Plate Armor making process and parts

[Zantatous]

This is a crafting proposal for the suggested amounts of steel ingots and quantities of parts for crafted heavy armor; I will try to keep amounts close to that of chain mail armor.
So I will go over finished pieces and components, then sub parts with amounts of steel ingots and leather parts needed. The leather is used for padding and to tie the piece onto the warrior.

===============================Main Build of materials=========
Plate Gloves level 40   14 ingots is chain mail amount plate mail is 12 ingots
Combine 3 small plate mail pieces & 2 leather string & 1 Small leather armor piece for Plate Mail Gloves kit.

Plate Helmet Level 40   18 ingots is chain amount plate mail is 16 ingots
Combine 4 plate mail pieces & 2 leather string & 2 small leather armor pieces for Plate Mail Helmet kit.

Plate Boots level 60   27 ingots is chain amount plate mail is 24 ingots
Combine 3 medium plate mail pieces & 4 leather strings & 1 medium leather armor piece for Plate Mail Boots Kit.

Plate Arms level 60   36 ingots is chain amount plate mail is 32 ingots
Combine 4 medium plate pieces & 4 leather string & 2 medium leather armor pieces for Plate Mail Arms Kit.

Plate Legs level 80    36 ingots is chain amount, plate mail is 32 ingots.
Combine 2 large plate mail pieces & 8 leather strings & 2 large armor pieces for Plate Mail Legs Kit.

Plate Torso level 100    45 ingots is chain amount, plate mail is 48 ingots.
Combine 3 large plate mail pieces & 8 leather string & 2 large armor piece for Plate Mail Torso Kit.

=============================Minor build of materials================
Small plate mail part available at level 40
Hammer 4 heated steel ingots on anvil for Small Plate Mail Piece.
Red heat Small Plate Mail Part and hammer on anvil for 4 ingots.

Medium Plate mail part available at level 60
Hammer 8 heated steel ingots on anvil for Medium Plate Mail Piece.
Red heat Medium Plate Mail Part and hammer on anvil for 8 ingots.

Large Plate mail part available at part level 80
Hammer 16 heated steel ingots on anvil for Large Plate Mail Piece
 Red heat Large Plate Mail Part and hammer on anvil for 16 ingots.

Leather strings from Basic Leather Working book.
Small leather armor piece is from Making Leather Armor Book.
Medium Leather armor piece is from Making Leather Armor Book.
Large Leather armor piece is from Making Leather Armor Book..

==================== Process=================
Heat steel ingots
Hammer on anvil
Combine parts (see list at top)
Then use riveter (to attach sting and leather armor pieces)
Then hammer kit for plate mail armor

============Total number of new part s for database is 9==========
Small plate mail piece
Medium plate mail piece
Large plate mail piece
6 new parts for the kits.

I would appreciate comments please, Thank you Zantatous.

[Zantatous]

Noticed 2 mistakes

==================== Process=================
Heat steel ingots
Hammer on anvil
Combine parts (see list at top) Assembly
Then use riveter (to attach sting and leather armor pieces) Kit
Then hammer kit for plate mail armor

============Total number of new part s for database is 15==========
Small plate mail piece
Medium plate mail piece
Large plate mail piece
6 new parts for the assembly
6 new parts for the kits.

[Catlemur]

Nice.

[Gilrond]

I find all those levels for armor making to be completely illogical. Level should affect the quality, rather than ability to make some item. Especially when they have such huge dispersion.

[Talad]

Hi,
crafting heavy armor is surely a needed addition, but the problem at the moment is that HA is very unbalanced, basically too powerful already. That's also the reason why you cannot embed gems into HA.

Before making it craftable, we need to review the maluses heavy armor gives to spellcasting and to combat in general.

If you have any proposal on this please let us know.

[Bonifarzia]

I have the impression that the formulas for damage reduction in the limit of high armor qualities are the bigger problem than the defense differences between the armor classes. Of course that adds up to something even "worse", but there are already scenarios where you cannot damage at all a target, even if it wears light armor and its armor skill is 100 or 150 ranks lower than your weapon rank. So more powerful than invulnerable does not make a practical difference.
I would prefer a revision of the damage reduction formulas, such that a defense value is no longer subtracted from taken damage, but the damage is divided by a linear function of said defense value. That would also get rid of the problem that stacking of defensive buffs adds up towards invulnerability.

[Jawir]

@Zantatous: nice work, really! 
@Talad: in my experience, yes, armours in general, are too powerful / protective from weapons damages, but this can't be counterbalanced just adding maluses... imho, in this way you try to solve the problem by not hitting the true target: if the armours are too protective you have just to decrease their protection value. Moreover, I think that the protection value increases too much with the armour quality... probably could be better to increase how much an armour could retains his initial quality over time... This could give more than a reason to use a shield.

P.S.: as a side note, not really related to this discussion... but naming shields reminds me this idea I had... you can't cast spells while running, could be worth to reduce the possibility to cast spells only if you aren't equipping shields or weapons? After all your hands aren't free... The best implementation of this imho can be seen in Skyrim.

[Taya]

If you prevent casting while holding anything, you destroy the worth of very many weapon modifiers. (LM, peace, ways, spellweave and so on.)

My thought is that armour in general is too strong, or physical attack skills (both player and enemy) are too weak - If I get hit by something as large as an ulbernaut, around 50LA should not allow me to take zero or minimal damage. Getting hit by something that large should hurt a bit, or at least stun, no matter my skill.

Maybe some form of cap on how much damage can be blocked by armour would help? And then perhaps in addition plate could slow attacks (both physical and casting), whereas lighter armour protects less but has no downside?

[Bonifarzia]

Coming back to the problematically strong synergy of armor and magic, which has been discussed elsewhere, I still think it makes sense to lower the defense modifier for characters that get hit by a physical attack while casting spells, i.e. while not being in any combat stance. Lowering that modifier from the equivalent of normal to that of aggressive stance should make quite a big difference already.

[citizen]

I agree with Taya, if you get hit hard by an ulber in LA your bones are expected to crack. So we need to complicate things with stun, bleeding, crippled and so And we have a spell already which says it prevents opponent from casting.

[Caraick]

I think Bonifarzia raises a very valid point.  The notion of additional damage taken whilst spellcasting is something that we've been tossing around for a while, now. Personally, I think an increased damage modifier while spellcasting is a very common-sense addition, and would do wonders to help with balancing the longstanding conflict between magic and melee.  Think of it simply as an additional combat stance, wherein the user is unable to deal any physical attacks (much like Full Defensive), but has the ability to dodge/parry/evade attack, and more importantly: take additional damage from them.

There are already scenarios where you cannot damage at all a target, even if it wears light armor and its armor skill is 100 or 150 ranks lower than your weapon rank. So more powerful than invulnerable does not make a practical difference.

Again, Bonifarzia raises a very pertinent issue.  However, I'd be the first to take it a bit further than Boni has explained, and go on to highlight the fact that a player wearing HA with a skill rank of about 50 has the ability to withstand an absolutely egregious amount of damage.  The fact that LA and MA are now craftable augments this issue, but I believe the real problem here is heavy armor's extremely overpowered resistance to everything.  There's a number of ways this issue could be fixed, and these solutions would also allow for HA to be crafted, just as LA and MA are, now. 

crafting heavy armor is surely a needed addition, but the problem at the moment is that HA is very unbalanced, basically too powerful already.

Talad acknowledges a very real issue here: HA needs to be able to enjoy the same advantages that we've afforded to LA and MA, rather than simply restricting it's usage in order to balance it out. As I said, there's a number of ways that you can balance out Heavy Armor, rather than simply limiting it's functional use (i.e. no crafting, enchanting, etc.)  I think we all can agree that fixing an armor's stats is a far better means of controlling it's OP-ness than limiting it's functionality with the game mechanics. 
One method to solve this that I've proposed, alongside Bonifarzia, is as she explains below:

I would prefer a revision of the damage reduction formulas, such that a defense value is no longer subtracted from taken damage, but the damage is divided by a linear function of said defense value. That would also get rid of the problem that stacking of defensive buffs adds up towards invulnerability.

This is just one of the ways that the damage reduction formula could be tweaked to fix a number of issues.  I'd also like to point out that a damage division by linear function formula would solve the issue that we're beginning to see with enchanted armors, and would prevent characters from possessing ridiculously high resistance values to different magical ways. 

[Bonifarzia]

First, apologizes to Zantatous if my first comment derailed the topic to a rules discussion. I like the proposal and would love the see crafted platemail, not only because my character stubbornly refused to wear any other armor types for years.

If you don't mind, I pick up some of Carraick's points and clarify my own.

A defense modifier while casting spells might require a new character state, but I wonder if there is a fallback modifier to be used by the combat manager for any target that is not in a combat stance. That could be much simpler tweak for now. Maybe?

The suggestion to divide damage should just make armor and weapons more symmetric in general. Assume that inflicted damage is some function of the skill rank and weapon quality, multiplied with a few more factors (item characteristics, rolls etc.). Then it can be reasonable to divide damage simply by the same function of the target armor skill rank and armor quality. In any case, a superior character will tolerate more punishment, but never become untouchable with this approach. Might be beneficial for dagger or melee users as well.

I don't think we need a change for magic resistances, as the limitations are much more rigid. Fine, you can be immune to one way and resistant to a few, but you'll never be untouchable against all of them.

And back to Talads point: Yes, disadvantages and more diversified characteristics for different armor classes will be an awesome addition, but this really looks like a very big task. I think this one should be strongly connected with proper usage of physical and mental stamina, maybe affecting rolls (miss and fumble) indirectly based on relative depletion of stamina.

[Gilrond]

Balance can be applied in different ways. Armor itself should introduce attack penalty for example. HA prevents agile movement, and should slow down attacks. Rangers and archers aren't going to wear heavy armor to sneak and etc. HA can also hinder spell casting (that's a common thing in many RPGs), decreasing the effectiveness of spells.

Also, taking 0 damage from ulber hits doesn't make sense as was noted above. Even with the best armor, powerful hit can knock one down and crush altogether.

[Jawir]

If you prevent casting while holding anything, you destroy the worth of very many weapon modifiers. (LM, peace, ways, spellweave and so on.)

My thought is that armour in general is too strong, or physical attack skills (both player and enemy) are too weak - If I get hit by something as large as an ulbernaut, around 50LA should not allow me to take zero or minimal damage. Getting hit by something that large should hurt a bit, or at least stun, no matter my skill.

Maybe some form of cap on how much damage can be blocked by armour would help? And then perhaps in addition plate could slow attacks (both physical and casting), whereas lighter armour protects less but has no downside?

Hi Taya, I exploit your post to point out some of my thoughts:
1) Why I suggested to reduce the possibility to cast a spell only if you are not equipping weapons/shields (I was aware all those magical weapons will be useless)? This for me it's only a matter of coherence, when I noticed you can't cast spells while running I thought there are some movements involved, but if casting a spell is only a matter to pronounce some words, then there is no reason to:
    a) prevent to cast a spell if you are running;
    b) prevent someone from casting a spell if he hold weapons/shields;
    c) add maluses to spell casting if you are wearing an heavy armour (unless heavy armour requires an apple in your mouth  );
2) I think armour in general should be nerfed, there is no reason, for example, for a light armour to absorb the whole damage taken from a claymore or such even if it's q300 (the armour): after all it's always leather... and imho it could blocks damages only from daggers and such... and it should be very prone to blunt weapons...
3) About slowing down the armour wearer... some of my ideas :
    a) A leather armour could slow down the fighter only a little, but we should count STR, AG and LA skill. The stronger the char the less he is indered by the weight of the armour. The same can be argued for AG and LA skill;
        This should be applied to the chance to dodge an attack too in the same way increasing the chance to dodge an attack while increasing AG and LA skill.
        The formula should be balanced so even a char with low stat/skills has a good hit rate and dodge chance.
    b) The same as above could be applied to MA and HA but with different coefficients in a fashion the heavier the armour the less chance you have to dodge an attack and the slowest  the hit rate.

I hope to have been clear! 

[tman]

Why I suggested to reduce the possibility to cast a spell only if you are not equipping weapons/shields (I was aware all those magical weapons will be useless)? This for me it's only a matter of coherence, when I noticed you can't cast spells while running I thought there are some movements involved, but if casting a spell is only a matter to pronounce some words, then there is no reason to:
    a) prevent to cast a spell if you are running;
    b) prevent someone from casting a spell if he hold weapons/shields;
    c) add maluses to spell casting if you are wearing an heavy armour (unless heavy armour requires an apple in your mouth  );

I am under the assumption that the reason you can't cast spells while running is simply for balance.  Magic is already so powerful.  Imagine if you could cast it while simultaneously running away from your enemy at full speed.  You'd be invincible to melee users.

So, we can make up a reason why magic doesn't work when running (for example, when you're casting you're drawing magical energy but if you move too fast it dissipates before the spell is cast) but in the end the reason is just balance.  And I don't think that's a good enough reason to ban magic when something else is being help.  Especially since mage wands are held in the hand slot.