Armour Materials - Follow up to #679

[The-Axel]

Why:_ Is your feature request related to a problem? The structure of Armour Naming doesn't cover all types of armour in RQG, nor does the solution in #670.

What: Describe the solution you'd like

Armour 4 naming should have 4 categories instead of 3:

1. Prefix (user defined)
2. Type (what body parts it covers)
3. Material (the type of armour)
4. Metal (if the Material is a metallic form then there are many Rune Metals that change it's characteristics)

A clear and concise description of what you want to happen.

From RQG and Weapons & Equipment, all armour types can be addressed with the following lists:

Type

Broad-brimmed Hat Cap Closed Helm Composite Helm Cuirass Full Helm Greaves Hauberk Hood Linothorax Open Helm Pants/Trews Segmentata Skirts Sleeves Vambraces Beast Body Beast Head Beast Body & Legs

Material

Cuirboilli Disk Plate Heavy Leather Heavy Scale Insect Carapace Leather Light Scale Linen Plate Quilted Rhino Hide Ring Mail Studded Leather Turtleshell Elf Bark

Metal

Aluminum Bronze Copper Gold Iron Lead Quicksilver Silver Tin Non-metal

Options: Describe alternatives you've considered

The solution in #670 is not comprehensive.

[wake42]

I looked at that in #679 and went with this solution that mixed material and type to make the wording more natural: https://github.com/sun-dragon-cult/fvtt-system-rqg/blob/fbf1af5e8826384b2e2cfeee3cb2717753af7aab/src/i18n/en/uiContent.json#L672-L687

[wake42]

I'm closing this issue now, but please reopen it if you feel strongly that the solution should be different.

[The-Axel]

I don't think I have the permission to reopen it.

On review, I don't think this is an ideal solution because the material dropdowns not only don't support armours like Heavy Iron Scale, Silver Plate, etc., but would be confusing for a user who wanted to add them, and wanted to (or assumed they had to) use the dropdowns.

If the final release is to contain all the armour items that exist in RQG, then the Material list will need to contain the 9 metal types of all 6 metal armours, for a total of 54 items, plus the non-metal armours (8 in the current list plus Elf Bark, and Insect Carapace) for a total of 64 items in the Material field. e.g. Aluminum Plate Bronze Plate Copper Plate Gold Plate Iron Plate Lead Plate Quicksilver Plate Silver Plate Tin Plate

<9 armour types> Ring Mail Light <9 armour types> Scale I think breaking the metal type out into it's own field resolves this problem most effectively.

[wake42]

I see that if all armor materials would be included, then that would be a very long list indeed, but I still think adding a metal material field isn't a good idea. I tried to organise my reasons for not splitting the metal type into a separate field (no particular order):

1. In the base system I can only include things from the wiki so the list isn't that long
2. In future (payed) modules that include more armor, you would get a finished armor item with a name that matches what it's made of
3. You can type whatever you want to in the armor material input field, the dropdown is only meant as a help for entering the most common values.
4. By not splitting it into a separate field you can make the wording sound more natural, compare Cuirass (Light Bronze Scale) to Cuirass (Light Scale, Bronze) The books generally have a little different wording, where the material can comes first, or in between like: Bronze disk plate cuirass, Segmented bronze plate. I've deliberately put the material in parentesis, since I believe that the thing you mostly is going to scan for on your sheet is what the armor is, not what it's made of, but I still like to keep it as natural sounding as possible.
5. The metal field would only make sense for some materials, but I can't hide it when it's not applicable since the material field is a free text field. I could of course add a "not a metal material" entry in the metal dropdown with an empty value, but it feels a bit counter intuitive to me at least.

So that's the reasoning I had for not splitting metal material into it's own field. Does it make sense?

[The-Axel]

I understand where you're coming from, but I don't think it's the best long term solution, because you are going to hit this issue when the module that includes rune metals is added. You could structure the fields so Metal is before Material, and has a blank option so it would show "Cuirass" "Bronze" "Light Scale" rather than "Cuirass" Light Scale" "Bronze" or "Cuirass" "" "Cuirboilli". For this edition the metals column should have ,Bronze, and Iron to accomodate what's in RQG, and the current Wiki.

That does bring up another point about organization where aligning closer to the rulebook would be helpful - having the first level of ordering being the body part(s) a piece covers:

1. Head
2. Arms
3. Chest
4. Abdomen & Chest
5. Abdomen
6. Abdomen & Legs
7. Legs.

It's helpful to have them grouped this way to tell if a character has the right load out equipped. Alternatively, being able to sort by Hit Location would solve that problem. This is mainly an issue for Head armour because each helmet has a different name, but it

All that said, if nobody else wants this change, then don't do it.