Padding
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Armor that provides greater-than-normal protection against some form of attack is called padded. Both critical and damage padding utilize the same padding point table albeit toward different effects. Note that critical padding, damage padding, and flares occupy the same item enhancement slot and can not be added to an item in conjunction with one another (i.e., it is in Category B).
Critical Padding
Reduces the severity of a wound caused by a damage source. Each critical hit in GemStone has certain effects associated with it, including a wide range of additional points of damage, any of three degrees of injury (from minor scratch to some degree of bleeding to severed limbs), and possible additional effects such as being knocked prone, or stunned and thus unable to act. These effects are somewhat unpredictable due to critical randomization.
Critical padding can not reduce a critical that would have been rank 1 or higher to a rank 0. Characters have natural critical padding derived from CON bonus, the exact amount of which is not released.
Armor padded in this way has a given number of padding points which fall into categorical ranges outlined in the table below. The padding points are directly subtracted from the phantom damage of a particular strike.
Sample Calculations
It is often desirable to compare critical ranks across several types of armor. To calculate the critical rank generated by a given endroll it is necessary to know the damage factor of the weapon vs the armor, the critical divisor of the armor, and the number of padding points the armor has. If the attacker's weapon has critical weighting, it similarly has weighting points which are added to the phantom damage. The general formula for determining an critical rank is:
- Critical Rank = Truncate[ ( (Endroll - 100) * Damage Factor - Padding Points + Weapon Weighting ) / Critical Divisor ]
The following sample calculations use standard (unweighted) weapons with 200 endrolls and utilize 10 points of critical padding:
- Handaxe vs. Brigandine : ( (200 - 100) * 0.270 - 0 + 0 ) / 7 = 3.86 ≈ Rank 3 critical
- Handaxe vs. HCP Brigandine : ( (200 - 100) * 0.270 - 10 + 0 ) / 7 = 2.43 ≈ Rank 2 critical
- Handaxe vs. Hauberk : ( (200 - 100) * 0.240 - 0 + 0 ) / 9 = 2.67 ≈ Rank 2 critical
Critical Rank Table
The table below shows how the critical ranks from a handaxe and maul with various endrolls scale across the different armor groups. The calculations including padded armor assumed 10 points of padding. Where noted (*) the padding is sufficient to reduce the critical rank to 0 if it wasn't otherwise restricted to a minimum of rank 1.
| Endroll | Handaxe | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cloth | Leather | Scale | Chain | Plate | ||||||
| Norm. | HCP | Norm. | HCP | Norm. | HCP | Norm. | HCP | Norm. | HCP | |
| 105 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 110 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 120 | 1 | 1* | 1 | 1* | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 130 | 2 | 1* | 1 | 1* | 1 | 1* | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 140 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1* | 1 | 1* | 1 | 1* | 0 | 0 |
| 150 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 1* | 1 | 1* | 1 | 1* | 0 | 0 |
| 160 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1* | 1 | 1* | 1 | 1* |
| 170 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1* | 1 | 1* |
| 180 | 6 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1* |
| 190 | 7 | 5 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1* |
| 200 | 8 | 6 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 210 | 9 | 7 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 |
| 220 | 10 | 8 | 6 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 |
| 230 | 10 | 8 | 6 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 |
| 240 | 11 | 9 | 7 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 |
| 250 | 12 | 10 | 7 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 1 |
| 260 | 13 | 11 | 8 | 6 | 6 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 |
| 270 | 14 | 12 | 8 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 |
| 280 | 15 | 13 | 9 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 |
| 290 | 15 | 13 | 9 | 7 | 7 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 2 |
| Maul | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cloth | Leather | Scale | Chain | Plate | |||||
| Norm. | HCP | Norm. | HCP | Norm. | HCP | Norm. | HCP | Norm. | HCP |
| 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 1 | 1* | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2 | 1* | 1 | 1* | 1 | 1* | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 3 | 1 | 2 | 1* | 1 | 1* | 1 | 1* | 0 | 0 |
| 4 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1* | 1 | 1* |
| 5 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1* |
| 6 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1* |
| 7 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 8 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 |
| 9 | 7 | 6 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 |
| 11 | 9 | 7 | 5 | 6 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
| 12 | 10 | 7 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 |
| 13 | 11 | 8 | 6 | 7 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 2 |
| 14 | 12 | 9 | 7 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 |
| 15 | 13 | 10 | 8 | 8 | 7 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 |
| 16 | 14 | 10 | 9 | 9 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 |
| 17 | 15 | 11 | 9 | 9 | 8 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 |
| 18 | 16 | 12 | 10 | 10 | 9 | 7 | 6 | 4 | 3 |
| 19 | 17 | 12 | 11 | 11 | 9 | 7 | 6 | 4 | 4 |
| 20 | 18 | 13 | 11 | 11 | 10 | 8 | 6 | 5 | 4 |
Damage Padding
Will directly reduce the blood loss inflicted by a damage source, but will not reduce the other non-damaging effects of that source (e.g. scratches/bleeding/severed body parts, stuns, or knockdowns). For example, if a particular attack would deal 25 damage against someone wearing heavily damage padded armor (with 10 points of padding), the attack would instead deal 15 points of damage.
Randomization: Critical & Damage Padding
The amount of padding points applied to a successful attack may be randomized (note that this is distinct from critical randomization). For critical or damage padded armor up to somewhat padded, the amount of padding applied is fixed. That is, any armor with 6 points or less (inclusive) of damage or critical padding will always provide the maximum amount of padding it can to any attack. In the case of greater levels of padding, the amount of padding points applied will be randomized but the armor will never provide less than somewhat critical or damage padding. The exact probability distribution of the possible values is unknown. This change was announced by GM Warden in early 2008.
Armor Accessories
Combining armor items with enhancements have various effects. Note that the effects only take place in the active area. i.e. Effects due to enhancement of armor remain unchanged with respect to the head, neck, torso, and arms when worn in conjunction with leg greaves that bare an enhancement.
- Padding + Padding (Similar) : Armor accessories with padding types similar to the armor they cover result in the area having padding equal to the highest rank between the two. e.g. Masterfully critical padded leg greaves worn with heavily critical padded hauberk results in masterful critical padding of the legs.
- Padding + Padding (Dissimilar) : Armor accessories with padding types different from the armor they cover causes both types of padding to be halved in effectiveness. e.g. Heavily critical padded leg greaves combined with heavily damage padded hauberk results in somewhat critical and somewhat damage padding of the legs.
- Padding + Spikes/Flares : Armor accessories with flares combines with critical or damage padded armor results in the padding being halved in that coverage area. e.g. Fire flaring leg greaves combined with heavily damage padded hauberk results in somewhat damage padding of the legs with the appropriate flaring effects.
- Padding + Enhancement : For these purposes, enhancement refers to resistance to specific damage types, an active bless, or TD enhancement. Armor accessories with such enhancements cause padding of the base armor to be halved in effectiveness. e.g. Heavily critical padded hauberk worn with blessed leg greaves results in somewhat critical padding of the legs.
- Padding + Stat/Skill Enhancement : Armor accessories that are only skill or stat enhancives will retain the padding of the main armor. e.g. Heavily critical padded double leather with +2 strength arm greaves will retain heavily crit padding in that area.
Availability
A padding merchant is one of the more highly sought after types. Merchants may offer permanent padding, but it is usually very limited in number and quite expensive. More often merchants offer temporary padding, which lasts for several hundred hits depending on what the adventurer wishes to pay.
Temporary damage padding is also available through the Adventurer's Guild. Adventurers can have either somewhat or heavy damage padding added to their armor that will last for 50 hits.
Guardians of Sunfist members have access to Sigil of Minor Protection and Sigil of Major Protection which grant them 60 seconds of heavy damage or heavy critical padding, respectively.
Heavy Padding (only) is available through the Premium Point system at a cost of 1200 points + (armor enchant bonus * 100 points). For example, to add heavy critical padding to 4x (+20) suit of armor would cost 1200 + (20 * 100) = 3200 premium points.
Wizards receive a base of somewhat crit padding (5 points) through Mage Armor (520). Non-native users of the spell receive light crit padding that cannot be improved.