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[Sutremaine]

Not a replacement for damblock, but an addition.
Body tokens [ARMOR_HARD], [ARMOR_SOFT], [ARMOR_NONE], and [ARMORLEVEL:n].

The first two would protect the body part to which they're attached until they're broken or worse, at which point the protection would cease. Hard armour (shells, bony frills, etc.) would protect against piercing and slashing but less against bludgeoning attacks, and soft armour (thick skin, thick fur, etc.) would soak away hammer damage but be weak against a strong arm and a sharp sword. Multiple armour parts attached to the same body part would provide extra protection through chance. For instance, a dwarf facing a creature with one mangled upper back plate and one unbroken one would have a 50% chance of striking the unbroken plate. [ARMOR_NONE] would be available if you wanted to have the opportunity to pull off a dramatic lucky shot without having to force your way through a layer of armour.

Protection could take the form of a modifiable number from which the material strength of the weapon is deducted. So a creature with [ARMORLEVEL:200] and soft armour would reduce damage from a plain bone bolt by 150% (so, zero damage), damage from a plain steel bolt by 67%, and a masterwork iron bolt or anything better would go right through. If it had hard armour anywhere, the masterwork iron bolt wouldn't be enough to bypass the armour completely. A masterwork iron hammer, on the other hand...

I know basic subtraction isn't good enough given the current material damage ranges in DF, but it's just a quick start (armour vs. ammo in particular would likely be near-impossible to balance with vanilla DF as it is). The damage reduction should probably be applied after the attacker's Strength is taken into account and before most other things, but that's really Toady's area.

Having some of the armour level carry over to the creature's hide would be nice too, since kitten leather is currently just as protective as elephant leather.

[SirHoneyBadger]

I like this idea. It would fit well with the kind of modding I want to do, and allow for good differentiation between a wide variety of natural protection.

[Capntastic]

But in the next release, stuff like this is handled by the material its made of.   Stuff like brittleness and malleability and density are all modeled.  Your suggestion would be a step back in terms of realism.

[SirHoneyBadger]

That's true, Capntastic, and something I hadn't considered, but organic substances (particularly in a fantasy world) can have different hardnesses, densities, and malleability, so while the idea itself might be flawed, it lends the suggestion of using bones, shells, horn, what have you, of a wide range of material strengths.

So while it's not useful, in it's current form, it nonetheless manages to make a good point.

[Sutremaine]

But in the next release, stuff like this is handled by the material its made of.   Stuff like brittleness and malleability and density are all modeled.  Your suggestion would be a step back in terms of realism.

I haven't been following development all that much. Since I read the wiki even before I downloaded the game, I want to be surprised a little this time round. If it's all going to be done sometime in the future-- including being able to layer body parts to form an armour shell, which is mainly what I was interested in-- then that's great.

[Capntastic]

So while it's not useful, in it's current form, it nonetheless manages to make a good point.

Yeah, but I think Toady's more or less said that it'd be possible to mod in variously specced materials- dragon leather, balsa wood, etc.  So, in effect, this is already in.

[Neonivek]

There is a aspect however that Armor would need a "Soft - Hard" thing so to speak.

For example Iron is rather solid and if dented it usually doesn't immediately bend back with few exceptions.

A Chainmail made out of Iron bends and moves and can move back into shape rather easily. Effectively giving Iron a greater Elasticity value.

Leather Armor strengthens the Leather used by a certain extent (Not really... It uses "Hardened Leather" but we could simply skip that step and assume it is part of the leather armor making process)

[Silverionmox]

It would be best to make a distinction on basis of the construction method, which can be used elsewhere also. Eg. woven, linked rings, plate, lace, net, scales, etc.

[Footkerchief]

Yeah, but I think Toady's more or less said that it'd be possible to mod in variously specced materials- dragon leather, balsa wood, etc.  So, in effect, this is already in.

Yeah, it's very much in.  Creatures, plants, etc., when setting up their constituent materials, can create entirely new materials, or use a material template and selectively override its properties, or load a material from another raw entry as if it were a template, etc.  In addition, materials can be individualized beyond the species level, meaning that the material composing a skull totem contains information about who the skull came from, and possibly any special properties that the material has acquired over time.

So yeah, you can give dragons extra-tough skin, bones made of steel and sunshine liquor for blood, all kinds of stuff.