Light Armour Mod Suggestion

[Takao 0]

So, when you compare the mods for Light Armour and Heavy Armour, there's a pretty clear difference in usefulness. As a concept, light armour is favoured by characters who seek a more mobile build, and heavy armour is preferred by characters who prefer more mitigation in favour of mobility. The enhancements reflect this very clearly, especially with the tiered system furthering the gap.

As it stands, light armour's grand master skill mod is pretty lackluster. +1 Evasion is great in a lot of cases, but it's also easily counteracted with accuracy. Heavy armour's GM mod is considerably better, offering the player a maximum of +80 HP under the correct conditions. So, I have a suggestion for some changes:

Quote

(R3) Expert Light Armour Mod
Sprint & Acrobatics: Able to perform complex jumps, flips, balancing acts, dance, tumbles, and somersaults as well as reach areas of the map that are outside of a normal player's ability to reach via being able to jump and reach ledges and other means of climbing. +1 Damage and +1 Evasion

(R5) GM Light Armour Mod
Shield Proficiency: Removes evasion penalty for using shields while wearing light armour. (15 SP)

(R3) Expert Heavy Armour Mod
Athletics: You can hit harder and endure more. +1 Damage and +20 Health (9 SP)

(R5) GM Heavy Armour Mod
Stonewall: Gain your ACTIVE MITIGATION (this means if you want to leech HP off of the Block Skill you have to have a Shield equipped) from Armour skill & block skill mitigation as bonus health. Lowers the users evasion by 1. (15 SP)
Note: If you are at 0 evasion, stonewall will put you at -1 evasion, giving your enemies +1 to their BD/MD.

Sprint & Acrobatics takes Light Armour's R3 Mod's spot, and the +5 HP is replaced with evasion. On the other end, Heavy Armour's R3 Mod gets a slight buff from +5HP to +20HP, bringing their total potential HP bonus to +100. GM Light Armour users would then be presented with the opportunity to use shields without losing their evasion score. I think that puts both skills on par with each other without tipping the scales in either direction. Opinions?

Edited May 19, 2016 by Takao

[Rain 0]

I really like the expert change. It'll actually give some differences heavy and light. I just don't like the grandmaster mod. Normally, when I think light armor, I wouldn't think "uses shields." I would normally think "very nimble." So maybe something like...

(R5) GM Light Armour Mod
Fitted: After years of use, the player's armor is well fitted to his/her size and shape allowing for better movement without sacrificing protection. +1 Evasion; +20 HP (15 SP)

That way the people have the option to either be nimble or hunker down and take the hit. The bonus HP since it should fit and protect better. but instead of HP MIT could work too. idk.. 5 MIT? Idk what could work for that tier... whatcha think, @Takao?

EVA builds vs Heavy Thorn builds :p

[Shirien 0]

On the over all, it looks pretty interesting to me. I'll confess up front I have not run any actual mental simulations of what these changes would actually mean, but the concept of light and heavy armor becoming more diverse from one another is something I whole-heartily approve of!

However I do find it a touch unusual that the grandmaster skill mods revolve around an item that is not actually light or heavy armor. Shields, to me, are an independent element. Actually, i would take Shieldwall and  Shield Proficiency and put those under Block or whatever the skill was, and have them only trigger when wearing one armor type or the other. If there were light shields (bucklers) and heavy shields (tower shields) I could conceive them being related, but as it stands this would make no more sense than, say, heavy armor making two-handed weapons more efficient and light armor making no-shield one-handed more efficient. I'm not averse to the idea, but it's breaking form and I can't see why. So basically I'd think that the mod for reaching full mastery of an armor might have more to do with the armor itself than an optional attachment.

If certain mods made certain pieces equipment 'synchronize together' better then that would be awesome though! But since these examples are the first sign of such a thing happening I know about it's the 'odd one out' at the moment~

[Takao 0]

@Rain I like the idea, but I think just adding more evasion and HP is kind of bland for the very last mod you get. Essentially, the only change would be that you get one extra evasion and some health.

@Shirien That's a fair concern, but there's only so much you can do with armour skills when the source material you're working with is as limited as it is. Heavy Armour gets mitigation and health, light armour gets evasion. That's the meta that was set, and there aren't many alternatives to that. Adding Shield Proficiency under the block skill instead of limiting it to an armour skill ultimately defeats its purpose, which would be to give people a reason to take light armour in favour of heavy armour. It would also continue to strengthen the block skill itself, which I don't think is necessary.

It might be interesting to see some damage boosts come to the armour skills. If both the light armour and heavy armour skills had something involving shields at the end of the spectrum, then there's an alternative for tank based characters. Then there could be an alternative for DPS based characters; maybe their sword art's total multipliers get increased by 1 for their relevant weapons? One handed for light armour, two handed for heavy. Opinions?

[Rain 0]

2 minutes ago, Takao said:

It might be interesting to see some damage boosts come to the armour skills. If both the light armour and heavy armour skills had something involving shields at the end of the spectrum, then there's an alternative for tank based characters. Then there could be an alternative for DPS based characters; maybe their sword art's total multipliers get increased by 1 for their relevant weapons? One handed for light armour, two handed for heavy. Opinions?

That would limit the variety people can choose from without sacrificing individuality. I mean, what if someone wanted to be a two-handed great sword user but wear light clothes?

In DnD, the difference with lighter armor and heavier armor is the added bonus of Dex cap to the Armor Class. That way, the heavy armor has a higher base Armor Class but with a lower dex bonus and the lighter armor has less base AC and have a higher Dex Bonus Cap.

Using that as a reference, we could maybe do the same thing maybe with our armor. The heavier armor gets more mitigation and HP, but the lighter gets more evasion. Giving people the option to either hunker down, or move and dodge the attack. That's why I was thinking of adding more Evasion to the grandmaster. How about something like this then...

(R3) Expert Light Armour Mod
Fitted: After years of use, the player's armor is well fitted to his/her size and shape allowing for better movement without sacrificing protection.  +1 Damage and +10 HP (9 SP)

(R5) GM Light Armour Mod
Sprint & Acrobatics: Able to perform complex jumps, flips, balancing acts, dance, tumbles, and somersaults as well as reach areas of the map that are outside of a normal player's ability to reach via being able to jump and reach ledges and other means of climbing. +2 Evasion.(15 SP)

I know it looks bland on paper, but logically, the light armor would stand a chance at the heavy armor. It can dodge attacks better than the heavy armor which would just stand there and take it.

[Shirien 0]

@Rain That's fair but so far as I can tell most people are falling into certain metas or archetypes most of the time anyways. It is a good point though that some people will want light armor and a greataxe for barbarian purposes.

@Takao On paper I like the idea but maybe a straight damage increase may not be the way to go? It'd get people spending SP but it wouldn't feel very optional. I think these should be like perks in Skyrim. Useful but not perfect for all scenarios. Like maybe the ability to block at greatly reduced efficiency with a greatsword, or maybe a boost to CRITICAL damage for lighter weapons like dagger or rapier.

[Baldur 0]

It would be nice to have an option for R5 Light armor that would work for a 2 hand user (since we can't use shields) but this is definitely better than the way it is now.