Armor as Clothing ONLY

[SekoETC]

Overall it's pretty silly how deterioration works in Cantr. Items remain usable and equally functional until the end, in which they crumble into nothingness. While it would make more sense that if you strike a shield enough of times, it might split in half, or a strap might come loose, rendering it unusable but it wouldn't vanish. If it was metal, you could melt it and reuse it and if it was wood, you could use it for firewood. But in Cantr resources can be glued together even if it was something like wood, so you could even build a ship using wood from old broken shields.

But maybe there could be a poll on how many people would be okay with the addition of purely ornamental armor that might or might not get defensive values in the distant future. It would be easy to add armor as clothing, and I suppose it wouldn't be that hard either to give it defensive values but making it balanced would be difficult, and in my opinion balanced would include deterioration and weight.

[Piscator]

Well, you could balance it against tiredness. If working in full armor would cause considerable tiredness you would either put the armor on its stand when you don't expect an attack or just stand around and be watchful. I think such a system could work without deterioration and weight.

[trojo]

I'm not a big fan of armor in general. If we had armor with actual defensive bonuses, everyone who could afford it would be going around in full field plate including helmet 24/7, but their character descriptions wouldn't reflect it (e.g. describing hair and eye color even though the helmet covers their face completely). Their role play wouldn't reflect it either; they'd be dancing and kissing and whatever same as always with the armor not slowing them down a bit.

But if you are dead set on armor, how about this for balance: putting on or taking off armor is a day-long project (others, your squires, can help), and you can't work on projects except dragging while wearing it. (This would include "lighter" armor like chainmail too. And if anyone thinks that restriction isn't "realistic", try shoveling sand for eight hours wearing forty pounds of chainmail, or try sewing while wearing gauntlets.) Thus a town could support a full-time armored constabulary or army, but they would require others to feed them. Basically, what I'm saying is, if we must have armor, it should be implemented in a way that promotes greater inter-dependency (which is what a "society simulator" needs) rather than greater self-sufficiency (which is what most players think they want).

Also: no helmets. Helmets would more or less make char descriptions pointless, since everyone would have a helmet covering their face.

[Ryaga]

Pretty sure you could get away with shoveling, sewing, or whatever else in a gambeson/brigandine. Might get a little hot depending on the area though. If we did see armour I'd like to see a single suit of armour being as big as/bigger a project than a van. In the amount of time purely it took maybe not quite resources.

[bobbogum]

Honestly a day long job to put on a suit of armor?
With help?


I support the idea that it makes you tired, but not this idea.

I think I'll do a poll to see what people think, in the discussion forum right?

[SekoETC]

If wearing an armor caused a significant penalty while working on projects, I doubt people would bother to wear them all the time. There's a difference between wearing something like a leather breastplate and a full suit of armor. It would be good if putting it on took some time but a day is ridiculous, more like an hour. Wearing heavy armor could slow down your reaction time and make you more likely to get hit while reducing the damage you take. But most armor has gaps somewhere, for example the eye holes on a helmet or an unshielded spot beneath the arm that people could hit.

If armor was visible as clothing, there would be no need to include it in your character description since people could already see it. If it wasn't clothing but just a regular object, it would still be made visible so it would appear in the list of held items. But I think classification as clothing would be better.

It's kinda silly to say no helmets just because everybody would wear them. There are helmets that don't cover the face, and I'm sure there are people who value their looks more than their security. Wearing a leather corset under your clothing might protect you against not so sharp weapons aimed at the torso, but I doubt all the people in pretty clothes would start wearing armor just because it was possible.

[Piscator]

try shoveling sand for eight hours wearing forty pounds of chainmail, or try sewing while wearing gauntlets.) Thus a town could support a full-time armored constabulary or army, but they would require others to feed them.

That's pretty much what I just wrote. Currently tiredness is reduced faster than it is generated by working. If armor would increase the tiredness build-up by only a few percent, the opposite could be the case, meaning that your tiredness would increase constantly while working on a project.

Also: no helmets. Helmets would more or less make char descriptions pointless, since everyone would have a helmet covering their face.

Noone stops you from describing your chest hair even though you usually wear shirts. Helmets would be displayed on the same page as the character description, so everybody would know when to ignore its content. You could also add something like "which is usually hidden by his helmet" to your description. Oh, and if you are rather the Darth Vader type you could give a lengthy description of your helmet.

[Arenti]

It should also depend on how strong your char is on what armor he/she can wear. And people with heavy armor shouldn't be able to work at all. Also with this perhaps it would help balance things if you make battle axe 2 handed and perhaps the claymore as well. And also not able to use a bow with heavy armor of course. Well at least it should be less effective with heavy armor.

[EchoMan]

It should also depend on how strong your char is on what armor he/she can wear. And people with heavy armor shouldn't be able to work at all. Also with this perhaps it would help balance things if you make battle axe 2 handed and perhaps the claymore as well. And also not able to use a bow with heavy armor of course. Well at least it should be less effective with heavy armor.

So... yet another reason to kill off any non-strong, non-fighter characters?

[Arenti]

It should also depend on how strong your char is on what armor he/she can wear. And people with heavy armor shouldn't be able to work at all. Also with this perhaps it would help balance things if you make battle axe 2 handed and perhaps the claymore as well. And also not able to use a bow with heavy armor of course. Well at least it should be less effective with heavy armor.

So... yet another reason to kill off any non-strong, non-fighter characters?

Exactly what I want to point out. If you want to even remotely make this realistic this will only profit strong chars who already have a big advantage over weaker ones. And I certainly don't see my weak chars wearing heavy armor and able to walk or even to breath.

[Piscator]

Why make something 'realistic' if it hurts the game? Besides, the immobilizing effects of combat armour appear to be usually greatly exaggerated. See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_armour#Composition

[Arenti]

Oh did they gather asparagus wearing plate armor? never heard of that actually. Or did they drill for coal with plate armor?

[Piscator]

Well, ask them. You never know.

The point is though that you wouldn't do it in Cantr if working in armor would constantly tire you.

edit: Just in case I didn't make myself clear, the comment about realism was only refering to the effect of strength on the stamina drain. Just because something appears sensible reality-wise, it doesn't mean that it would make the game better.

[Arenti]

Hmmm yes I see your point. And yes I agree with that actually.