Scale mail

Version 0.28: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Name	Scale Mail
Size to wear	Small, Medium
Armour Class	6
Encumbrance rating	10
Maximum Enchantment	+6
Grants	nothing
Time to Wear	5

A leather suit covered with metal plates attached to each other in overlapping rows to provide full protection, but at the cost of reduced freedom of movement.

Scale mail is a medium body armour, providing moderate physical defense coupled with a significant encumbrance rating.

Desirability

Scale mail is a medium-weight form of body armour, offering moderate defense in exchange for a significant penalty to evasion and spellcasting success rates. Early on, high-strength characters may be grateful to find a suit of scale mail on the first few floors, with Fighters starting with it. With strength in the upper teens, many lower level spells should be castable.

However, the fact remains that scale mail's stats aren't terribly impressive. Most characters will prefer going lighter or heavier, while Acid dragon scales completely outclass it. Still, if found with a solid enchantment rating and ego, or in the form of an excellent randart, scale mail might be worth using for a while.

History

Prior to 0.16, scale mail had an encumbrance rating of 11.

	Image
Mundane
Magical
Artefact