The Tavern

Finding the correct barding when playing a race that uses them is always a hassle, sometimes leaving the player going most of the game without using one unless they get a specific branch or find a unique that drops one as loot. Both items share the same stats and can spawn with the same egos as each other, so for the sake of convenience I am suggesting that both bardings be combined into a single, universal barding that either race can use.

I understand that while it might be a loss of flavour to the game, I would suggest keeping the race specific artefact barding such as the Black Knight barding for Centaur or the Lightning Scales for Naga as I see them both as interesting and unique item choices that would be a shame to get rid of.

I apologise in advance if a topic like this has been discussed, but I couldn't find anything in the list of rejected ideas, so I would be interested to hear what people think about this.

It'd be fine to let nagas wear Black Knight's and let centaurs wear Lightning Scales too. Centaurs getting a little faster doesn't make them that much better (I mean how often do you cast Swiftness on them, really), and I somehow doubt Naga is in any danger of becoming overpowered.

I like the idea - losing the flavour isn't great, but if it'd mean that you might actually have a chance at getting a barding, I think that's definitely worth the tradeoff. It might even make me want to play Naga!

Slightly less clutter = good

This would render useless my most valuable patch, so I vote no.

I'd rather make centaur bardings only drop on centaur games, naga bardings on naga games and boots on the rest of the games. Bardings can then drop with the same frequency as boots. They may need to be nerfed a little to account for their higher availability.

This is just a confusing way of saying "remove bardings and let centaurs and nagas wear boots".

No, because bardings and boots have different armour stats.

The point about there being a generic "barding" and just cosmetically renaming it to "naga" or "centaur" depending on the player character is fine. Or you could just have "barding" without any frills, as described in the OP.

Are there stats or spawn differences that justify the existence of two kinds of barding? Or is it just because of knight/lightning? Those two artifacts could stay as unique items bound to species, while the normal bardings can be merged as an item that works for both.

That would work for me too. Flavour-wise it makes as much sense as putting centaur and naga bardings together.

I like this proposal, and there is flavor precedent, in the form of "{Foo} Dragon Scales".

Using a basic example: the same Steam Dragon Scales can be equipped by a Troll (large) or a Spriggan (tiny). You don't see two stylishly different kinds called "Steam Dragon XXL" and "Steam Dragon XXS". 1 item, usable by both species.

I think this would make Nagas and Centaurs a little more open to shoring up their defenses when not choosing Okawaru, too. (Although picking Okawaru just in the hopes of getting a barding gift is probably not even the best reason to take Oka.)

I think adjusting the probability of finding a barding at all should be a separate conversation from combining the two items. I think combining them is good either way but if you do it without discussion of said probability, you should take the item weight of one barding or the other rather than the combined total. If you want to double the spawn rate of bardings, your proposal should probably say that directly in the title since that's much higher-impact than having separate vs combined bardings for different races.

What if Centaur and Naga enemies just dropped their bardings like most enemies drop armour? Then just spawn Nagas as regular dungeon enemies instead of just in vaults and snakes.

You monster.

But yeah +1 for merging them, and I'd slightly favor the version where the unrands are also usable by both species, although if they remain specific that's fine too. Getting a black knight's barding on a naga would be a serious amount of ac...

Don't do it.

So why can't (dragon) scales simply be converted into barding anyways? Wasn't the original justification that enchant armor scrolls made the scales turn into armor thats suited to your frame? Make it worse than the rare barding that you find now, if you have to, but keep the dragon scale's unique properties.

The same reason dragon scales can't be converted into boots.

Eh, fair enough. Just seemed like it would a simple solution.

...So why hasn't this been done yet? Seems to me like a very good change. Is there a reason it was dropped?

It goes against the flavour. Naga barding and centaur barding represent different things with the same name, just like a bicycle wheel and a cheese wheel. I think it's good the way it is.

Combining the barding types would also simplify the creation other bard-able species in the future, e.g. sphinxes, in case that's desired.

Aside from the unrandarts, I disagree that combining would go against flavor. Just assume that the barding that is generated in any given game just happens to be the correct type for the player's species to wear, if they can wear barding. Problem solved.

To the unrandarts, I don't think it really matters if they're opened to use by both species or simply removed. It's rare enough to find a mundane barding appropriate for species X while playing X, much less the appropriate unrandart barding, so the impact would be minuscule either way.