Sword & Scoundrel - Early Thursday Teaser Edition

[thorgarth]

Regarding what you said about the possible benefits of using lighter armor. Well yes, you need to spend a higher priority to have access to heavier armor but that only applies at the start... After game starts one can always adquire heavy armor without such restraints, and if heavy armor was so much better, under every condition and without exception, that would happen 24/7.

Depending on what a kind of game one runs.

If its DnD ported to 'Scoundrels, then yes, you can always go and buy the suit after Da 1st or 2nd Dungeon. Just teasing.

If its not that kind of game, then its not that easy to acquire that plate suit. One has to raise his financial status AND social status to afford it and not be persecuted or scorned for using battle gear. One could steal it and flee from the Law for it. So no, it won't happen "under every condition and without exception".

To be more exact, in most high fantasy games this statement is true. 'Bastards and 'Scoundrels aim at more down-to-Earth gritty situations. Yet nothing prevents you from running high fantasy with it.

The example you gave on point 2 it´s a bit biased. By giving the fighter wearing the gambeson higher skills/atribute you create a false sensation of the overall impact of the use of heavy armor. After all if both were identical in terms of stats the diference in the dice pool would only be -3 for the fighter wearing full plate and not near half.

With all the above in mind, I believe that claiming the example is biased is a bit extreme. As I said above, an endless string of "what-ifs".

Still I'll answer to your querry.

A 3 dice difference would mean that the unarmored guy would have 3 extra dice to do any of the following

• Position for effect, giving a Disadvantage on his armored foe
• Favor an unarmored vital and retain 2 extra dice
• Fuel a 2AC maneuver, like Counter
• Overinvest with bigger chance of higher MoS
• Preempt and strike a vulnerable location

It should be noted that a full plate suit covers everything but armpits, face, crown, and back of the knees. With a closed helm you get to -4. You can also spend one extra die to cover either armpits or back of knees. That's -5CP.

Still a 3dice difference is not small. It is significant.

Because if they both have 16CP it becomes 13v16. With the overinvesting scenario above that could eaily be 7v11 during first tempo.

Which means 74.842% MoS1 for the unarmored guy vs 14.355% MoS1 for the armored guy. I rest my case.

As it stands fighting lightly isn´t "the thing" because there is no benefit in fighting lighter than your normal "bulk limit", meaning all is the same be you wearing no armor and fighting with a short sword or using a armor and heavier weapon IF it doesn´t pass your base Brawn threshold. This realities are not the same thing.

That's why I support thirtythr33's proposal over the current write up. Because it penalizes more evenly all Brawn ranks, without making low-med Brawn / stellar Reflex builds less desirable.

Overall I agree with the need for a greater balance, but bear in mind that a stronger opponent it´s just that stronger, and that should be reflected in the mechanics. Taking for instance a PC with Brawn 5 vs one with Brawn 10, it´s just the double of it´s brawn statistic, and THAT should have a very definitive impact.

The major diference between us seems to be the fact that I prefer a scale going from + to neutral to -. depending on how light or heavy you are, while you prefer to start at 0 and work your way down to negative from that point.

Just a last remark regarding the accessibility of heavy armor, pointing out that D&D has been out of my gameplans for... say, the last 22 years or so, based in no small part exactly by the way armor is mechanically treated (as to hit difficulty vs soaking). But just take into consideration what you propose regarding the usefulness of heavy armor, which then postulates that it will be more common than in other game settings. Even if not full suits of armor with Sallet Helm with Throat Guard, many soldiers and mercenaries will have pieces of plate (and other heavy layered armors such as Coat of Lames, Coat of Plates, Lames, etc...). I reckon it won´t be very hard to acquire some pieces of heavy armor in no time.

As for the number of locations I must say I´m fine with either 26 or 34 or 28. In MML we have 46 locations. And bear in mind that armor can (and in most cases is) be layered, which means that it´s VERY detailed, especially considering that there´s several types of material that can be used (e.g. wrought iron, common steel, great steel, high steel, and plate, for instance, could be of light, medium or heavy thickness, with 7 armor values each for different type of damage).

... and it almost passed my mind. Will the new Draft actually eliminate the exploding dice mechanic as it was hinted somewhere above? That change alone has huge repercussions on overall chance of success, especially at lower levels of skill/traits, in dice pool mechanics.

[Benedict]

As it stands fighting lightly isn´t "the thing" because there is no benefit in fighting lighter than your normal "bulk limit", meaning all is the same be you wearing no armor and fighting with a short sword or using a armor and heavier weapon IF it doesn´t pass your base Brawn threshold. This realities are not the same thing.

That's why I support thirtythr33's proposal over the current write up. Because it penalizes more evenly all Brawn ranks, without making low-med Brawn / stellar Reflex builds less desirable.

Overall I agree with the need for a greater balance, but bear in mind that a stronger opponent it´s just that stronger, and that should be reflected in the mechanics. Taking for instance a PC with Brawn 5 vs one with Brawn 10, it´s just the double of it´s brawn statistic, and THAT should have a very definitive impact.

The major diference between us seems to be the fact that I prefer a scale going from + to neutral to -. depending on how light or heavy you are, while you prefer to start at 0 and work your way down to negative from that point.

Just a heads up. With the previous writeup you added your entire Strength (same as Brawn) score to damage and soak. Scores ranged 1-5, with a singular choice of getting a score of 6, and that only with a Top Priority Pick.

Which means that you had a damage/soak modifier from +1 to +6, plus weapon/armor used, plus MoS.

With the current write up tapping works like this:
0-3 = +0 D
4-6 = +1 D
7-9 = +2 D
10+ = +3 D

Which means that a Brawn 5 adds +1 to damage and soak, plus weapon/armor, plus MoS. Likewise Brawn 10 gets +3.

On the other hand if they both carry Bulk 10 - with the proposed Encumbrance mechanic - Brawn 5 gets -5 Combat Pool, and +5 REQ on physical tests, while Brawn 10 gets -0/+0 respectively.

Should they rise Bulk to 13 (heaviest armor and helmet, 6 weapons, a backpack full of stuff, etc) Brawn 5 is at -8/+8, while Brawn 10 is at -3/+3.

I already illustrated why a -3CP is big. A -5 is gargantuan. Not only because 1 REQ is worth 2 Dice instead of 1. A +5REQ difference equals 10 freakin' dice.

The way I see it the proposed Encumbrance system is inconsistent with the rules already presented. That's why I'm bitching about it that much.

Anyway, enough with my sensibilities.



No, the reason we argue is because there is a gap in understanding. Mind you, I'm not trying to insult anyone here, just stating the obvious.

We have played with the 'Bastards rules for over a year and brainstorming on the 'Scoundrels set for some months. While you haven't.

All these are evident by this last remark.

... and it almost passed my mind. Will the new Draft actually eliminate the exploding dice mechanic as it was hinted somewhere above? That change alone has huge repercussions on overall chance of success, especially at lower levels of skill/traits, in dice pool mechanics.

The new mechanic eliminates exploding dice - period. That's why everyone here doesn't really bother with this fact. It is a given.

If interested download the current 'Scoundrels Beta from here: Sword&ScoundrelBook1.pdf

You need both 'Bastards and 'Scoundrels to make it tick as it is. I'm sure that you'll get many questions reading the Betas.

Going through the Playtesting section will help you immensely understanding things that might confuse you.

The 'Scoundrels subforum has 16 Topics with 598 posts, the 'Bastards 23 Topics with 844 posts. I understand that its a lot of reading. If you need any help regarding any of these you can always either PM me, or even better, post in a Public place like Playtesting.

[thirtythr33]

As for the question of how to layout the Armor section, I think I would fill mine out like this, for this guy:



He's wearing AV4 armor, not 6.
I'm adding my BTV into my AV rating in the armor section, so I don't have to math every time I am hit.
(I would also add my BTV into my weapon DRs).
I'd include armor properties Metal (M) and Rigid (R), so I don't have to look at my possessions when I'm hit.
If I get hit with some grappling maneuver that ignores armor, I just look at my BTV value instead of my AV.

[taelor]

I think this discussion has been greatly confused by the focus on a hypothetical Gregor Clegane/Joan of Arc fight. The typical armored soldier was neither a 120 pound farm girl, nor a 400 pound behemoth. First, let's examine how the rules handle the most likely situations, then we can worry about edge-cases.

Suppose I want to make a knight character, and I'm trying to decide whether to favor Agility, Cunning or Brawn in my character's attributes. Of course, any knight worth his salt should have all three of these stats in some amount, but suppose I have a point or two left over, and am trying to decide what to do with them. I want to make a combat character, so how each of these is likely to effect my character's combat pool will likely be an important factor in how I decide to allocate my spare points. Each additional point in Agility or Cunning increases my CP by half a point. Under the current encumbrance system, each additional point of Brawn increases my CP by a full point, up to the total bulk of whatever kit I choose for my character, which considering I'm trying to make an armored knight, is likely to be substantial. From a purely CP oriented perspective, it would seem like, on the margins, favoring Brawn would be superior to Agility or Cunning. Of course, CP isn't the be all and the end all of a character -- even a combat character; Agility and Cunning have important uses besides adding dice to the combat pool, but so does Brawn. The question, then, is: do the other benefits of Agility and Cunning outweigh the the other benefits of Brawn by enough to make up for the CP disadvantage that comes with those stats?

[Benedict]

Ok, did some tinkering on the Record Sheet.

Page 1

Killed NPCs tab entirely, moved Property/Assets/Coin to front.

Page 2

Massive overhaul. Arms went to the left, Wheels and Armor became one entry, significantly resized BTV so there's no excuse missing it (as I did first time through the sheet), threw in the vitruvian man (couldn't help it), Armor entries arranged by Wheel, added Back and Hamstring locations, threw a Load Penalty entry on bottom to compensate for proposed encumbrance tweak. Oh, and Logo gets display on top right again.

Of course, CP isn't the be all and the end all of a character -- even a combat character; Agility and Cunning have important uses besides adding dice to the combat pool, but so does Brawn. The question, then, is: do the other benefits of Agility and Cunning outweigh the the other benefits of Brawn by enough to make up for the CP disadvantage that comes with those stats?

Agreed. However the Devil is in the details. The proposed Encumbrance system says "-1 Combat Pool / +1 REQ on physical activities". So it's not a matter of CP. It's the REQ increase that really gets into my eye.

[higgins]

Ok, did some tinkering on the Record Sheet.
/--/
Killed NPCs tab entirely, moved Propert/Assets/Coin to front.

Interesting tonal shift. Before, if you printed the sheet and folded it in half, all you could see is who you are as a person and who you know (a very deliberate choice from us, btw). Now you can see who you are as a person and what you own.

[thirtythr33]

What is the point of having separate entries for Left vs Right Neck or Groin for example?

I would definitely put Blood and TN shifts under the WOUNDS heading instead across the top.

And if the Enc system does get tweaked, it would need boxes below the load penalty to write in the multiples of your Brawn to compare Bulk to.

And your not a bastard unless you use this guy:

Before, if you printed the sheet and folded it in half, all you could see is who you are as a person and who you know (a very deliberate choice from us, btw). Now you can see who you are as a person and what you own.

The NPCs can hide wherever you are putting the Faction sheet (spoilers, in the roll20 video)

(PS: Agamemnon and higgins, I'm so sorry for what Benedict and I are doing. You can't even put out a spoiler character sheet without us starting all this mess. )

[thorgarth]

We have played with the 'Bastards rules for over a year and brainstorming on the 'Scoundrels set for some months. While you haven't.

All these are evident by this last remark.

... and it almost passed my mind. Will the new Draft actually eliminate the exploding dice mechanic as it was hinted somewhere above? That change alone has huge repercussions on overall chance of success, especially at lower levels of skill/traits, in dice pool mechanics.

The new mechanic eliminates exploding dice - period. That's why everyone here doesn't really bother with this fact. It is a given.

No doubt my knowledge of the system is severely impaired compared to you guys. Hence some of the questions.

On the other hand some issues really stand.

You stated that SaS abolished Exploding dice mechanics, but you didn´t state how that decision was weighted with the necessary adjustments to make it work. Like I said, exploding dice mechanics always have a great impact on the overall chances of success in dice pool systems with dynamic Requisites, simply because some Req´s ay be higher than the possible number of dice in your pool, making success impossible. Yes, you may tap in some situations, you may receive help, but only in some situations. not always. I´m not saying it´s the wrong choice, what I´m saying is that it´s a major modification in the game design, though I reckon it seems well accepted by the community. Personally I´ve always liked the idea of exploding dice.

Like I said. Anxious to check the new Beta release when it comes to light. For now I´ve started reading BoB beta to understand the fundamentals.

[Benedict]

(PS: Agamemnon and higgins, I'm so sorry for what Benedict and I are doing. You can't even put out a spoiler character sheet without us starting all this mess. )

I second that!

And your not a bastard unless you use this guy:

Now I am really shocked!

That heretical bastard wears a loincloth for crying out loud.

The original is more sexy! Everything in plain view!

Jokes aside, the original is easier to convert to vector and add transparency to it.

And if the Enc system does get tweaked, it would need boxes below the load penalty to write in the multiples of your Brawn to compare Bulk to.

Something like this?


Anyway, its not perfect, but you all get the general idea.

On the other hand some issues really stand.

You stated that SaS abolished Exploding dice mechanics, but you didn´t state how that decision was weighted with the necessary adjustments to make it work. Like I said, exploding dice mechanics always have a great impact on the overall chances of success in dice pool systems with dynamic Requisites, simply because some Req´s ay be higher than the possible number of dice in your pool, making success impossible. Yes, you may tap in some situations, you may receive help, but only in some situations. not always. I´m not saying it´s the wrong choice, what I´m saying is that it´s a major modification in the game design, though I reckon it seems well accepted by the community. Personally I´ve always liked the idea of exploding dice.

Well, long story short, the exploding concept had to go because explosions mutate probabilities into Ravenous Beasts of Chaos. And that's bad. There have been endless debates on these matters. I will point you to the right direction:

Current Direction and Skills
Chewing on proficiencies, maneuvers, and combat
Bastards 0.2 - Attribute-Skill Change Discussion - Feedback Wanted

These massive threads contain some excellent points about probabilities, die penalties, exploding vs non-exploding, among other things. I suggest you go through them. You are free to pick up the conversation/debate there instead of here.

This helps keeping things in their respective place and makes everyone's life easier, instead of going back and forth various threads. Thanks.

[Agamemnon]

thirtythr33 wrote:
(PS: Agamemnon and higgins, I'm so sorry for what Benedict and I are doing. You can't even put out a spoiler character sheet without us starting all this mess. )

I second that!

So I sat up with Barbarossa and kicked around ideas for a while. Luckily, it was also my birthday so I had a fresh supply of whiskey over which to mull the topic.

The following design parameters had to be met:

• At the extreme example (plate armor), armor must incur some kind of penalty regardless of the character's physical stature...
• But it also can't be such a high penalty that the weakest possible character wouldn't wear plate. The acceptable range for this modifier appears to be 1-3CP penalty for a full suit of plate.
• Brawn needs to be involved, not only because it's literally the "how strong are you" stat, but because it also incentivizes people to take a Brawn that isn't 4 or 7. Of all the attributes, I've found Brawn to be the least rolled. It only ever really comes up if there's a heavy thing to be moved or something to be bent/broken down.
• We need to avoid d20 style armor min-maxing, where there is an optimal attributes v. armor combination to take which your character would naturally prefer against all others.
• We need to avoid anything that accidentally puts us back at obvious "character building" territory.
• The system needs to remain simple enough that the it can be used while actively in-play, with math that can be done at a glance. This immediately discounts any options where item bulk gets fiddly or we start getting into double-digit calculations to work out the total modifiers. It's not that people can't do math, it's not that people can't do math. It's that encumbrance tracking is the least sexy kind of bookkeeping and if you make people stop and think about it for more than a few seconds, they just won't bother tracking encumbrance at all.

Given those parameters, the following seemed like the least worst option:

Leave bulk the same, but split armor off into its own category. Each item has a bulk ranging from insignificant to cumbersome (0-2) with insignificant items not really needing to be tracked unless the character is wearing them as a readied item, and most things just being a "significant" 1 bulk item.

Your total bulk is reduced by Brawn. If that result is negative or zero, you just write in zero.

Armor is now it's own thing. It works on the exact same scale that it did in the previous draft (see: the Dueling Kit) but with a tweak. Your Grit tap value reduces the penalty for armor bulk. This works out well since a suit of full plate is 3 and a closed helm is 1. It's mechanically impossible under the normal character generation rules to have a GTV higher than 2, so someone in heavy armor will always feel a penalty from it.

The total of armor bulk (if positive) and item bulk (if positive) is your encumberance.

This adds a separate step, by comparison to the old way of doing it, but retains the strengths of the original idea. Because Brawn now only counts for items carried, Brawn is important but suffers diminishing returns outside of its role in improving Grit. One can't even really argue that "this will just make people spam grit!" because at that point, it's not worth it mathematically. to get to Grit 2 is 14 points of your attributes, whether that's Brawn 10/ Will 4 or Brawn 7, Will 7, and you'd at best be getting +2 CP out of it. Those same 14 points in Agility and Cunning would get you +7CP.

Amusingly, this also means that a fighting type now needs 4 out of 5 attributes -- unless they are an archer/gunman/etc in which case they need all 5 attributes in some proportion.

As an added side-effect, making armor bulk track separately from item bulk means that you can choose to ignore one of those without ignoring the other. If your players are only ever really carrying their sidearm and a knife or whatever, then you don't need to worry about that section.

Benedict wrote:
Ok, did some tinkering on the Record Sheet.
/--/
Killed NPCs tab entirely, moved Propert/Assets/Coin to front.

Interesting tonal shift. Before, if you printed the sheet and folded it in half, all you could see is who you are as a person and who you know (a very deliberate choice from us, btw). Now you can see who you are as a person and what you own.

Yeah. That was quite deliberate. I think you may be undervaluing how important NPCs can be in a game like this. Every character in my test campaign has a number of NPCs on their sheet. Half my GM prep at this point comes out of a relationship map.

Agreed. However the Devil is in the details. The proposed Encumbrance system says "-1 Combat Pool / +1 REQ on physical activities". So it's not a matter of CP. It's the REQ increase that really gets into my eye.

The main thought on that is that we don't penalize dice pools on ability checks anywhere else. If the task itself is harder we increase the req. If it's an extremely situational thing (particularly involving state of mind or the like) then it's a dis/advantage. Adding +1 req is easier than mentally juggling +1r for task difficulty but also -1d encumbrance, but take an advantage for...

In combat, it's a -1 because combat already has you doing a ton of dice juggling so it is easier to just reduce the pool by X.

[Benedict]

So I sat up with Barbarossa and kicked around ideas for a while. Luckily, it was also my birthday so I had a fresh supply of whiskey over which to mull the topic.

Oh! Happy birthday! Hope we didn't ruin your b-day man!

It's not that people can't do math. It's that encumbrance tracking is the least sexy kind of bookkeeping and if you make people stop and think about it for more than a few seconds, they just won't bother tracking encumbrance at all.

And I'll be the first that won't bother with specific encumbrance and all. That's why I loved the "CP Penalty" thing going on with 'Bastards.

Amusingly, this also means that a fighting type now needs 4 out of 5 attributes -- unless they are an archer/gunman/etc in which case they need all 5 attributes in some proportion.

Which is a good thing if you ask me. In essence this works as endurance/fatigue, without having to track rounds and all.

Ok, did some tinkering on the Record Sheet.
/--/
Killed NPCs tab entirely, moved Property/Assets/Coin to front.

Interesting tonal shift. Before, if you printed the sheet and folded it in half, all you could see is who you are as a person and who you know (a very deliberate choice from us, btw). Now you can see who you are as a person and what you own.

Yeah. That was quite deliberate. I think you may be undervaluing how important NPCs can be in a game like this.

Not at all. Guess I wasn't clear on that earlier. So little space for NPCs, at least for me, won't do. That's why I called it "doodle space" earlier. Because I feel this section is so important it requires a lot more space. After all I believe my conduct in Floating City illustrates exactly this. That as a player I feel PC/NPC and PC/PC relationships are more interesting than let's say high CPs.

Seeing the factions sneak preview in the video (as pointed out by thirtythr33) guided my hand in this. It was a conscious choice to move Assets there, to achieve exactly this kind of tonal shift that Henri pointed out.

Agreed. However the Devil is in the details. The proposed Encumbrance system says "-1 Combat Pool / +1 REQ on physical activities". So it's not a matter of CP. It's the REQ increase that really gets into my eye.

The main thought on that is that we don't penalize dice pools on ability checks anywhere else. If the task itself is harder we increase the req. If it's an extremely situational thing (particularly involving state of mind or the like) then it's a dis/advantage. Adding +1 req is easier than mentally juggling +1r for task difficulty but also -1d encumbrance, but take an advantage for...

In combat, it's a -1 because combat already has you doing a ton of dice juggling so it is easier to just reduce the pool by X.

I believe we both agree that mechanically a Req increase is not the same as a die penalty, at least in a 1:1 ratio.

But let's leave this aside.

When you try to do something you bring something into the table. Your Attribute, Skill, or whatever.

Directly quoting from the 'Scoundrels Beta:

Dice are what you bring to the table. Your skills, attributes, and general resources.
TNs represent the circumstance of the task.
Reqs represent the objective difficulty of the thing being tried.

Going by this an Encumbrance penalty should be a TN shift. Unfortunately there's so little wiggle space as far as TNs are concerned that this is not viable.

With a TN shift being out of the question, a Req increase feels wrong while a dice penalty seems more streamlined. Because it's not that the task in itself is harder (Req), its that you can bring less into the playing field (dice) due to circumstance (TN).

By that kind of logic I say that encumbrance should be a die pool penalty.

And since we are at it, I really think this is kinda awkward. Nearly half of the situations that grant extra dice (Tools, Cascading) on one end, on the other they impose increased Req. Which kinda invalidates the above statement about Dice, TNs, and Reqs.

From my point of view this is more "correct", or more consistent with the above statement:

Ability : + Dice
Tap : + Dice
Help : + Dice
Drives : + Dice
Cascade : ± Dice
Tools : ± Dice
Encumbrance : - Dice
Impact : - Dice (CP)

Advantage : -1 TN
Disadvantage : +1 TN
Wound : + BTN

And leave Reqs alone.

If you want to have in there Req modifiers, I believe there should be both penalties and bonuses available.

[thorgarth]

In terms of armor detail granularity is a "bit" rough (for instance there is only one entry for mail armor, treating single, double, butted or brazed mail as offering the same level of protection), but we keep discussing plate armor as if it´s the most cumbersome and bulkier armor. But what about the lamelar/segmented plate "type" armor. Like maille it encompasses several armor types which are in most cases very cumbersome, if not more than plate armor. From what I´ve gathered in BoB the CP loss was very similar if not equal to plate. How will it be treated under this new bulk system?

[Benedict]

In terms of armor detail granularity is a "bit" rough (for instance there is only one entry for mail armor, treating single, double, butted or brazed mail as offering the same level of protection), but we keep discussing plate armor as if it´s the most cumbersome and bulkier armor. But what about the lamelar/segmented plate "type" armor. Like maille it encompasses several armor types which are in most cases very cumbersome, if not more than plate armor. From what I´ve gathered in BoB the CP loss was very similar if not equal to plate. How will it be treated under this new bulk system?

This.

Leave bulk the same, but split armor off into its own category. Each item has a bulk ranging from insignificant to cumbersome (0-2) with insignificant items not really needing to be tracked unless the character is wearing them as a readied item, and most things just being a "significant" 1 bulk item.

Your total bulk is reduced by Brawn. If that result is negative or zero, you just write in zero.

Armor is now it's own thing. It works on the exact same scale that it did in the previous draft (see: the Dueling Kit) but with a tweak. Your Grit tap value reduces the penalty for armor bulk. This works out well since a suit of full plate is 3 and a closed helm is 1. It's mechanically impossible under the normal character generation rules to have a GTV higher than 2, so someone in heavy armor will always feel a penalty from it.

The total of armor bulk (if positive) and item bulk (if positive) is your encumberance.

[thorgarth]

In terms of armor detail granularity is a "bit" rough (for instance there is only one entry for mail armor, treating single, double, butted or brazed mail as offering the same level of protection), but we keep discussing plate armor as if it´s the most cumbersome and bulkier armor. But what about the lamelar/segmented plate "type" armor. Like maille it encompasses several armor types which are in most cases very cumbersome, if not more than plate armor. From what I´ve gathered in BoB the CP loss was very similar if not equal to plate. How will it be treated under this new bulk system?

This.

Leave bulk the same, but split armor off into its own category. Each item has a bulk ranging from insignificant to cumbersome (0-2) with insignificant items not really needing to be tracked unless the character is wearing them as a readied item, and most things just being a "significant" 1 bulk item.

Your total bulk is reduced by Brawn. If that result is negative or zero, you just write in zero.

Armor is now it's own thing. It works on the exact same scale that it did in the previous draft (see: the Dueling Kit) but with a tweak. Your Grit tap value reduces the penalty for armor bulk. This works out well since a suit of full plate is 3 and a closed helm is 1. It's mechanically impossible under the normal character generation rules to have a GTV higher than 2, so someone in heavy armor will always feel a penalty from it.

The total of armor bulk (if positive) and item bulk (if positive) is your encumberance.

So the values will be used as they were in the Dueling Kit of BoB?

[Benedict]

Exactly. If there will be more types of armor available that's something to be seen.