Description
This mod causes bound armor to use the normal formula for armor rating (taking light armor skill into account) instead of just providing the base rating regardless of skill.
In vanilla Morrowind, most armor provides an armor rating that depends on your relevant armor skill. However, if the armor is weightless (i.e. bound armor), your armor skill is not taken into account and the armor just provides its base AR regardless of skill.
Due to how the vanilla formula works, this basically means your effective armor skill is 30 when you equip bound armor. This is fine at low skill, but with high armor skill you're much better off using regular armor as long as it has a remotely decent base AR.
With this mod, armor being weightless is no longer a special case; bound armor will use the exact same AR formula as any other armor, using your light armor skill to determine the AR it grants. With a light armor skill below 30, bound armor provides less protection than it does in vanilla, but with high light armor skill, it is potentially much better than in vanilla.
Now bound armor will remain useful throughout the game.
Requirements
This mod requires MGE XE and the latest version of MWSE 2.1. Just install MGE XE and run MWSE-Update.exe to download the latest build.
Compatibility
Useful Bound Armor should be compatible with just about everything, except for mods that change how armor rating is calculated.
In particular, it is not compatible with the Armor Rating mod, which also causes bound armor to take armor skill into account (using a different formula), along with changing the AR formula generally. If you want to overhaul how the game calculates AR, use Armor Rating. If you want to keep the vanilla calculation and just want bound armor to take armor skill into account, use this mod.
Version History
Version 1.0 - 2021-05-22
- Initial release.
Contact
Feel free to contact me on the Nexus or Moddinghall with any comments or suggestions. You can also find me on Discord as Necrolesian#9692.
Use a mod management tool such as Wrye Mash, or just copy the MWSE directory to your Data Files directory.
Thanks
This mod was inspired by Archimag's excellent Armor Rating mod.
Usage
You can use this however you want.