Celestial Armor + Armored Shell/Empowered Armor

Alavatar

Baron
Celestial Armor adds Armor value to the suit the character is wearing. So, in theory, such a character could have up to 72 Armor (62 max + 10 Celestial Armor).

Armored Shell provides +1 Body per WEA the character has purchased, up to the Armor Point value of the suit. Is that ceiling the pre-Celestial Armor value of 62, or post-Celestial Armor of 72?

Empowered Armor grants temporary Armor Points equal to the value of the suit for 10 minutes. Is that pre-Celestial Armor (62), or post-Celestial Armor (72)?
 
Celestial Armor now similarly grants 2 maximum Armor Points per purchase (for a maximum of 10 bonus points), which add to the user’s currently used Armor (no matter its source) and may go above their normal maximum. Note that this does not affect how the Armor is refit; for example, Blacksmithing is still required to refit a suit of physical armor enhanced with Celestial Armor.

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. This Ritual will not grant more Body Points than the total Armor Value of the suit, even if the character has more levels of Wear Extra Armor.

Empowered Armor (General, Item [Armor], Daily) - The Empowered Armor Ritual will create a seed of magical force within the targeted suit of armor. Once per Logistics period, after performing an Armor Refit, the wearer gains temporary Armor Points equal to the current Armor Points granted by the suit of armor. These Armor Points will go away within 10 minutes, until expended, or if the Armor is removed and put on by someone else. The temporary Armor Points will go away first and cannot be refit or repaired in any way (such as by the Mend Armor spell). The Empowered Armor Ritual will fail to activate if the character has any temporary Armor Points (such as from a previous usage of Empowered Armor) at the time it is used.

I would argue that it is post-celestial armor. Celestial armor is not adding temporary armor points - its just making the suit of armor have a larger protective value; and its acting like normal armor - ie requiring refitting with blacksmith.

To be honest, this is a bit of corner case for "Armored Shell". The most extreme case is a scholar who bought 47 ranks of wear extra armor and is wandering around in a 62pt of full plate with 10 extra celestial armor. To gain benefit, from this case, they'd have had to buy another 25 ranks of wear extra armor that would never be useful for anything except for "Armored Shell". I'm not saying someone couldn't do this build, just that it'd be inefficient. They'd be better off not buying the ranks of wear extra armor and high magic it'd take, and instead just buying hardy.
 
CA doesn’t relate to armor maximums, therefore it doesn’t relate to WEA. You shouldn’t get Armored Shell Body from it (especially as that would kinda devalue it’s opposite ability, Earth’s Bounty).

As for Empowered Armor, it feels like EA doubles your base Armor, and then CA adds 10 to whatever that number is (consider that EA is a ritual on the Armor, and not on the player). So if you’re wearing 50 pts of plate and activate EA, you get 100 pts of plate (110 with CA).

That’s my interpretation. If the ritual was item based and not Armor based, I’d consider a different interpretation from a thematic standpoint.
 
On anything other than Fighter, Hardy is less efficient.

Armored Shell + WEA grants Body at a rate of 1 Body per XP spent, but Hardy on anything other than a Fighter would grant 5 Body per 6 or 7 XP spent. You get more Body per XP with Armored Shell + WEA as a result. Not accounting for Race.

As a Celestial Scholar with ~540 XP to spend and a pile of ritual scrolls to convert, I am seriously weighing the options of some highly survivable build concepts.
 
CA doesn’t relate to armor maximums, therefore it doesn’t relate to WEA. You shouldn’t get Armored Shell Body from it (especially as that would kinda devalue it’s opposite ability, Earth’s Bounty).

As for Empowered Armor, it feels like EA doubles your base Armor, and then CA adds 10 to whatever that number is (consider that EA is a ritual on the Armor, and not on the player). So if you’re wearing 50 pts of plate and activate EA, you get 100 pts of plate (110 with CA).

That’s my interpretation. If the ritual was item based and not Armor based, I’d consider a different interpretation from a thematic standpoint.

I'd argue the rules have no concept of base armor in them. There is just armor and temporary armor. I'd argue that having celestial armor up is just like having earth's bounty up. IE, for that logistics period its as if you had more innately.

But yeah, clearly something ARC should weigh in on how they intend it to work. Because we both have logically consistent views; and its about the intended ordering of application of effects.
 
armored shell specifies the SKILL wear extra armor, so it has no interaction at all with celestial armor that has no interaction with the skill wear extra armor. And while yes you could technically buy WEA for cheaper than hardy, you are then banking your body on having that item. One expiration or ambush in your sleep and you have no more max body unless you sleep with your suit on and while I've done that, it certainly wouldn't be an every night thing. hardy has its place as an improvement to the player, while WEA for body is an improvement to your item.
 
On anything other than Fighter, Hardy is less efficient.

Armored Shell + WEA grants Body at a rate of 1 Body per XP spent, but Hardy on anything other than a Fighter would grant 5 Body per 6 or 7 XP spent. You get more Body per XP with Armored Shell + WEA as a result. Not accounting for Race.

As a Celestial Scholar with ~540 XP to spend and a pile of ritual scrolls to convert, I am seriously weighing the options of some highly survivable build concepts.

You are missing the cost of the high magic to power the celestial armor in your calculation. Assuming scholar, is 2 XP per rank, so for 7xp -- admittedly, this is the same cost as the hardy skill, but it works all the time even you are not wearing armor. Lets assume either way, you'd buy wear extra armor up to let you wear 62 armor (47xp). And what we are debating is do you buy the extra 25 points xp to cap out the ritual + celestial armor. That costs 25 XP for wear extra armor and 20 xp of 10 ranks of high magic. For that 45 XP you have gained 25 extra body & 10 extra armor. You could instead have 35 XP and bought 5 ranks of hardy to get the same amount of body. If you are going to be using celestial armor regardless, I see your point.

I will comment that as a fellow heavy armor aficionado I salute you. I love playing and seeing tanky casters.
 
armored shell specifies the SKILL wear extra armor, so it has no interaction at all with celestial armor that has no interaction with the skill wear extra armor. And while yes you could technically buy WEA for cheaper than hardy, you are then banking your body on having that item.

Oh - I see your point. You are saying its not about how much armor you are wearing, its about the armor value on the tag for the suit of armor with the ritual on it. From Armored Shell: "This Ritual will not grant more Body Points than the total Armor Value of the suit, even if the character has more levels of Wear Extra Armor."
 
exactly, celestial armor isn't attached to the tag in any way, and in my mind its more of a protective bubble around you rather than part of the suit itself, but its the same reason an empowered armor 72 point suit would only get you 134 points of armor, not 144.
 
I think there could be an argument that celestial armor is intended to get doubled by empowered armor -- as it uses the term "current armor points" but then it continues on to say "suit of armor" (which we've been taking to imply the tag). But the choice of specifying "current" implies that it may be different than just what's normally on the tag. Especially since it specifies the armor value after a refit, which celestial armor is absolutely considered part of. But I could see this going either way -- depending on if you view "current" as the key word or "suit of armor".
 
armored shell specifies the SKILL wear extra armor, so it has no interaction at all with celestial armor that has no interaction with the skill wear extra armor.

Armored Shell specifies the amount of extra Body is granted to the lesser of Wear Extra Armor or the value of the suit. Celestial Armor states it grants 2 maximum Armor per purchase which add to the user's currently used armor, and that Blacksmithing would still be required to refit the physical armor enhanced by Celestial Armor. This implies the suit is now increased, but it is not explicit. Hence the clarification question.

Putting into the rituals Armored Shell and Empowered Armor that the Body / Temporary Armor granted is limited by the unmodified Armor value on the tag would add the clarity of your interpretation.

And while yes you could technically buy WEA for cheaper than hardy, you are then banking your body on having that item. One expiration or ambush in your sleep and you have no more max body unless you sleep with your suit on and while I've done that, it certainly wouldn't be an every night thing. hardy has its place as an improvement to the player, while WEA for body is an improvement to your item.

Expiration isn't a problem with proper planning. And extra Body won't help for sleep ambushes, regardless of the source. For someone who has the resources, and is not a Fighter, Armored Shell + WEA is more efficient XP-wise for the extra Body; the benefit Hardy would have over Armored Shell + WEA would be you don't have to heal when you put your Armor back on.

You are missing the cost of the high magic to power the celestial armor in your calculation. Assuming scholar, is 2 XP per rank, so for 7xp -- admittedly, this is the same cost as the hardy skill, but it works all the time even you are not wearing armor. Lets assume either way, you'd buy wear extra armor up to let you wear 62 armor (47xp). And what we are debating is do you buy the extra 25 points xp to cap out the ritual + celestial armor. That costs 25 XP for wear extra armor and 20 xp of 10 ranks of high magic. For that 45 XP you have gained 25 extra body & 10 extra armor. You could instead have 35 XP and bought 5 ranks of hardy to get the same amount of body. If you are going to be using celestial armor regardless, I see your point.

I will comment that as a fellow heavy armor aficionado I salute you. I love playing and seeing tanky casters.

Sure, you could think of it that way. I can say that my character ideas will have the High Magic and Celestial Armor regardless of Armored Shell + WEA. So, at least for me, Celestial Armor as a default means that the XP cost for extra Body through Armored Shell + WEA only needs to account for the WEA, not the High Magic/Celestial Armor.
 
Armored Shell specifies the amount of extra Body is granted to the lesser of Wear Extra Armor or the value of the suit. Celestial Armor states it grants 2 maximum Armor per purchase which add to the user's currently used armor, and that Blacksmithing would still be required to refit the physical armor enhanced by Celestial Armor. This implies the suit is now increased, but it is not explicit. Hence the clarification question.

Putting into the rituals Armored Shell and Empowered Armor that the Body / Temporary Armor granted is limited by the unmodified Armor value on the tag would add the clarity of your interpretation.



Expiration isn't a problem with proper planning. And extra Body won't help for sleep ambushes, regardless of the source. For someone who has the resources, and is not a Fighter, Armored Shell + WEA is more efficient XP-wise for the extra Body; the benefit Hardy would have over Armored Shell + WEA would be you don't have to heal when you put your Armor back on.



Sure, you could think of it that way. I can say that my character ideas will have the High Magic and Celestial Armor regardless of Armored Shell + WEA. So, at least for me, Celestial Armor as a default means that the XP cost for extra Body through Armored Shell + WEA only needs to account for the WEA, not the High Magic/Celestial Armor.

How much physical armor are you willing to wear, I’m curious.
 
I am looking at options. Either I will be doing Arcane Armor 30 + Celestial Armor 10, or between 53 and 62 points of Physical Armor (+Celestial Armor 10) (the 9 point difference depends on whether or not I will wear a helmet). With the new layering rules, getting lots of armor is significantly easier than it is in 1.3.
 
Yeah who just wears a ton of armor and always wants more?

I mean who just goes and does that?

<.<

>.>
 
I am looking at options. Either I will be doing Arcane Armor 30 + Celestial Armor 10, or between 53 and 62 points of Physical Armor (+Celestial Armor 10) (the 9 point difference depends on whether or not I will wear a helmet). With the new layering rules, getting lots of armor is significantly easier than it is in 1.3.

If you go with AA, the concerns are moot anyways, since neither ritual are compatible with AA, anyways.
 
The questions have yet to be answered, just theorized with conflicting consensus. If the consensus were consistent then that would be one thing ...

But I feel the question could be clarified with an example.

So to summarize, example questions:
  • Armored Man has a 62 Point suit of Armor enchanted with Armored Shell and Empowered Armor. They also have 72 WEA for reasons. Armored Man gets enough Celestial High Magic for Celestial Armor 5 (+10 Armor). Armored Man now has a standing Armor Point value of 72 Armor.
    • Due to Armored Shell: Does Armored Man have +62 Body or +72 Body?
    • When Armored Man uses a charge of Empowered Armor, do they have 134 Armor for 10 minutes (62*2+10), or 144 Armor for 10 minutes ((62+10)*2)?

Full Disclosure: I am forming plans for a ~60pt suit of armor and full Celestial Armor.
 
Armored shell will not grant more body points than the total value of the suit.

Empowered armor grants bonus points based on the value of the suit.

The suit is the tagged item.

Celestial Armor increases adds to a character’s armor but it does not inherently increase the amount of a specific suit.
 
Back
Top