Quills

Quills is a physical mutation that grants the natural equipment, providing the player with natural body armor, melee damage reflection, and the ability to discharge their quills to deal damage around themselves.

The Quills mutation grants the player a certain amount of quills to spend on various actions; at mutation level 1, the max number of quills is equal to 300, and each mutation level after this will increase the maximum by a random amount between 80-120 quills. Lost quills will regenerate at a rate as determined by mutation level and the player's Willpower.

The players current number of quills determines the AV bonus granted by the mutation. If the current number of quills is at or exceeds 50% of the players maximum quills, the AV bonus will be a value determined by mutation level. If the player's number of quills is below 50%, this AV bonus will be halved.

Additionally, Quills grants the "Quill Fling" activated ability, which when used, will discharge approximately 10% of the player's current number of quills to every adjacent tile, dealing damage to any creatures within. The number of flung quills will be spread out evenly across all 8 tiles. Each individual quill does damage and has a PV value determined by mutation level. As Quill Fling uses 10% of the user's current quills, using Quill Fling repeatedly will use less and less quills each time, dealing less and less damage. The player cannot use Quill Fling if they do not have at least 80 quills.

Finally, creatures that attack a player with Quills in unarmed combat will have roughly 3% of the damage they deal reflected back at them, breaking approximately 1% of the player's current quills in the process.

Players and creatures who have the Quills mutation will be immune to the effects of other's quills; this includes Quill Fling and Quills' damage reflection.

Formulas
The following formulas are used to determine quill penetration, quill regeneration rate, the AV bonus for having ≥50% quills (rounded down), and the reduced AV for having <50% quills (rounded up) based on mutation level.

Note that the formula for the AV bonus only applies if the mutation level exceeds 3; otherwise, the bonus is 2. Additionally, quill penetration cannot exceed 6.

If one wishes to find the damage done by Quill Fling to a single target, or the total damage dealt by Quill Fling across all affected cells, they would use the following formulas:

Advantages

 * Provides moderate AV (as long as the player retains at least half of their quills) which scales with mutation level while also having no DV penalty or weight
 * Quill burst hits all adjacent tiles
 * Reflects melee damage
 * Makes the player immune to other creature’s quills
 * Hits flying creatures

Disadvantages

 * High cost at character generation
 * Quill Fling has a poor penetration cap at 6
 * Prevents the player from wearing any body armor
 * Quills lack elemental resistances that normal high tier body armor provides
 * Quill Fling damages and destroys items on the ground