Basic Equipment

Note: Needs item costs? Are cost of Light/Med/Heavy armor balanced? Should Heavy Armor be more expensive?

Players can wear equipment that increases their combat capabilities. Official equipment slots are: Weapon, Chest, Legs, Boots, Gloves.

Each of these slots can be filled by a blacksmith or tailor. Additional pieces of equipment, like rings, headpieces, etc. don’t have official slots and are rare items. With the exception of magical enchantments, additional slots do not count towards armor bonuses. If you find something, you can equip it. Common sense rule here.

Durability

All equipment has a certain amount of durability. At the END of a campaign arc, all armor and weapons receive a 20% durability tax. Items that reach 0% durability break.

A blacksmith can repair metal weapons and armor, and an artisan can repair bows. A tailor can repair leather or cloth armor. The DM can determine the cost of repairing items, but it's often assumed that a trained professional can repair armor using the relevant profession kit if allocated a certain amount of time. Weapons and armor cannot be fixed with a different metal or leather type than it was forged with.

Armor

The armor system is simple:

• Different types of armor require certain amounts of Strength or Dexterity to wear, and incur penalties to certain types of checks
• There is a special Defense Bonus for wearing a full set of armor of a given type
• You can wear four pieces of armor at a time, in these four slots: Gloves, Boots, Legs, and Chest.

This table explains what different types of armor are available in the Ilisara RPG.

Category	Armor Type	Defense Bonus*	Requirements to Wear	Penalties per set
Heavy	Ringmail, chainmail, splint, plate	4	5 Strength, 5 Stamina	-4 Dexterity Checks, -3 Strength Checks
Medium	Hide, scalemail, half-plate	3	3 Strength, 3 Stamina	-3 Dexterity Checks, -2 Strength Checks
Light	Padded cloth, leather, studded leather	2	None

If you are wearing a mixed set of armor, you may have to determine a different Defense bonus. The DM will work with you to provide a different Defense Bonus in special circumstances.

Armor Quality

Armor can be built from different kinds of materials. The Professions page goes into more depth about what kinds of materials are available in the Ilisara RPG. In summary, there are three different kinda of materials:

• Common materials provide no bonus
• Rare materials provide a +1 bonus to defense
• Epic materials provide a +2 bonus to defense

Every piece of armor must be built from materials from the same tier to get the bonus. So, you’d need a full set of Epic armor to get the +2 bonus to defense. Only wearing Epic pants won’t cut it.

Armor Enchantments

Only enchanters can enchant armor, and they are few and far between.

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Weapons

Weapons can be bought or crafted. The finer the material they are made out of, the higher their damage. This follows a system similar to the quality of Armor.

• Common materials provide no bonus
• Rare materials provide a +1 bonus to the weapon’s damage
• Epic materials provide a +2 bonus to the weapon’s damage

Weapons require different levels of Strength or Dexterity to use. Heavier weapons require more Strength, and weapons with finesse require Dexterity. Some weapons might even require both.


Base Weapon Damage

The chart below provides base damage, as though a weapon is made out of Common materials.

Weapon	Damage	Hands to Wield	Stat Requirements	Base cost
Compound Bow	1 + D8 + Material Mod	2 Hand	3 Strength 4 Dexterity	80g
Dagger / Knife	D4 + 2x Material Mod	1 Hand	1 Strength 3 Dexterity	20g
Great Sword	4 + D8 + Material Mod	2 Hand	5 Strength 2 Dexterity	80g
Long Sword	1 + D6 + Material Mod	1 Hand	2 Strength 2 Dexterity	50g
Longbow	D8 + (X for long distance, DM discretion) + Material Mod	2 Hand	2 Strength 5 Dexterity	80g
Mace / Hammer / Axe	1 + D6 + Material Mod	1 Hand	2 Strength 2 Dexterity	40g
Short Sword	D6 + Material Mod	1 Hand	1 Strength 1 Dexterity	40g
Shortbow	2 + D8 - (X for long distance, DM discretion) + Material Mod	2 Hand	1 Strength 2 Dexterity	60g
War Hammer / War Axe	2 + D10 + Material Mod	2 Hand	5 Strength 2 Dexterity	80g
War Staff	D4 + Material Mod	2 Hand	1 Strength 1 Dexterity	70g

* A Bow can be used at range. Ammunition (Arrows) have a Material Mod, and without arrows a Bow cannot fire. A bow cannot be used in melee range. Arrows and ammunition are covered in more detail on the Other Equipment page.

Shields

Shields come in a number of varieties. In order to wear them, you must equip a 1-handed weapon and then use the Shield in your off-hand. Shields have the following stats, and requirements. Shields only reduce the amount of damage you take.

Shield	Defense Bonus	Stat Requirements
Small Wood or Plate Shield	+1 Defense. Cannot benefit from material modifiers.	1 Strength, 1 Dexterity
Tower Shield	+1 Defense	3 Strength, 3 Dexterity
Riot Shield	+1 Defense, and reflects 1 damage to attackers	5 Strength, 5 Dexterity

Like weapons and armor, the finer the material they are made out of, the more damage reduction shields have.

• Common materials provide no bonus
• Rare materials provide -1 damage reduction from each attack that hits the shieldbearer
• Epic materials provide -2 damage reduction from each attack that hits the shieldbearer

The damage reduction a shield grants applies to every individual attack that hits the shieldbearer during combat.