FYI, I have been unable to set up an account on invisible castle. they say they are sending me a confirmation email, but I haven't received it, and it has been nearly a week. I tried to write them and let them know, but it looks like the site swallowed my message...
You don't strictly need an account in order to roll dice. I don't have one - I just go to this page and type in the relevant character name and dice requirements.
A few things:
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City & Guild states that the Excellent quality stuff adds to all totals, not to all rolls. So Excellent armor would add to protection, not Soak rolls. It seems that Quality armor adds to protection, so it seems reasonable. Is that correct or has it been house ruled?
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Following that line, can I have an Excellent armor adding +3 to protection? Does it count as Armaments (18 QP) or as a regular item (9 QP)?
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We still lack cost for some Enriched items. Enriched items that add numeric abilities (like Tough or Puissant Leadership) are easy following these rules, but if an items grants Second Sight 3 or Intuition or Animal Ken with serpents how much would they cost? For reference, we determined in the past that it was 12 QP for a minor virtue Enriched item and 24 QP for a Major virtue regardless of the bonus/ability provided.
So a toledo steel longsword would cost 12 QP and add +1 to attack and damage. right.
What about a QUALITY toledo longsword? Would it add +5 to attack (+1 for toledo +4 for the Quality attack) and +1 to damage? Would that cost 36 QPs?
A few responses...
- Yes, Superior and Excellent Quality items add to Totals. This utilizes Mundane Skill. It is Items of Quality, utilizing the Verditius Mystery, that grants a bonus that adds to Rolls and not Totals. A single item can be both.
- Yes, you can have armor granting +3 Protection with a cost of 9q.p.. The idea behind the cost is the Bonus times 3q.p.. It is doubled for Excellent Weapons only, because the bonus is applied twice (once for Attack and again for Damage).
- Those costs sound reasonable
- That basically says that a Toledo Steel sword is an example of an Excellent Quality Weapon starting with a bonus of +1 to Attack & Damage, and, according to the normal rules, can go much higher.
This makes no sense to me.
Superior weapons give +1, and no more to a single specialty. Like, a superior armor could give +1 soak
Excellent ones give +2 or more to more than one specialty. An excellent armor could give +2 to soak and Leadership (Intimidation)
Unless you want to HR this, but then, this directly concerns Donna and what she'll be able to do.
I am confused. My only information comes from Lords of Men, which implies that all Excellent Items get a variable bonus added to one score, but Weapons get the bonus added to two scores. What I think you are telling me now is that the C&G rules say that all Excellent Quality items add their bonus to two scores. If this is indeed the case, then the second bonus needs to be paid for also. Shields would add a bonus to Soak, that would make sense. The bonus for Armor though?
The information on weapons is redundant/implies confusion. As written it seems to imply that a weapon with +1 to attack and +1 to damage costs 12 QP, not 6 QP as you said 3 posts above this one.
Will check C&G again to see what Fixer is saying. Will try to post a resume of the rules in that book and compare to LOM
My bad. Yes, a +1/+1 costs 6qp, a +3/+3 costs 18qp, a +3 by itself costs just 9qp.
Does that make sense?
Perfect sense, yup 
I understood that the price for weapons was DOUBLE that when I read the rule, but your explanation/example in this thread made it perfectly clear. 8)
I am holding back what I will get for armor and weapons for Arnau until I know what I will get for my almogavers, to make sure that we are within 5 points of combat skill. They are likely to get a +1 weapon or armor themselves. Shields will be used as proxies for Flight (Silver Surfer almogavers? OH YEAH!) because I just found myself moving my hands around doing manoeuvres around after thinking it in the subway.
For the record there is a free LOM web supplement that covers the armor and weapons you reference.
Awesome! Where might one obtain this treasure?
And for Arnau, just build him in full. I will equip your soldiers to suit. And no, you cannot have quality armaments for all of your men. 
What I was thinking is dressing them up in full mail, and otherwise equipping them the same as yourself. The five point spread is a generous margin, and eing unable to fit within it is usually a red flag that something was calculated wrong. That is how I spotted the Item of Quality conundrum. It struck me as odd so I looked it up and found out that even I was doing it wrong. The whole bit about adding to rolls instead of totals and all.
Figure it like this. Your Stamina is going to be about average for the tough guys in your band, give or take a point. Now you have the clam shell deal that grants Tough, a +3 soak. Some of your guys will have Tough naturally, some won't. So figure that puts you three points off of average. That leaves you a margin of two points, so a safe armor range would be no more than +2 Excellent Quality. If your soak is still too high, wear less armor. Take off your helmet and surcoat or something
There will be some guy tougher than you; higher Stamina and the Tough Virtue, higher Strength, +1 Size. Dress him up in the best armor available and make him your Vanguard. Keep in mind that, fighting as part of a group, you will take damage when the Vanguard takes damage, even if his soak is exactly five points lower and similar blows rained down upon you wouldn't even scratch. That is just the mathematics of the abstract, you gotta take one for the team once in a while. And the damage you inflict is the damage he inflicts, even if he is five points stronger.
I was giving them Toledo longswords (+1 to attack and damage), a better weapon for the Vanguard and improved armors (+1 to +4). All paid with XP as per the rules. If equipment for grogs should not be counted from their XP allocation it would be good to know. Given that people like Donna should sell their equipment to someone, I see no reason not to be able to have them for grogs as well....
OK, I will go for a +3 Sword and a +4 armor for Arnau . Redoing the combat calculations later.
... aaaand I just noticed how much this sounds like D&D equipment there. 
Yes, yes you are. Which is a Red Flag for munchkinism
Grogs can spend xp to buy things, it is in the house rules for CharGen. A +1/+1 Excellent Quality Item would cost them 6xp. Now, I have recently come to notice that Excellent Quality begins at +2 or +2/+2, and goes up from there. Superior Quality offers a flat +1. A +1/+1 is not available according to the rules (I think, I also think I need to get a copy of C&G and make that my next Ars book priority). So, anyway, Toledo Steel swords (long and short) are the exception to this rule. They are available at +1/+1 Excellent Quality. Three reasons behind this. Vandium steel is a unique material for the era, there is a logical reason other nations import Spanish swords, and it's frickin' Mythic.
Now, as for your D&D style munchkinism. Learn from what the new players experienced as they created their characters. Don't push all the way against the limits. And use different terms. There is Superior (+1), Toledo Steel Sword (+1/+1), Excellent (+2 or +2/+2), and Very Excellent (+3 or +3/+3).
And I am capping you at Very Excellent. For one item only. Choose wisely.
Or do whatever. I'll sit back and set my sharks upon you
I reccomend your [strike]shield grogs[/strike] soldiers will be based on the template for an Almogavar of the Vibria Company. It is a loose template, a good template. Virtues are Almogavar (Free) and Hermetic Experience (Minor), and one Minor Personality Flaw. Abilities are well distributed and good combat scores; with 100xp left to spend at age 30 (or you could say age 25 with no xp left). Equipment can be changed up, and individuals that you want to assign a name to can have additional virtues/flaws and rearranged abilities.
Or maybe not. If you wanna do a lot of work, be my guest.
They can all have Toledo Longswords. So can you, and it can be of higher quality.
All the grogs are based on the vibria template already.
Since Arnau will almost never fight alone in fact there is not much point in granting him anything special for weaponry. In fact he will not be fighting much in any case since he is the leader, not the vanguard and could be equipped with a pillow as a weapon for what it matters, since he will be using Firecasting effects 90% of the time. I am investing 30XP (more than a year's worth of XP) in weapons and armor because I think theuy look cool, not because I need them. I don't since Arnau is not supposed to be a Vanguard anyway but a leader. Those 30XP would be better invested in rising his Leadership score to increase combat totals, not his equipment. Been there, seen that done: look at a leadership 10 (7+2 puissant+1 speciality) character lead a trained group and cower at the +30 bonus he provides to a group of TEN fighters. Now that is the way of the munchkin! Arnau is quite far from there and is investing in useless equipment from a munchkin point of view: it is an equipment that will not be used!
Example comparison using actual characters from the saga:
ROBERTO (regular): Init +3, Atk +11, Def +8 (+11), Dmg +8.
ROBERTO (buffed up): Init +3, Atk +15, Def +22, Dmg +11/+20
Soak (mail hauberk) +11/+14
VIBRIA GROG: Init +3, Atk +13, Def +9 (+11), Dmg +9.
Soak (naked): +3. With armor this goes up to +9 easily.
ARNAU: Init +0, Atk +13, Def +6 (+9), Dmg +11.
Soak (mail hauberk): +14
(all these totals without the nerfing he has to go through)
Arnau is hardly the best fighter around. Roberto is on par with him on MUNDANE combat without spell buffs. His superior weaponry allows him to be on par with the profile you have there for the vibria mercenaries. The ad hoc limit set on him does not sit well with me given the general power level of the saga, but will comply. The funny thing about this whole issue is that all those would have flown under the radar if I had not pointed them out... Well, tough luck. Will shup up from now on.
Kind regards,
Xavier
Not fair to compare a Companion to a Magus. And you can still buy magic items to gain buffs. But you are right, I will retract my nerfing. Just don't over do it.
And you can get almost all of the buffs Roberto is using as lesser enchanted items for less than 100 points.
The thing is, +4 makes me uncomfortable. But I can deal with that, as long as you name it.
IIRC (Serf's Parma!), in C&G, excellent items may add their bonus to more than one skill specialty.
So an excellent cape may increase your Charm (First Impressions) and make you more impressive when using Leadership (Intimidation).
IMO, shields wouldn't add to soak, only defense, but a wicked-looking one could add to intimidation, a clearly visible one could help you coordonate your Leadership (soldiers)
And yes, of course, the second bonus would need to be paid for 
I posted elsewhere a suggestion about increasing cost for quality weapons. Looking at what Xavi wrote, I think you might like it It makes +1 weapons slightly cheaper, +2 as costly, and then, it increases.
On the right here: atlas-games.com/product_tables/AG0293.php
How do fractional Protection ratings work?
Also, I know I owe a response on the Transylvania thread. I'm fighting the flu and not feeling particularly creative at the moment. I'll get something up this weekend.
They protect half the time? 
Good luck with the flu, try to sleep if you can, it helps.
Keep track of it until you get another fractional bonus?
:mrgreen:
Get well soon 
Glad to see Trogdor has already learned the first rule of Andorra - never follow Roberto to a second location. 