Leather armour

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Name	Leather armour
Size to wear	Small, Medium
Armour Class	3
Encumbrance rating	4
Maximum Enchantment	+3
Grants	nothing
Time to Wear	5

A suit made from layers of tanned animal hide, this light armour provides basic protection with almost no hindrance to elaborate gestures or swift, stealthy movement.

Leather armour is the lightest common body armour, except for robes. It offers only marginally more AC than one, but that can make enough of a difference that dodgers and casters may choose leather despite the slight penalty.

Desirability

Leather armour is often maligned: Robes are more likely to have useful egos, while light dragon armour, such as acid, swamp and fire dragon scales give far more AC for comparable encumbrance. It is also completely outclassed by troll leather armour and steam dragon scales. However, it is useful in a number of situations:

• For an early EV-reliant character, before you find a superior alternative, this is often better than a plain robe. In exchange for 1 point of EV, you will get at least 1 more AC.
• As leather armour itself is very common, this means that well-enchanted and artefact leather armours are reasonable to come across. A +3 leather armour of fire resistance is comparable to the aformentioned dragon armours, while a good artefact (such as the salamander hide armour) might be worth wearing.

	Image
Mundane
Magical
Artifact
	Unrandart Leather armour
Salamander hide armour
Cigotuvi's embrace