Armor

Armor in the game protects you from getting hurt by stuff, much as it does in real life. For every point of armor a character is wearing, she gains a single point of protection versus damage and a -2 penalty to all Dexterity actions. So if the character has level 3 armor on, she can subtract 3 from all the damage done to her, but she also has to apply a -6 penalty to all Dexterity actions.

Special armor (high tech or magical) may circumvent this penalty to some extent.

Alternative Penalties for Armor

Rigid Armor (large hard plates strapped to the body tightly)

Semi-Rigid Armor (flexible, close fitting pieces either with moderately thick material or thin material with small hard plates)

Supple Armor (loose fitting pieces of very flexible material)

Ultimately the examples would be just suggestions of real life equivalents. You could certainly make a fat suit of cloth and padding that would protect for 4 degrees of damage.

The justifications behind the modifiers.

-An equal mass of equally dense material will protect equally. Metal plate will protect as well as an equivalent amount of chainmail. In reality the different constructions will protect against different attack differently. For instance the metal plate is rigid and stops sufficiently weak impacts easily but enough force in a small enough area and the weapon will puncture through the metal plate where chain mail would have stopped it. Through the magic of simplification for game-play-sake we just assume that all weapons do the same kind of damage moderately force in a moderate sized impact sight.

-Assuming a given material weight the action modifiers are determine based on how they attach to the body. Rigid armor because it's strapped tight, body movement is restricted by its rigidity, and apparent weight is reduced due it being supported by the entire body surface. Supple armor, on the otherhand, would allow the body to move freely but because the entire weight is concentrated on the shoulders, top of head, or any leading body edge in motion more strength is used just to counterbalance this ungainly weight. Semi-rigid armor, of course, negates these pros and cons altogether, because it's a balance of rigidity and suppleness, allowing for a single modifier for all movement actions and thus greater ease of play (and brigandine is underrated and should be used far more often).

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