Armor

In an adventuring world, there are different cultures, each with their own innovations. The creation of armor is no exception. However, with armor, there is a little more to things than just crafting a protective suit.

With many fantasy RPG, the armor portion is riveting some padded pieces together to prevent incoming blows. Armor in this game is not merely a covering to prevent physical harm but it also has an interaction with one’s lifesong. What one might expect is an Agility modifier (from zero to five) would be used to adjust the PP. However, this does not work quite as intuitively as commonly thought for most RPG games.

Lifesong is a key element to Enchanted Realms. All living beings, even undead beings, have a lifesong which defines what they are. It is a simple concept with many, many layers to it. One of those layers is how inanimate objects integrate with a person when being worn and carried.

Rather than an armor being supple or bulky to determine how well one can move in it, the construction and crafting of armor - yes even non-magical armor - becomes part of the the wearer’s lifesong. As such, the materials used, its shape, its bulk and density, along with its metaphysical form and purpose, all integrate with the wearer to create effects that are greater than the sum of the parts. Again, this is even for non-magical armors. It can become more complicated and unique when augmenting magic into the equation. But as a baseline, this means that different armors may have different properties, making them able to be slept in without issue, enhanced due to the wearer’s Agility score -- or perhaps due to the wearer’s Faith. Yes, some armors, because they are prepared by the Church, in the Church and for the Church, integrate with the wearer’s lifesong to enhance protection based on Faith. Likewise, when Agility is the affected sub-attribute, the armor, still non-magical, has a slight animation to it as a “symbiotic” process of this lifesong interaction. The character’s high Agility essence from his or her lifesong transfers into the inanimate object, allowing it to react and respond connaturally to an attack. Different materials may also cause different modifications when wearing armor.

Keep in mind this is a fantasy world where the physics are different. Combining the will of gods and magical interaction, fantasy-world physics (called chimerics) can yield results completely different and unexpected from what would occur on Earth.

Futher, in the concern of lifesong integration, certain armors can create conflict with one’s ability to perform other skills optimally. Due to the material of a type of armor, its trueform, etc., Things potentially interfered with are the skills of archery, sorcery and skills that affect stealth. However, social interactions can also be impacted due to one’s armor. When wearing certain armors, those skills and interactions will occur under the rules of being at disadvantage. The number of combined values will be noted as part of the armor when such a penalty applies to the type of armor.

Calculation

As a reminder, Protective Points (PP) is the numerical value that must be met in an attack roll to strike an enemy and inflict damage. The base PP is zero (0); thus, if someone is wearing normal clothing or even naked for that matter, they would have their guard rolls and possibly an attribute modifier used to calculate the target number.

As discussed previously, the calculation of PP comes from body armor, a sub-attribute modifier, shield component, the “other” category, and finally the round’s guard rolls. When something modifies a value in one of the components, only the best value is used -- for example a ring of protection for +1 and a robe of protection +1 only count as 1 for the “other” category. Lastly, all the numbers are summed up to determine the total PP.

In other RPGs, armor will have bulk, like light or heavy; however, here each piece of armor has a few properties that are used instead of that concept. All armors have weight and calculate into the encumbrance rules. When a character carries too much weight, penalties will occur - mostly movement and delays to initiative. Armor will likely be the heaviest item kept on one’s person. The Roll20 character sheets will automatically calculate encumbrance and offer warnings if moving too much in a single action. This becomes the effective penalty for those heavier armor types.

Shields

Likewise, anyone can carry a shield unless employing a weapon with a heavy, reach or ammo-use tag. If using one of those weapons, then adding a shield in a fight is simply unworkable. Moreover, to employ one without a skill and gain the +2 bonus to PP, the weapon used must be tagged as a light weapon. Otherwise, no bonus is granted. However, the shield-use skill will remove the light weapon restriction.

Also, putting a shield to the ready in the first round of combat suffers a penalty of 10 feet from movement that round. It does not require an action, but it does reduce distance that can be traversed in that first round. Subsequent rounds suffer no penalty unless the state of the shield's equipped status changes. Dropping the shield costs nothing, but putting it back to the ready would cost movement again. All this said, the skill of shield-use neutralizes these penalties, making it to be brought to the ready without any movement modifiers.

Basic List

This is not the complete list of armors available in the world. This is just merely what would be reasonable for starting characters. Some of these cause difficulties for social interactions, archery, sorcery or being stealthy. However, those details will can be found in the complete list of armors later on.

If one chose a chain shirt, then this is what it would look like on the character sheet:

Encumbrance

Encumbrance is how much one person can carry. It is mentioned here because one’s armor will likely be the heaviest single item carried; thus, it may alter one’s total movement. The maximum encumbrance is defined as a carrying capacity of 50 times the Strength score. If one carries weight in excess of 10 times the Strength score, that character is encumbered, which means his or her speed drops by 10 feet. If carrying weight in excess of 25 times the Strength score, up to the maximum encumbrance, then the character is “heavily encumbered,” which means standard movement speed drops by 20 feet and the character has disadvantage on ability checks, attack rolls, and saves that use any Body sub-attribute.

When playing on Roll20 and using the designed API, encumbrance is enforced on the character sheet.