Armor Information

Armor and Damage Mitigation:
Previously in Ultima Online, damage mitigation was calculated based upon where your hit would randomly land (eg. arms, gorget, chest, etc.) and be based upon that piece. Our code has been restructured to simply consider your overall armor; we’ve made armor more useful and improved the ability for the player to determine how effective their armor is by simply glancing at their armor rating.
Increasing armor comes with decreasing rates to meditation and slight dexterity penalties.
Leather armor carries no meditation penalty, studded relatively little. Metal armor carries a much more prominent penalty.

Armor Drain:
Also new to Sanctum is something called “armor drain” that is primarily executed by various macing weapon types and to a lesser extent other weapons. Weapons will exert temporary decreases to an opponent’s armor that are able to stack with each additional blow. As a fight progresses, an opponent will progressively take more damage with less armor to protect them.
Certain weapons, such as the war mace and war hammer are able to drain more armor per swing than others.
Armor drain will “expire” and armor will return to it’s full armor value after a short period of time without sustaining any other armor-draining blows. Armor still possesses durability values and will break over time after sustaining enough damage.

Note: Armor durability is however still determined and decreased based upon a random piece being “hit”. Armor durability is determined by the ingot type; verite and valorite ingots will yield armor and weapons of the highest durability.

Armor and Dexterity Penalty Values:
Please note, all values reflect armor rating of exceptionally crafted items.

 * Orc helmet is comparable.
** Closed metal helmet is comparable.

Parrying:
Parrying no longer determines variation on a shield’s armor rating. The armor rating is static and will provide the same boost to anyone. Shields with greater armor ratings will have heavier dexterity loss consequences, and vice versa.

• Parrying skill now determines the chance for a player to parry a blow. Parrying a blow decreases the damage that blow inflicts.
• Players with parrying may also mitigate some of the damage done by spells against monsters.