Scaling Armor

In brief, what is your armor, and what does it look like? Are you creating deceptively defensive street clothes that can deflect lasers? Is this an intimidating suit of heavy armor covered in spikes? Is this heavy-duty protective gear used to explore volcanoes (but can deflect a knife if needed)? Whatever your idea, a succinct concept can inform which features you choose for your armor.

For this system, you can choose between light armor or heavy armor. Your armor’s type and item level determine its base statistics for EAC bonus, KAC bonus, maximum Dexterity bonus, armor check penalty, number of upgrade slots, and perks. Determine your armor’s base statistics for its type and item level by referencing the appropriate armor progression table below. Some perks and flaws modify these statistics further.

Bulk: Light armor has a starting bulk of light bulk. Heavy armor has a starting bulk of 2. Some perks and flaws modify these values but can’t reduce the bulk below light bulk.

The best part of designing your own armor is customizing it! Perks grant special bonuses, helping you specialize your armor. Optionally, you can add flaws that inhibit some part of the armor’s performance but grant you additional perks.

Flaw (Optional): Your custom armor might perfectly fulfill some of your needs at the cost of another. When creating or upgrading your armor, you can choose for it to have one flaw (or change its existing flaw). A flaw provides some penalty, but in return, you gain an additional Build Point you can use to buy perks.

BP Cost for Perks: Except where noted, armor perks each cost 1 Build Point to acquire. Exceptions list the cost in BP alongside the perk’s name.

Design Perks: Some perks are marked as design perks, which provide numerous changes to the armor’s statistics that represent a major adjustment to how the armor is built. Your armor can only have one design perk.

Duplicate Perks: Except where noted, you can’t purchase and apply multiple copies of the same perk to a suit of armor. For perks marked with an asterisk (*), you can purchase and apply the perk a second time, but the second perk’s BP increases by 1. For example, you could purchase the responsive perk twice for 3 BP (1 BP for the first, and then 2 BP for the second perk).