Balancing Forge Armor/Weapon

Discussion on game mastering Earthdawn. May contain spoilers; caution is recommended!
Sharkforce
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Re: Balancing Forge Armor/Weapon

Post by Sharkforce » Thu Mar 05, 2020 10:27 am

Lursi wrote:
Thu Mar 05, 2020 7:05 am
Ah, what about shields? Is there anything a weaponsmith can do to pimp his shield?
you can decorate it to look very pretty.

Bonhumm
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Re: Balancing Forge Armor/Weapon

Post by Bonhumm » Thu Mar 05, 2020 11:20 am

Sharkforce wrote:
Thu Mar 05, 2020 10:27 am
Lursi wrote:
Thu Mar 05, 2020 7:05 am
Ah, what about shields? Is there anything a weaponsmith can do to pimp his shield?
you can decorate it to look very pretty.
You cannot forge shields indeed.

Perhaps in previous editions, where shields provided actual ARMOR, it might have made sense to forge a shield (i.e. make it more solid to increase its armor rating) but now that shields no longer provide armor but instead increase your Physical Defense it would make little sense in my opinion since making the shield 'stronger' would not increase the likelihood to intercept a blow with it. The only way to make a shield better at intercepting a blow would be to make it physically bigger so... instead of forging it, just purchase a bigger shield.

Lursi
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Re: Balancing Forge Armor/Weapon

Post by Lursi » Fri Mar 06, 2020 7:03 am

I would propose to be able to increase the shattering threshold. That IS related to stability and not as game breaking as another +Rank on physical defense.

A friend of mine proposed to be able to reduce armor penalties as Weaponsmith.

I like the idea of making an armor lighter instead of tougher. How about a conversion rate of 3:1, so 3 “increases” for 1 armor penalty removed?

The same rule you could apply to shields.
Of all things I lost, sanity I held dearest.

Sharkforce
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Re: Balancing Forge Armor/Weapon

Post by Sharkforce » Fri Mar 06, 2020 7:10 am

Lursi wrote:
Fri Mar 06, 2020 7:03 am
I would propose to be able to increase the shattering threshold. That IS related to stability and not as game breaking as another +Rank on physical defense.

A friend of mine proposed to be able to reduce armor penalties as Weaponsmith.

I like the idea of making an armor lighter instead of tougher. How about a conversion rate of 3:1, so 3 “increases” for 1 armor penalty removed?

The same rule you could apply to shields.
you don't need a weaponsmith to have lighter armour, you can just wear lighter armour. you can trade in 15 points worth of enhancements to get crystal plate down to 0, or you can just wear leather armour to begin with and enhance it by +15 points and be 4 points ahead in the bargain. with regular plate armour, you would be 6 points ahead, an even better deal (presuming, of course, that you could even *find* a high enough circle weaponsmith).

Belenus
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Re: Balancing Forge Armor/Weapon

Post by Belenus » Fri Mar 06, 2020 3:27 pm

We houseruled that some armors are stackable (if it makes sence) like blood pebbles + fernweave.
But we also said that only one item can be upgraded.
If you go with the "Only the highest value counts"-rule, you still can "cheat".
Like a forged blood pebble with mystical armor +8 and a forged fernweave with physical armor +8 :shock:

Aegharan
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Re: Balancing Forge Armor/Weapon

Post by Aegharan » Fri Mar 06, 2020 3:49 pm

Belenus wrote:
Fri Mar 06, 2020 3:27 pm
"Only the highest value counts"-rule, you still can "cheat".
Like a forged blood pebble with mystical armor +8 and a forged fernweave with physical armor +8 :shock:
Na, cheating doesn't work... So if the player would do that, I'd count which total armor (pa+ma) is higher and only that one counts.

If that ruling (blood pebble under fernweave, only one is improved) works for your table, then that's cool. After all it's just a simple increase of all damage values by ~3-4 to bring balance back to RaW :-P

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