Armor

Armor is whatever material your character puts between the dangers of the world and his or her tender skin. Armor comes in several varieties and provides varying levels of protection.

Categories:

• Cloth Armor or Costume Armor is anything typically worn for costuming not otherwise intended as a defensive measure. Cloth Armor takes 10 points of damage before it exposes the user's Body points
• Light Armor is lightweight (at least by comparison) material intended as a defensive measure. Leather and padding are typical examples. Light Armor takes 20 points of damage before it fails.
• Medium Armor is typically metal but not thick or intended for full-body protection. Chain, Ringed, and some varieties of Banded are typical examples. Medium Armor takes 30 points of damage before it fails.
• Heavy Armor is metal or other hard material intended to take blows for its wearer. Plate is the archetypical example. Heavy Armor takes 40 points of damage before it fails.
• Battle Armor is the apex of defensive outfitting. It can be difficult to tell Battle Armor from Heavy Armor at a distance; the difference is in internal reinforcement and such. Battle Armor takes 50 points of damage before it fails.

Construction:

For game purposes, armor category is determined by appearance. The Texas sun is murderous even in the spring and we prefer not to encourage dangerous steel encasements under the Texas summer sun. The actual material used for construction isn't necessarily relevant. What's relevant is how the overall look reads a few feet away. Cloth armor is awarded for any costuming. There are fabrics available that resemble leather closely enough to present as Light Armor. Metal armors are a bit more complicated or expensive. Actual metal is an option, but a heavy, potentially dangerous, expensive option. There are lots of good tutorials available on making costume plate from lighter, safer-in-Texas-heat materials. Emily has a great example of EVA foam plate that doesn't use any equipment more exotic than a sewing machine and heat gun (hair dryer works in a pinch.) Chain mail is not especially difficult to 3d print and paint.

Game Rules:

When a character takes damage from a weapon blow, spell, bullet, trap, or other source of damage, the amount taken is first subtracted from armor value. When a character receives enough damage to reduce their armor value to 0, the armor is Breached, meaning that it's now considered the next worse kind of armor - Battle breaches to Heavy, Heavy breaches to Medium, etc. When refit without the aid of a Patch Kit or the Refit Armor spell, refit armor that has been breached has it's max value set to that next category.

Armor value can be restored in a number of ways

• Anyone can refit unbreached armor to its original maximum value given sixty seconds of uninterrupted refit time. This is represented by tapping on the chest to signify that you are adjusting the various buckles, straps, links, etc. on your armor. This is a visible effect.
• Repairing a single breach takes ten minutes and tools, and any character can repair any armor they can wear - everyone that trains armor use includes the maintenance of that armor. The tools required for this are common but not generally portable; anyone can limp back to town in the tattered remains of their armor and fix it up, but fixing it in the field requires specialized equipment or training. Armor that has been reduced to "Cloth Armor" and then breached is destroyed. However, characters may always count 'untagged' Costume Armor for being in period style clothing. This armor differs from the tagged variant in that it cannot have anything added to it (engineering plating, smithing armor spikes, enchantments, etc.)
• A number of spells and skills and similar effects can immediately repair armor whether or not it's been breached.

Virtual Armor

Armor, especially metal armor or thick leather, gets uncomfortably warm very quickly under the Texas sun. As cool as it looks, we'd prefer people don't aggravate the heat by wrapping up in protective gear. Accordingly, when the weather is hot, you may elect not to wear your armor phys-rep and instead have the letter "A" visible somewhere on your costuming. That tells other players that your character is still encased in metal and still hard to kill, but you're not wearing the actual armor because emergency rooms are boring and no plot ever really happens there. Virtual Armor will be announced at any event where it's being invoked. For now, it's optional and you can wear your rep if you'd like, but this will change the first time someone falls out over the decision to look cool rather than be safe.