Low-Tech Armor - Using it without getting too overwhelmed

[kdarc]

Hail, forumites!

As much as I absolutely love the concept of GURPS low-tech armor as presented in Low-Tech and further supplements, I always find myself getting almost too caught up in it. It may sound weird. I like realistic rules, but always find myself stumbling over too many rules, and with armor, that is especially a problem, as there are a ton of optional rules for realism. When fleshing out armor, I find myself having to think about exactly how long the arms of a chain mail shirt is, whether or not the iron helmet covers the ears, etc.

It goes into combat and hit locations as a whole, in a way. When planning games I find myself wanting realism, but is always overwhelmed in the end and burnt out.

My point is - does anyone have any ideas on what combination of rules to use with armor and hit location that wouldn't be too much, so to speak? Of course it depends on game and players, but just as a starting point? And in general, how do you avoid getting dragged down by such rules?

Cheers!

[mlangsdorf]

Just use the Basic set hit locations (at most replace Torso with Chest + Abdomen) and don't get bogged down into the minutiae of helmets with brims versus nasals versus cheek guards. Think about play: how often are people targeted in the face? Does it make sense to have that extra level of detail for something that rarely comes up? I don't think so, but you'd have to decide for your game.

My general rule is that all that detail is only useful if it's actually going to be used in play. In the games I'm in, people rarely target faces and almost never target chinks in armor, so I'm perfectly okay with having a unified "face" location and generic "armor gaps" without worrying about sliding rivets versus unarmed armpits or whatever.

[gilbertocarlos]

Don't use sublocations, armor is for the full arm, the full leg, torso and groin etc...

[JP42]

My first recommendation is to use Low-Tech as a GM tool, not as something that a player would reference. Use the rules there to create your own table of armor items that the players can choose from - it's a mini-game just for you, the GM, to do all those calculations, and come up with armor that suits your game world and the cultures therein.

Then your players can make their characters like normal, only with armor that really suits your game. They don't have any of the worry about how it all goes together, they just know that they bought some vambraces and they'll protect them on an arm hit, but only on a 1-3 on a single die. And you can break the prices and weights down to just one piece, so they can get all distinctive and have asymmetrical armor like you see in so many movies and TV shows.

Short form: front-load all the work for yourself, then your players reap the benefits and you get the realism you're after.

[GodBeastX]

I tend to take the fact armor might not cover ears and things like that as "Chinks" in the armor or their "Weaknesses".

How hard is it to hit the ear on a moving target? Pretty hard!

[Bruno]

Depends on how you're hitting them. IIRC it's -6 to hit as per Martial Arts ;) and the ear clap may or may not be an effective move, but it certainly is a traditional one.

[Dustin]

One simplification I've been using is fractional DR instead of sub-locations, so for a DR 6 helm with a nasal (1/6 chance of giving DR to Face hits), I instead call it a helmet with DR 6 (skull)/DR 1 (face). Similarly, hauberks that come down to the knee simply provide half their DR to Legs, etc. Works well and reduces the complexity of hit locations.

[DemiBenson]

Originally Posted by Dustin

One simplification I've been using is fractional DR instead of sub-locations, so for a DR 6 helm with a nasal (1/6 chance of giving DR to Face hits), I instead call it a helmet with DR 6 (skull)/DR 1 (face). Similarly, hauberks that come down to the knee simply provide half their DR to Legs, etc. Works well and reduces the complexity of hit locations.

That's a pretty decent way of modeling it. The numbers don't quite come out equivalent, but as long as GURPS maintains fixed-DR armor (instead of variable-DR armor) and as long as you forbid called-shots with better resolution than the armor, it works out ok.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by kdarc

Hail, forumites!

As much as I absolutely love the concept of GURPS low-tech armor as presented in Low-Tech and further supplements, I always find myself getting almost too caught up in it. It may sound weird. I like realistic rules, but always find myself stumbling over too many rules, and with armor, that is especially a problem, as there are a ton of optional rules for realism. When fleshing out armor, I find myself having to think about exactly how long the arms of a chain mail shirt is, whether or not the iron helmet covers the ears, etc.

It goes into combat and hit locations as a whole, in a way. When planning games I find myself wanting realism, but is always overwhelmed in the end and burnt out.

My point is - does anyone have any ideas on what combination of rules to use with armor and hit location that wouldn't be too much, so to speak? Of course it depends on game and players, but just as a starting point? And in general, how do you avoid getting dragged down by such rules?

Cheers!

Probably the simplest solution is to pick a time and place with limited armour choices. In fifth century Greece, for example, the only options are helmets, cuirasses, and greaves of Bronze Plate, Scale (any), Leather (any), or imported Layered Cloth (any). You can represent every available choice with two tables of 6-10 rows. You don't need to use kitchen sink armour!

The available armour, type of combat, and your players' taste for detail will determine which rules are worth including. Eg. Chinks in Armour is really useful in a setting where many fighters have rigid armour which is proof against most attacks, but not in settings where most have large unarmoured areas or no rigid armour at all.