| Armor Armor comes in a myriad of varieties. What to choose? For several professions, the choice is an easy one. Warriors traditionally wear the heaviest armor they can get away with and still swing a weapon. Pure spellcasters tend towards the lighter armors, or none at all, relying on their magics to safeguard them. For those in between, the rangers, bards and magical rogues, mostly, the choices are sometimes more daunting. Sacrifice greater mobility for the sturdier chain armors? Compromise your physical protection, to nurture your innate spell casting abilities? As with most parts of Elanthia, the choices and consequences are yours to make and take. Armor is divided into five main groups, as such: 1.) Regular clothing, or Skin 2.) Leather armors 3.) Scale armors 4.) Chain mail 5.) Plate mail Armor Groups, in turn, are divided into 4 Armor SubGroups [AsG], depending on coverage provided. The exception to this, it seems, is clothing, which few consider worthwhile as armor, and even fewer live long enough to sing its praises as such. The Armor type names below are the ones used in the Wehnimer's armory - the 'accepted standard'. Different towns' armories will likely have different names for their stock armors, and it is often difficult to tell what sort of AsG merchant armor has by the name alone. All armor fits into one of these SubGroups, though. |
| Armor SubGroup 1.) Clothing 5.) Leather, Torso 6.) Leather, Torso and Arms 7.) Leather, Torso, Arms and Legs 8.) Leather, Torso, Arms, Legs and Head 9.) Scale, Torso 10.) Scale, Torso and Arms 11.) Scale, Torso, Arms and Legs 12.) Scale, Torso, Arms, Legs and Head 13.) Chain, Torso 14.) Chain, Torso and Arms 15.) Chain, Torso, Arms and Legs 16.) Chain, Torso, Arms, Legs and Head 17.) Plate, Torso 18.) Plate, Torso and Arms 19.) Plate, Torso, Arms and Legs 20.) Plate, Torso, Arms, Legs and Head |
Armor type Robes, leather jerkin, etc. Light Leather Full Leather Reinforced Leather Double Leather Leather Breastplate Cuirbouilli Leather Studded Leather Brigandine Armor Chain Mail Armor Double Chain Mail Armor Augmented Chain Mail Armor Chain Hauberk Metal Breastplate Augmented Breastplate Half Plate Armor Plate Mail Armor |
Under the old system, barring the presence of crit padding or weighting, ambush skill, or similar out-of-the-ordinary circumstances, it took 5 hp of raw damage to raise the crit rank of a wound by one. That is, 35 hp of raw damage would cause a rank 7 wound (which hurts). Under the new system, the amount of raw damage required to cause each rank of critting is dependant on the armor group you wear. Scale armor (AsG 9-12) requires 7 hp of raw hp damage per crit rank, chain armors (AsG 13-16) require 9 hp per crit rank, and the plate mails (AsG 17-20) require 11 hp of raw damage to raise the crit level by one. So, swinging an unweighted weapon against normal plate mail, you must cause 99 points of raw damage, to do the maximum crit rank of 9. This makes the heavier armors much more attractive, especially in conjunction with DF redux. In contrast, I believe robes or no armor now require only 3 points of raw damage to cause each crit rank. Rayzor let me ambush his leg from hiding, swinging full out. He had no weapon or shield out, and I swing at a fair clip past 400, with over 200 in ambush skill. I gave him a leg minor, whereas before, we should have found his leg ten yards away.. DF redux with full plate can make a person a tank. As a magical rogue, I personally prefer scale armors. Full coverage, good protection, not so much spell hindrance as to make casting prohibitive. What? I didn't explain spell hindrance? Heavier armors, of course, tend to make it more difficult to weave magic while wearing them. Why is this? I've no idea. Perhaps the sheer bulk of the armor makes it more difficult to flap your arms around in a magical gesture of some sort. Perhaps mana likes heavier armor, and doesn't want to leave your body, being all snug and warm in that plate mail. |
AsG |
Elemental Hindrance |
Spirit Hindrance |
Mental Hindrance |
Action Penalty |
RT Adder |
Clothing |
|||||
| 1-4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Leather |
|||||
| 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 7 | 2 | 0 | 0 | -5 | 2 |
| 8 | 4 | 0 | 5 | -8 | 2 |
Scale |
|||||
| 9 | 5 | 4 | 3 | -5 | 2 |
| 10 | 7 | 5 | 5 | -7 | 4 |
| 11 | 8 | 6 | 5 | -10 | 6 |
| 12 | 10 | 8 | 15 | -13 | 6 |
Chain |
|||||
| 13 | 12 | 8 | 9 | -12 | 7 |
| 14 | 14 | 10 | 10 | -14 | 8 |
| 15 | 15 | 11 | 10 | -16 | 8 |
| 16 | 20 | 15 | 25 | -18 | 9 |
Plate |
|||||
| 17 | 22 | 18 | 26 | -20 | 10 |
| 18 | 24 | 20 | 28 | -25 | 11 |
| 19 | 26 | 22 | 30 | -30 | 12 |
| 20 | 30 | 27 | 35 | -35 | 13 |
| Key to the above: Elemental Hindrance - Percentile chance that your spell will fail when casting an elemental-based spell. This includes Minor and Major elemental circles, and the Wizard base circle. Spirit Hindrance - Percentile chance that your spell will fail when casting a spirit-based spell. This includes Minor and Major spirit circles, and the cleric and empath base circle. Mental Hindrance - Percentile chance that your spell will fail when casting a bard spellsong, I believe. I don't think that renewed songs are subject to this, but I could be wrong about that. Action Penalty - Percentile subtracted from your chance to perform a maneuver roll. These include most anything from dodging ewaves and boil earths, to something as mundane as standing up. Roundtime Adder - Number (in seconds) added to your base roundtime when swinging a weapon. This can be trained away with the armor skill, with each 20 points in the skill removing one second of armor-based roundtime. High bonuses in dexterity and reflexes are also supposed to offset this penalty. The commonly accepted formula with respect to that is [dex bonus + reflex bonus]/15 = s where s is the number of seconds of armor Roundtime Adder shaved off your roundtime. ~Amerlise Vinsaile note: this entire document was written in a 10 pt. Courier New font. If the tables do not line up, setting the font of the entire document to this might help. |