Plate armour

Version 0.32: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Name	Plate armour
Size to wear	Small, Medium
Armour Class	10
Encumbrance rating	18
Maximum Enchantment	+10
Grants	nothing
Time to Wear	5

A full suit of solid metal plate: cuirass, pauldrons, vambraces, waist plate and greaves. It provides excellent protection.

Plate armour is the heaviest common body armour, providing excellent defense in exchange for encumbrance (reducing ability to cast spells, evade attacks, and fire Ranged Weapons). Commonly found on monsters, you are virtually guaranteed to find at least one set by the time you've cleared the Orcish Mines.

Plate armour is one of two armour types capable of generating with the ponderousness ego.

Desirability

Plate is often the heaviest armour available for a long time, so it's good for strong melee characters. A well-enchanted plate armour with a useful ego (such as fire resistance) can serve for the entire 3-rune game. At the very least, heavy fighters are unlikely to find better alternatives for a while, although they do exist:

• Characters that wish to hybridize into magic will prefer lighter armours, with dragon scales having good AC:encumbrance ratios.
• Pure-strength characters will benefit more from golden dragon scales or crystal plate armour, which provide even more AC.
• In any case, both storm dragon scales and shadow dragon scales are direct upgrades to a plain, +0 plate armour.

Compared to the alternatives, plate armour has the time advantage - you can find it earlier. Waiting for a better set of armour means waiting to use your scrolls of enchant armour, which means making your character weaker right now. As mentioned, if you find a plate armour with a good ego, it may be wise to stick with it for the entire game.

In shops, plate armour is 4x as expensive as chain mail. Buying a randart chain mail can be more cost-effective than plate.

History

• Prior to 0.14, the encumbrance rating was 19.
• Prior to 0.10, plate armour was known as plate mail.

	Image
Mundane
Magical
Artifact
	Unrandart Plate armour
Maxwell's Patent Armour