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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Spatzimaus" data-source="post: 3321423" data-attributes="member: 3051">Okay, in the last couple weeks I've been working on a preliminary version of the 2-component system that includes a partial armor-as-DR system.  Here's what I have; unresolved issues will be listed at the end.Feedback is really needed, especially on the costs.  Yes, I know it's a long, long post, and it gets away from the simplified 3E philosophy of keeping all math simple enough to do in your head, but I still think the system needed a serious overhaul.If you don't want to read the whole system, just comment on the revised base armor stats, given after the dashed line.  By themselves, they were designed to make every armor type worthwhile.  There's nothing like the 3E chainmail, where it was inferior in every way to the breastplate (or half-plate to full plate); each armor has its own niche.The Spatzwold Composite Armor SystemEvery armor consists of three ingredients.Primary components are the armor pieces covering the most critical areas of the body, or which form the primary ingredient.Secondary components are the other armor pieces; in some cases they cover the arms and legs, in others they're just an occasional component.Fittings are the remainder; generally made of cheaper ingredients, they're the padding under the armor, the straps holding the armor plates together, and any nonessential materials.  The only thing the Fittings depend on is the weight class of the armor (Light, Medium, Heavy).For the materials needed for the Primary and Secondary components, we separate each into our three type categories, Hard, Flexible, and Soft.To explain the Primary/Secondary split: A chain shirt might be a Flexible Primary with a Soft Secondary, where the chain is covering the critical parts and leather covers the rest.  Studded Leather, on the other hand, is a Soft Primary with a Flexible Secondary; the metal helps protection, but it's clearly not the primary ingredient.So, to construct an armor, you select one of the three Primaries, one of the three Secondaries (or "None" if you had a Soft Primary), and based on the combination you have a certain amount of Fittings dependent on your weight class.  Add the three sets of bonuses together.Exotic materials, as detailed in the original post, can be used for the Primary or Secondary material, adding their own bonuses, and several of these alter which weight class is then used.  For example, if you're making a Breastplate out of Mithral and Fine Leather, you'll add the Light set of bonuses/costs instead of the Medium ones, because it's now a Light armor.  Making Fittings out of exotic materials does not bestow bonuses, although more complex/expensive fittings will be needed for more difficult materials.The ten components:PrimarySoft: 0 AC, (1 + H/5) DR, -2 MaxDEX, 0 ACP, 5% SF, wt. 4 lbs.Flexible: 1 AC, (1 + H/5) DR, -4 MaxDEX, -1 ACP, 10% SF, wt. 12 lbs.Hard: 3 AC, (H/10) DR, -6 MaxDEX, -2 ACP, 10% SF, wt. 20 lbs.SecondaryNone: Obviously, no bonuses or penalties.Soft: 0 AC, (1 + H/5) DR, -2 MaxDEX, 0 ACP, 5% SF, wt. 4 lbs.Flexible: 1 AC, (H/5) DR, -3 MaxDEX, -2 ACP, 10% SF, wt. 10 lbs.Hard: 3 AC, (H/10) DR, -4 MaxDEX, -3 ACP, 15% SF, wt. 14 lbs.FittingsLight: No bonuses, weight 8 lbs.Medium: +2 DR, -1 ACP, 5% SF, weight 16 lbs.Heavy: 1 AC, +2 DR, -2 ACP, 10% SF, weight 24 lbs.The logic was that leather is a purely "ablative" material; it doesn't prevent a strike from hitting you, it just mitigates its effects.  That's why bikers wear leather jackets.  Chain, the classic "flexible" material, is similar, although it can occasionally turn a blow.  Plate, on the other hand, is all about reducing the chances of a hit, but one that gets through a chink will do more or less full damage.Generally speaking, the Primary material (torso) limits your MaxDEX more, while the limb coverage restricts Armor Check and Somatic Failure more.  The numbers were carefully chosen so that you didn't have redundancy like Soft/Hard and Hard/Soft having the same stats.For a user of a size other than medium, only the Fittings weights vary; for anything below Small it's x1/4, for Small, it's x1/2, for Dwarves it's x3/4, for Large it's x1.5, Huge is x2, each additional size adds x1.  Generally speaking, Fittings weights are about half of the final product for a Medium wearer.Weights are those of the raw materials needed; the finished products will weigh slightly less.  For the Primary and Secondary materials it's 6 lbs per AC and 2 lbs per "average" DR, where H=5 for Soft and H=10 for the others.  Fitting weights are hard-set.  The DC of the final armor is +1 per AC and +1/2 per average DR, rounded UP.Most of the DRs depend on the material's Hardness.  Keep all fractions until the end; if you're making Full Plate (Hard/Hard) out of an H=15 material, you get 1.5 + 1.5 = 3.0 DR.  Armor DR is untyped, ie DR 3/-, although anything that reduces or bypasses object Hardness (sonic damage, or Adamantium halves it) does the same to armor DR.  It stacks with all other forms of DR.-------------------------------------------The end result (and the DRs assume H=10 for metals and H=5 for leathers, as usual), with differences than the PHB listed in bold:LightPadded (Soft/None): DC 11, 0 AC + 2 DR, MaxDEX 8, ACP 0, SF 5%, 10 lbs.Leather (Soft/Soft): DC 12, 0 AC + 4 DR, MaxDEX 6, ACP 0, SF 10%, 15 lbs.Studded (Soft/Flexible): DC 13, 1 AC + 4 DR, MaxDEX 5, ACP -2, SF 15%, 20 lbs.Chain Shirt (Flexible/Soft): DC 14, 1 AC + 5 DR, MaxDEX 4, ACP -1, SF 15%, 25 lbs.MediumScale (Soft/Hard): DC 15, 2 AC + 5 DR, MaxDEX 4, ACP -4, SF 25%, 30 lbs.Chain (Flexible/Flexible): DC 16, 2 AC + 7 DR, MaxDEX 3, ACP -4, SF 25%, 35 lbs.Breastplate (Hard/Soft): DC 16, 3 AC + 5 DR, MaxDEX 2, ACP -3, SF 20%, 30 lbs.HeavyBanded (Flexible/Hard): DC 17, 4 AC + 6 DR, MaxDEX 2, ACP -6, SF 35%, 40 lbs.Half-Plate (Hard/Flexible): DC 18, 5 AC + 5 DR, MaxDEX 1, ACP -6, SF 30%, 45 lbs.Full Plate (Hard/Hard): DC 18, 6 AC + 4 DR, MaxDEX 0, ACP -7, SF 35%, 50 lbs.It's a lot to take in, but after my friends and I looked through them, we realized that each of these armors now had something going for it.  Medium armors are noticeably stronger than before, especially Chainmail, which now has the highest DR in the game (make it out of a material with Hardness 25, and it gives 13 DR!).  Full plate got noticeably worse, although it's still the highest AC, while the other heavy armors are actually viable.And because rare materials and masterwork now multiply cost instead of strictly adding, being cheaper is now a substantial benefit; sure, Scale Mail has a higher MaxDEX than chainmail or breastplates, but its biggest advantage is its COST (~100gp instead of the ~200 the other two cost), which saves you a lot when you're making something out of rare ingredients.Also, we basically assumed that the PHB "Full Plate" was already a masterwork, which explained why it was so much better than half-plate.  Our masterwork equivalents add +1 MaxDEX on any Primary and +1 ACP on any Secondary, which returns you back to the PHB stats for full plate.Craft DC is the base DC listed above, plus half the DC modifier (round UP) of the Primary material, plus half the DC modifier (round DOWN) of the Secondary material.  So, full plate made with really rare metals might require a Craft check of 38 or higher, which needs a 20th-level smith and some assistants.The main ongoing issue is Cost.  It's easy enough to estimate some new base costs of the armors (Padded 10, Leather 15, Studded goes up to 75ish, Scale to 100, Chain to 200, Full Plate and Half-Plate go way down to 400/500ish, most of the others don't move much), but to tie into our exotic material system, it's a bit more complex.I've tried a bunch of different equations, and the problems come down to this:> I need the Fittings cost to scale up appropriately, so they don't become a non-issue.  Similarly, Secondaries should cost a little less than the corresponding Primary.> "Masterwork" items (those made from Fine Steel and Fine Leather) should still be relatively cheap; the "book" value was PHB+150gp, and I'm looking for something more like 5x or 10x the base value.> Items made from the rarest materials (ones costing 300 gp per lb or more, with DC modifiers of +20ish) should cost less than 100k, the cost of making a +5 heavy fortification armor of DOOM!!! style of enchantment.  If the mundane armor costs more than an enchantment that has superior effects, people won't want the rare materials as much.  (On the other hand, making it too cheap screws things up as well.)The equation I have now is horribly over-complex, but it at least gets the values in the right ballpark: "masterworks" cost 120 (leather) to 2800 (full plate), while armors made out of the rarest materials cost 20-40k.Cost = ((Mat_P*Wt_P) * Cost_P * (DC_T / (10 + MDC_P)) * 6 + ((Mat_S*Wt_S) * Cost_S * (DC_T / (10 + MDC_S)) *4 + ((Mat_F*Wt_F) * (Cost_P + Cost_S) * (DC_T / (20 + (MDC_P+MDC_S)) *2where DC_T is the base DC of the armor (11-18), MDC are the material DC modifiers, Cost is in gp/lb, Wt is a weight multiplier (1.0 for most metals, 0.5 for things like Mithral), and Mat is the material weight listed in the table above (20 lbs for Hard Primary, etc.)I'm trying to find a simpler version that still gives the scalings I want.</blockquote>

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