Effects of Armor

[kobnach]

Would anyone care to explain the effects of armor? I see stats like "Hitpoints 8, armor class 1/2" I'm pretty sure when those hitpoints reach 0, I'll need to replace the armor. But when I'm in combat, what does the armor do? In particular, does it reduce the chance of me being hit (SHP, etc.), absorb hits that would otherwise come out of my SHP (coming out of its HP instead) or both? Or something else?

I've been replacing leather armor a lot lately. Would acquiring chainmail help - or would it simply take as much damage as the leather armor, lasting a bit longer (due to having more HP when new) but being far more expensive to replace? I.e. if I fight something that would currently chew up my leather armor, but wearing chainmail, is it going to chew up the chainmail?

Thanks for any info.

[Ferinex]

I believe it works like this:

If something has a class of 0/2, it means it absorbs 0 SHP damage from each hit and 2 HHP. When it absorbs the damage, it subtracts it from it's hitpoints. When the hitpoints run out, it poofs.

Anyone care to correct me?

[Malicus]

Yes, correction.

1/2 means that it blocks 1 damage without being damaged itself, and it can absorb 2 more damage (but it takes damage by doing this). Damage that is just blocked is calculated first, of course.

[Ferinex]

And that is SHP, not HHP? That is of course the only way it really makes sense to me.

[Vattic]

If a piece of armor has armor class X/Y, it means that it can absorb X hitpoints without taking damage, and then absorb Y more hitpoints, subtracting them from its HP. If you have several pieces of armor equipped, their damageless absorption takes precedence, and any absorption that deals damage to the armor is dealt evenly over the pieces equipped.

For example, if you have leather armor (1/2), leather pants (also 1/2) and leather boots (0/2) equipped, and you take 5 points of damage, 2 points are absorbed damagelessly, and the three remaining points are distributed evenly, so that each piece takes one hitpoint of damage. It would take 9 points of damage or more from an attack to actually deal damage to the player.

[theTrav]

I like to use the words deflection and absorption.

Something else I'm curious about but haven't bothered testing is the order in which it occurs.

Does it go:
10 damage to assign
ranger boots deflect 1 absorb 1
8 points left
crap helmet deflects 0 absorbs 2
6 left
breastplate absorbs 6
0 left

or does it go:
10 damage to assign
total deflection = 1boots, 2 soldier helmet, 6 breastplate = 9
1 left, pick some armor at random to take it?

Also does it chose random armor when working out where the damage goes? or is it in order of slots?


This will make a minimal amount of difference in any given day, but over time will make a large difference in wear out rates.

[Malicus]

Total deflection is first. Only then does it consider absorption.

I don't really like deflect, because it's too close to REflect, which can be confusing.

And that is SHP, not HHP? That is of course the only way it really makes sense to me.

SHP, yes. What effect this has on HHP damage is unknown to me. (As in, I don't know if HHP is calculated AFTER determining how much damage lands, or if it's just considered damage that can be blocked.)

[Blaze]

I don't really like deflect, because it's too close to REflect, which can be confusing.

Cancel, Neutralize, Nullify, Negate, take your pick.

SHP, yes. What effect this has on HHP damage is unknown to me. (As in, I don't know if HHP is calculated AFTER determining how much damage lands, or if it's just considered damage that can be blocked.)

I'm pretty sure HHP damage is a small fraction of how much SHP damage was dealt. I'm also pretty sure that total HHP damage is also reduced by armor, though I'm unsure of how the formula goes.

[loftar]

As for the effect on damage dealt to HHP, it works in the way that each attack has a set fraction for the dealing of "grievous damage" (which is modified by your character's life/death alignment), which is multiplied by the actual SHP damage dealt to yield the HHP damage.

For instance, the Sting attack deals the damage of the sword you have equipped, plus a third of your character's strength. Thus, if you have a Militia Sword equipped and your character has STR 30, the raw damage to assign is 10 + (30 / 3) = 20. If the receiving character has an accumulated armor class of 6/4, then 6 points of damage are cancelled without effect, and 4 are absorbed with damage to the armor (with damage being evenly distributed among the pieces of armor; integer aliasing effects or distributed more or less at random), so that 10 points remain to be dealt to the character himself. Sting itself assigns 10% of the damage as grievous damage, so the character takes 10 SHP damage and 1 HHP damage.

Fractions of HHP damage are dealt at random depending on their size; for instance, the 0.1 HHP remaining if a character would be dealt 11 SHP damage with 10% grievous damage is dealt 10% of the time.