The flat agility cap is a neat addition but I thought of an interesting idea to make it a bit more detailed and work better with mixed armour.

The agility cap of armour applies differently to each part of your body as follows:

Armour worn on the head caps perception (sight)

Armour worn on the legs caps agility bonus for movement

Armour worn on the body caps agility for skills (including dodge)

Armour worn on the arms caps weapon skill

I can see that it might not be to everyone's liking, but it could be a neat optional rule.

Interesting. A fine proposal, and a good starting point.

It's quite similar to what we've been doing- imposing penalties to Perception-based Tests when wearing open/closed-face helms, though we run with an Action Points (AP) system akin to the Inquisitor table-top game, so things like Ag caps have translated to max AP. Movement, number of attacks, and evasion are just a few of the applications of our AP mechanic. Rather than types of armor limiting AP it is rather matter of combined (or stacked) armor types and encumbrance that limits AP. And, if you're not wearing any armor (that is, armor in its traditionally perceived application) PCs receive +X bonus AP based on their Ag score (+1 AP with Ag 36-50, +2 AP with Ag 51-65, and so on), which means no more "silly" things like Dark Eldar wyches wearing WoW "sexy armor" with 2 armor points on all locations when simply not wearing armor makes them faster, which makes them harder to hit and harder to tie down in close combat.

Our armor mechanism is far more granular, similar in vein to HarnMaster (if you're familiar) in terms of "stacking" and its protection- certain armor types provide better/worse protection versus the various Damage Types. An example would be IG Flak- it provides its defensive value (or DV) of 4 vs all Damage Types, but provides 5 vs Damage Type [X].

We also use a variant of the Inquisitor injury mechanic, so the game is fairly lethal. People play smarter when the alternative is making a character once (or even twice) every session. IME, they interact with their surroundings more, role-play becomes top-notch participation in the story and their character development.

It is very safe to say I've completely "Frankensteined" our DH game from DH1, Beta1, and various other sources. It works for us. But, honestly, I think your proposal is a step in the right direction.

I don't really like hard caps, maybe just have a flat penalty to the attribute but don't allow it to be pushed below a certain value, like 20.

EG

I have 30 Ag and my armour gives me -5 Ag, I now have 25 Ag.

I have 30 Ag and my armour gives me -15 Ag, I now have 20 Ag.

I have 15 Ag and my armour gives me -5 Ag, I still have 15 Ag.

But yeah I don't mind the idea of having different penalties for different body parts.

Its hard to make a perfectly satisfying systems, let me just elaborate (for my sake as well as others) on some different methods and their implications.

Agility Penalty (no minimum)

Slow characters can't move

Medium character become very slow

Fast characters move a bit slower

Analysis: its very strange, makes fast characters the least effected by encumbrance which seems bizarre to me.

Agility Penalty (with minimum)

Slow characters are unaffected

Medium characters become slower (but never too slow)

Fast characters move a bit slower

Analysis: makes sense but causes a strange problem where there is a large band of identical scores (maybe guard armour has a -10 penalty to a minimum of 25, 25-35 are now all the same)

Agility Cap

Slow characters are unaffected

Medium characters are effected by heavier armour

Fast characters are very effected, possibly discouraging armour use completely (a plasma gun will kill you armour or no, sowhy not max dodge)

Analysis: makes sense but extremely hard to give good numbers, high numbers make armour penalties meaningless to most characters, low numbers make agility a dump stat.

Agility Soft cap (every point above the armour penalty number is halved, if guard armour has a cap of 40 then agi 40 = 40, 45 = 42, 50 = 45)

Slow characters unaffected

Medium characters are effected (but not too much)

Fast characters are effected, but their extra stats arent useless

Analysis: My favourite system, unfortunately its a little complex to do off the top of your head.

Agility Soft cap (every point above the armour penalty number is halved, if guard armour has a cap of 40 then agi 40 = 40, 45 = 42, 50 = 45)

Slow characters unaffected

Medium characters are effected (but not too much)

Fast characters are effected, but their extra stats arent useless

Analysis: My favourite system, unfortunately its a little complex to do off the top of your head.

Yes! This version I like!

Its hard to make a perfectly satisfying systems, let me just elaborate (for my sake as well as others) on some different methods and their implications.

Agility Penalty (with minimum)

Slow characters are unaffected

Medium characters become slower (but never too slow)

Fast characters move a bit slower

Analysis: makes sense but causes a strange problem where there is a large band of identical scores (maybe guard armour has a -10 penalty to a minimum of 25, 25-35 are now all the same)

This system would make perfect sense if fast characters could make up for the protections of heavier armour by their faster reflexes. This would make light armour such as Body Gloves worth using so that fast characters can utilize their "gift of fast reflexes". They would essentially not need heavy armour. On the other hand, not everyone is gifted with awesome agility and those that have lower agility scores would need to compensate with heavier armour.