Larian Studios Forums Beyond Divinity (English) Suggestions Armor

Hi,

I know the standard is to offer highly protective armor to player characters that have great strength but is it possible to offer good armor that requires low strength? To balance things out, maybe we could make this armor very expensive for characters like wizards but once they have the money, they can wear it for better protection. That might go for certain weapons too.

Thanks.

Could work. Traditionally, Wizards are meant to have low armour for the reason that their spells are so powerful. They should use magical means to off-set the damage.

Perhaps an expensive light-weight armour or one that provides a spell bonus in Shield spells.

Yes. Normally wizards should not wear armor. But I think they could have at least some different fancy clothings. At least a hooded black robe!
And since a traditional plate mail is so heavy that you can barely lift it, I see no reason why a weak, old man can wear it. Plus the helm muffles your voice ;0).

I am very interested to see what Larian made with the stat system: usually thieves wear leather armor but in DD the leather armor sets were ignored. Plus why need you to use leather if you can add a bit to strenght and wear plate? Still I find it difficult to imagine a rogue creeping in the dark wearing a shiny, ringing chain mail.

That is a good idea Lockmar. And how about class specific items that give extra bonuses for that class. Cloak of Magic, Boots of Stealth.

Ah, I wonder if there will be cloaks in <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/riftrunner.gif" alt="" /> and if they will be animated and of different colours. I am really imatient to know <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/freak.gif" alt="" />

tutamun has it, sir markham has it, why can't we have it? i hope cloaks will be in so mage class has something more than bath robes. unless the robe is flowing like chinese or japanese robes complete with that foreboding straw hat that conceals the face.

for hidden/special item, larian can create socks of hydra, where poison damage is huge & the character get to have a special attack/spell/move which pertain to hydra. & it smells as hell too. after all, it's a pair of socks! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/exclamation.gif" alt="" />

As I understood it, there are no classes in <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/riftrunner.gif" alt="" />. You can become whatever you want. So I suppose you can wear anything you want also. Although they still might introduce a negative influence on casting spells when you are wearing armor.

Yes. Once again, great idea, Myrthos. Maybe not spell failure but... weaker effect maybe?

imagine if it's spell failure that's implemented. your wizard cast chain lightning & it went *spurt *spurt *buzz .... then he/she said out of ammo, please reload at your nearest blacksmith 2 miles to the north ..... .

myrthos has mentioned that there's no class so spell failure can be in to penalise those with heavy armour & consequence of beefing up the defenses is severe. quite nice. more penalty such as lower walk/run speed should be considered as well.

Heavy armour could also just cause a longer casting delay due to the reduced range of motion for hand gestures.

Siege of Avalon had a stealth penalty for stronger armour, to account to the noise chain or plate mail (etc.) would make, so enemies could detect you at a greater range. Not that it did them any good. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/badsmile2.gif" alt="" />

I don't like spell failure much, especially as the only implementation I saw of it (which doesn't mean it is the only existing one of course) was in D&D and there it's partially random as rolling a dice comes into play.
Spell failure is nothing random in my opinion. If I'm powerfull enough then a spell is cast always. It's effects might be reduced, due to me wearing armor or whatever and my opononent having protection. it might even be nullified because all of this, but failing? No never that.

Whilst RiftRunner has do defined classes, you can define your own by selecting the skills and attributes you want. Warriors, Wizards, Clerics and Thieves still apply. It's just how you make them.

Perhaps they should increase the requirements for armour further. If you make Plate Mail armour require 100 Strength to don, then a wizard won't be able to because they'll be pumping attribute points into Intelligence. But they might have a chance with Chain or Mithril armour.

Perhaps armour could also affect your reaction time, regardless of class. Until you excede an Armour's requirement by 50%, all of your actions are slowed by wearing it, including movement and combat. But how do you work this out with five separate pieces of armour (body, legs, feet, hands and head)?

give each an attribute or two which is actually penalty.

helm = lower sight & hearing radius, longer reaction time
gloves = casting delay, reduced attack speed
body armour = encumbrance
boot/legging = lower walk/run speed

overall = lower agility, dramatically reduced chance of stealth

this way regardless of class u still get penalised for armour.

Not entirely. I can mix any combination I want. I can be a 30% warrior, 50% wizard, 15% thief and 5% cleric if I like, by a selection of skills and attributes. And even so, these percentages are all in the eye of a beholder. How would the engine determine how much percent of what I am, so that it knows what class retrictions or bonusses it needs to apply?

I just wonder where this chliché comes from , that no Wizard shall be able to to wear armor and heavy weapons ...

Gandalf uses Glamdring, but normally Wizards are not allowed to use swords in RPG games ...

In DSA there is a kind of female mage who has got two Endurium swords - heavy stuff ...

It comes from balancing. In D&D games spells are so powerfull that they have to tone down the wizard, otherwise it would be an impossibility to kill him/her.
Also it makes sense, that casting a spell in heavy armor is more difficult than in a mere robe.

Could be but will be more hard to defeat a powerfull spell caster.

Which brings to another point: In D&D, when you wear armour, you always wear a full suit of armour. What if a Mage decides only to wear an open-sight helm, cuirras and leg part and boots of a full plate armour? His arms are still free and so is his mouth, prefectly able to cast spells without any penalty, yet this is impossible in D&D.

In Divine Divinity it's possible to wear at least a few different parts, whereas Morrowind has everything divided in seperate parts. These later two systems make a lot more sense to me. I mean, imagine the chance of finding a full plate armour in a D&D game? It costs loads if you'd buy one, yet when you find one, it's always complete? How do they do that? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

Exactly, you would be a cross class:
Level 6 Warrior / Level 10 Wizard / Level 3 Thief / Level 1 Cleric
Or if you over-specialised in magic, you'd be a Level 19 Wizard.

There doesn't need to be class restrictions if there are attribute requirements on items and spells. In Diablo, you needed a certain level of Magic before you could cast a particular spell, so you could be a Battle Mage, but only half as effective in each. Your Strength isn't enough for big armour and your Magic isn't enough for big spells.

I don't think I entirely agree. My example might not be right, but in the end my character is not any class. It doesn't have levels in any class, it turned out the way I wanted it to turn out. In <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" /> adding points to strength had different effects for a warrior or a wizard. If they are going classless then that will no longer apply. Points adding to strength will benefit my character in the same way, regardless if I've been working it up as a mage or a fighter, there are no restrictions. There simply can not be any restrictions on class as my character is of no class at all.

In <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" /> there were already restrictions for learning skills and weapons. But the skill system will have changed in <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/riftrunner.gif" alt="" />, which is not a bad thing.