Regarding the armor ideas I wanted to bring up someting I had merged in AD&D 2Nd Edition at the time I was running a campaign years ago. This isn't anything that hasn't been done in other games as well (both tabletop and computer) in multiple different flavors.
I had stumbled across and bought a copy of the Warhammer Fantasy Role Play manual. One really interesting thing they did with armor is not limit it to just an overall stat for the player (like Armor Class in AD&D) but instead they had a simple breakdown of body locations (head, torso and the 4 limbs) so that different armor would effectively cover certain areas or not. Then a simple % would assign where any actual hit would land (15% Head, 25% Torso, 20% on each arm and 10% on each leg) and appropriate armor class (or DR) for that location could be used. It also went into specific critical hits on the body part hit but that is secondary to this conversation.
This approach had a net advantage in dealing with different types of armor in that it provided some reality to what the armor covers and lets players decide if maybe they prefer better coverage to limited areas versus lesser coverage everywhere. If you add some armor use penalties then things start to feel very realistic. Someone wearing a "reinforced doublet" could get decent protection for the torso but not arms and legs. A helm should always be a separate option but the game doesn't need to go into bracers and leggings to be realistic. If you wear full plate you get all body parts covered. Using a sleeved mail shirt would only cover arms and body, etc.
I don't want to debate AC versus DR but I'll use DR in my example as well as some ideas around penalties that would be likely:
So example #1: Reinforced Doublet
No penalties to movement or combat speed. +2 DR for hits to torso only (compared to a basic doublet with say +1 DR)
#2: Sleeved Mail Shirt
10% movement penalty but partial combat speed reduction (say 15%). +3 DR for torso and arms.
#3 Full Plate Mail
40% movement penalty, 30% combat speed penalty, +5 DR for all body parts (head separate based on helmet).
#4 Plate Mail
20% movement penalty, 20% combat speed penalty. +5 DR for torso but only +4 to arms and +3 to legs since there is a lot of chainmail at the joints.
These are all just numbers but the idea is that as you go from light to medium to heavy categories of armor, you have better protection to more areas but also as you get better armor in each sub category you can assign better DR to the covered parts. Then you can add magic to increase further the DR to the covered areas, etc. By using movement penalties when the armor covers legs (or weights a lot) and combat speed penalties when your arms are covered - with possible training to offset these penalties for certain play styles, you now provide players with a real trade off to going for heavy armor when they might have better results most of the time from medium or even light armor.
As for naming of armor - for looking up the high level description, the "Fine Elven Chainmail" is more immersive than "+1 Chainmail" but when I look at the stats for the item I'd rather see that +1 clearly called out so I can do easy comparison between what I am wearing and an alternative offered to me.
Of course all this add a layer of complexity (but also realism!) to picking out the right armor for the right class and play style.
As a last example, take the always fun to discuss armor wearing magician - why not translate that combat speed penalty right to casting speed penalty. Just like the fighter hampered by the weight and flexibility of his armor when swinging a weapon about, so is the mage waving his hands trying to cast a spell. If he wants to walk around in full plate, he'll be very slow to move and very slow to cast and likely won't have access to warrior class skills to mitigate these penalties. This helps naturally direct certain classes to specific armor categories without even implementing class limitations. Even if at 1st it seems like a good idea to put a mage in some armor (due to low health), as he levels up, being faster at casting will mean the player will naturally trend away from it. Also if you introduce dual classes (say a warrior/mage) then he'd have access to those skills to reduce penalties for armor (of course taking those skills to the detriment of new magic skills) but you could have the effective front line battle mage who would be less skilled in magic but better armored and capable in close quarter combat. Possibilities are endless...
Zoo
