Armor

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How do the rules you use or would like to have treat armor? Choose as many as you like.

  • (A) Armor as active defense from hit, reduces attacker chance to hit (as AC in D&D)

    Votes: 3 20.0%
  • (B) Armor as damage reduction (as in legion of games)

    Votes: 14 93.3%
  • (C) Armor as damage type conversion (I don't know of a game that does this)

    Votes: 1 6.7%
  • (D) Armor as requiring a "bypass" roll (as in Dragon Warrior)

    Votes: 1 6.7%
  • (E) Armor as defense skill increase (I don't know of a game that does this)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • (F) Other

    Votes: 1 6.7%
  • Side Property (1) Armor can get/gets damaged

    Votes: 9 60.0%
  • Side Property (2) Armor requires "skill/option/feat/talent" for full use, new feature/use option

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Side Property (3) Armor has "skill/option/feat/talent" for better use, no new features/use options

    Votes: 4 26.7%
  • Side Property (4) Other

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    15

xanther

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How do I armor thee, let me count the ways:

More design questions.

Armor: How do the rules you use (or those you'd like to have) treat armor? Where AV stands for Armor Value as a numerical value for how good the armor is.
  • Armor as active defense from hit, reduces attacker chance to hit (as AC in D&D)
  • Armor as damage reduction (as in legion of games)
  • Armor as damage type conversion (I don't know of a game that does this)
  • Armor as requiring "bypass" (as in Dragon Warrior)
  • Armor as defense skill increase (I don't know of a game that does this)
...side properties
  • Armor can get/gets damaged.
  • Armor requires "skill/option/feat/talent" for full use, new feature/use option becomes available.
  • Armor has "skill/option/feat/talent" for better use, no new features/use options


My house armor rules are (B) or (C) at player option, side property (1) as rare option at GM discretion.

In addition to the poll (hope did it correctly) open to a discussion of important design decisions, limitations, etc. for whatever rules you use or wish you had.
 
I like rules light. But I also like intuitive mechanics that make sense (where possible).

So, I like a damage reduction system for armour. It always feels more intuitive than armour class that makes it harder to hit an opponent.

Technically armour should get damaged over time. But that's another thing I'd have to keep tack of as a GM. Even though it's realistic. So, I would probably drop that to keep things light ans simple.

I think wearing any kind of proper battle dress armour should have a trained skill, as it's just too cumbersome unless you've been trained in it and worn it for years.
 
From an aesthetic standpoint my favorite armour mechanic is damage reduction. I think it make more intuitive sense than the more usual D&D answer. I also do favour armour systems where the armour can get damaged, but that ofttimes means more crunch than I'd like as well. The only system I can think of that does armour damage simply and well is Black Hack 2E, where armour is represented by X Amour dice (based on type), each of which can be 'broken' to absorb all the damage from a single attack, but after which must be repaired. I like that system a lot, but it comes at the cost of my first answer, where armour is straight damage reduction. On the whole though, it's an elegant example of what I want in an armour system, at least for a game where resource management is supposed to be a key item. In cases where resource management isn't desirable then armour damage mechanics simply gum up the works.

I'd be very interested to hear what other armour damage systems people like. I'm sure there are some other excellent examples that I'm simply not remembering.
 
I basically like armour as extra hit points with a cap on how much it absorbs from one hit. The armour gets damaged, the extra book keeping is minimal, and nobody gets to be invulnerable forever.

I do like Rolemaster's approach, where armour makes you easier to hit but you take less damage and lower criticals and the damage can effect different armour types in different ways and the first critical on the chart is amost always a krush critical because you got hit really hard but the armour wasn't penetrated. But it's really not something you can implement without full page weapon tables.
 
EDIT: Looks lie my list stuff got all messed up and turned into bullet points. Hope reference to A, B ,C etc., makes sense.
 
On armor taking damage, like the concept in the abstract but in practice way too much book keeping. These days it is something I apply as a rare option that lowers armor value, or may decide to let it be a player option for them to let the armor absorb damage it normally would not but gets destroyed in the process.
 
...I think wearing any kind of proper battle dress armour should have a trained skill, as it's just too cumbersome unless you've been trained in it and worn it for years.
I have always wondered at this. Is this anything but anecdotal? At one time it was believed doing stuff in full plate was hard yet average (untrained) blokes in reproductions could readily mount a horse, do push ups run etc.

Whatever learning curve there seems to be in adjusting to the weight appears to be very short and shallow. I've only played around in mock armor for SCA type stuff, did not find it restricted me at all...and it was pretty "proper" as in not just bracers and greaves.

The only draw back seemed to be added weight causing faster fatigue...which was my great advantage in SCA as I was young and in shape though not very skilled, but the "old" skilled guys tired fast :smile: so could at some point literally run around them.
 
I think the skill involved is more about getting in on right than actually moving around in it. Full plate in particular is amazingly well articulated. But yeah, I'd expect fatigue from the weight and the heat to be a major factor.
 
I think the skill involved is more about getting in on right than actually moving around in it. Full plate in particular is amazingly well articulated. But yeah, I'd expect fatigue from the weight and the heat to be a major factor.
I like the idea of Quick Done, the armor version of Quick Draw...could actually be very handy in an adventuring life.
 
I have always wondered at this. Is this anything but anecdotal? At one time it was believed doing stuff in full plate was hard yet average (untrained) blokes in reproductions could readily mount a horse, do push ups run etc.

Whatever learning curve there seems to be in adjusting to the weight appears to be very short and shallow. I've only played around in mock armor for SCA type stuff, did not find it restricted me at all...and it was pretty "proper" as in not just bracers and greaves.

The only draw back seemed to be added weight causing faster fatigue...which was my great advantage in SCA as I was young and in shape though not very skilled, but the "old" skilled guys tired fast :smile: so could at some point literally run around them.

It's hard to verify of course... And I'm not an expert.

But just being able to move around in full battle dress doesn't mean you can automatically fight well or you are moving in the most efficient way. Also, do the guys who say the learning curve is short are they using proper armour (or is it cut down so they can actually move about in it at these reenactments)? I suppose one would have to chat to an expert.

At the end of the day, this is only for gaming purposes so realism is somewhat malleable. So, if you feel that wearing full plate wouldn't take a PC or NPC to long to get a grip on then just go with that. But for me I'd make it a skill. It just feels right to me. But I see your point. :smile:
 
...

At the end of the day, this is only for gaming purposes so realism is somewhat malleable. So, if you feel that wearing full plate wouldn't take a PC or NPC to long to get a grip on then just go with that. But for me I'd make it a skill. It just feels right to me. But I see your point. :smile:
Agree can go either way. For me I always ask is the difference enough to really want to bother in the game for verisimilitude, then does adding in a skill help with genre emulation. Realism/simulation is far down my list.

I do like the idea of those with skill getting more out of armor, just helps those who want to go down that road. Maybe as simple as an armor value bonus to reflect they know how to move to keep maximize the chance the armor takes the hot in the best spot at the best angle...kind of like a kata. I'd also include any skill as modifier to Quick Done the armor...and also make highly custom armor easier to Quick Done. Also perhaps reduce (slightly) stealth penalties as well...which I already allow for highly custom armor.
 
It's hard to verify of course... And I'm not an expert.
There are several reenactment groups like the Society of Creative Anachronism who do a lot of historical research into their gear including. I myself made and wore a coat of plates in the early 90s made from a 14th century drawing. It not a big mystery, just look up some reenactment armor stores and read their reviews as a starting point.

But just being able to move around in full battle dress doesn't mean you can automatically fight well or you are moving in the most efficient way. Also, do the guys who say the learning curve is short are they using proper armour (or is it cut down so they can actually move about in it at these reenactments)? I suppose one would have to chat to an expert.

#1 rule to remember, medieval warrior are not idiots especially when it comes to their gear. It about strapping your armor properly. What you do for a coat of plates is different for wearing chainmail which is different than wearing plate armor. Dexterity, agility, are not an issue. What is an issue is fatigue throughout the day. You are still carrying extra weight and that wears on you by the end of the day. However during a battle, it not a factor unless one is already fatigued before combat. And there are dozens of reason why that could be other than the armor one wears.

I wore 40 pounds of gear throughout the day, I was also in my late 20s and in fairly good shape. I also was glad to take off by the end of the day. And during the day I often sat down to rest whenever I can.

At the end of the day, this is only for gaming purposes so realism is somewhat malleable. So, if you feel that wearing full plate wouldn't take a PC or NPC to long to get a grip on then just go with that. But for me I'd make it a skill. It just feels right to me. But I see your point. :smile:
It is a trivial skills if the gear is properly strapped. The easiest thing to add as far as realism goes is to require a day to fix up and adjust the straps on any newly acquired armor. Invariably the straps and belts will be the sized for the previous owner and as a result the armor is not going to fit right. And that will sap fatigue quick.
 
Burning Wheel has some interesting armor mechanics, including a relatively simple damage system. The Burning Wheel system adds some die rolls to manage armor, but they are the least of the complexity of combat...

But generally I prefer AC (D&D, Classic Traveller) or simple damage reduction (RuneQuest, Cold Iron).

Rob: I'd love your thoughts on various games encumbrance effects of armor. D&D has a simplistic movement rate adjustment. RuneQuest just has you total the armor value and if you are sufficiently encumbered, there are some penalties (with various versions of such). Cold Iron you total up your encumbrance and compare to your STR and DEX to find movement allowance, daily fatigue, and some other out of combat effects.
 
One of the systems I put together a while back uses damage reduction and armor damage as an option. Everything, including the characters had a condition monitor. If it was new/undamaged it had a condition monitor of 100%. Whenever a character got hit the armor would absorb a number of points based on its armor rating which reduced it's CM. Any points over the armor's rating went on the character. A weapon's CM would be reduced each time it was used to block an attack or scored an exceptional hit.

Simple Sixes
 
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Rob: I'd love your thoughts on various games encumbrance effects of armor. D&D has a simplistic movement rate adjustment. RuneQuest just has you total the armor value and if you are sufficiently encumbered, there are some penalties (with various versions of such). Cold Iron you total up your encumbrance and compare to your STR and DEX to find movement allowance, daily fatigue, and some other out of combat effects.
Of all the system I think GURPS is closest to how reality works while still being playable.

No Encumbrance (0): Weight up to Basic Lift. Move = Basic Move. Full Dodge.
Light Encumbrance (1): Weight up to 2*BL. Move = Basic Move * 0.8. Dodge -1.
Medium Encumbrance (2): Weight up to 3*BL. Move = Basic Move * 0.6. Dodge -2.
Heavy Encumbrance (3): Weight up to 6*BL. Move = Basic Move * 0.4. Dodge -3.
Extra-Heavy Encumbrance (4): Weight up to 10*BL. Move = Basic Move * 0.2. Dodge -4.

That the starting point however then there is fatigue. You start with Fatigue = Health = average of 10.

GURPS breaks down into five special cases
Battle, Hiking, Overexertion, Running/Swimming, and Magic

Battle
If it last more than 10 second (10 round) Then you get hit with

No Encumbrance: 1 FP.
Light Encumbrance: 2 FP.
Medium Encumbrance: 3 FP.
Heavy Encumbrance: 4 FP.
Extra-Heavy Encumbrance: 5 FP.
+1 if it hot out.
+2 if you wearing full coverage armor like Plate and it hot.

Hiking
Per above but assessed per hour.

Overexertion
You can lift or pull things beyond Extra-Heavy Encumbrance but it cost 1 FP per second

Running/Swimming
Encumbrance doesn't have an effect except your base move is slower. You roll Health periodically or suffer a loss of a fatigue point.

Magic
Spells cost mana which can and often does come out of the caster's Fatique.

Fatigue Points
Has similar break down to be getting injured so it easier to remember. Bad effect starts when you drop to 1/3 of Fatigue, You need to make Will Rolls if you at zero or below or you can't do anything. Even one failed roll means you pass out. If you hit -FP you always pass out.

Recovery
In general you get 1 FP back per 10 minutes of rest. The average character can fully rest up after 2 hours.

What about Dungeons & Dragons?
If I were to do fatigue tracking using D&D, regardless of edition I would use 5th edition's exhaustion levels. A short or 10 minute rest will recover one level of exhaustion and a full night sleep would recover all them.

If a battle last more than 10 rounds I would have character makes a DC 15 save modified by constitution or athletics (if 5e) or they suffer a level of exhaustion. Light Armor makes the save at an advantage, Medium Armor a regular roll, Heavy Armor at a disadvantage.

Likewise if the player hikes, overexerts, runs, or swims, I would them make period con/athletic saves per above.

Wrapping it up
The problem is that tallying up weight or encumbrance points is tedious. Shortcuts like the reduction of movement per armor worn, or limited benefit from DEX bonus because of armor worn are off appreciated. For me and how I run 5e or the Majestic Fantasy RPG, I get a lot of mileage out of assuming that character are component at what they do. When I played sports, SCA and NERO LARP, all the experienced players I knew quickly learned to rest when they can and did so. And it not a hard thing to learn. So for tabletop, I assume that throughout the day the character are doing the same. So I reserve fatigue loss for situation where the player makes a deliberate choice or circumstances warrant it. The latter about circumstances is greatly informed by my experience with the journey rules in Adventures in Middle Earth where exhaustion as a consequence plays a major role.

I would apply the same idea to GURPS except I would refer to the existing guideline when needed.

Hope this answers your question.
 
Rob, thanks. Yea, for D&D I like the exhaustion levels. I was even working at mapping them into Cold Iron (which already has two exhaustion levels but they don't go as far as the D&D ones in that they never reduce movement rate).

So in GURPS the only impact to skills and such for encumbrance is penalty to Dodge?

RQ1/2 doesn't bother with fatigue at all. I should consider using the D&D exhaustion levels and your thoughts about when they are acquired...

Interestingly since Cold Iron fatigue is based on hit points that increase with level, high level characters don't fatigue as quickly, but that is acknowledged as something real. Poison and intoxicants don't affect high level characters as much either. Yea, the Champion (8th level fighter) rarely gets remotely drunk. Extra hit points beyond CON (most PCs get CON/2 hit points per fighter level, min of CON) are considered "magic" and back in the day, it was offered that a strong enough magic lock (that suppresses magic compared to anti-magic that just prevents new activation of magic) would take away the extra hit points. Supposedly high end bars had a magic lock strong enough to suppress the extra hit points, though why a bar would want incentive to sell less booze... Of course it also prevents any sort of magic being used in bar room brawls... And no giants or dragons or other magical creatures since the hit point suppression would also suppress the magical essence that allows them to break laws of physics...
 
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So in GURPS the only impact to skills and such for encumbrance is penalty to Dodge?
Direct effects are are reduced move and dodge are the only penalties. But indirect effects means that you will lose fatigue points faster and the bad things start to happen at 1/3 of your normal fatigue max. Keep in mind character range 12 to 10 on average for total fatigue. So you don't have a lot to play with.

RQ1/2 doesn't bother with fatigue at all. I should consider using the D&D exhaustion levels and your thoughts about when they are acquired...
Runequest 1/2 seems easily modded to account for fatigue. Later edition could be used as a guide to how to do this or what to factor in. But I agree that levels of exhaustion would be easier to track than any point based system. GURPS has low numbers to begin with and the math for when it matters (like running) is straight forward in order to say "OK you can go X far until exhausted". The only time in practice that Fatigue is tracked point by point is for mages casting spells.
 
I am really not that keen on managing fatigue within a combat. I did thing the One Ring system was quite elegant - your endurance pool was reduced by your encumbrance level, and once you run out of endurance you are too tired to be effective; most damage reduces your endurance pool, but a big hit might cause a wound - armour prevents wounds but does not mitigate endurance loss.

The idea of armour as a separate bonus hit point pool is a neat one (David Johansen above) and if I ever make a new game or hack an existing one I may well want to yoink it.
 
robertsconley robertsconley
Have played around with the idea of fatigue in combat and athletic activities but my regeneration is 10 or more times factor. Basically the idea an above average human can fight for 3min before needing to rest, so a round in boxing. And can recover full stun damage (from fatigue loss) in a minute.
 
Direct effects are are reduced move and dodge are the only penalties. But indirect effects means that you will lose fatigue points faster and the bad things start to happen at 1/3 of your normal fatigue max.
I like that encumbrance state impacts FP loss.
I also assign move and initiate penalties based on encumbrance, but usually an above average human can wear armor, have a weapon and shield and not suffer.
But that is about it. Some one else should carry the gear...squire :smile:

On below tracking fatigue point loss is easy for me. I have a rapidly healing damage category meant to represent this type of “damage”. I call it stun, you have Stun HP as a stat.
Simply each action you fight or do something highly athletic simply lose 1 Stun HP, basically all combatants lose 1 SHP per action. 1 action = 10sec., so 6 SHP per min. A good boxer, or a combat or athletic focused character, would have about 16-20 SHP. So would tire (make roll or drop to a knee or -1 to all actions, player choice) in about 18 actions or 3 minutes.
Recovery rate would be about 3.5 SHP per action. So likely recover fast if no other damage.
Basically each action rested allows you to act for 3 or 4 once exhausted.
But I agree that levels of exhaustion would be easier to track than any point based system. GURPS has low numbers to begin with and the math for when it matters (like running) is straight forward in order to say "OK you can go X far until exhausted". The only time in practice that Fatigue is tracked point by point is for mages casting spells.

Looping back to armor, I use 3 different types of damage Stun, Basic, and Critical. Each have their own associated hit points.
Armor down converts damage one type (IF Armor Value exceeds Weapon Peirce/Penetration), so Critical becomes Basic, and Basic become Stun. You have few Critical HP and they are hard to heal,, Basic HP and Stun HP are about equal and 3-5 times Critical HP.

For example, chainmail in AV 4-5, will down convert Swords which have a Peirce of 2-3, and basic magical ones (+1 Peirce). Soft leather, heavy cloth, padded, piecemeal etc. armor would be AV 2, so this armor would not down convert basic sword damage to stun. Down converting damage basically allows you to use the quickly recovered SHP as hit points first. Ohh and down converting damage is a player option which they may choose not to apply, e.g. to avoid make fatigue rolls when SHP reach 0....basically save 1 SHP if you can.

Thus a warrior with a highly magical blade constructed of the best magical metals (which provide increase Peirce and lower encumbrance, but no extra damage) can cut down a Dragons effective HP by half if the sword Peirce exceeds the Armor Value of the Dragon (which is very high, 6-11).

Also armor absorbs/stops damage up to its armor value. Could be talked into letting it stop more damage but loses AV.
 
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...

The idea of armour as a separate bonus hit point pool is a neat one (David Johansen above) and if I ever make a new game or hack an existing one I may well want to yoink it.
I like that too especially if it degrades the armor.

Similarly, Shield Hit Points are a property of my shields as they can take a lot of damage before being rendered inoperable, using the shield to soak up hits (and damaging it in the process) is a cost effective tactic, it doesn't degrade the shield until 0 Shield HP.
 
I am really not that keen on managing fatigue within a combat. ...

I generally like to avoid tracking conditional effects. Having simple effects (easily memorized) and having one trigger when a value reaches 0, as compared to multiple trigger values 1/3, 2/3, etc. (even if math done on the sheet), makes it easy. The a simple effects, drop to a knee, then prone, then out...or -1 all actions, then -2, etc. or lose a BHP....drop, -1 all skills, -1 BHP.
 
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