Armor

[David Bofinger]

For armour talents I think a critical question is whether you're trying to make a system that's cinematic or realistic.

• If you want it to be realistic then pretty much anyone expecting combat will wear the most expensive and heaviest armour possible, subject to his wealth, weather conditions, risk of falling into water, etc. Either armour benefits are greater than in TFT or penalties are less, probably a bit of both. Armour must be clearly a desirable thing.
  
  Armour talent represents practice at coping with the risks of heatstroke, speed at taking it on and off, skill at putting it on right so nothing rubs and is sore in the morning. It's a cheap talent and its impact is marginal, or it doesn't exist at all.
  
  
• If you want it to be cinematic then you probably want to support both of two fighter paradigms: the knight in heavy armour and the barbarian wearing furs or nothing.
  
  Armour talent is a big deal, a defining feature of a character: anyone who has it is much better in heavy armour than naked, anyone who doesn't have it is better off naked, and it's expensive. The knight buys armour talent, and the barbarian doesn't, and both decisions are reasonable in the game.
  
  Assuming everyone has time to put on armour, the knight is better protected
  but less mobile and does less damage, he's better than the barbarian on balance. But if the knight and barbarian are caught without the chance to put armour on the barbarian is better, and of course he doesn't need to worry about some things the knight does, like weight-assisted drowning. Guess the frequency with which these circumstances occur and adjust the amounts each is better to make them roughly balanced on the average.

I favour the cinematic path, partly because I like the idea of barbarians and knights arguing about which approach is better, and partly because it increases the diversity of characters, which has always been a TFT problem, and partly because it's the Roman-versus-German example from Melee. But it's a strategic decision which Steve will have to make. You could have the cinematic-style armour talents and say, "In a realistic game the armour talent is free to all characters," then both styles of game are supported.

Some have said that all players would choose the armour talent so what's the point. I'm not sure you can say that if you don't know what it costs or does.

[David Bofinger]

I've heard people say that armour doesn't hinder your movement, and that e.g. you can do gymnastics in it. I think that is to some extent attacking an (unarmoured) straw man. As an example, chain will reduce a rather agile person (DX 12) to a slightly clumsier than average person (DX 9). In canon TFT anything the first can do the second can as well, including gymnastics, just not as well. Perhaps the DX penalty is a little large but it's not by any means absurd.

Armour is a tradeoff of inconvenience against protection, you can imagine a graph with armour thickness on the x-axis and net benefit on the y-axis. It starts at the origin, rises until the weight of the armour becomes overwhelming and declines. Historical armours are attempts to find the maximum of that graph and so will not be at a point where the armour is causing no significant inconvenience. If they were, they'd be sub-optimal compared with something heavier.

[David Bofinger]

The names of armour - cloth, leather, chain, plate, etc. are highly misleading. Historically they didn't represent rising levels of armouredness but rising levels of armour technology. Once we knew how to make plate, only poor people using second-hand armour wore chain.

A more realistic system might describe the levels of armour according to their degree of coverage. This also has the advantage that it's easier to visualise the character: instead of saying what the material of the armour is you know where it is, which I think makes for more interesting miniatures.

The levels might be:

1. Clothes: Represents a few basic defences or, more likely, heavy clothing worn for some other reason and maybe some sort of resistant hat.
2. Light: Represents some minimal reinforcement of a basic jacket, maybe a skull cap, a greave on the secondary leg at least and probably the primary too, possibly an apology for something to protect the right arm.
3. Panoply: Perhaps a Roman legionary's kit, or a Greek panoply: protection for lower arms and legs, a breastplate, maybe a skirt, an open helm with a nose piece and perhaps cheek plates.
4. Cataphract: Something like a mediaeval knight's hit: perhaps a cuirass or mail shirt that covers both front and back, a helm that closes up, protection on both upper and lower arms and legs, armoured shoes and gauntlets.
5. Harness: The full articulated harness of the renaissance: Lots of pieces and a piece to cover everything. Or something similar.
6. Joust: Armour probably excessive for walking about in, on its way to being jousting armour but not quite completely impractical yet.

[zot]

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

Armour is a tradeoff of inconvenience against protection, you can imagine a graph with armour thickness on the x-axis and net benefit on the y-axis. It starts at the origin, rises until the weight of the armour becomes overwhelming and declines. Historical armours are attempts to find the maximum of that graph and so will not be at a point where the armour is causing no significant inconvenience. If they were, they'd be sub-optimal compared with something heavier.

You'd have to factor cost into the y-values (i.e. it's more than two dimensions). It's not going to be a smooth line...

[Rick_Smith]

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

The names of armour - cloth, leather, chain, plate, etc. are highly misleading. Historically they didn't represent rising levels of armouredness but rising levels of armour technology. ...

A more realistic system might describe the levels of armour according to their degree of coverage. ...

The levels might be:

1. Clothes: Represents a few basic defences or, more likely, heavy clothing worn for some other reason and maybe some sort of resistant hat.
2. Light: Represents some minimal reinforcement of a basic jacket, maybe a skull cap, a greave on the secondary leg at least and probably the primary too, possibly an apology for something to protect the right arm.
3. Panoply: Perhaps a Roman legionary's kit, or a Greek panoply: protection for lower arms and legs, a breastplate, maybe a skirt, an open helm with a nose piece and perhaps cheek plates.
4. Cataphract: Something like a mediaeval knight's hit: perhaps a cuirass or mail shirt that covers both front and back, a helm that closes up, protection on both upper and lower arms and legs, armoured shoes and gauntlets.
5. Harness: The full articulated harness of the renaissance: Lots of pieces and a piece to cover everything. Or something similar.
6. Joust: Armour probably excessive for walking about in, on its way to being jousting armour but not quite completely impractical yet.

Hi David,
I usually agree with you, so it is not very often that I reply. But I would like to say this is a really cool idea. I see it as a two dimensional array... One axis is the level of coverage, and the second is the level of technology. Theoretically, you could write up TFT armor thru battle suits.

Very neat idea.

Warm regards, Rick.

[tbeard1999]

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

The names of armour - cloth, leather, chain, plate, etc. are highly misleading. Historically they didn't represent rising levels of armouredness but rising levels of armour technology. Once we knew how to make plate, only poor people using second-hand armour wore chain.

A more realistic system might describe the levels of armour according to their degree of coverage. This also has the advantage that it's easier to visualise the character: instead of saying what the material of the armour is you know where it is, which I think makes for more interesting miniatures.

The levels might be:

1. Clothes: Represents a few basic defences or, more likely, heavy clothing worn for some other reason and maybe some sort of resistant hat.
2. Light: Represents some minimal reinforcement of a basic jacket, maybe a skull cap, a greave on the secondary leg at least and probably the primary too, possibly an apology for something to protect the right arm.
3. Panoply: Perhaps a Roman legionary's kit, or a Greek panoply: protection for lower arms and legs, a breastplate, maybe a skirt, an open helm with a nose piece and perhaps cheek plates.
4. Cataphract: Something like a mediaeval knight's hit: perhaps a cuirass or mail shirt that covers both front and back, a helm that closes up, protection on both upper and lower arms and legs, armoured shoes and gauntlets.
5. Harness: The full articulated harness of the renaissance: Lots of pieces and a piece to cover everything. Or something similar.
6. Joust: Armour probably excessive for walking about in, on its way to being jousting armour but not quite completely impractical yet.

I would put this in the new equivalent of the Other Weapons section of Advanced Melee (pg. 12).

Giving the armor a specific name like Chain or Fine Plate is evocative, in my opinion, and should be retained. (This is why I'd generally oppose replacing sword names with "Short One Handed Sword", "Long One Handed Sword", etc.)

[JLV]

While I fully understand where David is coming from, I have to say that I actually prefer the existing names for armor -- as Ty points out, they are evocative, and really we're also looking for atmosphere here, not just clinical accuracy.

However, having said that, I think David has an excellent basis for an article for whatever the SJG house organ for TFT winds up being (whether it's Pyramid or something else), and I sincerely hope he writes it up!

[tbeard1999]

Originally Posted by Steve Jackson

Starting a new thread for the discussion of an armor talent (my experience and my thoughts about game balance lead me to object, but I will listen) and a specific question:

Should armor DX penalties and hits taken be modified slightly into a straight line?

Leather -2 DX, -2 hits (unchanged)
Chainmail -3 DX, -3 hits (unchanged)
Half plate -4 DX, -4 hits (DX penalty reduced)
Plate -5 DX, -5 hits (DX penalty reduced)

Fine plate remains unchanged, at -4 DX and -6 hits, as a useful cheat for the very strong and rich (e.g., the Black Knight).

No problem with this change. But I wonder if there should be some form of fine chain (i.e., mithril) as well?

Fine plate grants a 20% bonus on hits stopped and reduces DX by 20% less.

Comparable "fine chain" would be +0.6 hits and a DX adjustment of -0.6 less. That can justify either a +1 to hits stopped (my choice) or only a -2 DX adjustment.

Leather would be +0.4 hits and a DX adjustment of 0.4 less. Cloth would be +0.2 hits and a DX adjustment of .2 less. I don't think that this is really enough to justify a change in ratings. (Also, I don't think that leather and cloth are as amenable to improvement as metal that has been forged especially well.) So I'm not convinced that we need fine versions of leather and cloth.

The idea was also raised "what about minimum ST for plate?" I understand the question, but that kills off the characters who took moderate ST and went all out for DX specifically to be turtles in plate. My observations of RL turtles-in-plate is that they did not have to be hugely strong . . . but in Texas heat they had to be in good condition!

I wouldn't add minimum ST levels for plate for those reasons. Also, I ran some calculations on skin area for adult male humans:

200 lb 6'2" male: ~2.17 sq m of skin area
180 lb 6' male: ~2.04 sq m of skin area.
150 lb 5'9" male: ~1.83 sq m of skin area.
120 lb 5'6" male: ~1.61 sq m of skin area.

Assuming the 5'9 guy is average, a suit of plate weighs:

65 lb for the 6'2" guy
61.3 lb for the 6' guy
55 lb for the 5'9" guy
48.4 lb for the 5'6" guy

As expected, skin area goes up less than mass. But the difference isn't huge. So the 6'2" guy has 1.33 times the mass of the average guy, but his armor weighs only about 1.19 times as much as the average guy's armor. The 6'2" guy effectively saves about 8 pounds of armor. I don't see that as a huge deal.

[JohnPaulB]

Armor and Races

ITL P50 Dwarves Dwarves can also carry immense loads. The maximum load for a dwarf is DOUBLE that for a man of equal strength.
Consider: A Dwarf’s MA is 10.
Consider: Cloth MA = 10; Leather MA = 8; Chainmail (& onward) = 6
Consider: Advantages of Great Strength

• 18 ST cloth or leather armor does not slow a figure at all;
• 24 ST In heavier armor your MA is 8;
• 26 ST half-plate does not affect your MA;
• 28 ST your MA is not affected by any armor.

I know that the affect on MA of Armor is not just weight, but mobility too. However, it would seem that Dwarves with High, but not incredible, ST might actually benefit from being able to carry heavier loads.

Perhaps something along the lines of 2/3rds the Advantage of Great Strength

• 12 ST Leather MA = 10; Chainmail MA = 8
• 18 ST Chainmail MA = 10; Half Plate MA =8;
• 20 ST Armor does not affect on MA

This would only affect MA, not Dex.

--------------------------------

Perhaps certain races produce armors that are more special due to materials or techniques:

Dwarven Chainmail
Stops 4 points at Dex -3. Dwarven Chain acts as if it is Fine Chainmail.

However, the manufacture of Dwarven Mail requires Dwarven Steel and other expensive ingredients (the exact nature of which are a closely held secret of the dwarven race) and suits can only be made for the mightiest of lords & heroes & Dwarves Friends.

Dwarven law also mandates that suits of Dwarven Mail be controlled; issued to Dwarves or Gnomes only. All outside sales are to be registered with the Armorer's Guild. Dwarven Mail that is worn by those races disliked by Dwarves will risk confiscation (or worse).

• Elven Silversilk Cloth

(non-magical) Stops 2 points of Damage
An elven cottage industry of armorer/weavers manufacture this amazing shirt from the Kevlar plant. Sometimes these are exported.


Perhaps other races make exceptional racial armor.

[red2]

I like the idea of armor being in a straight line because of its simplicity but sometimes I think the dx adjustments for armor are too harsh. For beginning characters there are a lot of situations where you are less effective in combat and slower if you choose to wear armor. So it is a lose-lose. This situation changes as your dx goes up of course but it might be worth considering one less dx adj for each armor type (leather would be -1 dx and stop 2 hits, chain would be -2 dx and stop 3 hits etc). This might complicate things with different shields and cloth armor for consistency but I'm sure it could be worked out.