I′ve been thinking, sometimes armour can just be silly, we have knights in full heavy armor rolling around like acrobats, mages dressing up in anything except cloth since it′s just not worth it stats wise and our thieves are going up against their enemies letting them hit them like as if they were wearing heavy armor by the time they get the perk that allows light armor to have a ton more armor rating than it should.

So what if we try to design effects for armor ? Here is how I would imagine it at 05:30 in the night with a tired mind, so I know you can do better, I will start with heavy armor and take cloth last since it has more variety and I will be using the Oblivion armor system as a baseline. (scrap that for now, too tired, just doing heavy armor, it′s taking me more time to do this than expected too, maybe I will finish this tomorrow or maybe you guys will make a section for the thief types and mages for me!

Heavy Armor: What I′d like to see in general when I wear heavy armor that it feels heavy and cumbersome and not cut out for acrobatics or magic, but great for soaking up damage up front.

- Helmet: The heavy helmet is obstructive and it′s hard to make it fit comfortably on the head, -10% steadiness of an arrow strung on a bow by someone wearing a heavy helmet & the heavy helmet does not sit well on the head so there is a 10% chance of losing it during a roll, it also decreases magical potency and sneaking ability by 5%.

- Cuirass: The heavy cuirass weighs the user down decreasing jumping height by 10% and it pinches and cuts the user during rolls damaging him by 3% of his total health, it also obstructs the arms decreased magical potency by 10% and sneaking ability by 10%.

- Greaves: The heavy Greaves weigh the user down and obstructs use of the legs decreasing jumping height by 20% and it pinches and cuts the user during rolls damaging him by 2% of his health, it also decreases magical potency by 5% and sneaking ability by 15%.

- Gauntlets: The heavy gauntlets decrease the grip an archer has on his arrow decreasing the steadiness of an arrow strung with the heavy gauntlets on by 20%, they are also very obstructive to magic decreasing magical potency by 15% and decreases ones sneaking ability by 10% as the user creates extra much noise supporting his weight on nearby objects and walls with his hands as he sneaks. Wearing heavy armour gloves allows the wielder to be more reckless with his weapon increasing physical damage dealt by 15% with a melee weapon and damaged decreased when you parry with a weapon by 20%.

- Boots: The heavy boots make the user especially loud decreasing sneaking ability by 60%, it also decreases magical potency by 5%. They allow the wearer to hold a firmer stance reducing damage while blocking with a shield by 30%

- Shield: The heavy shield is big and clunky, when you wear a shield your sneaking ability is decreased by 40%, jumping height is cut by another 20% and you can no longer roll and it obstructs your other arm decreasing magical potency with it by 20%

With this the base differences in a full suit of heavy armor minus the shield would be.

Pros:
- Of course heavy armor would provide a lot more defense than any other type of armor.
- 15% more physical damage with a melee weapon.
- 20% less damage taken while blocking with a weapon.
- 30% less damage taken while blocking with a shield. (remember it is still quite a bit more than the blocking with weapons thing since shield will in the base reduce damage by a lot more than weapons)

Cons:
- 100% decrease in sneaking ability.
- 40% decrease in magical ability.
- 30% less jumping height.
- 30% less steadiness with arrows.
- 5% of total health taken if you roll (don′t like to see people fully clad in heavy armor rolling around, but I figured 5% would be mean enough (only 20 rolls to kill you with full health) without taking into count that you also just generally lose health in combat and rolling is supposed to take you out of a pinch, so I decided only to have it 5%)

Now it′s not perfect but it′s at least something I think. I′m not picking on heavy armor users here BTW, I intend to be one come Skyrim and I feel the pros to the heavy armor outweigh the cons since most of the cons only touch the subjects your general heavy armor fighter should not be good at in the first place (such as sneaking and tumbling around like a circus monkey) and I had imagined light armor boots would like soften the padding so those who endorse the idea of the 2 handed weapon user in heavy armor trying to sneakily explore a dungeon with his light armor boots would only have -40+20=-20% to their sneak, but then add a shield and it′s back up to making you sneak 60% worse, and such. Not perfect but you can′t please every aspect of character archetypes. Since I′m tired I′m gonna leave this thread like this and see what you guys make of it, do you like the idea of splitting up what each armor does like this or do you think this would be too hard to do right ? Do give your own ideas and I may try to finish my opening post sometime later after some good sleep.

On the pinching part. if the armor pinches you, you are not wearing good armor and/or padding.

Realism is overrated. And I think Todd knows it.

Vaguely interesting, I suppose. :shrug:

Can't see it ever happening, though- the torch-and-pitchfork mobs screaming "This restricts my roleplay!" and all that, y'see.

I always stuck to my role. I don't understand why people want to play a thief who wears heavy armor, then again I mildy roleplay.

I thought that the loss in spell effectiveness for mages was enough for me to wear cloth and not armor. If I wanted armor I just enchanted my robes.

So, basically you detest armor and everyone who wears it? I love heavy armor, and hope it isn't horrible in the game like you make it here.I really hope you aren't on the lead design team for Skyrim...*

Don't get me wrong, I want balanced armor, and armor with cons, but not a s***load of 'em like in the OP. And for the record, 20 rolls in heavy armor WON'T kill you. Especially a Dohvakiin.

*no offense or anything...

Real-life plate armor is indeed heavy... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm11yAXeegg.

Exactly what I was getting at above.

We can roll?

We could in previous games. Don't see any reason why it should stop.

He doesn't seem to have all the undergarments on that would be traditionally worn. Which is where the majority of weight and encumbered is found.

Also frankly, I have ask how accurate that suit is. It looks like its made from sheet metal.

Omg, are you serious? What ones? I've played oblivion for over 100hours and never once rolled. Lol, and I'm playing morrowind and have never rolled yet. What's the roll button?

I almost relisgiously never wore heavy armor, I do not know why, but no matter what type of guy I wanted to RP, I always ended up with a light-armored, guy using a longsword and bow.

Again not as encumbering as people http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMuNXWFPewg&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMuNXWFPewg

EDIT: Ninja'd by Richard. :ninja:

I agree with you guys. I have made and worn/fought in armor. Pinching and cutting makes no sense with armor of any decent quality. Maybe the horrible crap from china cuts you, but they're making it wrong.

It doesn't slow you down very much or inhibit movement a lot if it's made right. What it is, is heavy(see tiring) and loud. Full metal armor weighs 60lbs or so, and that gets heavy after fighting in it for a while(so maybe stamina recovery penalties) and metal clanks all over the place. It sounds like, well clanking metal together. So some definite sneaky penalties. Other than that I don't think anything else should be penalized. Just stamina and sneak penalties.

I expect restrictions, or everyone will just be full plate...but not as much as you said.



CONS: 30% less effective stealth, 25% less magic effectiveness, Powerattack/Sprint/Roll/Dodge requires 15% more stamina.

PROS: Most DR/DT, Most +HP than other armor types, Less chance to be knocked down or knocked back.

What was the name of the book about the Dunmer that could get into an out of his heavy armor without sounding the attached bells?

In previous games the heavy weight was enough to make me prefer lighter armors.

The overall idea is nice. Realistic or not it's an accepted trope that wearing heavy armor makes you slower and less "bouncy". One question though. Why do you have to make it so complicated? You have each part having it's own negative unique to itself. You could just have one kind of penalty for wearing heavy armor or maybe base it around weight like oblivion did.

I think the weight is enough. Heavy armor is supposed to be powerful where as light armor is supposed to be fast. For those that are still unconvinced about heavy armors encumbrance check out this at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osTQrJ_axfc&feature=related

I'm not too sure about anything on penalties for dodge either

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AcEVeHnTg4&feature=related

and other vids by this uploader show a lot of tumbling about and getting up with no issue.

I just woke up, I see now I was perhaps a little bit extreme in the night with over 20 hours between my head and it′s last encounter with a pillow. But the armour I see in those videos are far different from what we saw in Oblivion, I mean who can say that the Daedric suit was not far clunkier and heavier than the armour in those videos ? So perhaps not change the attributes of the armor as much as the design of it ?



I make it complicated in an attempt to not screw over other types of characters, there are still guards who hunt with the bow and should be able to go without a helmet and in some leather gloves (I had thought of the light armor gloves giving a 10% bonus to steadiness that would go against the 10% minus of the helmet, so that way you could use a bow just as well in full heavy armor just with a different pair of gloves more suited to the task), and those that do like the idea of being at least a tiny bit sneaky in caves but not simply going "clonk clonk clonk" everywhere would be able to skip the boots for a pair of light armor boots. And then for someone in full light armor could allow himself to swap gloves out for heavy ones to be able to handle weapons more roughly in return for more ease in combat (like being able to properly have the 2nd hand bracing itself against the weapon to help take the blow of an enemy better during a block/parry without risking it slipping and cutting a finger of or something in that direction. I also wanted some battle mages to not be useless in heavy armor so I just put most of the minus to magic in the gloves.

I thank those that spent some time coming with ideas and I suppose maybe those that just spent their time bashing mine down too, can′t blame it if I do go a bit overboard, do remember though that I am going to play a heavy knight with a shield in Skyrim so those were conditions I made for myself, the 5% damage during rolls is a bit much and unrealistic but I don′t want bouncy knights, it seems kinda far off at least with the armour designs from Oblivion, my main gripe being though that I rolled just as well with my knight as with my thief, as for the one who asked how you could roll, well if you had enough acrobatics you could hold down block and walk in a direction and then jump, and then you′d perform a roll.

If you have ideas do keep them coming and I may try to trim my own ideas or make new ones. I at least just don′t want to see everyone be the same again as in Oblivion where perks brought the armor of light armor up to heavy armor, and perks made heavy armor as light as light armor. I have read the Morrowind book about the lover who performed better in armour than not and I know this is a fantasy game so it goes to extremes. But the main point of this is not realism, I never really thought about making armor too real, only different. Very different from the other sets of armor.

That's a good idea. I just don't think the base rules for armor should be so complicated. I like the idea of giving leather gloves a bonus to shooting. Actually why not use that over giving metal armor a penalty. It's nicer to the player. Leather gloves can give you a bonus to shooting, well metal gloves give you a bonus to melee weapons.

Using perks is a good way to do things too. If you give stealth players a perk that lets them sneak better in leather boots, they will wear leather boots. The means are different, but the end is the same.

Here you go. http://www.google.com/
I'm not quite sure about Morrowind. But I'm sure about OB.