Piecemeal armor

[Manly Man]

Here I am, with another thread about extra stuff to add. I really like the idea of piecemeal in Pathfinder, but I also think the execution is utter crap. The majority of Final Fantasy games include slots for a particular kind of armor, and I figure that I could base piecemeal off of that particular mechanic, instead of the wonkiness that is the official piecemeal rules for Pathfinder. Even the Fabula Nova Crystallis trilogy has slots for multiple pieces of 'armor' (they label it all as accessories, but the concept remains the same). With a bit of reworking, this is what I've come up with. I don't have pricing down yet, but I think I've gotten it pretty well done so far otherwise.

The boni for equipment are going to seem rather high, but something to note is that Armor Class doesn't scale as well as attacks do by the time you get to middle levels in normal Pathfinder, which is right around the time you could afford to deck yourself out in fancy-schmancy heavy gear. As well, Final Fantasy d20 is at a slightly higher power level than that, and so crossing this with rules like Armor as Damage Reduction comes across as more fair and effective than normal, but I'm sticking with the typical AC rules here for the sake of simplicity. This also helps spellcasters get a decent amount of defense that doesn't cost them MP or magic item slots, so it's a good option for them.

Of note is that I don't have specific kinds of armor listed (such as hide armor or full plate), which was entirely intentional. It's to let you fluff your armor as whatever you want, which also opens up opportunities for customizing what materials are which (for example, having a character with Dex 30 makes wearing armor kind of suboptimal for the most part, but being able to have Light Body Armor 1 lets them have something on, and they can have it be mythril, so as to let them get their full Dexterity bonus out of it).

THe Armor Class, Armor Check Penalties, Spell Failure %, and Speed Penalties all stack, while the Maximum Dexterity Bonus overlaps, favoring the lowest maximum.

Headgear:
Light: +1 AC, 0 ACP, 0% SF
Medium: +2 AC, -1 ACP, 0% SF
Heavy: +3 AC, -2 ACP, 5% SF

Hats don't provide any initial AC bonus, but they can be enchanted as a helmet, granting the enhancement bonus to AC, except that the item can't already be enchanted (like a ring of sustenance or gloves of dexterity) to make it count as armor. A helmet that has a special function (like a helmet of invisibility) just counts as whatever kind of helmet it is, and can't be enchanted to grant any enhancement bonus the item wouldn't normally give.

Body:

Light 1: +1 AC, +8 Max Dex, 0 ACP, 5% SF, -0 ft. Speed
Light 2: +3 AC, +6 Max Dex, -1 ACP, 5% SF, -0 ft. Speed
Light 3 +4 AC, +4 Max Dex, -1 ACP, 10% SF, -0ft. Speed
Medium 1: +4 AC, +4 Max Dex, -2 ACP, 10% SF, -5 ft. Speed
Medium 2: +5 AC, +3 Max Dex, -2 ACP, 10% SF, -5 ft. Speed
Medium 3: +6 AC, +2 Max Dex, -3 ACP, 15% SF, -5 ft. Speed
Heavy 1: +8 AC, +1 Max Dex, -3 ACP, 20% SF, -5 ft. Speed
Heavy 2: +9 AC, +1 Max Dex, -4 ACP, 25% SF, -5 ft. Speed

Robes and clothes follow the same rules as hats (no initial AC, can be enchanted like armor).

Arms:

Light: +1 AC, +6 Max Dex, -1 ACP, 5% SF
Medium: +2 AC, + 4 Max Dex, -2 ACP, 10% SF
Heavy: +3 AC, +2 Max Dex, -3 ACP, 15% SF

Bangles, bracelets, gloves, and rings can be enchanted as armor (following rules for hats).

Legs:

Light: +0 AC, -0 ACP, -0 ft. Speed
Medium: +1 AC, -1 ACP, -0ft. Speed
Heavy: +2 AC, -2 ACP, -5 ft. Speed

Boots, sandals, and shoes can be enchanted as armor (following rules for hats).

Shields:

Buckler: +1 AC, -1 ACP, 5% SF
Light: +2 AC, -1 ACP, 5% SF
Heavy: +3 AC, -2 ACP, 15% SF
Tower: +4 AC, +2 Max Dex, -10 ACP, 50% SF, -10 ft. Speed

[What's in the box?]

The way it is right now: If you were to piecemeal your armor together and select all medium options your speed would be 5' faster that if you bought any medium armor whole?
I think maybe the medium legs should also have the -5 ft. speed.

Combining the best types together to prevent speed reduction while maximizing AC produces an armor with +7 AC, +2Max Dex, and -5 AC penalty, full movement speed, which is a better version of Field Plate. If your pricing is increased for this idk that it would be an issue so much but for non-magic equipment that is some pretty rad armor.

[Manly Man]

I do plan on it being more expensive on the whole, especially if you're making it out of special materials. I just have the basics down for this so far; I still stand by the idea that AC doesn't scale well, so having a few extra points at earlier levels doesn't change much anyway, especially in this take of the game.

And yeah, you would have only -5 ft. if you were to take all medium armor, but that honestly sounds relatively fair to me. Moving just as slow while wearing a solitary breastplate or scale armor as you would in full-plate or an o-yoroi doesn't make much sense to me, especially in terms of fairness, let alone physics (in all honesty, even full-plate doesn't slow you down very much at all, so long as you have it custom-fit to you, which was pretty much how plate armor was supposed to be in the first place). If medium armor is supposed to be a middle ground for protection, it should be a middle ground on its penalties, too.