[Basic] Questions regarding Heavy Plate Armor

[DanHoward]

Makes sense.

[Nosforontu]

Originally Posted by Diomedes

What about just adding the slammer's encumbrance level to his damage for a slam, since it's not just the mass of the shield but the mass of the entire person behind it?

Its not bad at first sight but it does cause some oddities and does in some ways penalize strength or high basic lift scores. A lower strength character reaches higher levels of encumbrance faster with the same load than a stronger character and would be rewarded bonus damage for his encumbrance under this system. While the strong character gets no bonus for the same gear weight or even potentially heavier gear loads because he is strong enough for it not to increase his encumbrance level.

[DanHoward]

Total weight?

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

In a real fight he wouldn't use a single-handed sword at all unless all of his other weapons were lost or broken. Most fighters had some kind of pole arm - a spear at the very least. His weapon of choice is handy against unarmoured peasants (or in an artificial situation like a duel) but that's about all.

When two armoured people fought they concentrated on grapples and targeting gaps and joints. It is a waste of an attack to aim for the armour. As has been said, Shield Bash is handy too. This should be high on the list for any initial attack.

Sword and target is not the rarest of armaments ... even ignoring soldiers who also carried javelins, we see it all over 16th century Europe. I agree with you that against a man in full metal armour, someone with a target and a sword with no point can't do much ...

[Gudiomen]

With 1d+2 cut, breaking DR 5 is going to be a challenge. Tactics are going to have to either concentrate on increasing damage or decrease effective DR.

All-out-Attacks are out, it would be suicide. An Advanced Attack, from MA would be an option. Spending FP to increase damage (extra effort) is an optional rule, but very popular and from Basic. Evaluating might be an option, if you want to hit sensitive hit locations without lowering your critical hits chance, but its probably better to just attack every turn.

Getting by armor will be tricky, specially using just the rules in Basic. Both MA and Low-Tech offer more detailed rules about chinks, gaps, joints and more realistc coverage of armor. You could even cut the armor straps to expose his bits, or impede his movements. With Basic, you'll have to hope for a critical hit. A heavier blunt weapon could inflict blunt trauma, and a pointy weapon would be even better.

Last, but not least... incapacitate your opponent. Hits to the head might knock him out, droping him, disarming him, are all alternatives. He's also heavily encumbered, so you have mobility on your side, and time. You can setup all sorts of things, chose where in the battlefield you're fighting, and try dirty tricks that require a few turns.

And, if all else fails, you can run... which is probably the wise thing to do when a lightly armored man faces a knight fully clad in iron wielding a greatsword. If you're fast enough you can go get a propper weapon and come back :-D

[Apache]

About the only thing that looks feasable to me is to try and knock the big guy off his feet with a shield bash or some other such thing.

Get him down on the ground and you have a better chance of disarming him, finding a chink, etc.

Other than that...run away and find a heavy crossbow, or something.

[Diomedes]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

Total weight?

That would then have to be back-calculated into HP for purposes of the slam equation, I suppose.

Hmm. Punching the numbers into a spreadsheet, it appears that, say, going from 150 to 250 pounds wouldn't make any difference at all, so if you want shields and encumbrance to make a difference, that's not the place to do it.

[Daeglan]

something else to keep in mind the heavy armor guy has limited vision. strike the head to get him to blink and disappear into his blind spot. then stab him in the back of the thigh. you can't really armor there. or blind side him and knock him on his a** stand on his arm and stab him in the chest. Great sword fighters cannot armor their upper chest much. You need to be able to cross your arms.

[Gudiomen]

Originally Posted by Daeglan

something else to keep in mind the heavy armor guy has limited vision. strike the head to get him to blink and disappear into his blind spot. then stab him in the back of the thigh. you can't really armor there. or blind side him and knock him on his a** stand on his arm and stab him in the chest. Great sword fighters cannot armor their upper chest much. You need to be able to cross your arms.

Stab him with what? The whole difficulty stems from the guy only having a blunt tipped sword....

[Walrus]

Originally Posted by Gudiomen

Stab him with what? The whole difficulty stems from the guy only having a blunt tipped sword....

When you pin that guy, you can disarm him and hit with his own sword =)