Hi Everybody,

I have a question regarding Armour.

If someone with Strength, Dexterity and Body all at three wears Full Plate Armour, his defence is no better than if he was wearing Leather Armour, due to the three penalty to Dexterity, which in turn effects not only Defence but Move, Initiative and all Dexterity based skills, I am not sure why anyone in their right mind would ever wear Full Plate when you could just wear Leather for the same protection or Chainmail for one better Defence. Has anyone any thoughts on this?.

Well, the defense bonus of your armor increases your passive defense, while the dexterity bonus on defense only effects your active defense. So if you are surprised or lose your active defense for any other reason then you are far better off wearing a full plate than wearing leather armor.

Hi Gilgamesh,

So you don't see having no active defence for the whole combat as a problem when you have no defence against grappling or touch attacks?.

From my experience with the system I'd say that such attacks are quite uncommon, while losing your active defense is a really common thing. I think passive defense is much more important in total than active defense. But this might depend on the way of playing, of course.

The passive is much more useful for my sword and board centurion. I focused on willpower and body though so I can just stand there and take it. It just depends on how you want to focus your character.

Hullo, Rhetoric,



Armour questions in Desolation, and most rpgs for that matter, are always a tough one.

It's important to bear in mind that, for the most part, the defense provided by armour is applied to Passive Defense (i.e., Body), not to Active Defense (i.e., Dexterity). You're right about the effects of the Dexterity penalty from full plate armour, of course, but while grappling and touch attacks are the primary place where losing the Active Defense is more key, they're not as common as the type of attacks that the armour would work against.

When it comes down to it, the focus of the character type and what you're trying to play and accomplish wtih your character should determine whether you even think about taking full plate armour. Adjusting how you put points into the character to "compensate" for the full plate armour is another matter. When it comes right down to it, personally I would take the character with full plate armour if that was the character concept that I had in mind, and I wouldn't concern myself too much with the game mechanical aspects of this (although I would hope the GM would give me some assistance in making the character's Attributes good enough to at least partially compensate for the armour penalty); I prefer to create the character that I want, and worry about the game mechanical aspects of character creation as I have to deal with them.

I would create a Talent "Heavy Armour use" which neutralises 1 point penalty.

Hullo, Michael,

Welcome to the Desolation forums! Always great to see a newcomer who has discovered the game join the forums and all. You'll find the folks here friendly and cooperative, and the game designers show up now and again to answer questions and offer thoughts and news about new releases. Anyway, now be careful near those gnarled trees... They might be wood warps you know, and... Oops, too late!



While that's one route to take, do you consider the Talent along these lines to be worth the 15 points it will cost to gain?

Hullo, Barbie Doll,

Welcome to the Desolation rpg forums! Lovely to see another newbie joining the list and posting about the game and all. The more folks here, the merrier. You'll find the folks around here quite friendly and knowledgeable about the game, and Matt, Jamie, and Stephen show up here from time to time to answer questions and post news of interest to us about the game. Ooh, there are carion reapers circling overhead, better watch out before they...DUCK!!



Your numbers are correct, but this is not a good thing if you have an average or less Dexterity. That means your Dexterity while wearing Full Plate is effectively reduced to 0. Not a good thing for a player character in a fight.

Definitely. I think a someone with a heavy armoured character concept will gladly pay the price. well, I would!

Hi Barbie Doll,

The example I gave above is for a person with Good Strength of 3, that person incurs a further -1 penalty to Dexterity due to being encumbered page 183 as Full Plate weighs 60lbs. Someone with average Strength of 2 would suffer a further -2 due being Heavily Encumbered for a total -4 penalty to Dexterity and also suffer a -2 penalty to attack rolls for not having the Strength required to wear it in the first place.

Hullo, Barbie Doll,



Assuming that you're still frequenting the forums, how about posting up the Sturdy Talent so the rest of us out here can potentially use it in our games?

Hello, all~
Sorry to rouse a mostly dead topic, but it is one that really caught my eye.

I am not certain that were I to have a player in plate I would assign the encumbrance values in the same way that I would if they were simply carrying a lot of weight. Having someone loaded down with gear, packs, and bags is decidedly different than having someone wearing a suit of armour designed for protecting a fighter in combat.

Unless I decided to have the armour be poorly designed, damaged, or poorly repaired, my experience tells me it simply should not impede freedom of movement. With that in mind, I could not have it reduce dexterity. It would, however, have a role to play in speed of action, which leads me to believe that I would assign a penalty to Initiative, and Move and be done with it. As this effect be more easily done by penalizing dexterity, I can see what the logic chain was in the design process, and that it certainly makes it easier than envisioning and implementing a special penalty for just this case would be for beginners. I don’t mind the extra work, however.

That said, I would obviously still include the weight of the armour toward the character’s maximum weight allowance, have the use of gauntlets impact on fine manipulation of small items with the fingers, and have it be a major factor toward heat and exhaustion on long trudges to nowhere. It simply should not impede a character’s ability to fight, though. Characters too weak to bear its weight should be roleplayed as such, and penalized in combat for doing so.

I like the encumbrance rules as written, I just don’t think that they necessarily apply as written in this very specific case.

I liked the idea of creating something to represent familiarity with the use of heavy armour, but like others here, feel that making it a Talent might be less effective than making it a skill. Other elements that could come from the possession of this skill might be the ability to maintain the armour properly (not repairing the metal pieces, but oiling, painting, lacquering, replacing or resizing straps, etc). That maintenance could reduce the speed with which armour degrades in use, perhaps by negating one 'worn' result in play.