Leather Armour

Leather armour is a garment made out of boiled and sealed animal hide, designed to protect its wearer from harm during combat. It is available to characters from Ultima I through Ultima IX.

Description
A full set of standard Britannian leather armour generally consists of a skullcap, a cuirass, legging, gloves and boots. At times, leather collars and arm extensions for a treated cuirass would also figure into the ensemble.

Throughout the Age of Darkness and into the early Age of Enlightenment, leather armour was presumably always sold as a set. As time progressed (and as the Ultima game engine grew more complex and better able to support differing armour slots), leather became a commodity sold by the piece, and it could take some shopping around on the part of an enterprising adventurer to assemble a full outfit. On Earth, leather armor was historically fashioned out of vegetable-tanned skins, as this processing method helped to foster the rigidity necessary for carving and shaping hardened body armour. It is not known what methods Sosarian and Britannian leather workers employed, but it seems likely that the process would be comparable. Once hardened, the stiffened hide should perform adequately in combat, at least better than a cloth gambeson - although it is far more yielding than metal armours, made out of  mail or  plate.

Leather Armour on Eodon
In the strange Terran valley of Eodon, leather armour is the most protective body armour available, as the majority of stone-age inhabitants of this realm have not yet mastered the art of metal-working, with the singular exception of the Nahautla. In this location, the reinforced skins of animals stand out amongst flimsier protections wrought of bark or cloth.

Protective Value

 * In Ultima II, leather armour has a protective rating of 63% and requires a minimum strength of 11.
 * In Ultima III leather armour has a protective rating of 56% and can only be worn by fighters, rangers, paladins, clerics, Babarian, Thief and Illusionist.
 * In Ultima IV leather armour has a defensive value of 144, an evade rate of 56% and can be worn by all professions but the mage.
 * In Ultima V leather armour has a defensive rating of "2" and the cap a rating of "1".
 * In Ultima VI leather armour has a defensive rating of "2" and the cap a rating of "1".

Ultima VII and Part Two
In Ultima VII and Ultima VII Part Two, a complete set of leather armour contains the following pieces. The numbers listed after indicate the relative effectiveness of the armour in both games and the warmth rating:

Ultima VIII
In Ultima VIII, the components and defensive values of leather armour were as follows:

Ultima IX
In Ultima IX, the components and defensive values of chainmail were as follows:

Trivia

 * At the time of Ultima II, a minimum strength of 11 is required to wear leather armour.