor referencing the ratings of ships. A first rater is the biggest and best. 2nd rater is a little smaller….

So Ditto, do you have any plans for magic tank armor going into negative AC?

Shhhhhh, I'm working on a flaming Maus of invisibility… and sandbags of defence,

Thanks to all…
--
Tim

"Chainmail" Man-to-man was AC8

Looked through my copy of Chainmail last night. The man-to-Man rules do use 8 armor classes but the have 1 being the worst and 8 being the best.

I prefer the holy hangrenade myself… or maybe the STEN of striking… or the PIAT of power. Or how about my +5 holy Garand! ;)

Just remember that "unarmoured" wasn't the worst you could be. AC10 (or 9, or 8) was "unarmoured but clothed, aware and capable of moving/avoiding. Naked, or constrained, or unconcious etc all made it worse.

Was usually expressed as modifiers, but I am sure that I have seen figures in some publications that gave AC over 10 for certain situations.

76mm +1, +3 vs Pz III

AD @D ac 10 ,unarmourmed was 10
. ac2 was 18.

Would 88L71's be vorpal swords?