Armors after Reboot

[Flatted Fifth]

After you guys re-balance and reconfigure everything, regardless of whether you go with the FR epic system, I suggest that the special armor materials that give potentially much higher than normal AC and the druid-friendly armors be reconfigured. I've found +4 normal material armors of all types that I can't give away because everyone (understandably) wants Entropium or Darkleaf.

In the original game and PnP some armors and materials are designed to be a bit rubbish but easily affordable and the player base is only 4 people or so in PnP and 1 person in the original NWN. A much better approach going forwardfor this environment is to redesign armors so that there's something for everyone and the actual AC of all armors is roughly the same, it's the other factors like weight and how much Dex is involved in your ac and skill penalty, etc, that differs. so that if you happen to find a +4 hide armor from RIG it's not rubbish. It would also make balancing PVE easier, I should think.

Armor Types:
All armors will have a base AC + Max Dex bonus equal to 9. So.....
Full Plate would be 9/0
Half Plate 8/1
Banded Mail 7/2
Chainmail 6/3
Breastplate 5/4
Chain Shirt 4/5
Studded Leather 3/6
Leather 2/7
Padded 1/8
Obviously differences in weight and arcane spell failure and skill penalties remain the same as they are now.

Armor Materials:
Materials should NOT increase the overall AC, but instead offer different bonuses:
Adamantine: Damage Resistance, + 10% Spell Failure
Mithral: 80% Weight, -2 skill penalties, -5% Spell Failure (mithral no longer gives higher dex bonus)
Entropium: 120% weight, -3 skill penalties, -10% Spell Failure (entropium no longer gives higher dex bonus)
Darkleaf: 60% weight, -2 skill penalties, -15% spell Failure, Druid-Friendly Chain Shirt, Medium, and Heavy Armor replacement
Leafweave: Same as Darkleaf but replaces Padded, Leather, and Studded Leather

Armor Feats:
Remove Armor Optimization and Shield Specialty Feats. They basically amount to a feat tax because in this game of all or nothing damage 1 point of AC can mean the difference between taking 100 damage and taking none. They need to go and encounters balanced without them. Especially if we go to the FR epic system where everyone's max lvl is 20. Optionally I would suggest that Armor Optimization feats become a Fighter-Only feat that requires 10 levels of Fighter for Armor Opt 1 and 20 levels of Fighter for Armor Opt 2. Or free bonus feats for Fighter 10 and Fighter 20. Someone who pure classes fighter should get some extra AC to make up for their lack of other abilities.

Anyway, that's my $0.02

[Young Werther]

I don't think heavy armor and shield users need a nerfing, especially not the people with more free feats than powerful spells handy. Also there's already plenty of incentive to roll a character who doesn't wear armor.

[Flatted Fifth]

I don't think heavy armor and shield users need a nerfing, especially not the people with more free feats than powerful spells handy. Also there's already plenty of incentive to roll a character who doesn't wear armor.

Where do you see heavy arnor and shield users getting nerfed? Im talking about post PvE rebalancing making all armors useful to someone instead of there being one special material everyone wants

[DaloLorn]

There are considerably more than one (or even two):

• Mithral has been around so long that needs no introduction. If you don't have armor optimization, and your DEX modifier is in the 3-6 range, you can't do better than that. (Though entropium can be an effective substitute if you can wear it.)
• Darkleaf is mithral-like for non-Mielikkian druids, but still a tad weaker than mithral. All the same, if you'd like to wear mithral but don't have a good suit of it, darkleaf's a decent substitute.
• If you have armor optimization, you probably don't care for mithral, and can choose between adamantine and entropium. One has DR, the other has a higher maximum DEX; both can be useful. (Though I do wish adamantine DR was a little higher.) Furthermore, not wearing mithral allows you to get better benefits from feats like Armored Efficiency, which scale with your armor rank.
• If your DEX modifier is 7+, you'll be interested in leafweave leather, leafweave padded, spidersilk, or thistledown. Armor optimization can further enhance all of these... but thistledown is fitted for an insane 30 DEX, and spidersilk has spell failure, so a DEX mage might prefer to stick with -ASF leafweave leather, or leafweave padded.
• If for any reason you can't get the absolute best armor material for your build (and you often can't unless you're filthy rich; not to mention that the higher-quality materials are impossibly unlikely to drop with the sort of stats some people are asking to buy), the other armors still have plenty of value. It was only last week, I think, that I bought a cheap +4 studded leather on a new character that could neither afford nor loot anything better.

[Bobthehero]

I don't think heavy armor and shield users need a nerfing, especially not the people with more free feats than powerful spells handy. Also there's already plenty of incentive to roll a character who doesn't wear armor.

Where do you see heavy arnor and shield users getting nerfed? Im talking about post PvE rebalancing making all armors useful to someone instead of there being one special material everyone wants

Removing 3-4 AC is a nerf. That's what you're doing by removing Armor Opt/Shield Spec and the extra AC from Dex on the Enthropium armors.

[Flatted Fifth]

I don't think heavy armor and shield users need a nerfing, especially not the people with more free feats than powerful spells handy. Also there's already plenty of incentive to roll a character who doesn't wear armor.

Where do you see heavy arnor and shield users getting nerfed? Im talking about post PvE rebalancing making all armors useful to someone instead of there being one special material everyone wants

Removing 3-4 AC is a nerf. That's what you're doing by removing Armor Opt/Shield Spec and the extra AC from Dex on the Enthropium armors.

It would be a nerf if it happened right NOW. I'm talking about AFTER the major server overhaul that may potentially make 20 the max lvl for PCs and monsters, and DEFINATELY involve serious PvE rebalance. Loosing 4 ac isn't a nerf if all the monsters are also loosing 4 or more attack bonus. It's all relative. Once your AC is 19 more than the opponents AB, raising it higher is irrelevant because a nat 20 hits even if your AC is 300.

Are you telling me you LIKE that every time you find any armor at all that isn't Entropium you know it's just going to be a very heavy 1400 gold from blunt because no one is going to want it, not even if it's +4? Especially if it's a medium armor like a hide or scale? You LIKE that? Seriously?

[Bobthehero]

My characters are geared to the point where the only upgrades are those Enthropium plates or Mithral ones. I am fine with that. I had a +4 Full plate for a while, switched to an Adamantine one when I got bracers of +4 armor, I am fine with it, yes.

[Steve]

You LIKE that? Seriously?

The problem is far more deeply rooted than what you're proposing.

Let's just start with the fact that +4 armor of any Type, should be super rare. Yet, players are looting such in abundance. Which leads to the next issue: constant looting. The infinite loot gain, the infinite coin generation from loot selling, is unhinged. It destroys every aspect of "realism" this Server might want to uphold. It completely destroys any value, in the long run. And on top of it all, when you reach complete saturation and ennui from such activities, you have near zero options to utilize the wealth in either rare items or coin. Just simply no agency.

It is always worthwhile to have a new thought or suggestion to debate, for the setup/mechanics of BGTSCC. But you're only scratching the surface on the utter bullshit systems that it runs on.

[Young Werther]

It's all relative.

Yes. As I said in my first post it's also relative to other characters who compete in the PvE environment who aren't effected by the nerf. As Steve said you have to dig deeper. It's not like the idea of making armors useful across the board is a bad one.

[Flatted Fifth]

You LIKE that? Seriously?

The problem is far more deeply rooted than what you're proposing.

Let's just start with the fact that +4 armor of any Type, should be super rare. Yet, players are looting such in abundance. Which leads to the next issue: constant looting. The infinite loot gain, the infinite coin generation from loot selling, is unhinged. It destroys every aspect of "realism" this Server might want to uphold. It completely destroys any value, in the long run. And on top of it all, when you reach complete saturation and ennui from such activities, you have near zero options to utilize the wealth in either rare items or coin. Just simply no agency.

It is always worthwhile to have a new thought or suggestion to debate, for the setup/mechanics of BGTSCC. But you're only scratching the surface on the utter bullshit systems that it runs on.

I never said that this was a universal panacea to fix everything. Anyone who implies that an idea is invalid because it doesn't in itself fix everything should stop brushing their teeth or wearing a seatbelt in the car. Those don't 100% solve the problems they're designed to mitigate, either. I agree that finding a +4 item every other day is wrong. I'm just saying that making just ONE material the ultimate in armor class is messed up. The instant Entropium entered the scene every epic armor everyone had became practically obsolete. Suddenly that super rare find or that Epic Store item you worked hard to buy for 400,000 is old news. THAT is SERIOUSLY messed up.

It's also messed up that a dex build pretty much has to be armorless or in padded at high levels to match the 8/1 = 9 of full plate. Sure, a dex build can surpass that, but ONLY at epic levels and almost always at the cost of carry capacity. No idea what characters you play, but no one who hasn't played a low-str dex build has any idea how annoying it is to constantly leave loot behind because of weight, but because the middle-ground armors don't add up then making a dex fighter or swash who doesn't throw literally everything into dex isn't an option. And the fact that only padded armor gives the same base + dex AC as full plate makes starting out with dex builds, especially non-stealth ones like dex fighters or swash, pretty tough. A fighter or cleric can get some full plate and go clean house in the graveyard at 1st lvl. A dex build can't match the ac of full plate at low levels.

I stand by everything I said. Special materials that make armors of other materials obsolete need to go. And all armors should have the same total base + dex and we pick the armor that meets our other needs such as weight, ASF, skill penalty, and how much dex is involved.

[Bobthehero]

A dex build can have +10 dex while wearing a shirt. It can even go to +11 if you hit 32 Dex. Therefore, armors should be able to go to 11 AC. Like the MFP does, like the Enthropium now does for heavy armor users. The dexer is also guaranteed to reach their +10/11 AC dex via leveling, meanwhile, if you play a heavy armor PC, you need to find the damned Enthropium plate to begin with, a dexer can afford to have whatever shirt they like. It's not as bad for medium armor users, because MFP's have been around for so long there's a fair few of them in circulation

Edit: You also need investment as a str build, needing at least 13 dex to get the best out of your armor. And then finding a +3 dex item that's in a slot you can afford to have occupied by the extra dex.

[Flatted Fifth]

A dex build can have +10 dex while wearing a shirt. It can even go to +11 if you hit 32 Dex. Therefore, armors should be able to go to 11 AC. Like the MFP does, like the Enthropium now does for heavy armor users. The dexer is also guaranteed to reach their +10/11 AC dex via leveling, meanwhile, if you play a heavy armor PC, you need to find the damned Enthropium plate to begin with, a dexer can afford to have whatever shirt they like. It's not as bad for medium armor users, because MFP's have been around for so long there's a fair few of them in circulation

None of that will be true once the max lvl becomes 20. You guys seem to keep forgetting that I am talking about AFTER REBOOT

[Bobthehero]

What are you on about? What reboot? You're asking for a change for something that's not even decided yet.

[Young Werther]

Dex builds blow armored tanks out of the water when added wis ac, int AC, epic dodge to the mix. Add owls insight, int to dmg to the mix they are just better. Then you have casters with all the beefy ac spells. It's no wonder that armor opt. shield spec. was added in recent years and entropium.

Yeah I wasn't really thinking about only dex builds being an issue. But the reboot very likely doesn't balance all the classes either so issues now will persist.

[DaloLorn]

What are you on about? What reboot? You're asking for a change for something that's not even decided yet.

Worse - he's asking for a change for something that's not likely to happen in the first place. By last tally, the only option less favored by the playerbase seemed to be 3 (to my disappointment), and none of them could stand up to 4.