what rogues really need, more then anything, to offset the disparity between lighter and heavier armors is the advantage against warding spells. So yes, I would fully support the implementation of a way to make lighter armors more appealing by keeping them on-par with heavier armors in respects to CvA.

such an ability could be implemented in many ways, but something like this could be a good option...

Skill Name: Armor Wards
Mnemonic: wards
Other Requirements: Specialized armor fittings (available at your local Rogue Guild workshop) are required. There are five quality tiers of fittings: common (useable at Rank 1), sturdy (Rank 2), fine (Rank 3), superb (Rank 4), and masterwork (Rank 5). Armor with flares requires sturdy or better wards. Armor already having a TD enhancement is not able to have wards added to it. If the armor being adjusted is padded, the quality of the fittings required is:

Common: May not be used with padded armor.
Sturdy: May be used with up to fairly padded armor.
Fine: May be used with up to decently padded armor.
Superb: May be used with up to very heavily padded armor.
Masterwork: No limit on level of padding.

Available to: Rogues.
Prerequisites:
None
Armor Point Cost:
Rank 1: 20
Rank 2: 30
Rank 3: 40
Rank 4: 50
Rank 5: 60

Description: Adjusts a person's armor so that it is more resistant to warding based magical attacks. Each rank allows the next level of wards to be added to a piece of armor.

The TD bonus gained per rank = 10 - (AG - 1 * 2)
robes = +10 per rank
leather = +8 per rank
scale = +6 per rank
chain = +4 per rank
plate = +2 per rank

The duration of the wards is also dependent on the AG of the armor. Lighter armor can retain the wards for longer periods of time, being softer and easier to work with. Heavier armors tend to resist the wards and cause them to fail more quickly.

Duration in minutes = 240 - (AG - 1 * 30)
robes = 240 minutes
leather = 210 minutes
scale = 180 minutes
chain = 150 minutes
plate = 120 minutes

Once the duration expires the wards will fade from the armor entirely, leaving it as it was.

-James-
player of Fremie

Mirayam says, "You are not a rogue, sir."

Mirayam exclaims, "You are noble!"

I am going to break this down and show the modified CvA of each armor at five ranks of this skill.

Robes: -35
Light leather: -25
Full leather: -26
Reinforced leather: -27
Double leather: -28
Leather breastplate: -25
Cuirbouilli leather: -26
Studded leather: -27
Brigandine: -28
Chain mail: -26
Double chain: -27
Augmented chain: -28
Chain hauberk:: -29
Metal breastplate: -28
Augmented breastplate: -29
Half-plate: -30
Fullplate: -31

So robes come out the winner in this somehow and all the other armors are roughly equal. Lighter armor already has quite a few advantages associated with it and now you want to make the lightest armor the best against magic as well? I understand what you are trying to do, just pointing out that you need to put a little more thought into it.

Not only that but rogues aren't the only ones who'd like to be in lighter armor. A lot of warriors would as well but aren't because of the same issues, only its worse for them. There is no hiding and dodge training is twice as expensive for warriors compared to the rogues. I bring up dodge because the DS of dodge in robes is far better then the DS one gets from shield use. If anything gets created to affect the TD, or CvA of armors to make them more equal it should be a skill trainable by both. And I don't think armor specialization is the way to go either.

Armor skills can be used to boost anyone. It seems like a very bad idea to give everyone wearing light armor lots of extra TD.

Light armor rogues are supposed to defend themselves against spells by hiding from spell users and just got several new abilities for that style. Are you claiming that these are ineffective?

However, I do think that someone with 2x in AU at cap should have way to get a better CvA than can be got at present, but I think the way to do this is by making plate heavier.

Create a new armor group, heavy plate, which you can only get by adding fittings to plate. Once the fittings wear out, heavy plate degrades back to normal plate. Heavy plate has lighter base weights than plate, making it heavier to wear. That 40lb suit of full plate (base weight 75lb, effective weight -35 lb) becomes a 45lb suit of heavy full plate (base weight 50lb, effective weight -5lb). Heavy full plate would need 200 AU ranks rather than 140 to be fully trained for AP and RT. Spell hindrance in heavy plate would always be 99% due to the antimagical nature of the fittings. AvD would improve marginally to counter the loss of dodge DS and DF would be the same, but CvA in heavy plate would continue to improve beyond the level reached in plate.

I like the idea of CvA being influenced by AU training more than an ARMOR skill... Particularly for the mentioned issue that the bonus would be available to everybody if it was an armor skill.

If giving better spell resistance is the goal, I'd like to see some sort of graduated bonus to CvA with larger bonuses to lighter armors for overtraining in AU. Or, it could be the same absolute amount of bonus, but you'd have more opportunity to gain bonuses from lighter armors. And warriors would get the extra bonus that they'd deserve in this example. Paladins would see a big boost too, I don't really know if they have TD issues though (though conceptually it makes sense to me that paladins would have the strongest defense against spells).

-Keleborrn.

if you want to limit it to squares then it would probably fit best as a CMAN skill.

Skill Name: Surge of Will
Mnemonic: will
Hostile: No
Stamina Cost: 20, with a cooldown period during which the reactivation cost doubles to 40. At Rank 1, the cooldown period is 5 minutes, Rank 2 is 4 minutes, Rank 3 is 3 minutes, Rank 4 is 2.5 minutes, and Rank 5 is 2 minutes.
Other Requirements: must be wearing AG 3 (brig) based armor or lighter
Available to: Warriors, Rogues, Monks.
Prerequisites:
Combat Focus (rank 5)
CMP Cost:
Rank 1: (Squares) 2
Rank 2: (Squares) 4
Rank 3: (Squares) 6
Rank 4: (Squares) 8
Rank 5: (Squares) 10
Description: +3 per rank to generic TD for 90 seconds (refreshable).

-James-
player of Fremie

Mirayam says, "You are not a rogue, sir."

Mirayam exclaims, "You are noble!"

I'd to see that armor point cost reduced so that you could learn two armor skills. Even if you could only use one at a time, that will still give you more options depending on the situation.

Wolfloner

>>Simply because nothing is stopping Rogues from wearing heavier armors for the most part

you must giveth and taketh away, not just one or the other.

problem with lighter armors = CvA

problem with heavier armors = too many benefits that outweigh the benefits of current Armor skills known to rogues.

eliminate the CvA problem and the Armor skills begin to look more desireable

I think a CMAN skill fits best. Or perhaps one of those new Martial Stances I keep hearing about?

-James-
player of Fremie

Mirayam says, "You are not a rogue, sir."

Mirayam exclaims, "You are noble!"

Not my first rogue ever, but I honestly dont see him in anything beyond hauberk, ever. He may have armor ranks to warrant plate, but to wear it just because he can is a terrible RP choice, in my RP Game. I would gladly trade that armor skill for the ability to flat out dodge a spell, but until then a TD boost seems a fair request. I can certainly convince myself that a passed warding check was a succesful dodge as easily as blocking that swing with my shield.