Thoughts on Armour

[dolphin]

• Hides should be more common and available earlier, but more difficult to enchant. The hide armours are better than their mundane counterparts in nearly every respect: They provide more AC, less EV penalty, an additional resist or benefit, every race can wear them (except felids?),and I think they have a bit more flavour (fire/ice especially). Their only drawbacks, as far as I can tell, are that you must first enchant the hide to get the full armour and that they spawn as artefacts much less frequently. Because they are generally so much better, I think they should be much more difficult to enchant in any way. However, because every race can wear both the hide and the armour, I think the should spawn in the early dungeon more often, because they can provide armour training even to trolls and draconians. Armour skill is usually important to these races because their dodging ability is limited due to their large size. I think the choice should be between getting an armour that requires more investment, but is generally better, and getting an easily enchantable armour that isn't quite as good in the long run.
  
  
  • Hide/Armour pluses and Hide->Armour upgrade should be independent. The upgrade should require whatever higher-level scroll Vorp/EW III/E Arm turns into.
  • Enchantment ease should return to the old fail rate for hides/hide armours, but not for mundane armours. In other words, you can enchant your plate mail up to +10 with ten E Arm scrolls, but you'd need way more than 10 to get your Dragon armour +8
  • Swamp dragon hides/armours currently provide rPois, which would be overpowered in the early game. If the hide provided rConfusion or rBreath without giving true rPois, this might be enough to make early SDH spawns allowable. Of course, SDH could simply just not be on the list of possible early spawns
• Hides might also serve as cloaks, but possibly using a different metric for the spellcasting malus of heavy armour
• There may be an opportunity for an item of 'Major Enchantment' that would allow you to confer a resistance or bonus of your choice to an item of your choice, at the cost of your natural abilities (-5 permanent STR, DEX, INT, -10% permanent HP/MP, minor malmutation, Drain 1-3 XL), Lower level things like weapon/armour pluses should be fairly easy for anyone to evoke. Higher level bonuses and abilities (cTele, rMut, +Rage) or additional bonuses should require high Evocations, and possibly reagents. Some high level abilities might need to be impossible to produce with this item (cTele). The idea behind this thing is that you should invest in your equipment

The problems I could forsee for these things: requiring rebalance of AC/Monster attacks, power creep for large player characters, power creep for Evokers, power creep for Chei. But I'm not sure how much of a problem these things could be, or if they are worth rejiggering the game for.

PS: I think I saw somewhere that Chei might be given the ability to ponderify jewelry. I am all for this. (Go Draconians!)

[ryak]

Less drastic suggestion: add a new monster which spawns early and drops a weak hide.

Even less drastic suggestion: make an already existing early monster drop weak hides.

Both of these are mainly for the benifit of your troll not being forced to train dodge since they literally cannot wear any armor that exists until mid to late game unless you get fairly lucky.

[JeffQyzt]

Less drastic suggestion: add a new monster which spawns early and drops a weak hide.

Even less drastic suggestion: make an already existing early monster drop weak hides.

Both of these are mainly for the benifit of your troll not being forced to train dodge since they literally cannot wear any armor that exists until mid to late game unless you get fairly lucky.

Um...there are regular animal hides...they are both abundant and easily obtained by slaughtering your ungulate of choice. I don't know whether they train armor skill at all though (they do have an EVP, so presumably yes??) They are strictly inferior to robes in every other way, however, so the usual reaction is to ignore them.

Somewhat later, troll hides and steam dragon hides are relatively frequent (although not guaranteed.)

[MrMisterMonkey]

  Code:

Animal skin

The skins of several animals.

Armour rating: 2       Evasion modifier: +0

what evp

[JeffQyzt]

  Code:

Animal skin

The skins of several animals.

Armour rating: 2       Evasion modifier: +0

what evp

Ah...aging brain and roguelike confusion sets in once again. Ok, just strictly inferior then They're still hides though (and as such, allowable to "bigguns").

[dolphin]

But robes are also allowable to 'bigguns', and weight less, and have a variety of tiles. There was talk a while ago to give basic animal hides an evasion modifier of -1, in order to start Armour skill.

[Moose]

But robes are also allowable to 'bigguns', and weight less, and have a variety of tiles. There was talk a while ago to give basic animal hides an evasion modifier of -1, in order to start Armour skill.

This would be a very very welcome change

[OneTrueFelid]

While I agree that Animal Skins may be a good thing to take a look at, leather armour is already commonly available and easy to begin gaining Armour skill with. Not discounting the idea entirely, just saying that an alternative (or rather, a primary to which Animal Skins would be an alternative) already exists.

[OneTrueFelid]

The thing is, the races that cannot wear leather armour generally will not want it or do not have a problem training it with a dragon armour later. Or rather, lack of a problem, in my eyes. Ogres generally stick to robes for their standard hybrid role or pick a dragon armour for their berserker role. Given how easy it is to acquire at least a basic dragon armour (DA, IDA, SwDA) let alone something else (StDA, PDA, GDA) Trolls either stick to robes as a hybrid or obtain dragon armour and have a similar lack of problems; here's a log of a Troll Gladiator I had that switched to Storm Dragon Armour fairly late and ended up more than well-off.

http://crawl.develz.org/morgues/trunk/n ... 194735.txt

A quick tip for those who want to wear armour with an Ogre/Troll: turn off Dodging ASAP. You will not get high EV with either of them and you will be conserving experience to put into other skills for them.

I believe the last few roles that cannot wear leather armour (Draconian, Spriggan, Felid) just plainly don't want to train armour in the first place. Draconians have (no matter the colour!) -4 aptitude in Armour and have +9 (+12 in 0.8!) natural scale AC to compensate for this. Spriggans simply don't care about heavy armour, being the only "tiny" race in the game with a boatload of EV to compensate. Felids simply can't use any armour at all and I think we can safely push them outside of the issue entirely.

[szanth]

Trolls specifically just don't have any defensive skills they can train if they're going unarmed (Which they generally are; they're trolls with giant claws). So they use robes, because that's all they can use, and can't use shields. Is it so terrible to give them the option of having -something- to train armor until they find that elusive dragon armor they so long for?

[OneTrueFelid]

This is simply untrue. Unless you wish to avoid the penalties of using a shield for your caster early on, I actually highly recommend finding a shield as soon as possible. Trolls will lose all the penalties of of a regular shield at 10 skill and lose all the penalties of a large shield at 15, due to having the largest bodytype (a trait shared with Naga, Centaurs, and Ogres). Look at the log I posted again - I have over 50 SH on a regular 3-runer game. I'm saying that its simply unnecessary and I see no reason to change this difference in available resources between races. Also, Troll Leather Armour (as you can also see in my log, as I put on Troll Leather Armour made out of Purgy as a joke) is wearable by any race that isn't a Felid - if you really wish to have your early way of training armour, then find yourself a Troll and butcher it as they appear fairly early in comparison to the various dragons.

Or Purgy. Because you are the meanest troll bully of them all.

[szanth]

"All the penalties"? Wearing a shield removes an offhand attack regardless of how high your skill is, doesn't it?

[eith]

Offhand attacks arent as important anyways, shield using trolls are awesome.

[OneTrueFelid]

"Offhand attack", I assume, means your offhand punch. Let's go through this logically: the offhand attack (punch) is, I believe, only six damage (as shown by elliptic's source diving?). While six damage is fine and all, the offhand attack does not apply slaying bonuses. Furthermore, consider that each point of Strength is equivalent to +1.28% damage or something and that Trolls have the highest natural Strength (in easy excess of the high thirties) in the game. Now, add in that shields can be ego-branded with Protection/Resistance/rPois/rF/rC/etc. For a Troll (which only has three armour slots (Cloak, Robe/Dragon Armour/Troll Leather Armour, Wizard Hat/Cap) to begin with), the additional bonus of more resistances on top of 30 to 40 SH helps a race that has defensive issues later on otherwise.

The offhand attack is not that important, especially in comparison to additional AC/resistances and a huge amount of SH. That, and Trolls as a player race have the highest amount of UC damage output in the game.

[szanth]

I suppose those are good points. Though that's the first I've heard someone recommend that an unarmed troll use a shield, so I'm a little shocked there's nobody coming to counterpoint here.

[omndra]

Well then i guess I should give it a try.
Would starting as a fighter to get an early shield be a good idea?

[XuaXua]

What levels do I really need my Armor Skill and Shield Skills at to avoid penalties?

For example, I tend to wear hides and robes. Anything?

I have a buckler; can I skill up enough to avoid a missiles penalty?

[galehar]

Well then i guess I should give it a try.
Would starting as a fighter to get an early shield be a good idea?

I think the shield would really cripple your attack speed. Better start as a gladiator and use a buckler to train your shield skill.

What levels do I really need my Armor Skill and Shield Skills at to avoid penalties?

For example, I tend to wear hides and robes. Anything?

I have a buckler; can I skill up enough to avoid a missiles penalty?

Robes don't have an evasion penalty. I've made some charts for the evasion penalty of armour and shields. I think bows and crossbows have a speed penalty regardless of your shield skill. If you want ranged attacks and shield, use a sling.

[OneTrueFelid]

Starting with a Shield is a good idea. I believe I started TrGl just to spawn with one, because they're resilient enough (and you turn off Dodging, thus having more experience to throw around) to survive and get their UC steadily. After you get Okawaru (don't forget I was playing 0.8), Heroism just about eliminates all speed issues (small as they were to begin with!) and boosts a bunch of other things on top of that. For Armour/Shields, the general rules are:

Your Strength should be three times the evasion penalty of the armour. Trolls should have no problem with this. 27 Str = GDA, 15 Str = StDA, etc.

10 = no penalty with Shield (large race), 15 = no penalty with Large Shield (large race).

Those are for large (Naga, Centaur, Ogre, Troll) races. That is, the Shield numbers. The Armour-Strength equation is for every race.

[XuaXua]

I have a buckler; can I skill up enough to avoid a missiles penalty?

I think bows and crossbows have a speed penalty regardless of your shield skill. If you want ranged attacks and shield, use a sling.

Is there a calculation for it, or are you certain it's a flat penalty amount?

You'd think the speed penalty would be an arbitrary % loss based on a combination of related Missile Skill, Shield Skill and Shield size.

[Moose]

Since fighters are the defensive role, why don't Troll fighters start with armor? This would eliminate the issue of them having to turn off dodging and spend their first 20 levels looking for something to wear that trains their armor skill and GOD FORBID *protects* them.

Not sure there really exists an armor in the game yet that aptly suits this. Troll leather armor is strangely enough the first armor I can get access to with a Troll, but the idea of wearing my own brother's skin is a bit creepy!

[XuaXua]

Since fighters are the defensive role, why don't Troll fighters start with armor? This would eliminate the issue of them having to turn off dodging and spend their first 20 levels looking for something to wear that trains their armor skill and GOD FORBID *protects* them.

Not sure there really exists an armor in the game yet that aptly suits this. Troll leather armor is strangely enough the first armor I can get access to with a Troll, but the idea of wearing my own brother's skin is a bit creepy!

Double regeneration and double hunger penalty?

[Zicher]

Since fighters are the defensive role, why don't Troll fighters start with armor? This would eliminate the issue of them having to turn off dodging and spend their first 20 levels looking for something to wear that trains their armor skill and GOD FORBID *protects* them.

Not sure there really exists an armor in the game yet that aptly suits this. Troll leather armor is strangely enough the first armor I can get access to with a Troll, but the idea of wearing my own brother's skin is a bit creepy!

Double regeneration and double hunger penalty?

Troll leather armour has no regeneration effect on trolls (and deep dwarves). Not sure about the hunger, but probably no effect as well, so it's basically a slightly improved leather armour for those races.
And about the creepiness - is this any more creepier than eating your brothers from the very first time you them in Orc?

[ryak]

Wait, so people are really opposed to adding a -1 EVP with no compensation to hides just to make them actually useful for something?

[galehar]

Wait, so people are really opposed to adding a -1 EVP with no compensation to hides just to make them actually useful for something?

Some people said that it was unnecessary, but I haven't seen real opposition to the idea. I have no opinion myself, I haven't played enough armoured big guys, but it does seem interesting. It's not hides by the way, but animal skins (hides already have an EVP).

[dolphin]

I don't think that people are opposed to 'animal skins' having EV -1. Currently those things are floor trash from D:1 and down.

I think they are unconvinced that magical hides ('troll' through 'golden dragon') should have a spawn chance at early levels. However, part of the OP was that magic hides can upgrade into armour only with a high-level scroll, so if you got a GDH (AC 5 |EV -5) at D:10, you would have, at best, a +5 GDH until you found the high-level Enchant Foo. The reasons for doing this are 1. Bigguns start training armour easily and 2. You could start with an armour or two that is potentially very good, that you can invest in, and that you might conceivably use the rest of the game.

[galehar]

The opposition is because some people think it's more interesting for these species to have a hard time training Armour skill early. Not that -1 EVP is great for training...

Well, EVP is needed to have any armour training, but training speed doesn't depend on EVP. It depends on mass. And with 10 aum for animal skin vs 15 for leather, it wouldn't help much anyway.

[JeffQyzt]

The opposition is because some people think it's more interesting for these species to have a hard time training Armour skill early. Not that -1 EVP is great for training...

Well, EVP is needed to have any armour training, but training speed doesn't depend on EVP. It depends on mass. And with 10 aum for animal skin vs 15 for leather, it wouldn't help much anyway.

(arbitrary very small amount) > 0

FWIW.

[ryak]

The opposition is because some people think it's more interesting for these species to have a hard time training Armour skill early. Not that -1 EVP is great for training...

Well, EVP is needed to have any armour training, but training speed doesn't depend on EVP. It depends on mass. And with 10 aum for animal skin vs 15 for leather, it wouldn't help much anyway.

(arbitrary very small amount) > 0

FWIW.

Exactly. And while we're at it, why don't we double the weight? again, technically it makes it strictly worse, but for a useful purpose. An animal hide being heavier than leather armour isnt inconcievable, either.

If we stick with the status quo, noone uses them, ever, and they might as well be removed completely. At least with the proposed "nerfs", animal hides would have a purpose.

[galehar]

Exactly. And while we're at it, why don't we double the weight? again, technically it makes it strictly worse, but for a useful purpose. An animal hide being heavier than leather armour isnt inconcievable, either.

If we stick with the status quo, noone uses them, ever, and they might as well be removed completely. At least with the proposed "nerfs", animal hides would have a purpose.

They already have a purpose. Although it's a flavour one, not a gameplay one. It's the berserker's starting armour. I have a hard time imagining how a leather skin could be heavier and bulkier than a leather armour.

[ryak]

It's an animal hide, which probably has fur on it. This fur is going to make up a pretty significant part of the weight of the hide.

Leather armour is pretty much a processed animal hide, no? If this is a reasonably big hide (yak, bear, whatever), you could probably use only one to make a leather armour, and seeing as how you removed a bunch of fur, it should be obvious that the armour produced by this will be lighter than the original hide.

Use a deer as an easy example to find numbers for:

"Using this guide as an example, a 180-pound buck would have 16.2 pounds of hide"
Source: http://www.butcher-packer.com/index.php ... cts_id=331

A leather jacket weighs 5 pounds, 1/3 as much as a 180 lb deer hide.
Source: http://www.amazon.com/Force-Flight-Leat ... 765&sr=8-1

[Mychaelh]

These are descriptions for the basic armour types I have made for DCSS Text Improvement. I post them here for review and discussion. Would it be possible to make animal skin a hyprid armour/food object? As armour it should be available for all species exept octopodes and felids. I think Kobolds should be able to eat it, but with little nutrition effect. Trolls should have some reason to prefer it over standard robes made out of linen which can only be enchanted up to +2 (randard robes I would think are made out of natural silk which grants them better enchantment qualities). Maybe trolls prefer the smell of skin over linen and don't get hungry as fast when they wear it? Ghouls should really like animal skins as food. It could give them a temporary AC +1 maybe...

Anyway, here my description as I have made them so far:

Robe:
Made of light cloth, this large loose-fitting outer garment with wide sleeves is easy adjustable to fit on humanoid bodies of any size. Habiliments of this kind generally only offer rudimentary protection against direct harm, but the generous cut don't hinders the evasion of attacks or correct performance of elaborate gestures.

Animal Skin:
A large piece of thick skin cut off from a cadaver. While still haired and lighly rotten it can nevertheless primitiv adjusted to be worn as garment. As such it offers a little protection against mundane harm, but not having seen any treatment like tanning leaves it uncomfortable to wear. It smells quite foul!

Leather Armour
As a suit made out of layered tanned animal skin, this light armour offers basic protection with almost no hindrance to elaborate gesture and quick or hidden moves.

Ring Mail:
A light leather suit covered with metal rings which enforce protection in combat, but also reduce wear comfort through added weight somewhat.

Scale Mail:
A leather suit covered with metal plates attached to each other in overlapping rows to enforce full protection, but in trade for quite reduced wear comfort because of added weight.

Chain Mail:
A suit entirely made out of tiny meshed metal rings. Offering proof protection against the cutting edges of weapons and carnassials but not the heavy blows when worn, it also hinders quick and stealthy movement.

Banded Mail:
A chain mail improved with thin leather backing on the inside and overlapping horizontal strips of laminated metal sewn over the outside. Very hard to penetrate and even absorbing blows a little bit - it offers very good protection, but to move effectively in it demands some training.

Splint Mail:
This heavy armour consists of narrow strips of pierced metal, which are longitudinally attached to a thick leather backing. While offering almost the high protection of a true plate mail it is also almost as hard to move in it without proper training.

Plate Mail:
A suit made out of heavy iron plates. Only strengh and practice can give the ability to gain the offered high protection in combat while still be able to move when wearing it.

[XuaXua]

Several grammatical edits:

Robe:
Made of light cloth, this large, loose-fitting, wide-sleeved, outer garment easily adjusts to fit on humanoid bodies of any size. Habiliments of this kind generally offer only rudimentary protection against direct harm, but the generous cut doesn't hinder evasion from attack or proper performance of elaborate gestures.

Animal Skin:
A large piece of thick skin cut from a cadaver, covered in hairs and strips of flesh, to be worn as a primitive garment. It offers a little protection against mundane harm, but having never been tanned, it is uncomfortable to wear and carries a light stench of rot.

Leather Armour
A suit made from layered, tanned animal skin, this light armour provides basic protection with almost no hindrance to elaborate gestures or swift, stealthy movement.

Ring Mail:
A light leather suit reinforced with a covering of metal rings. Protective in combat, but uncomfortable due to the added weight.

I'd adjust more, but I don't have the time at the moment.

[Mychaelh]

Thank you XuaXua. I've added your corrections to the DCSS-TI spreadsheet.

[Grimm]

These descriptions and edits look good. Thanks for adding them. The items page needs a lot of work.