Armor

I realy donnot like the idea of mages getting any access to armor at all.  The system is going to allow for great multiclassing, and I feel if someone wants to play a bladesinger or battle mage then they had better take classes in warrior in order to do so.  Rogues and thuerges should have restricted access to armored combat ranks, and Thuerges should have access to a shield skill. 
 
Now I know skills are for character disscussion so I will not get into that.  I believe whatever skill system is in place armor points should be reduced as well.  The 1/5th idea will not work very well here either since it would end up with fractions or with soft leather to chain all giving 1 point per appendage, so we might have to come up with some different numbers.  Atleast for the appendages.  The torso armor easily divides by 5. so torsos would look like this:
 
Tier 1 = 4
Tier 2 = 6
Tier 3 = 8
Tier 4 = 10
 
Now for appendages I purpose we give values based on pairs.  For instance a pair of bracers would give you the armor amount, while wearing only one would not.  The values for the appendages would be the tier value, so:
 
Tier 1 = 1
Tier 2 = 2
Tier 3 = 3
Tier 4 = 4
 
I also purpose setting an armor cap of 20 armor points which is exactly 1/5th the 100 that is in place right now.

One thing that's caused me no end of hassle that will be going away is the complexity with armor. Different materials, coverage amounts, appendage values, stacking, etc... This system will be receiving a radical revamp.
 
First off, armor will be straight bonus health. No more separate treatment. It adds to your health, gets reduced by damage, and gets healed normally; no more returning automatically after a rest. The Recover effect will play into this somewhat, but we can address that when we get there.
 
Since it's an ability shared among multiple classes, armor will still be skill-based. Shields will likely be removed from this skill and paired back as a weapon style. Concurrent ranks will increase your maximum, etc. So a lot about qualifying for armor won't change. You'll buy Armor 5, then Armor 10, etc., and the number will be your maximum (just easier to read and understand that way).
 
One thing I would like to ask, Tom, is that you mentioned armor was too good as it stands now. If that's the case, shouldn't the armor cap be lower than 20? I'm curious to hear your thoughts.

It seems that you all have the development of armor in hand, & I like the direction but I would like to see if we could represent the damage it takes in combat. I see the ease of marshalling, if healing repairs it, but a repair spell or a blacksmith would add a little to the realism. Maybe once you have taken the damage to your armor it would take a repair spell to get those points back. Unless you return to town to have it repaired. Kind of like the adventure reset.

I'll most likely settle on the simplicity of straightforward healing, but I'm not entirely against the idea that armor requires some manner of maintenance. On the spot repairs by a smith seem a bit farfetched, but maintenance in downtime isn't out of the question. Perhaps armor (or even all manner of treasure) should have durability that is lost every event it is used, and requires a tradesman to maintain it or else it eventually becomes unusable. I may throw that one to the Treasure group and see what they think of it.

Thad, I am with you wholeheartedly on what you've said.  I can't think of a better way than what you said.  9God help me when Mark has a chance to read that, lol).  But I do.  I also like the idea of having to maintain it.  It's adds serious emersion to it.  I'm happy with that.

For me Thad the main reason I felt armor was too good was because it came back fully on a refreash.  I do like the idea of it coming back as normal health with healing only.  For instance if I was down to only 10 health left, then refreashed, I would get 162 health back just from refreashing.  That was what was OPed about it.  Also by dumbing down the appendage armor to giving the bonus for the pair and not each individual piece you would have to wear twice the amount of appendages in order to get the same amount.  Take plate for instance.  You could reach its max in the last system by wearing a torso, two bracers, two pauldruns, and two tassets.  Using the system I purpose you would have to add 3 more sets of appendages to max it out.  This would obviously encomber alot more, and would make having to wear true full plate before you maxed. 
 
I also like the durability thing, however implimenting it sounds like it could be complex.  I also would worry about if it would cost a blacksmith his production to fix peoples armor.   If so then he would basically be forced into charging gold, which would turn into a unwanted change of production to gold.  Most of us like keeping our production to make items and not to get gold.  Since its already overly expensive to make items, any production lost is weighed very heavy.

I like the idea of durability for armor, but I also agree with Dreygor. My current idea for durability is this.

Every event, the durability of your armor goes down a set amount. Let's say 20%. The less damaged your armor, the less it costs to repair. It would cost increasingly more to repair it the further its durability went. Once it got to 0%, it would cost only slightly more than it does to make it from scratch.

The more your armor is damaged, the less armor it gives you in direct proportion of how much durability is lost, rounded down.

Now the only things that I see being able to fix the problem Dreygor listed are: keeping production costs for repairing low, increasing production gathered/day of downtime (yes, that is a treasure group thing, I know. :]), or just making an NPC blacksmith/tailor that works just as the open market does and players can purchase repairing from them which saves the crafters production and time and also creates a gold sink (not sure if thats really needed around here though).

I do agree that armor "slots" need to be simplified. Back when I was dealing with repeated armor rules questions over the summer, I envisioned a straight rating system overseen by an armor marshal, who would give you your armor based on an overall assessment of what you were wearing compared to established guidelines. For example, if a chain shirt is a 5, a chain hauberk is a 7, full plate head to toe is 20, etc., the marshal would judge what you were wearing and give you a rating. Sort of like the judges at the Olympics.

The only issues with this system were an inability for players to plan out their armor sets without a marshal present, and that different marshals would likely disagree. I dislike itemizing things the way we do now, though, so dumbing things down the way you describe is probably a good middle ground. Whatever we do, the new armor slots need to match the normal item slots available to characters. You can pretty much tell at this point that they were created separately and don't fit nicely together.

I've passed the idea of durability off to the Treasure group for the time being, since that's really more their department. It doesn't really have anything to do with combat directly, at least not as proposed. I just wanted to throw it out there as an alternative to make crafters useful when it comes to maintaining arms and armor.

I like dumbing it down a bit and making it cohesive.  I'm not a large armor wearer of anything more than cloaks and jerkins, so I don't have much helpful input here I'm afraid.

I didn't mean to complicate it.
Just say that once your armor has taken damage it only quick repairs to half effectiveness.
After that you have to see a Blacksmith between adventures (mods) to have it restored to full.
Not use production or wack their armor. just give a chance for some interesting role playing.
This is my concept of giving people the opportunity to role play.
 

I can dig what you clarified Ashley.  I was steaming a bit, but I really like the idea of in a mod your armor gets damaged and can't come back to full until it is outside of a mod.  It will be very good for roleplay and give smiths in town a boost in the role play department.   I am a big fan of restricting the armor for the squishy types as well, as mages using armor has always been an issue for me.  Maybe saying that they can't use anything but cloaks with either enchants or made of ironweave.  This will also give something to tailors to do to fix things in between mods as well, but I have gotten off topic a bit.  So far I dig the thoughts, and agree with Ashley's most recent post.  that is all....

Insomuch as I want tradesmen to have greater significance and I want to foster opportunities for interdependence and roleplaying, we're all on the same page. Unfortunately, the idea of armor losing its effectiveness in play fails the simplicity and balance tests (it creates a double standard between smiths and other tradesmen). Sorry guys; I'm going to have to disapprove.

I did like the idea of only getting half value back as an encounter refresh, maybe you could simplify it by saying that it takes an adventure refresh to get full armor back, and just leave the blacksmith out of it.

I understand.

Here is a draft of the Armor skill, where I've decided to include all rules relevant to armor in the new game guide. Let me know what you guys think. (THS 8)

Armor

• Armor is a type of worn equipment that occupies one of five usage areas: Head, Shoulders, Torso, Arms/Hands, and Legs/Feet. Paired items like gloves, boots, or bracers count as a single piece of equipment and must both be worn in order to count.
• Like all equipment, armor must have an appropriate phys rep. This phys rep must look authentic, but need not be real armor.
• Each piece of soft leather or padded armor grants one point of bonus health.
• Each piece of hard leather or chain armor grants two points of bonus health.
• Each piece of scale, brigandine, or plate armor grants three points of bonus health.
• Armor worn on the torso grants three times as much bonus health as other areas. For example, chain armor on the torso grants six bonus health.
• In ambiguous cases, such as partial coverage, mixed composition, or multiple layers, the marshal who inspects the armor will determine the amount of bonus health it grants.

Yeah, I like it.  Wish I could talk material points, but thats treasure

I like the layout.  A lot.  This is very simple and I don't think we'll see any problems with this one.  I would like to ask for clarification.  What does Daydrinker and Deathdrinker qualify as?  I know Daydrinker goes into Leatherworking as far as being made.  Soft or Hard Leather?  I'm asking so I phys rep properly since I'm probably the only one wearing it.
 
 

I like it.
On heathers question. I think it would depend on the phys rep. Although I would like the idea of different production values for different types of leather.

I agree Ash.  My biggest thing to figure out was this:  Daydrinker is technically leaves in the Orn world.  What I had asked to do was take bracers (just plain bracers) and attach faux leaves to them to rep that it's actually daydrinker.  I guess it will depend on if I use cloth or leather to do so.

Tom, you're welcome to speak to materials if you like, particularly the ones that pertain to material points. I'm curious to hear your thoughts on the values of things like dragonhide, mithril, and adamant.

Heather, there's a bit of ambiguity between the in-game material and the phys rep composition. I'm not 100% sure how to rectify it. Daydrinker and Deathdrinker are types of leather, and leather can be soft or hard. At the end of the day, I'd rather let the phys rep determine the bonus health and the material tack on additional properties. So long as the two match up reasonably well, it should work fine.

So, to answer your question, you'll need at least soft leather underneath those leaves for it to count properly, although hard leather will give you extra health. It's your call at that point. Just don't make it plate. I'd rather not try to justify plants with metal leaves. :P

I think I'm going to go hard leather with faux leaves attached to actually rep the leaves.  That way it looks like they were made into the leather (since it requires leatherworking to make them).  Even though plants with metal leaves ARE badass :D  We are going to have to change the effective Health count Daydrinker and Deathdrinker bring back now as well, corect?  Since the Health Point and Armor Point is changing?
 
Are we opening another discussion post for Material Points or doing it here?

I don't mind talking about the bonus health materials here (i.e., ironweave, dragonhide, mithril, and adamant). I think the other special materials will need their own dedicated discussion in the Treasure group.
A thought I was having was to make them very, very simple by saying that they count a tier higher for armor value. Ironweave, for example, is normal cloth, but counts as soft leather, mithril is chain but counts as plate, and adamant is plate but counts in its own special category one higher than that.

That seems a bit on the light side, though. Alternately, we could say that certain materials double the bonus health. Either way, it's simple and allows the material to help determine the bonus health without knowing what phys rep is being used.

As far as material points....
Ironweave gives you 1.
Dragonhide gives you  2.
Mithril grants 3.
Adamant grants you 4.
Keep all other points you have put up.  torso is multiplied by 3 etc.  With this formula, an adamant piece of full plate torso armor will give you 21 armor points.  9 points for the 3 armor times three for the torso, plus the adamant 4 material points times three for being on the torso being 12.  12 and 9 makes 21.  A piece of adamant armor like that now grants you 110 points.  21 is consistent with the 1:5 rule that we have in mind.

I'll go out on a limb and say that I'd like to scale back the bonus from materials a bit. Right now, they're a little crazy. And yes, I realize I'm talking to the two people in play with the highest-value pieces of armor; this is one of the reasons I wanted you guys in on the debate.

Besides, the values you're proposing for everything other than adamant are inflated. I wear a mithril chain shirt, which is worth 50 overall in the current system. If it just grants an additional 3 like I'm proposing, it'll be worth 9 in new numbers or 45 in old numbers. If it grants 9 like you're proposing, it'll be worth 15 in new numbers or 75 in old numbers, which is way too high.

good point.  so adamant is good, now we have to figure out mithril and the rest of them lol.  I know the old system is going away, but I am trying to do the math of dividing by five to make these new rules work similarly.  the problem is that the old system was complicated lol.  mitril gives you material points on top of the armor points, and still should.  keep the system I have mentioned above and stipulate that the point valuse for torso does not multiply, and also that it cannot be made into plate.  this would mean that your mithril chain shirt would grant you 9 armor total in the new system.  It is worth 50 in the old system so that is fairly consistent with the 1:5 rule.
 
take dragonhide down to 1 point, and make it not able to be multiplied as well on the torso.  hence the 35 point dragonhide jerkin today becomes a 7 armor in the new system, exactly on par with the 1:5 rule.
 
Ironweave is the tough one.  the old system gave you 20 material points on the torso, with no armor value at all.  So we can say that Iron weave cannot be made into armor at all or give you the benefits of armor value but give you 4 material points to the torso flat. value, and keep it consistent with the 1:5 rule. 
These values work for the torso but I am not too sure about the appendage values.

I think you're overcomplicating it. If we simply say that any superior material grants an additional point of bonus health per piece, or three on the torso, then ironweave, dragonhide, and mithril work fine. An ironweave robe gives 3, a tad less than before but still comparable. A hard dragonhide jerkin or a mithril chain shirt both give 9, as you said comparable to what they were before. Making mithril only applicable to chain rather than plate ensures that it isn't on par with adamant.

The only X factor with this breakdown is adamant, which, as I've said, could probably stand to be taken down a peg or two. 20 bonus health is obscenely good, in my opinion, and quite likely overpowered whatever the cost.

Keep in mind, if the bonuses go down, the values go down and I'll be happy to refund production and such for those losing out on the ruling. That being said, it's a matter of game balance, and adamant armor is quite likely broken at its current bonus. ;)

going by what you have said, change the value of adamant to 2 and allow multiplying on the torso.  It would make tom's armor worth 15 as opposed to the 21.  his armor would still be significantly higher than other people's, but with the investment in adamant, it still hinders everyone having it and makes it worth it to get it.  it also makes it comparable to the values for an appendage that we have now.

I think I can get behind that. It's a good compromise. As a bonus, since adamant grants more protection than normal, we can allow plate armor out of mithril without it being as good. Your mithril breastplate will be worth 12, while Tom's adamant breastplate will be worth 15.

I'd like to stop for a few hours and give Tom a chance to weigh in. He'll already have a lot of conversation to wade through as it is.

Alright, here is my two cents on the whole material point thing.  I believe all the other materials are about right, the only ones I have a problem with are Mithril and Adamant.  I believe Adamant is WAY to powerful and needs to be cut back a shit ton.  After all its unruinable as a weapon or shield, and it gives 3 times the material points of Mithril?  Thats just rediculus.  Personally I think the cost of adamant should be reduced, change its material points to  the same as mithril and allow it to keep the unruinable factor.  Since we can't really show the main bonus of Mithril *extreem lightness*  Its material points should be the same as adamant to make it worth while.  This would promote people to use admant for weapons and shields, which in most fantasy realms is what its famous for.

Here's my thing.  If you make adamant the same cost or material value of mithril, everyone will stop wearing mithril.  I know that's an odd argument for me to make since I argued so hard for Daydrinker to become achieveable, but I'm with my hubs on this one.  I don't think it's overpowered at all.  Adamant is MEANT to make you a tank. 
 
Tom, you make a good point about possibly dropping the price some. I think this would promote more people actually trying to MAKE it, instead of it being a bloodthirsty treasure draw.
 
But I DO still think Adamant should be higher than any of the others.  My other point is Mithril carries no other benefit beyond being amazing.  Adamant can't be ruined, therefore if we drop it down to the same value as Mithril, it makes Mithril pointless as eevryone is obviously going to go for Unruinable Adamant.

I don't use armor so I'll be the outsider.
Find something that makes up for Mithril not being able to be represented as light. leave Adamant alone in cost and armor value.

I still think adamant should have a higher armor point value than mithril.  The numbers I initially came up with to keep it at the 1:5 ratio were way overpowered, but I think the compromise of making adamant plate at 15 works well.  it is only 3 points higher than a mithril plate piece, and that alone should make people go to make a weapon out of it first rather than go for armor first.  As far as price goes, it could go down a bit, but that is more me just trying to make it easier for Taklinn to get ahold of a shit ton of it lol.  Mathmatically the change in the armor value would drop it down to 107 gp for a piece of the ore in comparison, and that is still twice the price of mithril per piece and makes it still an expensive endeavor to get ahold of it.

 I think I'm with Mark on this one. I want to nerf adamant, but not so much as to put it back on par with mithril. I think I'll go with the proposal as stated.
 
All superior defensive materials grant one additional bonus health per piece, or three on the torso. Adamant grants two additional bonus health per piece, or six on the torso.
 
Simple. Easy to remember. I like it. (THS 6)