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I was somewhat disappointed to see that Scaly Skin was not changed atall in the new edition. Why is Scaly Skin a special rule, when it is exactly the same as an armor save?

Here are my thoughts on how to make Scaly Skin actually *special*

- Immune to Fire based weapons/attacks/magic.

- Suffers one less armor modifier than normal. Thus, a Strength 6 weapon that would normally modify armor by -3, modifies Scaly Skin by only -2, and a Strength 4 weapon would allow the wearer to make an unmodified save. This represents the sheer toughness of Scaly Skin.

- A rider may use the benefit of his Large Target Monster Mount's Scaly Skin save. This represents the rider ducking behind his mount, or the mount protecting its master with its wings, etc.

- Scaly Skin does not benefit from additional mundane armor. A Scaly Skin of 5+ does not get any benefit from having a shield, for example.

Any thoughts or comments?

I agree with all but the fire immunity, for fluff reasons. Not all Scaly Skin would be dragon-scale tough; it would be better as a separate rule. Otherwise, looks good to me.

I think it's one of those things they simplified for ease of game play. Scaly skin is basically like wearing another layer of armor, so having it stack with armor makes sense.

I like the idea of scaly skin saves having one less strength modifier as normal. That is cool and unique.

 

 

Posted By MascisMan on 09/12/2006 2:37 PM

I like the idea of scaly skin saves having one less strength modifier as normal. That is cool and unique.

 

 

Maybe. But I can't think of anything that has scaly skin that really needs more protection. Just about everything with scales is dead hard already.

Well, just as a note, it's a "Scaley" save so that there can be Dragonslaying Swords that modify scaley saves but not "normal" armour saves.

Sounds like unnecessary complication. Scaley skin is an armor save. It is unique in that it can be stacked with other armor. Why add more mess? If anything, the fire resistance would be a neat upgrade- Slimey Skin.

Hmmm... interesting... But i won't use it 'coz it just adds more mess.

jmurph wrote:Sounds like unnecessary complication. Scaly skin is an armor save. It is unique in that it can be stacked with other armor.

That's all it is, really. Oldbloods for instance can have Scaly + Light armour + shield + cold one. Scaly + light is what they get instead of Heavy.

The modifier rule is neat, tho. It stacks nicely with the T4 and the 4+ Ward Save item. Saurus are just plain tough, basically.

I think that this falls apart a little with saurus warriors (and to a lesser degree the characters) as they come with shields by default. In this case, the only weapons that they could use would be two handed ones or two hand ones. Neither of which contribute to the idea of keeping superiority of numbers (which is what they are there for after all). Temple guard would=the nasty though...

AS was stated, scaly skin is unique because it can be combined with normal armor. Oldbloods and Scar-Vets are effectively wearing heavy armor before they ever put on their light armor. Add in a spawning of Quetzl and they get Chaos Armor, plus Light Armor and Shield. Scaly Skin is unique in that regard.

The one thing I wish they would bring back is the rule that Scaly Skin could not be reduced beyond a 6+, that seemed to be another good distinction between Scaly Skin and normal armor.

Famder wrote:The one thing I wish they would bring back is the rule that Scaly Skin could not be reduced beyond a 6+, that seemed to be another good distinction between Scaly Skin and normal armor.

That's a cool way of doing it.

Temple guard are=the nasty now.

I like the suggestion, but I guess I wonder how it's overly complicated as it stands now?

Scaly skin is the 3rd armor you can have. It does seem a little odd to get better armor with more layers of the same stuff, but that's my DND background yelling at me. lol

It's not the same stuff, in D&D terms one is an Armor bonus the other is a Natural Armor bonus, which makes sense that it stacks.

I miss the days where skinks had a 6+ scale AS too.