Brannock wrote:The problem, I think, is that armour doesn't limit movement speed. If heavy armour made you slower, you would suddenly have reasons to not go for it. Make dex have you move faster, with body armour limiting your speed in a scaling way unless your strength is high enough. Stealth and ranged characters become much faster, beginning fighters are slower, mages are somewhat faster, but quickly slow down if they use armour.
What I don't really understand from a design perspective is limiting the health pool of casters, if they already give up on AC, and AC mitigates almost anything that will hit you. Caster races have either no HP bonus or very bad fighting aptitudes.
There are already plenty of reasons for characters to avoid heavy armour. Heavy armor is good... But not
that good. Ring mail or light dragon armour is sufficient for both "fighters" and "casters".
Any character can (and should) invest in Fighting.
What do you think "caster " races are?
There are three factors which I use to decide what race is a caster race.
#1 is having magical aptitudes with a total value above 0. This leaves Deep Elf (20), Felid (4), Formicid (4), High Elf (1), Naga (2), Octopode (1), Spriggan (3).
#2 is the presence of a MP bonus. This leaves Deep Elf, Demigod, Felid, High Elf, Spriggan, Tengu, Vine Stalker.
#3 is INT. The average in starting stats is something below 6 (5,96). DD, Dr, Gr, Ha, HO, Hu, Na, Tg, VS start with 6. More castery races start with 7 and above: DE, Dg, Ds, Fe, HE, Sp, Va, VS.
Deep Elf, Felid, High Elf, Octopode, Spriggan, Tengu, Vine Stalker all have a HP penalty.
Formicid, Demonspawn, Vampire have no HP bonus or penalty.
Naga and Demigod have a HP bonus.
Of the 6 INT races, Deep Dwarf, Hill Orc and Draconian have a HP bonus, while Human has no bonus or penalty.
And this is why I think that casters in this game are supposed to have little health, with the added fact that DE and Spriggans both have a noticeable penalty to fighting.