Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 09-19-2019, 02:07 PM   #11
Polydamas
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
Default Re: [Low-Tech] Padded Cloth and Layered Armour penalty

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rasna View Post
Maybe the Expertly Tailored version or the Masterfully Tailored version of the Padded Cloth could qualify themselves for erasing completely the DX penalty, because they're specifically made to fit at the best the wearer, so they can act as "Winter Clothing" or "Light Leather" specifically tailored to be worn under armour. I'm still inclined to not give penalties for the combination of flexible mail armour (Light, Fine or Heavy Mail) over Padded Cloth, though maintaining the penalty for the combination of mail and DR 2* Light Layered Cloth. It depends also from which area of the body is covered. For example, donning a sleeveless Light Layered Cloth aketon over a sleeved Padded Cloth jacket is different to don a sleeved Light Layered Cloth gambeson over another sleeved Padded Cloth jacket. In the second case, arm movements are likely to be hampered enough to justify the -1 DX penalty.

Anyway, "Padded Cloth" used as standalone armour still remains a poor choice. DR 1 armour, alone, sounds more like a thing to protect the wearer from bad weather and work hazards than a useful protection in a Low-Tech battlefield, and I don't think that it was something that was worn purposely as "armour", at least not in the majority of cases. Though, the armour is still considered "flexible" (DR 1*), so is thick but not semi-rigid (like Light Scale) or rigid. There is also a lighter version of the Padded Cloth that still gives DR 1* against all attacks: the Heavy Coat, which covers torso, arms, thighs and knees (200%) and weights 10 lbs. - so, a sleeveless short version that covers only the torso (100%) should weight only 5 lbs. against 6 lbs. of Padded Cloth. It costs only two times the Padded Cloth at parity of body coverage and gives +4 to Holdout to conceal other forms of armour beneath it, so... what's the point of using Padded Cloth at all?
Yes, what GURPS calls Padded Cloth is an in-between proper armour and regular clothing, but in games you have to fit things into a limited number of steps, and sometimes you round up one kind of penalty to make up for another which the game does not represent.

Here are the weights of some historical quilted clothing which was worn under armour, most would cover the Torso and Arms in GURPS and are lighter than Padded Cloth in GURPS.
__________________
"It is easier to banish a habit of thought than a piece of knowledge." H. Beam Piper

This forum got less aggravating when I started using the ignore feature
Polydamas is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-19-2019, 05:52 PM   #12
DanHoward
 
DanHoward's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Maitland, NSW, Australia
Default Re: [Low-Tech] Padded Cloth and Layered Armour penalty

Quote:
Originally Posted by Polydamas View Post
Here are the weights of some historical quilted clothing which was worn under armour, most would cover the Torso and Arms in GURPS and are lighter than Padded Cloth in GURPS.
Yep. It is just regular clothing that is tailored a little differently. Modern re-enactors wear way too much padding under their armour.
__________________
Compact Castles gives the gamer an instant portfolio of genuine, real-world castle floorplans to use in any historical, low-tech, or fantasy game setting.
DanHoward is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 09-19-2019, 06:35 PM   #13
Prince Charon
 
Prince Charon's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2012
Default Re: [Low-Tech] Padded Cloth and Layered Armour penalty

Quote:
Originally Posted by DanHoward View Post
Yep. It is just regular clothing that is tailored a little differently. Modern re-enactors wear way too much padding under their armour.
That's at least partially for insurance purposes, I think... as well as being mostly nerds from a pretty non-violent culture, as these things go.
__________________
Warning, I have the Distractible and Imaginative quirks in real life.

"The more corrupt a government, the more it legislates."
-- Tacitus

Five Earths, All in a Row. Updated 12/17/2022: Apocrypha: Bridges out of Time, Part I has been posted.
Prince Charon is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-19-2019, 06:44 PM   #14
Anthony
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
Default Re: [Low-Tech] Padded Cloth and Layered Armour penalty

Quote:
Originally Posted by Prince Charon View Post
That's at least partially for insurance purposes, I think... as well as being mostly nerds from a pretty non-violent culture, as these things go.
It's probably mostly because reenactment is either simple costuming or a (generally fairly casual) sport, and those just don't have the same safety priorities as actual combat.
__________________
My GURPS site and Blog.
Anthony is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-22-2019, 09:07 AM   #15
Rasna
 
Rasna's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2016
Location: Pisa, Tuscany, Italy
Default Re: [Low-Tech] Padded Cloth and Layered Armour penalty

Quote:
Originally Posted by Polydamas View Post
Here are the weights of some historical quilted clothing which was worn under armour, most would cover the Torso and Arms in GURPS and are lighter than Padded Cloth in GURPS.
The heavier garments that are quoted in the article weight as much as GURPS Padded Cloth. However, it's not clear if they were worn with other armour. They're still way lighter than a gambeson.

"There were certainly some very heavy garments stuffed with cotton. Documents from Venice from the end of the 13th century say that infantry should wear overgarments stuffed with 8 libbre (probably the libbra grossa of 477 g) of cotton and bearing the sign of St. Mark (Cessi, Deliberazioni del Maggior Consiglio di Venezia, III, p. 17, 406)."

Being an intermediate thing between padding and proper armour, IMO such garments should be considered more "padding" than "armour" and thus give no DX penalty for a single layer, at least if worn with mail and/or if properly tailored to be worn with armour.
Rasna is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-22-2019, 09:45 AM   #16
DanHoward
 
DanHoward's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Maitland, NSW, Australia
Default Re: [Low-Tech] Padded Cloth and Layered Armour penalty

Overgarments are not undergarments. Garments designed to be worn under armour were no thicker or heavier than regular clothing.
__________________
Compact Castles gives the gamer an instant portfolio of genuine, real-world castle floorplans to use in any historical, low-tech, or fantasy game setting.
DanHoward is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 09-22-2019, 01:11 PM   #17
Polydamas
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
Default Re: [Low-Tech] Padded Cloth and Layered Armour penalty

Exactly. The sopbrosberga and soprensegna in documents from duocento Italy and the red brocade Charles VI garment would probably count as Light Layered Cloth in GURPS, with their weight rounded up because they have to have an even DR 2 and because players don't carry all the weight they want their characters to carry, its fair for things to be slightly heavier than average. They would be in addition to the weight of clothing and of iron/hardened leather/bronze armour, all of which are worn underneath these overgarments.
__________________
"It is easier to banish a habit of thought than a piece of knowledge." H. Beam Piper

This forum got less aggravating when I started using the ignore feature
Polydamas is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-23-2019, 11:55 PM   #18
Plane
 
Join Date: Aug 2018
Default Re: [Low-Tech] Padded Cloth and Layered Armour penalty

Is there maybe some way to link a scaling DX penalty to the relative weights of armors so that layering heavy armors is more penalizing than layering light ones?
Plane is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-24-2019, 01:24 AM   #19
DanHoward
 
DanHoward's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Maitland, NSW, Australia
Default Re: [Low-Tech] Padded Cloth and Layered Armour penalty

Weight isn't the issue, bulk is. Mail is far easier to wear under armour than a winter jacket.
__________________
Compact Castles gives the gamer an instant portfolio of genuine, real-world castle floorplans to use in any historical, low-tech, or fantasy game setting.
DanHoward is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 09-24-2019, 01:33 AM   #20
Anthony
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
Default Re: [Low-Tech] Padded Cloth and Layered Armour penalty

The other issue with layering armor is that realistically (though this is not represented in GURPS and varies by armor type) a single double-weight armor layer is likely to have superior protective value to two layers of single-weight armor, so you really only layer armor if there's an interaction between the layers that increases performance (in which case you are likely to never use at least one of layers solo -- for example, vest inserts) or there's a technical issue that forces you to (flexible armor to fill gaps between plates), and both cases are really better represented as a single suit of armor with multiple elements, not layered armor.
__________________
My GURPS site and Blog.
Anthony is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
low-tech, low-tech armor

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 10:32 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.