Sig's Custom Armors: Pieced Armor With Ranking

[JonSetanta]

No intro unless I edit one later, straight to the point this time.
Any questions I'll answer, errors I'll correct if need be, etc, later.

Sig’s Custom Armors



Armor Attributes Per Rank (round down total values)

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[br]		Bonus	Weight*	HP	Hardness		[br]Soft:		+.75	+5	5	2			[br](Padding, leather, plant, cord, poop)[br][br]Medium:		+1	+6	10	5		[br](Hide/furs, chain, wood, banded/mixed)[br][br]Hard:		+1.25	+7	10	10		[br](Scale, plate, thick steel)[br][br]		Skill/Dodge/Conc.	Granted User DR[br]Soft		-1 per 2 ranks		1 per 4 ranks[br]Medium		-3 per 4 ranks		1 per 3 ranks[br]Hard		-1 per rank		1 per 2 ranks[br]

* weight in extra pounds


Armor Forms (apply modifiers after ranks are totalled)

Outfit form
Weight: +5
Special: Movement Penalty equal to double the skill penalty, in feet, round down to nearest 5

Solid Shield form
Weight: +1
HP: +5
Special: Reduce Skill/Dodge Penalty by 1, but renders holding hand unusable for most actions


Variant Rules to be used with Sig’s Custom Armors


Skill/Dodge Penalty:

Applied to all full body movement skills when a user does not possess the Armor Training feat.

Regardless of training, this penalty is also reduced by an amount equal to the user’s Strength bonus.


Equipping Armor (Variant Rule of “Donning Armor”, PHB p123):

Placing 1 rank of armor on the body requires 10 move actions and does not provoke while doing so. Shields require 1 move action to equip.
Total actions required to equip armor are reduced by the user’s Base Attack ranks or total Craft (Armorsmithing) modifier, whichever is higher.
Assisting the armor user applies half the helper’s ranks or modifier to the user’s for this purpose, rounded down.

An armor user can spend less time than required to equip each rank of armor to a minimum of 1 move action for each rank.
Hastily equipping any individual rank of armor means that rank is not adjusted well enough to stay on; this is known as to “don hastily”.
Each rank of loose armor falls off, one by one, at the end of any action spent not performing one of the following actions:

• Remain immobile,
  
• Fix loose armor by investing the rest of the required duration for each rank
  
• Putting more armor on.

Removing armor is similar to equipping, in reverse, but instead requires 2 move actions for each rank worn.
Shields require 1 move action to place anywhere within reach or a free action to drop straight beneath the user.
Cutting straps or breaking protection to escape quickly will reduce total time down to one move action, but ruins 1d4 ranks of armor worn in the process.


Magical Armor:

When totaling bonuses for multiple ranks of armor, any Enhancement bonuses or other named bonuses to Armor Class do not stack (use highest value).
Special elemental, spell-like ability, movement, and similar properties are effective only if at least half the armor ranks worn have the same type of bonus or identical ability. These also do not stack.


Special Materials:

Each rank of special material armor is priced individually. Defenses such as Damage Reduction from Adamantine stack with any other item-based Damage Reduction, and same with other matching properties.
The benefits are only effective if at least half the armor worn is of the same type, similar to the restrictions on magical armor.


Destroyed Armor:

When a rank of armor takes enough damage to reduce HP to 0, that rank of armor is destroyed.
Armor can be targeted as if an ‘attended object’ for each rank and damaged as items. Any special armor worn provides saves or bonuses against destruction for all armor worn.
Area attacks affect all armor the user wears unless the effect was resisted or dodged.
Destroyed armor is worn until removed and incurs penalties and encumbrance, and provides only half the normal total Armor Class bonus rounded down.


Example Rankings

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[br]Armor Rank	Weight/Penalty/DR			Example[br]	Soft		Medium		Hard			[br]1	5		6		7/-1		Buckler, Light Shield, Helm[br]2	10/-1		12/-1		14/-2/DR1	Leather, Hvy Shield[br]3	15		18/-2/DR1	21/-3		Studded Leather, Hide[br]4	20/-2/DR1	24/-3		28/-4/DR2	Chain Shirt, Scale Mail, Twr Shield[br]5	25		30/-3		35/-5		Chainmail, Breastplate[br]6	30/-3		36/-4/DR2	42/-6/DR3	Splint Mail, Banded Mail[br]7	35		42/-5		49/-7		Half-plate[br]8	40/-4/DR2	48/-6		56/-8/DR4	Full plate[br]9	45		54/-6/DR3	63/-9		[br]10	50/-5		60/-7		70/-10/DR5		[br]

Movement Speed Penalties

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Armor Rank	Move Penalty	[br]		(skill penalty x2) rounded	[br]1		(2) 0			[br]2		(4) -5			[br]3		(6) -5			[br]4		(8) -10			[br]5		(10) -10			[br]6		(12) -10			[br]7		(14) -15			[br]8		(16) -15			[br]9		(18) -20			[br]10		(20) -20		[br]

updated: armor type AC bonuses

[Voss]

Ouch. I'm not sure what you're gaining from the added complexity here.

A few thoughts-
10 ranks of leather gives the same AC as 10 ranks of 'thick steel'? I assume thats what the bonus is. And then a trivial amount of DR on top of that. What happens if you want to mix types?

Is the movement penalty based on the skill penalty or the armor rank? If its armor rank, then the type of armor you wear is irrelevant. If it isn't, its very relevant, add may or may not be reduced by your strength bonus. Or at least, thats what I get out of it.

Failing a save against an area attack means that all your armor is destroyed. Pretty much every time it happens. That... sucks.

There isn't any reason donning armor wouldn't provoke AoOs. It certainly fits the basic requirements of provoking one, being a complex task that requires most of your concentration.

Magical armor needs a lot of work, as do special materials. For one, pricing. Second, you can get a +5 enhancement on one piece, then a stack of special qualities on a second piece, and get the effect of +10 armor on the cheap. Plus, masterwork needs to be addressed. Special materials- so... what does half adamantine half mithril do for you? You can seriously have both.

It seems to add a lot of complexity without a lot of benefit.

[JonSetanta]

10 ranks of leather vs 10 ranks steel: Ah, wow. That's a typo. An older version has the correct amounts in the first chart, this doesn't. I'll fix that before anything else.

move penalty: skill penalty x2, rounded to nearest 5. More Strength bonus effectively reduces penalty. Seems this is going to need some vicious editing if the info isn't clear at first.

Fail AoE save: oddly, no one (or no one I've met) rolls the supposed item saves for armor in default D&D when hit by AoEs! I figured this wouldn't be any different, maybe some house rule to define what happens is needed (unless it turns out I'm just foggy on the rules for damage effects and 'attended items)

donning & AoOs: You mean, putting on armor should provoke? How so? I figured that if someone is donning multiple ranks in a single round, that's setting up for some weird AoO interactions (like, provoke 5x with one action?)

magic & pricing: The way I saw it, pricing would be a result, not determining factor.
If a single rank is X cash and more ranks than the single rank are Y cash, Y would have to be greater than X.
By default D&D, everything is priced by the total Y without any consideration to what the item contains (when divided); this is what causes such hilarity as selling certain basic items for raw materials, which are then worth more than the completed item. Buy more of said item, sell, rinse, repeat.
By my method, if a rank of armor is priced X, then more of that armor would be X times whatever amount. No exponential numbers here.
Price would be a direct result of rank amount and type of material for each rank.
Granted, prices on armor would change from PHB, but I expected that.

multiple enhanced armor ranks: stacking rules apply, but when it comes to say "Shadow" and then a piece of "Demon Plate", I'll have to do some brainstorming.
Maybe approach this whole idea from another angle.

edit: updated missing chart values for material AC bonuses

[Voss]

Yeah, donning should provoke. Its an entirely non-combat action that requires a lot of effort. If for some reason you're doing it during combat, people should be raping you at will.

The rules for what constitutes a distracting action are somewhere, but short version- if loading a crossbow or digging something out of a pack provokes an AoO, strapping on armor definitely does.

[Catharz]

This system actually seems to run counter to the idea of modifying your armor regularly, due to the amount of math involved. It looks good for a computer game, but maybe not so good for pen and paper.

Also, doesn't piling on lots of ranks of padding give the most bang for your skill penalty buck?

Also, if you use twice the skill penalty rounded down to the nearest 5 to determine movement penalties, your speed penalties table does not match up. One rank of soft armor gives no skill penalty (but no bonuses at all). Four ranks of soft armor gives a skill penalty of two, multiplied to 4, rounded down to 0.

[JonSetanta]

OK how about this: the custom armors would be 'compiled', and grouped as a single 'unit'.
Individual ranks would then be effectively one item, negating the complexity of losing individual ranks due to damage.
Once placed on a character, it would use the bearer's saves and receive a bonus to its own saves against destruction according to the number of ranks worn.
A single roll when affected by AoE/critical hits, failure means a rank is lost according to how much damage (harder material = less chance), less math.

I'll look into the math for skill penalty/movement, I probably messed up that bottom chart.

[ckafrica]

I figure you don't need material to generally change the the effectiveness of armor. I wrote up a change where you just of generic light medium and heavy armor at it can be made of whatever you want. material should largely be flavour. pick the mechanic that you prefer for your character and if you want your heavy armor to be dinosaur hide or clam shells or dessicated moose poo; that's up to you.

I tried to balance it so someone with maxed out dex for each level of armor would be equal into total ac bonus. IF your dex is +6 when wearing light armor +2 you balance with the guy wearing +8 heavy armor with no possible dex bonus. the skill and movement penalties stayed because paying for high dex should be compensated for as it is a much more serious investment than buying heavy armor with cash

[JonSetanta]

A redo of the "max Dex bonus" mechanic is much needed though.
Hence my version of a "Dodge penalty", which is also applied to physical skills normally hindered by armor, and this penalty also functions as Arcance Spell Failure (Concentration check)