Something I hope to see more in this game compared to DOS2 is a better system for armor. The DOS2 character creator set my hopes high for how awesome my character might look later in the game. Most of the time though our party was a Hodge-Podge of whatever had the best stats at the time. So far I like that armor itself is all one piece, pants were the bane of my existence in DOS2. Gloves, shoes, and helmets are easier to interchange and still look alright. Basically, I guess I'm hoping for a stronger "fashion-souls" element to BG3.

This seems to be something that virtually all single-player RPGs struggle with. The only games that seem to offer a lot of cosmetic options are MMOs and other live service games, usually ones where they can charge you real money for cosmetic options. It seems very de-prioritized by the developers of classic RPGs, in general.

I'd love to see something like World of Warcraft's "Transmogrification" system implemented where when you find a piece of armor or a weapon, the game catalogs it, and you can change the appearance of your current items to whatever you've collected in your catalog. Grim Dawn had something similar. I'm all about the fashion too so +1 to anyone suggesting ways to make my characters have a cohesive look.

One tendency I honestly dislike in most titles in the genre is what I call the "christmas tree syndrome" of your outfits getting more and more TACKY and ridiculous as you start ramping up in power, plus usually showered by an inane amount of permanent magic status effects.

For instance I found this among the "datamined stuff" on reddit:



This is allegedly the "standard" +3 full plate armor in the game (and I use the term "standard" loosely, since these are supposed to be pretty damn rare in general).

Now, besides the fact that it triggers one of my most fierce idiosyncrasies in gaming (I hate fucking giant pauldrons on armors with a burning passion), who the hell wants to look like this by the end of his adventure?
Unless you are SPECIFICALLY going for "gaudy paladin that loves to embarrass himself in public".

1: Please put things from datamining in spoilers ^^'''.
2: Embarass himself? Don't you like pink Tuco? Mmmm? Nothing embarrassing about it.
3: I have to agree that armor is way too flashy xD Way too pink/gold/white. (You can still wear it with pride!!).

Everyone will have different taste when it comes to this obviously. Maybe it makes sense to have at least some kind of basic color scheme choice at least? Would be cool.

Yeah, we really need to have alternate views. I hope this isn't standard -- it's worse that the Gareth Armor from DOS. I so hated the Rio Carnival outfits at the end of DOS2 and I really hope they don't repeat this aesthetic.

It's an armor, not a plot point. And maybe not even a final model. Hopefully.

Would be nice if they allowed like a cosmetic option for the gear so you can change color and tones of the armors. I know a lot of people think +3 or up has to be flashy, but really I remember weapons that just looked dull be +5 by design until wielded by a worthy person. Heck, if you look at Helm's armor it isn't that flashy. It looks cool, but it isn't very glamorous or ornate. It would be nice though if maybe they allowed like a glamour ability or transmutation like ability for armor sets like Diablo 3 did. That way you can have really great statistical armor, but pick how you look with dye pigments and visuals. Just a thought.

Must be a King.

I don't know, large pauldrons with blade breakers did exist and while nearly all examples are embellished from their historical inspirations they don't always looks terrible.

I still don't see why they can't borrow from all the previous Baldur's Gate entries and allow players to choose some major/minor colors for their outfits. Its such a simple thing but adds a lot.

It would also be nice if some armor with those same colors displayed on the portrait as well. Even if they're cropping at the bust, I think it would be a more dynamic and unique feeling portrait of the 3d avatar that way.

I'm not a big fan of the flashing jousting armor either, with all the ceremonial flourishes, or impractically silly shoulders and the like. But pretty much everything can be improved with a little color control. Not having a way to get some black in your get up as a Rogue, or some green as a Ranger kinda blows. Wizards robes are particularly painful to look at with no way to tweak the colors.

In BG1/2 we usually had control over the cloth elements to re-color and it could be done on the fly at any point. It was a nice touch in the older games that seems pretty straightforward.

Yeah I've had access to all the stuff that's in the game via cheat engine since you can spawn things in that way.

The armour is absolutely awful looking. At least for the purpose of combat. It looks more like ceremonial armour rather than something an adventurer would wear for combat. And this being one of the + tiers means this is what... adventurers wear by default?

What? Why? Magic or not its horrifically impractical. And would probably make you a greater target for being robbed than anything "look at that fancy bugger must have a fat purse".

I highly agree - i would wish to have a variety of armors ingame, DOS was terribly limiting and if Larian wanted to taunt you, they made incredible armors for NPCs, not aviable for the PC.

I dont need customization, just more variety e.g. Helms with closed Visors like mentioned in another thread

100% Agree.

Not being the guy who wants to say
" Hey guys its still EarlyAccess... " but it is.


But I too had this sense of a lack of fashion present. I wish we could chose between a set of default coloration patterns for every individual gear spot, like in GuildWars2.
The Transmogrification from WoW was also a good example but without the annoying ingame-currency cost then, please.

I followed the footage LarianStudio released since the first stream.
And I noticed immediately when the Armor "Shadowsass" wears, got stylized and looked much more cooler and fitting for her image as a Cleric.
And then we find better stuff for her and it looks like Goblinsh*t compared to her own style-Armor.

Same with her Headband. Really befitting her role as a Shar Cleric I think.
Everything else looks just like random stuff.


I am not so sure about our own character but the named story-characters of the group, maybe stuff should just look different on them.
As in they can wear any piece of gear the game has to offer, but whatever they wear, only for them it will change its look so that if still fits their overall character theme.
So that every piece of Headgear will somewhere have the full "Newmoon" of Shadowhearts Headband on every other piece of gear that Shadowhearts wears on her head.
And our Vampyboy will always have his gear look kinda... Nobleman style or whatever his style is.


We can look cool yes.
But the original story characters will always be recognizable as themself with a single glance.
Would be nice I think.
Not a must be but would be nice.

It's actually the +2 full plate, I assume the +3 version will be look even more gaudy...

Aside from leather armor, hide armor, chain shirt and half plate I really dislike the player armor. What's even more annoying is that many NPC armors look good, but the player can't get them (this goes for actual armors and clothing).
I hope we can at least recolor the armors, even if we're stuck using those designs (aside from mods ).

The standard armor models for padded, leather, studded leather, chain and scale look alright. Most of the wonk factor comes with the plate.

But honestly if there were more colored variants I think I could get into it a bit more. Especially the robes.

I hope they keep the hood as a separate piece of equipment from the main armor with options to hide anything that covers the head.

I wish they'd put a ton of zots into armors like the MMOs do these days. But in BG1/2 it was basically only what 4 armored looks?

Either leather, chain, plate or basic tunic, and 2 robed looks for mages. All the rest of the variation came purely from differences in color. It was super basic by today's standards, but still each of the armor types looked pretty cool. I was fond of the chain armor look especially. But the nice part was that you could often recognize how badass a brawling enemy was by their armor. Here its much harder to tell at a glance what kind of gear someone might be wearing.

The companion gear-up for Lae'zel and Shadowheart kinda suffers from them starting out with their coolest look right out the gate. Like I rarely want to trade out their gear even with the +1s on offer with merchants. It would be cooler if they started out more basic and had to recover their coolest looking equipment from the nautaloid via a quest during some later chapter.

Yeah, I really hate oversized pauldrons too. And pauldrons with some weird-ass shape. And overly gaudy armor in general. Most MMOs have awful armor that I can't stand.

OMG that flaming pink armor is just so bad, I'd literally have to go back to leather. I'm not joking. =/

About that armor Tuco shared...

I, for one, am going to take it as a sign from our Lord and Saviour, Cosmetic Variants for Generic Items.

*baseless optimism intensifies*

Awesome idea, similar as Beast gets his Hat "Fran" back in DoS 2 i really liked that

Or maybe reinforcement option via crafting? It would be more logical than being stripped from their casual gear by, uhm, mindflayers?

Three recurring cosmetic "tropes" I goddamn hate in games:

- giant or weirdly shaped pauldrons
- weapons floating without a sheet/scabbard "glued" on the back of the character
- horned "viking" helms (but then again I very rarely like how helms look, in general).

So far BG3 strikes the first two, but I'm confident we will get the third as well.
And well, anything that's excessively gaudy, really. But this can rarely work when it's a specific vibe you are going when designing a particular elite group (Knights of the Blazing Sun in Warhammer with their plumed hats come to mind. Or the Order of the Flaming Rose in The Witcher 2).

It's weird, honestly. It's like some developers just couldn't wrap their heads around how hilariously uncool some of this stuff can can look at times.

I mean, this is a possible example of what a cool BIG armor can look. Something that makes you feel like both someone of a certain status AND a seasoned warrior.



Not that shiny, pink abomination.

Baldur's Gate 3 is a fictional setting, in a setting full of magic and legendary adventurers and superhumans it's not that strange that the armor is very flashy.
I mean if this is normal in the setting then it's normal, people aren't going to look at it as out of the ordinary because it isn't.

If you actually think about it too irl armor has some pretty weird and crazy shapes, Samurai helmets in particular comes to mind but in the rest of the world people definitely got quite creative.
Armor wasn't just basic generic flat helmets and breasplates.

I think that the picture is quite unflattering tho.
It doesn't look that bad imo, the pic makes it look way worse.
It's not even that far off from a lot of irl armor ( minus the very overtly golden color I guess ).
There's also an issue of progression here, it's difficult to give the player a sense of progression without getting flashy with it.

I think that in the West there tends to be these very extreme reactions too against stylized things whether it be gear, weapons or characters.
Not saying that people aren't allowed to have preferences, but at times it sorta feels like people aren't actually taking the actual fiction and culture into consideration at all and just judge everything based on irl 14th century Europe...
It also becomes kinda difficult to not have your gear look insanely repetitive and like you just google copy pasted it from historical armor without adding to things like the pauldrons.



Cool to you, imo he looks incredibly generic and boring but I wouldn't sit around complaining about it.
Not to mention that we're talking about one set here, I have all of the ones I saw datamined saved and the rest of the heavy armor doesn't look like that.

I mean people can complain about '' WoW armor '' as much as they want, it's still very popular it's not a thing because developers don't know any better they just don't share your sensibilities...

Edit: Also, in regards to people being mad about colors...
Bright colors were normal back in the day too, this whole '' bleak and gritty '' thing is a more modern idea.

Look, i was just searching randomly on google, but there's a buttload of examples here of what I'd consider "cool outfits for seasoned adventurers":
https://www.pinterest.it/pin/817614...=16&w=530&h=671&cropSource=6
EDIT: Aaand the link doesn't work anymore.it gives different images each time I click it.

i don't know why a lot of equipment in most games seems to constantly fall on the two categories "excessively plain and makes you look stiff like a mannequin" or "Tacky, gaudy and saturated of magic effects to the point you can hardly watch directly at it".


"It's not that strange"? Who gives a shit if it's "strange" or "plausible".
The point is not realism, it's that it looks like a clown outfit. Absolute garbage tier, it's embarrassing. Something on which I wouldn't want even to be caught dead in.




Yeah, yeah. WHATEVER.

Holy shit, they are right when they say that there's really a defense force for ANYTHING on the the internet.

Guys, guys calm down and

Hehe well that wins for sure! I'll call him macaroni with that feather lol

Yeah I don't know, I'm sure a modeler spent a couple hours making the polished pink and plate from the screenshot. It could be improved with some textures and a different color scheme. Also if the head slot could be hidden, it might look better sans circlet. I just don't like the look of the circlets that I've seen so far, there aren't enough of them or enough styles, I wish I could hide them so they were more like rings. But this is an example of a circlet making someone look particularly silly. If he had a badass helmet on, some of the other elements in the armor might read a bit stronger. Then again maybe its the look they're driving for with that character? Someone who a villainous PC would just instantly chunk for no good reason other than their face "is boring!" As the goblins say hehe

That other illustration looks nice, I'm sure it probably took rather longer to draw. Might be more generic but shows an understanding of how armor functions. But the main reason its better is because of the cloth tunic component. In BG terms it looks like Platemail with white as the Major color and blue for the Minor/Trim color.

Is no one else bummed that we can't choose colors for our outfits?

In BG1/2 you could change your colors from the character sheet and it would automatically apply to the paper doll and the in game avatar.

Ps. Floating weapons are lame. Not having scabbards is a missed opportunity, that's where the flash and flair could go for bladed weapons. But in general I wish they'd have their modelers and animators spend some time on better belts and holsters and such. I wouldn't expect them to go so far as to have us actually stringing a bow, but you know, the little touches can make a big difference. Strapping a mace on the back is just agh

This armor looks awful as top end gear.

Gold and excessive decorations reflect status, not combat prowess. This is something a high fantasy king would wear for public appearances to look fancy and have 13AC in it. It looks about as strong as tin foil.

Oh, see, I like this a lot. I guess I just like armor that looks more down-to-earth or lowkey edgy, not fancy or over-the-top. I like the "dungeonpunk" aesthetic of 3rd edition.

This is an ego thing I believe, especially in multiplayer games where players want everyone to look at them. In singleplayer games we just need enough options to please everyone. I mentioned crafting styles in another thread, dyes would be awesome as well.

As for that painfully bright armour, it makes me cringe because I always play stealth type characters in games. Someone else wearing that would be fine, useful even, because they would be getting all the enemy attention while I was attacking from the shadows wearing my simple darkened leather gear.

Isnt this ethernal theme?
Style vs. functionality ... endless discusion in whole fantasy multiverse.

I just leave this here ...

We could have an option to change the look of the armour based on its category and previously worn armours, that would help a lot for people who dislike that bright and flashy style. I dont like it as well.

Just simple transmutation for the look while keeping stats unchanged. It would allow everybody to enjoy their fav style.

Dreadful, like most armors in DA: O.

I like them ... some more than others, most endgame plate armours in DA:O are horrible ... this one i like ... and i like it even much more in DA:I :3

[img]https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/d...p/width/360/height/450?cb=20150115022848[/img]

See, here we run into a problem, because there's no such thing as like "objectively good armor design". Some people like the shiny, big, gaudy platemail, others prefer the gritty, down to earth, super realistic armor. I tend to fall somewhere in the middle, and I think that this is where the game is going as well.
I also think judging the armors based on what is currently available through datamining is a bit hasty, due to the fact that the game only has a tiny portion complete at the moment. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the NPCs and companions we've already met will be given shiny new duds in time for the full release.

I do really hope we get some sort of transmutation/customization option for armors though. At least some dyes or something.

I actually like the armour in Dao. The medium armor is the best. The heavy armor is kind of lame. The light armor looks really good on female models. The massive armour is fine. The dwarven massive armour looks awesome on dwarves and strangely bad on all the other races.

I find almost all of them ranging from dull to absolutely awful.
"Smaller", lighter armors tend to be stiff, plain and make characters look like mannequins, while the big heavy one look like like coal stoves or old boilers and have almost invariably these obnoxious giant pauldrons that make everyone look ridiculous, with tiny heads, giant hands and shoulders that would act as nutcrackers with their heads if they ever dared raising their arms.

There are a couple of sparse exceptions that hit a decent middle ground, but nothing to write home about:



For all its shortcomings as a game and while keeping some problems (again, PAULDRONS) DA Inquisition was a massive improvement in that sense.

But I have to admit this a recurring problem in gaming.
Aside for sparse exceptions like The Witcher 2 and 3 I can't think of many games with *consistent* quality armor design.

We officially disagree about everything

i noticed, but I'll try to not blame you for being wrong.

Anybody would think you have a thing about the Warhamster-style "it's all about the pauldrons!" etc. Or maybe that's me: I hate massive oversized pauldrons. They look daft. Probably my next most hated thing after swords with loads of spiky bits

Same 😁

Mh. I'm not sure you were paying particular attention to the discussion, because I've been saying that I hate giant pauldrons with a fierce passion since the first replies in the thread.

That was precisely my point.
They suck, and Dragon Age Origins had them in spades.

I like the picture Tuco offered up as a good alternative and I equally dislike the datamined pink heavy armour.

However, I am not against a fantasy game such as D&D being a little more well, fancyful, that said... why is the armour and clothing of all the companions I meet who have also survived the crash got this pristine, clean, top-gear look? No not everything has to look like Game of Thrones, or dirty Viggo "Aragorn" Mortensen, but currently the look is a little shiny plastic-y. A few more matte colours/shades wouldn't go amiss

and the gnome in the party looked at me like I was god

So it's your fault! :p

Can't we get something like this instead of an unusable mish-mash I see in-game?

Boring

Fanciful is fine. "Fanciful and cool" is precisely what most of us would prefer, I guess.

The problem is how you achieve that.

This is an(other) example of an armor that I would describe as fanciful: its design is filled with small decorations, minute details, little things that make it feel "used", "lived in". Something someone is actually wearing.



There's leather, clothing, utilities hanging from belts, etc.

Conversely you have a leather armor in Dragon Age Origin and it seems like and it looks like someone stitched together a leather carpet around your character with a stapler.
Or crap like this one:
https://dragonage.fandom.com/wiki/Dwarven_Medium_armor_set?file=Dwarven_Medium_armor_set.png


Who the hell did ever wear anything like this?
It looks like someone tried to bum-salvage an improvised Ironman suit out of a dismissed gas oven.

Even pushing things a bit too far in terms of fancifulness, this is how I'd imagine an "end game" high level rogue could look like:




See? It's... probably pushing a bit in terms of overabundance of details, decorations, etc. but you can still clearly identify it as "probably a wealthy and successful adventurer in a light armor".

Compare and contrast with stuff in World of Warcraft and a lot of other games, where you get the Space Power Ranger or, on the other hand of the spectrum, games like DAO where the leather armor looks like some corrective plaster bust in a brown variant.

The armour in Excalibur was laughable (and anachronistic, but hey...) and I'm sure that the design team worked for the Warhamster art and design department.

I would like to add the sheep wool chainmail of Monty Pythons holy Trail for the consideration of this discussion

You seem a man of fine taste.
Unlike Abits.

I have ran my 2H fighter with this set transmutes but painted black/red/white, cool one /neverwinter mmo

I vote for more World Of Warcraft mega pauldrons!




But jokes aside. While I don't like over the top mega pauldron with golden lions, at the same time I dont want the armor to look too realistic and plain either. There has to be some fantasy element to it.

I wasn't even 100% sure that was satire. It wouldn't be in the universe of Warhamster and its Serious Pauldrons.

I stopped buying Warhamster miniatures a while back because they had the same issue. This was, of course, the firm that gave up Chaos Spikey Bitz on everyone.

Mind you, I grew up buying the old Citadel range when it was sculpted by the Perry twins and a few other notables. Before the Madness started.

First, Excalibur was released in 1980 - the days of Pac Man and Pong and those who worked on it were almost certainly well retired from design by the time Blizzard was doing anything. Second, those spaulders are the result of form following function and consideration of historical design. They allow range of movement for the shoulders so that an individual fighting while mounted can attack and defend nearly 240 degrees, which in the latter part of the 15th century when heavy cavalry operated with complete autonomy on the battlefield was a real concern. I am not making the case artistic license has not been taken since and that the form has not been exaggerated in most cinema and video games, Excalibur was trying to make it look aggressive because in 1980 fantasy was a pretty goofy genre and they wanted to be taken seriously. It worked for the time and since holds up fairly well, your opinion to the contrary.. Like or dislike it that is all well and fine but saying it didn't exist is what is truly laughable.



For further examples, and to see where I stole the above photo: here

Warhamster refers to the Games Workshop game, "Warhammer" or "Warhammer Fantasy Battle", released in 1982. It is not WoW.

Yes, I'm aware of what armour design is for and how it evolves, but 'Excalibur' is anachronistic because the Arthurian Legends are supposed to have been about Arthur and his knights fighting the invading Saxons. Most commentators place the legends firmly in the post-Roman Britain period, where mail was the ultimate in armour protection. Later interpretations (especially Hollywood) generally go for High Medieval, C14th, but the Excalibur film decided to go for a look that was late C15th and using almost exclusively the Italian style of armour - big slabs similar to siege armour rather than decorative field armour as seen in the Germanic style.

All that aside, the armour depicted was just ... daft. Bits hanging off here and there, and pointless spikes, knobs and studs. The fight scenes are hilarious. The armour was based on museum pieces, certainly, but then dressed up by a Hollywood designer who thought that the armour didn't look "real" enough.

Fun fact: while there's this vague understanding that "they were mostly for nobles" a lot of people seem to have absolutely no clue of how insanely expensive a top quality full plate actually used to be.

Having a full armor made by a top Italian artisan could cost the equivalent of a modern top class luxury car. I remember reading estimations rounding it close to 400,000€ if the cost was adjusted for today's inflation.

Oh dear, that shiney +2 fullplate looks like how the presenter of queer eye for a stright guy would imagine it. The thing is armor needs to look functional because it needs to be functional, I imagine a rogue armor to be black leather with bracers and a hooded cloak. A breast plate plate is tempered steel plates with hinged shoulders not.....well looking like a 19th century french chandelier landed on your head during a whos got the dumbest armor competition.

Armor gets hit with swords, maces, arrows....You are not going to spend 18 hours a day polishing the bloody thing unless your intent is to blind the enemy while he is laughing his arse off. You cannot move your arms with ginormic pauldrons, you need at least one shoulder with complete freedom of movement to direct or draw a weapon.

Appreciate the clarification, I apologize as it appears we were talking passed each other and that was very much my fault. Yeah, I don't know much about Games Workshop. I kind of dig the feudal Catholicism meets high technology juxtaposition because isn't just a gimmick but actually surprisingly well executed. I think some of the terms like Omnissiah are rather clever, but I have never read the little books, played the game, or spoken to anyone who has done either. My knowledge of it is the result of purely accidental contact on the internet during conversations not too dissimilar to this.

Despite the history of when the Arthurian legend should have been set in, it became a phenomena as a result of Malory penning it in 1469. It was explosive at that time. There were numerous spinoff narratives about individual characters, there were multiple endings depending upon the country where it was published, individual nobles would commission their own fan fic based on it, and of course every aspiring painter for a couple centuries was depicting various scenes and characters. . .So I am very comfortable overlooking the achromatic depictions because while they don't reflect the history of the story, they are inseparable from the story's history.

And like I said, I won't argue that the armor is accurate and certainly not that it is objectively good, it was created for a specific affect. Medieval armor doesn't appear to modern eyes as substantial as it is. They were trying to make something that conveyed what it felt like to be and face a knight in full plate in the period. That is something art does very well, and I tend to think it succeeded in that. Granted I was just a little, little kid when I saw the movie so my bias runs deep, but I know the impact it made on me. And watching the film without subtitles as a boy in Japan, Hidetaka Miyazaki (who has spoken often about how positively captivated he was by the imagery and I can only wonder what he was thinking about watching it without dialogue) would lend itself to an experience which stayed with him for life and ultimately inspired him to pursue artistic expression and heavily informed his Dark Souls series. All of which is to arrive at why I am as accepting as I am of the stuff. Sometimes art is more expressive than accurate and providing it is clear which it is attempting, I am capable of all sorts of forgiveness.

So you're telling me that back in the ye olden days you couldn't just drop in to your friendly neighborhood blacksmith and pick and choose from a plethora of off the shelf plate armors?
Consider my view of medieval europe shattered. My day is ruined and my disappointment is immeasurable!

I think we're roughly on the same page. It's all-too easy to miss meanings or whole sentences in large bodies of text, I do it all the time.

Good of you to apologise nonetheless - consider yourself bought a virtual drink.

It makes me wonder, thinking of this in the context of a D&D fantasy world. If it's SO expensive and difficult to make a suit of full plate armor, but apparently not very difficult at all to enchant some lesser armor, which will then be just as protective as the full plate, why would anyone ever make full plate anymore? If +1 Splint Mail is cheaper and easier to produce than Full Plate, why ever make Full Plate? Why ever wear Full Plate?

That is why even now most people who use armor often prefer to wear splint armor (brigandine/lamellar type) instead of the full plate - it is more affordable, faster constructed, less pretentious.

On the other hand, for the prestige and the looks - nothing beats the full plate. But if you are an adventurer, you are always mindful of your Maserati or Porshe full plate, and recieve both the positive and negative consequences (looks and admiration vs cost and jealosy of criminals).

No... don't go there... this is not a magic system made with internal realism/consistency in mind.

I presume that Full Plate is in this case tied to some social status?
You know ... to show peasants that they dont wanna start mess with your wallet.

On Josh Sawyer's BG3 stream, he mentioned that when working on Neverwinter Nights 2, Wizard of the Coast had very strict guidelines as to how the aesthetics of the armor and clothing needed to be. Essentially, they had to follow the D&D 3.5e armor design guidelines, etc.

I wouldn't be surprised if it's the same for Larian. Which means expect lots of big pauldrons on heavy armor (see Paladin with plate from the 5e Handbook).

In BG1 and BG2 you couldn't combine magical armor with other magical rings or amulets or cloaks that gave a bonus to your armor class. So there was actually an incentive to wear full plate without enchantments in the Baldur's Gate games, (or any non magical armor for that matter), if it meant you could also sport a ring that gave +3 to your armor class. I can't recall if this was an AD&D 2e thing, but it was a nice solution for the games since the DM determines what kind of rewards are given anyway.

ps. the lack of cloaks and capes and such is notable. I haven't found any in game. Many of the coolest looks involve these, obviously.

Because while you can enchant splint mail to be as protective as a full plate, you can also enchant full plate to be even better?

No, just to be more sparkly and with bigger pauldrons.

May the gods have mercy on their rotten souls.

Both of these are reasonable answers.

I found myself favoring the style of Medium Armor so much that I always select the feat for it, no matter what class I'm playing. The robes leave much to be desired though.

I am not sure that it has not been mentioned before...
but I wanted to draw attention to the fact that medieval plate armour was often mirror polished. The polish could cost more than the armor itself as modern polishing compounds were not available and it was very time consuming. The bright sunlight reflected from the armours was supposed to indicate a visual similarity of knightly class and angels. While the pauldrons seen here are absurd, the polish is not. There were less shiny armours, too. I remember Tobias Capwell making a suit of blued, almost pitch black englisch armour based on original pieces. Make it shiny, make it etched with gilded symbols, do whatever you want but make it so that it works as armour. Decoration that does not change material thickness or shape does not hamper combat effectiveness, giant Spikes and unnecessary pieces add weight and hamper movement.
A notable side effect of very fancy armour is an added armour class of a very different kind. If you can afford armour the price of a house, you are a very valuable captive. Don't kill a nobleman, exchange him for a fortune.
I always disliked Oblivions leveled items because it would make poor bandits wear ebony armor. You don't hide in dark and moist ruins waiting for a caravan to steel a few thousand Draken when your could trade your armor for a house and lots to spare.

I think my favorite armor design out of all the RPG games so far had been the Witcher 3.
Some people might find it boring, but to me it was a perfect blend of low fantasy/badass armor.


epecially the Ursine armor


Nilfgaardian guardsamn if we talk heavy plate
[img] https://static.gosunoob.com/img/1/2015/06/nilfgaardian-guardsman-heavy-armor-set.jpg [/img]

TW2 and 3 had OUTSTANDING armor design in general, as I already said.

P.S. Still a bit bitter that superior tier 3 ursine armor never became an in-game model.

I like most of the Witcher armor, but god the Griffon set looks BAD.

I wouldn't even say it's BAD. It would probably outshine A LOT of shitty armors in other games. DOS had dozens of armors that were far worse, for one, and the infamous paladin armor posted few pages ago is order of magnitude uglier.

It's just a poor fit for a Witcher. And not even the ONLY example in the game, at that.

Yeah, it's not bad if you compare it to all armors in all games. It's just bad for GERALT, I feel.

And it was the one that matched my gish-y build... D:

But yeah, in general the Witcher armor designs were great. Most of the problems I had with them was the colouring. (I'm very particular about colours.)

Griffin? More like Iguana Armour

Griffin was one of my favourite armour actually, I can't remember if it was the stats or the look. Ended up transferring to Bear because of the long coat look.

But yes, I think the Witcher games had very nice looking armour art design overall. From what I've seen most of BG3's armour looks very good too, though.

That's because they relied much more on real armor than fantasy bullsh...

The worst thing for me in many fantasy games are helmet designs, and BG3 is no different, like "hey, let's create a leather helmet with low vital protection and put small horns like anywhere on it."


By the way, I find it strange to be in an EA board with no option to upload pictures from your HDD, like you know... pictures of bugs in the game.

Yes, not being able to upload images direct to the board is frustrating. A feature of the forum software, I understand.

I really hope Larian is taking a good look at Demon’s Souls. For a small-ish game there’s a decent variety of armours in there and they look phenomenal. That’s how I want my D&D characters to look, not all shiny and gaudy.

Sorry to revive this thread, but I was googling to see if I could find how certain armours in game would look once on my character, without having to buy it first, and stumbled across the previews, and this post, and just wanted to say I wholeheartedly agree. What is it with all the extra flashy bits? Why is there so much leather in the scale? so much cloth in the chain? So much fancy stuff in the plate? Can we just get cool, functional looking armour, please? Why can the plate not just be like the half-plate, but whole-plate? Why can the maille not just be maille?

You ever seen Henry VIIIs jousting armour from when he got fat? That's Plate +2 right there, it's functional, it's sleek, but it's got just a little bit of gold trim and jousting pauldrons to make it look flashy.

https://collections.royalarmouries.org/object/rac-object-11384.html

In fact, here:

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/nhIP6dfr_FE/maxresdefault.jpg

1100 - chainmail

1330 - splint

1400 - half-plate

1450 - plate

just give us some form of version of this.

Baldur's Gate 3 has a photorealistic visual style though, so cartoony art like that illustration can't be copied exactly. The worst thing they could do is combining two completely different art styles because "guidelines". Giant pauldrons would look really stupid on realistic character models.

It sucks the Early Access hasn't really gone anywhere in a year regarding weapon and armor models.

And the Witcher art direction is amazing. It nails the photorealistic style perfectly while looking like a fantasy game. I will refuse to wear anything that looks as ridiculous as the Full Plate +2 in BG3. Even the Scale Mails are hard to swallow as they look much more like fashion than armor already at level 1.