[LT] Brigandine TL question

[Anthony]

I suspect the problem is that brigandine is too light (for its DR) in LT. It should be broadly competitive with segmented plate, and LT actually makes segmented plate 40% heavier than brigandine.

[Landwalker]

Originally Posted by Anthony

I suspect the problem is that brigandine is too light (for its DR) in LT. It should be broadly competitive with segmented plate, and LT actually makes segmented plate 40% heavier than brigandine.

Unless you hew to the proposed alternative weight for segmented plate, which makes it only 20% heavier than brigandine and two-thirds the cost. I'd say that's fairly competitive.

[DanHoward]

Brigandine is classed as a TL4 technology - same as solid iron plate cuirasses. The actual date of its introduction is irrelevant. Cruder examples are classed as a jack of plates or a coat of plates. There are rare exmples of solid iron breastplates dating to the Hellenistic period but that doesn't make them TL2. No more than the Roman Colluseum is an example of TL2 architecture.

[Þorkell]

Is the TL of armour the TL when first introduced or when it first became technically feasible to make such armour?

I ask because of the Buff Coat, which is apparently nothing but a leather armour covering limbs and torso, is TL 4 in the Basic Set. But as far as I can tell it's technically feasible to make it at TL1. I realise that LT made changes/updates from the Basic Set but I'm still not clear on what I ask above.

[DanHoward]

The TL of an item has always been when it becomes a mature technology. Buff coats should probably be TL2 not TL4. They have been used in Asia for thousands of years. I made an errata submission to this effect years ago.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Þorkell

Is the TL of armour the TL when first introduced or when it first became technically feasible to make such armour?

It first became "technically feasable" to make gunpowder in or around TL1. But it wasn't introduced then, and you couldn't do much with at at the time even if it had been.

Historical TLs for specific artifacts are based about when that artifact was made (in the context of the culture it was made in). Hero of Alexandria's steam engine is about TL 2.

But for a more generalized technology, you need more than one guy making a demonstration of a theory. "Steam engines" that do anything useful aren't TL 2, because Hero and his contemporaries only made toys, and couldn't figure out how to do anything else with it.

You can get things showing up "in beta" as experimental technologies a TL "earlier" - clunky, fragile, temperamental, or no or limited practical uses, before the "Mature" technology shows up.

The Buff Coats at TL 4 should have been labeled "Musketeers coats" and be done with it; I'm not sure if long coats of that kind of design were particularly common much earlier than TL 3 though - sewn-on sleeves are one of those things that actually show up late in clothing technology, and a "buff coat" is straddling the border between clothing design and armour design. But you could certainly get someone to make you tied-on leather sleeves and a long leather robe once someone invents them. You'd look like a weirdo in most times and places before TL4ish, but you'd have your coat.

Low Tech politely ignores "Buff coats" and lets you design a leather coat yourself at much saner TLs

[Ulzgoroth]

But sometimes, just sometimes, you see something invented that really called for nothing more than the idea.

Sewn-on sleeves, for instance, aren't anything a TL1 clothier would have trouble implementing, unless I'm missing something major. They just...didn't.

Other times, when something shows up in TL 3 or 4, it's because it needed a whole bunch of other things that didn't exist before then to be possible.

And it's not always clear which.

[safisher]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Sewn-on sleeves, for instance, aren't anything a TL1 clothier would have trouble implementing, unless I'm missing something major. They just...didn't.

Belt loops, for instance.
The pocket multitool has some quite ancient roots, apparently.
But it's modern embodiment is from the 1970s.

[Polydamas]

The whole TL model of one linear path with steady progress over time is a hopeless oversimplification anyways. The real preindustrial world saw many "tech paths" merging and splitting, with advance in some areas coinciding with decline in others. If your game is set in Europe in 1380, you can decide what gear is available without much regard to TL listings; what the guidelines are good for is answering "so we're on this Roman parallel, and we have a few pounds of silver to spend on native kit. What can we get?"

[mhd]

I would've thought that a Roman parellel would probably be a TL worst case…