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It's a nice sentiment, but it's easy to make armour that is better than the normal armour - and it will cost less.
It takes but a couple of minutes of looking at the tables.
Heavy armour: Usually, the best heavy armour is full plate (and the only people use except in low levels). AC+9/Max Dex+1. It has other statistics, like armour penalty and arcane spell failure, but people don't make a habit of caring for them.
UC has the o-yoroi with +8/+2 if you're a bit more dextrous.
Piecemeal, you get the agile plate torso for 400, o-yoroi legs for 300 and horn lamellar arm parts for 25. All in all 725 (less than half than full plate)
That nets you +10/+2 (-4/25%).
You can also get +9/+3 with different legs - that will also make it almost 300 gil cheaper.
Medium armour can be had as +8/+4. Breastplate can't keep up.
Light armour can't be made better than the +4/+4 we get from chan shirt, but we can get the spell failure chance down to 15%, get rid of the armour penalty altogether, and pay a quarter of what we usually pay.
As I said, the general idea is good, but the values are all wrong. It should not be possible - let alone so easy - to outdo normal armour - after all, these types of armour have been around for ages, and if different combinations of armour are that much more effective - and cheaper - than the old versions, someone would have figured it out some time before Earthfall and those combinations would have become the norm.
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Isn't that a problem of any system for piecemeal armor?
Yes, it's broken and should not be used, but compared to other systems, it's pretty harmless. At least you are limited to three pieces and can't wear layer upon layer without increased encumberance.
And if piecemeal armor were inferior to normal armor, there would be little reasons to use it, similar to non-fullplate heavy armor, making it a waste of space.
At least it took a lot less space than words of power.
More importantly maybe, it's easy to make medium armor that lets you move at 30 ft speed.
Chain chest, Hide pants, Lamellar horn gloves. gives you +7/+4 with 30 ft movement for 128 gp.
So yeah, if you want to use that system, your AC will generally be 1 or 2 better than without. Except with light armor - which oddly enough seems balanced against the sets. I would almost guess medium and heavy was done by someone else, who for the most part forgot to factor in the +1 for the set bonus into the equation.
Piecemeal, you get the agile plate torso for 400, o-yoroi legs for 300 and horn lamellar arm parts for 25. All in all 725 (less than half than full plate)
That nets you +10/+2 (-4/25%).
30%, actually; 5% increase for mixed set over matched set. But you're overpaying by 200 gp if you don't care about ASF, since you can sub the standard plate in (40% ASF, other stats same, 200 gp instead of 400).
Note this means you can get the +9/+3 (-4/40%) armor for 228 gp.
Over in medium armors . . .
Ultimate Combat Mixed Medium Armor, Fast:
AC +7, Max Dex +4, Armor Check -2, ASF 35%, Movement 30, 128 gp
(Chain torso for 100, hide legs for 3, horn lamellar arms for 25)
Ultimate Combat Mixed Medium Armor, Protective:
AC +8, Max Dex +4, Armor Check -5, ASF 35%, Movement 20, 48 gp
(Four-mirror armor torso for 20, hide legs for 3, horn lamellar arms for 25)
Ultimate Combat Mixed Medium Armor, Druid Legal (start with it today!):
AC +5, Max Dex +4, Armor Check -2, ASF 30%, Movement 30, 38 gp
(Hide armor torso for 10, hide legs for 3, horn lamellar arms for 25)
Isn't that a problem of any system for piecemeal armor?
I don't know. This is the first I saw. So the others are worse you say?
30%, actually; 5% increase for mixed set over matched set.Piecemeal, you get the agile plate torso for 400, o-yoroi legs for 300 and horn lamellar arm parts for 25. All in all 725 (less than half than full plate)
That nets you +10/+2 (-4/25%).
You're right. I either forgot the 5% or got 20% before the increase, maybe from wrong columns.
But you're overpaying by 200 gp if you don't care about ASF, since you can sub the standard plate in (40% ASF, other stats same, 200 gp instead of 400).
That's right. Yeah, I was going for optimal everything except price. If you do ignore ASF, you save a bit more.
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I don't know. This is the first I saw. So the others are worse you say?Isn't that a problem of any system for piecemeal armor?
The worst system for piecemeal armor I've seen thus far is the one from the fourth Edition of 'Das Schwarze Auge'. There are lots of armor pieces with no encumberance that you can combine to achieve a superior protection. It got even worse with the 'Myranor' expansion.
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The lack of range in the AC bonus for the arm and leg parts is a huge problem.
Like KaeYoss says, it only takes a couple of minutes of reading the section before you realise, for example, that the only arm armour anyone is ever going to wear (barring them wanting it made from mithral or adamantine, I guess) is horn lamellar (although maybe they'd take scale arms if they're on a tight budget).
Leg armour has a slightly larger range with the o-yoroi legs giving +2 (for some reason...), but the principle's the same - you could scrub most of the arm and leg tables completely for any practical purposes (leaving them there for 'flavour' alone, I guess).
There's also annoying little things like quilted cloth armour's DR 3/- Vs ranged piercing weapons working if you just wear the torso piece, but vanishing for some reason if you add non-quilted cloth arm or leg pieces. Huh? Quilted cloth torso with naked arms and legs gives you more protection against arrows than the same with plate armoured limbs? Ooo-kaayy...
On top of that, because the armour is only divided into legs, torso / head, and arms, you can't even use this system as presented to create the icon gladiator style armours with one armoured arm...
For a system like this to work, it really needs to combine piecemeal armour, armour as DR, and hit locations so that each potential hit location has its own armour (which reduces the damage taken). Now, that's a lot of rules changes to basic Pathfinder, sure, but all those things are presented in UC in one form or another - why couldn't the book be written to make them all work together (instead of none of them really working apart)?
IMHO, of course. :)
The worst system for piecemeal armor I've seen thus far is the one from the fourth Edition of 'Das Schwarze Auge'. There are lots of armor pieces with no encumberance that you can combine to achieve a superior protection. It got even worse with the 'Myranor' expansion.I don't know. This is the first I saw. So the others are worse you say?Isn't that a problem of any system for piecemeal armor?
Well, it's DSA....;-P
For a system like this to work, it really needs to combine piecemeal armour, armour as DR, and hit locations so that each potential hit location has its own armour (which reduces the damage taken). Now, that's a lot of rules changes to basic Pathfinder
That will also triple the size of your character sheet.
As a general rule of thumb, anything that at least doubles the size of your character sheet is probably more trouble than it's worth.
Especially since you'd have to add a different damage system, as you're already on the "more detail" trip, and having a big system and several pages of a character's sheet all about armour only to have one big pot of damage would be silly.
But I think that with better numbers, this might work. The numbers need to be arranged in such a way that no combination can overshadow the existing armours - or at least not the most popular types (half-plate can suck it, of course).
The first time I looked over that list I thought: Why would anyone EVER wear one of those leg or arm armors that provide +0 AC but impose all the other penalties?
The only reason I could see was for light armor, so you have something in that slot, and you get the suit bonus. But thats it. As soon as you can wear medium armor, you won't touch any of the +1s.
And then there are so many +1s, with so dramatically different max dex, ACP or ASF chance. That makes no sense at all.
Why would I wear a +1 with +0 dex and -4 ACP when I can wear one with +1 and +4 dex and just a -2 ACP. It even has better ASF (which most people that shop for medium or heavy armor don't care about) and better speed.
I mean the whole thing is completely messed up. Theres one or two armors that are equal or better in all (relevant) stats than all the others.
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Sure, optional rules usually add to the complexity of the game - it's one of the reasons they're optional, after all. If armour as DR, hit locations, and piecemeal armour would 'triple the size' of a character sheet as a co-ordinated system, then what do they do now as three independent systems?
The problem with trying to rearrange the numbers on the piecemeal armour rules is that the range of ACs isn't really large enough to support the system as presented. You need to somehow have the AC benefit from plate arms or legs or torso significantly higher than, say, padded arms or legs or torso, yet still have the plate total add up to +9 and the padded total add up to +1;and you need a wide range in between, so there's no armour pieces which fall into the 'pointless' category.
The range of values for the basic armour rules is based around those fulls sets of armour being the choices possible, with no real 'gaps' in the possible statistics. To support a three armour location system, you need to triple the range of values... which, obviously, brings up a whole host of other problems with regards to backwards compatability with existing rules.
So, we're presented with a system where the full range is sort-of preserved with the torso armour, and non-existant with the arm and leg pieces... which pretty much makes the whole system pointless (except as a source of min-maxing, as has already been presented). It's trying to hammer a round peg into a square hole, really.
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This topic brings back sweet memories of Mythus/Dangerous Journeys.
After calculating a few statistics in that system about where not-aimed attacks would strike and how often you could hit a specific location with aimed attacks, as well as the penalties due to being damaged in each location, I concluded that your best hope for survival was to put the very bestest armor you could afford on your legs and arms and nothing anywhere else.
Good Ol' Gygaxian times :-)
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Decided to look over this system tonight, unaware of this thread, here are my results.
Conclusion: Any torso piece that is normally considered an entire armor on its own should probably be considered a category heavier when worn with other armor (and stone coat should not be allowed to combine with any other armor). I am also unclear as to why lamellar cuirass and leather lamellar torso piece are two different pieces of armor, they sound the same. I don't even know what's up with the speed changes -- hide, scale, and chain armor for instance are now 30' even as a full suit. Perhaps this is intentional, to elevate those choices above the breastplate, but it seems this should be noted as official errata somewhere if actually intended.
This system definately had some potential -- finer control over the max dex and check penalty and speed of your armor might encourage wider variety than chainshirt/elvenchain/breastplate/fullplate, and of course it's perfect for a game where the party must scavenge or for combination with called shot/hit location rules (perfect for that gritty campaign where pieces of your armor break), but as written it is extremely breakable. I wonder how much of this book was actually playtested?
Note: Armored skirt +1 AC 0%ASF -0ACP, increase armor category by one
0% ASF
Normal: Haramiki/silk ceremonial +1 AC
(No other)
-0 ACP (Wearable with no proficiency)
Normal: 10gp Leather: +2 AC +6MDex 10%ASF
Special: 1100gp Mithral chain shirt +4 AC +6MDex 10%ASF
Piecemeal: 22gp Lamellar cuirass + studded leather legs + leather arms +4AC +2MDex, 15%ASF
10% ASF (Cast at no ASF w/feat)
Normal: Leather +2 AC +6MDex -0ACP
Special: 1100gp Mithral chain shirt +4 AC +6MDex -0ACP
Piecemeal: 21gp Lamellar cuirass+wooden leg piece + padded arm piece +4AC, +3MDex, -1ACP
Light armor:
Normal: 100gp Chain shirt +4 AC +4MDex -2ACP 20%ASF
Special: 4200 GP Mithral Breastplate (medium prof) or Elven Chain (light prof), +6 AC, +4/5 MDex -1/2ACP 15/20%ASF
Piecemeal: 4220gp Mithral Do-Maru torso piece + Scale / Lamellar / Kikko arm and leg pieces (medium prof) +8 AC, +5MDex, -1ACP, 15%ASF
Medium Armor:
Normal: 200gp Breastplate +6 AC
Special: 11500gp Mithral Anyplate +9 AC (heavy prof)
Piecemeal: 220gp See Light, sans mithral (+8 AC, +3MDex, -4ACP, 25%ASF)
S Piecemeal: 10600gp Mithral Plate torso piece + O-yoroi leg piece + any arm piece +10 AC (heavy prof) +4MDex, -2ACP, 25%ASF
Heavy Armor:
Normal: 1500gp Plate +9 AC +1MDex, -6ACP, 35%ASF
Piecemeal: 810gp Stone coat + O-Yoroi leg piece + any arm piece +12AC, +0MDex, -7ACP, 40%ASF
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I know everyone is hard at number crunching but this piecemeal stuff just doesnt work at all. Here is why, granted this is a game, but armor has to be custom made for one person and one person only. So if you allow this as a DM and want to control the min maxing of players simply dump penalities on everything that they do. Also mixing western armor and eastern armor is BAD idea. In jade regent I would have any one wearing piecemeal armor with asia components to be challenged constantly. Most if not all Eastern based armor is ancesteral.
Secondly how often is there armor parts laying around, Id question alingment of the scavenger or who wears the armor.
lastly this was just my two cents.
I know everyone is hard at number crunching but this piecemeal stuff just doesnt work at all. Here is why, granted this is a game, but armor has to be custom made for one person and one person only. So if you allow this as a DM and want to control the min maxing of players simply dump penalities on everything that they do. Also mixing western armor and eastern armor is BAD idea. In jade regent I would have any one wearing piecemeal armor with asia components to be challenged constantly. Most if not all Eastern based armor is ancesteral.
Secondly how often is there armor parts laying around, Id question alingment of the scavenger or who wears the armor.
lastly this was just my two cents.
What weird game are you playing? Looting enemies is par for the course! Heck, I don't think most people would bat an eye at a Paladin prying out people's gold fillings!
In all seriousness though, I think it would be better to just not use the rules than massively penalize your players for using an optional system you decided to offer. I also question how someone would be "constantly" challenged for using Eastern armor. How many relatives did the guy you stole the armor from have in Varisia? And why aren't the friends of the guy you took a suit of full plate off of last adventure doing the same thing?
On topic, I think the big issue is that the AC system is just not granular enough for this sort of thing. If different armor pieces added fractions of AC, check penalty, and arcane failure you might be able to make something vaguely balanced. But I've found alternate systems like these tend to shy away from fractions or weird math. And even then, you'd have a best armor that offered 5.0 AC with only a 3.9 check penalty. Best to leave it all to the realm of ultra-gritty campaigns and call it a day.
Sure, optional rules usually add to the complexity of the game - it's one of the reasons they're optional, after all. If armour as DR, hit locations, and piecemeal armour would 'triple the size' of a character sheet as a co-ordinated system, then what do they do now as three independent systems?
Armour as DR: Adds a bit, since you probably need a (bigger) text box/free space for your DR rating. I'd say something like 10x40 mm. Not that much.
Hit locations: There's called shots. That requires no change to the sheet at all.
Piecemeal: Again, not much. Instead one box for armour you might need 4 (arms/legs/torso/total). Depending on how big the armour box is on the sheet, it might be as big as a quarter of a page, or less.
All together: If you just add them up, not that much.
But the idea was for piecemeal armour that provides individual bonuses for the body parts they cover, combined with DR, combined with called shots.
That would mean you'd have to list a number of body zones and what your AC to it is. Depending on how that is done, they might get size modifiers, different dex modifiers, other modifiers that cover everything (or nearly everything - I'd say deflection covers everything, but natural won't cover eyes or something like that), so you'll have a compound AC score for each. And list what armour part there is (and what properties it has). and its DR value (since we're using piecemeal armour as DR)
And then, since such a complex system where you define where you attack the enemy and have specific defences against these attacks just doesn't work with one big pot of HP, you'd have to have a new damage/injury system, which means that would probably have to be listed, too.
(And since we're at it, weapons would probably get different attack and damage modifiers against certain locations and against certain kinds of armour in a system that is already going for realism over ease, so that's even more info).
The "triple size sheet" was a humorous exaggeration, or so I thought at first. The more I think about it, though.....
The problem with trying to rearrange the numbers on the piecemeal armour rules is that the range of ACs isn't really large enough to support the system as presented. You need to somehow have the AC benefit from plate arms or legs or torso significantly higher than, say, padded arms or legs or torso, yet still have the plate total add up to +9 and the padded total add up to +1;and you need a wide range in between, so there's no armour pieces which fall into the 'pointless' category.
You're probably right. Maybe multiply everything by 10 and fine-tune from there (or introduce decimal points. I still have my .1 d10 die somewhere :D)
which pretty much makes the whole system pointless (except as a source of min-maxing, as has already been presented).
Actually, I don't even call it min-maxing if it is this obvious. Those min-maxers would probably be insulted, and when I insult min-maxers, I want to make a thorough job of it ;-)
The min-maxers I saw were those who crunched numbers real hard, used several books and looked up lots of classes, spells, races, feats, and magic items to find the hidden synergies. Looking at a couple of charts for a couple of minutes probably doesn't count. :)
Piecemeal: 810gp Stone coat + O-Yoroi leg piece + any arm piece +12AC, +0MDex, -7ACP, 40%ASF
Can't be done. Look at the notes on the Stone Coat, p.205.
I know everyone is hard at number crunching but this piecemeal stuff just doesnt work at all. Here is why, granted this is a game, but armor has to be custom made for one person and one person only.
Not in Pathfinder. There, you kill the bastard, take his armour and then wear it yourself.
So if you allow this as a DM and want to control the min maxing of players simply dump penalities on everything that they do.
I prefer methods that won't leave me with no players.
Besides, nothing in the whole system says that those armour pieces can't be tailor-made for your character. So even if you have the rule that only armour made for you will work for you without penalty, you can walk into the smithy and say, "Hey you, make me an armour. I want one of those really nice breast plates, those steel lamellar thigh guards with those leather-reinforced leggings and for the arms, use horn lamellar."
BAM! Bespoke powergamer armour.
Also mixing western armor and eastern armor is BAD idea.
The numbers sure disagree with you. Plus, dead men win no fashion contests!
In jade regent I would have any one wearing piecemeal armor with asia components to be challenged constantly. Most if not all Eastern based armor is ancesteral.
In Jade Regent, I would throw out anyone wearing Asia components. "Where the heck are you getting those Sony Kevlar Plates from?"
Your argument is invalid. Not only because Jade Regent will place in Tian Xia, which might be inspired by Asia but is not Asia (and that means that not everything that is true in Asia is true in Tian Xia), but also because having overpowered rules but trying to balance them with roleplaying is a bad idea. Make the rules balanced and consistent and let the roleplaying attend to itself.
Plus, if they're going to be challenged because of parts of Tien armour, they'll be even more challenged because of whole suits of Tien armour. And if they don't get Tien armour, they'll die, since the armour they still got left over from level 1 will be inadequate pretty soon.
Plus, why should anyone challenge them because of armour? Is it their armour? Or are they all one big family and it's one of their hundreds of brothers' armour? Or is there an ancestral police that will constantly demand the armour certificates of authenticity and their gear pedigree?
Note that the pieces are all in the same charts. They didn't segregate the Asian pieces. And even if they did, it would change but little. So I may not use horn lamellar and o-yoroi with my breastplate because the purity of the armour must be maintained? Fine, I'll use scale mail for all of it. Nets me +9 AC, +3 max dex, -4 armour penalty, 30% arcane failure.
All I really lost was a few bucks, and the option of +10/+2 armour. I still get something that's a lot better than any normal heavy armour. I might even ditch the agile breastplate for a normal one, screw arcane failure, I don't need it, that's another 200 gil off. 220 gil for something you otherwise would have to pay over 10000. - And if I do want to pay over 10000, we can make that +9/+5!
Secondly how often is there armor parts laying around
All the frikking time. Every armour is armour parts. I'll just take a breast plate, a scale mail, throw away the central part of the scale mail, cry a bit (but not much, really) about the 30 gil I just tossed out, and still have my armour.
Id question alingment of the scavenger or who wears the armor.
So if I kill some bloke and take the whole armour, it's okay, but if I don't use all the parts, I'm suddenly evil? It's a bloody piece of armour, not a deer. And we're talking about Pathfinder, the fantasy roleplaying game based on European stuff, not Pathfinder the weird film about Native Americans fighting off Vikings. We simply don't need to "use all the parts", and it doesn't make us evil if we do.
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The "triple size sheet" was a humorous exaggeration, or so I thought at first. The more I think about it, though...
Nah - you just have a little picture of a dude (or dudette) somewhere on the sheet with arrows pointing to the locations, and all the relevant info listed next to them. Simple, easy to reference, a good visual aid, and something for the players to draw smily faces on and colour in when they get bored - it's made of win! :)
Plenty of RPGs have similar stuff (I ran WFRPG for years, back in the day, using character sheets with such little pictures on - worked a treat).
The "triple size sheet" was a humorous exaggeration, or so I thought at first. The more I think about it, though...Nah - you just have a little picture of a dude (or dudette) somewhere on the sheet with arrows pointing to the locations, and all the relevant info listed next to them. Simple, easy to reference, a good visual aid, and something for the players to draw smily faces on and colour in when they get bored - it's made of win! :)
Plenty of RPGs have similar stuff (I ran WFRPG for years, back in the day, using character sheets with such little pictures on - worked a treat).
My PF sheet had pictures like this at some point, too. It was for the magic item slots. At first I used this faceless dummy thing taken from one of those online applications where you can try to create a picture of your character. Ended up looking like a really goofy superman, so I replaced it with the Vitruvian Man.
Not a perfect system (but then again, I'd really like to see one). But overall, I don't see too big of an issue with it. So PCs get slightly better armor then they normally could, so does everyone else in the game world. I really don't think it makes or breaks a campaign or is unbalancing.
I just find it wierd/ironic that this piecemeal system was (whether or not it causes power drift) all about tweaking armor specs, i.e. DEX, AC, movement, etc. Yet it is released in the exact same book as a bunch of ´Asian´ armor... is all about tweaking armor specs, i.e. DEX, AC, movement, etc (all for the aim of ´Asian must be different´ - for some reason that doesn´t apply to the different pseudo-Viking, pseudo-Renaissance, pseudo-Medieval Europe, pseudo-Medieval Arabia/Persia, pseudo-Egyptian cultures (to name a few) that are in the Inner Sea Region, all of which use the same frickin´ armor chart and get by just fine.
Honestly, I feel like ripping out the roughly 1/3 of the book that I find value in, and chucking the rest. I may keep the Ninja tricks if somebody playing a Rogue wants to pick them up, the Samurai can stick around, and the general Combat Feats and Styles are good. THe rest? I say your katana is a bastard sword. Yes, Billy, you can wear the ancestral asian armor you ripped off your last victim, it´s stats are in the Equipment Chapter of the Core Book. Yes, your victim DID have really slanty eyes, I know.
I just feel sorry for anybody judging PFS games, who ´can´t´ say no to all this bloat.
Not a perfect system (but then again, I'd really like to see one). But overall, I don't see too big of an issue with it. So PCs get slightly better armor then they normally could, so does everyone else in the game world. I really don't think it makes or breaks a campaign or is unbalancing.
Isn´t it alot simpler to just add +1 AC and +1 max DEX to everybody then? If that was called for in terms of game-balance, that should be the solution, if it´s not called for (and Monsters with Natural Armor aren´t changing AC) then such an outcome shouldn´t be caused by this.
And of course, it´s NOT everybody in the world, since the Asian armors are better (separate from piecemeal armor, I know),
and it means that in terms of game-world-realism, NOBODY WOULD USE THE NORMAL ARMORS ANYMORE,
you don´t order a set of Full Plate or Breastplate armor anymore, you order the optimal piecemeal set.
WOW... That really improved the depth of my game! DOn´t you think!?