I hope armour is linked with a fatigue system. And that heavy armour slows whoever wears it.

We should also talk about the damage system and health. Armour is linked to them : will it absorb damage? Prevent damage? Both?

One thing I like in Fall From Heaven 2 is that bronze armors are weak against lightning

Armor should have at least the three stats :

1. Encumbrance which would slow the user and raise fatigue when the unit does anything in battle.
2. Evade that let's you escape hits
3. Absorb that lessens damage done.

Oh! And one thing about dice thrown : there should be an "no cap" throw. For instance you throw one D10. If you made 9 then you throw it again and add the new number. If you redo 9 then again you throw. So you have an endless value. But high value are very very very rare. So a weak soldier has always a chance of hiting or critical hiting, even the best defended soldier.

If a scrub grunt can never hit an elite soldier then that's no more a battle system but a "chess" one. If there's no chance then why fighting? An elite soldier should be overwhelmed by a lot of scubs grunt. But if a unit can never hit then it's all over. Your elite soldier is untouchable.

There should always have some sort of "I can get killed" in every battle. Morevoer did you calculate the percentage to get a 15+ score with the open D10 (where 0 means 0)? Or a 30+ score?

Ah, I've been waiting for the armor thread

On the "invincible-elite" issue, it's both yes and no:

N) Assuming it's just a crack veteran soldier in high-quality full-coverage plate armor, he's probably very difficult to damage for that scrub grunt.  But assuming there are enough grunts that don't panic, they could accept high losses in exchange for simply surrounding the elite, tackling him to the ground, and hacking at the now-mostly-stationary hunk of metal that has to have some weakpoints.  Or they could start tearing off the armor.  As I said, enough grunts and high losses

Y) Take the same elite guy, and throw up a magic deflection shield around him that repels any significant kinetic force directed against him.  Those grunts are now up a creek, sans paddle.  It would be even worse if the elite had some sort of immolation fire wall around him (assuming it doesn't heat up his armor).  The elite could still be taken out by comparable power, but those grunts may as well go home.

10, yes.  4, no, not really.

See: (American) Football, rugby, etc.  (For football at least, everyone's pretty much "armored", so take that into account when comparing it to x amount of untrained guys vs. someone wearing "impenetrable" armor.)

Sand in the eyes point is relevant, though.

What I think I'm proposing is to have defense depreciate/deteriorate as more sources of firepower are focused on it, but this would have to be done in such a way that 2x1 attack is not innately superior to 1x2 attack, for instance.  I have no problem with 50x1 attack being superior to 1x50 attack; I just think it would need some modification on the lower end.

Completely agree on agility/defense, though.

The effect tactics used in a fight have on the result depends entirely on how many people are involved. If you have a massive battle with 1000 vs 1000 what does it matter if one guy out of 1000 has sand in his eyes? Not much.

But then, if you have 1000 men fighting a dragon and one of them manages to hurt the dragons eyes and blind it, thats a HUGE deal.

@LDiCesare

I was speaking merely from the suffocation point of view that Tamren referenced.

I think that mithrel armor and adamantine armor should of course be better than regular iron or steel.  I also think that things like adamantine should also provide a certain amount of magic resistance as well, just because the magic in the metal is so potent.

I think that it should be kept very simple.   I think over-complicating a mechanic as minor as the armor the troops are wearing would be trouble.  Simply giving them better armor adding +2 to their defence is enough for me.  Like being able to get +5 defense and +2 resistance because they can have plate mail made of adamantine is plenty complex I think. 

I don't think realism should ever be an excuse to remove from fun.   I've said it before and I'll say it again.  I want this game to be about casting magic with some heroes to lead armies while I conquer the world.  Nothing more, and micromanaging the armor on the troops inside the armies that my heroes are leading seems to be that "more" that leads away from my casting spells + leading armies over all concept.   Unless spells would be also very complex and thus balanced in a way that managing armies doesn't become a burden by comparison to managing spells.  But that would just be a really complex game.

i do not like systems that are too complex for the gamer, the point of a game is to entertain, not to understand the system that operates your entertainment. if a system like this were implemented, i would not expect to be forced to understand it and use the foundation of the feature to develop my tactics. i am not saying i am disregarding this system of advanced(atleast from the standpoint of a game) armor classifications, but im saying, wouldnt basing armor on stats be better? whats the point in giving them classes, it does not effect the rendering of the game engine, just gives you a label to strap on your armor so you can identify if an enemy is too much of a threat or not. The only (class related) aspect i'd like would be the weight of an armor, but this would be unrelated to the quality of the armor. for instance, an armor could be extremely heavy, but could have very poor stats, also an armor could be extremely light with uber stats. i think the weight of an armor should only be a stat, not a classification. So, ignoring the initially stated classes and specifications i'd have to say i'd like to see these attributes in armor from EWOM

-Encumbrance= how much weight(in armor) can a soldier support before he falls to the ground gasping for air. this should be related to training and mount.(say hes on a horse. the horse provides plus 30 encumbrance. well, a dragon would provide much more than that, hence a soldier mounted on a dragon can have much heavier armor than one who is just riding a stout mane.) also, training would be related to discipline and endurance/strength. more training would mean more of those traits, hence heavier armors could be supported.(this would have a sub-fatigue system, in which a unit could go a certain distance until camp would have to be set up, or resting would be in order)

-Speed= this, much like encumbrance, would be related to mounts as well. a ratio would be in order for the weight of armor over the total weight of the unit. this ratio would involve the mount significantly. if the mount has no armor, then the unit, even if in heavy armor, could travel at a fairly fast speed. also, if a rider has no armor, but the mount is loaded up with armor, then it wont go to fast, will it? no, the two would be codependent, and the total weight of the mount AND rider would be added up, then put into the armor over total weight ratio. this would be the most practical way to work out speed, considering mounts are in effect.(this would also be related to ability to flee a battle)

-Agility= much like any customizable system, some components take from others. too much armor, not enough agility. this is a widely understood concept, no? the ratio mentioned above would have to be altered but, would function in the same way. too much armor over the total weight, then the evasion stat is decreased, the unit can no longer evade an attacker effectively. even if you train a unit or hero to have a high evasion chance, if you stock it up with too much heavy armor, then the evasion stat will be damaged significantly. this would also have to go with attack speed for melee units(an altered ratio based off of the above[take training into effect again]) and the chance of combo attacks or critical attacks.

-Absorb= last but not least, the ability to save those valued health points. this should be based on both the training of a unit, an the type of armor VS the type of attacking weapon. all of these factors would be related to one another in a non linear tech tree based off of stats and not classifications.

EDIT: i think micro managing is great, but not understanding the system you are using to classify the armors implemented. i want the game to entertain, not confuse or incite a detective mission with the intent of finding the mechanics behind a overly complex system. base it on stats, not classes, that way a player can easily decide what kind of armors he wants, based on what type of unit he wants to use (e.g. a fast, low armor  unit, or a slow, heavy armor unit- or maybe a unit highly resistant to elemental damage versus physical damage) classifying these types of armors is unneccesary.

It seems that some of you mistook the purpose of classing armour into different categories. These categories are not set in stone, they simply give you an idea of what the armour is and does. The type of an armour is independant of what it is made of and how much it actually protects you.

The way armour effectiveness is measured depends on multiple sliding scales. It looks a lot like this:

• Mobility-Weight (The bigger your weight capacity the more protection you can carry, but the slower you become. This is unavoidable, even if your armour is literally made of paper)
• Flexible-Absorb-Deflect (The more rigid a material is the more force it will absorb and the less it will pass on to you. Sufficiently rigid materials will start to deflect hits instead, but they will no longer absorb force as well.)
  
• Agility-Protection (The more of your body the armour covers the more it will protect you from harm, but after a point the armour will begin to limit your range of motion. There are ways of dealing with this)
• Weak-Strong (This is the measure of the physical strength of the material you make the armour out of. This mostly affects how quickly your armour will break. Weak materials will actually absorb more damage because force spent breaking them will not be passed on to you. At least once anyway.)

Along side these 4 bars there are 4 other factors that stand alone. One of them determined by the person wearing the armour and so is not displayed here. These provide bonuses and penalties to different parts of the scale.

• Articulation (Articulation can be added to any armour rigid enough to support it. It allows for more agility, but adds weight since you are using more material to cover the same area.)
• Distribution (This measures how well the weight is spread around your body. The better distributed the load the more mobile and agile you will be.
• Coverage (How much of each body part your armour actually covers. The less a piece covers the less relevant the attributes become and the less the armour actually protects you. Coverage is basically a percent modifier that affects all other bars.)

While this might look complicated it is rather simple in practice and doesn't involve numbers at all. Examples to follow later.

When an armour is listed by class, "heavy" "medium" and "light are simply there to give you an overall impression of what the armour is. You will not be able to examine the "stats" of your enemies armour until he is dead and you have a chance to examine his equipment. So when you come across a unit on the battlefield and his armour is quoted as being "heavy" then you can reasonably assume that things like arrows will have little effect on him. It doesn't matter whether his armour is made of steel, granite or petrified wood.

Why is this important? This way the performance of armour is measured by how it performs in combat and what it is made of. If armour "class" was all that mattered then no matter what kind of armour you built it would have to be stuffed into the same mold and homogenized.

You raised some good points, a few that I forgot to include even. Props

However you did miss the main point which I was about to explain. Armour is relative, but what does that mean exactly? Well first of all, armour is worn for protection and protection is very relative. So you wear armour and you are protected. Compared to what?

If you give any armour system some thought you will soon realise something. Comparing the armour worn by different people is an excercise in futility. Person #1 is wearing safety goggles that protects his eyes. Person #2 doesn't even HAVE eyes. So how then can you assign some sort of abstracted score of +1 eye protection to those safety glasses if they are useless to person #2? The important question to ask is not "how protective is my armour". That question can never be answered, instead you must ask "how much does my armour protect me".

When you meet an enemy army in the field, it shouldn't matter one bit that his soldiers are wearing "light armour" or "heavy armour" or "+300 Spartan thong of arrow protection". What matters on that battlefield, at that moment, is "how well does his armour protecting against my weapons".

This is why the armour system must factor in all of these little details. You are not comparing armour to and against some kind of abstracted table of statistics. You are comparing the armour to the users ability to wear it, and his enemies ability to hurt him inside it.

--

Earlier when I said that my example system didn't involve numbers, I was talking about the front end. The part that the user sees does not display numbers and can be adequatly represented by a series of coloured bars. The actual mechanics behind the scene of course do involve numbers, percentages in particular. So lets imagine we are firing up the armour editor and want to outfit a human in plate armour.

The starting display will looks something like this: (imagine each line is a coloured bar and we have a "paper doll" diagram of a human)

• Mobility--Weight
• Agility--Protection
• Weak--Strong
• Flexile/Absorb/Deflect
• Distribution
• Articulation
• Coverage
• Tolerance
• Senses
  

There are 3 types of bars here. The first three bars are sliding scales, the closer the bar is towards one side or the other, the more the balance shifts to that attribute. The fourth has 3 parts seperated by / marks. Each armour will have 3 independant ratings in this category. The last five bars are all line gauges, the closer to the right the mark is the more full the bar is and the better this attribute will be, however a full bar here may affect the other stats.

The list you see on the "main" page is the average of all of them and gives an you a general idea of how it performs. Because the set of armour is essentially blank at the moment, some of the bars such as articulation are faded.

The first part we will deal with is the torso. You click on the torso section and the interface changes a bit. Instead of the full human paper doll we now have a view of the front and back of the torso. Some of the bars have dissapeared leaving us looking at these:

• Mobility--Weight
• Agility--Protection
• Weak--Strong
• Flexile/Absorb/Deflect
• Distribution
• Coverage
• Tolerance

All of the bars are at the far left, representing zero. The armour has no statistics because there is no armour as of yet. The plan is to arm this guy with plate armour over some maille. Every human soldier comes standard with a plain cloth shirt. This can be upgraded to a padded surcoat without any change other than an increase in cost and a slight raise in tolerance.

The tolerance bar represents the users ability to tolerate wearing the armour for extended periods. The heavier the armour is the shorter the time you have before your soldiers with become exausted. While weight is the biggest factor, heat is another major issue, things like padded surcoats offer good protection but may cause the soldier to overheat over extended periods.

The second thing we do is add a maille shirt over the surcoat. This is a full shirt complete with sleeves and reaches down to the waistline. As far as the torso is concerned this is a full layer of coverage and the bars change to reflect that:

• Mobility-I-Weight
• Agility-I-Protection
• Weak--StrIong
• FlexiIle/Absorb/DeIflect
• DistIribution
• CoverageI
• ToleraInce

For the purpose of demonstation lets say the chain shirt we just added is "average".

• The first bar has changed to the midpoint, having a padded shirt and a chain shirt is a good balance between protection and weight.
• The second bar is similiar to the first. Maille provides good protection but does not significatly limit agility because it can flex.
• The third bar indicates that the maille is made of strong materials. The better the rating here the more damage it can take before it breaks.
• The fourth bar shows us how maille armour can deflect things like sword blades while remaining fairly flexible. It has no absorb rating at all because it does little to impact force other than blunt it.
• The fifth bar shows how the weight distribution is far from ideal. The main problem with maille armour is that all of its weight hangs off the highest point, most often your shoulders.
• The sixth bar is maxed out. This shirt covers the entire torso with no area left bare.
• The last bar shows us how the weight of the armour is starting to affect his performance in combat.

--

Now I know this still looks terribly complex but go back and examine the bars and just the bars. Building on what we talked about earlier about damage types, these bars accurately sum up the benefits of the maille shirt you just equipped on this soldier. It is heavy but not too heavy, protects very well against slashing weapons and offers complete coverage to the torso leaving no vulnerable areas. At no point did visible numbers and calculations come into play here. This armour doesn't simply offer "10% protection against slashing damage". It simply offers your soldier good protection against slashing weapons. As it stands now this soldier is now equipped with "medium" armour. Medium is not a class, it simply indicates a good balance between protection and weight.

Hope you understood that . Ill add another example later on what happens once we add plate armour to the mix.

It only looks complex on paper because I am limited to describing it in words.

If I were to demonstrate this in practice it would be no more complicated than a row of cups with varying levels of water. There is no balancing act involved. You have a set amount of water and it is up to you to decide how much of it you will distribute. If you pour water into the cup that represents weight, you are removing water from the cup that represents mobility. The more water you have in the weight cup, the bigger a weight "budget" you have to spend putting armour onto your unit. The cost is speed. If you want to give your unit plate armour, you have to move the slider all the way over to the weight side. If you only move it halfway, the budged will not allow for plate, you would be limited to chain or leather. And so on.

Once you add plate you can ignore the mobility-weight slider. The two that become important now are coverage and articulation. Coverage determines how much of the body the armour will cover. The more you cover the more protection the armour will give. More coverage equates to more weight, if your budget does not allow for full plate coverage you will need to do something less. With plate armour coverage has a limit because solid plate armour can't be used on joints. Without articulation your coverage will be limited to around 75%. Complete articulation will allow for full plate armour, but this eats even more out of your weight budget.

--

All of the bars interconnect in this way. Not only do they show you how the armour performs at a glance, they prevent you from making an item that is horribly unbalanced. There is no way to gain protection for free, there is always a cost.

The beauty of this system is that there is little micromanagement involved. Lets say you wanted to give your soldier the toughest chest armour he could possibly have. All you have to do is go to the deflect slider and move it to its maximum limit. The other bars will automatically adjust themselves to allow for a type of armour that has such a degree of deflective strength.

So you want your soldier to have a helmet, breastplate and greaves? Not a problem. This can be done in three steps:

1. Click on the head tab, click on the button for plate, done.
2. Click on the chest tab, click on the button for plate, done.
3. Click on the leg tab, click on the button for plate, done.

The end result would be a soldier armoured with 3 pieces of "average" plate armour. All of the bars such as the weight bar adjust themselves to the optimal setting that allows for plate armour. If you wanted to, you could return and edit a few sliders to give the armour extra properties. For example:

1. Lets say you needed to free up some weight to make this unit faster. Going to the chest section you drag the coverage slider from 100% to 50%. Instead of enclosing the entire torso, the breastplate now only covers the front side. The back is left bare except for the straps that attach the armour.
   
2. The plate helmet worn by your soldier limits his vision a bit too much. So you go to the senses tab and drag the bar up a few notches. The vision holes in the helmets visor get a bit larger and allow the unit to see more. At the same time its protective value automatically decreases a similar amount.

See how it works now?

--

As far as combat goes, it would be fantastic to have a damage model that can target parts of the body. Now we already have systems like this, but to apply it on the scale of units versus individual entities would take more computing power than is practical. However if you simplify the system to be complicated where and when it counts, it is still possible to make it work.

Most games handle this kind of targetting with hitboxes, but 100 soldiers worth of hitboxes is a bit much to bear. Especially when those hitboxes are constantly getting showered with 100 arrow volleys. So instead you can just abstract the process. A soldier standing in the front of the formation has about a 50% chance of getting hit in the chest, a 40% chance of getting hit in the legs, and a 10% chance of getting hit in the head. Roll a dice and you get 95, an arrow just hit him in the face.

The only question asked, and the only question that needs to be answered at that moment is "how good is the helmet he is wearing?". Since you gave him a tough plate helmet the answer is "good enough, the arrow is deflected". (the arrow then goes on to hit another soldier in the shin, good thing you included greaves too). Since the arrow is deflected you end up with another question. "did enough force make it through the helmet to hurt the soldier inside?". In this example, yes. The soldier then gets knocked out by the arrow hit and becomes a casualty in this battle.

You do not have to track this data for every single soldier in that unit. The soldiers standing in the center of the tightly packed formation have a much greater chance of getting hit in the head, and no chance at all of getting hit in the legs.