What was realistic armor while travelling? My DM and I were talking...

...

Marching in armor isn't unrealistic. Anything intended to be practical on a battlefield would be comfortable enough and weighted properly to walk around in. There's also nothing special about resting that armor would really hinder. If you're exhausted and cautious you'll fall asleep in a heavy outfit just fine.

The main downside of armor is its weight. Walking around with a ton of crap either on your back or on your person is exhausting, which will slow you down over long distances and make the trek miserable. Soldiers in Vietnam for example, would often discard or 'lose' some of their heavier and less useful equipment to make stomping around the jungle less painful. Travelers would try to shift as much of that burden as possible onto wagons and pack animals.

You'd also want to take it all off at least occasionally to clean and maintain it.

Guy on the right in this case.
>throw maille over your head, belt
>throw coat of plate over your head, belt
>throw helmet on your head, belt.

DnD is not the sort of game where you can travel realistically, because it is so equipment dependent that if you are ever caught without your magical set of full plate armor +2, you will get murdered. And if you aren't wearing it 24/7 then you WILL get ambushed without it, because role playing sessions are usually meant to show the more interesting parts of the day which usually cover fights.

So yeah, your casual stroll through the gardens to court the princess will end up with a ninja fight, all forests have owlbears, roving bands of bandits/goblins waiting to ambush you and in every town alley there are cultists of the dark god waiting.

Keep your damned armor on, realism be damned.

Yep, as user said, it looks like a comfy padded best on the outside with a ton of interlocking plates on the inside.

Everybody here in this pic is wearing armor that can be easily thrown on before a battle or march/ride in. The only exception is their maille leg armor- this will be an absolute bitch to put on and require help from a friend. But their hauberks could be donned fairly quickly, as could their gambesons and even the coat of plate.

Honestly though, the Early Middle Ages are the best period for "traveling" armor or donning armor very quickly with little fuss, as the best armor of the time, full hauberk circa 11th century, can be throw on in under five minutes with no need for a squire role. Just put on a couple layers of fabric for padding, jimmy into your maille, belt your sword, and you're good to go.

Well this is pretty interesting. Most of my knowledge comes from DnD and sub-par larps, along with the occasional thread here on Veeky Forums. Are these things still made for ren-fairs and the like? I'd be interested in getting a more historically accurate costume.

A hauberk and helmet while just going about your business and an aketon underneath wouldn't be too weird if you were is reasonable threat of danger and weren't under threat of overheating which is the primary threat of wearing armor. If you REALLY want convenience a helmet and a padded brigandine is probably best, you could get away with wearing that around everywhere with no trouble.

The weight isn't really a big deal because it's distributed over your whole body, it's the heat you need to be concerned with..

However if you want realism don't play dnd, its so heavily designed around it's particular brand of un-realism that trying to take it seriously will break it.If you abosolutly have to play dnd at least use codex martialis and only martial classes

Why can't one March or ride in armor? Hot and uncomfortable sure but there is no physical reason one can't. Im a old fat grog now but in my prime as a young Marine Corps infantryman we would hump 30 miles in full kit (100+ lbs) and then drop our sustainment loads and conduct a mock assault or fight with pugil sticks. It's hell on your knees.

It's a brigandine but wearing padded cloth and just padded cloth as armor was a thing, people underestimate just how hard it is to slice through a guy wearing like 5 t-shirts.
You usually have a nice padded gambesson under it anyway so isn't too uncomfy actually, just a bit hot.

Thats some sexy armour right there

>Why can't one March or ride in armor?
Because Gygax wasn't a Marine

If you're playing D&D to begin with, comfortable travel wear is so far from the top of the list of things you should worry about if you care about realism that it's on like, page 27.

That said, people generally didn't travel with armor on them unless they were in hostile country and expecting or looking for trouble.

It's not that it's impossible to do or anything, it's just that it's less comfortable than not.

>It's hell on your knees.

That's because your back and legs are supporting the entire weight. When you are wearing armour, you have weight on the limbs actively making every movement more taxing.

Like, imagine that instead of having one foot against the ground supporting everything while the other foot lifts and you move your leg, that you have weight on that leg too.

Armour is very mobile, and the total weight is less than what soldiers hump around all the time, but they are forgetting that seriously every motion is a little more taxing when you're wearing full armour, while a heavy backpack doesn't really affect your arms, head or the leg you're currently not putting your weight on while walking.

That's before you even go into chafing and overheating issues.

If you make one knight carry all his plate in a good backpack, and one wear it, the one lugging his in a backpack is going to outlast the other guy by so much it's not even close.

>Hurdurr, nerds don't know shit

No, it's because carrying something with your back and legs is less taxing than carrying something dispersed on every limb.

I'm not too certain. It's wasn't especially easy to make for it's time either. In fact, if I recall these brigantines might be the originators of the infamous "studded leather" armours in D&D. So if you plan on using it just for display, the latter might be a possible acquisition.

I imagine they'd be perfect in winter then.

>brigantines might be the originators of the infamous "studded leather" armours in D&D.

Yeah, I've seen a quote from Gygax or someone close to him saying that studded leather is brigantine.
(In my setting, it's a specialized brigantine made for thieves and spies.)

What everyone seems to forget is that every armored martial worth their salt in D&D probably has way above average strength and constitution. Literal superhumans.

Depends on edition. In early D&D, the title for level 1 fighters was "Veteran."

Ah, that makes sense. Speaking of brigandines, have you considered lamellar armour? Though not as easily storable as maille, it has roughly the same amount of protection and it's weight can be determined by materials used such as metal or boiled leather.

Adding onto that, you could also try Linthorax, the Hellenistic infantry armour made from 11-18 layers of linen glued together by animal fat. It was designed for warmer climates and the University of Wisconsim found under controlled tests, could withstand arrows.

Full chainmail Hauberk is 30 pounds tops, and is distributed weight.

You GM's drill sergeant would call him a pussy, military has it worse.

>If you're exhausted and cautious you'll fall asleep in a heavy outfit just fine.

Retarded as fuck.

Any suit of heavy armor is going to have a heavy layer of cloth or padding on the underside, which gets swelteringly hot no matter how cold it is outside.

You'll get sweaty, and sooner or later, the material saturates. Sitting still in it for 6-8 hours after walking or fighting is asking to get horrible skin diseases as you summer in a puddle of your own sweat.

Why not just use a cuiras like the matt shows in 10:15?

youtube.com/watch?v=lxkb-a0f9Wc

It seems pretty easy to wear and isnt plate better than brigandine and coats of plate?

Overheating might be a problem on hot days (metal is by definition not breathable), but weight shouldn't be a problem.

>sleeping in plate
you gonna have a crick in your neck when you wake up senpai
also, you're going to smell even worse than adventurers usually do

>If you make one knight carry all his plate in a good backpack, and one wear it, the one lugging his in a backpack is going to outlast the other guy by so much it's not even close.
I'm not calling bullshit, in fact I believe you, but I really want to see this done mythbuster style now. Like, have two fellows of comparable endurance try this at the same time and see who gets farther.

>hauberk
>is distributed weight
Actually it's pretty much 100% on the shoulders, unless you have a good belt, and even then that doesn't take a whole lot off.

You can don a full plate armor in ten minutes WITHOUT a squire. Takes about 3 minutes with 1 person helping and a second helper cuts it down to 2. More than that it just gets in the way. A experience guy that knows his armor for a couple years can probably don it in six minutes.

And that's total bullshit. Full plate armor circa the 15th century or later is virtually impossible to don yourself due to the need to tie off armor across your body. You can't just buckle plate onto your body- every piece needs to be suspended from an arming jacket or arming gambeson so the weight is distributed across your body and not focused on your shoulders. You simply cannot arm yourself with pauldrons, bevors/gorgets, backplates, and certain helmets.

SCAdian here, I had a set of jousting plate that took me about 5 minutes to put on, after my pads were on(gambeson and such). It was comfortable to walk in, but noisy as fuck. My friend called us a slow moving train wreck, from all the noise my warband would make walking to the field. For warm up at practice, we would all don our gear, then take a walk/jog around the park. It was only a mile or so, but got everything working.

Pic related. Yalls are going deep about fantasy.

There is a guy I saw at Pennsic in 15th century black gothic plate. Someone told me he spent $15k on it fitted to him as it was made. It sounded like oiled sissors. No clanking at all.

I don't know where you are getting your facts but you are wrong. Breastplate lock two pieces around your chest. Shoulders are strapped/buckled to breastplate's top part. All the parts covering the arm are usually stored already buckled and tied into themselves like a armored sleeve you just put on, close the buckles or straps up and then buckle into the gambeson or harness underneath somethings. Legs are tied to a garter style belt under your tassets, which are in turn connected to the breastplate. Greeves sit around your shins and put their weight down on your shoes. Knee pieces can eithe be tied to your clothes, to a harness, ot on the thigh plate. And then the sabaton just ties into the greeves.

We reconstructed two different sets of 15th century armor, a maximillian set and a more classic gothic plate. Both were usually don by their users alone because we dont assign people to squire for other during normal pratice, only when we are travelling to divulge the group.

Gorjets is just locked into itself and hangs over the breastplate. Backplate (?) is just the backside of your breastplate. And I dont know a single helmet that the user can put on and take it off by itself.

Again, squires speed the process quickly but this whole thing about being designed in a way it cant be don by a single person using it? Never heard this before friendo.

Isn't jousting armor super awkward to walk around on foot? Might definition might be wrong but usually the have super heavy helmets and shoulder pads that aren't designed to be worn for hours on straight and carried around on foot.

Question-I'm in a LARP, and would like to get some torso armor. However, most of the found is bulky/unshapely. Is there any that would fit nicely under clothes, and help me show off a slim waist? I was thinking a vest of leather scales, but I'm not sure.

Didn't 1st Cent AD Roman Legionares march in Lorica Segmentata when in hostile territory? During admin movements the helm and armor were lashed to a cross shaped stick (Marius' Mules) and carried over the shoulder.

All these people talking about marching and shit and I'm just wondering why they don't buy horses or carts?

youtube.com/watch?v=gYpFtVQlgLc
youtube.com/watch?v=s7mmCG5JmnY
youtube.com/watch?v=llPAuGy6XvQ

Self-educate.

You are a giant prissy fag. Armor has to be big enough to fight/move in but should still be fitted/tailored without excess slop. The problem is LARPer scum wear cheap butted mail and mass made shit leather armor off the shelf and do nothing to make it fit properly. Later period say 15th century plate has the svelt waist you are looking for. So would a breast plate with tights and a cod piece. If youre plan is to look like a fag go all out.

Verily milord a horse of course!

Also if DM wants to go down this path I would have a shit load of hirlings and henchmen. A squire, a valet, a shield bearer, torch bearer, groom, a few man at arms and archers and a company cook.

and this
youtube.com/watch?v=5hlIUrd7d1Q

I Endure.

I will add youtube.com/watch?v=llPAuGy6XvQ

Have you tried not playing D&D?

*could stop arrows from period bows.
youtube.com/watch?v=0ERSx1o8wwk

Judge for yourself what you think that draw weight is. IIRC they mention they're using only period bows and period arrows in their tests.
In the D&D pseudo-history world of mechanical compound bows and crossbows, that won't stop anything.

that's what ended up happening for anyone wealthy enough.
>carts
Except for these, unless it was more than a small band or they intended to ride their horses. Riding horses in armor and with baggage is a no-go for just travel. They'll get worn out and ruined from more than a few days of that. As with the settlers crossing the Amercia, they walked alongside their wagons instead of riding on them. It saves the animals.

Roll for scoliosis.

>Endurance [General]
>Also, you may sleep in Light or Medium armor without becoming fatigued

This. D&D's mechanics aren't what you'd call hyper-realistic, and treating armor realistically can lead to mechanical problems like being ridiculously easy to hit, like: every few seconds, you probably take a chunk out of me. So you'd probably want to modify the rules if you want to be more sensible about armor. Otherwise, you're penalizing fighters and other heavy armor-wearers, and those classes are typically underpowered already (depending on the edition you're playing).

If you're playing an edition with streamlined armor (like Basic), then the modification's pretty easy. Leather protects 2, chainmail protects 4, and platemail protects 6. Simply halve that and give each class an innate AC bonus equal to half the maximum armor it's allowed. So a fighter would have an innate bonus of 3, and would gain a further 3 from platemail. That's still a bit of a penalty overall, but it's significantly reduced at least (and you could always compensate by giving a further +1 innate armor for a heavy armor wearer or something).

With games that have a more detailed armor system, with armors of each individual AC, something like this is obviously a bit trickier to implement. Maybe each class has an armor threshold, above which it gains a point to its innate AC, and below which it loses a point (and at which, it retains it). So maybe a fighter's threshold is at chainmail (or a range from chainmail to whatever... or maybe medium armor in general, in which case they'd maybe have their AC penalized by 2 if they were unarmored, as that's two armor categories below medium armor). In this case, a class's innate AC would probably equal the AC of the heaviest normal armor they are allowed (so a fighter in platemail/full plate would actually improve their AC by 1 above what they'd normally have in the RAW).

Yeah, I checked. Breastplate is Medium.
>Endurance lets you sleep in full plate
nope. Not unless it's mithral and is counted down to Medium. Too bad the guy who started this conversation said it was addy.

I'm not familiar with Basic. I'm assuming it still works with the d20 system like AD&D after/parallel to it? If so, do those protect values you're giving leave room for Dex or anything else? Otherwise rolling a d20 against that shouldn't be hard.

Personally I reworked the weapons/armor system to function more like 40k vehicle armor meets Runescape, where each weapon can deal Slashing, Piercing, or Crushing damage, but only so well as 1d6 + Strength per type, rolling against maximum armor 14. Failing to penetrate results in dealing only Crushing damage, which is naturally lowest for one-handed swords, spears and the like. Melta rules mimicked for mounted or charging attacks, rolling 2d6 for pene. Add in two earlier phases in the attack rolls, Priority and To Hit, and my autism is satisfied. No pikemen will die to dagger-wielding rogues in battlefield combat anymore, not unless it turns into a true brawl.

Basic armor works identically to AD&D armor; it's just that there are fewer types of armor. Well, that and AD&D starts at AC 10 rather than AC 9, and there's a one-bigger gap between leather and chain (leather protects 2 and chainmail protects 5, rather than 2 and 4).

>If so, do those protect values you're giving leave room for Dex or anything else?
Yeah. Innate AC would be just like unarmored AC and would be affected by Dex and so forth. You'd probably also want to include somewhat plentiful magical items to boost the AC of unarmored folks (bracers of defense, etc.) at higher levels, or they'll still end up like 5 points of AC behind where they'd be if they were armored (with magic armor).

Then you had some rather shitty reconstruction armor. Floating articulation is the best articulation, and involves tying off every piece to an arming jacket to distribute weight across the body and provide greater movement. Just tying armor pieces to each other is fucking retarded and absolutely not what they did in the Late Middle Ages unless you wanted to royally fuck up your body by bearing all the weight on the shoulders by not floating it.

youtu.be/J-knIUGLVms

Additionally plate armor from the 15th century typically had two pieces for the breastplate connected to each other for greater mobility and reinforcement.

>Implying that Arthur and his Knights were not the stiffest under steel while they traveled the land

Kindly fornicate thineself.

youtu.be/8PuaUR3cFps

Obligatory

The plate was just over 40lbs, the most awkward part was that I couldn't see for shit out of the helm. I needed to widen the slits, but never did. I was used to moving in it, so it wasn't heavy for me to wear, or a pain. I could get up off the ground while strapped to a big kite and a stick. Practice.

>I imagine they'd be perfect in winter then.
It depends.
You might still get hot and sweat as a consequence of activity in a padded gambeson because the outside temperature doesn't matter as much as the inside temperature and I'm not sure just how well a gambeson insulates since it's padded cloth.
And once you've sweat through your gambeson you're wearing wet clothing in winter.

Not sure though.

With all this larp discussion, where do you guys get your affordable or at least period appropriate armor? I want to get into it without showing up in jeans and a t-shirt.

maybe nighttime is cooler

blacksmiths. Find a blacksmith and befriend him.

DM's who ambush while the fighter is unarmored are the fucking worst. As if the Martials don't have it hard enough.