Celebrim
Legend
My Current List
1) Padded: Includes all historical cloth and soft leather armors.
2) Leather: Includes most hardened or treated leather armors. It's assumed padded armor is used for the joints.
3) Ring: Includes all historical cloth or soft leather armors which have metal unevenly sewed onto the surface to provide slashing resistance.
4) Hide: Includes all historical thick or layered leather armors, such a lemellar leather, as well as all wicker, wood, and bone armors.
5) Scale: Includes all historical cloth or soft leather armors which have metal evenly sewed on to the surface in overlapping layers. Fine construction is treated as masterwork. Heavier than normal construction treated as Brigandine.
6) Mail: Armor made of interlocking rings worn over a padded layer. Fine construction is treated as masterwork. Heavier than normal construction treated as Splint.
7) Splint: Catch all category for made of relatively inflexible interlocking peices, including mail in double layers, mail with interwoven strips or plates, large rivited vertical strips on a soft backing, and armor of different sorts which is layered together such a leather lemellar worn over mail.
8) Brigandine: Includes all historical metal lamellar armors made of small metal peices connected together tightly by means of sewing or by placing between two layers of tightly joined cloth or soft leather. Fine construction is treated as masterwork.
9) Banded: Includes all historical armors made with flexible overlapping metal strips, where mail or scale is assumed to provide flexibility in the joints. Also includes armors which have large form fitting metal plates but without protection for the joints.
10) Plate: Includes all historical armors made with large metal plates worn over a more flexible armor (usually mail) that provides flexibility.
11) Full Plate: Includes all all historical armors made with large form fitting metal plates with finely crafted metal segments providing articulation for the joints. Fine construction is treated as masterwork. Heavier than normal construction (such as jousting armor) is generally ignored because of its unsuitability to actual warfare.
I don't think that I can drop anything from that list, and I haven't even gotten to the shields. At times, I'm already putting two or three very different sorts of armors into the same category. Splint is the 'catch all category' there and really I probably ought to break it out more, but if I really had to drop one, it would be the Full Plate.
I also completely ignore wearing any of the above armors as partial protection for you body - usually padded, leather, mail, brigandine, or plate covering only the torso and accompanied by a helm. Since D&D is my default system, I tend to ignore the extra complexity of called shots and hense consider all 'partial armor' classifications to be impossible to fully describe in the system. If I did have a called shot system, I would use and describe partial armors.
I'm not sure what you mean by importance. I don't believe that there is a 'best armor'; it depends on what you are using it for. Armies wearing pretty much all of the above have had success in the field. I think TarionzCousin answered that part of the question best, and I'd like to note that D&D has pretty much traditionally ignored everything on his list.
1) Padded: Includes all historical cloth and soft leather armors.
2) Leather: Includes most hardened or treated leather armors. It's assumed padded armor is used for the joints.
3) Ring: Includes all historical cloth or soft leather armors which have metal unevenly sewed onto the surface to provide slashing resistance.
4) Hide: Includes all historical thick or layered leather armors, such a lemellar leather, as well as all wicker, wood, and bone armors.
5) Scale: Includes all historical cloth or soft leather armors which have metal evenly sewed on to the surface in overlapping layers. Fine construction is treated as masterwork. Heavier than normal construction treated as Brigandine.
6) Mail: Armor made of interlocking rings worn over a padded layer. Fine construction is treated as masterwork. Heavier than normal construction treated as Splint.
7) Splint: Catch all category for made of relatively inflexible interlocking peices, including mail in double layers, mail with interwoven strips or plates, large rivited vertical strips on a soft backing, and armor of different sorts which is layered together such a leather lemellar worn over mail.
8) Brigandine: Includes all historical metal lamellar armors made of small metal peices connected together tightly by means of sewing or by placing between two layers of tightly joined cloth or soft leather. Fine construction is treated as masterwork.
9) Banded: Includes all historical armors made with flexible overlapping metal strips, where mail or scale is assumed to provide flexibility in the joints. Also includes armors which have large form fitting metal plates but without protection for the joints.
10) Plate: Includes all historical armors made with large metal plates worn over a more flexible armor (usually mail) that provides flexibility.
11) Full Plate: Includes all all historical armors made with large form fitting metal plates with finely crafted metal segments providing articulation for the joints. Fine construction is treated as masterwork. Heavier than normal construction (such as jousting armor) is generally ignored because of its unsuitability to actual warfare.
I don't think that I can drop anything from that list, and I haven't even gotten to the shields. At times, I'm already putting two or three very different sorts of armors into the same category. Splint is the 'catch all category' there and really I probably ought to break it out more, but if I really had to drop one, it would be the Full Plate.
I also completely ignore wearing any of the above armors as partial protection for you body - usually padded, leather, mail, brigandine, or plate covering only the torso and accompanied by a helm. Since D&D is my default system, I tend to ignore the extra complexity of called shots and hense consider all 'partial armor' classifications to be impossible to fully describe in the system. If I did have a called shot system, I would use and describe partial armors.
I'm not sure what you mean by importance. I don't believe that there is a 'best armor'; it depends on what you are using it for. Armies wearing pretty much all of the above have had success in the field. I think TarionzCousin answered that part of the question best, and I'd like to note that D&D has pretty much traditionally ignored everything on his list.
