Critical

A critical is a term that refers to the extra damage done to a creature or character in an attack. For example, a hit that does 18 raw damage to a creature wearing soft leather armor will suffer a level 3 critical, on average. The critical determines the message that is seen after an attack, the stun, the wound, how badly the creature bleeds, and the extra damage done by the critical hit.

Determining Critical Rank

Critical hits are determined by the raw damage (not blood loss) and the critical divisor of the armor the defender is wearing. The raw damage is determined by the damage factor of the weapon used against the armor the defender wears and the end roll of the attack. The general formula for critical rank is:

• Critical Rank = Truncate[ ( (Endroll - 100) * Weapon Damage Factor - Armor Padding Points + Weapon Weighting Points ) / Armor Critical Divisor ]

Weapon Damage Factor & Raw Damage

The raw damage in an attack is an unseen number that contributes to the critical ranking of an attack. It can be considered a measure of how effective the weapon is against the armor for that particular attack. As such it only utilizes the endroll or the attack and the damage factor of the weapon against the armor of the defender. The general formula for raw damage is:

• Raw damage = (Endroll - 100) * Weapon Damage Factor

The amount of raw damage done by a weapon can be increased or decreased with weapon weighting or armor padding respectively. These enhancements will directly add or subtract some amount of phantom damage from the raw damage calculation above.

Example

You swing a gleaming vultite battlesword at a thunder troll!
   AS: +195 vs DS: +49 with AvD: +42 + d100 roll: +4 = +192
   ... and hit for 53 points of damage!
   Strong slash to the thunder troll's right hand cuts deep.
   The thunder troll is stunned!
Roundtime: 5 sec.

The battlesword, a two-handed sword, has a damage factor of 0.500 against the troll. The end roll is +192 (192 - 100 = 92) and is multiplied by 0.500, resulting in 46. Therefore, the attack above did 46 raw damage. The additional seven damage comes from the critical.

Armor Critical Divisor

Armor protects its wearer from damage by decreasing the damage factor (usually) and increasing the critical divisor.

Armor Navigation
Armor
Armor Use
Spell hindrance
Specializations
Warrior	Rogue	Paladin
Reinforce	Evasion	Blessing
Support	Stealth	Casting
Crush	Support	Fluidity
Puncture
Slash

General Information

Armor is divided into main armor and armor accessories. Kinds of main armor are distinguished by their armor group (AG) and armor sub-group (ASG). Characters may only wear one set of main armor and one of each kind of accessory at a time.

The first armor in an armor group is usually torso armor, covering only the chest, stomach, and back. The second type will cover the arms and hands of the wearer, then the third type will cover the legs as well. The last type of armor in a group covers the entire body. When a character wears an accessory such as greaves to increase the coverage of their armor, the ASG remains unchanged but the penalties (moving, casting, RT) change to correspond with the greatest degree of coverage; see table below for more details. For example, if a character was wearing light leather that covers just the torso, they might decide to add arm greaves at one point. The behavior of the character's armor would then change to that of full leather since the total coverage would then be torso and arms.

Note that penalties are assessed based on the worst (most extensive) coverage. Wearing a helm on the head or aventail on the neck while wearing ASG5/light leather will give ASG8/double leather penalties, but will NOT give the protection (see next paragraph) of the heavier armor to the arms or legs, since those body locations are not covered in this case: only the chest, abdomen, back, and head (or neck) are covered in this example. For this reason it is usually advised to wear the heaviest armor the character is trained for, and not use accessories at all. Some characters prefer to wear accessories in any case, but this is usually either for cosmetic reasons (the helm perfectly matches the look sought) or entirely different mechanical benefits (such as an Enhancive item).

When a type of armor in a class doesn't cover a body part, the part counts as being covered by one class less when determining the critical rank of a strike. For example, when striking someone wearing torso plate, or metal breastplate, the weapon uses the damage factor of striking someone in plate, no matter where the strike lands. However, when striking an uncovered portion, the amount of raw damage required per critical rank is only 9 damage, instead of the 11 damage which is standard for plate armor (these numbers are called critical divisors). Therefore, a strike of 18 raw damage using a longsword (a +203 to +208 endroll) to an arm is a level 2 crit (+7 extra damage, for a total of 25 damage), but if the same strike were to hit the chest, it'd only be a level 1 crit (+1 extra damage, for a total of 19 damage).

Note: the endrolls noted may be much higher if the victim has significant amounts of DFRedux. For example, a character with 60% redux in the example given above would require a +358 endroll for the same result.

Armor Attributes

Table: Armor attributes

AG	ASG	Name	Base Weight	RT	AP	CvA		Spell Hindrance (%)
						Norm	Magic	MnS	MjS	Cleric	MnE	MjE	Ranger	Sorcerer	Wizard	Bard	Empath	MnM	MjM	Paladin	Max
1. Cloth	1	Normal Clothing	-	0	0	25	20	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
	2	Robes	8	0	0	25	15	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
2. Leather	5	Light Leather	10	0	0	20	15	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
	6	Full Leather	13	1	-1	19	14	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
	7	Reinforced Leather	15	2	-5	18	13	-	-	-	-	2	-	1	2	-	-	-	2	-	4
	8	Double Leather	16	2	-6	17	12	-	-	-	-	4	-	2	4	2	-	2	4	-	6
3. Scale	9	Leather Breastplate	16	3	-7	11	5	3	4	4	4	6	3	5	6	3	4	4	6	2	16
	10	Cuirbouilli Leather	17	4	-8	10	4	4	5	5	5	7	4	6	7	3	5	5	7	3	20
	11	Studded Leather	20	5	-10	9	3	5	6	6	6	9	5	8	9	3	6	6	9	4	24
	12	Brigandine Armor	25	6	-12	8	2	6	7	7	7	12	6	11	12	7	7	7	12	5	28
4. Chain	13	Chain Mail	25	7	-13	1	-6	7	8	8	8	16	7	16	16	8	8	8	16	6	40
	14	Double Chain	25	8	-14	0	-7	8	9	9	9	20	8	18	20	8	9	9	20	7	45
	15	Augmented Chain	26	8	-16	-1	-8	9	11	11	10	25	9	22	25	8	11	10	25	8	55
	16	Chain Hauberk	27	9	-18	-2	-9	11	14	14	12	30	11	26	30	15	14	15	30	9	60
5. Plate	17	Metal Breastplate	23	9	-20	-10	-18	16	25	25	16	35	21	29	35	21	25	21	35	10	90
	18	Augmented Breastplate	25	10	-25	-11	-19	17	28	28	18	40	24	33	40	21	28	21	40	11	92
	19	Half Plate	50	11	-30	-12	-20	18	32	32	20	45	27	39	45	21	32	21	45	12	94
	20	Full Plate	75	12	-35	-13	-21	20	45	45	22	50	30	48	50	50	45	50	50	13	96

Armor Sub-Group

The armor sub-group (often referred to as ASG) is the method by which armor is categorized. Armors fall into one of five groups: Cloth, Leather, Scale, Chain, or Plate. Within each of these groups are 4 armor sub-groups. However, in the case of the Cloth group, armor sub-groups 3 and 4 are no longer available within the game.

In each armor group, the lowest ASG has the least amount of coverage, while the highest ASG has the most amount of coverage.

Armor accessories can increase the coverage area of an armor, but do not give the full benefits imparted by wearing armor that covers those locations naturally (such as CvA and AvD).

Coverage

Each armor type has a built in level of coverage that it provides to your body. This coverage can prevent damage to those areas of your body in the form of critical hits.

In each armor group, the lowest ASG has the least amount of coverage (just the torso), while the highest ASG has the most amount of coverage (head to toe).

Armor accessories can increase the effective ASG of your armor. That is, if you wear double chain, which covers torso and arms, and also wear a helmet and leg greaves, you will receive the same amount of coverage exactly as if you were wearing a chain hauberk.

Roundtime Penalty

The Roundtime Penalty is a number (in seconds) added to your base roundtime when swinging a weapon. This penalty is located in the "RT" column in the attributes table above.

By training in the armor use skill, this roundtime can be reduced. Each 20 skill bonus points removes one second of armor-based roundtime (the first second is removed at 10 bonus points, and then every 20 thereafter). The skill bonus required to fully train off the roundtime penalty is ((Roundtime Penalty * 20) - 10).

High bonuses in dexterity and agility also offset this penalty.

Example: When wearing brigandine armor (ASG 12), attacks have a 6 second roundtime penalty. The required armor use skill bonus to train off the extra roundtime is ((6 * 20) - 10) = 110, which is achieved with 27 skill ranks (111 bonus).

Action Penalty

The action penalty is a negative modifier to your chance to perform or defend against a standard maneuver roll. It will also affect other non SMR actions including defending against an Elemental Wave to something as mundane as standing up.

The skill bonus required to reduce the action penalty to its base value is ((Roundtime Penalty * 20) - 10). The action penalty can then be further reduced by overtraining in Armor Use and/or using armored evasion.

The action penalty is also a factor in Defensive Strength (DS). The evade portion of DS has an armor hindrance penalty equal to 1/2 of the action penalty. For example, an action penalty of -20 results in -10% to evade DS. This penalty is likewise reduced by armor use overtraining and/or Armored Evasion.

For reference a character exactly trained for full plate at cap, the action penalty (-35) is a little bit above the difference between training 1x and 2x in Physical Fitness*.

*Note: This should not be interpreted to mean that Physical Fitness provides a linear increase to maneuver rolls, only that the absolute difference between 1x and 2x training happens to be slightly less than 35. The exact mechanics of the standard maneuver roll are not known.

Cast vs Armor (CvA)

Cast versus Armor (CvA) is a factor in warding attack spells that reflects how well armor protects against magic. Lower CvA means the armor is more protective. Heavier armor types are harder to penetrate. Magical or enchanted armors protect the wearer better than non-magical or non-enchanted armors, and this differential also increases with the heavier types of armor. In practice, wearing heavier and magical armor is equivalent to having a higher target defense for any target.

Like AvD, CvA is added directly to the combat roll to determine a warding spell's success. Positive values represent a greater vulnerability to attack, and negative values represent less.

Per GM Cyper's post introducing CvA, use of a non-magical shield will provide -5 CvA, and a magical shield -10 CvA, which is not cumulative with armor. Functionally, this means that shields only provide a CvA benefit when Armor Group 1/clothing is worn.

CvA can be modified by Shield Focus and Ensorcell.

AG	Cloth		Leather				Scale				Chain				Plate
AsG	1	2	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20
CvA (normal)	25	25	20	19	18	17	11	10	9	8	1	0	-1	-2	-10	-11	-12	-13
CvA (magical)	20	15	15	14	13	12	5	4	3	2	-6	-7	-8	-9	-18	-19	-20	-21

Spell Hindrance

Spell hindrance is a system that imparts a chance for armor to prevent spells from being successfully cast. The below table shows the base hindrances for each armor type.

The skill bonus required to reduce hindrance to the base value is:

Armor Use Bonus Required = (Base Hindrance * 20) - 10

Example: When wearing brigandine armor (ASG 12), Cleric spells have a base hindrance of 7%. The required armor use skill bonus is ((7 * 20) - 10) = 130, which is equivalent to 35 skill ranks.

Hindrance will never be less than the value shown, except when temporarily under the effects of the Paladin abilities Faith's Clarity (1612) and Armored Fluidity.

If a player is under trained for their armor type, the penalty will increase, but it will never exceed the Max hindrance shown in the rightmost column.

Under trained penalty formula:

Total Hindrance = Base Hindrance * (1 + (Required Bonus - Current Bonus) / 20)

Example: As above, 130 armor use skill bonus (35 ranks) is required to cast Cleric spells in brigandine armor with the base hindrance of 7%. If the caster has only 90 skill bonus (20 ranks), the hindrance is modified by a factor of (1 + (130 - 90)/20) = 3, so the actual hindrance would be 21%.

Example 2: In the same scenario with Cleric spells in brigandine, if the caster has 0 armor use skill, then hindrance would be modified by a factor of (1 + (130 - 0)/20) = 7.5, which would result in 52% hindrance, but since this exceeds brigandine armor's max hindrance of 28% according to the table, the actual hindrance would be 28%.

Table: Spell hindrance

AG	ASG	Name	Spell Hindrance (%)
			MnS	MjS	Cleric	MnE	MjE	Ranger	Sorcerer	Wizard	Bard	Empath	MnM	MjM	Paladin	Max
1. Cloth	1	Normal Clothing	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
	2	Robes	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
2. Leather	5	Light Leather	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
	6	Full Leather	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
	7	Reinforced Leather	-	-	-	-	2	-	1	2	-	-	-	2	-	4
	8	Double Leather	-	-	-	-	4	-	2	4	2	-	2	4	-	6
3. Scale	9	Leather Breastplate	3	4	4	4	6	3	5	6	3	4	4	6	2	16
	10	Cuirbouilli Leather	4	5	5	5	7	4	6	7	3	5	5	7	3	20
	11	Studded Leather	5	6	6	6	9	5	8	9	3	6	6	9	4	24
	12	Brigandine Armor	6	7	7	7	12	6	11	12	7	7	7	12	5	28
4. Chain	13	Chain Mail	7	8	8	8	16	7	16	16	8	8	8	16	6	40
	14	Double Chain	8	9	9	9	20	8	18	20	8	9	9	20	7	45
	15	Augmented Chain	9	11	11	10	25	9	22	25	8	11	10	25	8	55
	16	Chain Hauberk	11	14	14	12	30	11	26	30	15	15	15	30	9	60
5. Plate	17	Metal Breastplate	16	25	25	16	35	21	29	35	21	25	21	35	10	90
	18	Augmented Breastplate	17	28	28	18	40	24	33	40	21	28	21	40	11	92
	19	Half Plate	18	32	32	20	45	27	39	45	21	32	21	45	12	94
	20	Full Plate	20	45	45	22	50	30	48	50	50	45	50	50	13	96

Critical Divisor

Armor Group	Critical Divisor
Robes	5
Leather	6
Scale	7
Chain	9
Plate	11

A critical divisor or crit divisor refers to a property of armor that determines the rank of a critical when struck. The critical divisor for an unarmored opponent is 5, so in order to inflict a level 1 critical, an attacker must deal 5 to 11 raw damage in the absence of weighting. Achieving ten raw damage can cause a level 2 critical, though the actual level of a critical will vary due to critical randomization. See also damage factor and armor.

Padding and Resistance

Armor (including accessories) may be padded for additional generic protection from damage or criticals, and/or given resistance to specific critical types such as slashing attack or fire.

Armor Accessories Effect

Type of Protection	Unprotected by Main Armor Coverage	Unprotected Area + Accessories
Damage Factor	Main Armor DF	Main Armor DF
CvA	Main Armor CvA	Main Armor CvA
Crit Divisor	One AG Down	Same as Main Armor
Padding	Main Armor Padding	Varies (see: Padding)
Hindrance	Main Armor Hindrance	Hindrance of highest Coverage ASG

Encumbrance

Main article: Encumbrance

Base armor (that is, armor which is worn "over the chest" and falls into one of the above ASGs) is treated uniquely with respect to the carrying capacity and encumbrance system. Armor may add to or subtract from encumbrance (effectively increasing native carrying capacity) when worn. The exact effect is dependent upon the base weight of that particular class of armor, the actual weight of the armor (which may be more or less than standard weight), and the racial weight modifier.

Armor accessories (such as helms, arm, and leg greaves) will always increase encumbrance. It is important to note that when armor and armor accessories are held (as opposed to worn) by a character, they are not affected by racial weight modifiers. When a character with a weight modifier which is less than 1 (such as elves or halflings) wears an armor accessory, they may observe an apparent decrease in encumbrance when worn. The weight of the item will still increase the character's overall encumbrance.

Further quantitative details on this topic can be found in the encumbrance article.

Help Armor

help armor

Armor -

Everyone gets hit.  When an attacker lands a blow, armor and armor training can be the difference between a tiny scratch and sudden death.

Armor contains two kinds of impediments which must be trained off, physical hindrance and magical hindrance.

The first and more quickly trained off impediment is physical hindrance.  To overcome physical hindrance you must train in ARMOR SKILL until you obtain enough bonus points to allow you to move well in your armor, despite the weight and coverage of that armor.

Magical hindrance is similar in that it is necessary to train in armor to be able to cast effectively in it.  Magical hindrance is reduced to its lowest possible degree by training in Armor Skill too.  Following is an example of a spell that fails because of magical hindrance:

 [Spell Hindrance for some full plate is 96% with current Armor Use skill, d100= 84]
 Your armor prevents the spell from working correctly.

As you can see, the armor in the above example is FULL PLATE.  Full plate is a very heavy armor with an Armor Sub-Group (ASG) of 20.  ASG is how the game sorts the size of armor.  A list of armor ASG and charts to determine how much armor skill is needed to train off physical and magical hindrance for each ASG may be found at http://www.play.net/gs4/info/armory/armor.asp

Please be aware, as you add armor accessories like Aventails, Helms, Bracers, etc., you will need to add additional armor training.

There is no further help available on this topic.

Resources

• Saved posts
• Item weights (saved posts)
• Racial modifiers (saved post)
• Armor Enhancements
• Alteration nouns permitted
• All About Armor Officials folder

Gallery

• 

  ASG 1 - Normal Clothing

• 

  ASG 2 - Robes

• 

  ASG 5 - Light Leather

• 

  ASG 6 - Full Leather

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  ASG 7 - Reinforced Leather

• 

  ASG 8 - Double Leather

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  ASG 9 - Leather Breastplate

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  ASG 10 - Cuirboulli Leather

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  ASG 11 - Studded Leather

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  ASG 12 - Brigandine Armor

• 

  ASG 13 - Chain Mail

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  ASG 14 - Double Chain

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  ASG 15 - Augmented Chain

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  ASG 16 - Chain Hauberk

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  ASG 17 - Metal Breastplate

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  ASG 18 - Augmented Breastplate

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  ASG 19 - Half Plate

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  ASG 20 - Full Plate

• 

  Arm Greaves

• 

  Arm Greaves

• 

  Leg Greaves

• 

  Leg Greaves

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  Metal Aventail

• 

  Helm

• 

  Leather Helm

• 

  Visored Helm

• 

  Coif

Critical Randomization

Base Rank	Randomized Rank
0	0
1	1
2	1 or 2
3	2 or 3
4	2, 3 or 4
5	3, 4 or 5
6	3, 4, 5 or 6
7	4, 5, 6 or 7
8	4, 5, 6, 7, or 8
9	5, 6, 7, 8 or 9

The ranking of a critical attack has some variation according to the critical randomization mechanics. First, the base rank of the critical is determined as normal (the raw damage of an attack modified by weighting and padding, followed by scaling according to critical divisor). This is the maximum possible critical rank of the attack. The minimum critical rank is half of the maximum rounded up. The actual critical rank of the attack is anything in that range (inclusively) with equal probability. The maximum critical rank of an attack is 9. The table at right summarizes these values.

The effectiveness of a given critical hit is different depending on which location is hit, which is normally determined randomly unless the AMBUSH verb is used, generally. Also, there are different types of critical hits for each location, which include crushing, piercing, or slashing damage. What type of damage a critical hit does is randomly determined between the possible damage types a given weapon is capable of, unless the Combat Maneuver, Precision is used. However, both the hit location and the type of damage cannot be influenced at once. If the AMBUSH verb is used, one cannot benefit from Precision, and if Precision is used, one cannot aim an attack through AMBUSH. In such a case, using a weapon that only deals certain types of damage is paramount.

Example

The italicized line below is the line known as the critical messaging.

You swing a gleaming vultite battlesword at a thunder troll!
   AS: +195 vs DS: +49 with AvD: +42 + d100 roll: +4 = +192
   ... and hit for 53 points of damage!
   Strong slash to the thunder troll's right hand cuts deep.
   The thunder troll is stunned!
Roundtime: 5 sec.

Note that the critical location was determined to be the right hand and that the damage type shown is slashing. The damage factor of a two-handed sword against a thunder troll's armor is .500, so the +192 endroll does 46 raw damage. The message given is a level 4 critical. The critical multiplier against the hand is 5, so the expected critical level is 9, but the troll is protected by natural critical padding and critical randomization reduced the critical level to 4. A level 4 slashing critical to the hand does 7 extra damage.