How does Damage Reduction balance with Recovery in Armour?

Question

It seems that Damage Reduction (DR) balances with Recovery. I've noticed that the larger the DR the more of a Recovery penalty there is.

How does the balance between these two stats work? I assume that front-line characters will need the heavier armour, so what penalties do they suffer, with -50% Recovery, for example?

It seems that because there are no feats in this game, as per the older D&D games, I could put this heavy armour on my mage character, or light on my fighter, with only the penalty to recovering being a disadvantage. So I think understanding this mechanic is important to how I outfit my team.

It's detailed in game as the following.

Recovery is the amount of time that a character spends between actions. Longer actions result in proportionally longer Recovery. Armor also has a large effect on Recovery. Generally heavier armor, inflicts longer Recovery penalties.

Answer 1

It's exactly what it says on the tin. Recovery is the time it takes your character to prepare for another attack; put another way, heavy armor means your character will attack more slowly, and be more susceptible to Interrupts when attacking. Recovery time can also be reduced by increasing Dexterity.

For an example, if you have a weapon that swings once per second, it will have a recovery time of 1 second as well. So after each swing, there's a one second period where your character doesn't attack. In DR 10 Armor, that becomes 1.5 seconds.