A new look at armour.

[Belanos]

This looks like a really cool idea. I've never liked the way armour worked in AD&D - a nimble character wants to wear plate armour because it aids his dodging ability??      A rehaul is definitely overdue. If Dex = A/C and Armour = Dam resistance it makes a lot more sense. Good luck Belanos!

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So far it's working out fairly well. I just had a character with a -2 movement penalty, and he was noticably slower than the rest of the party. But not so much so that it will be a major handicap. And the damage resistance is working as well, at least in IWD2. I keep seeing a certain amount of damage being resisted, but not all the time. I'm not sure if it works in BG2 since I don't think they have that message come up, they just mention the total damage. I haven't played enough to be certain though.

 

Frankly I don't understand why no one's thought of this before, especially the game developers. It just makes sense that the heavier the armour, the slower a character is going to move. And the damage reduction makes sense as well. The same blow on someone with leather is going to do a lot more damage than if they were wearing plate.

[Belanos]

why not just use Monte Cook's method from Unerthed Arcanna 3.5?

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Huh? Please elaborate, I haven't a clue what you're talking about.

[SimDing0]

I've tried implementing it before, but it was way hard to balance the damage reduction. You can probably do a better job.

[Belanos]

I've tried implementing it before, but it was way hard to balance the damage reduction. You can probably do a better job.

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I'm just keeping it to a minimum, so it doesn't become to overpowering. In IWD2 Ease of Use, it was set at the same level as AC but I thought it was way to much. I found ranged weapons were pretty much useless with those settings. The most I'm doing is a reduction modifier of 2, plus it's set so it doesn't happen all the time. So far it seems to keep things within balance, my characters still take a beating on a regular basis, and my Archers etc. are still functional. And it's definitely making some battles harder to win.

 

PS: That should a maximum of 3 damage reduction, one point for each armour weight class.

[Guest Guest]

Huh? Please elaborate, I haven't a clue what you're talking about.

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See the 'table' in the above post. To determine the armor's DR divide the armor's normal armor bonus by 2 (round down). To determine the armor's new armor bonus subtract the DR from the normal armor bonus.

 

example: Studded leather a normal armor bonus of +3. the DR would be 1/- (half of 3 rounded down) and a new armor bonus of +2 (3 minus 1).

 

An armor's enhancement bonus adds increases its armor bonus to AC but has no effect on its DR.

 

example: a +3 chain shirt adds +5 to AC and grants DR of 2/-

[Belanos]

See the 'table' in the above post.  To determine the armor's DR divide the armor's normal armor bonus by 2 (round down).  To determine the armor's new armor bonus subtract the DR from the normal armor bonus.

 

example: Studded leather a normal armor bonus of +3.  the DR would be 1/- (half of 3 rounded down) and a new armor bonus of +2 (3 minus 1).

 

An armor's enhancement bonus adds increases its armor bonus to AC but has no effect on its DR. 

 

example: a +3 chain shirt adds +5 to AC and grants DR of 2/-

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That's not a bad idea. The damage reduction would be considered part of the overall armour class. I'll have to keep that in mind.

[Zyraen]

IIRC correctly I have read somewhere on a forum that low percentages are treated differently by the game than middle ones. A 1% chance happens more often than a 15% due to how the game makes sure it happens at all. Can anyone confirm/comment? This would actually make it more likely to be hit in plate than in leather, if that was true.

I created custom items for my NPCs initially by providing a few special powers, then setting them to lower and lower %tages so that the upgraded ones had the highest %tage. The lowest %tage was 0% for the initial ones, I just was lazy to remove the effect.

 

Interestingly, the effect (stun 6 seconds) actually happened o.O despite being set to 0% on the initial item. So there's probably some truth in this about the game ensuring it happens.

[Guest Guest]

@ Belanos

 

"Frankly I don't understand why no one's thought of this before, especially the game developers. It just makes sense that the heavier the armour, the slower a character is going to move. And the damage reduction makes sense as well. The same blow on someone with leather is going to do a lot more damage than if they were wearing plate"

 

I think there is some suggestion the developers toyed with this idea - some plate armours in the game have an unmentioned -2 movement penalty, possibly as a legacy of some encumbrance rule... I suppose damage resistence for armour would be too much of a radical departure from the standard AD&D rules. Looking forward to the fruits of your labour!

[Belanos]

See the 'table' in the above post.  To determine the armor's DR divide the armor's normal armor bonus by 2 (round down).  To determine the armor's new armor bonus subtract the DR from the normal armor bonus.

 

example: Studded leather a normal armor bonus of +3.  the DR would be 1/- (half of 3 rounded down) and a new armor bonus of +2 (3 minus 1).

 

An armor's enhancement bonus adds increases its armor bonus to AC but has no effect on its DR. 

 

example: a +3 chain shirt adds +5 to AC and grants DR of 2/-

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There's a couple of problems with this approach. First of all, it won't work in BG2 since AC numbers decrease. So you'll end up with less damage reduction with heavier armour. It works with IWD2 since the numbers increase, but I think once you get to AC numbers of 10 or more, the damage reduction would be to high. I think having a value of 5 would be to much. Archers would be pretty much useless that's for sure. Only high damage hits would really do anything, and low damage creatures would be totally ineffective against some of your party members.

[Belanos]

@ Belanos

Looking forward to the fruits of your labour!

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Well don't be looking for a mod anytime soon, I'm mainly doing this for my own use. I haven't a clue how to use WeiDu or to set things up for other people to use, and at the moment I'm in no hurry to learn how. One of the reasons why I started this thread was to discuss the issue, and hope that some of the more experienced modders might get a useful idea from it.

[Guest Guest]

There's a couple of problems with this approach. First of all, it won't work in BG2 since AC numbers decrease. So you'll end up with less damage reduction with heavier armour. It works with IWD2 since the numbers increase, but I think once you get to AC numbers of 10 or more, the damage reduction would be to high. I think having a value of 5 would be to much. Archers would be pretty much useless that's for sure. Only high damage hits would really do anything, and low damage creatures would be totally ineffective against some of your party members.

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This is for the 3.X armor system (which IWD2 uses), though it could be converted. Also, an armor's DR, will *never* be higher that the value listed on the table I posted ealier. Any magical armor only adds its '+' value to AC.

 

For instance the Chainmail +2 item in IWD2 (00CHAN03.ITM) would be changed to:

 

Medium Armor

Armor Bonus: +5

Damage Reduction: 2/-

Max Dex Bonus: +2

Armor Check Penalty: -4

Arcane Spell Failure: 30%

Weight: 35 lb.

[Belanos]

This is for the 3.X armor system (which IWD2 uses), though it could be converted.  Also, an armor's DR, will *never* be higher that the value listed on the table I posted ealier.  Any magical armor only adds its '+' value to AC.

 

For instance the Chainmail +2 item in IWD2 (00CHAN03.ITM) would be changed to:

 

Medium Armor

Armor Bonus: +5

Damage Reduction: 2/-

Max Dex Bonus:  +2

Armor Check Penalty:  -4

Arcane Spell Failure:  30%

Weight: 35 lb.

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Yeah OK. The problem was that much of the armour in the game wasn't using a + value, it just gives a name and a base AC. But using the Plate/Half Plate default would give me a maximum DR of 3 anyway. And in the BG games I could just add those DR values to the AC. That should work.

 

It's going to suck having to go back and change everything again though. I've already restarted the game umpteen times this last week making various changes here and there.

 

Oh well, if it adds more balance to the game.

[Guest Guest]

I'm not 100% familar with IWD2, but if you need better info on the armors you try looking in the SRD

[Belanos]

I'm not 100% familar with IWD2, but if you need better info on the armors you try looking in the SRD

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I worked it out. I just subtracted the DR value I already had before from the current AC, then made the effect happen 100% of the time. I haven't played with it yet, but I think it should work OK. It should make things a bit more balanced anyway; my party will get hit more often, but they won't take as much damage each time they do. It could actually make the game harder in fact, I'll have to wait and see.

[Belanos]

Well I don't think the Damage reduction is working in BG2. It's hard to tell since it doesn't give me any text message indicating it. But just recently, while starting a BG1 Tutu game, I was hit by a Diseased Gibberling for 8 points of damge. It seems to me that with DR on top of that it was one hell of a hit, much higher than a Gibberling is capable of. There is another option I can try though. There's a spell effect version of damage reduction that I can try as well, maybe that will work.

 

And I don't think the THACO penalty for Missile weapons works either. I noticed while fooling around with the movement rate that when adding a negative in Cumulative Modifier mode, that the minus sign would be ignored. I think the same was happening with the THACO, since my main character, who should have been fairly useless with missiles, was scoring a number of hits. The only work around is to go with a flat modifier, but then the character wearing the armour will never gain any increases in their THACO for Missiles as their levels increase.