Level Up (A5E) Armor Weaknesses

[SakanaSensei]

I'm sorry if this is a very basic question that I'm just failing to parse an answer for, but in the armor types listed in the Adventurer's Guide some armors, such as Padded Cloth and the Cloth Brigandine, have weaknesses listed in parentheses. Doing a search through the text, I'm not finding any kind of explanation as to what exactly this does. My first assumption is that it would make the wearer take double damage to that damage type, but that also doesn't make sense because being naked would mean you take less damage from an arrow than putting on some cloth armor. If it was that the armor was more vulnerable to breaking to that damage type, I figure it would be brittle instead of weakness(piercing).

If anyone could help me grok this, I'd really appreciate it.

 

[Faolyn]

Page 324.

Brittle. A brittle weapon breaks when you
roll a natural 1 on an attack roll made with it.
Brittle armors break when you take a critical hit
or roll a natural 1 on a Dexterity saving throw.
If a damage type is noted in parenthesis, the
armor only breaks on a critical hit from that
damage type, or the weapon only breaks if it
does damage of that damage type

 

[SakanaSensei]

Sorry, I know what brittle does. I can't tell what weakness(piercing) means is the problem. I must have been unclear.

 

[Satirical Bard]

Morrus on another post: "Brittle got renamed to weakness (as cloth being 'brittle' doesn't sound right). Good catch! Some old brittle references still there. We'll change them all to weakness" Blog (A5E) - Armor & Materials