[.11] Arcane/Celestial Armor Suggestion

Feldor

Adept
I'd like to suggest a set of changes to arcane & celestial armor:
1) Arcane & celestial armor stack with normal armor.
2) All arcane armor suits are halved in value - it might make sense to only have 5/10/15 suits.
3) Appropriately physrep'd arcane&celestial armor can qualify as "Master Crafted". Appropriate physreps include a pair of metal bracelets at least 3 inches wide; or a bracelet with at least 6 dime size charms; or a 2 visible rings with a dime size head on each hand. (Think wonder woman's bracelets; harry dresden's shield bracelet; rings of protection -- the goal is something that is recognizable as magically protective jewelry.)


Notes:
1) This does not affect the armor caps for classes at all; and relies on them being at the current values to be reasonable.
2) As written, Arcane and normal armor would by default refit separately. I'd suggest we'd want to allow them to be refit together in one focus period, with the caveat that blacksmithing refit acceleration would not apply to arcane/celestial armor.
3) A max suit of arcane/celestial armor, with physreps that are "Master Crafted" quality, and "In Genre" is 21 points of armor. Most classes will be able to cap armor using arcane armor pretty easily.

Comments:
1) This would allow people who currently wear arcane armor and armor as costuming to get benefit from their armor.
2) With the changes to armor point calculation, arcane armor's relative value was changing significantly. It was going from providing 30 out of 40 of max possible; vs 30 out of 62. Furthermore, with addition of armor going from 3 to 4 points per location, and the additional bonus for real materials, it was becoming much easier to reach class armor caps. This change lets arcane armor keep being relevant treasure for everyone.
3) This does increase the total maximum armor a fully armored person could have - assuming they are willing to buy a lot of wear extra armor. Given you can buy vitality at roughly the same XP rate as extra armor, I think this is acceptable.
 
Is this to force people to wear physical armor?
 
So, I think the armor changes are already forcing melee fighters to wear physical armor instead of arcane. This is intended to keep arcane armor useful for fighters. The amount of armor that it takes to cap any class except fighter or scout that has not taken wear extra armor but has a max level suit of arcane armor is minor, and likely to be already worn. Arguably, a good set of metal bracers could qualify both as 4-5 points of armor, and the physrep for arcane armor; and be all that is needed to cap any class that wears 25 armor or less.
 
I dislike it. Kills arcane armor.
 
So, I think the armor changes are already forcing melee fighters to wear physical armor instead of arcane. This is intended to keep arcane armor useful for fighters.

And useless for casters.
 
While I love the concept of stacking more armor on my physical suit, there are a ton of caveats in that concept. Maybe this would be feasible for celestial armor, stacking on top of a physical or arcane suit as a benefit to celestial casters and something to tempt them aside from cloaks as high magic. That said, there are other problems involved with letting the heavy armor fighter get more armor. If I can push a 50-60 pt suit up to an 80ish pt suit, and magic item that to double up to 160 pts, I would certainly feel bad about the damage bloat we would be inadvertently adding to balance out the absurd tankiness of that armor. I really want a reason to aim for celestial high magic but I really can't find one.
 
I dislike it. Kills arcane armor.

I like it, precisely because it kills Arcane Armor as we know it to go along with the new rules making it much easier to have cool garb that gets armor points.

Until we feel like writing Formal Fighting to go with Formal Magic, celestial armor is just flatly too good and too easy to get.

I mean, my ideal would be to have Celestial Armor/Dex Armor/Natural Armor just be something you can buy with build so people can wear whatever they like and make use of the very necessary armor mechanics, but with that not being a thing...
 
Honestly, I don't think this would change arcane armor much - folks who have NOT bought extra armor will end up with the same amount of armor they had before, admittedly part of that will come from a armor suit (keep in mind a decent leather/canvas bodice can give you as much as 9 armor, before the up to +6 for mastercraft/in-genre under the new rules) of armor. What changes is for the folks who play fighters and want to go lightly armored; or who have bought ranks of wear extra armor - this lets them still use arcane armor. Yes it will mean that your templar will need to bother getting a 10-point armor tag instead of just wearing arcane armor, but its unlikely to require you to significantly change what you are wearing beyond physrep'ing the arcane armor.
 
So, yes, you want to force casters to wear physical armor.
 
Please give me an example of a single player using celestial armor. It is terrible right now and I'm not sure why people pretend it's great. At the point where you can profit from a large amount of celestial armor you have already been playing for quite a while and most likely already have arcane armor. If celestial armor was an extra bonus though, like 15ish armor on top of your max, arcane or physical, then it starts to be tempting. Double down on "magical protective" rep and I really think it adds something to the game.
Edit: this post comes off as aggressive but is not due to a single post in this thread. I have seen multiple sources across several threads suggest celestial armor is fine as is while no one makes use of it.
 
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Please give me an example of a single player using celestial armor. It is terrible right now and I'm not sure why people pretend it's great. At the point where you can profit from a large amount of celestial armor you have already been playing for quite a while and most likely already have arcane armor. If celestial armor was an extra bonus though, like 15ish armor on top of your max, arcane or physical, then it starts to be tempting. Double down on "magical protective" rep and I really think it adds something to the game.
Edit: this post comes off as aggressive but is not due to a single post in this thread. I have seen multiple sources across several threads suggest celestial armor is fine as is while no one makes use of it.

New celestial armor goes to 40 without wear extra armor requirements (which saves you 25 xp).

Edit:
We also have a 40 formal caster in our SF games who prepares celestial armor under the 1.3 rules.
 
We also have a 40 formal caster in our SF games who prepares celestial armor under the 1.3 rules.

Are they doing that because they think it's good, or because, under 1.3, cloaks and banes are gated by lvl 9 spells, and there not much else to spend celestial HM on once you have 40 formal?
 
New celestial armor goes to 40 without wear extra armor requirements (which saves you 25 xp).

Edit:
We also have a 40 formal caster in our SF games who prepares celestial armor under the 1.3 rules.

There’s only two reasons to use 1.3 CA:

1) You really have a hard time finding an AA ritual.

2) You have excessive FA and use it at as a backup AA so you can loan out your primary AA.

In 2.0, there’s really no reason to use CA over normal AA, but that’s not a reason to murder AA for all other casters.
 
AA caps at 30, right?

Sure, but 48 XP for a net gain of 10 AA isn’t really worth it, unless you have difficulty locating an AA ritual.
 
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