On the subject of weapons

Saint Jiub wrote:I like the idea. I'd like to find some way of ensuring that Unarmored doesn't become worse than the others - the joy of TES is that, ideally, any style of combat or play can be just as rewarding as any other. Perhaps limit the benefits of speed granted to characters with armor?

Unarmored IS strictly worse than the others, and has to be. Think about it - you spend no money on armor, you're not bothered with encumbrance penalties to anything. You can laugh and jump and dance and your fancy flower dress doesn't get all jumbled up. If you end up in a battle, you'll be able to hold your own against a weaker opponent, but if you run into an enemy tank you are dead. Without the AGI penalty, your defense value is going to be around 50 behind those of dedicated tanks, around 100 against arrows because you don't get parry bonuses against arrows, you need a shield.

The values I've given are just pulled out of the game and my ass; as armor primarily serves as a DR factor (reducing the enemy chance of landing good blows) the whole scale will be largely "normalized", meaning there won't be too much discrepancy against unarmored and low-tier armor, and between low- and high-tier armor. High-tier armor will just have to be strong enough to negate attack bonuses of high-tier weapons. But unarmored can't possibly be better than any armor, and it can't possibly be a good defense choice if you plan on wading into battle. Don't forget, in the unmodded game, Unarmored gave you AR or 60. That doesn't even register against anything from Skeleton Champions upward. The only reasons you could actually play naked are the broken HP calculation script which awarded you piles of fixed HP and the fact that the weapon skills leveled too fast, allowing you to pummel with impunity without ever taking serious hits. Unarmored as we have it will be much better than Unarmored in vanilla Morrowind.

Or get a shield. With a good heavy shield you'll be able to match defense of a shieldless medium tank.

Dagoth Durr wrote:There's always situational stuff. It's hard to convince a target you're not a threat when you're in full plate. Evan harder to sneak around in the stuff. Meanwhile, a guy who's completely unarmored is still a threat because his opponents think he's clearly unarmed, right?

Not to mention you can't just wear armor all the time in real life like you could in the games. You have to sleep, to urinate, to run, etc. If you're mostly just putting skill into armor and so are used to it taking hits instead of having to dodge them yourself, when someone ambushes you in camp you're pretty fucked.

Except in Magickal World, the unarmored guy is a threat because he can probably shoot fire from his eyes and lightning from his ass, fly like an eagle into the future, and come back with an army of daedric servants.

Geek the mage first.

Saint Jiub wrote:
Except in Magickal World, the unarmored guy is a threat because he can probably shoot fire from his eyes and lightning from his ass, fly like an eagle into the future, and come back with an army of daedric servants.

Only if he's wearing a robe and a wizard's hat. You can't be a wizard without a pointy hat.

Slotha Sil wrote:

Saint Jiub wrote:
Except in Magickal World, the unarmored guy is a threat because he can probably shoot fire from his eyes and lightning from his ass, fly like an eagle into the future, and come back with an army of daedric servants.

Only if he's wearing a robe and a wizard's hat. You can't be a wizard without a pointy hat.

I KNEW there was a reason I never looted that Colovian Fur Helm...