A discussion on adjusting elemental armor values

[KDubya]

The armors from PoE were designed for use in a DR (damage reduction) system instead of a DT (Damage Threshold) system which is what Deadfire has.

 

The armors have been moved into three tiers where they are relatively equal across the tier

 

Light Tier 

 

• Base Protection 5
  • Hide gets -2 slash and -2 corrode
  • Leather gets -2 crush and -2 freeze
  • Padded gets -2 pierce and -2 burn

Medium Tier 

 

• Base Protection 7
  • Breastplate gets -2 slash and -2 shock
  • Mail gets -2 crush and -2 freeze
  • Scale gets -2 pierce and -2 corrode

Heavy Tier 

 

• Base Protection 9
  • Brigandine gets -4 pierce and -4 corrode
  • Plate gets -4 crush and -4 shock

 

​Burn

• good against padded

Shock 

• Great against Plate
• Good against Breastplate

Freeze 

 

• Good against Mail
• Good against Leather

 

Corrode 

 

• Good against Brigandine
• Good against Scale
• Good against Hide

 

​Penetration on Wizard Spells

 

• Burn spells have 7 penetration
• Corrode spells have 5 penetration with Necrotic lance at 9 penetration
• Freeze spells have 5 penetration on AoE and 7 penetration on touch and ray
• Shock spells have 7 on touch and 9 on Crackling Bolt

 

​Observations on current system

 

1. As armor quality increases there is no corresponding increase in spell penetration. Fine Weapons match Fine Armor but nothing like this exists for spells. The bonus from spell power lags behind the armor curve.
2. Burn is only good against light and mundane medium armor. Heavy armor stops it completely.
3. Freeze AoE is only good on mundane light armor with leather suffering until Superb quality. heavy armor stops it completely.
4. Corrode is only good against mundane light for AoE with Plate stopping even necrotic Lance once past mundane quality.
5. Shock is good against most with Crackling Bolt trumping all except upgraded Brigandine.

 

​Questions 

 

1. Should Plate armor protect as well as it does against spells? Or any armor for that matter?
2. Should Power Level have a bigger effect on Penetration?
3. Should Wizards get a passive 'spell penetration' ability that they can choose in lieu of a spell? 

 

 

[Climhazzard]

Spells need to be effective against everything that isn't resistant to their damage type, rather than ineffective against everything that isn't weak to their damage type.