Balancing Armour Types

>>49920814
Most realistic drawbacks are cost and maintenance. A mage may have to study an hour every day, a fighter would need to spend at least that long polishing and oiling his armor every day. And the fact that a good suit of plate costs a small fortune.

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>>49920881
Alright then. If better armour has a higher price and maintenance requirement, doesn't it still provide higher benefits in combat? You'd effectively be purchasing better combat statistics with currency. If characters get rich enough, would they not all acquire the heaviest, most protective armour possible if they plan on adventuring? It seems like it may not actually resolve the problem wherein people just pick the gear with the best stats.

>>49921039
Do you want game balance? Then yeah, you have to do stuff like speed and encumbrance penalties. Otherwise the only other realistic way to "balance" it is to make it expensive. Plate armor is just flat out better than just about anything else.

>>49920814
I don't see a problem here. If you just want your party to look unique, use colored surcoats and decorated helmets.

>>49921100
Assuming for the moment that speed penalties aren't a possible solution, what encumbrance penalties would you give to armour? What percentage of your carrying capacity should armour take up, and should it have any other associated penalties (for example, stealth or athletic actions)?

>>49921145
I do see a problem here. I don't want to tell players "You can wear heavy armour or you can get fucked in combat." I want to make picking light armour a viable option with advantages and disadvantages. I think that wearing NO armour at all should suck, but I don't want a system that says "Go Heavy or go home."

>>49920814
>>49920881
>>49921039
It's a mix of """realistic""" scaling by cost and an unrealistic damage system.

Each armor type provides a level of protection; medium is 1.5x that of light, and heavy is 2x that of light. Adjust this to whatever makes sense for your system, so if a character stat is meant to matter more (like Dex/Con in DnD) than make the armor scale more dramatically.

Each armor set has 3 points of "damage" before it's damaged beyond use.

To receive a point of damage, a blow must over-roll the player's threshold by twice the amount of protection that armor provides; e.g. if the armor grants +3 to defenses, it is damaged when hit by a final result that over-rolls your FINAL defense (including armor) by 6.

If you feel like, debuff armor at intermediate stages of damage.

To repair one point of damage takes 1/5th the cost of the armor. Perhaps cap the total number of times it can be repaired before becoming a weakened, patchwork mess.

>>49920814
Mass and having to haul it around. A lot of militaries stopped using much armor so they could afford better weapons and march their troops farther.

Light Armour = High mobility. No hindrance to attack/movement. Little protection. Must use reaction skills (dodge etc.) to survive.

Mid Armour = Some hindrance in moving/striking. More weight = momentum/power
Decent protection for most events/occasions but large weapons or crashing boulders are still dangerous.

High Armour = Harder to move and be moved. Difficult to push back. Difficult to recover from unbalance e.g knockdown. Attacks/mobility greatly hindered.
Practically invincible against most normal attacks.
Large attacks like crashing boulders still mash em up pretty bad inside the armour.

>>49920814
>Hard Mode: There's no such thing as armour proficiency penalties or requirements. Anyone can wear any kind of armour freely.
>Nightmare Mode: You can't make reduced movement speed or encumbrance the drawback of heavier armour.
So you are asking for balance, while throwing out the things that make balance possible? Sounds legit.

Proficiency isn't a dirty word, you can still use them while at the same time allowing players to wear whatever they like when it comes to armor. If the armor has any sort of bulk then you are going to need a minimum amount of training to be as efficient wearing it as you were not wearing it. If it is bulky/heavy enough, then you just won't be able to move the same.

Of course that all goes away if you have magic in your setting. But at that point you really have to wonder why some one would choose to wear armor at all (except stylistically), when they could just enchant a comfy tracksuit and have the same damage/magic resistances.

>>49921039
plate armor is for battlefieds, not dungeons. but, yeah, mail armor would be a sane choice. maybe supplemented by some select plate or brigandine pieces.

in fact mail is a lighter form of armor. what we consider leather isnt. boiled leather is light armor.

how important is realism to you, OP?

>>49921286
>what encumbrance penalties would you give to armour?
you reached fatigues status faster after prolonged periods of activity.

>I want to make picking light armour a viable option with advantages and disadvantages.
i hope you realize you need to ditch realism to a degree? PCs will get money. that's what they will do. and if you have money, mail or plate is reasonable choice. so you need to introduce unrealistic modifiers to have a tactical choice in your game between light and heavy armor.

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>>49921302
Okay, so you'd have something like the following:

Light: +4 AC, takes 1 damage if Attack > AC by 8 or more.
Medium: +6 AC, takes 1 damage if Attack > AC by 12 or more.
Heavy: +8 AC, takes 1 damage if Attack > AC by 16 or more.

Doesn't that mean that light armour both 1) provides strictly less protection and 2) is far more likely to get damaged and therefore broken? The cost of heavier armour would have to be astronomically higher to make them equal 'value' for money. It's an interesting idea for sure, don't get me wrong, but it feels like the -inverse- would be more appropriate - if heavier armours wore down much faster than light ones. You'd have to choose between the long-lasting low protection value of light armour, or the short-term high protection value of heavy armour.

>>49921304
Got any ideas that don't involve encumbrance?

>>49921411
So you'd be advocating (in D&D terms) that Light Armour makes you hard to hit and imposes no attack penalties, while Heavy Armour imposes attack penalties and perhaps mobility penalties... but grants some measure of damage protection? Alright, interesting. How would you represent that mechanically?

>>49921423
The setting I have in mind doesn't have 'enchanted tracksuits' like you suggest, it's armour or nothing. There's also a presumption that characters have enough rudimentary weapon and armour training to move adequately in armour and not stab/shoot themselves by accident.

>>49921467
Realism is moderately important. I'm more concerned with removing 'trap' options - no armour type should be inherently worse than another. If a character chooses to wear leather instead of chainmail they shouldn't be strictly worse off because of it. I guess that means I care more about Gamist notions than Simulationist ones, but there should be SOME degree of realism involved.

>>49921286
There is time and place for different equipment butnon the battlefield you want plate armor or mail. Light armor is better for sneaky missions or urban environment where everyone including warriors ditch heavy armor.

>>49921302
Yeah, for maintenance it's probably the best idea.

X points of durability (3-5) and damaged only if attack overcame armor by certain amount.

In GURPS fighters sometimes wear a little less armor on some parts to get a little more speed and to make themselves better targets. So that enemies will actually try to attack them. You also always have some less protected parts - like joints.

>>49920814
Since you seem to want to go for some level of realism why not make the armor effective against certain attacks? For example (and IDK your setting) plate armor provides significant protection against similarly sized opponents with cutting weapons, but a human with a mace or hammer is going to cause problems. Similarly fighting a Minotaur or dragon, even plate armor isn't going to provide much benefit.

Then you can weave on some type of cost to make the armor more resistant, the character can pay to reduce his speed in exchange for a certain level of protection vs a type of attack. Hell you could make this bonus permanent, so a character could have killer resistance to high strength blunt weapons, but has spent almost all of a stat to get there. Moreover if he changes armor, the stats are lost.


Just an idea

>>49921544
>1) provides strictly less protection and 2) is far more likely to get damaged and therefore broken? The cost of heavier armour would have to be astronomically higher to make them equal 'value' for money.
It did cost much more. Around at least 10 times more per point of protection. And masterwork armor with engravings could go as high as 100 times more.

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>>49920814
Lighter armour has more slots for enhancement, just wearing more and better armour is better than protective spells so lighter armour practically means you have the ability to hold more utility modifications.

Bang! Done! Took me 30 seconds.

>Skill Penalties
Gauntlets would pretty seriously impede most skills that require your fingers. Stealth is right out, and frankly even though good armor didn't impede agility and mobility *much* it still would slightly. Double penalties if the armor doesn't fit correctly or if the character is untrained.

>Carrying Capacity
If you're playing a game where this matters, a suit of heavy armor might reasonably take 1/4 to 1/2 of a character's load limit. (Good reason for the character to own a horse or two to haul him around.) It would also be reasonable to expect endurance checks a couple times a day.

--
Or maybe the answer is to accept that heavy armor is the best, and instead buff light armor? Depends on how combat -oriented the game is, and the availability of magic.

>>49921286
well whatever technological level you have reached in your setting for whatevrm aterial used for an armor making a stronger armor means using more of that material and thus heavier= less speed.

alternatives could be that armor is made using a magic process and so eats up mana/hp/stamina, or interferes with magical powers.
there could be different materials and different processes to make armors that are strong against specific things or against all types of attack and those combinations can have different effects on concentration bloodlust or anything you want.
but encumbrance and speed vs protection are a real limit of armors in the modern world as well so I don't see why you don't want to use that as a limit in your setting.

>>49921544
>So you'd be advocating (in D&D terms) that Light Armour makes you hard to hit and imposes no attack penalties, while Heavy Armour imposes attack penalties and perhaps mobility penalties... but grants some measure of damage protection? Alright, interesting. How would you represent that mechanically?
Not that anon.

But if you have multiple types of defenses you can do some things, for example let's take a trio of parry / dodge / soak.

Armor will give you soak. Which is nice against light and medium weapons but warhammers or big creatures will wreck you. Yeah heavy armor will save you from 1 or 2 hits but it will break easily and you will pay for it. So you don't get much more protection and maybe even get a penalty to dodge. But a good thing armor will always protect you even if you fuckup all other defenses.

Dodge is well dodging. Good vs big strong enemies that have a wind up to their attack. Penalised by wearing heavy armor. But it's not so good vs opponents with light weapons.

Parry is using shields and weapons to catch and redirect them. Bad thing you can damage or even break you equipment. Shields are easy to make and don't cost a lot while providing good protection so it's not a bother to replace them. Breaking a good sword is a more costly affair. Highly reliant on character combat skill and current armament. Parrying with one handed axe, mace or a dagger is not a good idea.

>>49920814
>Hard Mode: There's no such thing as armour proficiency penalties or requirements. Anyone can wear any kind of armour freely.
>Nightmare Mode: You can't make reduced movement speed or encumbrance the drawback of heavier armour.

Armor is a cosmetic choice, it only influences the character's fluff, not their defense in any way.

Done.

>>49920814
I wouldn't bother.

TTRPG combat is abstracted to where armor is difficult to represent properly, and fixing that would very hard and ruin the game.

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>>49921496
Fatigue penalties, interesting. Heavier armour would give more protection and make you tire faster, I could see that happening. You say prolonged periods of activity, what if characters are only active for an hour or two a day instead of twelve to sixteen?

>>49921547
Alright, stealth penalties, interesting. How would you implement that?

>>49921592
Extrapolating your idea, different armour types might have different protection values against Slashing, Piercing, or Bludgeoning damage? For example, Light could protect against bludgeoning, Medium against slashing, and Heavy against piercing. You could get more granular with a variety of specific armours, but speaking in general terms that could be effective.

>>49921616
You still get problems where wealthier characters will gravitate towards heavier armour types, which are still strictly better. I'm looking for an armour model wherein Plate isn't strictly better than Leather.

>>49921647
Very interesting. What if magical enchantments aren't readily accessible or available to the PCs?

>>49921702
Skill penalties could work, and losing 25-50% of your carry capacity to heavy armour is one idea I've been considering. Still, it's something you can easily negate by having a mount or pack animal that carries your non-essential equipment. The GM can always screw with you by killing/stealing that stuff but, well, they can always mess with your worn equipment as well so it's somewhat of a moot point.

>>49921740
Hmm, noted. Encumbrance and speed are indeed realistic limitations but I'm looking into alternatives (clearly).

>>49920814
Enemies with different effects depending on the armor.
Rust monsters or spells provide massive debuffs to players wearing heavy plate, whereas someone wearing padded cloth will do just fine.

Alternatively, environmental factors have different effects on armors, wearing a heavy suit of plate for an extended period of time should cause a lot of fatigue, especially if sunny, and the person wearing it will likely not smell very good after that kind of ordeal and might be frowned at in some situations.

Alternatively, weapons have varying degrees of effectiveness towards different armors, while this might not be all that realistic, having lighter armors protect better against some weapons than heavy armors and so on could be another way to balance them out.

Alternatively, lighter armors provide more utility whereas heavier armors are solely focused on the combat aspect, hiding objects in a large robe being easier than when wearing a full suit of plate etc.
This may or may not work depending on how much combat is expected.

>>49921808
>You say prolonged periods of activity, what if characters are only active for an hour or two a day instead of twelve to sixteen?
then it is realistically speaking no issue. unless they are frenchmen wading in plate armor across muddy terrain (agincourt reference).

>>49921808
>You say prolonged periods of activity, what if characters are only active for an hour or two a day instead of twelve to sixteen?
Well that's what heavy armor is for. But you can't wear it while on road and entering a city in heavy armor while not in times of war means that you are either crazy, someone is chasing you or you are looking to start a fight.

>You still get problems where wealthier characters will gravitate towards heavier armour types, which are still strictly better. I'm looking for an armour model wherein Plate isn't strictly better than Leather.
But it is strictly better. Stealth, acrobatics and maybe dodge a little are what penalised. Oh, and perception a lot. Closed helmet is a nightmare for someone looking for traps.

>>49921808
>What if magical enchantments aren't readily accessible or available to the PCs?
Then make them so? Are you not God at the table?

>>49921808
there's also the problem that different types of armor provide different protection against different attacks.
for instance kevlar protects against gunshots but is easily penetrated by blades.
>>49921808
>You still get problems where wealthier characters will gravitate towards heavier armour types, which are still strictly better. I'm looking for an armour model wherein Plate isn't strictly better than Leather.
well in the real world, provided a similar level of technology there isn't an armour type that is inherently better. It depends on what you need to do. But the main drawbacks are mobility speed and endurance, as heavier armours protect you better but also tire you out faster.
Another way would be to make armors that are not better than others but are more suited to some types of battle and of user than others.
Anyone can use any type of armor but you get the best result by using the armor that most suits what type of fighter you are and what type of battle you're going into.
Like, if you're going into a gun battle you use kevlar if you're going to a knife fight you use plated leather and cotton, and so on.

>>49921808
>Alright, stealth penalties, interesting.
armor isnt that loud though.

>I'm looking for an armour model wherein Plate isn't strictly better than Leather.
realism = gone.

>Encumbrance and speed are indeed realistic limitations
realistically speaking, the negatives of mail and plate arent that big. that's why rich people wore it.

bottom line: forget realism and balance it the way you want to.

>>49920814
Light armor provides dodge and reflex bonuses, simulating less of a need to actually precisely dodge out of the way of things.

Heavy armor doesn't make you harder to hit, it just makes you much more resilient to damage.

Not sure what gimmick to give medium armor.

>>49921467
>plate armor is for battlefieds, not dungeons. but, yeah, mail armor would be a sane choice.

So the sane choice would be armour that's heavier, clumsier, less convenient and generally worse?

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>>49921765
That's a very interesting way to model equipment and defensive tactics. However, it seems rather complicated to represent mechanically. It's definitely on my list of options to consider.

>>49921768
That is something I considered going with, yes. I'd prefer if there was some kind of fair benefit/drawback system going on, but if that isn't possible I may just resort to making it cosmetic.

>>49921799
Well, I'm certainly going to try to make it work before I give up and go with the 'cosmetic' suggestion.

>>49921838
Some good suggestions, many of which have been brought up already. That's a good thing by the way. It means those ideas are more intuitive than the others (probably).

>>49921896
Those are some good potential social or exploration-based penalties you're recommending. I like them, but would prefer something more combat-oriented when it comes to drawbacks for heavy armour. Stealth and perception matter a ton before a fight, but not always during a fight.

>>49921907
I'm hoping to implement these rules into a low-magic setting where magic items are rare and can no longer be crafted. PCs shouldn't expect to find magic items in every treasure hoard, and certainly not for sale in towns.

>>49921921
I am definitely liking a rock-paper-scissors approach to armour, where it protects against some types of damage quite well and not so well against other types of damage.

>>49921922
Noted.

>>49921938
Medium armour might give a mixture of the two, perhaps? A lower dodge/defence bonus than Light, and a lower damage resistance than Heavy, making it more generalized and less specialized.

>>49921938
Well technically there is no medium armor. People either wore minimum protection needed for the task or piled up as much armor as they can carry and still fight.

So if someone has 2 mails and goes to combat he will wear both if he can. And add some padding underneath and between them.

And if someone goes on a hunt for bandits that will go an unknown amount of time than a light mail and a helmet is all that would be taken. Because trudging through woods in all the clinking metal for who knows how many days is just too impractical (and you can't take horses to carry your spare armor).

another way, but it requires implementing drawbacks and penalties, is to make sure that the final defence score is the same when accounting all the penalties and bonuses.
For instance a light character with a bonus in evade and a lighter armor that provides less protection and a strong character with a heavy and stronger armor at the end receive the same amount of damage, but one is thanks to the protection+evade, while the other is due to only the protection.
and if you switch the armor they'll both receie more damage but it will still be the same for both. Because the first would lose the evade bonus and beig lighter will have an agility penalty, while the other will lost the extra protection of the heavier armor while not having the agility to evade attacks.
So in this case there aren't better armors in general, but better armors for the specific classes but they can all receive the same amount of protection.

>>49920814

I use a straight up damage reduction system with armor, and leave evasion / block up to the character's equipped shield, if any.

Armor types and penalties could be such:

>Light armor
Standard fare. Lowest DR of all types. Any character archetype can use it. Rogues and mages can't wear anything heavier than this, due to encumbrance to casting or movement.
>Medium armor
Higher damage reduction for classes that are going to be heavily engaged in melee. Slight penalty to the character's initiative.
>Heavy armor
Affords the most DR, but also some special DR for defending against spells or breath weapons, which medium armor lacks. More hefty penalty to the character's initiative.
>Super special magical expensive lightweight elf armor
Maybe something to afford nearly as much protection as medium armor, but still be light enough for rogues and mages to use. As an added penalty, maybe it's a mesh-type armor that decreases the character's defense against missile weapons. (I mean, arrows would probably get lodged in that shit)

>Small "shield" (such as a buckler)
Lowest chance to block melee and missile attacks. No penalty for carrying one, but it doesn't leave your off hand free, which might prevent gesturing spells or wielding a second weapon.
>Standard shield
Higher chance to block.
>Large shield
I'm not sure if I would even introduce this. What's the practicality of being an adventurer who hauls around a tower shield? That's reserved more for tactical war use.

>>49922004
another important aspect is gameplay mechaics.
It's fine to have long range fighters wear armors that protect strongly against long range attacks and weakly against melee attacks, and tanks use armor that protects equally well against all types attacks.
The problem comes if then the long range fighter gets routinely attacked with melee attacks or with long range attacks that have the same effects as melee attacks.

>>49922004
>I'm hoping to implement these rules into a low-magic setting where magic items are rare and can no longer be crafted. PCs shouldn't expect to find magic items in every treasure hoard, and certainly not for sale in towns.

>I want to make all armour balanced in in a pure mathematical combat context but cannot use the magic button
>Also no cost balancing so a leather jerkin should be as good as a breastplate

I actually cannot help you without suffering some sort of anxiety attack.

>>49922004
>That's a very interesting way to model equipment and defensive tactics. However, it seems rather complicated to represent mechanically. It's definitely on my list of options to consider.
Depends on how you do it.

Character has Parry / Dodge and Soak scores that are a little like saves but defenses. So say he has P 14 / D 12 and Soak depends on armor that he will wear.

Light armor S 12
Heavy armor S 16 and D -4

So in light armor character will have P 14 / D 12 / S 12
And in Heavy P 14 / D 8 / S 16

Any time he is attacked he can choose which score to use. Attacks can have different effects depending on which defense is used.

For parry defense it's a damage to weapons or disarming.
For dodge it's hits to unprotcted areas or tripping cause you fucked up your movement.
And soak is plain old damage to armor that you'll need to repair.

Heavy attacks have bonus vs soak and parry/ Light attacks vs dodge. And then you also can add different manoeuvrers and techniques.

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Personally, what I would do if we're assuming a roughly D&D-esque system is this:

Light armor is essentially heavy clothing--leather, quilted cloth, arming jackets, that sort of thing. The key feature here is no metal. You can reasonably expect to see people wearing light armor in urban areas, and among dueling societies and the like it might be considered highly fashionable. Doesn't provide any AC bonus, provides a little bit of DR against piercing damage, a little more against slashing. The main benefit of light armor is social--you can almost always wear it without attracting unwanted attention, and you can layer other armor on top of it.

Medium armor's distinguishing feature is metal but no large plates. Mail, lamellar, brigandine, and scale would fall under medium. This is standard-issue for men-at-arms in most militaries that aren't dirt poor. Because it tends to be fairly flexible, medium armor provides good protection with minimal encumbrance. In D&D terms, this would be a modest AC bonus and piercing DR about on par with light armor, as well as modest bludgeoning DR and high slashing DR. Compared to light armor, medium armor provides greater protection, a roughly equal amount of encumbrance, but cannot be worn as long before tiring the wearer out, and will draw attention in urban areas--after all, if you're wearing armor in a city, you must expect to be attacked, and nobody likes being called untrustworthy like that.

Heavy armor is characterized by large plates, and includes splinted armor on the lower end and and variously mixed suits of plate, all the way up to your typical gothic armor at the peak. Heavy armor provides the highest AC bonus paired with mostly the same DR as medium armor (high vs. slashing, moderate vs. piercing and bludgeoning).

(cont)

>>49920814
It might sound videogamey and difficult, but make a system for Sharp - Pierce - Blunt attacks. Different armors are more resistant to different kinds of attacks.

Light = Resistant toward all
Medium = Resistant to blunt and pierce Nullify sharp
Heavy = Resistant to blunt, Nullify pierce and sharp

Resistant means you take less damage from those kind of attacks, Nullify means you take none damage from those attacks unless it goes over a threshold.

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>>49922204
(2/2)
Heavy armor is the only kind to notably impair movement, albeit not as much as common knowledge would have you believe. Probably something like a -1 to -4 penalty on actions requiring full-body flexibility (acrobatics, sneaking, etc, though not fine manipulation tasks like lockpicking--see below). Enough of a penalty that people who rely on these things would avoid it, but not so much that cartwheels in plate armor become impossible. Naturally, heavy armor carries the same social implications as medium, with the addition of being even easier to spot. It also tires the wearer out quicker than medium armor.

Two pieces of armor that bear special mention: helmets and gauntlets. These are the two most important protective pieces, since the head and hands are statistically the most likely to be struck, and both come with unique drawbacks. A more protective helmet will almost always impair your vision, while more protective gauntlets will impede your fine manipulation abilities and even your weapon accuracy.

TL;DR, it's nearly impossible to balance armor without either making the mechanics very granular or sacrificing historical accuracy, but the basics boil down to:
Light armor - Baseline, little protection, stackable with other types, socially acceptable.
Medium armor - More protective than light, about as flexible, less socially acceptable, causes fatigue after long periods.
Heavy armor - Best degree of protection, slight loss of flexibility, causes fatigue quickest.
Head and hand protection should be given special note, with more effective helmets impairing vision and more protective gauntlets impeding fine manipulation and possibly even imposing an attack penalty.

>>49922127
those could also provide modifications to a player stats, penalties and bonuses if you will.
for instance, in your post
In light armor P 14 / D 12 / S 12
And in Heavy P 14 / D 8 / S 16

now let's say a fast character has 6 in strenght and 12 in agility, while a strong character has 12 in strenght and 6 in agility
heavy armor requires at least 10 to use fully, and any point below that is a penalty in soak, while light requires at least 10 in agility and any point belo is a penalty in dodge

you get that Fast c in Light armor and Strong in Heavy have the points that you described.

But if you put Fast character in heavy and Strong character in light you get
Strong in Light P 14 / D 12 - 4 / S 12
Fast Heavy P 14 / D 8 / S 16 - 4
the end result is that both have the same protection in either case so there isn't a better armor overall but more suitable armors for specific classes of characters.

>>49922220
Ah yes, the downsides. Heavier armor is extremely expensive, and heavy helmets reduce your perception. They are also very difficult to carry if not worn, along with the difficulty of maintenance.

So... More or less realistic.

>>49920814
Wearing armor is a skill. The more you invest on it, the better (heavier) are the armors you can wear. It's always wise to spend some points on this skill, but there's no need to spend too much if you want to spend them on other things. While my armor will be objectively better at everything regarding combat (except price, moving stealthy, etc.) if I have more points, I will lack other skills compared to you who wear a worst armor yet have spend your points in something different that can be more or less useful depending on the situation.

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>>49922019
I've considered boiling it down to Light and Heavy, but I like making the distinction between leather/chain shirt (Light), hide/chainmail (Medium) and scale/plate (Heavy). I could probably move Hide into Light armour and chainmail into Heavy armour but the concept of a middle-ground in protective gear somehow feels better.

>>49922021
I am seriously liking that idea. I imagine it might be like:
>Light: Evade 50%, Full damage 50%
>Medium: Evade 40%, Half damage 20%, Full damage 40%
>Heavy: Evade 30%, Half damage 40%, full damage 30%
On average it adds up to characters taking the same average DPR but you're choosing between an all-or-nothing gamble (light armour) or getting hit most of the time but often for reduced damage (heavy armour) with medium armour somewhere in between. These numbers are just ball-park for now though.

>>49922030
Those are some solid ideas.

>>49922095
Having a piercing/slashing/bludgeoning rock-paper-scissors dynamic might be useful, since I'd expect ranged damage to be almost exclusively piercing and melee mostly between slashing & bludgeoning.

>>49922097
Sorry to hear that friend. I hope I haven't upset you or anything.

>>49922127
You'd have to track and model the effects of equipment damage, which could get pretty complicated. Nevertheless I really like this idea as well. Letting players risk the integrity of their equipment in exchange for a defensive boost is something very interesting.

>>49922204
>>49922231
I like your approach as well, and having gauntlets and helmets separate from armour is something I (quite frankly) hadn't considered. Some more excellent suggestions to add to the pile, good sir.

>>49922220
>>49922319
How about:
>Light is resistant to pierce and nullifies blunt
>Medium is resistant to blunt and nullifies sharp
>Heavy is resistant to sharp and nullifies pierce

>>49922440
That's the ANIMA approach to armour. More points = better armour. I'm trying to avoid Proficiency requirements like this.

>>49922469
>I'm trying to avoid Proficiency requirements like this.

Why?

>>49921286
Mail should be the assumed default armour with gambesons used in stealthy/social situations and brigandine (or plate if you're rich enough to hire someone dress you) being used on battlefields. You're not going to have dinner with the Baron while all armoured up and you don't want to get into a fight wearing just a leather tunic.

>>49922488
It is, at best, a pointless tax, at worst, invalidating a bunch of concepts.

Plus, if armors are balanced with other measures it's totally pointless to also slap a prof requirement on there.

>>49920814
But in real life, armor isn't balanced, outside of things like ease-of-wear, maneuverability, and how the armor "breathes."

>>49922607
I don't really follow you, what is it invalidating? And about the tax thing, don't plenty of games require you to pay certain points for several powers or even the skill to attack? is that a tax too?

All in all, I think it's the best to make armors balanced without retardedly making better armors worst because. I understand what you want, just not why would you want it.

>>49922319
>>49922220
>>49922469
What good is having heavier armor then other than flavor? Unless it is working on bigger numbers (Heavier armor's resistance is higher and threshold is higher), any negatives it carries only gives it more resistance against ranged attacks basically.

Although... Higher numbers on the resistance and threshold... It might be a pretty good mix. Although I still don't understand how heavy armor is only resistant to sharp, it's basically created against sharp attacks!

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>>49922488
My setting presumes that the characters have enough basic training to move adequately in armour and not accidentally stab themselves when they swing a sword. I want armour to be accessible for all characters, but each set would have its own advantages and disadvantages. Some would be more useful in certain situations or against certain enemies, and less useful in other situations. I don't want to say "Your armour skill/proficiency is X, therefore the armour you should wear is Y, and if you do not you're not optimizing your character properly." Also, what >>49922607 said.

>>49922542
I'm trying to balance expected DPR and character survivability around Medium Armour, or its equivalency for monsters not wearing armour. I think in a social situation, most any form of armour would be a faux-pas, so I'm hesitant to make the advantage of Light that you don't get social penalties.

>>49922655
Right, but I'm not trying to model real life here. I'm trying to create a balance between Light, Medium, and Heavy armour in a low-magic fantasy RPG without relying on encumbrance, proficiency, or mobility penalties. Yes, I know it's a crazy idea and maybe it's flawed from the very start, but there's no harm in exploring some ideas. I am sincerely grateful for all the suggestions I've received so far from this thread.

>>49922679
You could swap the benefits of Medium and Heavy if you want Heavy armour to be more protective against sharp attacks. That would be fine with me. As for what makes heavy armour good, well, that's sorta the point. I don't want heavy armour to be inherently better than light or medium, I want all three of them to be roughly equal.

>>49922658
The guy you are replying to (me) is not OP.

My reasons are as follows:
- you can make armors balanced with their own benefits and drawbacks already
- hence, if your armors are already balanced, a proficiency system is superfluous, as it adds nothing more. At best, a character who wants heavy armor for flavor reasons will need to spend a feat/point/whatever build resource on it, which makes it merely stupid and sub-optimal, at worst you can't do it all making it impossible to take an otherwise balanced choice.

I'd bring up 5e as an example; heavy armor gives a mere 1 point advantage in AC (except against barb/monk but they are outliers) compared to light/medium. Slapping proficiency on it when they are already basically equal was a pointless sacred cow, since if you want to wear a type of armor, at worst you'll just dip a class that gives the prof anyway.

>>49922745
Light armor could easily be hidden under clothing though, and wearing some minor form of protection would be expected from mercenaries. It'd be odd for a general to attend in full regalia, but it won't be odd for him to be wearing a polished breastplate.

I think what you may have to do though is assume lower levels of armor tech. Full articulated platemail can make someone basically immortal.

If you bring yourself down to Iron or Bronze armor, then full heavy plate isn't as big of a leap from Leather, and also has much more weight to it.

Basically, set it up as leather vs. a centuruon, rather than against a knight.

>>49922469
keep in mind that often the problem isn't in the type of armor but in fight mechanics.
For instance long range fighters with light armors maybe with a bonus against long range attacks are fine if they can reasonably avoid melee fights, are a shitshow if melee fighters have attacks that can bypass distance or position, or in turn based fights can just attack any opponent, or other long range fighters have long range attacks that do melee type damage or other shit like that.
Or giving speed penalty to heavier armors is good if the lighter characters can use their speed advantage and if there aren't critical attacks that require speeed to avoid and make having a higher protection useless.

Of course making a balanced fihgting system is more complicated than giving everyone the same armor protection, but I think ultimately it's also more fun.

>>49922745
You talk a lot about not forcing the characters to wear X armor according to their skill, but the system you're looking for will forcefully make everyone wear medium armor since that one will always be the more balanced one. Only for flavour or in specific situations will they wear the others, unless your system favours over-specialisation in combat a lot.

>>49922745
>I want armour to be accessible for all characters, but each set would have its own advantages and disadvantages. Some would be more useful in certain situations or against certain enemies, and less useful in other situations. I don't want to say "Your armour skill/proficiency is X, therefore the armour you should wear is Y, and if you do not you're not optimizing your character properly."


well, in that case just make the armor system exactly like you describe. Armor is a standard piece of equipment in your setting and the only difference comes from having the money to buy the best armor, skill to make it and to understand what is the best armor for the type of mission you're going to take.
The difficulty could come from balancing money/materials to build armors or storage space to carry/store the different types of armors.
Do you buy the optimal armors for 3 different settings or one armor that is adaptable to all 3 but not as good as any of the other 3 in their own settin?
Do you have the money to buy all 3? Do you have a safe place to store 2 while on a mission, or can you carry them if you can't come back to retrieve them after the first mission? Is it better to use your backpack space to carry 2 armors or some other material?
Or if you have the skill you can build a new armor at the end of the mission but it'll take you time and you'll have to gather materials.
So everyone can use the same armors and have the same protection but choosing your armor isn't just a matter of choosing the one with the best ratings.
This could be implemented with some of the other solutions presented above.

Although personally I find having to constantly change armors/weapons/skillsets to be frustrating so havign a general use armor that isn't much worse at the various tasks than the various specific armor would be a good idea in my book.
Like, doing a specific mission with a specific armor is easier, but using the wrong armor is still doable although harder.

>>49923068
Actually, I had a cool idea, based on that.

A setting where people, instead of owning a single piece of armor, have a base armor and different armor kits for it.

That would actually work a lot better for a scifi setting, but MAJIK could also play a part in that.

>>49921966
>less convenient
Explain.

>>49921808
The problem is that plate *is* strictly better than leather at protection. Unless weapons are so powerful (muskets) that armor isn't useful for the weight. Which is kinda the case against ogre with big hammers, like >>49921592 said. Of course, you'd still wear it if you can afford it, since not every person you fight is an ogre.

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>>49920814
This may be useful to OP

>>49923403
you felt the weight of mail more since it hung off your shoulders instead of being evenly distributed around your body, but it was lighter overall, cheaper, easier to repair and maintain, and easier to remove and put on.

Not sure where anon got the heavier part from. A suit of full plate could weigh as much as 60 pounds, as where a chain shirt would be closer to 20 pounds.

Now, a chain shirt would be worn with padding, which would get very hot and add extra weight, but plate was often also worn with padding.

A thick gambeson would be the best choice for an adventurer not wanting to travel with too much armor. They were inexpensive and still resistant to many kinds of attacks, though obviously less so than a chain shirt. They still had the problem of getting very hot, as they were many many layers of fabric, but maybe that is OK if you are adventuring in a cold environment.

>>49923778
Leather is actually very poor armor, as it is easy to cut and easy to pierce. It looks good though, so maybe you can use it with your charisma scores to avoid a fight?

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>>49922809
OP here, I agree with you on all accounts. The only people that get hosed by armour proficiency are Wild Magic Sorcerers and Wizards, and Mage Armour / the Light Armour Proficiency feat solve that problem.

>>49922843
Well, I certainly don't want people in plate mail to be (or feel) immortal. They might feel like they're tougher than someone in leather but not to an order of magnitude or anything like that.

>>49922875
A balanced fighting system is what I'm aiming for, and it's very difficult to strike a good balance. I'm hoping some of the ideas brought up in this thread can help me get that balance set up.

>>49922927
Not necessarily. With some mechanics characters may prefer the extra evasion of light armour or the extra protection of heavy armour. With others, like a rock-paper-scissors approach with physical damage types, Medium isn't always the best choice in the same way that throwing rock isn't always the best choice.

>>49923068
>>49923141
I don't think that the mechanics should encourage/require that characters switch out their armour frequently, but having multiple types available could be quite interesting. I think a good approach might be something like the following:

>Light Armour is high-risk, high-reward. It either improves or does not penalize your attacks and your evasion chance, but anything that hits you is going to HURT. It encourages a Fragile Speedster style where you mitigate harm by not getting hit in the first place, and perhaps by striking faster / more accurately.

>Heavy Armour is low-risk, low-reward. It likely penalizes your evasion chance and attacks, but in return in greatly mitigates the damage you suffer. It encourages a Mighty Glacier style where you mitigate harm by suffering far less damage than you should, and preventing instant blow-out situations.

>Medium Armour is in between, specializing in neither approach. Or, alternatively, it might specialize in a completely different approach.

>>49923926
>Well, I certainly don't want people in plate mail to be (or feel) immortal

Well, then you're going to have to sacrifice some realism, or at least dial back the time period you're dealing with so armor is less advanced.

As I said, heavy bronze or iron armor would have been much more cumbersome than articulated steel, and not as strong either. Still allows knights in armor, but closing the gap between armor types can only help.

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>>49923907
And these are the rules

>>49923778
on the other hand if you're running a campaign against ogres there is no point in wearing plate armor.

>>49923909
But it's much, much more convenient. I can throw a mail shirt on in under 20 seconds by myself, whereas even a breastplate usually takes help from someone else, and even half-plate will take a minute or two to put on. Also, you can fold/roll it up and stick in a haversack if you need to, making transport much more convenient.

It breathes much better as well, though paired with a gambeson you still have the gambeson heat to deal with.

Leather gets decent if it's wax-hardened and layered, as in lamellar. The problem is that it's much more expensive than gambeson/aketons with about the same protective qualities (though still way less effective against projectiles).

why even wear heavy armor if you're just as safe wearing a t-shirt and sandals?

>>49923926
>Light Armour is high-risk, high-reward. It either improves or does not penalize your attacks and your evasion chance, but anything that hits you is going to HURT. It encourages a Fragile Speedster style where you mitigate harm by not getting hit in the first place, and perhaps by striking faster / more accurately.

>Heavy Armour is low-risk, low-reward. It likely penalizes your evasion chance and attacks, but in return in greatly mitigates the damage you suffer. It encourages a Mighty Glacier style where you mitigate harm by suffering far less damage than you should, and preventing instant blow-out situations.

>Medium Armour is in between, specializing in neither approach. Or, alternatively, it might specialize in a completely different approach.

this is a good system if done well, but the problem I've always seen with it is that during battles with multiple opponents on both sides the heay armored can last for a long time, so have plenty of chances to use healing potions/magic/skills and use some destructive attacks, while the light and medium armored go down after getting hit just a few times, and don't have the firepower to damage heavy armored as much as they are damaged by them.
So in a one on one fight light armor may have the same chances of winning(but often they don't) as light armor, but in group battles the side with more heavy armors win.
But this typically also comes with heavy armored characters having more health points or stamina.

Legends of the Wulin had only three levels of armor, but a very very detailed combat system. Unless you were specifically a bare-chested sort or were caught naked or similar, your basic clothes were assumed to be "light" armor. Medium and heavy penalized "Speed" and "Footwork" to varying degrees, but we're solidly advantageous if you built your character's fighting style to not rely on those. What ~really~ mattered was that they could only be bought with "Destiny" points, the same narrative XP you used to buy new fighting styles and magic skills.

I added a fourth level: "battle-plate" to my homebrew which was something that only kings owned and might loan out occasionally.

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>>49923907
>>49924003
Thank you very much for those, reading through them now. I do know that armour was meant to completely negate blows, and the system I'm planning to include these armour mechanics in reflects that. The short version is that 'hit points' are an abstraction of stamina, fighting spirit, and physical harm. If someone in plate takes a blow that knocks them to 0, somebody broke through their armour and has landed a serious wound upon them. The protection plate armour offers means that it'll take more hits for them to go down than someone in leather, but in return they're somewhat easier to hit.

I'm thinking that to balance it out, someone in light armour may have greater evasion against attacks. I do know that plate did not slow the user down considerably, but I think realism must also be tempered by fairness. The joy of these kinds of games is that we don't have to adhere precisely to realism, and that we may do fantastical things like play hide-bound berserkers with giant axes or lightly-armoured rogues dodging and weaving through the battlefield. I want to let players make and play those characters without feeling extremely vulnerable and fragile just because they prefer the style of hide and leather over steel plate.

>>49924002
>>49924188
A character wearing no armour whatsoever is going to have a VERY bad day, and compared to them someone in plate should be surviving blows that might otherwise break bones or even kill them. However, I don't think it's a good idea for any character, even one in plate, to feel like their life is not at risk. Combat should be dangerous, and the safety and security that plate offers should come at a reasonable cost.

>>49924191
You are correct that restorative items and options can unbalance that kind of situation, and thankfully this is intended for a low-magic setting. Healing potions and spells are rare and have diminished returns within the same battle, so a 'turtling' approach can't last forever.

>>49920814
I would say to do something like this.

Have medium armor in the middle as a sort of baseline. This will be hide, chainmail, or breastplates.

Light armor, compared to medium, gives you a somewhat lower armor value, but gives a similar bonus to social interaction as well as ranged attacks. This makes it preferable to wear in town, and also more favored by rogues, rangers, and mages who would be attacking from a distance.

Heavy armor would have the inverse, a bonus to armor, but a penalty to interactions and ranged attacks. This makes it better for close range fighters, but makes people assume you're looking for trouble.

A shield could give a bonus that brings you halfway to the next armor level, but that already has the downside of giving up a hand.

The armor bonuses and penalties should probably be double whatever the social and ranged effects are, in order to make the tradeoffs for better armor more meaningful.

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>>49924322
Completely with you on the gameplay>realism, and that's coming from someone which actually researches about real dual welding, studded leather armor, samurais with rocket launchers and shields with concealed rockets.

The most significant impairement heavy armor could offer consistent with real life would be exhaustion. A knight could have 15 arrows sticking out of him with no harm, but being out of combat because of a heat stroke, even in cold climates. Plated mail was actually created as the most protective armor one could use in hot climates.

Perhaps another way you could put it is in terms of passive and active defense. Heavy armor offers massive passive defense while light armor enables active defense. It would also work for shields, as a pavise blocks arrows just for being there, while a buckler is meant to deflect and counter strike the enemy's blows midway.

About potions, the Iron Kingdoms setting had potions which were quite suitable for low magic. They aren't created by clerics, but alchemists and come with side-effects and not-instant effects.
http://www.davidrm.com/rpg/?p=148

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>>49924322
>>49926036
Wait, let me see if I got it. Someone in heavy armor would have extra/temporary hit points but be almost sure to be hit (and perhaps would lose them after a while because exhaustion), while someone with light could avoid being hit but each blow would be more dangerous? Is that it?

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>>49924394
Interesting ideas, thank you.

>>49926036
>Completely with you on the gameplay>realism
Much appreciated. Exhaustion could be one approach, although the length of the adventuring day would have to be considered. I'd also like to hear more about your notion of Passive and Active defence, mind going into more detail?

>>49920881
I love this idea to death, so much so that I might make it a thing in a game idea I'm working on.

It'll never see the light of day, because I'm garbage at actually working on/finishing things.

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>>49926160
>I'd also like to hear more about your notion of Passive and Active defence, mind going into more detail?
Can't say I have much of a notion. Active defense would be analogous to dexterity bonus to AC on D&D.

Big shields and plate harness can protect someone even if the person just stands there. A centurion of Caesar, Scaeva, was rewarded by keeping his ground and having more than 200ish projectiles stuck on his shield. Despite myths, english archers struck down french knights by hitting the weaknesses from quite up close, like the visor, and that happened with the french charging at them, making no attempt at avoiding being hit as far as I know.

On the other hand, light equipment like bucklers wouldn't just stand there, it would be utter foolishness to just wait until the enemy attack built up its movement and strength. A buckler would be as mobile as the main weapon, deflecting and striking the strike, one could say. Indeed master Di Grassi called the buckler a "weapon of defense'.

It comes to mind that passive X active defense could be balanced with melee X missile. A heavily armored player can close in the archers and equivalents but suffer with nimble daggers striking vulnerable spots, while lightly armored would be peppered down by arrows but could deliver killing blows at heavies. That way, both styles complement each other, and it offers an... elegant(?) way to play.

Going by my post here >>49926112
Heavy X heavy would slug it out for a long time, tiring/hitting/waiting for the chance one another until the total loss of hit points meant the final blow. Light X light would be more quick and desesperate, one trying to land the killing blow before the other.

Middle armor would have a balance: master of none, useful at all times. Perhaps with stats slightly better than 'average' as not to suffer.

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>>49926160
>>49926474
I realized I'm assuming this system would have a low amount of hit points, one fifth or perhaps as low as one tenth of what one would have in D&D. This would make the fight more seriously taken, defense more vital.

There's nothing inherently wrong with heavy armor being superior to light or medium, is there?

>>49926534
Realistically, heavy armor is the best for combat. Period. Or at worst, there's a situation like >>49922019 where you're wearing the heaviest practical thing you can afford. Obviously metal-working technology factors into this, but most standard fantasy settings have fairly advanced armor.

The OP, however, wants the tiers to be balanced for some reason. Which is his game -design choice, but not inherently right.


.


Also, OP, I noticed that at one point you listed Scale above Mail, which would be historically backwards. Now, you can have different lengths and qualities of the two, but chain mail is typically much better than scale.

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>>49926474
>>49926523
Okay, I see what you mean now. A low 'hit point' design choice would probably put the game more in line with Riddle of Steel, with every successful hit scoring a significant wound. I'm looking for something a little more attrition-based, with moderate health pools and one-hit-kills being a real rarity. Think Dark Souls PvP and PvE. And yes, I've considered something like a Stamina bar that's depleted by acting and heavier armours causing you to lose more Stamina from certain actions or to recover it slower. It's functional but very, very complicated for new players and a mechanic that works way better in video games than it does in tabletop.

>>49926851
I know that making light, medium, and heavy armour relatively equal to one another is not realistic. I'm not going for realism, I'm going for fairness and game balance. Realism is a distant second, or third after Intuitiveness. You are correct by the way that mail is heavy armour and scale is medium armour, I got the two confused there for a moment. I'm trying not to go with specific armours for these mechanics, instead letting people describe their equipment within reason. Quite a bit of it is salvaged or cobbled together with suboptimal materials so it's more like "This set of medium armour is made from wooden strips reinforced with steel, all of which is bolted to rugged textiles underneath, the remnants of a dark grey military uniform." Encountering actual chain mail is something rather rare.

>>49926970
The thing about *Souls games is that you have 2 to 10x more Hit Points than appear on your HP Bar, you just need a few safe moments to access them. It's kind of a brilliant vision, and the closest thing I can think of right now is DnD4e's surges.

Any solid hit will crush 1/3 to 5/6 of your bar. You can't take a dozen hits even from the weaklings, and barely 2 or 3 from the real enemies. Except that *Souls characters have hundreds of HP in the Bar so you can also represent chip damage.


It's very clever.

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>>49926970
One-hit kills being a real rarity works for me. People managed to fight after serious wounds after all. I'm afraid I never played Dark Souls, but I looked at some gameplay videos, and it looks good as an example.

I actually dismissed something like a stamina bar for the same reasons you say. I was thinking of stamina as being represented by the hit points themselves. 0 HP means being out of combat, either by wounds or exhaustion. Wearing heavier armor throughout the day would give off a HP penalty after a time period correspondent to the player's constitution-like atribute/cons save, while active combat might have this after a number of turns. Ideally, the number of hours and turns would be the same so it is easier to keep track of, or at least the number of hours X 5(?) = number of turns. Then you start to feel the HP loss from exhaustion. Hot climates would give a penalty for this mechanic. You also could have physical challenges played out as combat.

Also consider having simply 'damage' which might or not have the armor-piercing quality. The division cut-pierce-smash isn't that clear cut in real life, axes were useful even if dull because they could break the ribs of a mailed enemy, maces had spikes, swords might pierce, cut and then club with the pommel etc.

>>49926970
>>49927130
Well, to build off of that, why not have armor help determine the total amount of effective HP you have as well as how many times you can refresh it.

For example, say you have 30 health in heavy armor, meaning you can take 5 or so solid hits. You can also refresh yourself once, taking a moment to catch your breath to bring yourself to full, meaning you have closer to 60 to work with.

Then for light armor, you may only have 15 health, meaning you'll go down in only a few hits, but you'd be able to refresh yourself 4 times, meaning your effective health is closer to 75, but will eat up more time to access it.

The exact math might need tweaking, but it could help represent the trade off between durability and stamina in a rather straightforward way.

It could also be a sort of stamina bar that gets depleted before health, meaning even if a player loses all of it they'll have a chance to recover, making it easier to get maximum value.

>>49920814
One thing to note OP is that more often than not, armor is layered upon other armors.
Ex. You put a gambeson over your shirt, then your maille over that, then your coat-of-plates and/or over that and if you wanna feel EXTRA safe, your breastplate over that.

You could have all the negatives of each armor pile up on eachother, so that while you have excellent protection, it's really quite heavy, and dear god, is this gambeson stuffy? Not to mention the maille- I swear, I feel like it's chafing all over! And this brigandine is too hot, what gives? Did I secure it too tight? And dear Gods, how will I ever manage to get this plate off by myself? I can barely reach the straps!

Overheating was a serious issue, and reasonably so, so if you're going to have your party go into hot places, perhaps give deductions to those wearing heavier armors, whereas those wearing fewer layers will be just fine.
I mean, metal armor gets real hot, and real cold. Why do you think we wear cloth underneath?
But then again... cloth gets real sweaty after a while... could catch me some disease or somethin'...

>>49920814
my attempt at nightmare mode
Nightmare Mode: Armor check is solely determined by the person's reflexes, dexterity, and overall experience in combat(levels) UNLESS dealing with heavy armor.
All armors have a certain percentage of damage absorbed. The heavier, the better. Medium armors and higher will give disadvantage on stealth checks while running. Heaviest armors will have a slight penalty to overall reflex checks until higher levels, will have disadvantage on ALL stealth checks, and a small penalty to perception(because of helmet). At low levels, the AC bonus gained by wearing the heaviest armors will be offset by the penalties taken to their reflexes(which now have a big effect on AC)

>>49926970
This needs to be key. Game balance should trump realism because ultimately it's about having fun and introducing unique mechanics that add variety but are equitable.

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Whever or not the OP gets what he needs from this, I feel this thread should be archived, there are lots of good ideas and considerations mingled with armor information which might help others.

>>49924149
>But it's much, much more convenient. I can throw a mail shirt on in under 20 seconds by myself, whereas even a breastplate usually takes help from someone else, and even half-plate will take a minute or two to put on. Also, you can fold/roll it up and stick in a haversack if you need to, making transport much more convenient.
I am not the anon that said it was inconvenient. I was just guessing at why they thought it was inconvenient.

>Leather gets decent if it's wax-hardened and layered, as in lamellar. The problem is that it's much more expensive than gambeson/aketons with about the same protective qualities (though still way less effective against projectiles).
True and true. Gambesons are really underrated.

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>>49927130
I'm actually using something similar to Surges for this game; a minor HP recovery usable in combat and a major one usable between fights. It's more complicated than that but that is the gist of it.

>>49927191
HP as stamina/morale/fighting spirit is what I'm going for so having some kind of degrading max HP based on fatigue and armour type could certainly work. As for damage types, right now I'm not differentiating between pierce/slash/bash for precisely that reason; weapons are fairly versatile in how they inflict pain so you'd just use the most effective type of damage anyway.

>>49927241
That's a very interesting idea, sir. You could also do something where you instead have the same total hit points but armour instead multiplies damage by 1/2, 1/3, or 1/4 (reducing it) based on armour worn. In return it takes progressively more stamina/surges/etc in order to refill your hit points, so you effectively get a situation where light armour gives more total HP over the course of a day/fight but takes up more actions in order to access that HP, and puts you at greater risk of getting KOed. After all, the closer you bring yourself to 0 HP, the more value you get out of spending stamina/surges. That is a very interesting idea indeed!

>>49927285
Geez, I don't think I'm even going to bother with layered armour. I'm just going to classify it by the total effective protection it gives you. Wear enough layers of light armour that it's effectively medium armour? Then you get the benefits (and drawbacks) of medium armour. Sounds fair to me.

>>49927290
Interesting approach. I've tested something similar and it can work, the problem is making it balanced mathematically.

>>49927344
Exactly.

>>49927390
That sounds like a good idea.

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What the fuck is with this bullshit?

Heavier armor flat out is the only armor that matters and is the armor that everybody wants. The only reason why everybody and their mother doesn't wear plate armor is because of the sheer expense of it which restricts it to people who are well off, or looters of battlefield corpses. There is zero things a gambeson does better than plate in combat besides ease of dying. People who want to play "le my super stealthy rogue xDD who just wears leather armor" should be cruelly reminded why that shit was worn less than even a gambeson whenever he gets hit by a sword and that leather doesn't really stop a thrust going through.

However equally, players should not be running around in full plate armor either unless they KNOW they are going to be in a fight and are preparing for it. Depending on the harness, putting on plate armor can take 15 minutes by yourself or less with a helper or it's a simpler suit, but it's not shit you walk around in the whole day unless you want to get boils, rashes, and exhaustion (it may only weight 50 pounds, but that WILL eventually run you down).

Pic related is simply not going to be worn by anybody unless they know specifically beforehand they are about to be in a combat situation and not only have enough warning to get dressed for battle, but have enough time to feel safe doing so. Although this also depends on the period of technology and what is considered a full (heavy) harness. 14th century armor is really easy to put on a jiff, even the extensive stuff with full limb armor. Earlier harnesses are even easier, with 13th century maille literally just being thrown over your head with optional leggings tied on.

This is also why I would recommend most RPG's take place in an era where tech is comparable to the 10th-14th centuries, as you can wear the best armor from those eras on the move pretty easily with minor discomfort. But for true full plate, you just -can't- adventure in that shit.

Cont

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>>49927853
This is why I would recommend the use of what I call "adventurers armor", which in general would be considered "heavy" armor that is available to everybody if their character backgrounds can explain the cost. The majority of the armor should consist of a coat of plate, brigandine, etc, which is very easy to move in and shouldn't hamper your rogue, but at the same time offers protection close to a full breastplate. It is also VERY easy to put on in a hurry, you just belt it around you or throw it over your head, and then strap on and string any limb plates you might use.

It's quick, easy to repair, protected against rust by thick leather/velvet/cotton outer layers that the plates are riveted to, easy to move in, and will stop any blade cold. It can also stop lances, longbows, and even crossbows.

>>49921922
>>I'm looking for an armour model wherein Plate isn't strictly better than Leather.
>realism = gone.
What does better mean? Better for protection? Better for cost? Better for climbing a rope while wearing?

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>>49927984

>>49927552
For exhaustion and stamina I can recommend to look how Battle Brothers (computer game) does their armor system.

Armor gives additional HP and lowers fighters stamina that they use for attacks. Most of the time you use any armor you can afford even though it does penalise you dearly. Because it allows you to lower the chance of RNG to kill off your fighters in one or two attacks. But in the high experience end the light armor option comes up because an experienced swordsman can have almost the same protection but without penalties to stamina so he will be able to run easier and do all the different types of attacks for longer.
Medium armor is mostly for characters in the back row who don't have the skill or power to go either way.

Of course in tabletop you don't want to track numbers in 50-150 range that replenish and drop every round but using a stamina dice in 1-7 range allowing to do some awesome shit may work.

Lets say medium number of dice is around 4 and they restore every round.

Light armor will have no penalty on stamina so you can jump, smash and do some other shit.
Medium armor will cut them in half and Heavy armor will alow only for 1/4.

So a character in light armor will be able to attempt 4 different manoeuvrers per round or augmenting his actions.
Characters in medium armor will be less jumpy but have a more reliable protection.
And heavy armor characters need to be hit by something really heavy to stop them but can only attempt 1 technique otherwise being restricted to normal moves.

>>49922204
>Light armor is essentially heavy clothing--leather
You must wear some pretty weird stuff if you thing leather armour is essentially heavy clothing and you can layer other armour on top.

>men-at-arms
Are knights in everything but title. Own armour, own weapon, own horse. Man-at-arms is not the same as man under-arms.

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>>49928205
This for example would be very good adventurer armor, good protection, ease of donning, lots of flexibility.

>>49930209
Very expensive, heavy and relatively hot, but chain armor of this type provides remarkably effective protection.

It's a bit maintenance intensive, but a person can handle it on their own.

>>49930341
I wouldn't say it's terribly hot, and the greaves could probably be ditched unless you fight on horseback. The exposed rear however will cool you off a lot, and the hauberk + gambeson is easy enough to ride around 24/7 with you just quickly strapping on your leg armor and bracers with a friend strapping your torso armor on.

Ideal form would be everybody taking an action to strap everybody else's torso plates on.

>>49930362
The hauberk and it's padding would be alright to wear for a while, though it would feel very heavy on the shoulders after a few hours. It's the coat of plates over the chain and the helmet that you'd really want to take off, as you identified.

This kind of armor is transitional. After the point the Rhur valley started turning out real plates but before they became very common.

>>49928221
Stamina and exhaustion only come into play after 30 seconds of fighting.
Most fights don't last that long, Unless both combatants are heavily armoured.
I would even argue that light armor makes you tire out faster, because you have to duck and weave for even the slightest jab.
While an expert combatant would deflect jabs and glancing blows, by utilizing his armor to the fullest.

But that is just bringing real life physics into a game system, which I admit is not the best course of action.

>>49921286
Major drawbacks of medium and heavy armor are that they are heavy, too hot in summer, too cold in winter, restrict movement, and are uncomfortable. Mail mittens and plate gauntlets give a penalty to manual dexterity. Maybe they even prevent the use of bows and crossbows - I'm no expert on the subject. Helmets that cover the ears, muffle sounds and make you more likely to be attacked in the back. A visor protects the face but also restricts vision severely, reduces effectiveness with ranged weapons, and increases the hearing penalty massively. I assume that an enclosed helmet will also make breathing much more difficult and uncomfortable, thus giving a penalty to endurance based rolls (visored helmets can circumvent this by lifting the visor). An other drawback of plate armor, is that it takes a certain amount of time to wear and that it probably even requires help from a squire or fellow soldier. Also, all metallic armor should give a penalty to stealth. Finally, I'm also not sure about the legality of walking around in a plate armor if you're not a local lord or member of the local lord's guard.

To balance things, I'd say that people generally speaking don't wear armor. Only guards and knights on duty might legally wear armor in peacetime. Obtaining heavy armor is also very difficult. Armor smiths won't simply make you a plate armor without the approval of their lord, though they will probably sell you a medium armor. Walking around in heavy armor without bearing the a lord's crest will get you harassed by guards and civilians will probably hesitate talking to you. Medium armor will probably also make you look suspicious, that is unless you're part of a caravan escort or something like that. Light armor, on the other hand, is absolutely unrestricted.

>>49930608
There is basically two types of "exhaustation". The long term one and the short term. My proposed stamina system models the short term. In truth it's not only stamina but also balance and ability to sustain momentum and right direction of movements through consecutive attacks.

Try attacking someone multiple times while he dodges, parries and does other things. You will fill like every next move becomes more and more sloppy until you are completely open. This can be counteracted by not bearing your body weight on attacks but you'll lose a lot of power and speed this way.

That's why a lot of times combat looks like a series of exchanges between fighters.

>>49921286

Better armor just costs more and weighs more.

Encumbrance (Might): The maximum amount of
weight in pounds that you can carry without suffering any
penalties is equal to 10 pounds, plus 5 times your Might
score, plus 5 times your Encumbrance score. If you carry
more weight than that, you can't use Climb, Stealth, or
Swim, the result of any Dodge roll you make is halved
(rounded down), and your overland movement speed is
halved (rounded down). Furthermore, while attempting
to carry double your maximum carry weight or more,
your overland movement speed is reduced to 0 and you
cannot Dodge.

>>49920814
You regain stamina at a slower rate and tire more quickly

However, most games don't consider stamina a thing so that's just not an option

>>49927984
This.
The cost of armor shouldn't be used as a "balancing" mechanic unless it's literally magical.

>>49920814
What I went with for a game I'm designing is that heavier armor reduces damage, but reduces your ability to dodge. You're more likely to get hit, but it's less of a big deal when it happens.

So an agile-but-fragile character who's good at dodging would probably get more benefit out of avoiding hits, but if they're fighting an enemy with particularly high accuracy they'd switch to heavier armor. Slower, sturdier characters might figure they're probably gonna get hit no matter what, so better to reduce the impact than count on the good fortune to dodge hits.

>>49920814
Have two defensive stats, Armour and Evasion.
The heavier the Armour the greater the penalty to evasion.
Roll to hit is modified by evasion, and damage dealt is modified by armour.

Then have two offensive statistics, Speed and Damage. Lighter weapons have higher speed, heavier weapons have more damage.

So against foes with light weapons, you want heavy armour, as it can just soak all their weak hits, but against foes with heavy weapons, you want light armour so you can dodge their attacks altogether.

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>>49920814
remember when... optional rules phb 2nd ed D&D

>>49937777
Nice quads. Also, that's a fairly common thread I'm seeing in these ideas.