Armor Pieces

[LoneWolf23]

Just something I've been thinking about.. What if Armor, instead of coming in full suits, came in seperate parts? Pants, Chestplates, Gauntlets, Helms, etc...

Each seperate part would have a given cumulative Armor Class bonus, the total of which would be the full Armor Class bonus.

As for Magical Bonuses.. Well, seperate armor parts could be considered seperate magic items.. But I'm unsure whether or not to allow component part magic bonuses to be cumulative or not. Or perhaps each extra component could add +1 to the highest-level component's bonus: For exemple, a chestplate with Cold Resistance (10) added to Pants and Gauntlets with Cold Resistance (10) as well could have a Resistance total of 12...

I just came up with this idea, so it's still in progress.

 

[Doghead Thirteen]

Excellent idea. In fact, for my near-future setting, I'm already differentiating between trousers, jackets, vests, helmets, boots, groin protectors and gloves.
... and full suits of powered body armour, but they're a different kettle of fish.

Doing this could produce shades of Elder Scrolls 3. Left pauldron; steel. Right pauldron; dwarven. Helmet; glass... and so forth.

Strangely, that's part of it's appeal.

 

[Aus_Snow]

I've been doing this for a while with my house rules. It works well. I'm not sure exactly how well it would work with armour = AC, because I use armour = DR, myself.

A bit of simplification has still been the order of the day, though. I just have it organised by area (head, torso, left arm, right arm, left leg, right leg), not 'historically accurate' piece-by-piece. Well, there are gauntlets actually, but I don't go into even that level of detail regarding protection per se.

This variant certainly makes called shots immediately more relevant (of course).

 

[3catcircus]

Funny - I was just thinking about adapting the armor system from Dangerous Journeys/Mythus.

There are four "areas" - Ultra-vital, Super-vital, Vital, Non-vital. Each piece of armor protects one or more areas. There are different armor values vs. different damage types. You add up the armor values for every piece of armor protecting that area.

When attacking, you randomly roll the location of the hit. More vital areas suffer more damage (e.g. non-vital is base damage, vital takes 2x base damage).

Subtract the armor value and that is the amount of damage suffered.

 

[Doghead Thirteen]

Hmm, different part names I know -

Greaves (the trousers / pants)

Cuiraisse (the chestplate)

Pauldron (shoulder pad)

Gauntlet (gloves & lower half of sleeve)

Helm (your lid)

... just thought I'd throw that in.

 

[Celebrim]

It seems like they did this in 1st edition Oriental Adventures.

I don't think it works out that well once you start looking at the details of it, and without called shots it doesn't have much of a point. It's just complexity for complexities sake. There is no real reason that the flavor of the armor should impact the mechanics.

To give a trivial example, a +1 breastplate and a +1 helm and a +1 pair of greeves should not give a +3 enhancement bonus to your AC. If you try averaging the bonuses, at what point do you get a full +1 enhancement bonus at half the cost? And speaking of cost, how much does it cost to enchant greeves to a +1 enhancement bonus? Certainly not the full price, or the cost of magical armor will increase by 5 fold or more.

If you do do called shots, I think you'll find that you need to redo alot of the D&D combat system accordingly, and it could heavily impact the CR's of creatures - to say nothing for slowing play.

I'm not saying you shouldn't do it, but just make sure you understand how big of a change you are really contemplating.

 

[mosaic]

I don't know about full piecemeal armor, but I'd certainly go for at least seperating out helmets. So many illustrations show folk without helms. Are you going to tell me that a suit of platemail with a helmet and one without offer the same protection?

I'd handle it like shields, with a couple of basic option, maybe a steel cap, a chain hood (coif?), or a full helm, at +1, +2, +3 to AC with some penalties to Spot and Listen checks. And for simplicity sake, sure, let them get enchantments up to +5; so someone with a +5 armor, +5 shield and +5 helmet would have a total bonus of +15. By the time you've got all that crap, you're either epic or a munchkin and it doesn't matter.

You could also add a ton magic abilities to helmets, like darkvision, farseeing, seeing invisibility. Good stuff.

If you do go with piecemeal body armor, I'd identify 5 pieces (arms, legs, torso?) and say that each individually can only take a +1 enchantment, then just add up how many magic pieces you have to get a total.

 

[Spatzimaus]

The big problem, as mentioned by others, is that with too many pieces you have fractional issues. How do you split the +2 AC for leather armor into four or five pieces without using fractions? And if you use fractions, you're just inviting your players to metagame (picking strange combos just to move from 1.8 to 2.0).

IMC, we use the system mentioned here; in one of the later posts, I mention a 2-component system (really, 3 components). Effectively, every armor breaks down into three pieces:

Primary is the part that is your main protection. Maybe it's just the part covering your vital areas (the chest in a Breastplate/Chain Shirt), or maybe it's just the primary material of the armor (the leather used in Studded Leather).
Secondary is the other protective parts. Maybe it's the parts covering non-vital areas (the arms and legs on a Breastplate/Chain Shirt), or maybe it's just a minor material in all of the armor (the studs used in Studded Leather).
Fittings are the non-protective stuff, and depend on the weight class of the armor (light/medium/heavy). It's the padding under the armor, and all the straps and such needed to hold it all together. Fittings are also the only part whose weight depends on the wearer's size, and generally make up about half the armor's weight in total.

At that point it's easy to divvy up the benefits; Fittings give almost no benefits, while the other two give more; think 50/40/10.

 

[3catcircus]

The big problem, as mentioned by others, is that with too many pieces you have fractional issues. How do you split the +2 AC for leather armor into four or five pieces without using fractions? And if you use fractions, you're just inviting your players to metagame (picking strange combos just to move from 1.8 to 2.0).

IMC, we use the system mentioned here; in one of the later posts, I mention a 2-component system (really, 3 components). Effectively, every armor breaks down into three pieces:

Primary is the part that is your main protection. Maybe it's just the part covering your vital areas (the chest in a Breastplate/Chain Shirt), or maybe it's just the primary material of the armor (the leather used in Studded Leather).
Secondary is the other protective parts. Maybe it's the parts covering non-vital areas (the arms and legs on a Breastplate/Chain Shirt), or maybe it's just a minor material in all of the armor (the studs used in Studded Leather).
Fittings are the non-protective stuff, and depend on the weight class of the armor (light/medium/heavy). It's the padding under the armor, and all the straps and such needed to hold it all together. Fittings are also the only part whose weight depends on the wearer's size, and generally make up about half the armor's weight in total.

At that point it's easy to divvy up the benefits; Fittings give almost no benefits, while the other two give more; think 50/40/10.

That is why, if you are doing piecemeal armor, you really need to do an Armor as DR-based system, *and* follow a different system, such as Mythus, where the *attacker's* hit location determines how much damage is done. Different locations have different levels of "importance," and the more important (the more vital), the more damage the attacker does. Completely throw out the AC system.

Example (stolen from Mythus): a breastplate covers Ultra-Vital, Super-Vital and Vital locations, but not Non-Vital locations. If the attacker hits a Super-Vital spot, it is 3x damage. If he hits a Vital spot, it is 2x damage. The armor's value stays the same, regardless of vitality.

This then gets into revamping the critical hit system, among other things.

If you are going for a more gritty feel, this is one way to go.

Armor as DR by itself (from UA, for example) accomplishes nothing for grittiness or "realism."

 

[javcs]

The Diablo II: Diablerie 3e book has stuff like this. Boots, gloves, belts, helms, don't remember what else it had exactly, but not all of the 'partial armors' stacked with one another.
It seems like what the OP is looking at.