Working on my first homebrew hack, “Unbound”, and I’m stuck on Defense. I want to change it so that Armor aka Loot would reduce damage taken rather than the default option. My issue is that do I offer it up in piecemeal (helm gives +1, boots give +2) or do it as set (light armour + 1, medium +2). I can see both ways in terms of loot slot distribution
Thoughts?
Hi targ8pratice
I have a similar rule and opted for the lighter version, sticking with complete armor sets:
Adventurer’s Garb (light armor) DEF1
Buckler (light shield) DEF 1
Brigandine (medium armor) DEF 2
Kite (medium shield) DEF 2
Plate armor (heavy armor) DEF 4
Tower (heavy shield) DEF 3
In addition every set of armor imposes its Defense value to Loot slots equipped/carried.
Meanwhile I’m toying with the idea of the Defense value instead of being damage reduction, negating damage completely, as in
Negation = DEF value per day? (as in “Slay the Dragon!” Hexy Studios, and the possibility to regain/recover Defense as in C&S, still figuring out the details).
Nowadays I personally like lighter rules and less detail, focusing on action and ease of play 
I do almost as Obvious,
And the reason is just that I want to keep the numbers low and still have some room for differentiation. If you do piecewise - which is super cool - I think you need to have hit locations too.
(Actually, I separate helmet and armour, since I want to include the option of removing helmet to see better and recover)