Armor

Armor is designed to be worn by characters of any class, though certain class mechanics lend themselves to wearing heavier or lighter armor. For example, fighters and paladins tend to wear heavier armor for added protection. The lowered speed from the heavy armor is an acceptable trade off because they can do a lot of damage at melee range with massive weapons. On other hand, monks and wizards tend to wear lighter armor since speed is so critical to their attacks and spells.

Unlike weapons, armor cannot be switched during combat and players cannot prepare “sets” to swap out from the equipment screen. For this reason, decisions about the armor to wear will be largely strategic, rather than a tactical response to the current enemy.

While specific armor items can have their own names, all armor falls into a number of distinct typed categories. As one armor type improves, it does so in lockstep with other armor types. This provides an obvious progression across categories.

Armor always has sections that can be tinted by player- or designer-selected colors. These may be larger or small portions of the outfit, but as a rule, they are almost always cloth and almost never metal (unless completely enameled).

Every type of armor has a single base Damage Reduction (DR) rating, and several strengths and weaknesses against certain Damage Types, which determine its effectiveness against such attacks. Additional protections may be added through crafting. Armor with higher DR (“weight”) comes with some drawbacks, however, as the heavier armors correlate with speed penalties, affecting attack speed.

Types of Armor

Armor consists of any “body” outfits that characters wear, from simple cloth to elaborate suits of plate armor. The same piece of armor can be worn by any race, class, and gender. Similar to weapons, armor scales to its wearer’s size. However, unlike weapons, armor is not universally scaled; its racial variants are entirely separate assets.

Cloth

• Simple clothing, light and unrestrictive.

Padded

• The lightest proper armor, either an undercoat or independent suit.

Hide

• Layers of animal hide, primitive and crudely fashioned.

Leather

• Boiled, hard leather shaped into fitted pieces of armor.

Scale

• Overlapping horn or metal (or even drake) scales sewn to a cloth or leather backing.

Breastplate

• A solid breastplate with minimal backing, typically worn over ordinary clothing or light padding.

Mail

• Interlocking riveted metal links, typically in the form of a hauberk.

Brigandine

• A mid-length coat of small metal plates sandwiched between and riveted to cloth/canvas backing, typically worn with padded cloth sleeves.

Plate

• The heaviest armor, plate consists of large (usually) steel plates over mail with a light padded jacket underneath.

Armor Enhancements

To enhance armor, you must have the appropriate ingredients in your inventory. These materials may be bought, gathered, looted, or salvaged. The ingredients are usually used up during the process, but they are sometimes reusable.

All enchanting is done using three ingredients: a creature part, a plant/herb, and a gem. The counts of each ingredient may vary, but there are always three ingredients. Additionally, there may be a copper cost that’s subtracted directly from your total wealth.

Each enhancement is has an associated “cost” value. This is used in the crafting system, as well as when calculating the value of an item in copper pieces (cp). Cost values on mods are added together to derive the cp total and the value does not scale linearly.

Enchanting armor can provide a bonus in quality, secondary damage, and slaying capabilities. Each of these has it own advantages and when combined it can make a good weapon awesome. Note that armor has a limit on mods and can have no more than 1 quality mod, 3 additional mods, and 12 total points of mods.

Armor Enchantments