Well, this was brought about by the thought of armor (specifically the breast/torso area), but it works for pretty much anything, from a high-heeled shoe to a celtic 15foot (what, like 4.5 meters) broadsword. Now, if you want to be a pain in the ass about it, most (more expensive) armor suits are probably made to fit a specific person, but in general the common understanding''s a "one size fits race" policy. There''s some problems with that, but seeing as all heroes and most warriors are quite fit i could understand they have the same basic outline. What i can''t understand is how (for example, i''m taking more known races) an Orc, a Giant, a Cyclops, a Human, and a Gremlin could all fit in the same armor? If you want another example, a Giant would play bowling with the easter island status (or use StoneHenge as a hoola-hoop) while a gremlin would use them as landmarks to be sure he can remember the way home. (gremlin''s not a very good example race, i just couldn''t remember any other smaller ones) There''s several examples i''ve seen, but i don''t like any of them. One is the morrowind way, just make everyone the same size. I mean, sure, it''s their universe, but seems like someone just wanted to make creating those models easy (give a human a pointy ear and there you go, dark, wood, and high elf). Okay, that was unnecessary, I''ve got some hatred left cuz it keeps crashing whenever i get to the good parts (where you max out and can play the story at a decent speed... well, should be able to if it wouldn''t crash). Anyway, they don''t account for any size issues (orc is bigger built, skinny elves, fat heroes, big boobies, ...). That''s fine, after all it''s a solution. I just don''t like it much... Another solution is to have race specific items. You know the drill, this will only fit humans, that will only fit cat-people (need a tail hole ), ... Basically each race has their own sets of items. Well that''s not a very good solution either. You find a terrific item, and behold! You can''t wear it. That''s like placing a big mac menu right behind the bulletproof window, and locking the door... *drool* I''m not too smart myself (heh, i try...), so my solution''s not that good either, but i did think of something (that''s right, not just a rant). What if items could be... "modified"? You know, bring a giant''s armor to the armorer''s shop, he''ll use his tools and tada, a perfect fit for your little human man. You could expand on this idea, such as adding in materials. A giant''s armor downsized to a human''s should fess up some extra resources (iron, glass, diamond, whatever the armor''s made of) without losing its characteristics (+ 10 life, ...). Likewise, finding a human''s armor and resizing it for a giant would require some extra materials. Further expansion on this idea is also possible... You could add a skill and allow the player to this himself (with a poor skill level having pretty disastrous results). For example, you could add it into the "Armorer" skill, or you could split them up into "Armor Repairer" and "Armor Modifier", whatever. So, whaddya think? Be gentle, it''s my first post I think it''s got a good chance of adding some more reality (different sized armor''s; no "one size fits all") as well as diversity (differently sized characters, armor, ...), not to mention add some more fun and immersion.

If you''re going for realism... make your solution realistic. You try making some platemail armor smaller...

well, it was made in the first place, so why shouldn''t modification be a realistic possibility? I mean, they get somewhat regular maintenance checkups (oh no i broke a nail... and there''s a crack in my armor!), so why not at the same time add resizing?

If you look at most P&P RPGs, they do take things like armor size into account. Using cRPGs as a measure is always a bad idea imo.
I think many armors would be able to fit average people of a race. For example, studded leather doesn''t sound like it has to be a perfect fit. I''d bet that chain mail can do ok too if its a little too big. The various plate armors probably have straps etc to adjust a little bit, so the can fit more than just one specific person (of course only the person it was made for gets a perfect fit).
Also, I think cutting armor up and adding/removing some pieces would hurt the strength of the original design. I would think that each part of the armor relies on every other part to be as strong as possible.

You can''t take a suit of armor and resize it so that its the same thing for smaller or bigger person. It would be like taking a mini van body and trying to resize it so that same body would work on a beatle. It just can''t happen. The only way it to get a mini van body on a beatle is to build one from scratch.



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Writer, Programer, Cook, I''m a Jack of all Trades
Current Design project
Chaos Factor Design Document

quote:

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Original post by kVandaele
well, it was made in the first place, so why shouldn't modification be a realistic possibility? I mean, they get somewhat regular maintenance checkups (oh no i broke a nail... and there's a crack in my armor!), so why not at the same time add resizing?

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For some armours, I think modification is feasible, maybe even trivial.

However, not for others. To modify a suit of full plate for example, could be as expensive - if not more so - than buying a completely new custom made suit, depending on the degree of modification necessary.

Before going any further, consider the gameplay and UI implications of enforcing size rules for armour types.


[edited by - Sandman on October 18, 2003 4:04:21 PM]

why worry? these kinds of armor restrictions aren´t used because they´re not fun. "Ohhh look the shiny platemail of doom - crud, doesn´t fit." realism isn´t much fun when it comes to armor. take platemail for example, it has to be made to fit - and it´s such a tight fit that if you put on a few pounds it won´t fit anymore (i.e. restrict your movement etc...).

look at this for example: http://www.kkart.cz/form_armour.htm

For an armor adaptation system (which I think could provide some fun) to work you have to have a game world where equipment is rare - if you can buy shiny metal suit of arsekicking in every store it just won´t be worth the bother.

My take on this would be to use a game world where all items are rare (since we´re on the realism road - think middle ages. a sword is worth a lot, a chain shirt is worth a fortune).
Then, have size classes .. not too many, something in the order of eight to ten to accommodate all your creatures.
For this to make sense however you need to have reasons for a characters physical makeup.. part of it would be random, part of it determined by the characters stats (high strenght, high constitution = big bloke). Thus you have your characters size from one to ten.
Now you put in a variable that determines the kind of fit the armor needs. A cloak for example would allow +/- 3 for wearing without much penalty, that means that you can wear it as long as you´re no more than 3 size classes away. Leather armor and such would be +/- 1 or 2, plate mail 0 (meaning you need a perfect fit).

Now for the fun part: the further your size is above the armors size, the more your speed/agility related stats get decreased (meaning it´s too tight and restricts your ability to move quickly), the more your size is below the armors size the more your dexterity related stats are affected. These stats are just placeholders, I´m sure you can think of something creative.

As for modifications - cutting something down in size shouldn´t be too much of a problem i guess; but if you take something small and adapt it for a bigger guy he´d get less protection from it (if you assume that you go the crude way and just open some seams).

The same system could be used for weapons of course, depending on some factor including strength, agility and size of your character (there even is a formula for calculating the perfect lenght of a sword, taking into account your body measurements - I´m sure you can find it on the net).

well, okay, ya, i can see why making it bigger would affect the strength (just needed an example)... Supposing that "armor effects" transfer is my only concern (... which, i guess, it is); would it then be inapropriate to place in a function that would allow the armorer to 'duplicate' the effects using the other armor as example? You could add some degradation (you can't make a beetle from looking at it, depending on your skill you could end up with a porsche or a tricycle) or whatnot, but would the basic idea be a good one?
(i'm not worried about implementation too much)

thanks


i've never even seen a non-computer RPG so i can't dig into that experience. I understand it's far more... uhm... bigger.

thanks hase, some pretty good ideas there. The realism i was thinking about though is the visual kind (more or less... a big guy onscreen and a little guy onscreen both wearing the exact same answer is gonna invoke some pretty bad responses). The actual game environment (hence orcs, ...) would be fantasy though so as far as scarcity goes i'd do the opposite more or less, lots of guards and such to fight the monsters and whatnot.

[edited by - kVandaele on October 18, 2003 4:50:43 PM]

Resizing is feasible, but not easy. To resize a plate body from a giant to a human is quite easy, all you do is cut the material you need and start over. Now the process is just like starting over except you don''t have to buy the material.
Now going from human to giant you need to buy extra material. And connecting two materials together is not an easy task nor will the plate body be as strong as if you were to start with a whole new sheet of material.
Now chainmaille on the other hand is much easier to modify. All you do is connect extra rings and you got a giants chainmaille hauberk (shirt).
Now these are my opinions from experience, I do make chainmaille when I am super bored, and know about blacksmithing to some extent.

You can't realisticly resize a finished good. All you can really do, is use the material to create a new suit of armor. Its not as simple as cutting bits off and add new bits. You to have expand and contract every part of it. Think about sleeves you'd have to reforge the entire sleeve in order to get it to fit around a diffrent size arm. No matter how you look at you'd end up creating a whole suit of armor.

The game arcanum had 3 diffrent sizes of armor small, normal, and large. Every race and character in the game can wear one of the three types. Now they can't be modifed to sizes but the game allows you to create your own suits of armor in any size provided you have the plans for that armor and the nessary material. Not only that but each size of armor also took up a diffrent amount space in the inventory. small 1x1, normal 2x2, large 3x3, so it was very difficult to carry large quantities of armor.

It was system the worked well sure, sometimes you got a little annoyed when you found a great suit of armor that was the wrong size but it wasn't that big a deal.

I don't think people will complain if they can't use a suit of armor because it was the wrong size.

I'd much rather see a system where you could create and modify armor. Say by annointing your suit of platemail it becomes holy and gains cetain bonus, or attaching spikes to it to injure attackers, fun things like that.


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Writer, Programer, Cook, I'm a Jack of all Trades
Current Design project
Chaos Factor Design Document



[edited by - TechnoGoth on October 18, 2003 6:33:46 PM]