Diablo TTRPG: Armor Points

Every system needs a good Armor Class/Defense system, and it took my awhile to figure out what I wanted to do with the Diablo system. Stacking point after point of armor from six different Armor slots felt like it would get excessive very quickly. Even if you were using dirt poor armor in each slot, that would still give you +6 to your AC, and in a system using a d10 to hit, that's insane! Then again, I thought maybe I could switch it over to damage reduction. But that's still a 6 point damage reduction per hit, and that was problematic as well.

But then my friend Skullboy sent me over to The Black Hack, and showed me armor points. I instantly fell in love. The system is perfect, and it feels SO Diablo.

So, without further ado, Armor Points:

Armor Points: When you equip a piece of armor, it has an Armor Point value. This is the amount of damage the armor can take before it breaks. At any time during an adventure, you can decide to spend armor points to reduce the damage you take from a hit, keeping the following in mind:

• You can only use one piece of Armor per hit. So if you have gloves that only have 1 AP left, you can't decide to use both your gloves, and your chest armor to reduce damage on the same hit.
• It costs money to repair items, and it is far less expensive to fix something that still has 1 AP left, than it is to fix something that has 0 left. It is often better to keep each piece of armor at a 1 AP value.
• Armor cannot be fixed by anyone except a merchant or blacksmith. 

It's a simple system, but it feels really awesome to me.