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Valden21

Dec 3, 2023 @ 8:06am

Okay, I don't understand this.

My Unarmored skill is in the mid-60's, and my Speed is at around 80. So theoretically, my Armor Rating should be pretty high, right? But It's at 18! Why is it so low? I know about the glitch that requires you to wear one piece of armor for Unarmored to actually have an effect, and I'm wearing Dark Brotherhood boots, but that's all the armor I've got.

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Originally posted by The Flying Rodent:

Originally posted by Valden21:
My Unarmored skill is in the mid-60's, and my Speed is at around 80. So theoretically, my Armor Rating should be pretty high, right? But It's at 18! Why is it so low? I know about the glitch that requires you to wear one piece of armor for Unarmored to actually have an effect, and I'm wearing Dark Brotherhood boots, but that's all the armor I've got.

The short answer is that Unarmoured in Morrowind kinda scales like garbage, not even considering the Unarmoured bug. It's affected only by Unarmoured skill, but scales via a sqaured factor relative '65 AR at level 100 unarmoured'.

I.e. Base AR = Unarmored Skill * Unarmored Skill * 0.0065

This means that with 200 Unarmoured skill (from fortify skill equipment), your armour rating will be 260 (rather than 130). But it 'also' means that with 50 Unarmoured skill, it'll be 16.25 (not 32.5). Then there's also rounding factors to consider , as a lot of calculations in Morrowind tend to round down to the nearest integer (Magicka cost for spells being a notable example, hence the commonly perceived usefulness of '1 magicka cost' spells).

My recommendation would be: Stick with Gloves for Light Armour, and then after that focus on enchanted Fortify Unarmoured gear. Even without armour, you'll still have shirt, pants, belt, shoes, and jewellery to work with (also robe and skirt, but I guess neither are very 'Zorro like'). It's a pity there's no cape...

Another option is to go with Sanctuary + Fortify Agility enchantments, which increases your dodge chance, bypassing the armour issue entirely if fortified high enough. 100 Sanctuary and 180 or so Agility is enough to avoid all attacks from 'any enemy' excluding Werewolves, Hands of Almalexia and Gaenor.

For more info on Enchantments and enchant slots ... check out this cool guide! (that I found another excuse to shamelessly self promote)...

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2834812759

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Showing 1-15 of 25 comments

mbrowne999 Dec 3, 2023 @ 9:33am

Because you're not unarmored :) That was a bug fix in Morrowind Code Patch.

ULTRA

Dec 3, 2023 @ 9:34am

'cuz unarmored sucks. The AR calculation is exponential by the way so you get lower marginal returns at lower levels and higher returns at higher levels, especially when the skill is fortified.

Ghost

Dec 3, 2023 @ 9:35am

Assuming you're not using OpenMW or the MCP? If so, don't need the armour.
----

For Unarmored, Base AR = Unarmored Skill * Unarmored Skill * 0.0065
(Speed is irrelevant to AR)

However we only get a part of that Base AR depending on the filled slots.

Your total AR is actually Chest * 0.3 + (Shield + Head + Legs + Feet + Right Shoulder + Left Shoulder) * 0.1 + (Right Hand + Left Hand) * 0.05

So for skill of 65 we get base AR of ~ 27 (the game seems to round down)

Base AR of 27
x 0.3 = 8 (for chest)
x 0.1 = 2 (x however many slots it's counting, should be 4?) = 8
x 0.05 = 1 (x2 for hands) = 2
= Actual AR of 18.

Dallas S Dec 3, 2023 @ 10:08am

Yeah unarmored doesn't go nearly as high as actual armour types. The advantage being the weight and speed increase and not having to buy armour

Valden21

Dec 3, 2023 @ 10:17am

Okay, but my current build is themed, and Unarmored is a big part of that theme. So what do I need to do in order to boost my armor rating without wearing armor?

Dallas S Dec 3, 2023 @ 10:28am

Originally posted by Valden21:
Okay, but my current build is themed, and Unarmored is a big part of that theme. So what do I need to do in order to boost my armor rating without wearing armor?

Besides fortifying skills and attributes beyond that, you don't. You use the armour rating provided by unarmored and the speed advantage to avoid attacks when you can like an unarmored monk type character would.

Valden21

Dec 3, 2023 @ 10:30am

So what would happen to my armor rating if I enchanted some of my clothing with Fortify Speed and Fortify Unarmored?

Ghost

Dec 3, 2023 @ 10:39am

The speed wouldn't do anything (it's just your movement speed), but fortifying your unarmored skill will increase your rating.

You could also try increasing your Agility and Luck, which will increase your evasion (chance to avoid damage entirely).

Last edited by Ghost; Dec 3, 2023 @ 10:43am

theo

(Banned) Dec 3, 2023 @ 12:26pm

Shield spells and alike. Could also use sanctuary.
If your character theme excludes magic and you want to run around naked - just try to not get hit too much, I suppose. 18 is still not bad

Last edited by theo; Dec 3, 2023 @ 12:29pm

brown_adept has The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

Dec 3, 2023 @ 3:09pm

That method works poorly...Suggestion = Dedrick armor (heavy) + using maxed soul gems to add 'constant use' camoflage to each piece,,,totaling 100% camo. This plus the armor rating makes you a TANK. You cann't do this WITHOUT armor.

#10

Valden21

Dec 3, 2023 @ 3:31pm

Originally posted by brown_adept:
That method works poorly...Suggestion = Dedrick armor (heavy) + using maxed soul gems to add 'constant use' camoflage to each piece,,,totaling 100% camo. This plus the armor rating makes you a TANK. You cann't do this WITHOUT armor.

Two words: themed...playthrough. Specifically, I'm basing this off of Zorro. So Daedric armor wouldn't work, due to it being heavy armor. Any armor I wear, and I can't wear a lot, HAS to be light armor.

Last edited by Valden21; Dec 3, 2023 @ 3:32pm

#11

Other

Dec 3, 2023 @ 4:06pm

For that theme, you likely need to max your Unarmored skill. It isn't terribly hard to train - just find a bunch of weak enemies, preferably with a high attack speed, and stand there while they beat on you, healing as needed. I'm fond of slaughterfish for this, since you can stop the fight by backing out of the water without needing to kill the enemies and find new ones; they also have a really high agro range, so it is easier to gather many of them in one spot.

Even if unarmored is a leveling skill for you, getting it to 100 will only take 4 levels, and that will double or triple your armor rating (60^2 = 3600, while 100^2 = 10000, with the other factors remaining constant, is just less than triple). If you can fortify it more than that, either with constant effect items or temporarily with a spell/cast-when-used item, you should hit 100 AR around 140 skill, and 200 AR is only about 200 skill. The other protective skills are linear, so somewhere in there you will pass the heavy armor user in full Daedric armor and the same skill.

#12

lonetrav Dec 4, 2023 @ 1:25am

Originally posted by Valden21:
Okay, but my current build is themed, and Unarmored is a big part of that theme. So what do I need to do in order to boost my armor rating without wearing armor?

You can't eat the cake and have it :-). What's the point of having a theme, but trying to cheat it?
But seriously, it's not even very difficult to play with a low armour rating - all you have to do is avoid situations were you need a high armour rating (which is possible). Or why did you make Unarmoured a big part of your theme?

#13

Valden21

Dec 4, 2023 @ 8:24am

Originally posted by lonetrav:
Originally posted by Valden21:
Okay, but my current build is themed, and Unarmored is a big part of that theme. So what do I need to do in order to boost my armor rating without wearing armor?
You can't eat the cake and have it :-). What's the point of having a theme, but trying to cheat it?
But seriously, it's not even very difficult to play with a low armour rating - all you have to do is avoid situations were you need a high armour rating (which is possible). Or why did you make Unarmoured a big part of your theme?

Because it's a Zorro theme. To my knowledge, no Zorro media portrays him as wearing armor.

#14