Weapon and armor system for weaponsmith love

[freid78]

I've design a system to make the armor section more intuitive, more customizable and more flexible to include new stuff. The perfect tool for a wouldbe weaponsmith that wants to test is armor crafting. If you have ideas, suggestions, or just complaint, fire away!

P.S. Sorry about the layout, excel ain't good here

Basic rules :
#1 All armor have 5 Physical - 0 Mystic - 0 Initiative Penalty at creation.
#2 There is 3 types of Physical Damage that can modulate the armor protection (D&D ripeoff probably). Blunt (maces and hammers), Pierce (spears and arrows) and Slash (swords and axes).
#3 Keywords should guide the crafting (or analysing) method.


Example of Keywords Effects
"x" Resist Add +3 armor against "x" attack source
Improve "x" Resist Add +5 armor against "x" attack source
Superior "x" Resist Add +10 armor against "x" attack source
Dragon Scale Add +5 to both Physical and Mystic Armor
"x" Vulnerability Add -3 armor against "x" attack source
Fragile Armor degration x2
Heavy Add Initiative Penalty to Physical Defense
Stealth Add +3 to any Stealth roll

#4 You start by choosing the material for the construction of the armor :

Materials Type Physical Vulnerability Initiative Penalty Special Effect Cost Weight Availability
Cloth Light Blunt/Pierce/Slash 0 Physical Vulnerability and Fragile 1 2 Average
Leather Light Pierce/Slash 0 Hide/Fur add Cold Resist at a cost of 1 Initiative Penalty 10 10 Average
Bone Light Blunt/Pierce 0 Fragile 10 5 Unusual
Wood Light Pierce/Slash 2 Fire Vulnerability 5 10 Unusual
Metal Heavy Pierce 1 Lightning Vulnerability and Physical Resist 100 25 Average
Stone Heavy Blunt 2 Heavy and Physical Resist 50 30 Unusual
Magical x All NA NA See text x10 x1 Rare

#4.1 The magical material just mean that you upgrade a regular one with a magical one. Here's couple of examples :

Magical Materials Name Effects (Gives a minimum of 1 Mystic Armor)
Cloth Obsidiman Skin Remove Blunt/Pierce/Slash Vulnerability
Leather Espagra-Scale Add Mystic Resist
Leather Wyvern-Skin Add Physical Resist
Bone DragonBone Add Mystic Resist and Unique effect
Bone HorrorBone Add Mystic Resist and Unique and cursed effect
Wood Bark Add Mystic Resist
Wood Fernweave Add Mystic Resist, Remove Initiative Penalty and Add Pierce Vulnerability
Metal Throalic Remove Lightning Vulnerability
Stone Crystal Add -3 Physical Armor, Add Improve Mystic Resist and Remove Heavy

#5 After you have chosen the material, you need the armor model that matchs you type of material (Light with Light, Heavy with Heavy).

Armor Model Type Armor Effect Initiative Penalty Cost Weight Availability
Coat/Suit Light NA 0 x1 x1 Average
Padded Light Add Blunt Resist 0 x2 x2 Average
Hardened/Studded Light Remove Slash Vulnerability 1 x4 x2 Average
Scale/Layers Light Remove Slash/Pierce Vulnerability 2 x8 x3 Unusual
Rings Heavy NA 1 x1 x1 Average
Chain Heavy Remove Pierce Vulnerability 2 x2 x2 Average
Breastplate Heavy Remove Blunt/Pierce Vulnerability 2 x4 x2 Average
Plate Heavy Remove Blunt/Pierce Vulnerability and Upgrade Physical Resist by Improve Physical Resist 3 x8 x3 Unusual

Example of a craft could be: I want to make an Espagra-Scale Armor. A) The material is magic leather. I don't want to have a Hide armor for cold resist. So you have an armor of 5 Physical Armor, 3 Mystic armor and 0 Initiative penalty, but vulnerable to all 3 types of attack (meaning an effective armor of 2 instead of 5). You would need at least 100silvers worth of Espagra-Scale skin to make a coat (x1), but a coat leaves you with all that vulnerabilty! Let's say i want a Hardened Espagra-Scale Armor. It would cost in materials 400silvers of Espagra-Scale skin. The new armor would have 5 Physical Armor, 3 Mystic, 1 Initiative Penalty and vulnerable to Pierce and Blunt. If i prefer some protection against arrows too, I could make a Scale Armor instead. Seems expensive ? Well it would cost you only 40 silvers to make that armor with Cow Leather. You wont have the +3 on Mystic Armor, and probably not the same look either, but that's the price of being cheap

Now, about cloaks and other stackable armors, here's another table :

Armor Initiative Penalty Special Effect Cost Weight Availability
Blood Pebble 1 Physical and Mystic Resist 300 NA Rare
Living Crystal 2 Improved Physical and Mystic Resist 1100 NA Rare
Dwarf Winternight Cloak 0 Cold Resist 275 2 Unusual
Warm (fireproof) Cloak 0 Fire Resist 300 2 Rare
Everclean Cloak 0 Earth Resist 300 2 Rare
Magical Poncho 0 Air Resist 300 2 Rare
Oak Leaf Cloak 0 Stealth 800 2 Rare
Espagra-Scale Cloak 0/1 Mystic Resist 200 10 Rare
Wyvern-Skin Cloak 1/2 Physical Resist 1000 30 Rare

All these are stackable with armor. I would also add some flavor text to the cloaks and add some minor roleplay effects. Like Everclean actually repels dirt and stain, Magical Poncho protects against rain, etc. The Initiative Penalty of 0/1 means that without armor, you have 0, but stacking it will cost you 1 point of Initiative Penalty.

I do hope you like the ideas

[Razan_GM]

What youre doing is trying to add our physical world properties to nonexisting fantasy items. For me ED is not about extremly specific mathematics but most important are players and good story.

If you really need this complexity, well its you life.

As for Wyvern-Skin Cloak, Wyvern skin is hard, it scales are big, definately not good for Cloak.

As for stackable armors from cloaks, im in a reenactment group and fighting with heavy cloak (one that can give you some protection) on your shoulders is simply silly, and if you put it on your back to let you move arms fast enuff to fight efficiently well you get "armor" on your back only.

All that complexity is simply crated by one thing while playing, GM and Players narration. If your description of a blow + to hit roll are good, you dont need all this mathematics, GM will describe how you luckly (or with mastery) hit a weak spot (or shread the armor).

Think about it and talk with your playing group. Its better to play 3 more sessions than making so complex system.

[freid78]

First and foremost, thanks for the reply. I appreciate any comments.

I would also tend to agree with you on the fact that it looks complex. I realized that perhaps i wasn't clear on the purpose of this, not giving all the info because i wanted to talk about the system and not the entire idea behind it.

To adress this, i'll have 3 precisions.

#1 If you are a gamemaster that values story and not items in it, i would strongly suggest you scrap the entire Weapon and Armor section. You just need a Melee Weapon step 4, or step 5 or step 6 with a simple rule that state step 6+ is 2 hands. And the same applies to armor. Just put up Armor of 4, armor of 5, armor of 6, etc. But if weilding a sword is, from your perspective, different than a mace, it's because you need some degree of complexity. Having all those different kind of weapons and armors ain't just for the story, it's because there's different mechanics to go with it.

#2 This system is essentially for a wesponsmith, not for an adventurer who just need the armor (unless of course, you get that Swordmaster who really want to customize his things, that's good for him too!). So i would suggest making a list of "common" or "frequently" use setup of armor, with all the stats associate with it. That way, you get an easy look of what you need.

#3 The complexity of this boils down to a simple +3 or -3 to the attack test result. Since most of the attacks (like 70%) should be from a "slash" type like a sword (most common) or creature claws, it's pretty easy to remember what weapon gives that extra +3. The complexity only means that the players can choose a weapon appropriate for the task at hand. It give also some importance to prepare before a fight. Learning in a library that the Wyvern is vulnerable to blunt attacks (for example) might get the team to buy a mace instead of using the same broadsword. But where this system really trive, in my opinion, is when you get someone saying "hey, could i make an armor out of this?" It's easier to fashion something new, which is again, a big plus for gamers who need more than just "melee weapon step 5" as a hand weapon.

On a final note, i've put this system here exactly for that, to talk about it. I was thinking that 4 players at a table talking about it is good, but the entire community here might have better insights.

P.S. I thought weaponsmith made armors using Dragon skin/scales. If a Wyvern is big, imagine his father behind! And still... dragon armor is possible Never underestimate the power of imagination, especially if humains are involved!

[freid78]

Going back on what has been said here and on product discussion, it gave me the idea to nurf this system which would allow both armor and weapon setup without all the complexity i've put before. It's a scale down for those who don't like playing Paper/Rock/Cisors.

Instead of revamping the armor section, a GM could revamp the weapon section. So you basically keep the armors as it is, but give bonus to weapon against specific types of armors or situation.

For example :

Slashing weapons could get a bonus of +3 on any clothes/leather armor (animals included).
Axes have a +3 vs wood (doors included).
Blunt +3 vs chain and stone (walls included).
Pierce + 3 vs Ring mail.
Dagger +3 vs Plate armor.
etc.

The idea behind this it still the same, but perhaps easier to work with.

[Telarus_KSC]

[freid78]

[Telarus_KSC]

Can we take the tables to Google Docs? Pretty easy to Copy/paste from Excel to Google Docs. I think we'd all follow along better (I know I would ).

Also, I've been watching test cutting/chopping/piercing videos and will probably revise my simple little matrix above. I did want to point out one thing, though. If all you are using is positive bonuses (bonuses to your stuff or penalties to the target), this makes the lower armors relatively useless. This is why I went from -2 to +2 in mods (also to mirror a +/- 1 additional success). You can keep your basic scale, but re-align it. Still thinking about this, but I like the level of customization you've got going, but there's a lot of stuff there to parse through.

[freid78]

From google docs, how will it land here? I post the link ?

About -2 or +2, the idea is that if you use type, all armor have 5 physical, 0 mystic, and 0 initiative. From the bonus or penalty, you can have a Cloth Coat of 1 - 1 - 1 - 0 - 0 (1 vs blunt, 1 vs pierce, 1 vs slash, 0 mystic and 0 ini penalty) to a Leather Scale of 5 - 5 - 5 - 0 - 2 to a Metal Plate of 9 - 9 - 9 - 0 - 4. Combination varies for inbetween.

The numbers i've used on physical armor in the table are only there for those who don't want to bother with types.

[Telarus_KSC]

Oh, interesting.

For the Google Docs spreadhseet, once the file is made on your Google Drive, the Share link will open a window, that will have a "Get shareable link" button that gives you the link and ability to set permissions (view|comment|edit) of people with the link.

[freid78]

Ok, here goes!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

Edit : I would have prefered a Damage Threshold more in line of the wearer Wound Threshold for simplicity purpose. Having a target number tends to increase book reference/bog down in the action. Of course, the wearer own wound threshold shouldn't have anything to do with the armor itself, but while your playing, it's easier to consider the potential armor damage when you receive a wound. The event is significant enough to include this simple rule. It could be something like a knockdown after receiving a wound. You would roll a str test to check if you are still holding on your feet, and also reduce your armor rating by 1. But that would mean odd stuff like obsidimen have a higher armor quality (juste because they have more wound threshold) and windling have fragile armor. At first, i did put an extra +2 on windling armor and a minus 1 on troll/obsidimen armor on the Damage Threshold column, but then i reverted to static numbers taking into consideration a wound threshold of 8 + armor rating + 5. After playtesting two circles 6 adepts, a +5 after wounding is not something that happens often, but it did happen once. So basically, if the adept survive the battle, he would need to repair 1pt of armor. The target number was to messy to check in the action (with all the talents and such) and we just let that idea down after 2 rounds. We found it odd to see that bleeding wound were not part of the rules anymore, but we could easily convert bleeding wound to armor damage without a sweat.
If you have thoughts on the matter, i would enjoy your inputs.

Edit #2 : Oh, and i thought that weapon damage could go like this : If you roll two 1's, you get a weapon step reduction of 1. Fragile would mean that only one 1 is needed and Sturdy would need three 1's to damage it.