Dwarven hooded cloak

[Pete Mack]

The trouble with this is it is imbalancing. The current best cloaks are Tuor, Luthien, and Colluin, of which only the latter is a remotely likely find. (A mage's cloak with ESP is a good alternative.) While all of these are nice, none are as imbalancing as turning the cloak slot into actual high-end armor.

[Estie]

Just replace the fur cloak base item with "a colourful hooded cloak" base item.

Flavour done, no gameplay changes required.

[tangar]

I mean there's so much canonic stuff that could be included from the novels that the developers would need to work 12 hours a day for the next year to include it all.

I don't think so. In terms of equipment we have alsmost everything. But you are welcome to propose more canonic stuff.

The woolen underpants of Gandalf, activates for stinking cloud every 50 turns.

The shimmering bikini of Eowyn, causes stunning

It's funny, but not canonic at all. Tolkien does not mention anywhere woolen underpands and Eowyn bikini. While dwarven hooded cloaks mentioned at Hobbit pages a lot. It's kinda main characteristics of dwarves there in terms of equipment. It's pretty rare case - equipment which is canonic in Tolkien and it's not in V yet. So your first statement "there's so much canonic stuff that could be included from the novels that the developers would need to work 12 hours a day for the next year to include it all" is not correct, sorry.

Just replace the fur cloak base item with "a colourful hooded cloak" base item.

Flavour done, no gameplay changes required.

Adding one more type of cloaks is not hard thing to do (I do such stuff for 3 minutes in my variant; including adding picture in tileset). Also it won't any significately incfluence game balance or item income. So having 5 types of cloaks is better than having 4. Especially if it's something canonic (as we had a lot of tolkienization recently).

[gglibertine]

I think one sensible option for a Dwarven Cloak would be acid resistance, since a cloak covers your other armour and a tough Dwarven one would theoretically be even more resistant. Maybe shards as well? In D&D dwarves are innately resistant to poison. What about infravision or light, since they spend a lot of time in caves or tunnels? And also a bonus to digging.

[Pete Mack]

Gg--
That is way too good, unless you are considering a rare restricted ego item (no elven or fur dwarven cloaks) or an artifact.

[bio_hazard]

rFire, rShards, reduce encumbrance by 25% (the dwarves always carried a ton of stuff with them without slowing).

[Grotug]

Early/mid game dwarven cloaks could have rAcid and +2 base AC.

Later ones would occasionally sustain CON as well with greater AC bonus (but no con bonus, too many dwarven items already have).

Or... later ones always have more AC bonus than early ones, and might have one or more of the following: Sustain CON, +1 CON, rShards.

Or maybe something like this:

Early/mid game Dwarven cloaks:

[2]AC and possibility of bonus (like all basic cloaks).
Chance of rAcid -- 50%
Chance of rFire -- 20%
Chance of AC bonus greater than +7 -- 4% and max possible bonus around 11 or 12, so that +8 = 4% chance, +9 = 3%, +10 = 2% +11 = 1% +12 = 0.1%.

Late game Dwarven Cloaks:

[2] AC (always has AC bonus with significantly higher max than early game dwarven cloaks)
Chance of rAcid -- 100%
Chance of rFire -- 50%
Chance of rShards -- 33%.
Chance of +1 CON -- 20%
Chance of Sustain CON -- 16.67%
Chance of Sustain STR -- 6.67%
Chance of +2 CON -- 0%

Otherwise I think Estie's suggestion is very sensible and wise.

[Sky]

my rough understanding of the LOTR+ material is that, only stuff made by the elves, although "mundane", had magic-like proprieties.

For instance, the elvish rope, ties and unties itself, but the elves dismiss this as being "magic", but rather just "well built".

In fact, magic isn't really common in LOTR+, at least not as your typical D&D magic, instead you got various quality of manufacturing. So, dwarven armour is incredibly light and supple, but not magical.

Elven stuff alone has these "magical" qualities, the cloaks blending in with their surroundings, boots walking on snow without leaving footprints, but rather than "enchanting" these items, as - for example - the Rings Of Power have been enchanted, the elves state that these proprieties come from these items having been made very well, in tune with nature and the very essence of the item, i.e. a "ropy" rope.
What, your ropes do not unties themselves? uh, they must be rubbish ropes.

So, no. No dwarven hooded cloaks. They may be typical dwarfish items, but they would not be notable ego items the same way that elven cloaks are.

I would agree with Estie and just turn the Fur Cloak into Dwarven Cloak.

[gglibertine]

Gg--
That is way too good, unless you are considering a rare restricted ego item (no elven or fur dwarven cloaks) or an artifact.

I didn't mean it needed to have *all* those things, just that they all seemed like logical possibilities.

[bio_hazard]

my rough understanding of the LOTR+ material is that, only stuff made by the elves, although "mundane", had magic-like proprieties.

For instance, the elvish rope, ties and unties itself, but the elves dismiss this as being "magic", but rather just "well built".

In fact, magic isn't really common in LOTR+, at least not as your typical D&D magic, instead you got various quality of manufacturing. So, dwarven armour is incredibly light and supple, but not magical.

Elven stuff alone has these "magical" qualities, the cloaks blending in with their surroundings, boots walking on snow without leaving footprints, but rather than "enchanting" these items, as - for example - the Rings Of Power have been enchanted, the elves state that these proprieties come from these items having been made very well, in tune with nature and the very essence of the item, i.e. a "ropy" rope.
What, your ropes do not unties themselves? uh, they must be rubbish ropes.

So, no. No dwarven hooded cloaks. They may be typical dwarfish items, but they would not be notable ego items the same way that elven cloaks are.

I would agree with Estie and just turn the Fur Cloak into Dwarven Cloak.

Yes it is also important to me that my hobbit necromancer wearing balance dragon scale mail and slinging around a blade of chaos has a cloak that is completely faithful to Tolkien...

[Sphara]

I'd be more excited if a new artifact was presented, but I really don't feel strongly for this one otherwise. I haven't read JRRT deep enough to remember how dwarven cloaks are canonical. Gimli wore one, right? Fundin is named after his cloak. Those are the only details I know.

Changing fur cloaks to dwarven cloaks has no game play effect. Maybe that's the right direction, but if the change would be done, maybe increase it's base AC a bit?

But as far as flavor discussion is concerned, I'm content as long as the game doesn't introduce firearms. That'd be too much even for me

[Pete Mack]

Sphara wrote:

But as far as flavor discussion is concerned, I'm content as long as the game doesn't introduce firearms

Hmm...

You killed the Uruk of the White Hand. --more-- 
Something  rolls  under  your feet. 
You see: [COLOR="violet"]the Fire of Orthanc[/COLOR]

[tangar]

I've added such ego cloak to my variant:

name:(Dwarven)
info:1500:15
alloc:10:30 to 80
combat:0:0:d5
type:cloak:Fur Cloak
flags:RAND_POWER
values:DAM_RED[1]
desc:It keeps you warm and helps identify the wearer through color-coding.

(thanks to wobbly and Hounded which quotes from this topic I used as funny desc