Armor is protective clothing that a Gifted One dons in their travels through the Retroverse to enhance their abilities and increase their defense. There are many kinds of armor, ranging from typical suits of plate mail, to mystical amulets, to crystal glasses, to worn leather armor, and more. Armor is whatever you can find to wear to help you make it through the day. When choosing what armor to wear, there are a variety of factors to consider. The first thing to consider is how to wear armor. Armor is worn on slots, or armor location. A neck guard is worn on a neck slot, and gloves are worn on the hand slots. If you do not have a certain slot, you will be unable to wear armor that covers that location. Some armors cover multiple slots in order to better protect you. You must have all the slots that a piece of armor covers to be able to wear it. You can see what slots something covers just by looking at it. The next step is to see if the bulk of the item is suitable for your guild. You can use armor that is bulkier, but you will suffer penalties to some spells and skills. After all, it is rather hard for a mage to do delicate gestures when they are wearing a breastplate of unyielding metal. It should also be noted that some races have bulk restrictions on particular slots. For example, Papuas cannot wear head slot armor that is more than minimally bulky. This is because some races might be fragile in certain spots, or wearing too much bulk will leave them unable to move very well, or that they simply don't like the feel of it. Wearing bulk less that the maximum for a race or guild does not provide any benefits or penalties. Only by wearing too much is a player affected.Also, the more bulky an armor tends to be, the more it helps its wearer resist the effects of stun. When you try to put on your armor, it must also be appropriately sized for you to use. After all, a dwarf can't do much in a titan-sized suit, and neither can an human fit inside an atomy-sized dress. For bulk slots, one can wear armor up to 10% +/- their size. For non-bulk slots items up to 20% +/- of your size can be worn. If armor is too big or small for you to to use, it must be resized. Armor can be resized in merchant shops located in some cities, or by players with the appropriate resizing skill. The other factors to consider when choosing armor are not as easy to determine. The armor's protection value can be estimated by wearing the armor and using the eq command. Some spells will reveal the numeric value of an armor. Be warned, no matter how good your PV is, armor does not help against every damage type. The greater an armors PV is, the better it is at protecting their wearer. Some armors also have been enchanted with magical effects, such as bonuses to stats or skills. When testing for these bonuses you must wear the item, and wait for it to tell you that it 'adjusts itself to your body'. If the items grants any bonuses, they should now be in effect. Once again, some guilds gain spells that will identify all the bonuses that an armor grants. Bonuses gained are limited by your own body. When armor does adjust itself to you it becomes powered by your own life force. This is not harmful in any way, but it does mean that armor can't be stronger than the person who wears it. As you gain levels, your body is increased in life force and thus can support larger bonuses. Example: Bling, the fighter has a breastplate that grants its wearer a mighty +10 strength. However, Bling is a low level, and upon his spiffy armor adjusting, he finds he has only gained +3 strength. Bling wishes he could get the full +10 strength, but he's not strong enough yet. Bling is still glad for the +3, and he looks forward to the knowledge that maybe in a few more levels he will get more and more of a strength bonus until he gets the full +10. When wearing your armor, it tends to get a little beat up as various monsters do their best to kill you. As armor takes damage, it slowly becomes junk. When it can't hold itself together any longer, it snaps apart into a pile of rubbish. Once this happens, the armor needs to be reforged which is an expensive process. However, as long as the armor isn't completely destroyed it can be fixed up good as new. Various players have skills that can fix armor, as well as merchant shops located in various cities. Sometimes no matter how careful you are, bad things can happen. There is a very slight chance that the armor might be broken when someone attempts to fix it. A high training on the part of the person repairing it will help prevent damage, and tales of armor falling apart in combat are the stories of legends, rarely seen by the common folk who take care of their armor. Take good care in selecting and maintaining your armor, and it will take good care of you. See also: help armor conditions, help armor locations help armor protection, help armor protection against damage types, help bulk help eq, help level limits, help protection value, help remove, help slots, help stun, help wear, help reforge, help reforging. |