Armour
From Discworld MUD Wiki
A piece of armour is a worn item which protects its wearer from a certain degree of physical damage.
Contents |
Damage protection
Factors
Various factors affect the degree of damage protection afforded by a piece of armour:
- Its condition - the better the condition, the higher protection it confers.[research]
- The quality of material it is made out of. Higher quality materials (for example, klatchian steel) provide more protection than lower quality materials (for example, wood), although they also tend to be heavier. Note that materials confer differing levels of protection against different attack types. For example, chainmail provides good protection against sharp, slashing attacks, but is rather poor against piercing or bludgeoning attacks.
- The degree of enchantment of the armour - higher enchantment levels increase the protection provided. Heavier armour can benefit more from enchantment than light armour can.
The vurdere command can be used to indicate a crude approximation of the degree of damage protection afforded by a piece of armour.
Defensive ordering
Armour is one of the last defensive layers to be applied. Its effect on incoming damage is calculated after the following have been applied:
- Endorphin's Floating Friend and Grammer Scorbic's Household Guard.
- Dodge, parry and block.
- Transcendent Pneumatic Alleviator, Sorklin's Field of Protection and Mama Kolydina's Instant Infestation.
- Major Shield and Minor Shield
Armour's effect is applied before the following:
Coverage and layers
Armour does not automatically protect a player from all attacks when worn - only the armour that is worn upon the part of the body that is hit has any effect. Hence, gauntlets will only protect the hands, while a mail vest will protect the chest, but not the feet. Many pieces of armour affect multiple areas of the body - for example, a Grflx scale protects the back, chest and arms.
Multiple pieces of armour can be worn over a particular body area, but only as long as their 'clothing layer' does not clash with anything else worn over that area. For example, a chainmail coif and a steel helm can both be worn over the head simultaneously, whereas a close helm and a great helm cannot be worn together.
You can see which areas a piece of armour protects by using the vurdere command on it. Alternately, you can see which of all your armour is protecting which body areas by using 'coverage armours'.
Condition and durability
As armour absorbs damage, its condition degrades. This makes it less effective in reducing damage and, in extreme cases, can cause the item to be destroyed if its condition falls to a low enough level.
The degree of damage to the armour itself is affected by:
- How much damage the armour absorbs from each attack - the more damage absorbed, the more the armour's condition degrades.
- The material the armour is made out of, and its weight - higher quality and heavier armour degrades slower.
- The degree of enchantment on the armour - more enchanted armour degrades slower.
Damage to armour can be fixed by repairing it in a smithy, leatherworking shop or woodworking shop as appropriate to the material it is made out of. The condition of armour is apparent by looking at it, or otherwise by using the command 'condition <armour(s)>'.
Mechanics - damage absorbtion
| This section contains formulae or data from the distribution mudlib. This information may be several years out of date, so needs to be verified as correct. You can help by performing research to validate it. |
The following stages are used to determine how much damage is absorbed by a piece of armour:
Base armour class
All armour has a base armour class versus the three damage types (blunt, sharp and pierce). This is, very roughly, the amount of damage that the unaltered armour will absorb from each hit, without taking any other considerations into account.
This base armour class can be determined from the vurdere command as follows:
| Base AC | Vurdere |
|---|---|
| 0-3 | Terrible |
| 4-7 | Amazingly poor |
| 8-11 | Pretty poor |
| 12-15 | Poor |
| 16-18 | OK |
| 19-22 | Average |
| 23-26 | Good |
| 27-30 | Very good |
| 31-33 | Extremely good |
| 34+ | Excellent |
Enchantment
Enchantment increases the armour class as follows:
| AC = Base-AC * (1 + enchantment/max-enchantment) + enchantment |
Because the maximum enchantment is related to the weight of the item, this means that enchantment has a very significant effect for heavy armour, and a lesser effect for light armour.
To illustrate this, see the following table detailing the AC at various levels of enchantment for different weights, all for items that vurdere as 'Extremely good':
| Weight (lb) | Maximum enchantment | Base AC | AC (4 steady but dull enchant) | AC (7 bright enchant) | AC (10 maximum enchant - radiant) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | 16 | 32 | 50 (6 thaums) | 65 (11 thaums) | 80 (16 thaums) |
| 10 | 27 | 32 | 53 (10 thaums) | 71 (18 thaums) | 91 (27 thaums) |
| 15 | 38 | 32 | 59 (15 thaums) | 79 (26 thaums) | 102 (38 thaums) |
| 20 | 50 | 32 | 63 (19 thaums) | 87 (34 thaums) | 114 (50 thaums) |
Note that a fully enchanted item will always more than double the base AC of the armour.
Effect of strength of attack
The degree of damage absorbed by armour decreases with stronger attacks (as they are more able to penetrate the armour), down to a minimum level of half the AC.
The specific formula is:
| Damage absorbed by armour (HP) = min(damage, max(AC / 2, AC - damage/10)) |
Where AC is the total AC of all pieces of armour in the location being hit.
Therefore, our fully-enchanted 20lb armour from the table above (AC: 114) absorbs damage as follows:
| Damage of attack | Damage absorbed by armour | Damage let through | Absorbtion ratio |
|---|---|---|---|
| 50 | 50 | 0 | 100% |
| 100 | 100 | 0 | 100% |
| 150 | 99 | 51 | 66% |
| 200 | 94 | 106 | 47% |
| 250 | 89 | 161 | 36% |
| 300 | 84 | 216 | 28% |
| 350 | 79 | 271 | 23% |
| 400 | 74 | 326 | 19% |
| 450 | 69 | 381 | 15% |
| 500 | 64 | 436 | 13% |
| 550 | 59 | 491 | 11% |
| 600+ | 57 | 543+ | < 10% |
Mechanics - Chance for armour to protect
| This section contains formulae or data from the distribution mudlib. The data has been partially verified as up to date. You can help by filling in research on the topic. |
Armour can of course only protect the wearer if it is hit. The chance that an enemy will strike the body part protected by a given piece of armour is dependent on their tactics-focus. If they are focusing on a given body part, then they will always hit armour covering that part when their attacks are successful.
For other focuses, the following table gives the chance that an attack will hit a given body area:
| Area | Focus | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| None-standard[1] | None-giant[2] | None-dwarf[3] | Upper body | Lower body | |
| Head | 6.7% | 26.4% | 5.0% | 13.3% | 0.0% |
| Face | 3.3% | 8.2% | 2.5% | 6.7% | 0.0% |
| Neck | 3.3% | 7.1% | 2.5% | 6.7% | 0.0% |
| Chest | 16.7% | 25.6% | 12.5% | 33.3% | 0.0% |
| Back | 3.3% | 3.8% | 2.5% | 6.7% | 0.0% |
| Left Arm | 10.0% | 9.4% | 7.5% | 20.0% | 0.0% |
| Left Hand | 3.3% | 2.6% | 2.5% | 6.7% | 0.0% |
| Stomach | 13.3% | 8.2% | 10.0% | 6.7% | 20.0% |
| Right Arm | 10.0% | 4.1% | 7.5% | 0.0% | 20.0% |
| Right Hand | 3.3% | 1.1% | 2.5% | 0.0% | 6.7% |
| Left Leg | 10.0% | 2.3% | 7.5% | 0.0% | 20.0% |
| Left Foot | 3.3% | 0.5% | 2.5% | 0.0% | 6.7% |
| Right Leg | 10.0% | 0.7% | 7.5% | 0.0% | 20.0% |
| Right Foot | 3.3% | 0.0% | 27.5% | 0.0% | 6.7% |
