Accurate Representation of Armor

I'm working on a homebrew system and trying to figure out how to best handle different types of damage and different types of armor. What kinds of damage do different kinds of armor defend best against?

I'm using bashing, slashing, and piercing as the types of physical damage. Heat, Cold and Electric are my energy damages (Imagine a mage chucking an appropriate ball of that at our armored test-dummy). Armors have different defensive values for each of these 6 damage types. I'm using Gambeson and Brigandine for my Light armors, Chain and Breastplate for my Medium, and Banded Mail and Full Plate for Heavy.

I've heard that blunt weapons are best against things like Full Plate; does such armor still provide more defense against such damage than things like Gambeson, and it's just that they have even more defense against the other two types of physical damage? Similarly, would wearing Full Plate protect you from a fireball, or would it heat up and cook you?

How would you arrange the various protective values for these armors?

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youtube.com/watch?v=qzTwBQniLSc
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what forms of protective magics does your setting have?

Gambeson would be strong vs bashing and cold and electric and fire weak vs piercing, and slashing

Brigandine would be strong vs bashing, slashing, cold, and fire, weak vs piercing and electric

Chain would be strong vs bashing, slashing, fire, weak vs piercing, cold, and electric

Breastplate would be strong vs Bashing, Slashing, Piercing, weak vs fire, electricity, and cold

Banded would be strong vs Bashing, Slashing, Piercing, Cold, Weak vs fire and electricity

Full Plate would be strong vs Bashing, Slashing, Piercing, Cold, weak vs fire and electricity. Or potentially, everything. Remember, fullplate is not just a 'shell; of armor. Full plate is a gambeson, covered by chain, covered by plate. It is literally three armors combined for head to toe protection. Overheating is a risk, which is why I would say it would be vulnerable to fire, but even then thats more of a 'stamina damage' than direct harm

what forms of protective magics does your setting have? .

Sorcery is about manipulating physical laws, and as such could potentially render Mage Armor/Shield-like force planes, but these likely would operate like a conventional shield (which I'm having affect hit-chance, not damage). Miracles might have some sort of divine protection which reduces damage taken, might operate via a temporary-health system. In either of these cases though, individuals using a given type of magic don't automatically have access to all spells of that type (no D&D omni-wizards), where only Force Mages would have access to the disc of force to use as a shield, fire mages would have to rely on wreathing themselves in flames to burn attackers, etc.

So in other words, scattered, limited supernatural protections which do not render conventional armor obsolete, and which are not terribly widespread (no rings of protection, no mass-buffs, only a small fraction of the population learns any given kind of magic, etc.).

This is extremely helpful, thank you!

>even then, that's more of a 'stamina damage' than direct harm
Armors also have a maneuverability penalty, which I'm having factor into checks made against inclement conditions, fatigue from long marches, etc. As such, it's possible for Full Plate to have a decent Heat resistance (applied against fireballs) while it still has a hefty maneuverability penalty which makes marching in hot weather miserable.

Just don't fall into the whole "guys in plate armor who fell over were helpless!" meme.

Wearing heavy armor is FATIGUING, yes, but you actually had a really good range of motion. You could even tumble around dark souls style. They wouldn't have fucking used it if you couldn't move with any agility.

Fatigue was the killer, and even then, knights trained so they could fight in their armor for hours. There's a reason plate mail was the epitome of protection and knights wearing it were terrors on the field. It's economic factors that eventually 'killed' the knight - the sheer cost and investment of training and kitting a knight was outweighed by how killy mass drilled arquebruisiers and pikemen were. A dedicated knight charge could still plow into a terico if trained and maneuvered properly, but at high cost in horse flesh and casualties.

video proofs

youtube.com/watch?v=qzTwBQniLSc

I'm considering exactly how I want to balance the superior protection of heavier armor. I suppose I can play up the cost, and have the penalties associated be relatively minor (IE heavier IS straight-up superior, but is costly enough that you only get it if you think you'll be really getting your money's worth).

My Maneuv. penalty applies to most movement-based skills (Dodge, Athletics, Acrobatics, etc.). On a 2d10+X vs target system, I currently have the penalty for light armor at a 0-1, medium armor at a 1-2, and heavy armor at a 3-4. I might tone that last one back to 2-3 to be in line with the first two. A -3 is significant, but I don't think it's ridiculous?

>hide armor
Well that just looks-
>ringmail
Oh come on.

Why so much weak to electric? Doing some reading, it seems like at least Full Plate would be considered good vs Electric due to acting like a faraday cage, providing a path of least resistance away from the body, and the internal layers of padding buffering the squishy human inside.

It barely started and it's already Autism: The Thread

You are never going to achieve realism in your game. Never. Because a game is an abstraction of combat. All you are doing is creating a chapter about armour bloating more and more, until it's 200+ pages of autism and situational rules.
Not even GURPS does that.

The goal is not to make a perfectly realistic game- As you point out, these are all abstractions, and this is a game. Plus, we have widespread magic, so realism is already out the window.

What I /do/ want is an interesting set of mechanically distinct armor beyond armor having two values: defense and encumbrance. Additionally, having defenses against specific damage types makes weapon choice more important, using the right weapon for the job.

As far as bloat, this isn't exactly a new idea. Most recently I saw it in Anima, where it worked fine for this purpose. (I'm not aiming to use their whole soft vs hard vs helmet armor system, though). All this armor stuff is currently a single page on my draft doc.

When electricity can't conduct, the object gets hot. So, even insulated, the armor would get pretty heated.

Amrour decreses damage by X
Armour weights X
Armour might or might not add penalties to certain actions and skills (like swimming in a full body chainmail for example)
Armour might or might not make you immune to certain forms of damage all-together (like slicing or stabbing)
And no matter what sort of armour you are going to wear, blunt damage trauma is a bitch all the time.

That all combined will cover a single table, itself taking a single page just to make it transparent and easy to read. Because you can cram it into 10 sentences if you like.

Here, solved your problem without even going into sending autistic video analysis, talking about fatingue or inventing shit like this guy for "variety sake"

I don't get it, really. It's 2017. We had autistic symulationist phase from late 80s to late 90s. Shit was horrible, boring and required constant book-flipping, just so you could have more "realism", without being ever even close to realism.
Ask yourself a simple question - do you REALLY want to have rule-bloat, or make something that is easy to use, covered by single chart and making combat engaging, rather than frustrating due to all the modifiers you and your players have to count.

And before some cunt goes "b-but tactical combat":
You can have tactical combat without spending 50 pages on discussing different types of armour. Because it comes from you behaviour at the table and actions allowed, rather than rules themselve. It doesn't matter how armour works, if you yourself won't apply flanking or "dirty" moves.

I wish there was some mythbusters on this, because I can't find conclusive evidence one way or the other. About 2/3rds of sources seem to indicate that full plate or similar, where there is continuous, touching metal from head to foot, would provide fantastic resilience against electric but might heat a little. Other 1/3rd is of the opinion it would either fail to act as a faraday cage and do basically nothing, or it would heat enough to fry the wearer.

For the sake of making lightning not totally broken, I'm going to lean towards full plate giving moderate elec resist.

its generally a good idea, but the problem is with full field plate being technologically superior to earlier designs of armour, not just a different combat style, in that the later designs before armour

of course 1e is the only edition to stat out the proper late era full plates, every other edition only gives the stats for the early full plate.

the basic plate mail is "bulky"
field plate is "fairly", has 1 more AC than regular plate as well as 1/dr
Full Plate is also "fairly" and has 2 more AC than regular plate as well as 2/dr

The "fairly" bulk ranking is the same as padded armour fyi

"The penalty for wearing armor is already subsumed in the defensive bonuses given for it, and if it were further to penalize the character by denying dexterity armor class adjustments, it would be totally invalid."

So full dex bonuses as well while wearing it.

Oh and the dr applies to each damage dice, so a 5d6 fireball against a full plate does 10 less damage

basically the only reason not to wear it is if you are a peasant who cant afford the 2000/4000gold up front as well as the 100/200 per day (multiple days to repair) repair/maintenance cost of a trained smith to keep it in good condition for its dr effect to be maintained instead of the much more reasonable 400gp one times cost for early era plate.

Of course due to the exact measurements mode to perfectly interlock the pieces of the full plate "Full plate must be fitted to its wearer by an armorer, and (if non-magical) cannot be worn by anyone other than the one for whom it was prepared. It is normally worn only by cavaliers, paladins, and fighters of long service and many battles, and is only rarely donned by adventuring rangers, barbarians, and clerics."

So there is a social distinction in that you cannot even simply kill someone who has one and fit in to the one you steal as the cost of an armorer to resize it is almost as much as a new one, plus he'll want to know who you killed.

...

rules-light narrativist games are innately gay
why even have mechanical rules in that case?

>So there is a social distinction in that you cannot even simply kill someone who has one and fit in to the one you steal as the cost of an armorer to resize it is almost as much as a new one, plus he'll want to know who you killed.

With 3.5 rules, it costs AT MOST almost half of non-MW full-plate

Also, the character can be an armorer himself

>Gambeson
>strong vs bashing
>weak vs slashing

you have no idea what the fuck you're on about, boyo

I wasn't going to say it, but I was thinking this too

>Gambeson would be strong vs bashing... weak vs piercing, and slashing

Simulationism is a cancer. Just skip it.

why didnt you skip the thread then, faggot?

How in the almighty fuck would chainmail ever provide protection from blunt force trauma?

Disregard this idiot, hes obviously misinformed

For heavy armor, I suggest using an endurance system, rather than trying to make a big tradeoff in mobility.

As the internet demonstrates, athletic people can still run, jump, and fight in plate armor. But they will tire much faster than if they were wearing gym shorts.

I can't recall the name of the film (it's an oldie from the 50's--maybe Ivanhoe or something?). But there's a scene where two knights are duelling in full armor, and they stop to rest several times. By the end, they're barely able to swing their swords. Players who love armor wank will hate this though, because it means they can't just "tank" like in an MMO.

Nothing ruins that fantasy of invulnerability like having a thirteen year old peasant bash your head in with a rock while you spasm with cramps and gasp for air.

Also,
>metal armor is more vulnerable to electricity
I understand the logic, but if we're being simulationist, wouldn't the metal armor give the current a path to ground that doesn't go through your vitals?

Full plate was essentially as close as you could get to being invincible on a battlefield, and due to this anyone who could afford a full suit usually went out of their way to acquire one.

One thing that should be kept in mind though is that if the man in full plate is at a numerical disadvantage eg 1v2 or 1v3 it is easily possible that he could be knocked to the ground, which under normal circumstances wouldn't be too disastrous because as said a man in plate is far from helpless on his back. However when there are multiple people involved one or two could easily try and hold the man in plate still while the other shoves a dirk into his eyes through his visor, or into his neck through a gap in his gorget

There are accounts of knights in chainmail taking arrows to the gut and being perfectly fine. I'm going to assume getting shot by a bow packs more of a punch than what someone's capable of swinging a weapon.

That's because they wore jack beneath the maille, and jack is very good at stopping arrows.

You are supposed to have some padding underneath

Nah brah

An arrow works because it has high velocity, low mass, and a small cross section. If shot into a yielding material (like a straw bale, or flesh) it zips right in. But a mesh of metal rings dissipates its energy nicely.

A mace might move slower, but the greater mass means more energy traveling through the armor and into your squishy bits. I'm sure chainmail is better than nothing, but a good wack will break bones even if you're wearing plate.

Even if it's less realistic, I would like to preserve some amount of the standard fantasy party aesthetic, which means encouraging a variety of armor as opposed to all players rushing for full plate as soon as they can afford it.

What would the correct descriptors be?

This was discussed a bit further up, and it was noted that some sources indicate that the armor would make a poor faraday cage or provide enough resistance to heat up and cook the wearer. I'm still not sure what's actually would happen, but it's up in the air enough that I feel comfortable giving several armors moderate elec resist.

>all players rushing for full plate as soon as they can afford it.
Except that's not what would happen because of fatigue & encumbrance. Full plate isn't that encumbering because it's fully distributed over the body, but it is fatiguing to wear. Sure, everyone might end up with a curiass,, but what's wrong with that?

>Players who love armor wank will hate this though, because it means they can't just "tank" like in an MMO.

Fuck you for ruining my dreams user.

Instead of straight up armor slots, why not have it work in layers? For instance, no one in their right mind would wear a suit of plate without an arming double or even something cloth underneath.

If you're looking more towards a D&D style game, instead if hardline armor restrictions (magic-users can only wear light armor) just limit the layers they can wear.

>Gambesons
>Having a weakness

Wrong. Gambesons offered great protection against just about everything. Longbows at full draw had trouble penetrating them at a distance.

Anima does something sort of like you describe, where they allow one "soft" armor and one "hard" armor. You then get to add their various resistances together. I'm a bit worried about going TOO overboard, as the game is intended to be fairly high-fantasy, and that level of detail wouldn't add much to the game beyond technically having more accurate armor.

Though that reminds me- How much training does it take to move effectively in armor? Is there really training for it, or do you just get used to it after a couple hours? How hard would it be to get the equivalent of Light/Medium/Heavy Armor Proficiency? At the moment, I have no armor proficiency rules, and people can just use whatever they own. Anima had a dedicated skill, Use Armor, and then different armors had different use difficulties (layers add), where you get extra penalties for being insufficiently trained. On the flipside, having excess Use Armor allowed you to mitigate or ignore penalties, essentially rolling all of the proficiency and "armored ease" abilities into a single skill. Is that at all how this sort of thing actually worked?

When you discuss fatigue from armor, would the idea be that you can only wear the armor for X amount of time (possibly increased by a general endurance skill) before getting fatigue penalties? I'm not sure how I feel about that. It means that someone who wants heavy armor would need to either invest in endurance to wear it for longer, or specifically put it on before a battle they knew was coming. That sort of thing is difficult to balance due to being so dependent on how the GM structures encounters and the nature of the campaign (IE what if you rarely have enough warning to put on the armor). I'll consider it, though.

Would plate armor require any training to use (other than putting it on properly)?

I think the training would be more along the lines of "learning to do everything you normally do while wearing armor". You train in riding and swordplay while wearing armor, so that it's as close to the real thing as possible, and your body becomes accustomed to the weight and bulk. Armor proficiency is kind of a goof, since it's not really a separate skill.

There's "accurate", and then there's making an interesting system with meaningful tradeoffs.

If you want accuracy--
>all else being equal, plate armor beats everything else until fire-and-maneuver tactics become standard
>strenuous exercise while wearing 60 pounds of metal will wear you out. Leaping onto horseback or swinging from a rope while in full kit is a difficult stunt, not a standard maneuver

I played with an armor endurance system once, where one round of combat (or other strenuous activity) in full panoply cost you 1 point of Endurance. At 0 endurance, you cramp up and become almost defenseless.

(acp = armor check penalty)

con score + bab = endurance score

for every:
climb*/jump/swim*/tumble check or round spent hanging or treading water
attack (x2 if power attack or two-handed, x3 if both, also x2 for combat maneuvers)
round you spend sprinting
round in which you use the defense action (x2 for total defense)

you accumulate 1 fatigue point
for every round where you don't accumulate a fatigue point, you lose one
for every round spent resting (sitting or lying), you lose two

when your fatigue points surpass your endurance score, you become fatigued
when your fatigue points surpass twice your endurance score, you become exhausted
when your fatigue points surpass thrice your endurance score, you have to start making resolve (wis) checks or will saves (whichever is higher for you) at DC 10+1/round or fall prone and helpless until your fatigue points come down to less than twice your endurance score, and you stay fatigued until you sleep for at least 8 hours (this means that, until you sleep, your fatigue points can't go down to less than your endurance score)
if this happens twice between sleeps, you are exhausted until you sleep (minimum fatigue points equal to twice your endurance score)

for every round you surpass thrice your endurance score without resting, you take 3 points of subdual damage

Long-duration low-intensity exertion accumulates fatigue points over the course of minutes (how many?) rather than rounds, though recovering fatigue points lost in this way takes an equal length of time. If you push beyond thrice your endurance score in this way, you take damage and make checks at the same rate that you lose fatigue points.

*you can ignore 1 fatigue point from climbing or swimming per rank and/or misc bonus you have in the respective skill for each grade of fatigue

>you subtract your acp from your endurance score

great endurance perk adds your base & misc fort bonuses to your endurance score

I'm just gonna point out that "bashing." Should be part of every single attack. Swords bash, Daggers bash, Fists bash, Bash bashes. Seriously, impact is one of the most misunderstood aspects of melee combat. That sword is doing may more than just cutting you.

Meanwhile having a rulebook entirely around armour is literal, medical autism.
There is a reason why all sort of simulationist games went out of style. People wanted to play games and not flip few books just to find that combination of modifiers they had from existing circumstances. It's cumberstone, it's slow, it's often not fun at all.
But then again, people who write autistic games rarely play at all, so go fucking figure.

Also, explain to us all how any game that isn't Autism The Tabletop is instantly rule-light. You know there is entire spectrum out there. Hell, as an autist you MUST know there is such thing like spectrum.

Extremes of any degree are gay. Rules lite and simulationism (not a word btw) are inherently flawed ways of looking at game design. You should make something that captures the spirit of the work, paints a pretty picture, and is mechanically fun.

>There is a reason why all sort of simulationist games went out of style.
massive internet shilling

First off, your picture is 50 kinds of retarded and not realistic or accurate. Holy fuck

>Gambeson would be strong vs bashing and cold and electric and fire weak vs piercing, and slashing

Quilted defenses actually do really well against cuts and slashes IRL.

>Brigandine weak against piercing
A real Brig is dozens to hundreds of internally mounted steel plates withing a canvas or leather shell. That picture is a retarded hollywoodism.

>Chain would be strong vs bashing
IRL, maille is shit for concusive blows, as its highly flexible. Its the quilted defenses under it that take the force of the blow. Maille stops the majority of cuts.

>Breastplate
Is part of plate armour, but only covers your torso.

>Banded
"Banded armour" is not real, nor is "ring mail". Your picture is of a style of breastplate known as an Anime (no, not the cartoons). Its solidly constructed from multple lames riveted into one piece.

I could go on, but we'd need to start from the ground up here

>You are never going to achieve realism in your game
No, but you can replace the misconceptions and gamerisms with better images and terminology

>There are accounts of knights in chainmail taking arrows to the gut and being perfectly fine.
Thats due to the quilted layer under the maille.

There is a reason quilted defenses are the longest surviving armour technology. We still use it predominately, even today.

Oh fuck yes. Conditioning for one, and modification of movement in the other. As other anons have said, weight and restriction isn't really a problem, but the increase of your general surface area, as well and the fact that you have binding and catching surfaces, means you modify the way you move. While I can do Meyer's longsword both in my harness and out, I'd modify my stance slightly to accommodate the fact that I wear large gothic couters (elbows), for example.

>What would the correct descriptors be?
Gambeson would be best against slashing attacks, middling against piercing attacks, and worst against crushing attacks. Think of a gambeson as discount chain mail; the effectiveness of the armor comes from spreading what should be a focused blow out over the material, keeping the cutting edge of whatever implement you're being hit with from putting all its power on one point and slicing you open.

A mace's impact won't be dissuaded by a thick coat, or at least not enough of it. You might gain an advantage against some guy smacking you with his fists (gambesons could get pretty fucking thick, after all) but a blow of a mace will still double you over if he smacks your kidneys.

Yes user. It was the international conspiracy to get rid of something that wasn't fun. And the fault of normies for failing for a fun meme, instead of vigorously searching for the right table.
The sad part is there are people who seriously and unironically have such attitude.

3.x sold like crazy, but anytime you go anywhere but a dedicated 3.x board, all you ever get when you try to talk about it is "REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE 3.x sucks!!!!!!!!1111"

It's the vocal minority. Always is. Companies have a bad habit of listening to them.

>Le 3.x argument
Never played any D&D in my life. What you gonna do now? And I've got a better than that:
3.x was barely published in Poland. PF wasn't published at all.
We had our own horrible games.

Companies don't listen to anyone, user. They make shit that's going to sell. And it's easier to sell a game that is simple and servicable than one that starts with "we have 200 pages of rules for wounds". Who fucking cares, aside the handful of people interested in in-depth simulation?

>Companies don't listen to anyone, user.

2e
>waaaaaaaaaahhhh, casters arent good enough!
3e
>waaaaaaaaaaahhhh, casters are too good, give us balance!
4e
>waaaaaaaaaaahhhh, this isnt even D&D anymore!
5e
>waaaaaaaaaaahhhh, this quickly gets boring!

this guy gets it

Yes. First fitness. Then learning to move in plate. While it's meant to be as articulated and restriction free as possible, you do have to be aware of it.

This.

>Woman in armor
>Accurate
Weak bait, mate.

Armor works by two means. Area of protection and degree of protection. That's all a system should take into account. Different weapons attempt to defeat armor in different ways. Full quilted armor covering the entire body would be more protective than a simple shirt of maille for example, but be more vulnerable to being penetrated by weapons.

To create an accurate system you need to balance the surface area of armor, which increases the difficulty to hit an unarmored spot of the body, and the quality of armor, which reduces or wholly negates all damage. There's no such thing as "damage types", just fucking get rid of that idea right now. There are joules, and they are applied differently by different weapons but the result is the same. Wailing upon somebody with a mace is little different than wailing upon somebody with the quillons of a sword, and unless you have already subdued said man, mad thrashing isn't going to achieve much and most likely get you killed. Combat is made up of careful and precise blows.... until opponents close and likely result in a grapple.

Remember the chief means of defeating an armored opponent has never involved defeating the armor. It's going around the armor. If somebody only has a breastplate, then you swing for the head or legs. If somebody has full body armor, then your goal is to flip them on their back and ram a dagger up their pelvis.

I think you have it wrong with chain. Chain does fuck all against bashing but is pretty good at blocking arrows.

Brigandine's were not light armor. Their protection was very very good, displacing chainmail and its previous incarnation (coat of plates) before being unseated as the king of armors by plate. Also, I know there are going to be a ton of people claiming that chainmail was weak against piercing, that just isn't true. The videos you see online of people shooting through chainmail are bogus, always using cheap butted mail (good for larping and not much else) with out a gambeson beneath, also usually just slung over a wooden rack. It isn't a proper test of chainmail's strength. Every armor has a Gambeson underneath it, so your values for other armors should reflect that. Also...
This guys picture is bogus as fuck, and his post isn't much better.

Also... this pic is not a brigandine. Its a dumbass movie prop modern people made and called a brigandine for some fucking stupid ass reason.

THIS is a brigandine.

And this is the overlapping plates of the interior of the brigandine, and the source of its strong protection. Note how the plates all overlap for additional strength and reinforcement.

Does this look like a "Light Armor" to you?

>It means that someone who wants heavy armor would need to either invest in endurance to wear it for longer, or specifically put it on before a battle they knew was coming.

That's literally how armor works. You don't wear it until you HAVE to wear it. Thats why getting your camp ambushed is such a shitty situation, you're literally getting caught with your (plate) pants down.

A decent gambeson would stop the arrow on it's own too.

Sure but a bash from a sword blade might give you a bruise while an axe might break bone

I didn't realize that brigandine was the gap between chain and plate.

Without getting autistic about the armor penalties or the max dex bonuses, what would you replace brigandine with on this chart?

What the fuck is leather-plate?

Boiled leather I'm assuming
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiled_leather

>Wrong. Gambesons offered great protection against just about everything. Longbows at full draw had trouble penetrating them at a distance.
>Quilted defenses actually do really well against cuts and slashes IRL.
>There is a reason quilted defenses are the longest surviving armour technology. We still use it predominately, even today.
Agreed on these points, for the most part. Gambeson/quilted defenses work because the multiple layers each support the ones above and below, while also shifting in relative position. This means that in order for something to penetrate one layer, it must have enough force behind it to penetrate all the layers.
Additionally, as time went on, the principles behind gambeson were more fully understood, and new techniques were put to use in constructing it. A singular square of fabric, folded over itself repeatedly to form a much smaller denser square, which was then sewn to other such squares and sandwiched between layers of fabric, was one such late design.
Furthermore, the material the gambeson was made of made a world of difference. Although it was originally developed using linen, it was found that silk was a much more effective material for gambeson. Natural puncture resistance and moisture-wicking properties made silk a valuable and sought after fabric for gambeson, and contributed to the demand that brought the Silk Road.

Don't need armor if you don't get hit headtap.meme

also check em

Yes. I call it "plate" because it kinda resembles metal plate armor.

Man, I am really tired of nerds going on about how quickly anyone would get tired doing anything.
They always get it wrong by factors of 10 or 100, erring on the side of "everyone must be as incredibly unfit as I am".

what if I just switched chainmail and brigandine?

would armor protect you from falling damage? I feel like it should, to some degree at least.

damage an hit point are an abstraction anyway and armor mechanics are too complicated to simulate on a one roll system so I don't bother

vidya would be the best place simulate armor, but most often they are even lazier than pen and paper.

I wonder what gave you the impression it's a woman

My first question is why are there so many of these? For example, in what culture do you expect to find padded, hide, and leather plate being used at the same time?

Second, what is "breast-plate" as opposed to "plate-mail" as opposed to "full-plate" in your setting? Whatever they are, are they worn with maille? Is maille worn with a gambeson/aketon/arming coat?

Depending on the answers to these questions, Brigandine might belong in any of several places. For my D&D house rules it's:

Normal clothes < Gambeson < Maille < Brigandine < Full Harness with the assumption that some manner of arming coat is involved in the other armors and that maille is appropriately incorporated into the others. A breastplate + maille with a gambeson underneath is basically just a stylistic variation on brigandine for my purposes: you've got some plate bits providing a degree of rigid protection in places, but aren't a fully-encased tank.

The presence of a helmet factors in for armor bonus and perception penalties. Exceptional craftsmanship provides a save against critical damage. Poleaxes partially bypass armor, but not shields.

>split skirt for riding
>no heels on boots for stirrups nor any spurs
wut?

>two swords clearly designed to each be wielded with two hands
I think there are some details this artist didn't think all the way through.

LARPer gear that doesn't work for actual combat, due repair costs and having a higher expenses to maintain than actual metal stuff.

Vidya will always be the laziest.
Its nice when they go for minimalism, but stupid when they go half way on control.

you won't find them all in one culture

breastplate is a gambeson with a metal breastplate, helmet, pauldrons, gauntlets, and shin armor, maybe a skirt of some kind.

plate-mail is a breastplate (as described above) over chainmail (maybe not a full suit, but enough to cover the gaps between areas with plate)

fullplate covers most of the body, leaving only small chain-protected gaps for mobility, like the arm pits and crotch underside

dwarven-plate covers everything with sliding plates, like tournament plate

Can I see your helmet rules in full?

I don't get why pay have to go for leather instead of cloth. Is cloth not fancy enough?

>Full Plate would be strong vs Cold,

This guy has never worn steel toe boots in winter. Enjoy your frostbite user.

Without modern agriculture, leather is stupidly expensive, and is primarily used for shoes.
So its basically too expensive. And it doesn't offer any real protection, compared to 2-3x layers of cheap flax.

Maybe he be wearing some comfy cloth underneath.

Steel toe is modern shoes is basically half a layer of insulation below the steel toe, and then socks.
Its fuck all.
Compared to steel -> 3-4 layers of cloth wool.

No seriously, look up the origins of the word "ragsock", or birkebeiner. Its insane.

I don't care how much padding you have under it, once that metal freezes everything around it slowly freezes too. Trust me, I speak for experience. 3-4 layers of wool or cotton or padding won't do shit all.

Your argument is essentially that walking on ice(rigid hard surface), is cold.
It really is not. You are also confusing insulation, layers and surface contact.
Its not like the most common type of shoes is rags made out of layered wool, flax and tree fibers. Which is excellent for winter, once you have enough layers.

>wide hips
>weird functional upper half mixed with the sexy lower half
>generic cosplay pose, has no idea what she's doing
>fucking wedge heels

gee, I wonder

Ah, leather armor.

All of the protection of gambeson with none of the comfort, ease of repair, ease of crafting, or affordability.

>Can I see your helmet rules in full?
It's pretty heavily houseruled, so I'd have to start with the Critical Hit rules:

A natural 10 or higher is a critical hit against a flat-footed or restrained unarmored opponent. A target that has reasonable freedom of movement and is reasonably aware that an attack is imminent adds five to this value, so generally it takes a natural 15 to land a critical hit. A target wearing armor adds three to this, a character wearing a helmet adds two to this. All of these modifiers stack, and are super-easy to folks at my table to keep in mind. When slaughtering peasants they need to roll 15s for crits, while the hapless peasants typically need 20s to land crits against well-equipped murderhobos.

Various non-human adversaries have notably tough hides or scales or non-flesh physiology, so those ones are treated like they have armor. Particularly tough ones (or ones lacking obvious anatomical weak spots) are treated like they also have helmets. When fighting a new critter, sometimes a player is disappointed that his natural 16 didn't land a crit. Crap, this thing's going to be tougher to take down.

Helmets impose disadvantage on perception checks. Armor more significant than a gambeson imposes disadvantage on stealth checks and endurance-related checks, overland travel in harsh environments, swimming, and so on. Full Harness armor requires an assistant to don or remove, and for traveling purposes neither person counts towards helping set up or tear down camp (wearing it every day cuts down the overland travel rate). Full harness armor requires multiple containers for storage (you can't just stuff it in your burlap sack along with your other camping gear; it won't fit).

(looks like I went too long, continued below)

(cont.)


Armor, helmets, and shields all add to AC and provide a small amount of damage reduction. Critical hits bypass the damage reduction entirely. Critical hit avoidance and damage reduction combine to make armored characters significantly more survivable in combat than unarmored characters. This damage reduction does not affect direct damage from magic unless there's an attack roll involved.

Masterfully-crafted brigandine and full harness allow a proficient wearer to make a straight-up 10+ roll (no modifiers) to turn a critical hit into a normal hit. The wearer must not be flat-footed or restrained for this benefit, and the armor must have been built specifically for the wearer (this benefit is all about fit and finish, in my mind).

Percussion weapons (warhammers, maces) don't do great damage compared to edged or piercing weapons, but treat a target as though he were wearing shittier armor, basically giving them a +1 to hit and +1 to damage against an opponent wearing anything better than a gambeson.

On a critical hit with a piercing weapon, all damage dice are bumped up by one die size (so a Rogue stabbing with a dagger would roll 2d6 instead of 2d4 for the dagger, and some number of d8s instead of d6s for Sneak Attack damage if applicable).

Poleaxes and monstrous weapons of similar or greater oomph bypass the damage reduction of armor and helmets, but not shields. This means that a knight in full harness with a poleaxe has a great offensive advantage over a knight in full harness with a sword & shield (who in turn has a minor defensive advantage).

(still too long, almost done I promise)

(cont.)


Various weapons are capable of attacking for piercing, percussion, or cutting damage depending on what the thing actuall was (a warhammer isn't going to cut, but you can turn it around to the pick end and pierce with it, longswords can stab or bash with the quillons or pommel, etc). I have combatants roll at disadvantage when swinging around large weapons in cramped quarters, but polearms are a bit OP in my game.

I don't feel any compulsion to give nonsensical advantages to people who stylistically don't want to wear armor. I don't personally wear armor, but I also don't go around getting into fights all the time. Just as it's reasonable to expect a modern soldier on patrol or a football player to wear his protective gear, I provide advantage to adventurers that wear protective gear while hunting monsters and such.

As for the numbers:
Unarmored: 10AC / 0DR
Gambeson +2AC / +2DR
Maille +3AC / +3DR / situational disadvantages
Brigandine +4AC / +4DR / situational disadvantages
Full Harness +6AC / +6DR / copious inconveniences
Buckler +3 AC (stacks with armor)
Shield +3 AC / +3DR (stacks with armor)
Helm +2AC / +2DR (stacks with armor)
Closed Helm +3AC / +3DR / Perception disadvantage (stacks with armor)

This means that a character in master-crafted full harness and closed helm has an AC of 19, shaves 9 off of most incoming weapon damage, and can can face a hail of arrows knowing he's likely to be unharmed, barring a critical hit.

thanks, user, I appreciate it

You're an oversensitive retard who has no idea what they're talking about.
High heels literally originated as male calvary fashion.

Not him. But the way the sword belts hang irks me the wrong way to be sure. They would fall if the knight put the legs more together...

>High heels literally originated as male calvary fashion.
So?
If you can find me a single piece of contemporary artwork showing an unambiguously male knight in armor who is also wearing heels I'll concede the argument.

It's a fucking woman

No that guy, but
>five seconds of image search

Heels absolutely were men's wear for taking better advantage of stirrups. That said, the picture earlier in the thread looks like he's wearing wedge heels, which are totally a more modern women's fashion feature.

Also, the hips in that picture don't look like lady-curves at all. Some women have really narrow hips, but it's a more typically masculine feature to have shoulders significantly wider than the hips.

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the artist intended for this to be a female, but wasn't terribly successful if that was the case.

ha, forgot to attach the picture.