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Old 12-14-2019, 01:46 PM   #50
Polydamas
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
Default Re: [LT Armor Loadouts] Expensive Greaves

Greaves are also one of the hardest pieces of armour to make, because they are intricately shaped and very thin. Today greaves and gauntlets tend to be the most expensive parts of a kit because most of the cost is labour. A friend who reads Italian archives found one 16th century armour guild which sold armour at a flat rate per ton.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
GURPS typically overcharges for plate for gamist reasons (plate is game-mechanically better than mail, but historically had a lower pricetag), and I believe undercharges for cloth armor for the same. Also, the CF system doesn't really work that well for bronze - a relatively flat addition to cost based on weight would be more appropriate, and this "error" is particularly pronounced for the more expensive armor types, like plate. Finally, bronze was a type of material that had wild fluctuations in price (largely based on the price of tin), making the GURPS one-price-fits-all approach not work that well for it. The above "errors" were most likely chosen because they work better for gaming than, but when you put it all together, you do indeed end up with greaves as the most expensive armor pieces, by far, for a late hoplite.
Another problem is that in real life, cuts tend to land on the extremities: the head, lower legs, and arms. This is even more true in shield fighting. GURPS just uses one 'average' set of hit location modifiers and random hit location tables, and does not try to represent how hard it is to hit someone in the Chest or Abdomen behind a large shield. So in real life, a helmet and greaves are extremely important for a shield fighter, but in GURPS they are less valuable.
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