Armor

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Armor is gear worn by characters to protect them from damage. It 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 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 Hindrance

Wearing heavy armor hinders a character's actions and introduces penalties to their actions. These penalties can be mitigated through training in the Armor Use skill.

AG AsG Name RT Spell Hindrance
MnS MjS Cleric MnE MjE Ranger Sorcerer Wizard Bard Empath Paladin Max
Cloth 1 Robes 0 - - - - - - - - - - - -
Soft Leather 5 Light leather 0 - - - - - - - - - - - -
6 Full leather 1 - - - - - - - - - - - -
7 Reinforced leather 2 - - - - 2 - 1 2 - - - 4
8 Double leather 2 - - - - 4 - 2 4 2 - - 6
Hard Leather 9 Leather breastplate 3 3 4 4 4 6 3 5 6 3 4 2 16
10 Cuirbouilli leather 4 4 5 5 5 7 4 6 7 3 5 3 20
11 Studded leather 5 5 6 6 6 9 5 8 9 3 6 4 24
12 Brigandine armor 6 6 7 7 7 12 6 11 12 7 7 5 28
Chain 13 Chain mail 7 7 8 8 8 16 7 16 16 8 8 6 40
14 Double chain 8 8 9 9 9 20 8 18 20 8 9 7 45
15 Augmented chain 8 9 11 11 10 25 9 22 25 8 11 8 55
16 Chain hauberk 9 11 14 14 12 30 11 26 30 15 14 9 60
Plate 17 Metal breastplate 9 16 25 25 16 35 21 29 35 21 25 10 90
18 Augmented plate 10 17 28 28 18 40 24 33 40 21 28 11 92
19 Half plate 11 18 32 32 20 45 27 39 45 21 32 12 94
20 Full plate 12 20 45 45 22 50 30 48 50 50 45 13 96

To see how much training is required to reduce these penalties as far as possible, see the Armor Use article.

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