Arkat said:
Remember precise attacks can still be parried!
One thing you failed to note int he comparrison is that the armour penalty applies to parries as well as attacks, so your parries are at a penalty too.
Still, in this case you're right. The barbarian doesn't have much of a chance.
[/quote]Part of the system is finding the balance in armor penalty - weapon skill for each pc at thier respective stage of development. STARTING characters will not be stomping around in Full Plate! Veteran Runelords, sure thing but by that point taking 40% of your 150% attack is worth it.[/quote]
But that's the whole point! At this skill level, an opponent doing a precise attack to ignore all your armour is a no-brainer.
If they both have magical armour protection as well, it suddenly looks very bad indeed for the armoured guy. His magic protection is useless because he's being precise attacked. But to precise attack back, he's got to sacrifice another 40% off his attack chance, down to only a 68% attack.
Once you go up above about 120% in combat skill, and expect to face similarly skilled opponents, armour becomes a huge liability. It only becomes viable again when your skill is about 180%, and you can afford the armour and precise attack penalties combined, but then it's only any use against cannon fodder opponents because anyone that's a real threat will be precise attacking anyway.
You're right that the rules work fine for starting characters, but as they stand armour is worse than useless for more capable characters.
Simon Hibbs