[Low-Tech]What are the stats for Light Leather?

[DanHoward]

I can't understand why anyone would want this stuff as armour. The most common threat on any battlefield is from spears and arrows. In a civilian context the main threat is from clubs and knives. Light leather has DR 0 against all of these threats. Anyone who is only worried about getting cut in a fight has his priorities seriously screwed up.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

I can't understand why anyone would want this stuff as armour. The most common threat on any battlefield is from spears and arrows. In a civilian context the main threat is from clubs and knives. Light leather has DR 0 against all of these threats. Anyone who is only worried about getting cut in a fight has his priorities seriously screwed up.

Fight?

How about if someone is worried about falling from his bike/horse/low-flying carpet?

In such cases, light leather is appropriate. Also, in settings with magic, it could be a decent starting point for a light enchanted protective suit. It has always been a problem that clothing couldn't be easily given cost and weight for individual pieces.

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Fight?

How about if someone is worried about falling from his bike/horse/low-flying carpet?

In such cases, light leather is appropriate.

Really? What is the DR of light leather vs crushing?

Edit: I have a leather jacket made from sheepskin and a denim jacket. Even though the demin jacket is lighter I'd trust that to protect me better than the leather one any time. A motorbike jacket is completely different. Low-Tech would classify that as medium leather.

[Phoenix_Dragon]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Fight?

How about if someone is worried about falling from his bike/horse/low-flying carpet?

Then light leather would give minor protection from surface abrasions, much like any other clothing that could qualify as "winter clothing." Heck, jeans and a jacket would do about as well. But those are really sub-1-HP extras on top of the impact damage from such a fall. For some reason people find surface abrasions and minor cuts to be more of a concern than the heavy bruising that goes with it, even though such bruising is much more actual damage. As such, that light protection has value to them, even if it doesn't significantly affect the real injury by any notable amount.

Though we can at least back-engineer the costs if desired. Like in the OP, working off the cost of clothing for a Status-0 person in a typical TL3 fantasy setting, we get $60 and 5/3 of a pound (Which I'd probably round to 1.5 for simplicity) for torso "armor" made of light leather. Makes it somewhat cheaper and significantly lighter than armor-weight leather. I would assume most of the cost differences for clothing away from Status-0 would be matters of quality of materials, tailoring, decoration, and other such traits that wouldn't matter in this context or would be adjusted by the usual armor-modification methods.

[Trachmyr]

It's been discussed in a number of threads (including this one)... a good extrapolation using the erata'd rules is $30 & 3 pounds for Light Leather (DR1 vs. Cut only).

[Verjigorm]

I don't see a reason why basing it on status is problematic: you can still buy lower status clothing than your status, it just looks like lower status clothing. For example, I would imagine lower status fur clothing would be cobbled together from multiple cut-off sections, and have a "patchy" look, while high status leather may consist of a single piece, perhaps from a large animal like a bear. Similarly, low class leather may be less well decorated and designed, and just look shoddy. It still offers the same level of protection, but it looks bad!

[DanHoward]

The first time this came up I said

Price is based on the Cost of Living like all clothing. If you are Struggling then use rabbit or coon skin. If you are a king then use ermine or mink.

[Sam Baughn]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

I can't understand why anyone would want this stuff as armour. The most common threat on any battlefield is from spears and arrows. In a civilian context the main threat is from clubs and knives. Light leather has DR 0 against all of these threats. Anyone who is only worried about getting cut in a fight has his priorities seriously screwed up.

The main use I can see is protecting against animal bites and claws. Especially if you use edge protection and infection rules.

A wolf, dog, bobcat, velociraptor or other medium sized carnivore doing 1d-2 cutting will do 2-3 points of damage on average and risk an infected wound against an unarmoured person, but only around half that with a good chance of not penetrating the skin against someone wearing light leather.

That wasn't really a big deal on a historical battlefield, but in a lot of fantasy games there is a very good chance of being attacked by animals on a fairly regular basis.

I'd also argue that light leather should offer DR 1 against Burning and Corrosion damage, but that's probably just me.

[DanHoward]

There is no way that light leather should have a better DR than winter clothing.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

Really? What is the DR of light leather vs crushing?

Abrasion isn't crushing. Or cutting. Or piercing or impaling or corrosion or burning. It actually doesn't have a proper damage type in GURPS - I don't really blame GURPS for this, because it REALLY doesn't come up often in adventures, unless Batman is captured by The Mad Woodworker who straps him to a table and condemns him to death by belt sander or something, and even then his regular body armor will probably protect him.

If we ever came up with an Abrasion damage type, I'd totally give light leather DR 1 against it, too.