Damage Reduction: Difference between revisions

 

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== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

* In ''[[GURPS]]'', the primary benefit of wearing/installing armor is reducing damage received. DR is also an advantage that can be purchased by characters, races, etc. One to three points of damage reduction seems to be the "realistic" limit for natural DR, possessed by real animals with thick hides/scales or purchasable by players without needing specific GM approval. Previous versions featured the Toughness advantage, a more expensive DR with a two point Cap specifically for human use, with the base advantage restricted to supers or races.

** Armor piercing attacks generally take the form of a divisor, reducing DR by half or more.

* ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'' makes extensive use of this trope. Damage reduction is generally not provided by wearing armor, even magical, and is usually an ability granted to monsters. Said monsters oftentimes have a weakness that bypasses their DR, usually written as "DR ''Value'' / ''Weakness''",<ref>Read as: Damage Resistance: the first X points of damage are completely ignored. If the damage source is from the weakness, however, take full damage</ref> such as the Superman image above. Some materials or enchantments do provide DR on equipment and some class features also grant it.

** Hardness is a variant used only by inanimate objects, for when players decide to smash down doors, sunder enemy gear, or otherwise wreck their environment. Most objects have little to no armor class and surprisingly little HP compared to a player character. Hardness makes them difficult to actually ''damage''. In theory, this should prevent anyone from just [[Dungeon Bypass|carving a new door through a wall]], because standard attacks won't overcome hardness and will never cause hit point damage; in practice, [[Min Max|most characters]] can easily overcome the hardness of stone and [[Gameplay and Story Segregation|players agree to not abuse those rules]] [[Rules Lawyer|most of the time]].

* Any game with damage soak rolls, such as ''[[Shadowrun]]'', [[Old World of Darkness|either]] [[New World of Darkness|version]] of the ''[[Tabletop Game]]/World of Darkness'', and West End Games' D6 system such as the ''[[Star Wars]]'' RPG. After establishing the damage of the attack, the thing being attacked rolls to reduce the amount of damage actually taken, in terms of their own innate difficulty to damage. Armour may either provide extra dice or reduce the target number of the roll to reduce the damage, depending on system.

* The ''[[Hero System]]'' version of defenses functions a touch differently. A character can have both Defenses and straight Damage Reduction; Defenses outright subtract damage from the roll and can reduce it to zero, while Damage Reduction applies ''after'' Defenses and cuts the damage received by a straight percentage. Damage Reduction is one of the "warning sign" powers in the book (it cancels greater damage proportionally more); characters are expected to have fairly limited Damage Reduction, such as having it only apply to certain types of damage, and across-the-board Damage Reduction is mostly the domain of supervillains expected to take on entire teams of heroes singlehandedly.

 

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[[Category:Tabletop Game Tropes]]

[[Category:Damage Reduction]]