Characters from Feudal Worlds start with the At Home in Armour ability that allows them to ignore the Max Agility of the armour they wear. How useful is this?

I made up a character from a Feudal World that started with Agility 35. Right now the only benefit is seen when wearing feudal world plate. With maximum Advances, this character will never exceed Agility 60. With Good craftsmanship armour, At Home in Armour would be all but useless with anything except chainmail and feudal world plate. I would hope that, by the time the character gets to the point of having that Agility 60 that such armours have been left well behind.

I just can't see At Home in Armour as being useful. Almost any alternate world options (like A Keen Blade from Hrax) are entirely more useful.

EDIT: So, you can't put topic titles in italics. Huh.

You're right and not. Level and power of a character do not always dictate what he is gonna wear. If he is infiltrating a feudal world, chances are he will prefer a chainmail to a carapace armour that will identify him as an offworlder and blow up his cover.

But yeah, it is more situational than really useful.

I guess most of the home world bonuses are more situational than really useful, but this one really stood out tom me as being almost useless. Oh well, Feudal World character still get lots of Wounds and a fairly high starting Fate, so it's not all bad news.

Plate armor still has 5 AP, equivalent to light carapace armor.

But yeah, I suppose late game the ability could become arguably irrelevant.

Maybe buff the ability by boosting Basic Armors with 1 AP.

or

Change the ability to +1 AP and +10 to max Agility for basic Armor.

One might also consider reducing the armour's effective weight for the encumbrance rules, though the usefulness of doing so banks on whether or not those rules are even in play.

I would rank [At Home in Armour] rather low on the power-scale as well, competing with [The Old Ways] (almost entirely superseded by [Strength from the Harvest-Father]) and [Omnissiah's Chosen] (a bland Talent-grant). If the character fails to wear sufficiently heavy (and therefore conspicuous) armour while investing into Agility, the Feudal World Bonus is completely invisible. At least [Teeming Masses in Metal Mountains] and [Child of the Dark] can see use under a good GM.

I think the Agility minimums are too high anyways, it's pretty hard to hit any of them it seems, except for the ones with 40, unless you build specifically for agility.

well, you could also take it to mean all armor is effectively 10 percent easier to aquire, as the penalty to agility bonus that comes from "poor quality" armor no longer matters. while it wouldn't matter anyways for characters with agility around 35 most of the time, it would mean that higher agility characters don't suffer from it.

Still, its a rather poor bonus, which is why if i make a feudal world character, im probably going to use the special rule for the homeworld of hrax (+10 WS to subsequent attacks with a bladed weapon on enemies after the first). Considering the sheer number of bladed weapons i think that bonus would carry over far better.

I guess their reasoning was to make Chainmail / Plate more viable for Feudal world characters.

So, I'm going to houserule it with the change I proposed earlier:

+1 AP and +10 to max Agility for basic Armor types.

Or just do the thing that BillMcDonagh proposed, allow the Hrax homeworld ability.

My take is that it allows a PC to get fairly effective armour at the earliest part of the game, without suffering the penalties that normally reign in Feudal Plate.

AP 5 to all locations with no concern for Agi penalties, and only scarce availability (i.e. it can be a starting acquisition) is pretty decent as far as gear goes, and basically can serve the player up until they get Storm Trooper Carapace or better. Other than weight issues, this is a bonus a player will benefit from for a sizable chunk of the game.

I don't think all Home World world bonuses are intended to be equally useful, and I would say there are plenty of Home Worlds with worse bonuses, such that I don't think Feudal World is an absolutely terrible choice.

I at first did not think too much about this ability, until just recently, I now have a combat oriented player wearing carapace and dodging at 75. I understand it may seem lack luster, but as soon as you see a player walking around in heavy armor or power armor and doing at nearly 80% chance. It made me stop and go: "Oh... I see how useful that is now..."

My take is that it allows a PC to get fairly effective armour at the earliest part of the game, without suffering the penalties that normally reign in Feudal Plate.

AP 5 to all locations with no concern for Agi penalties, and only scarce availability (i.e. it can be a starting acquisition) is pretty decent as far as gear goes, and basically can serve the player up until they get Storm Trooper Carapace or better. Other than weight issues, this is a bonus a player will benefit from for a sizable chunk of the game.

I don't think all Home World world bonuses are intended to be equally useful, and I would say there are plenty of Home Worlds with worse bonuses, such that I don't think Feudal World is an absolutely terrible choice.

Here's the issue though, if your GM allows you to take "poor" quality armor at start up, you are still better off taking "poor" quality enforcer light carapace most of the time, as it weighs less and only has a 35 agility cap compared to feudal plate. The base ability for feudal world characters really does need something else to make it useful

Now, maybe this is my memory of the DH2(b) rules, but doesn't max Agi -cap- what you can roll on the test, including the bonuses? 35 Agi is kinda murder for dodge.

Also, I would say GM's might need to reign in players trying to abuse poor craftsmanship items to cheese out initial acquisitions.

Now, maybe this is my memory of the DH2(b) rules, but doesn't max Agi -cap- what you can roll on the test, including the bonuses? 35 Agi is kinda murder for dodge.

Also, I would say GM's might need to reign in players trying to abuse poor craftsmanship items to cheese out initial acquisitions.

It just caps out what your agility score counts as, it doesn't change bonuses or penalties.

and as far as trying to use poor craftsmanship armor goes, arbites background characters start with enforcer light carapace so I don't see taking poor quality versions of it as much of a problem when it comes to power curve. I would take more issue if they were trying to get equipment above what other players would normally start with.

Now, maybe this is my memory of the DH2(b) rules, but doesn't max Agi -cap- what you can roll on the test, including the bonuses? 35 Agi is kinda murder for dodge.

Also, I would say GM's might need to reign in players trying to abuse poor craftsmanship items to cheese out initial acquisitions.

It just caps out what your agility score counts as, it doesn't change bonuses or penalties.

and as far as trying to use poor craftsmanship armor goes, arbites background characters start with enforcer light carapace so I don't see taking poor quality versions of it as much of a problem when it comes to power curve. I would take more issue if they were trying to get equipment above what other players would normally start with.

I was under the impression this is exactly what it means. That let us say you have agility of 40 but you have dodge+20 your armor cap of 40 or 50 would not allow you to take advantage of those abilities or modifiers. I could have misread what it says in DH2.0 but I know that is how it worked in all the previous expansions. I will double check and let you guys know, if I am misread it.

I am fairly confident that is what it means regardless; otherwise there is no reason to even have the agility limit on armor in the first place; if it does nothing to your roles, why mention it? Literally just nonsense type which shouldn't have been included in the first place since it can be ignored.

--Update--

My memory didn't fail me. For once. Pg.167 core book: "Max Ag: This is the maximum value a character wearing this armour can count his Agility: if the character's Agility is higher than this number, it counts as this number instead."

So any modifiers or base statline are hard capped at that number: need to leap out of a blast centered on you which if which otherwise you might be able to, denied. Have a dodge +10 or +20 probably ignored. Gm give you a bonus to your test because it should be easy? Still capped at Max Ag, and so forth. This ability may not seem at that useful to a starting character, as rarly they will have an Agility stat line above 40, but mid-level, higher tier characters or just assassins or heavy armour users alike may find this to be one of the most useful in the game.

--Update--

My memory didn't fail me. For once. Pg.167 core book: "Max Ag: This is the maximum value a character wearing this armour can count his Agility: if the character's Agility is higher than this number, it counts as this number instead."

So any modifiers or base statline are hard capped at that number: need to leap out of a blast centered on you which if which otherwise you might be able to, denied. Have a dodge +10 or +20 probably ignored. Gm give you a bonus to your test because it should be easy? Still capped at Max Ag, and so forth. This ability may not seem at that useful to a starting character, as rarly they will have an Agility stat line above 40, but mid-level, higher tier characters or just assassins or heavy armour users alike may find this to be one of the most useful in the game.

Yes, for your Agility, but that's just one aspect of a skill check. It doesn't say that it also caps the positive modifiers of having a skill trained or under which conditions it gets executed.

A skill check is governed by a characteristic, setting the base level of a skill, and then modifiers are added to it. Since armor caps "Max Ag", I interprete that as only the characteristic baseline being capped and nothing else.

I'm wondering if At Home in Armour is going to be surprisingly awesome if/when really heavy armours (like Terminator armour) are detailed. I wonder too if allowing armour modification--like extra plating that increases AP while reducing Max Ag--wouldn't make this ability shine a bit more.

--Update--

My memory didn't fail me. For once. Pg.167 core book: "Max Ag: This is the maximum value a character wearing this armour can count his Agility: if the character's Agility is higher than this number, it counts as this number instead."

So any modifiers or base statline are hard capped at that number: need to leap out of a blast centered on you which if which otherwise you might be able to, denied. Have a dodge +10 or +20 probably ignored. Gm give you a bonus to your test because it should be easy? Still capped at Max Ag, and so forth. This ability may not seem at that useful to a starting character, as rarly they will have an Agility stat line above 40, but mid-level, higher tier characters or just assassins or heavy armour users alike may find this to be one of the most useful in the game.

Yes, for your Agility, but that's just one aspect of a skill check. It doesn't say that it also caps the positive modifiers of having a skill trained or under which conditions it gets executed.

A skill check is governed by a characteristic, setting the base level of a skill, and then modifiers are added to it. Since armor caps "Max Ag", I interprete that as only the characteristic baseline being capped and nothing else.

Unfortunately, this

Each skill is governed by a corresponding characteristic, which sets the base level of the skill on a scale of 1–100. For example, Dodge is governed by the Agility characteristic, and Scrutiny is governed by the Perception characteristic. To make a skill test, the Core Mechanic is used.

From page 23 of the core. Skills modify the base characteristic value - which in this case is definitely capped.

I don't think that is what Max Agility is meant to be. I actually agree with both your criticisms, though I do not interpret the rules that way. Chances are they simply did not explain or word it well. I'll submit a question to the writer team for clearification.

The reason I don't agree with Happy and others is because their criticism is accurate. Which would imply the bonus is meaningless and the Mag Agil limitation has no gameplay impact. Which would raise the question, did they simply goof and make a pointless subrules set that has no impact on the game? Or perhaps it needs a rewording.

I am assuming, they meant to carry over the rules from OW and the others where your agility roles and movement were restricted based upon heavy armor (which were created specifically for the first edition criticisms of doning power armour, Carapace and the like. Then while encumbered having +80 dodge rolls). This became a serious issue in later expansions and thus the Max Agility for armour was explicitly created to prevent that kind of modifiers. This is why I think your interpretation is wrong, not because you misread the rules, but I think the rules were not clear on their intention, which, let's be honest, Dark Heresy has never been quite good at.

The reason I don't agree with Happy and others is because their criticism is accurate. Which would imply the bonus is meaningless and the Mag Agil limitation has no gameplay impact. Which would raise the question, did they simply goof and make a pointless subrules set that has no impact on the game? Or perhaps it needs a rewording.

The bonus does have a gameplay effect, but the effect is minor. The effect makes Chainmail and Plate viable early on, and who uses these kind of armor types fluff wise? Yes, Feudal World characters. It's even called "Feudal World Plate".

Maybe the values assigned to certain armor types are too high, like ThenDoctor also mentioned, and thus it has nothing to do with interpreting "Max Ag" right or wrong. RAW it's clear to me.

I think you can easily subtract -10 Max Ag from every armor type without breaking anything and make Max Ag have a more meaningful impact. At the same time it will make the Feudal World bonus have more impact.

The problem is, unless the Max Agi rules have -some- teeth, they serve no purpose. Only Feudal World Plate has a max value that will definitely be noticeable, the rest barely ever inflict a penalty worth a **** for most players.

It seems Max Agi exists to encourage players to make a decision about the armour they select, but then inherently fails at that if relegated to -just- capping out the Agi characteristic, and not capping Agi tests.

Again, I may have arrived at that conclusion from the beta rules for second addition, but looking through the final book, I think the sections discussing test modifiers is rather important. Bonuses to a test are considered to modify the characteristic itself, which is then tested upon. Max Agi imposes an upper limit on how high Agi can get.

The problem is, unless the Max Agi rules have -some- teeth, they serve no purpose. Only Feudal World Plate has a max value that will definitely be noticeable, the rest barely ever inflict a penalty worth a **** for most players.

It seems Max Agi exists to encourage players to make a decision about the armour they select, but then inherently fails at that if relegated to -just- capping out the Agi characteristic, and not capping Agi tests.

Again, I may have arrived at that conclusion from the beta rules for second addition, but looking through the final book, I think the sections discussing test modifiers is rather important. Bonuses to a test are considered to modify the characteristic itself, which is then tested upon. Max Agi imposes an upper limit on how high Agi can get.

That's how I interpreted it as well, and how I run it; but the wording isn't 100% clear.

The problem is, unless the Max Agi rules have -some- teeth, they serve no purpose. Only Feudal World Plate has a max value that will definitely be noticeable, the rest barely ever inflict a penalty worth a **** for most players.

It seems Max Agi exists to encourage players to make a decision about the armour they select, but then inherently fails at that if relegated to -just- capping out the Agi characteristic, and not capping Agi tests.

When they first introduced Ag caps during the beta the limits were much lower, to the point where just about everybody would feel the pinch if wearing armor. People didn't like that, so they raised the caps high enough that most people wouldn't, leaving us in this weird place where caps are irrelevant 95% of the time, so why are they even included in the first place?

Then again, the rules are really vague. If they cap applies to the Ag test value after modifiers, it's a little more relevant.

Page 22, The Core Mechanic, selected sections

1. Determine Value: Determine the value of the characteristic or skill being tested

Determine Value

The GM selects either the characteristic or skill (a characteristic modified by training) most appropriate for the task.

Apply Modifiers

...

Then, the GM adds the final modifier to the value of the characteristic or skill to obtain the target number used for the percentile role.

The point is the characteristic is always the actual value being tested. And modifiers alter that characteristic value.

Google Definition of "Modifier"

mod·i·fi·er

ˈmädəˌfī(ə)r/

noun

noun: modifier; plural noun: modifiers

A person or thing that makes partial or minor changes to something.

The point is, "modifiers" change the value of the characteristic.

p. 167

Max Ag: This is the maximum value a character wearing this armour can count his Agility; if the character's Agility is higher than this number, it counts as this number instead.

emphasis mine

The point is, the Max Agi stat dictates how much the stat can be counted as, not temporarily reduces it.

Therefore, I posit that during an Agility characteristic test (and by extension Agility linked skill tests), if the modified characteristic (and thus still the characteristic itself, as it is counted as being) exceeds the value of Max Agi of the character's worn armour, then that character's Agility is counted as the Max Agi value of that armour. Skill bonuses are still considered to be modifiers of the characteristic, as per the wording from page 22.

Wrote this to more formalize my position.

Makes more sense eitherway and the homeworld ability suddenly becomes a lot better as well.

Also means that people will have to balance armor and agility, being a tank means you'll be penalized agility/dodge wise and being very agile to avoid damage rather than take damage will mean that once you do take damage, it will be a lot more.

I like.

I should point out the downside to the argument I'm making is that it means that Feudal World actually has one of the better Home World bonuses in the game, as it means they can make full use of high AP armour as well as Dodging (i.e. they get to have their cake and eat it too).