Armor of Ithan, Again

[Veknironth]

Well, I had some additional thoughts and questions about this spell. It has an AR of 18, which is clear for rolled attack against a person using this spell. What about attacks that hit automatically, like spells, but which have a possibility to dodge? For example, Energy Bolt and Fireball both require an 18 or higher to dodge. That implies that they sort of have a strike roll of 18. So, would they hit the armor and do full damage to it or in the case of a fireball half damage? Or do they just ignore that armor entirely since they are essentially automatic hits and the armor abrorbs half of the damage from magic fire/lightning/cold? Call Lightning, which needs a natural 20 or modified 24 to dodge, would seem like it wouldn't be affected by the AoI. However, it might absorb half damage from the spell.

Next, if the person with AoI is on the ground and someone tries to stomp that person, that will require a strike roll which could bypass the armor. However, what about crushing damage? For example, what if a True Giant steps on a gnome with this spell running? There is an initial strike roll, and if the giant hits, he or she is now standing on the gnome. The crushing damage wouldn't need a roll to strike, so does it defeat the armor? This is true for constricting attacks as well. What about when someone drops a wall on top of someone? There's no strike roll so does the armor take the damage until it runs out of SDC? The same question exists for boiling water, mass effect acids, etc.. I'd assume they all do damage since otherwise, the spell of Limited Invulnerability would be redundant.

Finally, how much shock does it absorb? If you are whalloped by a giant weilding a giant mace and chain, and the armor takes the blow, are you knocked back or does the armor take ALL of the kinetic energy?

-Vek
"I'm sure I forgot something."

[drewkitty ~..~]

My knee jerk is that they hit the armor. That's it.

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stomp...ugh! Everything that said about this will be opinion...no matter what the poster may say.

Stomping, the armor would likely protect the subject but the armor would take the full brunt of the damage.
Constricting.....*throws hands in the air*
Splash attacks.....the armor would block most of the attack. But some of the attack might slip through. (I would treat the amount to be the same as a full plate mail armor in concept.) So you might get splatters getting through that would generate 'status' effects, there would be no ""real"" damage. Unless the substance was a poison or toxin.
wall drop....same as stomp & Better dig him/her out right quick before the magic raids away.

[kiralon]

My guess is the idea of the armour is the wearer takes half damage from the spells and the armour doesn't take any ala d&d fire resistance etc and is a simple way to play it, and only some direct damage spells use rolls to strike, and even then i think they are only there to see if they hit, not if they penetrate armour.

With stomping, as all the armours act as rigid armour i'd just do a strike roll at the start of every round to see if the crush damage penetrates the armour, but do crush damage every round. The heavier the creature the higher bonus to penetrate. Similar with constriction attacks but strength instead of weight for the armour penetration bonuses. So same with the wall spells, but in saying that I don't allow the wall spells to be cast off the ground because the damage they do is so incorrect.

Acids and the like splash and people often has cloaks and clothes and padding but i do acid damage as a dot, usually 1d6, damage on the first round and then 1d6 damage for 1d6 rounds after that but does depend on the acid. Really strong ones will hurt the person and the armour (esepcially metal, i tend not to bother if the person is wearing leather armour.

As armour already absorbs all the kinetic damage there wouldn't be any knockback (lets just say i would hate to be hit by an axe in chainmail even if it didn't cut the links).
But i generally use Knockback = (5 ft per size category above the person getting hit) for every 10 damage. (for me the size ranges are 1-3ft, 4-7ft, 7-12ft, 12-18ft, 18-24ft.
So a human hit for 24 damage by a 15ft tll cyclops is knocked back 10 ft (cyclops is 2 size categories bigger) per 10 damage, and takes an extra 1d6 damage for every 10ft they cant be knocked back.

So if a 22ft tall jotan hit a pc for 32 damage he would fly back 45ft (twice the height of the monster, so not far by jotans standards)
but if the character flew back 20ft and hit a wall he would take another 2d6 damage for not being able to go back the full distance. This damage is taken by armour first even if the jotan penetrated the armour of the person with the hit.
Each size category above 4-7ft also does an extra die of damage

[Soldier of Od]

Well, I had some additional thoughts and questions about this spell. It has an AR of 18, which is clear for rolled attack against a person using this spell. What about attacks that hit automatically, like spells, but which have a possibility to dodge? For example, Energy Bolt and Fireball both require an 18 or higher to dodge. That implies that they sort of have a strike roll of 18. So, would they hit the armor and do full damage to it or in the case of a fireball half damage? Or do they just ignore that armor entirely since they are essentially automatic hits and the armor abrorbs half of the damage from magic fire/lightning/cold? Call Lightning, which needs a natural 20 or modified 24 to dodge, would seem like it wouldn't be affected by the AoI. However, it might absorb half damage from the spell.

Next, if the person with AoI is on the ground and someone tries to stomp that person, that will require a strike roll which could bypass the armor. However, what about crushing damage? For example, what if a True Giant steps on a gnome with this spell running? There is an initial strike roll, and if the giant hits, he or she is now standing on the gnome. The crushing damage wouldn't need a roll to strike, so does it defeat the armor? This is true for constricting attacks as well. What about when someone drops a wall on top of someone? There's no strike roll so does the armor take the damage until it runs out of SDC? The same question exists for boiling water, mass effect acids, etc.. I'd assume they all do damage since otherwise, the spell of Limited Invulnerability would be redundant.

Finally, how much shock does it absorb? If you are whalloped by a giant weilding a giant mace and chain, and the armor takes the blow, are you knocked back or does the armor take ALL of the kinetic energy?

-Vek
"I'm sure I forgot something."

Well, I think most of this is a general armour question, not necessarily and Armour of Ithan question. Regardless:
I make the assumption that energy bolt type spells work like a strike roll. If it works like a strike of 18 for dodging, why not for all other defences? So an 18 will always hit an armour of Ithan, but always bypass a standard suit of full plate, chainmail, etc. A 20 (like call lighting) will bypass both.
With regards to the half damage from fire, etc., I always played it that the wearer and the armour would take half damage from these things (whichever one was hit), but I just reread the spell, and now I'm thinking from the wording it might be just the armour itself that takes half damage if hit with fire, etc. So if someone threw a fire bolt and rolled a 19, the wearer would take full damage. (Though I might just stick with the way we've been playing it in the past!)

I don't see how if a giant stomps on a gnome they are now automatically deemed to be "standing on the gnome". Just going by the rules, unless the attacking person/creature has some kind of "stomp and pin with foot" attack, the stomp is a one-time attack. Roll to strike again next time. Same with any crush, squeeze or similar attack (like the wrestling skill) - unless there is some particular move that specifies it can automatically do further damage over time without needing a further strike roll, the attacker will need to roll again to "hit". If there are such moves somewhere (let me know if you find any!), hopefully the rules already detail the specifics. If not, and if you're interested in opinions, I would probably house rule that a strike roll is required to do the further damage, even if the victim can't defend, just to see if the attacker gets over any AR, could maybe crit on a natural 20, or even "miss" (the attacker just couldn't position himself correctly to squeeze his victim with enough force, or whatever), though this might depend on the wording of the particular move.

I haven't seen any rule in PFRPG where a giant hitting someone with a mace and chain knocks the victim back at all, with or without armour. It might make sense, but that's not what the rules say (as far as I know). All the actual knockdown/knockback attacks I am aware of for Palladium seem to work regardless of whether it is the armour or person inside that is struck - the victim is knocked down regardless (assuming a maintain balance roll of not made).

Hope that helps.

[Veknironth]

Well, I put it as AoI specific because it has the magical properties of half damage and it's weightless and invisible. So, I figure it might break the laws of physics in other areas as well. Here are some other strange considerations I thought about recently.

1. How frictious is the AoI? Does it help/hurt/neither with climbing or having someone try to get ahold of you?
2. Does it affect tactile sensation? I would assume it does, but I don't know how thin the armor is. Would you be able to operate a smartphone?
3. If you're underwater, it won't pull you down, but would it fill with water and then pull you down once the density changes? Would you have to cancel the armor to prevent from drowning if it's full of water?
4. If you step on a carpet of adhesion and are stuck, could you cancel the spell just as you jump and be free?

-Vek
"I can't believe you guys put up with these questions."

[kiralon]

1. It would have to be rigid to protect as well as it does, so i'd say its invisible noiseless weightless fullplate (what happens if you cast it on someone wearing fullplate already) so pretty smooth. Climbing would be harder due to the gauntlets and boots.
2. tactile would be like gauntlets, so don't try picking locks
3. It would make it harder to get out of water, and it would look pretty funny watching the water drain out of the invisible armour, and technically once the help filled with water it would make it harder, but i only give a minor negative to swimming in armour of ithan.
4. I would say yes, but a harder question is since it covers you in full armour what happens if your feet are stuck to a carpet of adhesion and someone casts armour of ithan, because you get boots because its full plate. (I hate CoA so i'd say the armour would work properly)

[Omnibane]

Aoi being a magic noiseless weightless invisible suit for full plate with 18 ar and a set damage capacity based on the lvl of the spell. Magic attacks like fireball that need a 18 dodge would damage the armor not the person call lightning would ignore the armor since avoiding call lightning is about the 19 needed to penetrate a 18 ar it would also protect from some cloud attacks like steam.
Crushing damage and the like would all be gm discretion because it's a magic armor and has no need to follow the laws of physics