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Racial Armor//Weapons?

PostPosted: Tuesday, 1st July 2014, 21:32
by Weaselmonkey
I apologize if this is old hat by now, but after playing .14 for a while, I realized that I wasn't finding any of my beloved orcish armor, and after checking the changelog I was wondering why in the world such an interesting and flavorful addition to the game was completely cut. If this is the wrong place for this post, I apologize, but I felt like someone in this forum would be able to explain the design decisions behind removing racial armors and weapons. I didn't think they hurt the game at all, and they made the world a much richer place.

Re: Racial Armor//Weapons?

PostPosted: Tuesday, 1st July 2014, 21:49
by KoboldLord
The impact of racial armor was basically negligible. It was best play to completely ignore it for nearly every circumstance. However, unspoiled players consistently misinterpreted it to be a major factor in decisions between similar items. The devteam considered various methods to deal with this misperception, but ultimately none of the alternatives seemed as good as just removing the irrelevant armor property in the first place.

Orcish armor didn't actually do anything special if you weren't specifically a hill orc, and even then it wouldn't do anything special if you weren't specifically a follower of Beogh. If you thought it mattered at all, then you were inadvertently deceived. If you've ever run a tabletop role-playing game as a Dungeon Master or Storyteller or whatever, you may have noticed the effect if you ever described in detail some irrelevant piece of setting furniture. Your intricate descriptions of that cabinet or whatever they found convince them that the item is important, and then they start insisting on carting it everywhere until they figure out what you were planning for it. This can get inconvenient if you just want them to get back to the plot and stop messing with that cabinet.

Re: Racial Armor//Weapons?

PostPosted: Tuesday, 1st July 2014, 21:57
by Weaselmonkey
That's... fair. I've been playing hill orc priests/healers since .7, is why I guess I didn't look at it from that side, and I'm missing my non-negligible benefits to spellcasting in armor as well as AC and Damage. Plus I used to like carrying a dwarven weapon around, even if it was lower tier, to help with the jellies. I'm aware that my Jelly weapon was a throwaway in any case, but I had to replace the dwarven one's less frequently.

Regardless, I appreciate the swift response, and while the change doesn't necessarily make me very happy, I've been in the described position often enough to understand the reasoning.

Re: Racial Armor//Weapons?

PostPosted: Tuesday, 1st July 2014, 23:24
by tasonir
I too liked dwarven items for the corrosion resistance, but that's something of a moot point now, since corrosion was reworked and won't permanently alter the item. Beogh still increases the ac from armor - it's just now all armor, not just orcish. Basically everything you find is orcish armor now, if you're worshipping Beogh :)

Re: Racial Armor//Weapons?

PostPosted: Wednesday, 2nd July 2014, 00:03
by skjarl
For the record, Beogh still sucks canal water after the early/mid game. :D

Re: Racial Armor//Weapons?

PostPosted: Wednesday, 2nd July 2014, 01:00
by Weaselmonkey
Anything that helps with casting in armor these days? Orcs in orcish armor was a fun time. It still wasn't super effective, but it was fun.

Re: Racial Armor//Weapons?

PostPosted: Wednesday, 2nd July 2014, 02:36
by RBrandon
Raising spellcasting skills helps casting in heavy armor.

Re: Racial Armor//Weapons?

PostPosted: Wednesday, 2nd July 2014, 07:41
by Sprucery
The things I miss are branded elven ring mails for spellcasters and elven cloaks and boots for all kinds of characters.

Re: Racial Armor//Weapons?

PostPosted: Wednesday, 2nd July 2014, 14:35
by duvessa
a pair of boots of stealth increases stealth by more than elven cloak + elven boots combined
so does a ring of stealth, and you can wear several of those, and they were added after elven items were removed! (and replaced a completely useless item!)

Re: Racial Armor//Weapons?

PostPosted: Wednesday, 2nd July 2014, 14:59
by Sprucery
But at least my experience was that elven cloaks and boots were more common than boots of stealth. No idea what the actual generation probabilities were. Of course, those were still mostly just a slight improvement over plain cloaks and boots, if nothing better had been found.

Getting rid of useless rings is great, of course.