Dragon Warriors

First, the character needs to find +3 Plate that actually 'fits'. Since most armour of this type was specially commissioned for the original wearer, it's unlikely they can just throw it on. Either it fits poorly and incurs a combat penalty/has a chance to slip off and tangle up the wearer, or only part of it can be worn (with a reduction in overall AF).

Getting it adjusted probably needs the services of a mystical smith, and would no doubt take considerable time and money.

At high enough rank characters who wear +3 plate are probably going up against some pretty nasty opponents, who either have devastating attacks or are using magical weapons of their own that negate the benefits of the armour. A +3 sword is actually better than +3 plate, as all things being equal it negates the AF bonus, but still does the full 8 points of damage on a successful bypass roll.

Finally, armour is not worn 24/7 - there should be plenty of situations were a character is out of armour, or is only wearing a limited portion of it. Social events, general day to day affairs etc.

Yes, that is a good point. A suit of armour lying around probably won't fit! How do you know if it will be the right size for someone? BRP/Elric/RQ has the SIZ attribute that is useful here.

I supposed you could assume that it will not fit, unless adjusted as Wayne explained.

I would use Strength as the size, in this instance. Plate armour would, for example, fit a person 1 Strength score either side of the Strength score of the knight for whom it was made. For example, if a knight with a Strength score of 14 had a suit of plate, it would fit a knight with a strength score of 13, 14 or 15. However, for each point of Strength away from that, the armour incurs a penalty of -1 Reflexes. For example again, if a knight with Strength 9 attempted to wear the plate, he would do so with a -4 penalty to Reflexes.

Just a top-of-my-head thought.

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Cobwebbed Dragon (Lee)

https://www.cobwebbedforest.co.uk/
https://www.dragonwarriors.uk/
https://twitter.com/CobwebbedDragon
Now on YouTube!

My favorite extra characteristics:

Size
Constitution
Willpower
Charisma

You think they don't add value? That's what they used to say about Apple Touch ID. It's amazing how many annoying situations you can easily resolve when you don't have to make Str stand in for half a dozen distinct things.

Cheers,

Kyle

Hi, thanks for the ideas. The idea of size, why not? (but with this system, maybe the pcs would turn out magic armours dealers, lol) For one scenario, he could wear a non-fit one with the penalities you talked about, but after? (when they solved it with a Smith)?
Don't read : spoilers book 5 and 6.
Book 5 : they found a +3 plate absorbing lvl3 spells that fits the first player. In the book 6 scenario they found a tip against high AF armour : in tropical area players must remove half of the AF (sounds logical with the heat) and they could fight a tribe of regular humans with weapons d6/3 (I think).
It s a tip, but we should find one everytime?

I understand but that leads to a path like this : "we killed the dragon, then the malgash! who s next?" or we killed the big villain, and we loot him! who s next?
A bit as dnd (we killed the gods, who s next?). This kind of item accellerates the walking on this path.

An excellent idea of scenario (maybe for an assassin), if the PCs need to kill a npc who wears one with magical protection(or they poison him ).
I would nt like to feel an almighty character (a bit as elder scrolls games) who cannot be killed by regular people (or the game is over). In my humble opinion I think players can start new characters after lvl 12

The post of cobwebbed forest is relevant about limiting the AF would kill too many PCs (especially low levels), but limiting the bonus to +2 (enough?) for amours let a chance for regular humans to hurt the PC (a high rank one) would be my personal suggestion, but he idea of size is not bad (I like your idea "cob" about the strength, we just must think about dwarves, maybe the GM culd decide if it is dwarf one with the same principle for fitting).

Did you find something else unbalanced in your games?

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Hi, bonjour
I apologize for my terrible English
, I am from Chaubrette and am over 30 , )))

I couldn't agree more, and this is why I tend to shy away from adversaries that can be overcome in combat - it becomes much less of a challenge to high-ranked PCs unless you just throw more and more powerful opponents at them, and this tends to get a little implausible after a while - where were these opponents when the characters were of lower rank, and what were they doing? Hopefully, they weren't just waiting around for the PCs to come along and kill them, which is how it seems in other FRPGs that adopt this model (like D&D).

The fey, the demon lords, and other such obstacles shouldn't be overcome by strength of arms, but by wit, research and guile. PCs should learn about their mundane weaknesses to holly, hawthorn or ash, or of times of day, month or year in which their powers are diminished, or of their weakness for flattery, gifts, poetry, etc. Folklore is littered with examples of faeries and demons that couldn't be killed, but could be banished, put to sleep, or otherwise rendered inert through some mundane ritual or trick. The challenge for the PCs then becomes how to perform the ritual, or trick the creature, not just a lot of dice rolling to see who can hit whom the hardest.

It's the superstition, fear and folk lore that sets the Lands of Legend apart and keeps me coming back to Dragon Warriors as my preferred FRPG to play.

_________________
Cobwebbed Dragon (Lee)

https://www.cobwebbedforest.co.uk/
https://www.dragonwarriors.uk/
https://twitter.com/CobwebbedDragon
Now on YouTube!

I agree we can have other possibilities than fighting (with legends) for a good scenario, it would be just interesting to not have an invincible PC for regular humans in fighting.

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Hi, bonjour
I apologize for my terrible English
, I am from Chaubrette and am over 30 , )))

I just ran a simulation, and in very simple, hack and slash melee, enchanted armour can be quite unbalancing.

Consider this: Two evenly matched (same characteristics etc) stock-standard 8th rank knights are fighting each other with 2-handed swords. If you start both off with basic plate and repeat their fight many thousands of times to reduce randomness, they each win about 48.5% of the time and the other three percent of the combats are draws (if there's a difference in initiative, there are no more draws and the balance basically goes to the fighter with the higher reflexes).

Now give one fighter enchanted armour, and things change:
+1: victory is now 57%:40%
+2: 68%:30%
+3: 78%:20%

This is even more pronounced with low AB weapons, because you have to rely more and more on critical hits if you're not in enchanted armour:
Battleaxe (D8,6)
+0: 48.5%:48.5%
+1: 60.8%:36.7%
+2: 75.1%:23.2%
+3: 89.4%:9.8%

Oddly, though, if both fighters are using weapons so puny they can't even beat regular plate, the advantage disappears. With a cudgel fight, the numbers stay even in all four scenarios. The only noticable difference is that the percentage of draws seems to decrease for some reason. Also the battles take forever to resolve! (about 94 CR minutes on average, compared to about 18CR for the 2h sword fight and 16CR with axes when fighting evenly matched without magic armour)

Cheers,

-Kyle

thanks for calculating this,

I was thinking a sword D8/4 (I think the more commun weapon in DW) but an axe d8/6 shows something.
I just reckoned a critical hit (5% chance ) is needed to AB the 8 Armour factor .

By the way, did you read my private message for something else, please?

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Hi, bonjour
I apologize for my terrible English
, I am from Chaubrette and am over 30 , )))

Wonder whether there is a roleplaying 'situation' to make it awkward to wear armour. Same way you get climate problems, maybe some environmental situation that makes it awkward. Does +3 armour need a lot of maintenance? Does it rust? Or is it naturally some kind of stainless steel?

Maybe you can create more aquatic environments, marshlands, marine adventures...

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Speech!





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