REVIEW - Armour System

[Sierra Katrian]

Now seems to be a good time to express my opinion… with TLDRs for your reading convenience 

1. The armour point system in terms of the rules in the standard rulebook are fine in my opinion. The 28 armour zones, the 1/2/3/4 values of the armour and the “heavy armour” skill don’t need changing. The system awards people who wear more armour with more points, which makes perfect sense. Chain and plate armour aren’t exactly comfortable to wear for long periods of time, therefore it is fair that it provides more protection than the much lighter leather armour types. 
***TLDR: The basic functions of the armour system is fine, don't change it.

2. No one has more than 200 armour before magic and legendary armour. The maximum you can wear in basic armour is 196 points, and that is only if you cover all 28 zones of the body with chain mail stacked with plate on top, which is a lot of metal to put on, wear for long periods of time and move around in. Once you add BASIC legendary armour smithing, it increases the maximum to 252, again with legendary chain and legendary plate on all 28 zones… 
***TLDR: The maximum armour point count is ridiculously hard and uncomfortable to obtain.

3. The whole issue with people wearing obscene amounts of armour is a guild-specific issue for Jericho. If a PC has 150+ armour and is not wearing as many as or more physical armour than Quintus for example (Basically, full plate armour covering pretty much everything) than the problem is the existence of legendary blueprints that produce armour pieces that essentially break the armour system by giving PC’s permanently buffed and unbreakable armour. I like the idea of master crafted and legendary armour being something else for PC’s to work towards, but I think the issue lies with these silly blueprints that basically make it possible to wear minute amounts of armour for the same points as a full kit of it. 
***TLDR: Keep normal Legendary and master crafted armour, abolish insane buffing blueprints.

The proposed changes to armour seem to be more of an issue targeted towards changing smithing, which I’m all for since it would be a much easier approach than changing all of the PC’s armour cards in ALL of the guild houses. However, the proposed changes do have a few issues. 

5. I like the idea of having breaches being fixable at game rather than cost PP between games. It would make it much easier on new PC’s who haven’t invested into a bunch of armour yet, making low amounts of armour much more viable to wear, as they don’t become easier and easier to breach as the numbers get whittled down until you have no protection until next month, if you’re lucky enough to get it fixed. However, I’d suggest not making a workshop a REQUIRED part of the process of fixing one’s armour. Workshops are incredibly expensive to get IG, and this basically kills any new guild house from being able to get going due to the fact that PC’s will not be able to get their armour fixed ever. I’d suggest instead make it that it is required for you to have at least 1 level in blacksmithing to repair your breached armour, requires 10 minutes of uninterrupted RP to repair, and requires you to take off your armour reps.  
***TLDR: Brian’s suggestion of making armour breached refittable at game is a good idea… as long as they can do it without workshops otherwise all new guild houses are going to have a hard time getting going.

6. I don’t mind the idea of a 50% penalty for armour repair due to the fact that a PC with 20 armour may only take 25% the hit to their total armour that my 80 points does on a breach (where they‘d take 10, I‘d take 40), but my armour takes 4 times as long to whittle through, so that is fair enough to me. 
***TLDR: 50% armour breaches are okay because the more armour you wear, the harder it will be to rbeach you.

7. Making battlefield repair more useful than just a quick fix for shields makes it more valuable, and I’m all for that!

8. In terms of on-the battlefield refitting, I’ve never seen the ‘smithing circle’ as an issue. I’ve seen circles of support PC’s scattered by a charging NPC while I was getting fixed. I know this is the exception, not the rule, but c’mon NPC’s, it’s not that hard. Thusly, I don’t see why reducing the time it takes to get one person back into the fight is a problem, as we all have to line up with near-breached armour to get fixed anyways.
***TLDR: Even if smithing circles seem to effective, a bunch of support PC’s can easily be dealt with by rushing NPCs

1. We aren't changing the armour values, or the heavy armour skill. It was being discussed, but we felt that changing smithing would be easier.

2. Not sure why this is a complaint. If you don't want to wear that much armour, don't.

3. This is being discussed, but will likely not happen.



5. The workshop we are proposing is not an IG one, but a literal, physical, tangible anvil or wooden table.

6. We thought so too.

7. We thought the same.

8. I....don't have a comment. Not sure.