Is anyone here qualified to comment on the realism of the armor classes?

[zanzibar]

I'm wondering if anyone here goes larping on a regular basis or has ever practiced combat while wearing different kinds of medieval armor.

To you, I ask:  Is it realistic for skills to not be transferable from one armor class to another?  Should the current armor skills be replaced?  If so, by what?

[Bamko]

Second sentence.  Great point. 

First sentence.  Um, Really not sure Larping is the best source of knowledge.  When I was a teen I would go out in the woods with others of like mind (read "bent mind") and using dull swords, axes and leather, homemade chainmail and improvised plate (good enough to handle a few chops of blades, but hardly pretty looking).  even with that a few things were obvious.

Leather armor just made the bruises cover a bigger area.  Padding helped a lot.  Chainmail was almost useless. Plate seemed good, but tended to slip blade to an opening and thus, ouch and most importantly, the bladed weapons were essentially blunt, and if they were sharp, they would do a lot more damage.  (One freind had some about half inch aluminum modified plate he always bragged up, I sharpened a wood spliting axe and had him make me up a small shield, then showed him how quickly the sheild would be shattered into shards with a sharp heavy weapon. (hitting the edge was quicker, which explains why sheilds of yore had reinforced edging.) I guess that was LARPing back then... but really just a bunch of guys beating the stuffing out of each other.  Much like our games of tackle frisbee football, the game was  not over until someone had to go to the hospital.  (IN TFF whoever was ahead was the winner at that point, which lead to a lot of kamikazi moves by the leading team whenever they took the lead, he hehe)

I think you bring up an interesting point.  Maybe it SHOULD be something like crafting.  All blacksmithing works on your Blacksmithing skill, so helps in all other blacksmithing crafting, but also a component in the specialty.  If you try to take a blow from a club with chain mail the same as if you were wearing plate, it would not be good, so not the same exactly.

But how would you implement that now? 

Good second sentence though, and I am sure some have studied armor could answer it more realistically.  but... for example... What about making steel?  You do NOT EVER add coal to Iron ore tomake steel!  I have talked to blacksmiths and several people at a steel mill (including the PHD who designed their process).  Apparelntly you would get a mess.  No, you make Iron stock, burning off all the carbon and slag you can, and then add carbon and other impurities (may be in ore to some degree) to make steel.  In Japan they would start working an IRON stock into a blade and then heat, hammer and lay stock on rice straw, burning it and adding carbon to the stock, until it got easier to work enough to fold over and over and make the blade. 

Also, in early metalworking, slag would be tossed back into the mix, over and over, to get the metal out of it, and then skimmed off the top and used to make roads, paths, or whtever. whatever iron is in the ore would still be in the slag. Note to mention, ever notice really good slag does not rust much, yet it is metallic?  That is made of of metals whcih may (or may not) make for a better alloy, in moderation.  I have found over 100 year old slag, and it is in much better shape than the horseshoe nails I find in the same strata.  I wonder what it is made of exactly.....

So another incongruity.  But hey, it is a game, close enough maybe?

[Farren Kutter]

I'm not qualified to comment on it, but I will anyways.

Different types of armor would be better against different types of weapons, and also better in conjunction with the user's weapons. Someone using daggers or short swords, for example, should NOT be using platemail Platemail is heavy and restricting. However, if someone swings a big freaking sword at you and you're wearing plate mail, you're less likely to be sliced in half.

Leather armor is effective against slashing attacks, yet not so effective against a direct thrust of a sword. It also provides little padding against a bludgeoning attack. Learning to use it would include learning how to dodge more attacks. Chainmail is similar in effect to the leather, except with a bit of resistance to piercing, though not much. It mostly would stop a sword from cutting all the way through them, and a heavy blow from a claymore or a greataxe would not be stopped by purely chainmail. In any case, half-plate would have been more common, which is a mix of platemail and chainmail armors, which provides more mobility from the chainmail, and retains some of the defense of platemail.

People in platemail wouldn't be trained as much in dodging and more in how to take a blow. For example, if performed properly, someone could make an attack from a bladed weapon slide along their armor, rather than a full hit. Full plate tends to be smoother and more fully covering than they other two and it makes this possible.

In my opinion, THREE classes of armor is too much, and only two are needed, as things like chainmail and leather armor are similarly used. Heavy armor (platemail) is used quite differently. Also, the type of armor being worn should effect the use of weapons. Lighter armors allow for more mobility and thus more attacks. Also, it might be a bit of a stretch, but platemail armor may add a bit of weight to a swing of a large weapon, allowing it to hit harder.

[zanzibar]

Another thing to talk about are arrows.  Arrows can go through plate mail within a certain range.  Chainmail doesn't seem to provide much protection from arrows according to what I've found on the net, but I recall chainmail being historically worn over a layer of something else (felt or leather or something), and that the layer underneath had something to do with protection from arrows, and that this was significant during the crusades when Europeans were resisted by the armies of Saladin and others.  I'm reading that arrows will sometimes deflect off of chainmail, and other times they'll find their way through the weave, but the tests and discussions I found don't comment or account for the backing layer.  A silk shirt (light armor) provides protection from arrows by wrapping around the arrow head, preventing the barbs from lodging the arrow, allowing the arrow to be pulled out.

So it seems like this:

Heavy armor:  Vulnerable to arrows only at close range.

Medium armor:  Arrows make it through the armor sometimes.  Influence of a "backing" to the chain (leather, felt, or something else) isn't something I found information on.

Light armor:  See above for effectiveness of leather armor.  Silk doesn't stop the arrow, but significantly decreases the damage an arrow does.

[Kaityra]

Well, usually it is not the best thing to approach games from the realistic point of view. Why? Because games have to fulfill other things than the reality, e.g. balance, abstaction, making things interesting, etc. Please keep that in mind when discussing game mechanics.

[khoridor]

I share Kaityra's point of view.
Armors and weapons come in hundreds of forms, plus their chronological variations. Fighting techniques and equipment evolve in parallel, and generally each as a result of the other. Even if you stop your analysis before the avail of firearms, you still have an infinite number of cases to study, as well as to take into account the materials used (bone, wood, stone. bronze, iron, steel to name the most common ones), the crafting processes, the costs of making, the impact of weather and environment, etc. This is endless, and experts are already disagreeing on many points.

Therefore, the argumentation must be kept simple, and definitely game and fun oriented. For example, would 2 classes of armor be enough? Yes. Even 1. But what do the current 3 classes bring to the game? Do you think they bring more balance, more choices, more fun, or just more trouble? What would be a good game reason to change that?

Oh, I almost forgot: do not exclude magic spells from combat; some are weapons and armors too.

[zanzibar]

3 is a bit of a magic number.  Look at striking, kicking, and grappling.  They form a triangle.  If someone is a kick boxer, you want to get in their face with punches.  If someone is a striker, you want to get them on the ground and submit them.  If someone is a grappler, you want to keep your distance and do damage with kicks.

Rock paper scissors is a more basic example.

[Mordraugion]

I have worn full plate armour in mock combat and light chain and tbh most of the difference is having the strength and agility to move carrying the extra weight, the main difference is in how you attack your opponent and how he is armopured not your own defense

[Rhius Wellsham]

Ndeed, Mordraugion is right. Your technique on the sword, or actually any weapon should depend on your opponent, and therefore, his armour.

Armour is usually worn in several layers, mostly two. The first layer consists of padding. Manny layers of fabric often refered to as a gambeson. The padding is worn to increase the stopping distance, therefore decreasing the inpact of the blow.
The seccond layer is worn to protect the first layer from penetration. Leather armour, chainmaille or plate armour. Leather is though and can be hardened by using salt or hot water to make it stronger. Leather still remains the weakest of options for it can be cut. Steel however cannot be cut and has to be pierced. Chainmaille is almost impossible to cut, but can be pierced with verry pointy weapons. Platesteel armour has, unlike chainmaille, the ability to guide a point. A thrusting weapon can easilly slide off the armour, if the angle of inpact is sufficiently smaller or bigger then 90 degrees. Armour of later periods was actually designed in such a fashion to guide the weapon away from the armour`s joints.

Every type of armour has it`s own specific properties and therefore should be dealth with in it`s own manner.
For example;


These are several types of arrowheads. They all have a specific use. From the left to the right; A small head used for hunting, a large head used for horses or other large annimals, a small head used for unarmoured targets, another large head used to cut nerves to cause maximum pain and hopefully pannic to horses, a small thick head used to penetrate plate armour, a long pointy head used to penetrate chainmaille armour.


This is a way of handling your sword called halfsword for obvious reasons. This is ment to enable the fighter to thrust with high accuracy. Using a sword, the only known way to bring someone in platesteel armour down is by wrestling and stabbing to the armour joints.


Well, how it should be in-game I have no idea. I have been studieing Medieval swordmanship for several years now, and I make platesteel armour myself. I have been LARPing for four years now, am a GM myself and still, I have no idea how to represent reallity of Medieval combat in game. I have thought about it a lot, and in my opinion trying to make the fighting realistic comes with so much complexity that I fear it can never be accomplished. But that doesn`t mean it is not worth trying.

Rules according to the armour thus, cannot be seen without regarding the rules according to fighting.
Therefore I say; before looking at the armour, focus on the fighting.

After all, armour is a result of fighting.


(And now I`ll be polite and introduce myself before making aditional posts...  )

[verden]

All simulations are only representative of the system they are simulating, meaning that you settle for a compromise between simulation versus reality. So you are talking about both the underlaying code used to calculate strikes to specific body areas, as well as mapping that would occur on the models and animation being used in game. Both of those systems would have to exist before this could be implemented. A large library of models and many animations is not available in game at this time, nor is the code needed to manage these interactions. Right now, the monsters and combat are basically placeholder systems until people become available to address more. So its easier to just make neat looking armor pieces and add them to the game, but they are just filling body slots on the character right now. So you don't have to put padding on underneath the chainmail...

[zanzibar]

It sounds like the armor skills should be taken out of the game.  Instead, defense will be determined by the armor you're wearing.  Maybe new skills could be introduced for dodging and blocking, but they wouldn't be specific to armor types.