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Old 09-28-2017, 06:29 PM   #71
Flyndaran
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Default Re: Segmented Plate - Pyramid Low Tech II what am I missing?

I think we all know that politics, transport, basic availability, and numerous middle men jack up prices significantly. But that's the easiest thing to adjust for specific settings.
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Old 09-28-2017, 09:42 PM   #72
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Default Re: Segmented Plate - Pyramid Low Tech II what am I missing?

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Originally Posted by DanHoward View Post
Amour making in general was controlled by the ruler. Nobody could make it without licenses from the lord and all of the relevant guilds...
I've read that before. But this is a sort of idealized framework drawn from a European high medieval or Renaissance era sources. It would not work for earlier periods, for non-Europeans locales, etc. In particular, it would not work in many fantasy settings. My comments were directed at how it could work, sans the historical accuracy. Also, I mean this as a way of questioning the prices we have, as I suspect they are not market prices as we know it, but rather priced for legal or licensing reasons, if you will. The local lord who controls armor production is going to get first dibs, and his armor needs will be met first. Perhaps this will be just materials costs. Selling armor to competitors would be a poor strategy, for instance. So, too, the armor values seen in wills or other legal records, they are possibly inflated, and/or include the pass-through costs for replacement that someone controlling labor would not pay. There is essentially a surcharge, as it were, for nobles who buy armor when it isn't produced by their peasants. Thus, finding a realistic price might not be possible. A workable price in a fantasy setting, well, that's different. And it could be that prices then would be much lower than the historical price lists show.
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Old 09-29-2017, 01:09 AM   #73
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Default Re: Segmented Plate - Pyramid Low Tech II what am I missing?

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Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
I think we all know that politics, transport, basic availability, and numerous middle men jack up prices significantly. But that's the easiest thing to adjust for specific settings.
Yep, although it can work in both directions. Some of that complicated scenario DanHoward outlined helped speed things up as well as make savings at some points even if some increased costs at other points. It kind of depends on how much you want to get into industrial process, or time and motion studies!

(a big point here is who was armour made for and in what numbers it was in demand for)


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Originally Posted by safisher View Post
I've read that before. But this is a sort of idealized framework drawn from a European high medieval or Renaissance era sources. It would not work for earlier periods, for non-Europeans locales, etc. In particular, it would not work in many fantasy settings. My comments were directed at how it could work, sans the historical accuracy. Also, I mean this as a way of questioning the prices we have, as I suspect they are not market prices as we know it, but rather priced for legal or licensing reasons, if you will. The local lord who controls armor production is going to get first dibs, and his armor needs will be met first. Perhaps this will be just materials costs. Selling armor to competitors would be a poor strategy, for instance. So, too, the armor values seen in wills or other legal records, they are possibly inflated, and/or include the pass-through costs for replacement that someone controlling labor would not pay. There is essentially a surcharge, as it were, for nobles who buy armor when it isn't produced by their peasants. Thus, finding a realistic price might not be possible. A workable price in a fantasy setting, well, that's different. And it could be that prices then would be much lower than the historical price lists show.
I agree the economic model for high medieval / Renaissance armour manufacture (let alone other historical models) does make abstract pricing hard. And that such models could also involve factor that increase a theoretical per item cost. But I'd hesitate to assume that fantasy setting would be inherently cheaper per item, because the economic models of fantasy settings are also rather weird and wonderful at times as well so may also have factors that increase costs about the theoretical base cost.

Take the stereotype of the fantasy "armour shop", often tacked on to the town/village black smith who does all the work. Where adventurers swap freshly delved bags of gold coins for suits of armour. Only unless you have a regular passing trade of successful adventurers, spending a considerable amount of your time and resources making a single item that sits waiting for a passing adventurer is a big risk when you have a family to feed and costs to cover. Including the costs of that item. So it would not be unsurprising if that risk was mitigated by jacking the price up (especially when you have cash rich individual customers and your the only one around who can meet the need)

I.e yeah I agree some historical costs may well have been jacked up as repercussion of the manufacturing process and local economics and politics. But well I can envisage various fantasy scenarios were they could be jacked up as well! Also as I said above some of those historical models may have also included factors that drove down prices as well.

Cue the many jokes about fantasy settlements who's economic model is based around fleecing cash rich adventurers staggering out of dungeons laden with loot and long shopping lists

Of course not all fantasy settings are so stereotypical, but I can't help but feel that unless the setting is specifically designed to make armour cheap, the more "realistic" you make it it the closer you end up with historical models anyway.

Last edited by Tomsdad; 09-29-2017 at 02:58 AM.
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Old 09-29-2017, 02:14 PM   #74
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Default Re: Segmented Plate - Pyramid Low Tech II what am I missing?

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I agree the economic model for high medieval / Renaissance armour manufacture (let alone other historical models) does make abstract pricing hard. And that such models could also involve factor that increase a theoretical per item cost. But I'd hesitate to assume that fantasy setting would be inherently cheaper per item..
If you wanted armor to be cheaper in your setting, it could be made more cheaply. This is especially true of mail. That's my point. It's not a refutable point, or one worth arguing about because it's a purely fictional premise. I'm well aware of the arguments against, which is why I framed it the way that I did.
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Old 09-29-2017, 02:35 PM   #75
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Default Re: Segmented Plate - Pyramid Low Tech II what am I missing?

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If you wanted armor to be cheaper in your setting, it could be made more cheaply. This is especially true of mail. That's my point. It's not a refutable point, or one worth arguing about because it's a purely fictional premise. I'm well aware of the arguments against, which is why I framed it the way that I did.
Oh I pretty much agree I wasn't arguing against your point (sorry didn't mean to give the impression I was)

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Old 09-29-2017, 05:25 PM   #76
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Default Re: Segmented Plate - Pyramid Low Tech II what am I missing?

None of the armour in Low-Tech is based on historical prices. As noted in this thread, it is pointless trying to do that. Low-Tech prices were based on utility with Basic Set used as a baseline. If one type provided more protection than a another then it cost more. If one type weighed more than another then it cost less. If one type was easier to conceal than another then it cost more. And so on.
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Old 09-30-2017, 03:37 AM   #77
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Default Re: Segmented Plate - Pyramid Low Tech II what am I missing?

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None of the armour in Low-Tech is based on historical prices. As noted in this thread, it is pointless trying to do that. Low-Tech prices were based on utility with Basic Set used as a baseline. If one type provided more protection than a another then it cost more. If one type weighed more than another then it cost less. If one type was easier to conceal than another then it cost more. And so on.
So why was segmented plate priced as it is?
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Old 09-30-2017, 12:17 PM   #78
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Default Re: Segmented Plate - Pyramid Low Tech II what am I missing?

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So why was segmented plate priced as it is?
Isn't there a standing unofficial errata for segmented plate in a thread someplace?

EDIT: Over here, specifically.
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Old 09-30-2017, 07:37 PM   #79
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Default Re: Segmented Plate - Pyramid Low Tech II what am I missing?

One big issue is that Low Tech and the Pyramid article use different assumptions. Namely, the Pyramid article has DR being perfectly linear with thickness (and thus weight), while LT sorta-kinda gives most metal armor a "free" +1 DR for deflection. That makes conversion between the two difficult. There's also some oddities in that LT had - according to the previously linked post by the author - some of the armor weights probably wrong (scale and segmented were a bit heavy), and the Pyramid article has some oddities regarding scale (it's far better in the article than in LT).

Roughly speaking (assuming Good Iron and normalizing to DR 4, the middle of the progression), and using Dan's new numbers, the numbers in the article should be as follows:
Scale should be CW 1.6 and CC 0.9. Segmented should be CW 1.2 and CC 2. Brigandine (included for completion) should be CW 1 and CC 3.6.
Plate would instead be normalized to DR 6, which would result in the numbers matching pretty much exactly.
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Old 10-01-2017, 12:25 AM   #80
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Default Re: Segmented Plate - Pyramid Low Tech II what am I missing?

Realistically, the amount of energy required for plate penetration is not linear with thickness. The energy required is roughly the square of the thickness. A linear progression is a reasonable approximation for the lower plate thicknesses in Low-Tech but at higher thicknesses it doesn't work.
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