armor and endurance

[CorpCommander]

This article is interesting. It seems to state the obvious, wearing armor is tiring work! http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/07/heavy-armor-gave-knights-a-worko.html

 

The point is, and I think this is relevant if you are running a gritty realistic fantasy game, its more than just weight that makes armor an endurance drain. Restricted mobility, being off normal balance and heat buildup are major factors contributing to endurance use beyond just the weight of the thing.

 

Modern improved Interceptor body armor, for example, runs about 15kg. It's hot. Damn it's hot. It will wear you out but if you wear the whole thing, properly, it will save your life. The cost of course is endurance is used up pretty quickly.

 

So I was looking at 6E2 pg 132 and reading up on Long Term Endurance and thought this was the perfect way to model how armor wears you down and why you don't just wear armor 24/7! The resting period rule given in that section is great and gives a good model of how, on a larger scales, armies can get fatigued and be unavailable for battle after having just fought. An example would be the failure of the Army under Meade to pursue Robert E. Lee's army after Gettysburg.

 

This was just as important to ancient and medieval armies. Take light troops - they weren't effective at killing the enemy. However they were fantastic at harrassing the enemy - you couldn't just turn your back on them because then they would be effective! What they did was rain arrows and javalins and slingshot upon your troops, cause your troops to maneuver and chase them and bear the brunt of hurtful insults as well I imagine! The result was that the unit's endurance was sapped, unit to unit cohesion was lost and that is when the big boys came in to do some real killing. Never attack fresh heavy troops face on. Wear 'em down and disorder them first then send in a noble on a chariot to finish them with relative ease.

 

Anyway, interesting article I thought and it led to these thoughts. When I ran my fantasy campaign I never considered the long term effects of wearing armor day to day.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: armor and endurance

 

I never think about it, mostly because it adds a level of complexity, bookkeeping and, well, realism that I don't usually don't want to mess with.

[CorpCommander]

Re: armor and endurance

 

I plan to add it to my next campaign among other limitations. It will be more survival centered than "explore the dungeon" centered. Amour requires care against rust and damage. You can't sit comfortably in it for long. You certainly can't sleep in it. We have this image in fantasy games of people wearing armor all the time. Hey, I get it, you paid the points for it after all! Its just not realistic. You put on armor when you go to war or are on duty but you don't "hang out" in it!

[mhd]

Re: armor and endurance

 

Well, a lot of armor just doesn't drape very well when you're lying on your back. So even when heat buildup isn't a problem (or actually comes in handy), it's darn tootin' uncomfortable. Mail on the other hand could work, especially in the not-quite-full-coverage fantasy warrior mode…

[Old Man]

Re: armor and endurance

 

Yeah, the article states that they want to do a followup with other types of armor besides the tankmail they apparently used this time around. I kind of like the result simply because IME tank fighters are awfully good in FH and there needs to be some sort of mechanic to balance them out. The extra END cost is perfect for that, but until now I would have had to expect players to go on about how knights used to wear their armor 24/7, it's evenly distributed, blah blah.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: armor and endurance

 

Wait. Before the ninja assassin rolls, remember how I said that I wore my armour to bed?

You don't? But I totally did!

[Old Man]

Re: armor and endurance

 

Stop it, you're giving me flashbacks.

[Markdoc]

Re: armor and endurance

 

I've been using LTE for armour as long as the concept has been around, and before that we used to degrade people's REC if they wore armour over long periods. It's relatively simple to track, and gives "relatively" realistic results. I'd highly recommend it. The costs for LTE are actually pretty light - most people can wear some armour with no LTE loss and strong guys can go around armoured to the teeth with no problem (because your END use due to weight depends on STR) - a guy with 15 STR can wear full plate with no loss of LTE. But that's just armour. Once they start engaging in activities like climbing ropes, fighting, running around, carrying heavy packs, etc, they still usually start burning LTE. As a house rule, to avoid the "sleeping in plate armour" nonsense I houserule that sleeping in armour (or for that matter, sleeping up a tree, tied to a branch, sleeping on wet muddy ground with no protection, etc) will penalise you between 1-6 LTE, depending on the factors.

 

That seems to model reality adequately: you can actually sleep in armour, but you can't sleep well in it and over time not getting decent sleep wears you out. One of the complaints from medieval soldiers was that they had to wear armour 24/7 if they were on the front trenches in a siege: it wore them out and they got sick. Likewise, it places a premium when doing overland adventures, on finding decent places to camp. Some adventurers I know simply fall down in their armour and sleep pretty much wherever they are. A swamp? No problem. Freezing stone? hmmm, comfy!

 

cheers, Mark