My druid has been wearing hide armor for a while now, and I've only just now noticed it reduces his max speed to 20ft. I'm getting the feeling it's not supposed to do that because a) it's bloodly light armor, damnit, and b) I definitely think I would have noticed sooner if it was always like that. Still, it's a rather strange bug for both regular and masterwork versions of a certain kind of armor, and only that kind of armor, to suddenly start limiting my speed in the middle of a game. Is it actually supposed to work like that and I just somehow hadn't noticed for several hours? And who do I grumble at and make empty threats towards for coming up with the stupid idea of hide armor having a max speed limit if it is indeed correct? Regardless of whether it is "correct" or not, I intend to fix it, and I'm wondering if changing an item's properties in protos.tab will have an effect on an already existing savegame? Perhaps not for items already carried, but maybe if I give myself a new version through the console after editting?
According to the d20SRD (or in other words the D&D 3.5 rules) Hide Armor is medium armor, and does indeed reduce max speed to 20 ft. The people to grumble and make empty threats to are the people at WotC, as they write the rules. It is even listed in the game manual as being medium armor with a max speed of 20 ft., so one can assume it has always been that way, and you just didn't notice. As for changing it in the protos, it will not effect anything your party already possesses (or anything on any map your party has already been to), but if you console a new one in, it will have the changes.
I figured it would be someone at WotC. *grumbles and makes empty threats in their general direction* Strange, though. The druid hide I got on the shop map - identical to regular hide in every way except for the shnazzy "druid" in its name - didn't have a max speed limit. I wore that for a few days, so I surely would have noticed then. So, edit masterwork hide armor, console new set, go to Homlet, re-enchant to +3, then console back spent gold and xp because I already did it once and am not paying twice darn it. *yawn* Ach. I'll start on it tomorrow.
The "Druid Hide" was added by a modder (I can't recall whom) who disagreed with Hide being medium armor, which is why it counts as light. I thought it was only available from the console, though. I guess it was added to the shop map as well.
