Medieval (and maybe modern) armours and DX penalties

[Luther]

Originally Posted by Lancewholelot

I use the encumberance penalities for more than just Dodge. I apply them also to Acrobatics, Climbing, and Stealth rolls amoung others.

Note that GURPS already use encumbrance penalties for Climbing and Stealth skills (see description). It makes sense for Acrobatics, though.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by roguebfl

not always, I know there was times when my fingerless wool gloves improved [negated penties] to my manunal dexterity while sailing 8)

Well, fingerless gloves likely don't have any DX penalty anyway, but there are certainly cases where gloves both give a penalty, and also negate a penalty -- for example, using insulated gloves to handle hot objects.

[Kromm]

As noted above, the "DX penalty" for heavy armor is based not on it being armor, but on how much it encumbers you. Encumbrance gives penalties to Climbing, fencing skills, Judo, Karate, Stealth, and Swimming (doubled, per p. B354) -- and, in a way, to Parachuting. See the individual skill descriptions for details. It doesn't penalize other skills directly. Thick layers are a notable exception; see p. B286.

That said, DX penalties for gloves do make sense for fine tasks . . . but realistically, the value depends on how well tailored the gloves are, what they're made out of, and whether they have open palms and/or exposed fingertips. Details like this were left to books that have the space to go into detail on armor (Low-Tech, Ultra-Tech, etc.). The generic -8 to DX in 3e was constantly being razzed for being unfair and ungeneric, though. Even with heavy protective gloves, I'm pretty sure that a lot of the fine work I did in the lab wasn't at an effective DX of 2!

[Luther]

Agreed about gloves but . . . I can't wait for Low-Tech :)

Kromm, just thinking: why Acrobatics and Boxing aren't penalized by encumbrance?

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by roguebfl

not always, I know there was times when my fingerless wool gloves improved [negated penties] to my manunal dexterity while sailing 8)

Gloves also help in the cold - the loss of Hand DX to the gloves is less than the loss you'd take from your hands being next to freezing (or actually freezing, if things are really bad).

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Luther

Agreed about gloves but . . . I can't wait for Low-Tech :)

Kromm, just thinking: why Acrobatics and Boxing aren't penalized by encumbrance?

I don't see why Boxing should be - the part that would be penalised most noticeably already is - dodging.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Luther

Kromm, just thinking: why Acrobatics and Boxing aren't penalized by encumbrance?

I'd guess it's because the people who invented those skills Back In The Day didn't design them that way . . . and when updating GURPS to 4e, no one presented any clear evidence to counter those earlier assumptions, so we left well enough alone.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Rupert

I don't see why Boxing should be - the part that would be penalised most noticeably already is - dodging.

There is that. In 4e, Boxing = "punching people." That's not markedly harder with a little extra weight. The dodging-and-weaving angle is already covered by the usual encumbrance penalty to Dodge.

[cmdicely]

Originally Posted by Luther

why Acrobatics and Boxing aren't penalized by encumbrance?

I had to go back to the 3E basic set to find out that the "no more than light encumbrance" rule I'd always used for Acrobatics was a house rule I'd completely internalized, not the way it used to be.

I think that Acrobatics pretty clearly should take encumbrance penalties; it actually seems to me that the encumbrance penalty should probably be a DX penalty, with exception for fine manipulation and similar tasks.

[Anthony]

Well, swinging a weapon isn't a fine motor task, but it won't generally be reduced by wearing armor, unless you have massive weights on your arms.