The 'value' of armour

Dorn · Post by **Dorn** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 12:30 pm

*throws out an idea for discussion*

Today in ALFA you can kill a few orcs, kill a few wolves, sell their hides and go buy some plate mail from the shop.

Gold is very easy to get in some places (especially with cheap healing or some handy priests about) and i'm not sure how much the consistent base mod approach will really help. It will a bit...but not when we have 50 or so builders/DMs doing things in there interpretation of things.

Are we gong to take any steps to make supposedly rare things like plate mail hard to get?

1500 for plate mail in alfa means many people own it by about level 3..and the vast majority of players who can use plate...do. This in my mind is wrong. It should be hard to get.

So i would propose that half and full plate and magic armour/weapons are not available in shops.

General arguments.
1) It's not canon, Faerun is high magic and the big cities should have it in shops at least!
Response: I'm not saying shops dont have it., I'm saying you have to get a DM to give it to you. That way checks can be made to ensure we dont have a blow out of every slightly heavy fighter/cleric wearing magic full plate and magic towershields spring attacking their way through faerun as we do now. They can also control wealth through appropriate pricing (ic there is a metal shortage so it's double - ooc you are 2 times over the wealth limit)

2) It's too much work for the DMs.
Response: about 50% of us can make it in the toolset and send it to them if we want. And it will be in the md anyway..just need to 'create' it and hand to player. And there will only be so many players per server per timezone.

3) But i dont want to wait!
Response: a few days? You survived without it up until now.

Or in fact ANYTHING over 1000gc could be treated the same.

/random idea ends

Inaubryn · Post by **Inaubryn** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 3:06 pm

Once again in NWN2 it seems we're gettin' only gold to deal with. Now whether it will be easier to create silver and other coins remains to be seen. But, goin' off of the fact that gold is the only coin type to be reported that's in, here's my thinkin' on the subject. Wolf pelts and bearskins and goblin ears and whatever else this NPC guy will pay for should A.) have a limited volume. I mean the merchants can only buy so many, they only have so much gold. And, B.) They should purchase them for no more than 1-3gp. If a player wants to try and farm 500-1500 elk in order to get enough gp to buy fullplate, then let 'em at it and we boot that ass when we catch 'em.

Point is, real money in ALFA should be in earned in two ways... adventurin' and mercantilism. This is where you earn the vast majority of coin from in the Realms. And we should set ALFA up to reflect this. We as DMs run adventures anyway, where PCs go after treasure and ancient artifacts and such that we as DMs give out. And if a PC wants to be a merchant we can help set this up too. And help them craft and/or sell their goods. Which should be 25-33% of what the DnD/FR source material says. This is how we control wealth in ALFA as DMs. If we do this from jump there will be no need for wealth tools and extensively written out wealth standards (no offense T-Dawg).

That is all. Carry on.

wvincenti · Post by **wvincenti** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 3:50 pm

Dorn wrote:*throws out an idea for discussion*

Today in ALFA you can kill a few orcs, kill a few wolves, sell their hides and go buy some plate mail from the shop.

Gold is very easy to get in some places (especially with cheap healing or some handy priests about) and i'm not sure how much the consistent base mod approach will really help. It will a bit...but not when we have 50 or so builders/DMs doing things in there interpretation of things.

I'd suggest fixing those places rather than pulling items off of the shelf.

-Bill

dergon darkhelm · Post by **dergon darkhelm** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 3:50 pm

I don't see why this is any different than anything else covered by the wealth standards.

If a PC wants to buy full plate, is within the wealth guidelines and acquired the coin within the rules then so be it.

Fionn · Post by **Fionn** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 4:47 pm

Three points to reduce the ubiquity of Full Plate.

1. TPI has never had it. It makes no sense in a seafaring culture to keep it in stock. Sell it only where it makes sense.

2. Dwarfen Full Plate don't fit anybody but Dwarves. Set it all to a single race. Humans won't be able to buy it in Elven cities, and vice-versa.

3. No two Humans are built alike. I'd tag any drop/off-the-shelf as -1 AC & -1 Attack. It will need to be custom fit to the PC if they wish it to be the body-glove of steel it needs to be. It is possible we can do this via Crafting scripts to put a serious hook for PC armorsmiths.

dergon darkhelm · Post by **dergon darkhelm** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 5:23 pm

Fionn wrote:
2. Dwarfen Full Plate don't fit anybody but Dwarves. Set it all to a single race. Humans won't be able to buy it in Elven cities, and vice-versa..

If you want to make a racial distinction for dwarven mail then you should tag *all races*. ( PnP just has S, M, and L ---i'd prefer to stay with that).

Be sure to differentiate "dwarven sized" armor from "dwarven crafted" armor too.

Mulu · Post by **Mulu** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 5:38 pm

Fionn wrote:3. No two Humans are built alike. I'd tag any drop/off-the-shelf as -1 AC & -1 Attack. It will need to be custom fit to the PC if they wish it to be the body-glove of steel it needs to be. It is possible we can do this via Crafting scripts to put a serious hook for PC armorsmiths.

As much as I tend to oppose nerfs, I really like this idea. I also think that any armor dropped from a human/demi-human/humanoid should be damaged, since you had to go through that armor to kill them. And the sale price for that damaged item should be very low.

Of course, I also think that *all* armor should be race restricted, due to obvious size and shape differences between the races, and those race restrictions should include the humanoid races. And that is canon since 1st edition (though 3e opts for a simplified SML). However, I'm sure it's a bit of a hassle, and may not be worth it.

An armorsmith may be able to take that material and repair/resize it for you, at a cost less than buying it new, if the size difference isn't too great, e.g. elf to human. Again, the hassle factor has to be considered, but this is one form of realism I wouldn't mind, since there is no "grinding" associated with it.

Spider Jones · Post by **Spider Jones** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 6:17 pm

From the SRD (and Player's Handbook 3.5)

Full Plate

The suit includes gauntlets, heavy leather boots, a visored helmet, and a thick layer of padding that is worn underneath the armor. Each suit of full plate must be individually fitted to its owner by a master armorsmith, although a captured suit can be resized to fit a new owner at a cost of 200 to 800 (2d4×100) gold pieces.

Overfilled Cup · Post by **Overfilled Cup** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 6:34 pm

What a huge retrofit or expansion to the current way of building. Is the gain worth the delays in building time ? As for making it race specfic or whatever your talking about a style choice and just taking the ability for pcs to choose what appearance they wish to play by making them go for just a small portion of the gear available. Im not sure I can go for this when Im building custom gear for shops.

I am certain the monsters we add to the game wont be nerfed so beware hamstringing pcs too much.

Swift · Post by **Swift** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 6:46 pm

Mulu wrote:As much as I tend to oppose nerfs, I really like this idea. I also think that any armor dropped from a human/demi-human/humanoid should be damaged, since you had to go through that armor to kill them. And the sale price for that damaged item should be very low.

There should, however, be a chance of it not being damaged at all or being only slightly damaged. Afterall, if your wearing full plate and i cut your head clean off, your body armor is still perfectly fine, just covered in blood.

Fionn · Post by **Fionn** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 6:59 pm

Even if there is a 2" rent in the breastplate, I can pound that out in ~ 5 minutes with a mace. -1AC more than covers that. The real effect of battle damage on a suit of plate is lack of mobility. Pick-hammers were made to smash the joints until the bearer was unable to move, then you flip it over and use the pick.

Reality aside, -1AC/-1Attack should more than urge folk to get the suit refitted. As for OCs issue with retrofit, there really isn't one. If we go with *every* suit needs to match your race, we simply add a Full Plate and Half Plate item per (sub)race to the HAK. We now add a script that puts a -1/-1 onEquip unless the item has a String variable that matches the PC name. It's pretty trivial to have the crafting scripts, NPC Smith convo & DM wand set this variable. The only glitch would be a UMD skill high enough to overcome the racial tag - if I catch a Hin in HOrc Full Plate I'll handle that then.

This system *requires* standards in building however. The ACR would handle the -1/-1, but *every* server would need to ensure they dropped only racial Plate. They would also need to make sure they sold only the racial Plate that made sense for their server. You might be able to find Halfling Full Plate in Waterdeep, but it's certainly not going to be a common item.

Overfilled Cup · Post by **Overfilled Cup** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 7:41 pm

The retrofit issue is more of one if I want to make a set of black armor with spikey shoulders available in my shop I either have to make it available for only one race (I can see a scenario where Gnomes have to travel across several servers to find wearable gear) or I have to make the set 6 or 7 times or whatever once for each race rinse and repeat this several times and the shop is a bloated mess.

Thats more my issue.

Everything will be built to human..Some dwarf..some elven..the others will find it hard to find gear that fits. This would not just apply to platemail I would also asume as the same can be said of chainmail and leathers for race specificity.

Fionn · Post by **Fionn** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 7:55 pm

Chain is remarkably adaptive. Leather (carboilie) less so, but IG we can ignore this.

Your shoppe only needs to stock basic Plate. Your shoppe will stock Plate for the races that commonly require it in your town. In a Dwarven citadel, this will only be Dwarven. In a Human city, this would only be Human. In a Hin town, this may be none at all (unless there is a war that requires Hins in Plate).

For colors we have IG dyes. It would be nice to have access to the full pallette, but *shrugs*.

For styles we have N/PC Armorsmiths. The same scripts should be available to both in some fashion.

If the goal of this is to make Plate rare below 3rd level or so, I really don't see a need to ensure every PC out there has easy access to a race/color/style custom fit to their PC. You will see a lot of basic silver Plate unless the PC has gone to the effort to change this. If this requires a DM manually swap out the suit, I'm fine with this.

dergon darkhelm · Post by **dergon darkhelm** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 8:07 pm

Fionn wrote: Your shoppe only needs to stock basic Plate. Your shoppe will stock Plate for the races that commonly require it in your town. .......

If the goal of this is to make Plate rare below 3rd level or so......

I see the likely downside of this as instead of limitation by character level this ends up as limitation by race, particualry negatively affecting the gnome/hin lovers out there.

Fionn · Post by **Fionn** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 8:51 pm

You mean the ones with a size bonus to AC and Attack and a 30' move in heavy armor?

A Land Far Away

The 'value' of armour

The 'value' of armour

Re: The 'value' of armour