Clarity of Armor Skill

[JerseyP]

Since clarity is one of the goals of this game, I thought i'd bring up something that is unclear to me.

In terms of designing a character, the armor skill is unclear. Obviously if i'm going pure fighter with the heaviest armor i should try to max it, but what about if I want to make a fighter/mage or fighter/thief?

The manual states that the armor skill adds to AC, helps to reduce the evasion and stealth penalty for heavy armor, and slightly helps the casting penalty.
What counts as "heavy armor"? I believe Ozocubu's Armour says it won't work with any armor more than -2, is -2 and up count as heavy?
There are 7 classes of armor based on evasion modifier: Robes (0 evasion penalty) up to plate (-6 evasion penalty).
If I want to use a -3 armor, how can i be sure how much armor skill I should have to make up for that -3 evasion? Wasting exp is a sure way to die in this game, and putting more exp in armor than needed is a waste, but there's no way to know if my skill is up to par. If I want to use a -4 armor so I can still cast medium level spells, does having an 8 in armor skill make up for the -4 penalty so i can put the rest of my exp in dodge/shield? Who Knows! Maybe if i played this game for years I'd get a feel for it, but I'd rather have things be clear to begin with.

There's a big fuzzy gray area here that I believe conflicts with the game's design goal of clarity.

[slowcar]

take a look at this, it should solve most of your questions:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreads ... l=en&gid=3

heavy armour is armour with an EVP of -2 and more.
the armour skill offsets some of the penalties, but not all. you can get a lvl 9 spell castable in a -3 armour with reasonable cost, but in the beginning even a leather armour will make a dent in your spell success.

[evilmike]

There's no way to fully negate the penalty you get with armour. And you don't need to look at a chart to see how useful the skill is.

Here is what I suggest: look at how much base AC the armour has (not the ev penalty). If it's a nice big number, let's say 8 or greater, go ahead and train your armour up to a decent level. Stop whenever you feel like you have enough AC (are monsters still doing a lot of damage to you in melee? you probably still need more AC). If you're not casting spells, then consider maxing your armour skill.

Shields are not as important - train it to 5 and wear a buckler, or train it to 15 and wear a shield. You probably should ignore large shields.

The only time this stuff gets complicated is when you're wearing medium weight dragon armours... in particular, swamp dragon, dragon, ice dragon and pearl dragon. These armours give enough AC that armour skill helps, but have a low enough penalty (especially swamp dragon) that dodging still helps. In these, you might want to train both skills. These armours are also good for casting, and armour skill helps lower the penalty (if you want to see how much, check your success rates after gaining a skill level).

Finally, do not worry about wasting xp on armour/dodging. Defensive skills are almost never useless.

[slowcar]

Shields are not as important - train it to 5 and wear a buckler, or train it to 15 and wear a shield. You probably should ignore large shields.

after the nerf to bucklers i tend to aim for 15 shield skill even on a caster, at least for the extended endgame.
as a non-caster a large shield is a no-brainer for later on.

a pearl dragon armour, for example, is AC 10, EV -3, and enchantable to +10, for a total of AC 20 (and a good base reduction), it is a great find and worth wearing even for most casters.
the guaranteed damage reduction makes a great difference to evasion alone when fighting larger numbers of enemies.

personally i find the table very helpful to assert how many xp i should invest into armour early on.

[Enoch]

Thanks a lot for the thread and the link JerseyP and Slowcar, I've been wondering a lot about this myself. Basically this clinches it - dedicated casters need robes, skins, and possibly leather, and anything heavier is just not likely to be worthwhile.

There's one thing the spreadsheet leaves out though, racial modifiers. Dwarven armor is harder (for non-dwarves) to cast in, and elven armor is easier to cast in, doubly so for elves wearing it, correct? I wouldn't mind seeing the numbers behind that element as well.

[galehar]

The formula is:

  Code:

Spellcasting penalty = 25 * ABAEVP - BARSB + 25 * ASHEVP - 20

Where ABAEVP is Adjusted Body Armour Evasion Penalty, ASHEVP is Adjusted Shield Evasion Penalty (see above linked chart for them) and BARSB is Body Armour Racial Spellcasting Bonus. The Bonus is 25 for Elven, -15 for Dwarven, and +15 if the armour matches the player race.

[slowcar]

Thanks a lot for the thread and the link JerseyP and Slowcar, I've been wondering a lot about this myself. Basically this clinches it - dedicated casters need robes, skins, and possibly leather, and anything heavier is just not likely to be worthwhile

Sometimes the tradeoff is worth it. My first full win had a Pearl Dragon Armour, 10 AC with 3 EVP (was 2 before). It can be enchanted to +10, means 20 AC.
Guaranteed Damage Reduction is very nice to have, weaker enemies cannot touch you anymore.
It took quite some training to get Tornado castable in it, but it was quite a character in the end.

Even other dragon armours may be worth looking into as a caster than does not shun melee, most of them are higher to enchant compared to regular armour.

In Crawl you may have a plan for character development, but it is often better to adjust it by the things you find (or don't find).