Armor Spikes: Unpractical?

[Slife]

The other problem with dungeon punk is that armor (spiked or unspiked) isn't very good if it isn't covering your squishy organs.

 

[mmu1]

D&D != real life. Ogres are more dangerous than Crips. Displacer beasts and Ogrillons are more powerful than tigers. Wear armor.

Fine, let's abandon real-world logic, and just look at D&D.

Wearing armor doesn't protect you in any way from the most effective tactic of large creatures - grappling and then pulling your limbs off at their leisure.

And by D&D logic, armor spikes don't do enough damage to the attacker to prevent a giant or a dire tiger from killing the wearer. At best, they'll just make whatever is eating you angry.

Of course, if you make armor spikes effective enough to matter, the question of why a footlong chunk of sharp steel - a big dagger, say - only does a piddly 1d4 damage. Because while it doesn't need to follow real-world logic, some kind of internal consistency is necessary.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

The other problem with dungeon punk is that armor (spiked or unspiked) isn't very good if it isn't covering your squishy organs.

That's a problem with dungeonpunk?

Am I the only one who's looked at a Conan cover or a Parkinson picture recently? :boggle:

 

[Numion]

Cost, practicality and comfort have trumped protection time and time again throughout human history. The simple fact is that, even when they could afford it, most people chose not to wear armor in their everyday life. Hell, plenty of people living in the nastiest, poisonous vermin-infested holes on Earth didn't even wear much in the way of clothes or serious shoes.
Even today, you see examples of this, when plenty of cops still choose not to wear bulletproof vests on duty. (despite the fact they know they're highly effective at saving lives)

A standard police officer gets into a firefight on average 3 times per career, unless he's SWAT, and SWAT wears armor everytime they go onto scene. An adventurer encounters potentially deadly critters 13.333 times per level. Should an adventurer follow beat cop joe or a SWAT officer in his use of armor? Which would make sense?

If there are tigers around the settlement, you don't start wearing spiked armor - you clear the forest to make room for crops, which generally tends to reduce the number of people eaten to a level the community is willing to accept.

Sounds very exciting. Actually, I heard that that would've been the premise of adventure path IV; PCs were to be tasked with cultivating and urbanizing out the bad guys. Too bad Dungeon bit it, that would've been the best adventure EVAR.

 

[Irda Ranger]

And by D&D logic, armor spikes don't do enough damage to the attacker to prevent a giant or a dire tiger from killing the wearer. At best, they'll just make whatever is eating you angry.

You don't have to be spiky enough to kill him (that's what the axes are for) - just spiky enough to discourage grappling.

You're confusing "solves all my problems" with "provides distinct advantage." The latter is enough to make spikes popular.

 

[interwyrm]

Of course, if you make armor spikes effective enough to matter, the question of why a footlong chunk of sharp steel - a big dagger, say - only does a piddly 1d4 damage. Because while it doesn't need to follow real-world logic, some kind of internal consistency is necessary.

Solution: make armor spikes do 1d4 + the grappler's strength modifier in damage. The harder they squeeze, the more it hurts!

 

[frankthedm]

Solution: make armor spikes do 1d4 + the grappler's strength modifier in damage. The harder they squeeze, the more it hurts!

I do that for monsters that constrict. When they constrict* someone in armor spikes, they take the spike's damage die plus their own STR bonus.

Now this is not always a good thing for the party since the Big Hungry Monsters see the spikes and go for a softer looking target.

*This does not apply for pincer claw based constrict{scorpion, lobster etc]

 

[William drake]

Common No, but existed...yes


But no, I don't think spikes on your armor would detur a creature from eating you.

And a bear...well, you'd be dead just the same.

 

[William drake]

Solution: make armor spikes do 1d4 + the grappler's strength modifier in damage. The harder they squeeze, the more it hurts!

true, but the bigger the creature, the less one knights little spike armor is going to do. It would be like if you or I bit into a chicken wing and swallowed some of the bone. Yes, it might hurt...or may even get caught. But, i ask you, how many people die a year by choaking on a bone...people do...but comeon, how many. And on the other hand, how many people eat and swallow something that hurts their throat but they go right ahead and finish their meal. Maybe the cough, or have to get a drink of water...but they finish it. A wild animal, or worse...a monster, yeah. Think about it.

Game On

 

[Klaus]

Common No, but existed...yes


But no, I don't think spikes on your armor would detur a creature from eating you.

And a bear...well, you'd be dead just the same.

You don't have to be impregnable. You just have to be spikier than the next guy over.