Weighted sectional amor

[mhd]

Did anyone ever play around with a more detailed rule for sectional armor than the one in FH 219?

Looking at the same section, one could just use the more detailed tables regarding armor weight and use that instead of just going by section. This makes the calculation more granular (i.e. the chest has a higher importance than the hands, despite both being one section).

 

But of course this might be more correct in regards to geometry, but not necessarily when it comes to fighting. Where both training and physiology favors certain targets. In melee combat, one could give the head a bigger weight, and the feet a lower one than as dictated by their sheer volume.

 

Anyone ever do anything like this? I don't mind more complicated calculations, that's what spreadsheets and JavaScript are for.

[Christougher]

Yes, and taken it a step or two farther.  Metal armor is detailed out into scales, partial and full plates but armor made of other substances isn't.  So I created one of those spreadsheets that computes all sorts of sectional values (DEF, weight, etc) based on material and type of construction.  It's in the 5E downloads section here.

 

Chris.

[Cosmosemeritus]

I love the probability generated values for sectional armor in theory, but in practice they fall short.

 

It is true that the value of armor that covers 10-11 (54 chances to hit, out of 216, using a standard location roll) is much higher than the value of a piece (of the same def) that covers 17-18 (4 chances to hit, out of 216). The problem when applying this to weight of the armor is that now your breastplate weighs 13½ times as much as the pair of sabaton. And the gauntlets weigh 2½ times the sabaton (10 chances out of 216 to hit location 6).

 

I played with a number of functions, like taking the square root of the probabilities, but eventually settled on the simplicity of just dividing the weight of the full suit by 16 and applying that number as the weight per location. It is simple, but works fairly well. Makes your maille hauberk (def 6, loc 7-14) weigh *scribbles, counts on his fingers, scratches his head, takes off one shoe* 10 kg instead of about 16.3kg, which is far closer to numbers I've seen bandied about the interwebs. Maille gloves (mittens?) would be 1.25kg instead of 0.93kg.

 

It is a simplification, but one I live with.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I'm leaning toward going the opposite direction, where things are significantly simpler and easier.

[mhd]

I just noticed that I seriously messed up my initial post. To clarify: I was talking about the formula where you derive a single defense rating from your sectional armor, for "generic" damage or when you don't use hit locations at all (I'm in the latter camp currently).

 

There were two ways presented to derive this:

1. Just consider torso and head armor, divide equally.
2. Consider all the armor, divide equally.

My concern is with the weight as in importance each section of armor receives in this formula, not its mass (so maths, not physics). I consider the weight in kilograms a solved issue, as we do have scales.

 

Formula 2 gives has an "importance factor" of 1 for each section, formula 2 either 1 or 0. So my question is about whether we can do better than that and whether it's worth it.

The complexity of the formula doesn't really matter that much, as this isn't really done once per combat round. You enter your sectional armor in a spreadsheet, no matter whether it's "sum(all sections)/16" or something worthy of a scientific paper.

 

I proposed another idea and Cosmoemeritus came up with another possibility:

 

   3. Go by armor coverage. As the armor weight/kg tables seem to provide that, just use those measurements.

   4. Go by the likelihood of getting a hit on an armor location, i.e. look at the 3d6 distribution.

 

And just by the seat of my pants, I could think of several other line of thoughts, starting from just giving torso and head a fixed multiplier (1.2? 1.5?) before dividing all sections. Or using the distribution from a 'high shot' to convey importance (a variant of #4).

 

Or, heck, use formula #2, and just consider that chest and head pieces actually were more protective. A cuirass had thicker steel than sabatons, never mind there's a bigger likelihood of layered armor.