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Old 01-07-2014, 02:08 PM   #11
DanHoward
 
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Default Re: Remove armor by force

It would be pretty difficult to take a mail shirt off someone who wasn't unconscious or willingly co-operating. I think you'd need at least three people. One to hold the person down, another to hold his arms above his head, and a third to remove the mail.
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Last edited by DanHoward; 01-07-2014 at 02:12 PM.
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Old 01-07-2014, 02:47 PM   #12
Varyon
 
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Default Re: Remove armor by force

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It would be pretty difficult to take a mail shirt off someone who wasn't unconscious or willingly co-operating. I think you'd need at least three people. One to hold the person down, another to hold his arms above his head, and a third to remove the mail.
Flexible torso armor should be nearly impossible to remove from a struggling foe. Using Technical Grappling, you'd probably need to inflict enough CP on the arms to make them effectively ST 0, then remove the shirt probably about 3/4 of the way. After this, you'd need to release your grip on the arms, grab the shirt, and pull it the rest of the way off. If your foe is quick, he can probably grab hold of the shirt as you try to pull the sleeves past his hands, and which point you have to wrest it from his grip before you can get it off.

So, yeah, unless you're ridiculously strong and/or have some people to help you, you'll need to knock your target out or find some other way to make them not resist the armor removal. This would really only apply to flexible torso armor, however - rigid armor falls off when you cut the straps, and flexible limb/extremity armor is something you can just pull off (although in the case of limb/hand armor, you may have to fight with your target grabbing the armor to prevent it from coming off).
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Old 01-07-2014, 02:56 PM   #13
Anthony
 
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This would really only apply to flexible torso armor, however - rigid armor falls off when you cut the straps.
Well, flexible armor falls off when you cut it too, it's just that it tends to be difficult to cut. Rigid armor can in principle be held together with links that cannot practically be cut, it's just that there's not a lot of value to making removing the armor more difficult than killing the person inside.
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Old 01-07-2014, 03:13 PM   #14
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Rigid armor can in principle be held together with links that cannot practically be cut
Alright, because I'm a glutton for complexity, here's an interesting option. Rigid armor straps can be replaced with chains of fine mail, requiring a cutting attack deal at least 8 points of damage to sever the straps. Each such chain weighs 0.5 lb and costs $30. Mail chains are a bit more difficult to work with than leather straps, increasing Don time by 20%. Optionally, they also result in a Stealth penalty (due to some inevitable rattling).
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Old 01-07-2014, 03:20 PM   #15
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Default Re: Remove armor by force

The rules from TG that _Im_ thinking of go more like: Target the armor directly (-3 to hit on top of location penalties). For a Mail Hauberk on the torso, that is -3. You are up against DR 4, -1 because you are attacking the armor itself, for DR 3. Establish a bunch of CP, and then use Wrench Limb to tear at the armor directly. The armor resists with HT 12, and presumably any CP your opponent has on you could be spent as normal to reduce your roll.

Flexible armor gets treated as diffuse, so strictly by RAW you are limited to 2 HP of damage, so spending more than 5 CP to set max damage is wasteful. For 25 lbs of hauberk, that is 24 HPs to get through, so at best, 12 seconds to start forcing HT rolls before it falls off.
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Old 01-07-2014, 03:32 PM   #16
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The rules from TG that _Im_ thinking of go more like: Target the armor directly (-3 to hit on top of location penalties). For a Mail Hauberk on the torso, that is -3. You are up against DR 4, -1 because you are attacking the armor itself, for DR 3. Establish a bunch of CP, and then use Wrench Limb to tear at the armor directly. The armor resists with HT 12, and presumably any CP your opponent has on you could be spent as normal to reduce your roll.

Flexible armor gets treated as diffuse, so strictly by RAW you are limited to 2 HP of damage, so spending more than 5 CP to set max damage is wasteful. For 25 lbs of hauberk, that is 24 HPs to get through, so at best, 12 seconds to start forcing HT rolls before it falls off.
I think those rules are meant to be used for damaging articulations and the like of rigid armor, and aren't meant for use with flexible armor at all (they match the rules for denting articulations reasonably well, and "crippling" someone's arm by damaging their mail sleeves makes no real sense to me). I would certainly raise an eyebrow at the possibility of a normal human ripping mail apart with his bare hands in a matter of seconds!
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Old 01-07-2014, 03:44 PM   #17
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I think those rules are meant to be used for damaging articulations and the like of rigid armor, and aren't meant for use with flexible armor at all (they match the rules for denting articulations reasonably well, and "crippling" someone's arm by damaging their mail sleeves makes no real sense to me). I would certainly raise an eyebrow at the possibility of a normal human ripping mail apart with his bare hands in a matter of seconds!
Not sure a normal human COULD do it. At 1d-2 CP, it is pretty tough to regularly generate the 5 CP you need to cause just 2 HP of damage. This is an option for the very strong.

That said, I see what you refer to, but referring to the previous paragraph on p.8 (where spending CP you have built up by grabbing at armor or clothing can cause damage to the armor or clothing), and then doing a reality test where I grab my shirt and pull, it seems that you SHOULD be able to grab armor and tear at it. Whether you are strong enough to really do damage (and remember, CP is capped at the max you can roll, so ST 10 man can at best slip 1 HP of damage past the DR 4/2 mail's DR) is already accounted for in the rules.

So, separate from damaging the articulation of rigid armor, it seems that the very strong should be able to tear armor apart. The same basic setup should apply (you have to get a hold of the armor itself, apply CP, spend CP for damage, and get past DR). All seems to follow really.
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Old 05-07-2017, 11:41 AM   #18
Joseph Paul
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Default Re: Remove armor by force

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There isn't a standard rule for it, and in reality it would be much easier to kill the occupant than to forcibly remove the armor.
Maybe you don't want to kill the person in the armor?

1) Shot with a poison arrow and needs to have it cleansed but the pain is making the famous warrior lash out at everyone.

2) Caught in the Cursed Armor of Amontillado and putting up a fight over being removed from it.

3) High value opponent that needs to be taken alive and letting Mungo tap him in the head didn't work out so well last time so now it is time to try that sedative the Elf has...

4) The Big Bad Dragon will let you all go IF you give him Frank's heirloom +5 armor. Frank, who has a lot of family that would avenge his death, is looking a little hard to convince of this plan...

5) Chuck is caught by some wandering slime that is slowly eating him - and the high quality armor he has on. You can't kill the slime or pull Chuck out and that inter-party adventuring pact you all signed has some stiff penalties for fratricide. But you can save some of that armor if only he would stop struggling...

6) Tony was the muscle for the gang of salvage spacers with a Mk III Battlesuit. But now his eyes are lit with eldritch fire from some alien artifact in the downed saucer and the rest of the gang in exosuits will have to swarm him and start hitting the external releases to pull him out of there to keep him from killing them.
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Old 05-07-2017, 03:27 PM   #19
Anthony
 
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Maybe you don't want to kill the person in the armor?
Then you get four guys to pin the person down while a fifth cuts the armor off.
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Old 05-07-2017, 08:47 PM   #20
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Unless of course you don't have friends to help you, or your friends are too weak to put at risk.
Then you fail. "Sorry, you can't do it" is a realistic outcome (a sufficiently large physical advantage will also make it possible, a human can undress a struggling baby, but you have to totally outclass the victim).
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Last edited by Anthony; 05-07-2017 at 09:05 PM.
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