^ Yeah … I took it for one of my recruits (a thief), shortly after writing that, and his melee defence when stark naked (21) went up to 29, which seems curious and not like a 50% increase. But then I realized it was a 50% increase on his “base” melee defence as displayed when levelling up (16), which was increased to 21 by being short (i.e. 16 x 1.5 = 24, + 5 = 29). So, not only is the new Nimble only a 50% increase of melee defence instead of 100%, but it also doesn’t include any trait bonuses in the multiplication; they are merely applied by themselves after the main calculation. Any additional bonuses from Confidence or Dodge will not be applied before the multiplication; they are just added individually afterwards. And – needless to say – the additional defence from a shield is not included in the “base” defence score; this also is added alone afterwards, but the weight of the shield reduces the degree of the increase, so that the final working defence in combat is only slightly higher.
With a heater shield, his melee defence was 45 and his ranged defence was 39, and these increased to 59 and 53 at the onset of battle, thanks to a +14 Dodge bonus, and his *** melee skill was a mouth-watering 68 and he was still shaping up to be quite invincible … but he was killed in that very battle. A woodcutter smashed his shield, and a swordsman finally managed to scratch him to take away the Dodge bonus, and then an axeman eventually managed one big hit and he received the injury that halves the amount of damage, so that he couldn’t kill them off before being hit once more to end his tenure.
So yes: the new Nimble sucks and is useless unless you get someone whose “base” defence is over 40 and you’ve looted a magical shield that’s <10 heavy but with >20 defence …
