These rules allow you to spend more for armor and have it stop more hits, or penalize your DX and MA less. In origional TFT, only a couple types of armor could be fine. Now all armor can be improved.
The basic idea is that various improvmenets multiply the cost by various factors. You decide what improvements you like, multiply all multipliers together and multiply to the basic cost of that type of armor. These rules work with the Advantages of Great ST. If you are not using those rules, you may ignore all references to 'Threshold Numbers' and 'No Negative Numbers'.
I found from experience that players improved a lot of cloth and leather, and stopped going to higher armor. The thing is, one extra point of damage stopped on plate (which stops 6 hits), is only a 14% improvement, but stopping one extra hit on cloth is a 100% improvement. (But the multiplier was the same.) So I've added special rules to make stopping extra for cloth and leather cost more.
[ ( Size in Hexes * 1.5 ) – 0.5 hexes ] = Cost & Mass Multiplier.
Sizes of near human sized figures:
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Goblins, Hobgoblins, Hobbits, Kobolds: = 0.6 hex figures.
Dwarves, Troglodytes, Elves: = 0.8 hex figures.
Humans, average sized orcs: = 1.0 hex figures.
Reptilites, Gargoyles: = 1.5 hex figures.
You are making armor for a Hobbit. Its size modifier is 0.6 so the cost to make the armor is:
[( 0.6 * 1.5 ) – 0.5 ] = 0.4 So a hobbit's armor will cost 0.4 times what it would for a human.
HIT REDUCTIONS: (Cloth, Leather, & Boiled Leather can not stop two extra hits, and have special rules for stopping 1 extra hit.)
| Hit Stopped | Multiplier | Notes: |
| ------------------------------------------------------------ | ----------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Stops one less hit than normal | x 0.5 | |
| Normal | x 1 | |
| Stops one extra hit (heavy armor) | x 5 | Threshold and No Negatives Numbers go up by 2. |
| Stops two extra hits (heavy armor) | x 100 | Threshold and No Negatives Numbers go up by 6. |
| Stops one extra hit (Cloth) | x 25 | Threshold and No Negatives Numbers go up by 2. |
| Stops one extra hit (Leather & B. Leather) | x 12 | Threshold and No Negatives Numbers go up by 2. |
LESS DX PENALTIES:
| DX Penalty | Multiplier | Notes: |
| ------------------------------------------------------------ | ----------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| One greater DX negative | x 0.8 | |
| Normal | x 1 | |
| One less DX negative | x 1.4 | Decrease No Negatives # by 1. |
| Two less DX negatives | x 2 | Decrease No Negatives # by 2. |
| Three less DX negatives | x 6 | Decrease No Negatives # by 3. |
| Four less DX negatives | x 20 | Decrease No Negatives # by 4. |
LESS MA PENALTIES:
| MA Penalty | Multiplier | Notes: |
| ------------------------------------------------------------ | ----------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Two greater MA negatives | x 0.7 | Increase No Negatives # by 2. |
| One greater MA negative | x 0.8 | Increase No Negatives # by 1. |
| Normal | x 1 | |
| One less MA negative | x 3 | Decrease No Negatives # by 1. |
| Two less MA negatives | x 10 | Decrease No Negatives # by 2. |
| Three less MA negatives | x 40 | Decrease No Negatives # by 3. |
The price to have the armor affect your DX less, is quite reasonable. This is because the armor is customed fitted to you. If the armor moves to another person, the DX bonus is lost. (So if an armor was so fine that the orc wearing it enjoyed it stopping an extra hit, it penalized his DX two less than normal, and lit lowered his MA one less than normal. If you capture the orc, and claim his armor for yourself, it would not be as good on you. It would still stop an extra hit and lower your MA one less than normal. But the DX bonus is lost. It is not fitted to you.
You wish to make fine plate armor that stops an extra hit and lowers your DX by 2 less than normal. The cost would be:
Normal cost of plate = $500.
$500 * 5 * 2 = $5,000
A hobbit wishes you to make her Leather armor that reduces her DX by one less than normal:
Leather: stops 2, -2 DX, -1 MA, Cost $100, Thresold # is 13 ST, No Neg. # is 15.
As we saw above, for hobbits, the price of armor is 40% of normal.
$100 * 0.4 * 1.4 = $56. As an additional bonus, the No Negatives Number is now only 14 ST.
A dwarf with Warrior (he has ST 14) wants to have some fine Boiled Leather made. Dwarves pay 2 less MA penalties for armor (See Dwarves in TFT), so the No Negatives Number for Boiled Leather is two less than normal. This Dwarf would like it to affect his DX by two less than normal. The cost would be:
Boiled Leather: stops 3, -3 DX, -2 MA (-0 for Dwarves), Cost $175, Threshold # is 15 ST, No Negatives Number is 19 (17 for dwarves).
Size modifier for Dwarves: [( 0.8 * 1.5 ) - 0.5 ] = 0.7 cost multiplier for the small size.
$175 * 0.7 * 2 = $245. The armor stops 3 hits, only lowers the DX by one. As an additional bonus the armor's Threshold # and No Negative's number are the same: 15. If the Dwarf can get one more ST, he can wear the armor with no negatives!
Thinking that $245, is not too expensive, the Dwarf asks if it could be made to stop an extra hit. You say you will have to use better materials, and do more labor on it. This better version of the armor would be...
$175 * 0.7 * 2 * 12 = $2,940. In addition the Threshold and No Negative # each go up by 2 to 17. So The dwarf would have to get 17 ST before he could wear it with no negatives, and the cost will be almost 3 grand. The dwarf hastilly asks you to just make him the first version.
This link takes you back to Rick's top level.
