Materials for armor in Fantasy game

[mhd]

Speaking of utterly fantastic materials, what would be a bearable, non-utterly-munchkiny way of treating something that has mass like steel or bronze, but is literally unbreakable once forged and specially treated?

That certainly doesn't sound like infinite DR to me, more like infinite edge (and tip) protection, i.e. unless you bypass it (chinks, other location) you'll always get a wound multiplier of 1. Not quite sure if that's enough, though.

[blacksmith]

Originally Posted by mhd

Speaking of utterly fantastic materials, what would be a bearable, non-utterly-munchkiny way of treating something that has mass like steel or bronze, but is literally unbreakable once forged and specially treated?

That certainly doesn't sound like infinite DR to me, more like infinite edge (and tip) protection, i.e. unless you bypass it (chinks, other location) you'll always get a wound multiplier of 1. Not quite sure if that's enough, though.

This would depend on how it could be manufactured. If it could only be made in 1" cubes it would be very different from making it in any shape you want. Also what happens when weapons are made out of it?

The main problem with say plate armor like that is that GURPS really is not set up for what it would take to hurt someone inside that. For example outside of cannons the character would be bullet proof as you shifted to momentum transfer as your main method of damage. You need to toss them around to hurt them.

[Bruno]

Depends a lot on the mass/thickness of the material once it's "invulnerable".

Very thin, flexible, foil-like sheets would be very like silk - which in the real wold doesn't stop impaling attacks, because it wraps around the spear/arrow/sword tip and gets merrily driven into your wound cavity along with the weapon. However it seals the wound some, and makes extracting an arrow head much easier, and if you add magical antibacterial or self-cleaning properties it would protect it from infection to an impressive degree (not entirely unless it also cleans your skin and you don't wear anything between your skin and it).

The thicker/stiffer it is and the larger your plates of it, the more damage resistance you'll get as the force of impact is distributed over a wider area under approaching-ideal circumstances.

[Bruno]

Treated Linnen Armor (Fantasy Tech page 13) is impenetrable: all damage that pierces DR becomes crushing. +19CF cloth armor modifier.

[mhd]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Depends a lot on the mass/thickness of the material once it's "invulnerable".

I was thinking about a straight-forward super-metal, call it mithril, adamantium or MegaBronze… So depending on the difficulty of working it and the general style and TL, you'd get mail or even plate out of it. Imagine if Bilbo's shirt would be totally indestructible, so even if you'd fire a 120 mm DU shell at it, you'd not hurt the shirt a bit. Now, in that case the poor wearer wouldn't exactly look very happy. But what about smaller weapons? Sure, no penetration, so everything stays crushing. But do you have to ramp up the DR for this, too? DR doesn't exactly perfectly simulate every occasion, so for convenience sake a point or thirteen might be necessary.

The same is true for weapons out of this unobtanium, of course. Unless you can make it really, really sharp and due to its hardness it'll stay that way forever (cf. a macuahuitl with indestructible osidian), you'll just have a more resilient weapon, maybe canceling out the protective effect of unob-armor. But a damage bonus? (In the case of something ultra-light like mithril, you might even argue for a penalty, although you could finally argue for something like double-bitted barbarian axes making sense now)

[Flyndaran]

I love alternate materials, but you have to wonder how they would interact with the low tech things one can do to normal materials. Like fine, and very fine become much less appealing when one can get the same or even better effects from unobtanium. Or like fluting, and tailoring for armor.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I love alternate materials, but you have to wonder how they would interact with the low tech things one can do to normal materials. Like fine, and very fine become much less appealing when one can get the same or even better effects from unobtanium. Or like fluting, and tailoring for armor.

Anything that reduces weight will reduce the amount of unobtanium required to make your armor. Presuming the raw unobtanium is in fact expensive, instead of dirt cheap like iron is, this is going to be a HUGE factor, and would be even MORE attractive.

Even if it takes twice as much labor to make, pseudo-diamond armor, for example, is either going to be heavily dominated by the cost of the materials, or it'll just completely replace iron armor completely.

[Flyndaran]

+9 CF for expert tailoring/fluting for a decrease in mass by 25%.
If unobtanium only makes sense after getting the best add on features to normal iron, then you must be playing with absurd levels of wealth.
This makes fun sense only when playing DF games where money is only good for equipment useful to get more money.
But in more complete fantasy games, it becomes difficult to justify, in my opinion.

[aesir23]

Originally Posted by mhd

I was thinking about a straight-forward super-metal, call it mithril, adamantium or MegaBronze… So depending on the difficulty of working it and the general style and TL, you'd get mail or even plate out of it. Imagine if Bilbo's shirt would be totally indestructible, so even if you'd fire a 120 mm DU shell at it, you'd not hurt the shirt a bit. Now, in that case the poor wearer wouldn't exactly look very happy. But what about smaller weapons? Sure, no penetration, so everything stays crushing. But do you have to ramp up the DR for this, too? DR doesn't exactly perfectly simulate every occasion, so for convenience sake a point or thirteen might be necessary.

This sounds like Treated Linen from Fantasy Tech. See also this thread discussing the issue.