Is Armor Properly Designed in Fantasy Games?

[Christopher R Taylor]

After extensive study, including watching testing on shows like Forged in Fire, I have come to the conclusion that it is very likely that the armor (and weapon) stats used in pretty much every fantasy game published is just not right.

 

For example, I've long used armor piercing on bodkin arrow heads to represent all that force on a small point.  But watching real life archery and testing archery against various armors, either the bows aren't doing nearly the damage listed in games, or they aren't actually armor piercing.

 

Also, armor seems to have been much more protective in real medieval combat than in fantasy movies and games.  A fully plate wearing warrior was like a tank in combat; you had to disable it (get him on the ground) then stab at gaps to even harm someone in a suit.  Arrows just bounce off unless they hit a joint, and while the wearer feels some impact, its not especially significant.

 

It has to be remembered that most medieval combat was against very lightly (or no) armored foes, so weapons like axes and so on were a lot more effective.  Swords are deadly against someone like that, but if the target has decent armor, aren't going to do much.  Over time different, more ghastly weapons were developed to try to defeat armor (pole arms, weapons like the Estoc, etc) and swords were not the go-to weapon against armor.

 

This turns pretty much every trope and fantasy game theme on its head, and maybe that's not a good way to go but I'm currently working on weapons and armor builds for my Jolrhos Player Guide and the thoughts came up as I was working on it.  Should Plate be hardened armor?  Should it have higher defenses?  Should arrows do less damage?

[Rhodri]

1 hour ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

For example, I've long used armor piercing on bodkin arrow heads to represent all that force on a small point.  But watching real life archery and testing archery against various armors, either the bows aren't doing nearly the damage listed in games, or they aren't actually armor piercing.

Mm, well, ish.  Bodkins are definitely the only type of arrow that will actually go through decent plate armour far enough to be potentially fatal, but if they hit at the wrong angle they aren't going to do much.  Also don't forget that the quality of real armour is incredibly variable.  Poor quality metal is going to stop a lot less than you would hope, and badly fitting armour is an active hindrance to the wearer.

 

There's an interesting summary with link online here from Benjamin Rose.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Sure, a Bodkin is going to go right through chain mail.  But against a plate breastplate or helm?  Unless its really crappy, that arrow bounces off without barely a dent.  Dozens of people have tested this over and over, you can find youtube videos all over about it.  Here's an example.  There are many others.

 

There has been a huge explosion of knowledge and study in medieval warfare in the last 20 years or so that has really changed a lot of what people understood or believed in the past.

[Alcamtar]

I think realistic armor would mostly be an all-or-nothing affair. Either you bypass/penetrate and do damage, or you bounce harmlessly off. Bludgeons might transmit some impact through the armor; truly armor piercing weapons would just have a greater penetration chance.

 

How to model it effectively, I don't know. Maybe D&D was on the right track with AC.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I am leaning heavily toward increasing the defense of armor across the board.  Especially after seeing how well even stuff like cloth armor protects against attacks.  This makes melee tougher, but the entire point of armor is to prevent body damage.  Is Cloth armor really just 1 PD, 1 ED resistant defense?  Not in practice, its more like 3 or 4.  Plate armor is probably more than 8 as well.  The impact you still feel, but the body damage is unlikely to penetrate.

 

The weights are a bit off as well, in my research.  Too many people are doing actual blacksmithing to produce this stuff today and giving great information, not to mention all the historical research being done.

[Steve]

Maybe increase existing armor values by +1 rDEF for every two points of rDEF they currently provide? Platemail would go to 12 then, which seems like it would be sufficient.

[Hugh Neilson]

There is a question of historical accuracy, and a question of gameplay practicality.  Let's say we bump up Plate to 12 rDEF, or even make it a 10 rDEF, 6 BOD barrier (real armor would get damaged over time), and/or lower the damage done by weapons (recalling that accurately, different weapons would perform differently against different types of armor).  So now, those in armor are pretty much invulnerable.  Will it be PCs in armor running rampant, or PCs helpless against enemies with heavy armor?

 

Since PCs like being well-defended and dislike being ineffectual, they will want to buy abilities that boost damage and get that heavy armor (or will we apply its historical drawbacks like "good luck moving around on foot" and "don't get knocked over, Mr. Turtle" and it's super-hot in there, and your field of motion and vision are restricted, and it's really heavy to haul around, and it takes a Very Long Time and probably a helper or three to put on and take off)?

 

Is the objective an accurate historical simulation? If so, we should not see the variety of weapons and armor present in most fantasy games either.  Or is the objective a playable game?  The two may not be exceptionally compatible.

 

I recall discussing a "realistic medieval setting" with randomly-rolled characters.  OK, roll 6d10 (1 - 1 million).  Anything under 333,334 and you died before age 10.  If you roll 6 10's, you are not a serf bound to the land, and can have real weapons and armour.

[Ninja-Bear]

19 hours ago, Alcamtar said:

I think realistic armor would mostly be an all-or-nothing affair. Either you bypass/penetrate and do damage, or you bounce harmlessly off. Bludgeons might transmit some impact through the armor; truly armor piercing weapons would just have a greater penetration chance.

 

How to model it effectively, I don't know. Maybe D&D was on the right track with AC.

Ha! Heretic! 😁

[Steve]

I wonder if you could model it by adding BODY to a person wearing armor like their being hit with an Aid effect, those added points getting worn off first by damage to the armor that would need to be repaired. Once the armor loses all its extra BODY, then all the damage that gets through its defenses starts coming off the character. Magic armor would still give the same rDEF as normal versions but offer more BODY increase.

 

By doing it this way, it extends character survivability but doesn’t render them into being nigh invulnerable. It just takes longer to put them down.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

Is the objective an accurate historical simulation? If so, we should not see the variety of weapons and armor present in most fantasy games either.  Or is the objective a playable game?  The two may not be exceptionally compatible.

 

I agree, you want to err on the side of fun and playable, not realistic.  But I think that its not unreasonable to move a bit more toward historically valid, particularly as players are increasingly more aware of the limitations and  advantages of various weapons and armor.

 

Quote

By doing it this way, it extends character survivability but doesn’t render them into being nigh invulnerable. It just takes longer to put them down.

 

Damage Reduction would do much the same thing but I think we're moving into Hugh's "maybe this is more than a game needs" level of complexity with that kind of thing.

[Old Man]

The only really accurate portrayals of medieval armored combat I've seen in film are Excalibur (1981) and The King (2019), both of which involved bludgeoning each other until one man either got tired or slipped and fell, allowing the other to get a stab in through the eye holes or armpit.  Neither of these is the type of cinematic most fantasy players are shooting for, however.

 

However, I should stress that metallurgy changed drastically from the Roman Empire through the late Middle Ages.  Mail was predominant through most of this period because it was easy to repair, didn't really require high quality steel, and you can put on or take off mail by yourself in a hurry.  In the east, brigandine was the standard for similar reasons.

 

Plate, by contrast, has to be custom fitted for the wearer, has to have custom pieces made or fixed if it gets damaged, and is really dependent on how tempered and thick the metal is.  You can punch a screwdriver through crappy sheet metal much more easily than through a soup can.  On top of that there was a slow burning arms race between weapons and armor throughout the Middle Ages.  Weapons went from hardly-better-than-iron to Damascus steel to pattern welding.  You could get through mail with a solid stab from a spatha or gladius; once decent plate armor (and the steel to make it out of) was invented, dirks and creative polearms became much more prominent on the field.  Ranged weapons underwent a similar progression, from bows to crossbows to longbows, with various types of specialized points.

 

Oddly enough I think Hero does get it a little wrong when it models plate.  Stabbing through armor is almost all-or-nothing--either you just make a dent or you get all the way through, there isn't much in between.  It's hard to model--against 8 rPD plate, a hit for 8 BODY would do nothing, but a hit for 9 BODY should do... 9 BODY.

[LoneWolf]

One thing to keep in mind is that vs the type of foes that were actually encountered in the real world the weapons did a lot less damage than in the game.  Unlike in a game, historically the only real opponents people in the Middle Ages faced were other humans. Humans during that time period where actually smaller than they are today, and in the game, characters are even larger.  That means the average sword was not doing anywhere near max damage.  

 

A person attacking you with a sword was probably doing 1d6 +1.  That means the maximum damage they can do is 7 BODY.   DEF 8 armor means they cannot actually do any BODY.  Even a critical hit to the head (assuming hit locations are being used) only does 19 STUN to a character with wearing full plate and PD of 8.  The average damage from a long sword is 4.5 Body and 11.25 STUN.  This means the knight in full plate takes no damage form the average sword hitting him.   

 

It seems to me that the Hero System is actually fairly accurate as far as armor goes. The average knight in full plate is probably going to ignore somewhere around 90% of the attacks coming from a historically accurate opponent.  If he is facing something like Roland or Lancelot he is probably going to take more, but vs the ordinary foot soldier not much.  When you start throwing in 7-foot orcs with body like an Olympic weightlifter then they start taking more.   If you want armor to be as effective as historically was don’t throw opponents that are 4 times as strong.  
 

[theinfn8]

10 hours ago, Old Man said:

Oddly enough I think Hero does get it a little wrong when it models plate.  Stabbing through armor is almost all-or-nothing--either you just make a dent or you get all the way through, there isn't much in between.  It's hard to model--against 8 rPD plate, a hit for 8 BODY would do nothing, but a hit for 9 BODY should do... 9 BODY.

 

I respectfully disagree with that assertion. The weapon puncturing the plate loses a significant amount of energy in the process. This us why penetration depth is also important to measure when watching "test" videos. Not all armour penetration means the weapon suddenly has free reign to damage the target. It by no means is all or nothing. On your 9 damage attack, there was only enough energy left in the attack to slightly stick the fleshy bits beneath... for 1 Body.

[theinfn8]

6 hours ago, LoneWolf said:

One thing to keep in mind is that vs the type of foes that were actually encountered in the real world the weapons did a lot less damage than in the game.  Unlike in a game, historically the only real opponents people in the Middle Ages faced were other humans. Humans during that time period where actually smaller than they are today, and in the game, characters are even larger.  That means the average sword was not doing anywhere near max damage.  

 

A person attacking you with a sword was probably doing 1d6 +1.  That means the maximum damage they can do is 7 BODY.   DEF 8 armor means they cannot actually do any BODY.  Even a critical hit to the head (assuming hit locations are being used) only does 19 STUN to a character with wearing full plate and PD of 8.  The average damage from a long sword is 4.5 Body and 11.25 STUN.  This means the knight in full plate takes no damage form the average sword hitting him.  
 

 

This, spot on. It was one of the first things that struck me when I saw the published guidelines for plate, the average attack will do nothing against plate. You need to push one of the larger two-handed weapons to do any damage, get really lucky, or have a combat technique to negate some of the advantage of armour (half-swording FTW). Those special fighting techniques were also not something the standard fighter on the field would possess. But then, considering the exorbitant cost of plate, it was well worth it to those who could afford it.

 

But, for the sake of running a game, we make exceptions. How many people actually play the "Real Armour" part of the disads? How many people charge their players for the upkeep (replacing buckles, strapping, pounding out dents, etc)? Make the players spend time doing maintenance while adventuring? Good armour is going to require a lot of maintenance in the field to protect it against the elements and stave off rust and rot. Some of the real major disadvantages of plate are distinctly *not fun* for most play groups.

[drunkonduty]

1 hour ago, theinfn8 said:

 

But, for the sake of running a game, we make exceptions. How many people actually play the "Real Armour" part of the disads? How many people charge their players for the upkeep (replacing buckles, strapping, pounding out dents, etc)? Make the players spend time doing maintenance while adventuring? Good armour is going to require a lot of maintenance in the field to protect it against the elements and stave off rust and rot. Some of the real major disadvantages of plate are distinctly *not fun* for most play groups.

 

I cover maintenance and such as part of the background play. Costs are part of the general cost of living and field maintenance is what people do in the evenings while sitting around the camp fire. So I acknowledge it in the narrative but don't make it a big thing.

 

[DentArthurDent]

People I know who have worn armor - re-enactors and blacksmiths - tell me they would never wear armor in real life. They say it is incredible uncomfortable and exhausting to even wear a metal helm for more than fifteen or twenty minutes. And most of them played football so they are familiar with wearing gear for hours at a time.

 

So, a knight in plate armor was nearly invincible .. for a very limited amount of time.

[DentArthurDent]

If you like lots of math and science:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3248716/

 

if you prefer something lighter:

https://www.science.org/content/article/heavy-armor-gave-knights-workout
 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

I cover maintenance and such as part of the background play. Costs are part of the general cost of living and field maintenance is what people do in the evenings while sitting around the camp fire. So I acknowledge it in the narrative but don't make it a big thing.

 

Yeah I'm trying to work out a standardized, streamlined system for GMs to handle maintenance, supplies, camping, etc so they preload all the time, trouble and rolls into a simple one or two step thing then can add in modules like weather, ambush, etc.  The idea is to have it as believable and reasonable as you can expect from a game simulating a fantasy setting without it becoming a chore or too realistic to be fun.

[mallet]

In  a system like HERO where potentially there is no "class" restrictions against any character wearing any armor or heavy armor, I think if balance is to be maintained with the players having access to heavy armor like Plate Mail then the GM does need to make the disadvantages to wearing it come into play. It can mean extra book keeping, which no one enjoys, but otherwise it can be over powerful. What we should be trying to do is find ways of making the book keeping part of of wearing the armor simpler but still realistic. 

 

Off the top of my head, some options:

 

-Having the armor being an issue to carry around and transport when not wearing it. Especially if the characters are walking and have no horses or carts. Carrying 55 pounds of oddly shaped metal on your back, along with all the normal travelling gear would be a major hassle. If the characters know they are going to need to hike 20 miles through a swamp, then up a mountainside, then they know that they shouldn't bring the plate mail along this adventure. If they are riding their horses 5 miles up an old trail to an abandoned keep, then sure, no problem, bring it along. 

-The time it takes to put on and the fact that you need at least one other person to help the character put it on. 

-When it is on, no first aid/normal medical aid can be provided. You can't quickly bandage up a stab wound to the chest if the character is still in plate mail. The armor has to be taken off first. So only magical healing is possible. 

-Stealth check penalties 

-Maybe some version of Long Term Endurance specifically for characters wearing heavy armor. Derived by from average of STR, CON & EGO (ego because lots of things could drive you crazy while wearing heavy plate armor that the character would have to mentally block out (can't scratch an itch, adjust their clothing underneath, the sweat running down their faces and backs, the heat, and so on...)) this version of LTE would maybe calculate how many hours (non-combat) the person could wear the armor for, and then how many turns in combat, before suffering penalties. Then they would need a rest before they could put it on again. Maybe a character with 18 in STR, CON and EGO, could wear full plate armor for 6 hours (non-combat) then 10 TURNS of combat for each "hour" left from when combat starts. After all those Turns of combat run out, or 6 hours pass, the character starts taking penalties that increase as time goes on, until they remove the armor and spend X amount of time not wearing it before putting it on again. 

 

 

[Old Man]

There is also the matter of repair and maintenance. A bad dent in an articulated area of plate mail could greatly impair mobility and requires a smithy to fix. This is a big reason mail and brigandine hung around so long. You can put on a mail shirt by yourself, fix it with some wire and pliers, and fold it up and put it in a saddlebag.  Plate, and to a lesser extent lorica segmentata, were much harder to transport and maintain in the field. 

[LoneWolf]

The normal LTE rules will actually prevent a fantasy hero character from using full plate for much more than 4 hours before they become exhausted.   Assuming characters have a 10 Maximum REC before paying double.  Full plate weighs 40kg, a large shield weights 7kg, throw in a weapon and some other gear and the character carrying at least 50kg.   In a Fantasy Hero (Heroic) game END cost 1 per 5.  That means a character with at least 2 SPD is using 4 END per phase just for STR, if he moves that brings his END use up to 6 for the turn.  That means a character with a 10 REC loses 1 LTE per 5 minutes.  So, after 4 hours and 10 minutes the character is completely out of END.  It will take him 25 hours to fully recover all his LTE.   After 5 hours of rest the character will have recovered 10 LTE (or his recover), which would allow him to walk for another 50 minutes.  

 

If the character has a higher SPD it gets even worse if he is using his full SPD.  You can reduce your SPD, but only to 2.  

 

Most people forget that moving cost END and don’t factor that in.  There is no need to create special rule for this, all you need to do is to apply the rules that already exist.  The maximum weight a character can carry without having to worry about LTE is about 25 KG.  That pretty much restricts you to DEF 5 or less armor.  If a character does not buy up his REC to near max, it is even worse. 
 

[dmjalund]

probably why wearing full plate is more practicable on horseback

[MrAgdesh]

I remember watching a UK documentary about exactly this. New evidence (pig iron arrowheads retrieved from excavations at Agincourt) suggested that the longbow arrows were not at all effective against the French knights’ armour. The conclusion was that Henry was a master strategist and bottle-necked the French cavalry into a muddy mire (records tell of several days of heavy rain prior to the battle).

with the knights in non-porous metal armour - as opposed to Henry’s largely serf conscripts in cloth - the quagmire literally bogged the knights down. Once their horses faltered and the knights came off, many simply drowned in the mud. Or *were* drowned, or stabbed through visors and gaps in their armour. It came to be that many knights yielded and expected to be ransomed as per custom but when Henry’s advisors realised that the captured still vastly outnumbered his peasants, many more were murdered as a precaution. 
So, the longbow dominance may be a romanticism. It was probably more about pointy stabby weapons, mud, and the great unwashed masses enjoying a chance to stiff the nobility for once! 
 

 

[theinfn8]

On 9/26/2022 at 8:05 AM, LoneWolf said:

The normal LTE rules will actually prevent a fantasy hero character from using full plate for much more than 4 hours before they become exhausted.   Assuming characters have a 10 Maximum REC before paying double.  Full plate weighs 40kg, a large shield weights 7kg, throw in a weapon and some other gear and the character carrying at least 50kg.   In a Fantasy Hero (Heroic) game END cost 1 per 5.  That means a character with at least 2 SPD is using 4 END per phase just for STR, if he moves that brings his END use up to 6 for the turn.  That means a character with a 10 REC loses 1 LTE per 5 minutes.  So, after 4 hours and 10 minutes the character is completely out of END.  It will take him 25 hours to fully recover all his LTE.   After 5 hours of rest the character will have recovered 10 LTE (or his recover), which would allow him to walk for another 50 minutes.  

 

If the character has a higher SPD it gets even worse if he is using his full SPD.  You can reduce your SPD, but only to 2.  

 

Most people forget that moving cost END and don’t factor that in.  There is no need to create special rule for this, all you need to do is to apply the rules that already exist.  The maximum weight a character can carry without having to worry about LTE is about 25 KG.  That pretty much restricts you to DEF 5 or less armor.  If a character does not buy up his REC to near max, it is even worse. 
 

 

I would give a weight break for wearing the armour. It is way different to carry around a bag/box full or armour and to actually have it strapped around your person. But if you're going for that accuracy of the effects of armour on LTE, the rules absolutely work for that. A lot of people don't want to play the encumbrance game though, so that aspect of wearing armour usually gets dropped.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Definitely wearing armor, properly fitted, is much less encumbering than carrying it around even well-packed.  My quick and dirty calculation was just "half weight for encumbrance" but perhaps one step down would be better.