Armour Size

[Joos]

Many magic garments are made to be easily adjustable, or they adjust themselves magically to the wearer. Size should not keep characters of various kinds from using magic items.

There may be rare exceptions, especially with racial specific items.

I would be for size restrictions per size on mundane items only (normal & masterwork) but not on magic items. Racial restruictions due to the type of magic the item have been invested with is up to the DM.

[Ronan]

That DMG quote was added in to make looting easier. We won't be using it here in the case of armor, since ALFA has the opposite problem: We want to make loot less usable and valuable. The magic armors in the ABR will be under the same restrictions as mundane ones, unless someone tells me a good reason for them not to be. And "extra work" isn't a good reason, since a plugin will be generating these items for us.

Other things won't have restrictions, but a suit of half-orc platemail shrinking itself down to fit a halfling is a bit much for something with a mild enchantment to it, IMO.

[Joos]

Other things won't have restrictions, but a suit of half-orc platemail shrinking itself down to fit a halfling is a bit much for something with a mild enchantment to it, IMO.

Yea, because magic needs to have logic attached to it.

We want to make loot less usable and valuable.

I don't see how differentiating the different types of armours into size categories will adress the value of the armour. Base price is only marginally affecting small armour, and the mobs with small size rarely have enchanted armour anyway. When did you last create a goblin with an enchanted full plate?

I understand the nod to realism, however, I just feel its utteerly pointless, wont really add anything and won't fix anything.

[Ronan]

Other things won't have restrictions, but a suit of half-orc platemail shrinking itself down to fit a halfling is a bit much for something with a mild enchantment to it, IMO.

Yea, because magic needs to have logic attached to it.

Magic in ALFA does have logic attatched to it, as does magic in D&D. We want it to be as interally consistant as possible. Magic to shrink an item permanently requires an 11th level arcane caster to expend 1,500xp. Everything should have as much logic attached to it as possible, without a logical world PCs cannot make logical decisions.

I don't see how differentiating the different types of armours into size categories will adress the value of the armour.

If you can't use it, its of no value to you, and probably isn't worth as much to sell. Hence if the orc warlord's plate is magic and can't be refit to fit a PC, its useless. Thats good for us in our quest to reduce wealth drops (and remember, the loot system picks up any "slack" in saleable loot).

Builders are always free to make items however they want, of course. Currently most do place racial restrictions on their armors, and I think it would be harder to convince them not to. But tech has little control over that. This is just ABR stuff, which isn't any extra work to create.

[Audark]

While I don't see the overwhelming NEED to mandate this across the board, any armour I make will be limited by gender for certain. I'll be doing this because as far as I have seen there are many armour models that 'flip-flop' their colours between male and female.

For example you want a Blue breastplate with black chain underneath for a male, the same model on a female may very well have a black breastplate with strange blue chain underneath. I'm not sure why this is the case, but it's a fact. So I'm interested in limiting by gender simply to assure the aesthetics stay consistent

[Joos]

Limitations to race may well be good for some specific magic armours, for example bossmonsters or odd physique creatures such as abberations and such, but not something you would put on ALL armours.

As for the fashion comments between male and female armours; I usually checked how the armour appeared on both male and female phenotypes when I created them and I only restricted the use to one gender if there were bodyparts missing or if it locked ugly/odd/bad in one of the cases. Up to the creator of the armour I would say.

[White Warlock]

I recall vividly how the mithril armor magically adjusted to Bilbo's size. I recall many other fantasy books that presented magical armors adjusting to the wearer.

On the other hand, not all armors are going to be magicked in such a way, and most are not going to be magicked at all. I think it should be defaulted with size restrictions (and possibly with race restrictions since races have significant physiological differences), but that many of the higher magicked armors should have no such restrictions. Artifact armors, on the other hand, should probably all be size/race restricted. Artifact armors were almost always designed to fit specific heroes/villains and it is unlikely the enchanter wanted such items to fall into the wrong hands.


This opens up a different issue. As well as i know of the Forgotten Realms, and all the books i've read on the subject, magic is prolific. Plenty of commonplace magics, and in some areas magic is used in lieu of manual labor (basic applications). It is, however, not common to find 'powerful' magicked items, regardless of the region. By powerful, i am referring to anything of +3 or higher, having sentience, or with many additional 'empowering' abilities.

It is my firm belief that if ALFA wishes to really gain control over magicks, they should make a list of 'limited' magicked items... artifacts, if you will. Those items may be pulled from a bank of items, by the DMing staff. Such items would be marked as 'borrowed' or 'in use.' In this manner, you not only limit empowering magicks, but create greater respect for such magicks.

I do understand you have something similar to this in effect, but i also understand it is not 'finite' and such items have little to no associated history. I am wondering, as well, whether you have in place a requirement that any new 'artifacts' added to the game must be approved first.

Yes, this sounds like a lot of control, but in order for this community to truly respect magicks, we do need to instill greater respect for the rarity of said items and their uniqueness in the Realms. Also do understand, i am not advocating dramatically cutting down on such magicks, but of providing restrictions that instill in the minds of players/DMs that these items are not commonplace, and thus PCs are 'special' for having obtained such.

As well, plots associated with the ownership of said items could be presented. I recall vividly the plots my brother used to create of villains and 'competition' scheming to confiscate magicked items my characters obtained. ALFA management, to help with this plot tool, could require all artifacts borrowed from the pool also indicate which characters are presently in possession of such items.

Okay, i'm done. Go kill yourselves.

[Mulu]

*nods* I tried the "all powerful magic items should be artifacts" argument awhile back, and included the notion of curses or at least detractions for using them. Didn't fly then, but maybe your silver tongue will improve the argument.

[Ronan]

If anyone wants to know how prolific magic is in the Realms, please see the FRCS, and not someone's post (though the short answer is: its not at all common in common life, its something weilded by the pushes and movers).

I've never read any Realms fiction where armor magically adjusted to the wearer. I think the DMG quote was more for rings and headbands and things than full plate. In any case, DMs can make magically adjusting armor if they wish (and most don't nowdays), though they should probably note it in the item description or PCs may RP the armor not fitting.

As for a requirement to document especially powerful items, we already do.

[fluffmonster]

race-based restrictions are doable and most intuitive, lumped together more or less as Ronan suggests.

Hin, gnome
elf, half-elf
half-elf, human
human, HO
dwarf

I'd kinda like the non-sizing magic armor, but for the most part I don't really care about it.

[White Warlock]

I've never read any Realms fiction where armor magically adjusted to the wearer.

Hehe, do you really want me to pull out all the books from storage just to find any reference to magical armor? Sheesh... i can't recall even one of them presenting a scene where 'magical armor' was found or obtained through lewt, but i can always make the ridiculous effort just to prove you wrong.

I think the DMG quote was more for rings and headbands and things than full plate.

In all the DMG books, there was reference to magical 'clothing and armor' resizing to fit the wearer. I don't have the latest DMG book handy (somewhere in storage), so i'll have to look this up later.

In any case, DMs can make magically adjusting armor if they wish (and most don't nowdays), though they should probably note it in the item description or PCs may RP the armor not fitting.

Aye, agreed. Also, for those armors that do not fit, there should be a cost associated with resizing. Having the ability to resize armors is yet one more means to bleed money off us poor folk PCs, so why not?

As for a requirement to document especially powerful items, we already do.

Good to hear. Could i ask how this works (PM me if you don't want to bother with a derailing of this discussion).

[Ronan]

Hehe, do you really want me to pull out all the books from storage just to find any reference to magical armor?

No.

In all the DMG books, there was reference to magical 'clothing and armor' resizing to fit the wearer. I don't have the latest DMG book handy (somewhere in storage), so i'll have to look this up later.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/ma ... MagicItems
Notice it specifically mentions magic armors having different sizes.

Aye, agreed. Also, for those armors that do not fit, there should be a cost associated with resizing. Having the ability to resize armors is yet one more means to bleed money off us poor folk PCs, so why not?

I generally prefer to control wealth on the supply-side, ie put a valve on the source. That way you don't unwittingly get poorer, less farmy (because "farming" isn't always black and white) PCs with sinks which apply equally across the board. Equal sinks + unequal gain = even more unequal wealth. Much better to control the gain rates IMO. Weapon/armor damage is more attractive to me, because its a sink which scales with how often the PC fights.

Good to hear. Could i ask how this works (PM me if you don't want to bother with a derailing of this discussion).

Currently all items of over 10k in value are required to be documented in a thread. Its not always followed, so a more automated system may be put into place in NWN2, depending on technical limitations, manpower, etc.