I was looking at the rules for Piecemeal Armor for arms and discovered that among the light armors there is no armor bonus for choosing to wear them and plate arm pieces only offer a +1 bonus. So what's the use of choosing the lighter type armors? Looks?
Also, piecemeal armor is a potential alternate armor system to be used in a campaign instead of regular armor purchases. The various alternate systems may end up being a tiny bit better or a tiny bit worse than the “standard” but it doesn’t really matter as long as the whole campaign is using the alternate assumptions.
If a character is wearing more than one armor piece, she add the armor costs, armor bonuses, and weights of the armor pieces, and takes the worst maximum Dexterity bonus, arcane spell failure chance, and speed limitations from among the various armor pieces to determine the full statistics and qualities of the armor she is wearing.
So adding that plate arm piece to your light armor pieces reduces your max dex to +1 and 20' speed, and increases your arcane spell failure to 45% (40% for plate 5% for mixed suit).
Mostly it's good for a world or at least a game where no one has good armor and that's the point, because it's all a motley of scavenged pieces, at least for some significant portion of the game.
You can break it by getting +7 AC "medium" armor that you run around in at full speed that a level 1 PC can technically afford. (Chain torso, studded leather legs, lamellar arms), eatting a -6 ACP for it.
You can also get +4 light armor for 40g (less than half of that of chain armor) with the main difference being 1 lower max dex.
You can break it by getting +7 AC "medium" armor that you run around in at full speed that a level 1 PC can technically afford. (Chain torso, studded leather legs, lamellar arms), eatting a -6 ACP for it.
You can also get +4 light armor for 40g (less than half of that of chain armor) with the main difference being 1 lower max dex.
Do you add the armor check penalties together? Or do you just take the worst one?
The example that I'm able to refer to seems to indicate that it's just the worst ACP from the lot, both if you're not proficient with a component of the armor set and in the example provided for rendering a complete suit of half-plate armor as a collection of pieces.
If it's only the worst ACP, then Chain Torso + Studded Leather Legs + Horn Lamellar Arms = -2 ACP. If the ACP is added together then it's -4 ACP. Not seeing how you got -6 ACP for it.
= 21 gp, +4 AC, +4 max Dex, 0 ACP, 10% ASF, full move speed
(Basically a Chain Shirt for 21% of the price. No price change to make Druid-Friendly by substituting in Wooden Legs, though the max Dex is reduced to +3, making it the equivalent of a suit of Leather Lamellar for 35% of the price.)
= 45 gp, +5 AC, +4 max Dex, -2 ACP, 25% ASF, full move speed
(No price change, but +3 max Dex if Wooden Legs are substituted in for druid-friendliness purposes. Like a suit of Kikko armor for 18% of the cost, while the druid-friendly version is 45% of the price of a full suit of Horn Lamellar.)
(Medium+Light armor with better potential than any standard medium or heavy armor. Equal to full plate armor with Dexterity 14 or better for 15% of the price. Better than O-yoroi for ~13.5% of the price. Lower the price to 50 gp and you get the same thing with -5 ACP instead by substituting in a Four-Mirror Armor Torso.)
Horn Lamellar Arms(25 gp): +1 AC, +5 max Dex, -2 ACP, 25% ASF
Wooden Legs(5 gp): +1 AC, +3 max Dex, -1 ACP, 5% ASF
Stone Coat Torso(500 gp): +8 AC, +0 max Dex, -7 ACP, 40% ASF
(Probably the best combination of potential AC and cost. As a bonus, the whole thing is a legal target for being made of Mithral to increase the max Dex to +5 and decrease the ACP to -1 and the ASF to 25%. Could be made 5 gp cheaper by using Wooden Legs instead of Scale legs.)
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Oh, and one other thing you can do with it is craft a suit of armor in stages in a more conventional game where you're not all intentionally running around looking like Final Fantasy met Mad Max or what have you.
It also is compatible with using the spell Create Armaments in conjunction with the False Focus feat in order to use several spell slots to make a suit of armor, effectively for free. Or to reduce the cost of some of the more expensive armors by getting part of them for free, leaving only part of them to be made or purchased the old-fashioned way.
(It would also potentially be helpful to people using Blood Money, since it would limit the amount of Strength damage they took at any one time. Although I don't think any of the armors that can be assembled through the piecemeal armor system are valuable enough for that to really be a concern without bringing special materials into the mix.)
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False Focus compatibility ramblings:
There are no light armor pieces that are too expensive for False Focus.
For Medium armor, Do-maru and Mountain Pattern are the only torso pieces too expensive for False Focus, and all of the arm and leg pieces work fine.
For Heavy Armor, Banded, Kusari Gusoku, Iron Lamellar, Splint, and Tatami-do work for arm pieces, while all others are out. Leg-wise, they're all valid except for Plate, Tatmi-do, and O-yoroi. In terms of Torso pieces, only Iron Lamellar and Splint are False Focus compatible.
= 23 gp, +5 AC, +3 max Dex, -2 ACP, 25% ASF, 27 lb, full move speed
(Effectively Light armor while using all Medium pieces and offering protection equivalent to Scale armor for 46% of the price and without a move speed reduction.)
(Puts you into Heavy armor AC territory with Medium + Light pieces. Roughly equivalent to a Mithral O-yoroi for ~0.5% of the price, but with a worse ACP. Would save 2 gp to use Hide instead of Studded Leather legs and add 4 lb.)
(Basically Tatami-do but with all Medium pieces for ~0.6% of the price.)
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And then, while we're here, let's look at the interaction between a set comprised of piecemeal armor and Create Armaments diamonds into gold cheese:
Just for idle mild amusement's sake.
Best weight-gp cost ratio for piecemeal armor
Arms piece: Kikko at 5 gp for 5 lb
Gold Kikko Arms > 50 gp for 7.5 lb
Legs piece: Scale at 10 gp for 10 lb
Gold Scale Legs > 100 gp for 15 lb
Torso piece: Four-Mirror Armor at 20 gp for 40 lb
Gold Four-Mirror Armor > 200 gp for 60 lb
350 gp in diamonds for for 82.5 lb of gold. Gold is 50 gp per lb, so 4125 gp in gold by weight. 4125 - 350 = 3775 gp net profit.
Compare with the 875 gp net profit from making a Gold Chain Shirt for 1000 gp and making 32.5 lb of gold for 1875 gp of gold by weight. Also, the 2250 gp net profit from making a Gold Chain Coat for 750 gp and making 60 lb of gold for 3000 gp of gold by weight.
Further compare with the 375 gp profit from using False Focus to make an otherwise 50 gp Gold Buckler that weighs 7.5 lb for 375 gp of gold by weight. And the 450 gp profit from making a Gold Light Shield that would cost 90 gp and weigh 9 lb for 450 gp of gold by weight.
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Bone Breastplate musing that isn't relevant to False Focus:
As a special material, Bone halves the value of a breastplate made of it to 100 gp, lowers AC by 1, and gives it 5 Hardness and the Fragile armor quality. Only enchanting it as magic armor will remove the Fragile quality.
(Better, Druid-friendly O-Yoroi armor for ~7.5% of the price.)
Of course, compare that to the 530 gp Stone Coat Torso + Wooden Legs + Horn Lamellar Arms and to substituting Dragonhide Plate Torso for the Bone Plate Torso.
(Still basically Mithral Full Plate armor but Druid-friendly and with worse ACP. Also about 7% of the price of Mithral Full Plate and about 46% of the price of regular old Full Plate.)
Correction: I missed a line about Stone Coat that means that particular example I listed is invalid.
Quote:
Stone Coat: This weighty cuirass consists of lamellar crafted from alchemically treated stone. If worn with other armor pieces, this torso armor piece gains no armor bonus from the other armor pieces, and all of the added hindrances.
Additionally, the values I gave for Arcane Spell Failure in my two previous posts were off by 5% in all cases.
Quote:
Wearing a mixed suit of armor increases the arcane spell failure chance by 5% because of the awkwardness of the design.
There is a similar line for Armored Coats, but I believe it's referring to how the armored coat normally functions, rather than a restriction on its compatibility as part of a suit of mixed armor.
Quote:
Armored Coat: This sturdy leather coat is reinforced with metal plates sewn into the lining. While more cumbersome than other torso armor pieces, and less effective, it can be donned or removed with a move action (there is no "don hastily" option for the armored coat). This torso armor piece can be worn with other armors, but the wearer takes the best armor bonus instead of adding up all the armor bonuses.
(All-Mithral version would cost +4000 gp and have +5 max Dex, ACP -2, and no move speed reduction while weighing 27.5 lb. All-Adamantine version would cost +10,000 gp.)
(All-Mithral version would cost +7000 gp and increase max Dex to +5, lower ACP to -1, and reduce ASF to 30% while halving weight to 22.5 lb. All-Adamantine version would cost +15,000 gp.)
(All-Mithral version would cost +4000 gp and increase max Dex to +5, lower ACP to -1, and reduce ASF to 20% while halving weight to 22.5 lb and removing the movement speed reduction. All-Adamantine version would cost +9000 gp.)
