LT Armor: Questions about costs

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by ectropy

Basically, the armoring system seems to work like this: if you have the money, you get the most expensive armor for your TL, because it's lighter or offers more protection.

Even if you have infinite money...not necessarily. Actually, almost never since the most expensive armor at TL 2-4 is ridiculously heavy jousting gear, thanks to the Heavy Plate rule.

Heavy Layered Cloth is certainly the king of its TL if you don't mind the weight. The same could be said for Heavy Scale, but the weight at that point is rather extreme.

TL2 gives us the slightly lighter but still very heavy Segmented Plate, and the light but crushing-sensitive Mail, which both have their strong points depending on what you need.

TL3 doesn't have a rival to Segmented Plate for ultra-heavy protection functionality, but Mail and Plates is a very interesting competitor to prior armors.

TL4, at last, gives us the Plate which really does offer the unequivocal best defense/weight ratio at all levels, if you can pay for it. And don't mind the gaps.