Topic: More Piecemeal (Armor by the Piece) questions

[Zhaleskra]

I just searched and found there are quite a few topics discussing armor by the piece. So far I looked at two, and neither seemed to address my piecemeal question.

Just a bit earlier I was looking at the section about customizing armor by the piece, and one thing raised a question: rounding of decimal maneuver penalties. Why even bother listing them as decimals when it's just going to go up or down to the nearest number?

For example, I have a pregen warrior mage who has a soft leather shirt, rigid leather bracers, and rigid leather boots. Before I'd read that bit, I assumed that her total minimum maneuver penalty would have been -1  rather than -2.

The other thing I've noticed, is that a previous group was right in one way about getting shafted with armor by the piece. A full suit of soft leather has a CP of +2 PP, whereas if you piece that same suit together it has a much higher CP.

[dagorhir]

If you used whole number you wouldn't get the same results. It's true that one piece at 0.5 and two pieces at 0.5 gives the same result in the end but with whole numbers, two pieces would double the penalty thus increasing the overall penalty.

To me the decimals indicated that certain pairs have no more effect than each part of the pair. If you have one, or both it comes down to the same penalty.

[Zhaleskra]

I don't remember it saying that it was per piece anywhere. Though with armor spread over three places in the book, that could have caused the problem.

[dagorhir]

I round the total for every piece added together, not for each piece. Rounding each piece individually would a much higher penalty. I don't think rounding is specified anywhere in any of the books, but the general rule (for me at least) is to round to nearest on the final result unless it is specifically stated otherwise (and I remember that it is).

For example, if you have rigid leather gauntlets and rigid leather bracers, or just rigid leather gauntlets you end up with a MinMP of 1. Each have 0.5, so if you only have one of the two it gets rounded up to 1.

[Zhaleskra]

I don't know where I got the idea, but I assumed that for things that would normally come in pairs it was referring to the pair.

As for the rounding, I did find that in the HARP Fantasy book. I'm sure it was in an example about armor by the piece. Later tonight I'll find the page reference.

[Zhaleskra]

The example is on pages 95 and 97 of HARP Fantasy. I haven't done the math to calculate if Lord Blackthorne's armor was done by each individual piece. Decimal penalties per pieces that are meant to be pairs does make a lot of sense.

[dagorhir]

The example is on pages 95 and 97 of HARP Fantasy. I haven't done the math to calculate if Lord Blackthorne's armor was done by each individual piece. Decimal penalties per pieces that are meant to be pairs does make a lot of sense.

I did the math, or I should say Excel did the math, and using pairs (bracers, gauntlets, greaves and boots) as a single unit, I get the same result as the example.

Plate Helm	6	10	2
Plate Pauldrons	6	10	2
Plate Gorget	6	10	2
SL Cuirass	6	6	0
RL Bracers	3	4	0.5
Plate Gauntlets	6	10	2
RL Greaves	3	4	0.5
RL Boots	3	4	0.5
Totals	39	58	9.5

[Zhaleskra]

So based on that, the rounding is on the sum of all the armor pieces, and therefore would be unnecessary for the pregen Warrior Mage bringing her maneuver penalty back to -1.

[dagorhir]

So based on that, the rounding is on the sum of all the armor pieces, and therefore would be unnecessary for the pregen Warrior Mage bringing her maneuver penalty back to -1.

-1 isn't catastrophic, but what about the casting penalty? I found that was usually the problem for low level Warrior Mages.

[Zhaleskra]

Casting penalty of 2 PP, so she can cast Elemental Weapon (Air) in its base form while wearing her armor. She has six ranks in the spell, I spent more DP on talents for her than magic skills.