Armor Rating Question

[mph66]

I've got a question about armor rating. My armor rating is a 28. But if you total my armor, I should be at least at a 40, that's not including my natural armor rating. I'm playing a ranger and I have 47 dex, speed 10, conc 41. Shouldn't my armor rating be higher than a 28? And when I look at character stats, it's in red. According to the user's manual, red means cursed or something, but I'm not seeing "cursed" in the status window. Also, I've got skills in light armor (4) shields (4) and heavy armor (1) so there shouldn't be any penalty for anything I'm wearing. I've got dragon skin armor (9+3) boiled leather gloves (3+3) dragon skin skullcap (7+3) studded reptile hide boots (6+3) immune steel-studded leather (4+3) fire-resistant leather studded belt(3+3) and a boiled leather heavy cloak (4+3). I've used harden armor (alchemy) to add +3 to all pieces. My character is level 23 and I've yet to enter Talushorn (hanging out in the Copper Rift grinding on harpies does wonders for leveling up). Any ideas why my AR is so low? Help! This ranger should be kicking @$$ right now.

[ManusDei]

Your armor rating being in red means your armor is damaged.
So go to a blacksmith and have it repaired

[mph66]

Hrm...should it be damaged if I'm playing "no damage"? I'm playing on the easiest level (fixing armor and having to eat slows down my gameplay- just MHO). Also, folks, I quicktraveled back to Port Kuudad and the healer sez I'm not cursed or infected, so I'm clean!

[Kreador Freeaxe]

The armor may not wear with use, but if you picked it up with lower than perfect quality, you will still need to have it repaired for optimal armor rating. Check the quality of your pieces of armor. Once repaired, they will stay repaired with your settings, but it does not make everything perfect when you find it.

[mph66]

Wow. You were right! I went to see Big Sal and lo and behold, he repaired all my equipped items for 360 gp and voila! No more red. My AR is now 68 and 78 (presets 1 and 2). I've always played "no damage" however, and this is the first time this has happened to me. Very odd.

[mph66]

Thanks for the help, guys. For future reference, how to you check the condition of your armor?

[xolotl]

Interesting; I'd actually consider this behavior a bug. When you're playing with the "degrade armor" option, you're shown the item state when you mouseover it in your inventory (or the equip window), so you can tell immediately if something needs repair or not. That simply isn't shown when you're not playing with the option, though, so there's no way that you'd know if anything needs repairing.

IMO armor and weapons should never be in a degraded state unless you're playing with that option.

[mph66]

Well, I can understand, though, that upon picking up the item it might need repair, but once repaired, it should stay that way if you're playing "no damage" but there should be some indicator. Especially since I frequently go "chest fishing" by saving before opening a chest, and then reloading the game until I get what I want out of the Cracker Jack box.

[xolotl]

Actually, what version of the game are you running? I'm having trouble reproducing this on 1.04 - the only item I've found so far which actually has a "max health" that it has to live up to was the initial Sword that I found in a chest in the starting location.

[mph66]

I'm running 1.04 on a MacBook.

[CrazyBernie]

IJBall, add it to the list!

[IJBall]

IJBall, add it to the list!

I thought about it. But I'm holding off until someone else can reproduce this effect, and explain in a little more detail exactly what happens and how it manifests...

Update: Finally added to the 'bug' list, after xolotl followed up on this issue.