[Agon] A question about armour.

[Robert Ahrens]

Hi John.

Agon rocks.  You have the consistent pimping of Jonathan Walton at SGB to thank for my purchase, and so do I -- I think this is one of the best games I've read and I'm excited to put it through its paces.

The FAQ material here and at the Wiki is very helpful.  That said, I have one question that I have not yet seen the answer for:

What happens to impaired armour?

Specifically, as armour protects its die type is reduced.  I get that.  What I don't get are:

1) Is there a way to restore impaired armour other than "go back to the ship" or "take some from a dead guy"?
2) If I am wearing two pieces of armour and have an Armour Die of d8, then that die gets impaired to d6 then is one of the pieces I'm wearing "damaged"?  Can I doff that piece and lose its penalty?  Or are they both "a bit" damaged?
3) What if I'm wearing two pieces of armour and one gets damaged, as above, and then I put on a third piece of armour?  Does my Armour Die go back up to 1d8?

Hope this isn't too pedantic.  It's just that it's about the only thing which isn't crystal clear to me from the rules text and the FAQ.

Looking forward to getting a chance to play Agon sometime soon.

Cheers,

Robert.

[Darren Hill]

These questions came up in my games too.

1) Armour impairment is recovered just like any other impairment, via Refreshments. Think of it as the characters taking some time to hammer out the dents and the like. It makes just as much sense as having an archery contest to recover your music ability.

2 & 3) I'm not sure if this is official, but here's how I do it:
Your base armour die is calculated from the number of pieces worn - it doesn't matter what they are.
Then, you reduce that by the number of impairments.

So, let's say you're wearing a helm and a breastplate, and have an armour die of d8.
You take an impairment, so you're armour is now d6.

You think, "aha, if I drop the breastplate and helm, and put on some greaves, I'll have d6 armour."
"Not so," says the Adversary. "You'll be wearing one piece of armour, and have 1 impairment, so that's d4."
"But," you say, "my greaves can't have been damaged!"
"I don't care," says the Adversary. "Them's the rules."

But you're not to be foiled so easily, and say, "okay, I dump my armour and take up some armour from the foe I've just defeated."
"Hmmmm," says the Adversary. "Hmmmmm."
In this case, I think I'd rule that the impairment is still kept. Obviously the defeated foe's armour was dented, too. Or the new armour is a bit ill-fitting and needs adjusting. Whatever.

[John Harper]

Hey Robert,

Thanks for the kind words. I'm glad you're digging Agon. I think Jonathan Walton has accounted for 30% of my sales. I should bake him some cookies or something.

Darren has it exactly right. Armor impairment is like any other kind of impairment, and you refresh it the same way. It's certainly not realistic, but, like Darren shows, you can describe it in a pretty convincing way if you need to.

Looks like I need to update the FAQ. Thanks for the question!

- J

[Robert Ahrens]

Thanks for the answers, folks.

You know why I got confused?  I originally assumed armour worked this way, and then I saw that on the character sheet the "Armour Die" box didn't have the small boxes around it for tracking impairment.

Boom.  I was instantly convinced that that meant there was no way that die could be impaired.

Funny how much you (ie. I) account these little things.

Cheers,

R.

[John Harper]

Yes, I really need to update that sheet. It's confusing the way it is.