Meridian59/Meridian59 — pull request #246 by MorbusM59 (2013-09-21 22:01:46+00:00)
Title: Comprehensive armor revamp with the goal of creating meaningful and diverse gear choices.

Armor and shields are now classified in two different ways, 1) Light vs Heavy and 2) Antimelee vs Antiranged. Headpieces have been made more meaningful and their relative power has been increased.

Armor: Light armor provides less mitigation than heavy armor, but comes without SP penalty and better avoidance (+100). Leather and chain armor are light armor pieces. Heavy armor provides a lot more mitigation, but has a penalty to SP (-20) and avoidance (-100). Scale and plate armor are heavy armor pieces.

Antimelee armor provides resistance against melee attacks, but increases fire damage taken. Leather and scale armor are antimelee armor. Antiranged armor provides resistance against ranged attacks, but increases shock damage taken. Chain and plate are antiranged armor.

Nerudite armor is inbetween the rest. It provides somewhat decent mitigation against all sources of damage, however, not as much as heavy armor. Nerudite also doesn't amplify magic damage, but carries the same SP penalty as heavy armor and does not provide any avoidance bonus or penalty.

Shields: They follow the same pattern, but only have about half the impact of their armor counterparts: Small round shields are light antimelee protection, gold shields are heavy antimelee protection, herald shields are light antiranged protection and knight shields are heavy antiranged protection.

The orc shield has been buffed significantly. It now provides decent protection against all weapon damage (combining the strengths of both light shields) and keeps it 15 SP bonus for Qor spells. On the minus side, orc shields are weak (-20) to holy attacks.

Helmets: These are more powerful now and each provide boni that make them stand out:

The regular helm is the clear defense choice. It provides a small FDR as before, but now also comes with a resistance of 10 against all weapon damage. However, it also comes with a SP penalty of 10.

The circlet is the clear caster choice. It does not come with any kind of defensive bonus, but provides mana at the cost of health as before and even up to 10 SP based on the amount of health lost.

As a counterpart to the orc shield, the Ivy circlet has been adjusted to match its power. The ivy circlet now comes with a slight resistance to all weapon damage of 5, keeps its 15SP for Shal'ille and grants up to 20 mana based on karma. It has a -20 weakness to unholy attacks.

Magic spirit helmets are basically similar to helmets, but don't carry a SP penalty. They no longer grant magic resistance. This is consistent with the design of magic bows.

Weights, values and durability have also been adjusted. Armor weight has generally went down a little, values have gone up throughout to match the value to weight ratio of weapons and durability has also been increased a fair bit, especially across the former lower tier of equipment.