[D&D3.5] Weapons, Upgrades, and More

[Deepbluediver]

@Seerow

This system works great for all the mundane stats, but have you given any thought to working magical weapon-modifiers into it as well?
What I mean is, if you wanted a weapon with the "Shocking Burst" or "Vorpal" quality, or any of the other standard modifications, how many slots can we have things like that take up? If it even possible to work out what it might cost or would you want to put it on an entirely different set-up altogether?

The original rules say that these kind of weapons have to be at least Masterwork, but you've added in several other levels of craftmanship, so maybe say they just need to be Superior (or whatever the one-step above normal is).

Sorry if this has already been discussed, I only skimmed pages 3-5 of the thread, so I could have missed things.

[Seerow]

Okay, first I lied. I didn't get the changes up yesterday when I said I would, and today was my actual day for playing D&D, so am just now getting on. So tomorrow, hopefully.

D2 sins grant the idea of weaponized boots, making boots deal damage like a shield would, thoughts?

Not sure about D2, but I do know in one book or another there are boot blades, which I'd stat as a dagger, just usable in a weird slot. If you mean just regular boots, like cleats or something, then I'd just treat it as an unarmed strike or spiked gauntlets.

@Seerow

This system works great for all the mundane stats, but have you given any thought to working magical weapon-modifiers into it as well?
What I mean is, if you wanted a weapon with the "Shocking Burst" or "Vorpal" quality, or any of the other standard modifications, how many slots can we have things like that take up? If it even possible to work out what it might cost or would you want to put it on an entirely different set-up altogether?

The original rules say that these kind of weapons have to be at least Masterwork, but you've added in several other levels of craftmanship, so maybe say they just need to be Superior (or whatever the one-step above normal is).

Sorry if this has already been discussed, I only skimmed pages 3-5 of the thread, so I could have missed things.

This is what I was originally trying to do with special materials, but abandoned it for the time being due to being really unbalanced in general. I just don't see any balanced way to integrate it with the mundane item slots. Even a simple +xd6 elemental damage enhancement would have to be 2-3 slots to be balanced against the other stuff. I'm also uneasy about some of the previously magic armor enhancements that became mundane, but a lot of those were pretty overpriced to begin with so probably not too big of a deal.

[Cieyrin]

Not sure about D2, but I do know in one book or another there are boot blades, which I'd stat as a dagger, just usable in a weird slot. If you mean just regular boots, like cleats or something, then I'd just treat it as an unarmed strike or spiked gauntlets.

They're all in Complete Scoundrel's Hidden Blades, from Boot Blades to Elbow Blades and Bayonets.

[Seerow]

Okay, updated the identification scheme for weapon properties as suggested up-thread, separating the properties into categories. I also updated the weapon property descriptions accordingly, using the same categories. I did change settable to general, because a lot of the weapons with it don't have reach. I made the monk special weapon an enhancement type, and made B/C/T for Bow/Crossbow/Thrown (T1 is Throwing, which is the short range throwing property for melee weapons), and probably a few other changes I'm forgetting. Hopefully that makes it a bit easier to read the charts.

[Hanuman]

I meant more along the lines of using actual armor as weapon, shields have a shield bash, boots without weapons (such as boots or greaves) could be used in the same manner as kamas to augment unarmed strike rather than being a dagger.

[Seerow]

I meant more along the lines of using actual armor as weapon, shields have a shield bash, boots without weapons (such as boots or greaves) could be used in the same manner as kamas to augment unarmed strike rather than being a dagger.

This would be basically an unarmed strike, much the same that a guy in full plate without armor spikes/spiked gauntlets still only does regular unarmed strike damage. If you want more than that, the rules for making custom weapons are there.


Edit: Updated again. The settable property became chargebreaker, with a change in how the mechanic works to make it more generally useful. Also added the new property staggering, which allows a character to make a bull rush or overrun attempt on a crit. Both of these are courtesy of the min-max boards.

[Deepbluediver]

This is what I was originally trying to do with special materials, but abandoned it for the time being due to being really unbalanced in general. I just don't see any balanced way to integrate it with the mundane item slots. Even a simple +xd6 elemental damage enhancement would have to be 2-3 slots to be balanced against the other stuff. I'm also uneasy about some of the previously magic armor enhancements that became mundane, but a lot of those were pretty overpriced to begin with so probably not too big of a deal.

I've been turning this issue over in my mind, and I have a suggestion of sorts. (now that I have a few days off I actually have time to write this stuff up)
I admit that working magic weapon effects into your existing slot system would probably be tough, but if you want to attach it to special materials somehow, I've come up with an alternative.

If you want to add a special property to a weapon, it's required that it be better than normal, and sometimes even made of rare materials.
To add any property to a weapon that would incur a +1 Base Price Modifier such as Frost or Keen the weapon can be made of regular steel, but must be of at least Exceptional quality. Better quality swords and rarer metals can also have these qualities, this is just the minimum.
For any property that would add a +2 Base Price Modifier, such as Flaming Burst or Holy, the weapon must be of at least superior quality and must be made of either Mithril, Cold Iron, or a Silvered metal.
For any property that would add a +3 or +4 Base Price Modifier, such as Speed, the weapon must be of at least Masterwork quality and must be made of Adamantine.

I'm not sure what other materials regularly get made into swords, and what kind of thing we would need for a +5 BPM, such as for the Vorpal effect, but that's the basic premise.
Just for reference, I'm working based off the chart found at dandwiki.com.

[Cieyrin]

I've been turning this issue over in my mind, and I have a suggestion of sorts. (now that I have a few days off I actually have time to write this stuff up)
I admit that working magic weapon effects into your existing slot system would probably be tough, but if you want to attach it to special materials somehow, I've come up with an alternative.

If you want to add a special property to a weapon, it's required that it be better than normal, and sometimes even made of rare materials.
To add any property to a weapon that would incur a +1 Base Price Modifier such as Frost or Keen the weapon can be made of regular steel, but must be of at least Exceptional quality. Better quality swords and rarer metals can also have these qualities, this is just the minimum.
For any property that would add a +2 Base Price Modifier, such as Flaming Burst or Holy, the weapon must be of at least superior quality and must be made of either Mithril, Cold Iron, or a Silvered metal.
For any property that would add a +3 or +4 Base Price Modifier, such as Speed, the weapon must be of at least Masterwork quality and must be made of Adamantine.

I'm not sure what other materials regularly get made into swords, and what kind of thing we would need for a +5 BPM, such as for the Vorpal effect, but that's the basic premise.
Just for reference, I'm working based off the chart found at dandwiki.com.

That seems more a nerf on non-spellcasters than anything else, as you're making it more expensive for them to get weapons that keep them able to do their jobs. It also skews weapons towards being more just enhancement bonuses than specials, which may not be a bad thing, since I don't think I've seen weapons with a higher than +1 bonus except in niche cases in a good long time or outside PF, which grabbed the nifty Monte Cook Enhancement Table, which lets higher bonuses break through more DR types.

[Deepbluediver]

That seems more a nerf on non-spellcasters than anything else, as you're making it more expensive for them to get weapons that keep them able to do their jobs. It also skews weapons towards being more just enhancement bonuses than specials, which may not be a bad thing, since I don't think I've seen weapons with a higher than +1 bonus except in niche cases in a good long time or outside PF, which grabbed the nifty Monte Cook Enhancement Table, which lets higher bonuses break through more DR types.

Sorry if I wasn't clear; what I had intended was that any enhancement that could be placed on a lower level of weapon could also be included on one made with better materials, so you could get a Keen mithril shortsword if you wanted.

My suggestion was more for flavor than power balance. I think the cost of a weapon made with special materials is relatively minor compared to the cost of getting the enchantment/effect on it in the first place.
With the system for improving weapons given as it I was hoping you wouldn't need weapons with enhancement bonuses, so you could focus on the more interesting effects.

[Seerow]

No offense, but I'm not sure I like the idea of that special material scheme. It seems to discourage variety or option in material choices, and encourage always having the best material you can afford. I'd much rather have all materials be affordable around mid lower levels (6-10), but offer varied relatively interesting effects. Having it so every weapon must be made of adamantine to get the best enchantments just seems like it kills a lot of potential variety in the game.






Anyway, new update time. Still no magic item or special materials. Yes I suck and am slow etc etc. Instead, I made a new armor update. Armor no longer has an inherent movement speed penalty. Now, movement speed penalties are dependent entirely on encumbrance. If you can wear your armor without encumbrance, you move at full speed. Of course to make this work, I added rules for armor weight, and rules for modifying that weight up and down. I also tweaked a few other things in that section, and modified a couple of the default armors. (If someone wanted to try to redo the base armors entirely to try to match up closer with the SRD using the new rules, I'd appreciate that a lot. I've been mostly doing little patches here and there.)

[Noctis Vigil]

I must say, this is very in depth and well thought out, and works pretty well. Having read the whole thread, I would like to make a small suggestion for magic items (you may of course disregard this if you don't like it).

Enchanting an item means giving it a bonus. In order to enchant an item, you have to first give it a bonus equal to the value of the enchantment. You want a vorpal longsword? Gotta nab that +5 first, then. This has seen a little testing in my games, and it works fairly well. In terms of your system, each +1 magical enhancement to the weapon would grant an enchantment slot, so you could enchant it to +2 to get the benefits of that, plus give you two slots specifically for magical effects that you could enchant later.

Also, you might want to increase how high some of your tables go, since you have a class that gives you up to 6 extra slots using this system already in the works. That class would let you get as high as 19 slots on an exotic weapon, if you have both weapon focus feats.

Hope this helps some. Keep it up, it looks good.

[Deepbluediver]

Enchanting an item means giving it a bonus. In order to enchant an item, you have to first give it a bonus equal to the value of the enchantment. You want a vorpal longsword? Gotta nab that +5 first, then. This has seen a little testing in my games, and it works fairly well. In terms of your system, each +1 magical enhancement to the weapon would grant an enchantment slot, so you could enchant it to +2 to get the benefits of that, plus give you two slots specifically for magical effects that you could enchant later.

Yeah, I like this better than my suggestion.

But I can never leave anything alone, so here's a quick little idea for special materials: let them come with +bonuses and enchanting slots that aren't otherwise factored into the limit. For example, any mithril sword comes with a +1 bonus and 1 enchanting slot. By paying for a full +5 bonus you could give it the equivalent of 6 slots. Just a thought I had.

[Seerow]

I must say, this is very in depth and well thought out, and works pretty well. Having read the whole thread, I would like to make a small suggestion for magic items (you may of course disregard this if you don't like it).

Enchanting an item means giving it a bonus. In order to enchant an item, you have to first give it a bonus equal to the value of the enchantment. You want a vorpal longsword? Gotta nab that +5 first, then. This has seen a little testing in my games, and it works fairly well. In terms of your system, each +1 magical enhancement to the weapon would grant an enchantment slot, so you could enchant it to +2 to get the benefits of that, plus give you two slots specifically for magical effects that you could enchant later.

That would potentially work. The main problem is if/when I do get around to redoing special materials and magic items, my goal is to remove the need for magic items. I would be getting rid of +x swords entirely, and would be adding a lot of bonuses to inherent character progression. Ideally I'd like to remove the need for wealth by level past level 8-10 or so (which is about the point where special materials and minor magic items like potions would be common enough you no longer have to freak out about your players looting an adamantine door). So while your suggestion is good, it goes against my vision of magic items.

Also, you might want to increase how high some of your tables go, since you have a class that gives you up to 6 extra slots using this system already in the works. That class would let you get as high as 19 slots on an exotic weapon, if you have both weapon focus feats.

Hope this helps some. Keep it up, it looks good.

Heh I hadn't seen that. As far as I can tell, the bonus slots are for improvised weapons though, so I don't think 19 slots is possible. But I can extend the tables a bit, it's not that big of a deal. Which tables would need to be expanded, just the damage scaling table? Edit: The damage scaling table now proceeds as high as 23 slots. The next step would be 23.5, and then 31.5, so I'm personally leaning towards that's as high as it really needs to go.

[Noctis Vigil]

The "improvised" weapons are standard weapons made on the fly from junk, so yes, this class could indeed make a scythe using that ability that had the extra 6 slots to devote to damage. But yeah, 23 should be plenty, even I can't figure out a way to tweak it past 21 available slots.

As for your vision on magic items...I honestly don't see a way to make that work. Sorry I couldn't help more. I'm quite interested in how you figure out how to do it, so I'll be watching for your solution. Good luck!

[Seerow]

As for your vision on magic items...I honestly don't see a way to make that work. Sorry I couldn't help more. I'm quite interested in how you figure out how to do it, so I'll be watching for your solution. Good luck!

No problem, thanks for your input! As for how I want to see magic items work, the baseline is bonus to AC/Attack/Damage/Stats based on level replacing the magic items that currently do this. Then one of a couple things:

1) Some new resource used that replicates a lot of the minor magic items that make sense someone could do without an item. For example you might be able to invest a few points to treat any weapon you pick up as if it were keen. Or as if you had the ghost touch property. Probably with a few things like pearl-of-power esque abilities for casters as well.

Magic Items then cover only the major overtly magical things. They'd be more interesting, but rarer and completely optional. So you could remove magic items entirely and still have the game function fine.

2) Alternatively, a magic item system with a heavy basis in incarnum. You get items that you need to bind to yourself to get any real benefit from. You can bind as many items as you want, but you can bind them as stronger or weaker, so you end up choosing between a few powerful effects or many weak effects. The bindings would be changeable with an hours focus or whatever (as opposed to like a single action in incarnum). With this, magic items can be as plentiful or scarce as you want, and still remain relatively balanced, as long as each character eventually gets a few

3) Some combination of the first two. Incarnum based magic items, with a few generic abilities anyone can choose to invest in if they lack items. Possibly also feats and class features that can add new things you can bind.

This is the most likely option, but also the one that takes the most work, and is why I've been delaying working on it for nearly a year. Sitting down and actually doing it all would be a huge undertaking, probably as big as everything else I've done combined.





Edit: Made another quick update. I decided I didn't like that light armors had like 4 max dex, so gave a slight boost to base max dex for light and medium armor. 2 free max dex for light armor, 1 free max dex for medium. This bring's light armor's effective slots up to 4, medium's up to 5.5, heavy remains 7. So now they're all 1.5 apart rather than 2 apart. This helps light armors feel a little less restrictive, while maintaining superiority of heavy armor.

I'm contemplating another change to make increasing max dex reduce weight. 1 lb per for light, 2lb per for medium, and 3lb per for heavy. That way if you have a heavy armor with 2 armor and 20 max dex (theoretically possible, though requires a custom made armor, and thus GM approval) that still weighs 60 lbs. This would then replace the reduce weight option. What do you guys think? Too much, too little, not necessary?

[Cieyrin]

Hmm, I'm not sure Max Dex necessarily equates to less weight, as it's not just how heavy it is but how it's distributed, as Full Plate is just as heavy as Half-Plate but has the weight better distributed so that it doesn't slow you down as much and lets you throw your weight around that much easier.

[Seerow]

Hmm, I'm not sure Max Dex necessarily equates to less weight, as it's not just how heavy it is but how it's distributed, as Full Plate is just as heavy as Half-Plate but has the weight better distributed so that it doesn't slow you down as much and lets you throw your weight around that much easier.

So do you not think the possibility of a 60lb armor having a significantly higher max dex than a 15lb armor is bad? Do you think armors are more or less fine with a uniform weight?


Edit: Also I spent 2 hours last night working on a new set of armor that actually takes advantage of its maximum bonus slots across the board (hint the current set doesn't do that, and leaves them somewhat imbalanced), and got it mostly done, but wanted to give it a once over when it wasn't 2:30am to see what kinds of mistakes I made before posting. Wake up today, and the file I was working on is gone, eaten by a random windows update.

[Cieyrin]

So do you not think the possibility of a 60lb armor having a significantly higher max dex than a 15lb armor is bad? Do you think armors are more or less fine with a uniform weight?

Arcana Evolved called such a thing an Articulated Harness, so yes, I do think such a thing could be gotten away with.

Edit: Also I spent 2 hours last night working on a new set of armor that actually takes advantage of its maximum bonus slots across the board (hint the current set doesn't do that, and leaves them somewhat imbalanced), and got it mostly done, but wanted to give it a once over when it wasn't 2:30am to see what kinds of mistakes I made before posting. Wake up today, and the file I was working on is gone, eaten by a random windows update.

[Noctis Vigil]

My two cents: armor weight is far less of an issue than armor distribution. A well made 40lb armor can be far easier to move in than a 15lb poorly crafted armor. For example (an IRL example): jousting armor is heavy, and made of mostly stationary plates, highly restricting movement. Scale male, however, while roughly the same weight, is pretty much flexible all over, allowing it to be used on a true battlefield to far greater effect. And for anyone who disputes the weight difference there, true scale mail is a double layer chain shirt with a layer of scales over the top, and just the shirt can weigh 30lbs or more (compared to a breastplate, which is roughly the same weight but totally solid). The primary reason the solid metal plate armor was used more throughout history is because it's far, far easier to pump out in mass quantities at an acceptable quality.

In short: weight should be a separate thing from max dex mod, because that's a different set of penalties and issues to deal with.

[Seerow]

Arcana Evolved called such a thing an Articulated Harness, so yes, I do think such a thing could be gotten away with.

If you say so o.0

My two cents: armor weight is far less of an issue than armor distribution. A well made 40lb armor can be far easier to move in than a 15lb poorly crafted armor. For example (an IRL example): jousting armor is heavy, and made of mostly stationary plates, highly restricting movement. Scale male, however, while roughly the same weight, is pretty much flexible all over, allowing it to be used on a true battlefield to far greater effect. And for anyone who disputes the weight difference there, true scale mail is a double layer chain shirt with a layer of scales over the top, and just the shirt can weigh 30lbs or more (compared to a breastplate, which is roughly the same weight but totally solid). The primary reason the solid metal plate armor was used more throughout history is because it's far, far easier to pump out in mass quantities at an acceptable quality.

In short: weight should be a separate thing from max dex mod, because that's a different set of penalties and issues to deal with.

Okay I get your conclusion, but given that do you think it might work to go based off ACP instead? Or just assign weight values randomly? I just think weights all being so uniform seems very bland, and even with being able to move up and down 5lbs per category doesn't seem worth it. (I also run into the problem that .25 slots tend to be hard to fill, so weight mods only really get used for medium armor, unless you want specific elemental resists/vulnerabilities)

[Noctis Vigil]

The problem with ACP is that WotC didn't really think about it, they just said "!@#$ it, these skills will be penalized when you wear armor", regardless of what that armor is made of. I would honestly give different types of armor different penalties to different skills, instead of just flat out saying "this penalizes this", but you want a simple numerical system to assign values to, so that won't work.

Honestly? I would make weight specific to armor type (light, medium, or heavy) AND armor material. So steel armor might be 20, 45 and 60 pounds respectively, whereas Mithral armor might be 10, 20 and 30 pounds respectively. ACP is mostly derived out of whether or not the person can use the armor right (proficiency and proper Strength/Dexterity to move in it) and how well the armor is made. However, I'd make the following change to ACP: metal armor suffers a default penalty on Swim and Move Silently. Leather armors, wood armors, cloth armors and such really don't penalize those skills too much, and it always bugged me that my hide armor was louder than my chain shirt.

Honestly, having ACP in place as a system to buy more points is nice. I do make one suggestion though: I'd make each armor type have a baseline bonus to AC and a baseline ACP. So light armor might have +1AC/-0ACP, medium might be +2AC/-1ACP, and heavy might be +3AC/-2ACP. So if I make a heavy armor, give it 6 additional points of ACP, and dedicate all my points to AC, I would have an AC of 10 and an ACP of 8. Interestingly, I noticed that you sort of did this with shields already, which kind of makes me wonder why you skipped the armors.

Sorry if this is kind of long and rambley; I'm not a very organized thinker. Poke me if I wasn't clear on anything.

[Seerow]

Well material benefits would be a part of special materials. Mithril already cuts armor weight in half.


Having a clear difference between non-metal and metal armor would be good, as you can feed that into special materials (ie can't make hide armor out of Adamantine). But from your description it would just be a lighter armor, which is something that can be handled through the slots (reduce weight), that doesn't take as many penalty slots from armor class penalty.

Which leaves two possibilities: Either the hide armors are weaker because of lack of penalty slots, or they take other penalties. Which means crit vulnerability or elemental vulnerability. Maybe they're weaker to fire?

Honestly, having ACP in place as a system to buy more points is nice. I do make one suggestion though: I'd make each armor type have a baseline bonus to AC and a baseline ACP. So light armor might have +1AC/-0ACP, medium might be +2AC/-1ACP, and heavy might be +3AC/-2ACP. So if I make a heavy armor, give it 6 additional points of ACP, and dedicate all my points to AC, I would have an AC of 10 and an ACP of 8. Interestingly, I noticed that you sort of did this with shields already, which kind of makes me wonder why you skipped the armors.

I could maybe do this in place of the bonus slots. I already have lighter armors getting a better max dex. I kind of liked the innate customizability of choosing how much or little ACP you want, but really a heavy armor with 2 ACP is already pretty decent. I'll think on it and probably do something along these lines when I decide to take another shot at redoing the core armors.

[Noctis Vigil]

I can see hide armor as being weaker to fire, yes. I can also see most metal armors having issues with electricity. If you want, I can take a stab at making a list of special materials and some suggested properties for them based off of the ones in the WotC books.

Also, even if you don't put a baseline ACP on them (which I wouldn't, if that option leads to taking away the ACP penalty for bonus slots), I still suggest a baseline AC bonus, even if it's just a scaling +1/+2/+3 on light, medium and heavy respectively. This still leaves them opened for a lot of customizeability, and also rewards those people who bothered with heavy armor proficiency (I don't know if it's an issue in your games, but no one uses heavy armor in mine).

[Seerow]

I can see hide armor as being weaker to fire, yes. I can also see most metal armors having issues with electricity. If you want, I can take a stab at making a list of special materials and some suggested properties for them based off of the ones in the WotC books.

Well the thing is if both have elemental weaknesses, they'll both also have less ACP. The point is that while metal armors typically have higher ACP, leather armors typically are vulnerable to fire. You could say that metal armors are typically insulated by a layer of padding under the armor or something to that effect.

Also, even if you don't put a baseline ACP on them (which I wouldn't, if that option leads to taking away the ACP penalty for bonus slots), I still suggest a baseline AC bonus, even if it's just a scaling +1/+2/+3 on light, medium and heavy respectively. This still leaves them opened for a lot of customizeability, and also rewards those people who bothered with heavy armor proficiency (I don't know if it's an issue in your games, but no one uses heavy armor in mine).

That is an issue in most games (people not wanting to use heavy armor), but that issue is why I allowed for a higher max penalty and a higher slot value for heavy armor. With this system heavy armor has effectively a 2 slot advantage over medium armor, and 4 slots over light armor. Even with the newly raised max dex of lighter armors, it's still an effective 1.5/3 slots over medium/light armor, which is pretty beefy.

The higher slot values typically translate directly to higher AC, but can translate to higher other things like fortification, damage reduction, or elemental resists instead. If I did the +1/2/3 without adding ACP on top of it, what I'd do to compensate is lower the max available slots, thus making new custom created armors less customizable, which I don't think is necessarily desirable.

Now the +armor -ACP with armor category might work. Putting it altogether what it'd look like is:

Light: 1 Armor, 2 Max Dex, 0 ACP (effective 2 slots)
Medium: 2 armor, 1 max dex, -1ACP (effective 2 slots)
Heavy: 3 armor, 0 max dex, -2 ACP (effective 2 slots)

Meaning it all comes out balanced the same as if I just had 2 armor and no max dex/ACP across the board. So I could leave the penalties system and slots alone, and it would all be fine.

Now what it is doing is automatically using up a half a penalty for medium and a full slot for heavy, so max penalty slots would end up being:

1 slot for light
1.5 slots for medium
2 slots for heavy

As opposed to 1/2/3. But should work fine.



Now I COULD make a metal vs leather material as well. Where leather gives you 2 fire weakness, and half weight, while metal gives you 2 ACP and +1 armor, or something like that, but honestly I'm thinking it's best to just incorporate penalties/bonuses along those lines into the armors without having to explicitly choose a baseline material, simply to avoid having to put the extra complication on it.

[Seerow]

Having learned my lesson last time, I am updating this post a little more frequently rather than doing a bunch of work then putting off updating until the next morning when it can be complete.

As such the new rules for creating armor are up, as are some changes to armor modifications (mostly costs, but weight reduction and max dex got a touch up). I decided to go with my original thought and have max dex reduce armor weight. Before you get onto me about realism, I did include a note in the description indicating that this can be either straight up removing tiny bits, or can be an abstraction, the armor fits you better and thus for purposes of encumbrance weighs less, even if the amount of material is the same. It's not perfect, but I'm going to go with good enough until I see a suggestion I like better, because everyone having the same armor weight seemed really weird to me.


One thing I did do is eliminate quarter point costs. I'm also currently thinking a few new properties may be introduced, partially removing ACP. Like a .5 cost property "Muffled" that eliminates the move silently check to armor, or "Camouflaged" to remove the hide penalty, while still leaving the ACP in tact for other skills. I'm not sure if this is worth a full .5 slot cost though, it will likely see use only for heavy armors. Would it make more sense to bring back .25 slot costs, and have it be something like "Eliminate 3 points of ACP for this skill per .25 slots" (so then even the noisiest heavy armor gets a full elimination for .5 slots, but most light and medium armors are covered with .25).


But I am now working on updating the core armors.



edit: Fun fact. The heaviest armor currently create-able without special materials is 188 lbs. This requires a minimum of 23 strength to wear without encumbrance penalties, after factoring in other gear you almost certainly want 24 strength to wear it. That sounds like a fun high level armor. Maybe the new Mechanus Plate.

Also, I just found out that Adamantine doesn't have a weight increase inherent in it. I thought it gave a +100% weight. Welp I think that may end up changing soon, to make the heaviest armor require 28 strength to wear effectively. Now that's a real man's armor, something so heavy it would crush a lesser being, but if you're strong enough you can wear it and have no ACP or other penalties at all.

[Deepbluediver]

edit: Fun fact. The heaviest armor currently create-able without special materials is 188 lbs. This requires a minimum of 23 strength to wear without encumbrance penalties, after factoring in other gear you almost certainly want 24 strength to wear it. That sounds like a fun high level armor. Maybe the new Mechanus Plate.

Also, I just found out that Adamantine doesn't have a weight increase inherent in it. I thought it gave a +100% weight. Welp I think that may end up changing soon, to make the heaviest armor require 28 strength to wear effectively. Now that's a real man's armor, something so heavy it would crush a lesser being, but if you're strong enough you can wear it and have no ACP or other penalties at all.

I like the idea for eliminating the ACP only to certain skills. What will you call the one that eliminates the ACP to Swim? :P

A 100% weight increase seems a bit extreme; that makes me think of some of those pictures of fantastic armor where it looks like you could die standing up and the armor keeps you from falling over. Also, if weight is becoming an important factor, does mithral get a decrease?


Fun story: I once played a game where the DM had designed a whole set of traps and puzzles that worked (partialy) on weight. Our party rogue, scouting ahead, didn't set them off but the party warrior, following close behind, triggered every one. The problems began when the rogue started carrying 3 players worth of equipment and ended when a Rust Monster showed up.

It ended because the wizard failed his knowledge check and the entire party promptly lost thier weapons; the advanture was pretty much over after that.

[Seerow]

I like the idea for eliminating the ACP only to certain skills. What will you call the one that eliminates the ACP to Swim? :P

I was hoping I might see some suggestions for that one actually :p. Or for any of the other skills I didn't mention. Fluff justifications would be nice too.

Personally, I'm leaning towards saying that ACP doesn't count against str based skills at all, but make armor's effective weight double when in the water. So you can still climb and jump just fine in armor as long as you're not over encumbered, at which point it's the weight that's hurting you, not the restricted movement of the armor. Similarly if you're good enough at swimming you can keep swimming while wearing heavy armor, but swimming with a heavy load is a pretty arduous task, and you're almost certainly going to have a heavy load with armor in the water.

For dex based skills, I already mentioned hide/move silent, that leaves Balance, Escape Artist, Sleight of Hand, and Tumble. Any suggestions for any of these would be nice.

A 100% weight increase seems a bit extreme; that makes me think of some of those pictures of fantastic armor where it looks like you could die standing up and the armor keeps you from falling over. Also, if weight is becoming an important factor, does mithral get a decrease?

It is kind of extreme, but for a more normal heavy armor, say full plate, you're looking at 60 base weight, say a max dex of 2. That gives 54 weight. Add the weight increase property once, and it's about 72 lbs. So adamantine full plate is 142 lbs. That's damn heavy, but definitely manageable for a mid level adventurer. It can be worn as a medium load as early as 16 str, and as a light load at 21-22 str.

Mithril does have a decrease inherent in it. By the book it has a 50% weight reduction. I'm thinking with the removal of movement penalties from armor itself, I can eliminate the "counts as a armor class lighter" bonus. So Mithril would reduce armor weight 50%, reduce ACP by 3, increase max dex by 2, and ASF by 10%. Wow mithril has a lot of bonuses. But anyway, that's equivalent to ~5.5 slots worth of upgrades. That's actually quite a bit so I'll probably end up culling that list some more, but regardless ideally Adamantine would end up balanced against it.


Edit: And the revised core armors are up. And I'm really hoping I can stick with this version of armor, minus adding a few of the properties mentioned above. I'm feeling happy with it now, but I've said the same thing the last 3 times so...

[Noctis Vigil]

I suggest "bubbly" for Swim, because the idea of bubbly admantine armor makes me giggle. Also, I have to admit: the first thing I thought of was a heavy armor that instead of having an eye slit has a periscope.

Balance: Upright armor, has an internal support system included for added support and balance.
Escape Artist: Slick armor, has a slightly oiled feel about it to help one slide out of sticky situations
Slight of Hand: Dextrous armor, has very flexible gloves/gauntlets and joints to allow for slick tricks
Tumble: Rolling armor, which is balanced weight-wise and rounded on the outside for smooth rolling
Swim: Buoyant armor, has several small bladders installed that support one in water, and has the weight distributed to help one swim

Also, I liked the .25 point system.

[Seerow]

I suggest "bubbly" for Swim, because the idea of bubbly admantine armor makes me giggle. Also, I have to admit: the first thing I thought of was a heavy armor that instead of having an eye slit has a periscope.

Balance: Upright armor, has an internal support system included for added support and balance.
Escape Artist: Slick armor, has a slightly oiled feel about it to help one slide out of sticky situations
Slight of Hand: Dextrous armor, has very flexible gloves/gauntlets and joints to allow for slick tricks
Tumble: Rolling armor, which is balanced weight-wise and rounded on the outside for smooth rolling
Swim: Buoyant armor, has several small bladders installed that support one in water, and has the weight distributed to help one swim

Also, I liked the .25 point system.

I like the cut of your jib. These will probably be making it in tomorrow. I may even put back the .25 points for the things that had it before to work with this (since if I put in an inverse of these as penalties, there'd be a lot more .25 options to choose from, which makes me a little more comfortable with it. I just really didn't like having the .25 slots but then only having like one or two things to use when it came up.

[TuggyNE]

Doesn't Stormwrack have "keeled" for armor that doesn't have such massive penalties to Swim? Anyway, I think that would be a good name, and gives at least some justification (the keel enables you to swim straighter with less effort, and the joints are designed for the movements of swimming).