Talk:Armour
Examples
Hard Leather Armour provides 4 points of Worn FT Protection.
Fire Armour provides 4+4/rank Aura Ablative Damage Reduction vs Magical Fire.
Rk 11 Armour of Earth provides 1 point of Natural Damage Reduction.
Funky shield when Wielded provides 1 FT Protection to attacks from front two hexes.
Funky magical armour is Worn and provides 10 FT prot, 5 EN prot, 3 Magical DR, 3 DR vs Undead Draining.
Funky cloak is Worn and provides 5 FT Protection.
Magic Ring provides a daily Aura of 10 Ablative DR vs Magic & Physical
Our Hero with Funky Amour, Shield & Cloak, Magic Ring, rk 5 Fire Armour, rk 11 AoE has:
- 20 ablative vs fire (Fire Armour)
- 10 ablative vs all (ring)
- 11 or 12 off FT blows (1 from AoE + 10 from armour (greater than 5 from cloak) + sometimes 1 from shield)
- 6 off EN blows (AoE + Armour)
- 3 off all magical damage (Armour)
When hit by 40 points of Dragon Flames, the Aura applies first, 20 vs Fire is more than 10 vs All so it applies reducing damage by 20. Then the spell is resisted reducing damage by half to 10. The Wielded shield doesn't help. Worn armour reduces by 3. No Natural protection from magic so net damage applied is 7.
I feel that this is a significant change to the stacking rules which allows considerably more stacking than we currently have, rather than a clarification. --Bernard (talk) 19:15, 20 February 2014 (MST)
Really.
Would you care to clarify your position or are you stacking objections?
Jim Arona
The proposal sets up four layers of 'same bonus' stacking which currently isn't possible by default, obviously special exceptions can apply.
So this makes it a significant change to what currently exists, rather than simply clarifying things.
--Bernard (talk) 04:05, 21 February 2014 (MST)
Stephen is talking about non-standard defenses. Protection in the rule book comes from only two sources, Armour and spells. Damage Reduction is discussed only for Shapechangers and Wraithcloak. Endurance armour cannot be found there, nor can Spell Armour. There is some mention of Damage Absorption, but it is unclear whether this means anything different to Protection. Natural Armour is a racial ability which we have, by convention, allowed to stack with Protection and some people also allow it to apply vs Endurance damage, treating it like Endurance armour (not that I do, however).
I would like to know what the motivating force for this is; is it
- to reduce pc defences by stealth (i.e. nerfing)?
- to make DMs create items which adhere to conventions?
- to make it easier to administer as a DM?
I'm opposed to 1 & 2. I'm not even particularly for 3.
1) Nerfing is, at best, a temporary measure until imaginative players come up with alternatives. If regularly stymied, however many take it in their stride, some will become frustrated and leave the game.
2) Enforcing loot conventions on DMs may frustrate our most imaginative DMS, who may take the opportunity to go elsewhere. I would feel encouraged to do this, anyway.
3) I can sympathise with DMs who really don't need the hassle of adjudicating unclear write ups in moments of high drama. On the other hand, interesting games inevitably create these situation so I guess that's just part of the deal.
I won't be bound by any convention, really. If I want to give a character an eyebrow of protection which provides a point of Damage Reduction stacking with everything including a nasal hair of protection that does the same thing, weil, I will.
With respect to difficult write ups, I used to contact DMs about them but I don't do that any more; it seems to cause offense. Instead, if I don't understand a write up I administer it to the best of my ability or I just don't honour it at all. In addition, there are some things I don't want in my game - chain mail bikinis will never work and I withdraw any benefit of the doubt for write ups that I think are unreasonable or even out and out rorts. And if a write up demands behaviour of me that I find unenjoyable or boring, I am simply not doing it and I don't give a damn how congruent it is with the rules.
So,I guess my two-penn'orth is this: I prefer that a write up be clear, easy to understand and respect the next DM who will have to administer it. On the other hand, I like write ups that are interesting and weird if appropriate. If Stephen's syntax helps formalise people's ideas and makes things easier, then I'm fine with it, as far as it goes. I am not interested in an approach which supports ennui.
Jim Arona
I like the idea of creating a common set of descriptors for Armour.
The game is evolving and items/abilities are limited to the rules, so the descriptors shouldn't be either.
I would however prefer to retain as many existing descriptors as possible, amalgamating if required.
- FT PROT rather than FP
- EN PROT rather than EP, which is already used for Experience Points
- I dont like 'Damage Reduction', feels too much like Space Opera, but i cannot think of a better term.
I like the clarity of Bernard's example, my main concern is that it will take so long at run time to resolve every blow and spell, which is boring.
--Ian Wood (talk) 18:42, 22 February 2014 (MST)
