Inspired by something I reblogged earlier, I wanted to take a moment to discuss magical enchantments. Personally I don't care much about what my players describe their armor looking like; if they want to wear chainmail bikinis or well designed full-plate, I'm going to let them do whatever they want. Granted, I haven't had it come up at all, so there is that... but I digress.
What I really wanted to talk about was this:
deepredroom:
And don’t feed me the “it’s magic, I don’t got to explain shit” line. Bollox. Magic armour and forcefields need to make some sense too. Show me something that LOOKS like it’s generating a barrier over the character instead of just saying “Oh the G-string of Invulnerability is just as good as wearing full plate anyway”. If that’s the case, everyone would wear it. And why can’t they just tie it around their belt? Make me believe that your magic armour and spells have logic to them. If not, please don’t play your world straight. I’m all for super stylised designs as long as they’re sold as such, but if you’re trying to make a world that feels real enough for people to believe and get immersed in, think this stuff out. If you’ve designed someone with sparse, gapped armour that shows skin, give your character a reason to wear it.
The concept of even having magic armor make sense is important from a thematic standpoint; there are multiple types of AC bonuses, each of them with a different reason for being. Before I make my point, let me refresh you on the most common types of AC bonuses that exist in D&D / Pathfinder:
Armor bonuses are applied to armor, either from armor or spells that emulate armor. Armor can also be enchanted, giving them an enhancement bonus to armor and magically making them hardier against weapons and making both it and the gambeson (or anything else worn under armor) tougher (and thus stopping attacks that manage to get through the plate)
Deflection bonuses turn away attacks before they hit your character.
Dodge bonuses make your character quicker on their feet, making it easier to sidestep an enemy's attack. These stack, but are lost when you lose your Dexterity bonus to AC.
Natural armor is the toughness of your character's skin. This can be either natural, or be magically enhanced (and thus also be an enhancement bonus). It makes attacks that contact you have a chance to not harm.
Shield bonuses are from shields, or from magic that replicates a shield. Like armor, shields can also be enchanted, making attacks that strike the shield less likely to push it aside
Size bonuses are from... uh... your character's size.
Now, as said before I'm more than happy to ignore this, but if you're a type of person that wants an explanation (which is completely and utterly reasonable), then you could fairly easily work one of these bonuses into such revealing armors.
3.5 has a concept called a Body Slot Affinity (See the bottom of the page), where each slot has a particular specialization, and adding an enchantment to an item other than the normal slot costs 50% more. If you absolutely, positively, have to have a character with unreasonable armor and you need to explain it, consider enchanting the armor with a Deflection, natural armor, or dodge bonus in order to have it make some bit of sense. You're still going to have to consider that your armor bonus is still probably higher than would be reasonable expected, but that much is a bit easier to wave away once you actually have proper enchantments.
As mentioned in the quote though, make sure your armor still makes a bit of sense. Have something in the description that signifies what it does. Yes, even the symbol of Venus works.
By using non-affinity enchantments, you immediately have a reason why not everyone uses them (they're expensive and generally less useful overall than straight enhancement bonuses to armor), but allow whatever thematic or stylistic choice you want.
Love the Musanagi cosplay! I've been getting backing into GiTs recently, especially after watching Arise. How do you rank the various entries to the franchise and the various takes on her as a character?
Thanks! My favorite is definitely the SAC series and movie. I felt they gave her the most personality there, and I like how fleshed out the other members of Section9 are. The 2 theatrical movies are really lovely, but I felt that Motoko's personality is more flat there. I haven't seen the new Arise anime because I'm waiting for the dub, but the Arise manga has been interesting so far, although I don't like her redesign. Batou looks great though! And the original manga is where it all started so I have no complaints about that. :)
I was actually going to ask you about that cosplay creeper video. Do guys like that (and guys just being really rude about commenting on your body in general) ever dissuade you from cosplaying? Do you ever second guess yourself because you think that guy will be around the corner?
Creeps like that are annoying and rude, but I'm not about to let a douchebag prevent me from having fun. It does scare off some cosplayers from cosplaying what they want though, which is really sad. I hope people will be more likely to report creeps in the future to con security so we can have a safer and happier con environment.
