[LT] Knight field plate harness, three-quarter plate and leg coverage

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

There is no such thing as TL3 lamellar. Historically, lamellar gets superseded by mail-and-plates.

Byzantine klivanions are not lamellar in Low-Tech terms?

I thought about modelling a light mail coat and a klivanion over it as mail-and-plate, but that I was worried that it wasn't strictly legal and, in any case, it didn't cover situations where only a part of the whole suit was worn.

[Lancewholelot]

Sorry for my asides. I'd just use Front Only as a reduction to weight and cost on plate thigh armor, and maybe groin armor. A codpiece would be unlikely in the saddle. My impression is it was added when foot combat was planned. Otherwise, I think the LT gaps in armor rules cover it.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Lancewholelot

Was segmented plate used for cost reasons? I would think that a plate skull cap would be the standard assumption at TL3 and beyond. Not for GURPS LT optimization reasons mind you, but from a historical perspective, it would be much better at keeping one's skull convex rather than concave. Protective plates mounted to a supportive framework would be Low Tech's Spangenhelms by default.

Partly cost, I guess. There is also a large element of coolness, though, in that calling the helmet segmented plate would allow for 'wasted' materials in the form of strange shapes. Though perhaps I should leave that for other soldiers from Thay.

I'm assuming that the polity fielding these soldiers, Thay, is mostly TL3. It might be more accurate to call them TL2+1, as they are at more or less late East Roman Empire technology, but with a huge slave economy and massive magic supporting them. They thereforey have access to TL2+2 and even some TL2+3 things if they really need, but that costs extra.

Because of the TL2 fashions, conservativism and long-standing infrastructure, they have far more smiths that can make high-quality lamellar and scale armour than anything else. Mail is too useful not to make and the fact that making it economically is mostly a matter of throwing a lot of slave labour at it means that they're good at it too, but there's a strong cultural inclination toward scale and lamellar. A lot of priests and wizards prefer to use them as the basis for enchantment, for one thing.

In game terms, scale and lamellar probably has a small effective discount and also gets a heavy discount on Armor of Quality modifications, because there are lots of independent smiths good at making it, but who lack the facilities for or interest in larger plate. TL3 armour is at base cost, but TL4 armour costs double, because the economy as a whole is not TL4.

None of which means that I need to confine the helmets to Segmented Plate. Perhaps I should not, at that.

[Lancewholelot]

I don't know if I should fret or be relieved I wasn't part of Low Tech's play testing. Certainly I'm no expert of note, but it seems to me that the rules as designed by the whole are not satisfactory to any of the individuals involved. It's as mired as American politics, and likely a more sensitive subject!

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Lancewholelot

I don't know if I should fret or be relieved I wasn't part of Low Tech's play testing. Certainly I'm no expert of note, but it seems to me that the rules as designed by the whole are not satisfactory to any of the individuals involved. It's as mired as American politics, and likely a more sensitive subject!

The armour rules are a great improvement over the previous ones, but no human creation can ever be perfect. I'm sure it vexed Dan greatly to find that the stats for Scale and Segmented Plate did not match the effectiveness schema he was going for, especially as he didn't find out until after playtesting.

[Lancewholelot]

Honestly, I've yet to playtest Low-Tech. I've plans for a rehash of Orcslayer as a LT TL3 playtest (using Armor Gaps and Edge Protection) but I doubt if my seasoned and distant PCs will commit even one of our rare face-to-face game secessions to such back-to-basics level testing. It seems I'll have to work out this online gaming thing, and/or recruit (subvert) a local group.

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Byzantine klivanions are not lamellar in Low-Tech terms?

The klivanion is no different to lamellar that was worn a thousand years earlier. Why would it be TL3?

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Partly cost, I guess. There is also a large element of coolness, though, in that calling the helmet segmented plate would allow for 'wasted' materials in the form of strange shapes. Though perhaps I should leave that for other soldiers from Thay.

Low-Tech calls segmented helmets "spangenhelms", which is the standard way iron helmets were made for most of history. Single-piece helmets are +9 CF and -25% weight (p. 112). I would rule that, at TL4, single-piece helmets are standard and no longer cost more. TL4 spangenhelms can be cheap quality.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

The klivanion is no different to lamellar that was worn a thousand years earlier. Why would it be TL3?

Because it's made at TL3, in an environment where TL3 armour is available and soldiers wore it despite having other TL3 armour available. If there was no such thing as TL3 lamellar, because lamellar had been completely superseded by mail and plate at TL3, then klivanion wouldn't exist at the height of TL3 except as a curiosity or museum piece.

AFAIK, fluting was standard for it. Using the rules as written, that still makes it obscenely heavy, but now also obscenely expensive.

What possible benefit could there have been from wearing one layered over mail? Under GURPS rules, none at all. It would have been much better to wear another layer of mail.*

*Realistically, this almost certainly does not yield double the DR of one layer, but some other, lower number.

[DanHoward]

The combination isn't mentioned in any Byzantine text and there is only one single image in over a thousand years that has a possible depiction of lamellar over mail. Any book that says the Byzantines wore lamellar over mail is basing that statement on speculation. Mail and lamellar were both worn, but not together. From what I can gather, lamellar was munitions armour. Those with the means wore mail. If you want you can make Byzantine lamellar cheap quality.