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Old 08-31-2017, 08:53 AM   #11
Bruno
 
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Default Re: [Ultra Tech] Layering Armour

Digging through the DFRPG, I find "Armor Mastery", which is 5 points, and has two benefits: Whenever you wear armor with DR 2+, raise its effective DR by 1, and if you layer armor, you don't suffer the usual -1 to DX for doing so.

This says that the absolute maximum for avoiding the layering penalty is 4 points, and likely to be in the 1-2 point range.
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Old 08-31-2017, 09:03 AM   #12
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Default Re: [Ultra Tech] Layering Armour

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Originally Posted by Bruno View Post
Digging through the DFRPG, I find "Armor Mastery", which is 5 points, and has two benefits: Whenever you wear armor with DR 2+, raise its effective DR by 1, and if you layer armor, you don't suffer the usual -1 to DX for doing so.

This says that the absolute maximum for avoiding the layering penalty is 4 points, and likely to be in the 1-2 point range.
Cool! (I don't use DF much so I can easily believe that one passed me by)
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Old 08-31-2017, 09:43 AM   #13
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Default Re: [Ultra Tech] Layering Armour

The DF perk only allows the feeblest of armor as the under layer
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Old 08-31-2017, 05:11 PM   #14
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Default Re: [Ultra Tech] Layering Armour

Note that in real life people are much more likely to wear armor that limits mobility than PCs usually are.
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Old 08-31-2017, 05:34 PM   #15
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Default Re: [Ultra Tech] Layering Armour

Real life people are almost never experts and must make decisions on limited information and feelings. And we all know how horribly unreliable feelings are.

I find it hard to make a character do something self destructive without a good easily verbalized reason.
Quirk level cowardice, like I bet much of humanity has, would account for wearing a bit more armor than would make hard rational sense.
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Old 08-31-2017, 05:49 PM   #16
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Default Re: [Ultra Tech] Layering Armour

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Originally Posted by sir_pudding View Post
Note that in real life people are much more likely to wear armor that limits mobility than PCs usually are.
Though in reality mobility restrictions are more granular than a flat '-1 DX'. People avoid armor that limits mobility in ways that they think are important for remaining alive.
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Old 08-31-2017, 07:36 PM   #17
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Default Re: [Ultra Tech] Layering Armour

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Real life people are almost never experts and must make decisions on limited information and feelings. And we all know how horribly unreliable feelings are.
The people who make military procurement decisions aren't experts? Who is?
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Old 08-31-2017, 07:44 PM   #18
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The people who make military procurement decisions aren't experts? Who is?
Before the next war? Probably no one. Even the expertise gained then will have a significantly limited shelf-life.

If you think that the people who make military procurement decisions must be experts in _something_ the likely candidates are Administration(Military Industrial complex) and Politics(Congressional).
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Old 08-31-2017, 07:59 PM   #19
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The people who make military procurement decisions aren't experts? Who is?
Even if they were experts on the coming combat, and if they had all necessary resources to decide armor based only on expert opinions like that, they would still be assuming average soldier.

Even then, I assumed as someone else said that armors made to go together would be made as a unit and therefore wouldn't invoke that rule to begin with.
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Old 09-01-2017, 03:14 AM   #20
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Default Re: [Ultra Tech] Layering Armour

Layering is a compromise*, but well in war almost everything is. People in general don't add another unnecessary limiting factor in situations were theres already a bunch of others to balance out especially one that is as expensive and labour intensive as armour!. Look at the loadouts in Dan Howard's book, yeah if you can get away with not layering you do**, and some sets of armour were able to offer equivalent protection without layering. But well RL isn't choosing stuff freely from an equipment list.
Some layering was done to counter specific issues with specific armour. Without getting into the old debate DR5 mail will stop ST10 broadswords and spears petty well, but against ST10 maces rather less well!


*assuming layering penalties as set out in GURPS are even vaguely realistic in concept, and even if I have views on circumventing them in some situations, in abstract I think they are realistic

**if nothing else, and even ignoring direct Layering pens, it can be heavy!



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Originally Posted by sir_pudding View Post
Note that in real life people are much more likely to wear armor that limits mobility than PCs usually are.
Yep, because there were much more aware of the repercussion of it wasn't a numbers game for them.

TBH I think there is a tendency in RPGs to think in terms of how much damage can I dish out in the most efficient manner as possible (and a DX pen effects that, but see below). In RL I think people are more interested in not bleeding, or having their bones broken. There also the point that a lot of combat in RPGs tend to be for want of a better term a series of skirmishes where people run about and defend against every attack, looking down on a table where they can see where everyone is and are not making decisions in real time etc, etc*. On the battlefield in the actual crush where there may well be attacks coming in from all angles from threats you weren't necessarily aware of, and the rules for limited vision with helmets are not optional and your not umming an ahhing about the best possible combat decision within a structured rules system, DR saves your life. And people didn't go about thinking "well that line of chaps aren't going to be more than ST11 and they have broad swords which means there's a 66% chance they wont beat my DR (unless they do an AOA which everyone knows is an sub-optimal attack in the system so no one does it), so yeah I'm good on average"


*and yeah I know that not all that's true for all tables, but a lot of it is for a lot of them, because the primary goal here is to have fun!


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Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
Real life people are almost never experts and must make decisions on limited information and feelings. And we all know how horribly unreliable feelings are..
Practical experience of reality is a far better teacher than a RPG system, even GURPS ;-). So even if not every person who wore armour down the ages did so in the smartest way, we're not automatically experts in the trade offs of melee combat just because we own GURPS MA.

However there is something called "the wisdom of the masses", i.e I can well believe there were some individuals who made odd decisions when it came to personal defence in the historical record. But taken as a whole we're talking about a group of people who had a lot of combined experience in a wide range of situations and were actually pretty good at doing what they did, and that included not dying in combat.


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I find it hard to make a character do something self destructive without a good easily verbalized reason.
Quirk level cowardice, like I bet much of humanity has, would account for wearing a bit more armor than would make hard rational sense.
Only in some instances the extra DR that layering will get you in return for -1 to Skill, it not a self destructive act (nor an irrational one as you intimate). However I do find your point about a widespread cowardice quirk rather odd. Since we're taking about people who actually fought each other to death.

But OK lets look at this in GURPS terms I'd take a -1 DX pen if it means I won't be taking HP and shock pens. See it's great to hit people in combat and you win by doing so, so it's good to maximise your chances of doing so, but you also lose by being hit and sometimes by increasing your chances of hitting (and winning) your also increase you chances of being hit (and losing). aka "the paradox of defence"



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Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
Before the next war? Probably no one. Even the expertise gained then will have a significantly limited shelf-life.
1). War and conflict was for a lot of history almost constant albeit unevenly distributed (and even if it not everyone was constantly involved).

2). Our ancestors were not stupid, they remembered stuff, they wrote it down. Again remember we're talking about people who actually went out and did this stuff they had lot more on the line, as well as direct experience of the reality of what works and what doesn't than people using a RPG system to judge there actions. Subject to the limitations of what was available and resources people did make the best of what they had.



Quote:
Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
If you think that the people who make military procurement decisions must be experts in _something_ the likely candidates are Administration(Military Industrial complex) and Politics(Congressional).
Only while your right those skills (or their contextual equivalents) would have been useful, that doesn't mean anyone who historically layered armour was doing so out of inexperience of the realities of combat

Last edited by Tomsdad; 09-01-2017 at 10:29 AM.
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