#1 Sorry for bad spelling if any, I wrote this w/out spellcheck.
#2 I wont pretend to know a whole lot on how the amor system is implemented and any old changes you have made to work the A/C caps or why you might have done that.
#3 I realize that some of these suggestions might not be popular but here it goes.
Possible armor chages:
Make armor bonuses scale better for their weight/negative bonuses. What I mean by this is:
Witan boots- -2 stealth is a harsh penalty for only a possible +8 in armor (or 6 more AC than soft leather boots), unless you intend it as a penalty. Possibly have the ++ you get from *Armor Enchant* scrolls scale for the additional weight or negative factors such Witan boots. Like the following example:
Soft leather boots [2, +15]
Hard leather boots [3, + 17]
Metal shod boots [6 , + 21] <--- more benefit from *AC scroll might make the extra weight a good trade.
Basically have the armor scale for more AC benefit per weight because a simple 1.0 LBS from a pair of boots is huge when you start planning your armor setup. As it currently stands a pair of Witan boots of speed or heavy metal shod boots of speed are not good compaired to a soft leather pair of them.
Now all this might be moot if you intended to make it hard to reach AC cap. Perhaps if you made it more benificial to max AC by makeing extra bonuses at high AC like breath absorbtion the higher AC one has
Another possible addition could be to make some armors have a chance to block a negative spell or effect. Make the pieces scale so that 1 piece alone would only be like a 1% change and if you wear a full set it could get as much at 10%. This might be a nice addition to make random for additional nice gear to farm. A possible example could be:
Soft leather boots [2, +15] <.3>
Hard leather boots [3, + 17] <.5>
Metal shod boots [6 , + 21] <1> Where the <x> is the % chance to block a negative spell/effect
Also I think good bonuses like Elven should scale more with regards to weight. A robe could be between 1 and 3 + stealth where a heavy 34LB armor should have a greater chance to give more stealth, like a 3 - 6 + stealth. As it stands right now heavy armor that is not post king is pretty much worth selling only. I realize it is a fine line between giving casters or whatnot more stealth or bonuses that they need while still giving heavy armor users more range for bonuses on armor. Plus it almost dosent seem fair that a caster can have a robe that is 2lbs give +3 stealth and a warrior has to wear much heavier amor and only have the same effect. I dont know, its just a thought.
Last thought would be to implement a gem system where some amors have a % chance to have a gem slot in them, make it a low chance like 5% or something. Then add a gem drop in the game like:
Fire gem <--- Fire resis
Ice gem <--- Cold resis
.
.
Nether gem <--- Nether resis
Air gem <--- Armor weight reduces by X%
etc...
These gems could be 1 time fused to the armor w/ a slot in it. I realize this resembles the old Diablo style geming system but it would be a cool addition I believe. This would make it possible to find a PDSM w/ a slot and make it have reduced weight.
~Rob