At some point of a "Repairing opposed tests once and for all" discussion (somewhere in here: www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp ) it went out, that protection that armors offer is in few cases not as you would suspect (not to say wrong).
The proplem was, that armors with higher prices and lower availability tend to be worse than cheaper and more available ones.
For example:
Leather and Brigandine - when you buy the second one you expect, that paying 4 times the price you get better protection. It came up that this is not right. Leather offers better protection than Brigandine and costs 1/4 of the price (not to mention better availability).
The same is true in case of Scale and Ulthuan Scale pair, and to a lesser extend on Cloth and Robes.
After lots of discussing, testing, counting and help of people that put me on the right track (thx Dvang ), I came up with a fix, that fit my needs.
Cloth and Robes: Defence 0, Soak 0 (put both to 0, IMO neither one should offer any protection)
Leather: Defence 0, Soak 1 (lowered soak by 1)
Brigandine: Defence 1, Soak 1 (not changed)
Mail Shirt: Defence 1, Soak 2 (not changed)
Chainmail: Defence 1, Soak 3 (increased defence by 1)
Scale: Defence 2, Soak 3 (increased defence by 2, and lowered soak by 1)
Ulthuan Scale: Defence 1, Soak 4 (increased soak by 1)
Breast Plate & Chain: Defence 2, Soak 4 (increased defence by 1)
Full Plate: Defence 1, Soak 5 (not changed)
You can find the results of all this tests in here (open office 3.1 or higher required, or some other program, that can open "ods" files):
www.gmtools.excelocms.com/download/defence_orig.ods
On the left are tests on the original armor values, on the right tests on the above values.
All tests include:
- use of normal attack (only 1 success line, no block/dodge/parry or shield, for simplicity sake)
- use of 2-6 characteristic die (each time 1 blue die was converted to 1 red reckless die)
- use of 0-3 level of training in corresponding skill (WS / BS)
- use of 3-7 weapon damage (from fists to great weapon)
- hit chance probabilities generated with this tool:
www.jaj22.org.uk/wfrp/diceprob.html
, using 1 <P> default to hit difficulty, characteristic, and skill values mentioned above, and armor defence
- armor soak values
- toughness from 2-6 on test subject wearing armor (set on tabs at the bottom)
Resulting numbers are damage potential - meaning how much damage on average get past the armor per turn.
Lower damage potential in the table is better (more protection, less damage dealt).
Damage potential is counted like that:
hit chance * ( strength + weapon damage - soak - toughness)
hit chance depends on attribute value, skill training, and armor defence
Another possible fix on that is to just simply change the price of the armors.
But personally I prefer, when my Brigandine is better, not cheaper than Leather, same with Ulthuan Scale and Scale.
Cloth and Robes in my fix are the same, and offer no protection at all.
The only problem I still see with armors (both original and "fixed") is the "minimum 1 wound rule" which seems to brake all the counting ("damage potential" equals "to hit" chance on this rule). This makes armor soak mean less, and less while your toughness rises (as it is all about how often you can hit, because you will deal 1 damage only anyway), unless you are subject to really high damage (like giant using great weapon, or thunderous blow when comet is rolled, or double strike).
I don't like this rule to say the truth.. Need to think on something to replace it.
@EDIT
IMPORTANT!: by saying " armor protection " I mean both " soak " AND " defence " values taken into the account (not just soak).
Defence lowers the chance to hit, soak lowers the damage, what I'm counting is the resulting damage output, that took into the equation hit chance changes due to armor defense, and soak changes due to armor soak value.