In OB I thought it was a little weird that magic completely ignores armor rating when it does damage. You may wonder why I think it's weird and you'll probably be saying "But its' magic of course armor doesn't stop it" The thing is though that it would stop it. If you blocked a fire ball with a shield the worst that would happen is that your hand would get warm, and if your wearing full plate it's unlikely to start you on fire or even touch your skin. It's also been proven that when your wearing a full metal suit of any kind lighting doesn't do anything to you. I think that the armor you wear should effect how much magic damages you. It could give certain armor types more worth. For instance leather and fur would make you more weak to fire because their flammable, but it would also give you a resistance to frost because it's insulating. While Steel armor would give you resistance to fire and shock but would enhance damage done by frost. The percent of the damage taken away or added won't have to be that high, just enough so that there is a difference between an armor's material besides just how hard it is.

Considering "block" has perks that resist elemental damage, I'm betting "armor" will have similar perks.

Really? This sounds like a one way ticket to toasterville to me.
Though it wouldnt be the first time something turns out to be counter-intuitive.
Source please?

at first read i was like comon dude wtf, and then about 3/4 of the way through you persuaded me and i agree completely

Here's a http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdrqdW4Miao The guy is wearing chain mail.

I absolutely agree, although if it increases or decreases damage by any more than 10% I think it would be too much of a variable.

Oh, and that video is awesome.

Depends on the intensity of the magic and the elemen. A full suit of armour is NOT lightning proof. Any opening in it, any crack, slit, crevice, space between the joints etc. is an opening for the electricity to fry you.

As to flame. . .if the fire is intense enough you could well end up cooked inside of your armour. A minor blast of low heat intensity an armour plated warrior could shrug off, sure. But a stream of extremely high temperture flame, or lighting of the sort that splits old trees in half. . . you are still in a world of trouble, armour or no armour, unless the armour is itself highly magical.

While its true that electricity follows the path of least resistance - which in the case of a man inside a full metal suit is the metal - the amps that the lightning pushes through the suit will most likely heat the suit up and cause at least burns to the victim.

I would like to point out that in the trailer Dovahkiin protects himself form being burned by hiding behind his shield. That may have been for dramatic effect but it could also be foreshadowing of armor resisting magic.

Well yes if your hit by something that powerful it kind of wouldn't matter what your wearing, but it would be good to at least have your armor be a factor when your hit by magic.

Thats a video, not an article detailing physics.
I surmise from the looks of it, though it is rather dark in there, that he is essentially in a Faraday cage.
I still hold that wearing a metal helmet in a thunderstorm is a very bad idea, no matter how much metal you otherwise are wearing.

Regardless, I do like the idea of armour being conductive to one type of magic, but resistant to another, and different types of armour having different strengths and weaknesses.
If its not in the vanilla game it would make a nice mod.
Though I think metal armour should increase the potency of shock spells, not reduce.

Not sure how a live performance of the effect isn't as good as text, but whatever. Well the shock resistance thing only works if it a full suit as in covers every inch of your body. If you where missing a single part of your armor it wouldn't work. I was only using that as an example anyway. Given that I think that metal armor should only resist fire.

He is also being "struck" by a lower intensity charge of electricity from a pair of Tesla coils. The voltage is FAR lower than that which would be carried and discharged by an actual lightning bolt from a high intensity t-cell. There are vids of people mishandling the Tesla coils and the electricity and being shocked, but not at all injured in any meaningful way, which tends not to be the case for a person struck by lightning in a storm.

Your source is used out of context. A lightning bolt has a very high voltage and a very high current giving it a high level of energy released on a small area. A tesla coil produces a very high voltage and a relatively low current giving you a low energy release. The chainmail suit this guy uses is to spread that energy release over his body and allow it to travel to ground.

The reason he needs it is the human body only needs very small amounts of electrical current to [censored] you up so the suit prevents it traveling through his body.

The thing is that I have yet to see a shock spell in TES that is any were near a real bolt of lighting, and you would be surpised how many poeple surive after being hit by lighting who have no protection whatsoever. It's the amps that kill not the volts and a lighting bolt doesn't always have enough amps to kill.

It should ignore armor rating in my opinion. Only enchanted armor should affect magic I think. It isn't just a fireball or ice ball. It's a magical elemental attack. There's a huge difference.

Wrong thread.

Depends on the intensity. Not all lightning bolts are created equal. :shocking:

Some kill instantly. And some kill astoundingly. And I do hope that some of the ES lightning spells are high quality and high power, and are given a look to match their power.

I would understand that if magic in TES was snap your fingers and the guy instantly starts on fire from the inside kind of thing, but it actually shows a ball of fire flying at them. That pretty much tells me it's more of a physical attack then a supernatural one.

logic is out the window in Nirn. Logically anybody that can produce lightning in their hand would have to produce an electromagnetic force to project it, since the lightning would just bend back to its source, or ground. Secondly, if the caster could muster energy to ionize particles on that scale, he would be resistant to electricity as well.

That is one of things I didn't like about OB. No matter how powerful the spell you use is, it always shows the same hand motion and it looks the same traveling through the air. They need to make a powerful spell seem powerful.

They did, its called the super charge.

I'm bumping this thread simply because I posted it very late at night I don't think it got the attenion it deserves. Flamers have mercy! :flamethrower: :flamed:

What he's wearing isn't real armor. Its a one-piece chainmail jumpsuit with special conductive gloves and boots, and he's standing on a well-grounded floor. Real armor isn't like that. The leather straps and the bottoms of the boots would fry, and the padded underarmor would ignite. At best it would turn an electrical shock into a "fire damage over time" effect.

I wouldn't dare wear his outfit in real combat.

Well it would help in combat because it's chain mail. I only brought that up to prove a point anyway. For the reasons you and others have mentioned we've pretty much concluded that metal armor in TES shouldn't help with shock damage. Actually to make it not OP every armor type should only have of one strength and one weakness, and it really doesn't have to stop at stock, frost, and fire damage. Some armor could also help against damage health and poison spells etc.