[.11] Armored Shell and 100 points of Wear Extra Armor

Bruvah M.

Newbie
“Armored Shell (Earth, Item [Armor], Passive) - While under the effect of this passive ritual, the character gains 1 Maximum Body Point for each Wear Extra Armor skill they have purchased. Note that a character’s current Body Points can never be higher than their current maximum; thus, if this suit of armor is removed or destroyed, the character's current Body Points will be reduced to their normal (non-Ritually altered) Maximum Body Point total if necessary. When putting on this suit of armor, the character's current Body Points are not affected”

I’m specifically referring to the part I made bold.

As I read this, I realized that this ritual has no clear cap. A 300 BP scholar could walk around with 150+HP if he wanted to invest the experience into it. It breaks the purpose of Hardy being restricted by Level.

Am I really reading this right or is there something I am missing?
 
No, I think you're reading it right; there's no "official" cap on WEA, but there's a hard cap of 62 on armor value in the .11 packet, so anything over and above what would give you 62 (27 for Fighters, 47 for Scholars, somewhere in between for other classes) is theoretically "wasted" build. While there's nothing stopping a Scholar from buying 100 ranks of WEA to gain the benefit of Armored Shell (and of 62 points of armor if they want to rep it), it's highly inefficient and would limit the Scholar's other abilities in a way that I think most players would look at and go, "this is silly".

While entirely possible as a build, I don't think it's going to be such a large problem that it would need a solution beyond Plot teams just not sending out the Ritual (which I can see causing other issues, but those would be off topic so I won't mention them here).
 
I disagree with it being “wasted build”. If any character, except for a Fighter with a Hardy race, wants more Body Points? Then the best way is to use this ritual.

Every class except for a Hardy raced Fighter, buys the Hardy skill at a XP to BP ratio of 1:1 or worse. And all of them are limited to buying it once per class level. Additionally, Hardy doesn’t advance Martial experience.

Those who make use of this ritual will always get a 1:1 ratio, will advance their Martial Experience, and will not be limited by level regarding their HP gain.

If someone has access to this ritual. Then it completely outclasses every experience point they spent into buying Hardy .
 
I’m generally of the belief that build wasted on Body boosts is pretty much wasted build anyways. I wouldn’t care if Hardy was unlimited, because all you’re becoming is a heal-suck. :|
 
I said it was theoretically wasted; if you spend 100 XP on WEA, any ranks over and above the number needed to hit the cap of 62 are wasted without that ritual, and there's no guarantee that a) it'll drop as loot or b) you'll be able to get your hands on it.

So my statement stands.
 
I said it was theoretically wasted; if you spend 100 XP on WEA, any ranks over and above the number needed to hit the cap of 62 are wasted without that ritual, and there's no guarantee that a) it'll drop as loot or b) you'll be able to get your hands on it.

So my statement stands.
There is no guarantee that an arcane armor ritual will drop and yet the ritual continues to outclass armor significantly. I’m confident that if a player asked around multiple chapters for the ritual, it would turn up. Perhaps quickly. Perhaps not.

A high HP build is all that’s needed to let another character consistently make use of the most effective XP to healing ratio in the game. Lesser Earth Storm. One of the reasons why LES is not likely to be the main form of healing is that it requires coordination to be effective across several people. Few characters have the total health to be fully healed by an entire earth storm. But if a Fighter/Scout/SpellSword invested enough experience to be easily healed by a LES? Then very little coordination would be needed to pull it off.
 
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We discussed this case on ARC and did not feel concern about it for several reasons:

1. You're investing significant XP into something which only works if you have a specific Ritual active on you. Note that if you take your armor off - say, to sleep, for example - you will have to be healed up as soon as you put it back on. If your armor expires, or is lost/destroyed by Ritual magic, you'll have a huge sink of "wasted" XP.

2. While it does get around the Hardy/level restriction, it's not significantly "better" than Hardy from an XP spending perspective - and Hardy does not go away if you take your armor off, or the Ritual is removed/suppressed/destroyed for some reason.

3. Body Points are always useful. However, someone who tries to "game" this (for example, a 2 point suit of "armor" which is only a single bracer) will rapidly find themselves (a) sucking a lot of Healing from their Healers in town and (b) overly vulnerable to Carrier attacks which someone who has an *actual* suit of armor would have protection against.

We did not feel it was necessary to limit someone who wants to be overly dependent on one ritual to make their XP work and not have a significant advantage over Hardy.

Folks are welcome to playtest such a build if they honestly believe it would be the way they want to play their character, and feel it will be fun for them.

-Bryan
 
Thank you for looking into it and discussing its finer points.
 
Is there a rule against wearing multiple sets of armor?

As in, a 1 point armor item and arcane armor?
 
Yes, it’s prohibited by the arcane armor ritual
 
Arcane overwrites whatever armor you're physically wearing, even if the AA value is lower.
 
Arcane overwrites whatever armor you're physically wearing, even if the AA value is lower.


I'm not asking if they stack.

"The recipient of an arcane armor MAY wear armor for decorative purposes, but they get no protection or armor points for it, even if the armor worn is greater then the protection the arcane armor provides"

Can you gain the benefits of armored shell if you're wearing but not "fitted" with an armor item?
 
Oh! I misunderstood, sorry. We just discussed that, and the answer is no, you would not gain the benefits of Armored Shell (or any other magic on the armor) if also wearing an AA.

An edge case of the armor itself bearing the AA may change that, so I won't speculate one way or the other for now.

As usual, if your owner or someone from ARC says I'm wrong, then I'm wrong. ;)
 
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