More penaltys for encumbrance, proposal.

[corksacker69]

Right now, there really isnt any disadvantage to having massive encumbrance, so you can wear the uber godmode black plate armor and fill out your draw slots with the heaviest 2 handed weapons you can find, and still move as fast as that naked river pirate. The only penalty suffered at all is a hardly noticable reduction to foot speed, and when on a horse, its totally negligible. This makes the other armors completely pointless besides temporary fillers, because after you get the uber black plate, theres no reason to wear anything else. its also grossley unrealistic for a game being touted as realistic, because in the old days, the only soliders you saw with full plate armor were mounted knights and such, becasue trying to walk, much less effectively fight, with 60 pounds of armor on was cumbersome.

Penaltys for encumbrance should be more severe. It should affect how you fight in every way, in how fast you swing, how long it takes to recover from a swing and getting hit, how fast you move, how tight your reticle is on ranged weapons, your balance, everything.

Anyways, here's an idea to complement the proposal.

I purpose an protection/encumbrance ratio system, where as the amount of protection on armor goes up, so does the amount of encumbrance at an exponential rate. For example, full plate has 24 protection and weighs 22, this is a ratio of 1.1 protection per unit of encumbrance. Now chainmail, much lighter then platemail, would have say 14 protection and only weigh 6. This is a ratio of 2.3 protection per unit of encumbrance.
Basicly, the really high protection armors weigh insane amounts, and the really low protection armors weigh almost nothing. I think this would help to balance the armors, and to make lighter armors more appealing.

Also, every, say four, points of strength will reduce the encumbrance penalty by one point, so if you had 30 encumbrance and 24 strength, you would incur a encumbrance penalty of 24 instead. And to top it off, give armor a strength req, with full plate taking like 17/18.

Or how about this instead, for every strength point you have over an items encumbrance value, divided by three, so like (S-E)/3, would reduce the encumbrance by that amount. example: 24 str , item gives 14 encumbrance, (24-14)/3 = 3, so that item would actually give a penalty of 11 encumbrance.

Combined with bigger penaltys for encumbrance and generly lower weights for the mid/low end armors, a lot of the unused armor in the game would look tacticly viable, and with strength reducing encumbrance penalty as you progress, you can gradually wear better armor with little or no encumbrance penalty.

As to not totally screw over those who like to play primarily on horseback, being mounted should reduce the encumbrance penalty by a fine amount, maybe 6 or so, to reflect only having to use your arms, compared to a foot soldier who has to walk around too.

And for players who like to play primarily on foot, whom this proposal affects the most, the athletics skill could do more thn it does now, maybe reduce the combat penaltys from encumbrance somewhat, while still giving you a movement bonus. Agility should increase movement speed by 1% a point as well.

Feedback?

 

[DarkUnderlord]

This makes the other armors completely pointless besides temporary fillers, because after you get the uber black plate, theres no reason to wear anything else.

Even before I had the black plate, I saw no reason to wear anything else (except whatever was the best I could find on the bodies of my slain enemies). Even the weapons I had were all nicked until I could save up enough for the best one I could find (though admittedly, the best Sword of War was a prize won on the battlefield).

its also grossley unrealistic for a game being touted as realistic, because in the old days, the only soliders you saw with full plate armor were mounted knights and such, becasue trying to walk, much less effectively fight, with 60 pounds of armor on was cumbersome.

*cough* I think this is one of the biggest myths of Knights in Shining Armour. Do you really think they'd be dumb enough to wear something that made them virtually immovable?

Contrary to common misconceptions, a well-made suit of medieval 'battle' armour (as opposed to the primarily ceremonial 'parade' and 'tournament' armours popular with kings and nobility of later years) hindered its wearer no more than the equipment carried by soldiers today. An armoured Knight (trained since his teens in its wearing) could comfortably run, crawl, climb ladders, as well as mount and dismount his horse without recourse to a crane (a myth originating from Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court). A full suit of medieval plate is thought to have weighed little more than 60 lbs on average, considerably lighter than the equipment often carried by the elite of today’s armies (SAS patrols have been known to tab miles carrying equipment weighing well over 200 lbs).

The real reason you didn't see so many knights is because a full suit of armour cost as much as a ****ing house does today. It was rare for the pure fact that not that many people could afford it.

Ditch realism as your argument though and I actually like the ideas. Especially the strength helping to reduce encumberance so that an Uber Strong warrior can carry the armour around reasonably well (though then it becomes a matter of whether spending points on agility wouldn't have been better for increasing speed. Speed vs Agility decisions and what not). As you say, it'd open up some more play styles and choice. You could decide whether to be a fast chain mail wearing warrior or go in as a walking tank.

 

[corksacker69]

another solution would to not make all the best stuff available right away, but make it only have a chance to spawn in shops when a certain amount of days/weeks passed.