I have seen the spells that increase the durability/hardness and decrease the physical weight of armor.
I have not seen any spells that increase the load a person can carry or any that make small changes to fit a body to an armor rather than an armor to a body.
Is it a limit or is there no guideline for this?
I was looking at MuCo Level 3: Utterly change the appearance or size of a person.
These are thoughts after a bit of RP, I was trying to make a spell MuCoAn to grow/change skin into chitinous (beetle) armor.... well, I was testing it on a dead guy and thinking that it could be a base pattern for full plate-like armor.
Is there anybody that have done something like this, I'll need to stat it as a spell and I have no idea what it should be.
There are MuCo guidelines for increasing your Soak value - which is exactly what armor does.
An example spell for that is Gift of the Bear's Fortitude (MuCo 25)
Thanks, and sorry, I may not have been clear. So the spell would be like or almost exactly like Gift of Bears fortitude, here is where (I'm not sure how to say this) the weirdness comes in.
So you now have a dead bug person with some foresight you make the body equivalent in size and shape as a companion or grog.. then you... Chirurgy the armor off and get a smith to make a armor pattern.
My question is what kind of stats will the armor have or is it just a short cut to making full plate armor
It will have whatever stats your troupe/SG thinks would be appropriate. There are no official rules for that.
I doubt it would be any better than what the armorsmith could make by normal methods though.
Muto magic is not normally permanent, so I cannot see how your proposal could work.
You could, possibly, ritually CrAn a beetle's armour onto a person, and then surgically remove it.
Stats? I don't think it would be very different from canon plate armour (or is such anachronistic armour no longer canon)? The protection/load ratio of canon expensive armour is probably ok to use. It is not going to be less cumbersome than plate armour, even though it might be a tad lighter. A protection around chain/plate somewhere.
Since this is entirely unprecedented, you cannot be much wrong if you just wing it.
Well, the first problem has been resolved by keeping the "specimen" in a 3 pace wide circle of sustain the demanding spell.
The thinking was that the exoskeleton on and insect is so well made that is would shave off a lot of time for an armorer to develop closefitting segments of plates to protect the wearer if he has a excellent example to work from.
The original thought was to MuCo a person into an armor for a perfect fit, to wear it like it was a second skin. Then the counter was that the knowledge and resources have not come to that point yet, and so I searched for and example in nature.
So as an example, a spell that widens the shoulders and hips and toughens the muscles skin in those areas as the those are the load points on armor normally would facilitate a more comfortable experience. ie reducing the load associated with wearing armor.
Also a spell along the line of The Poet’s Bust ReTe 5 will let you make copies of the armor segments in stone or metal
Right. You throw in quite a few different questions here. There seems to be three use cases, is that right?
Something parallel to the Bear's Fortitude. I agree, this gives less load/encumbrance than an armour to take off and on. It is probably going to be more load than the Bear analogy, since the human anatomy is more bear-like than beetle-like.
Making a mould or template for an armourer to make metal armour. No, I do not think this is going to reduce encumbrance. It is still a loose set of plates, to which the body is not designed.
Making a beetle armour which can be taken on or off. Are you really satisfied with circle duration for that purpose?
At first I was panning on making a spell that reduces the load of armor focusing on a MuCo affect since some of the load is due to the discomfort and awkwardness of moving in armor.
Then I was reminded that I "found" a dead guy and he's been kept fresh in storage.
So I wanted to see what a human with a "natural" exoskeleton would look like.
It looked good so I wanted to have one made out of metal, thus is was "removed" for examination...
(you know, the stuff I/we pull in RPG's sometimes I think writing them down should get me on a list somewhere)
So in point 1, yes that was correctly deduced.
point 2 yes on the first part and the second, yes it was literally designed for the body.
point 3 that was just to keep the effect going while it was being examined and templated.
and it could be with some MuCo My brain is weird, and I am sorry.
There was a reason why this was a confusing and rambling 2-3 parts in one post conversation.
Sure, but that adaptation holds only for the duration, as per (1), and is of no help for cases (2) and (3).
If you want to go that route, you are probably better off doing a full MuAn into (say) a cricket. Those extra limbs have excellent combat potential, so why do you settle for just its armour? What better defence can you imagine but sword, shield, and quarterstaff? Or for the more offensive stance, there is the three-handed claymore and shield. Cf. WorldTree.
Yeah, you are correct. I'm just scratching an itch for perfectly comfortable armor.
The MuCo spell is actually what you enchant the armor with to have a flawless segmented metal skin.
It could be done in so many ways, I just found it weird that all the improvement spells for armor focus on making it harder or lighter and nothing at all on the user.
Skin tight full plate, segmented and flexible under enchanted robes. What a figure you'd cut.
I have plans for an animated blob of pine tar armor in another post, my first post
I'll experiment on that first since my mage has the chops now to test something like that.
First, both using MuCo the user or MuAn the armor (or MuFo any armor with the appropiate form for that matter) are valid ways to get the same thing, but my gut keeps saying "no way, change the armor, not the user". There are two reasons for that; first that someone expecting to be in combat performance would probably decrease the more you change him for his usual shape and state: think that combat involves a lot of movement of your body. The more you change it, the more these movements would feel odd or just be wrong. The second, that a botch will probably be less inconvenient on a spell cast on the armor. That's my logic, not rules. I guess on my table I'd probably put you an extra botch dice or two and move on.
On the other hand the reason to go with the other approach of making the user fit the armor is way more odd, and so colourful, and that's always good, so whatever.
And second, when I read "decrease the physical weight of armor" I keep thinking that that would probably not work as intended. Armors (and weapons, for that matter) work because you put something hard between the incoming weapon and the flesh, but also because they actually weight, and that weight puts inertia and kinetic energy to play against the hit (or for it, in weapons). A sword (or an axe, which is an even better example) cuts not just because it is sharp, but because it is a tool build to apply a lot of force through that sharp edge, and that's why it is so important to have a balanced sword, which is a sword with the weight properly placed. For armors I suspect that there must be something less obvious but also important regarding their weight being required to absorb properly and distribute the force of an impact in a less damaging way.
I mean I'm strongly against weightless armors (and weapons), and you mentioned them, but back to the beetle armor, what I said: I would never do that by default, but it seems quite cool for someone else to do.
I only partially agree with your view on the weight, full pate is only around 50lb in total.
Armor is used to deflect, absorb blows and to spread impacts over larger areas.
So the actual weight is not so much the point, unless it's for the sake of comfort.
The most discomfort would come from the thickly padded under armor, it is also the main working part of the armor.
The exoskeleton (bug armor) suit and the corresponding MuCo spell was supposed to "grow" the under armor to fill the manufactured shell, though now that I'm phrasing it like this it might be CrCo... anyway, that was my thoughts.
I would argue in mythic Europe physics, armour stops things mostly because it is heavy. Plate does better than chain, chain does better than leather. The heavier the armour, the better the protection. A weightless armour, would lose a lot of it's protective powers.
It's all about thinking other ways how to get what you want.
The unchafed man Muto Corpus.
The target's skin become tough enough to be immune to all chafing effects. While many think the person who originated this spell, was trying to get his grogs onside by making wearing armour irritation free, he was just annoyed at getting blisters every time he got new shoes.
The comfortable man Perdo Mentem sun duration
All minor irritants which don't cause serious long term damage are removed from the mind of the target.
The elegant man Muto Imaginem with a mentem requisite
Anyone looking at the target see someone wearing the most splendid version of what they are wearing, being armour or clothes, and even a sackcloth, will look tailored to fit.
I know this is nowhere near what you want, I am just having some fun.
Why? Heavy armor doesn't provide more protection in the real world, so why would it in Mythic Europe?
(Exception is helmets, where weight and the accompanying inertia does help to protect against some types of damage)
There is an example spell for reducing the weight of an armor already, see Hauberk of Sublime Lightness (HoH:S p. 38). Reducing the weight doesn't impact the protection offered by the armor.
My brain is weird, and I am sorry.