27 replies to this topic

[Ellderon]

While this is the truth, if a full plate can absorb 10 points of damage, light weapons like daggers, bullets and similar become completely usless.

And I couldn't get it to work that way - only trough percentages...

B.t.w. - I'm removing most of the restriction from heavy/medium armor, since I think it's the best to restrict armor usage anyway (Yes, I know this is coming from someone who votes for no weapon restrictions, but this is different....
It's harder to balance it with armor, and a mage wearain a full plate still has the same model)

Edited by Ellderon, 30 July 2004 - 03:27 AM.

[Faye]

Nice idea, but it just doesn't fit...

I mean, if your getting attacked by a mugger, then sure your shiney armour will protect you, but by making it always block a % of the damage... just seems wrong, i mean dragon's claws would rip through armour with no problems.

Is there any way to make it resist physical damage like in IWD2???

So high damage attacks (from a dragon for example) wouldn't be effected as much as say a goblins arrows...

Oh an to ballance heavy armour vs lighter armour, maybe just stick on a negative DEX bonus...

OR

Instead of going to all this trouble, why doesn't someone add a metalic 'Clink' to misses to help you picture that they're not really missing, but that the armour is absorbing the hit.

[Chevar]

I have the answer....

but I don't know if it's doable..

Physical resistance values muhuhaha!

1) THACO - hit, miss or crit
2) PR - Straight amount deducted from damamge
3) Crits bypass armor.
4) PR is modified by % based on weapon category (piercing, slashing, crushing)
5) Start with cloth as pr=1, leather pr=2 etc all the way to plate.
6) The % modification would have to max out at about 20%.

[Ellderon]

I would want to see you implement it.

I implemented what I could.

Like I said - I would like for a straight damage reduction, but the stronger the armor, the less sense it makes.
A suddd Leather would have a -2 damage reduction, so a 1d8 arrow would do max 6 damage
A full Plate has -10 so a 1d4 dagger, 1d6 shortsword or similar small weapons would end up deling no damage whatsoever (or even healing the user)

And while a dragon claw would probably rip trough the armor (depends..what if it's a +5 Mithril Full Plate), it would still slow the hit a bit..

[Chevar]

Hey I didn't say it could be done

I just said it's the most realistic way.. the trick would be changing the code so that the minimum damage value is 0..

[T.G.Maestro]

While this is the truth, if a full plate can absorb 10 points of damage, light weapons like daggers, bullets and similar become completely usless.

As they should vs. a heavy full plate. Its completely normal. Only an EXTREMELY skilled or lucky person could find the weak spots on such a well-constructed defense with a knife.

And I couldn't get it to work that way - only trough percentages...

Indeed. Don't even dream of the fixed amounts, they aren't present in BG2, only IWD2.

I mean, if your getting attacked by a mugger, then sure your shiney armour will protect you, but by making it always block a % of the damage... just seems wrong, i mean dragon's claws would rip through armour with no problems.

True. As I said, this cannot be solved in BG2. A pity.

Oh an to ballance heavy armour vs lighter armour, maybe just stick on a negative DEX bonus...

Exactly, my version of the armor rebalancing uses this method, based on the IWD2 examples. A full-plate offers considerable AC bonus, but significantly lowers DEX, which means that a fast PC with 18 DEX wouldn't really want to wear these armors anymore, since it wouldn't offer him that much benefit anymore. What he gains at AC bonuses, he loses from the DEX loss. Yet, the ones that would benefit greatly from such heavy armors are slower tanks like Keldorn, with low DEX scores. With the right choice, they can heave the same great AC as a character with high DEX, wearing leather armor (with no DEX loss, of course). It's working pretty nice, trust me.
And of course, the heavier the armor is, the slower you move - which means you can be slowed by 30% if you wear a Full-plate. Really, I always found it funny as characters in Full-plates kept chasing unarmored thieves with the same speed...

[Ellderon]

Hmm..speed reduction..I should put that in as well..and remove the spellcasting speed penalty

[KaraBenNemsi]

About speed reduction: I think the game should be fun. Imagine your party walking around in Atkathla allways having to wait for Mr. Keldorn to catch up ... You'd need way more micromanagement while you are in a dungeon. Do you want your light weight mage to arrive first at the enemy? Didn't think so. So you'd have to split up the party for your now awfully slow tanks to be the first to get hit. Not really funny if you ask me.

I play IWD 1 at the moment with a system like T.G.Maestro's The Dex penalty is oriented around the weight of the armor. The heaviest (Full Plate, 70 lbs) gives a penalty of 7. Armor between 51 and 60 gives -6 and so on down to 1-10 giving -1. Since magical armor usually weighs less than normal armor this reflects the enchantments too - at least a bit.
Shields lead to even more penalties (Bucklers, Small: -1, Medium: -2, Large: -3). Here I didn't take weight into account but maybe it could be done here too.

Resistance: I think your numbers are way too high. A cleric wearing a full plate (70 %) and casting armor of faith (max. 25 %) is nearly invulnerable (95 % resitance to all). I have split it up as follows:

Leather: no enchantment to +5 gives 7 to 12 %.
Chain/Splint: n/e to +5 gives 9 to 19 %.
Plate/Full plate: n/e to +5 gives 14 to 24 %.

Then I looked at the special AC bonuses (f.ex. plate mail: -3 vs. slashing) of each armor, applied that number as an additional percentage (normal plate mail now gets 17 % vs. slashing). With shields I did the same thing. (Bucklers/Small: 2-10 %, Medium: 4-12% and Large: 6-14 %, special AC bonus converted into % increase/decrease).

I know, this isn't realistic (f. ex. the DEX penalty doesn't take the character's strength into account) in any way but its quite playable and a bit more believable than the original system. And I actually tend to keep my magical armor. A chain mail +2 now is a better suit of armor than a normal plate mail. In vanilla BG2 or IWD I'd sell the chain mail, buy a normal plate mail (same AC but waaay cheaper) and a lot more stuff with the remaining gold.

Wolfgang