Awfully Alarmed About Armour

[Njall]

People didn't bother to wear armor when hunting elephants????

Which people do you exactly mean? The neandertals who hunter mamooths or the 19th century colonials with fire arms? You know that there was a distinctive lack of elephants in europe during the medieval age.

I meant "no one". Armor was never used or conceived to hunt them. If it made hunting big stuff reasonably less dangerous, rest assured it would have been conceived and used.

So an elephant sends you flying. Guess who survives better. The one in armor which absorbes a lot of the blow and protects him from debris when he lands or the naked guy.
You really should watch the videos I posted in the spoiler on page 5.

Dude, there's no "surviving better", there's "surviving" and there's "dying".
A guy in heavy armor that's sent flying survives maybe a couple of seconds more than the light armored dude, because he'll probably get trampled before he can ever get up, if he can even get up, since he'll probably have at least a couple broken bones. Conversely, light armor dude can probably keep dodging and moving around longer, because, yeah, 20+kgs of steel do tire you out quickly in an open field melee, and even a slight reduction in speed might mean you're toast in an actual fight.

About the FoV I rather trust the guys who did wear such helmet when they say that they have a good FoV.

...having a "good" FoV means little in this context.
Does it provide a "good" field of vision compared to less refined helmets, and even less cumbersome ones? Sure. Compared to "not wearing a helmet at all"? Not a chance.
However, when you're fighting something that can attack you easily from the side, like a large opponent, and when each blow can kill you regardless of how much steel you're wearing, you don't want a "good" FoV, you want the best possible FoV, because it'll keep you alive longer, and wearing headgear is probably a bad idea, because a direct blow will still snap your neck.

 

[Derren]

I meant "no one". Armor was never used or conceived to hunt them. If it made hunting big stuff reasonably less dangerous, rest assured it would have been conceived and used.

Source? Because I have found no sources describing medieval elephant hunts and the equipment used. But they did use shields for hunting rhinos.

Dude, there's no "surviving better", there's "surviving" and there's "dying".
A guy in heavy armor that's sent flying survives maybe a couple of seconds more than the light armored dude, because he'll probably get trampled before he can ever get up, if he can even get up, since he'll probably have at least a couple broken bones. Conversely, light armor dude can probably keep dodging and moving around longer, because, yeah, 20+kgs of steel do tire you out quickly in an open field melee, and even a slight reduction in speed might mean you're toast in an actual fight.

Wrong. Good luck dodging an elephant trunk swinging at you especially that the dexterity advantage of light armor is not so big than what you seem to believe. You forget that animals behave much more offensively in combat as they have no concept of parrying. And when hit by the trunk "and sent flying" the guy in heavy armor has a much higher chance of survival as the armor absorbs force (less broken bones) and he is also protected from being impaled/wounded by stones and other debris when he lands. And despite what hollywood tells you, heavy armor was flexible and light enough so that you can easily stand up while wearing it.

...having a "good" FoV means little in this context. I'm sure it's got a great FoV, for an helmet. Does it provide a "good" field of vision compared to less refined helmets? Sure. Compared to "not wearing a helmet at all"? Not a chance.
When you're fighting something that can attack you easily from the side, like a large opponent, and when each blow can kill you regardless of how much steel you're wearing, you don't want a "good" FoV, you want the best possible FoV, because it'll keep you alive longer.

That each blow kills from a larger opponent is simply wrong. That only applies to bludgoning weapons. But slashing weapons have quite a lot of trouble to penetrate armor, even when the enemy is bigger. Heavy armor also protects you from many glancing hits which kill/disable an unarmored combatant.

 

[jadrax]

I meant "no one". Armor was never used or conceived to hunt them. If it made hunting big stuff reasonably less dangerous, rest assured it would have been conceived and used.

Is there actually any evidence that pre-firearms, people hunting elephant's did not use the best armour their society had available?

 

[Njall]

Managed to hit "quote" rather than "edit". Sigh.

 

[Njall]

Source? Because I have found no sources describing medieval elephant hunts and the equipment used. But they did use shields for hunting rhinos.

Sadly, after half an hour of googling, the only thing I found was this siberian bear-hunting armor which, while being mostly leather, was probably conceived to make you an unappealing target rather than protecting you, so yeah, not much in the way of actual damage absorption here, I doubt it helps my case ( or yours, for that matter ).

Wrong. Good luck dodging an elephant trunk swinging at you. You forget that anyimals behave much more offensively in combat as they have no concept of parrying. And when hit by the trunk "and sent flying" the guy in heavy armor has a much higher chance of survival as the armor absorbs force (less broken bones) and he is also protected from being impaled/wounded by stones and other debris when he lands. And despite what hollywood tells you, heavy armor was flexible and light enough so that you can easily stand up while wearing it.

Dude, good luck standing in melee with an elephant at all. Fight an elephant alone, in melee, D&D style, and you're probably dead, regardless of what you're wearing and how well you're trained; all in all, this is just a fun thought exercise, because whether you're wearing heavy armor, light armor or a flashy pajama the result doesn't change.
Still, while I doubt anyone ever engaged in elephant trunk dodging contests, or even bothered training to fight ( rather than hunt ) an elephant, I bet that if they did, they'd have a higher chance of success at dodging a couple of blows (and a higher mortality, but not everyone's got dex 18 ) if they could run away freely rather than crippling their FoV and wearing steel.

That each blow kills from a larger opponent is simply wrong. That only applies to bludgoning weapons. But slashing weapons have quite a lot of trouble to penetrate armor, even when the enemy is bigger. Heavy armor also protects you from many glancing hits which kill/disable an unarmored combatant.

A blow from a giant sized longsword to the side of your head, wielded by an opponent weighting 1000+ kg, will snap your neck just fine, it doesn't need to penetrate your armor. It will also wipe out your guard, in case you're bothering to keep it up.
If it hits your torso, or an arm? You'd probably survive, if you're lucky, with some broken ribs or a broken arm. But it's probably still game over.

 

[NewJeffCT]

wow, 9 pages for armor rules that were only place holders. I can only imagine how many pages the thread on the actual rules will be once they come out. 99 maybe?

 

[Argyle King]

Not sure I see your point. Evil humans, drow and so forth are NPCs. Since monsters in DDN don't seem to use the same creation rules PCs use, they get whatever AC is right for them while wearing whatever armor the setting considers appropriate for them. Creating a functional, balanced armor table's got nothing to do with NPCs, as only PCs will end up using it, and NPCs will use it as a benchmark at best.

...interparty conflict?


Personally, while I support the idea that NPCs and monster need not be written out in the same was as PCs, feel as though PCs and everything else should have more consistency in how they interact with the game world. That was one of the issues I had with 4th Edition. I applauded the ease of prep; part of that coming from monsters having small stat blocks not written in the same format of PCs (which I also applauded), but I didn't like it when the disparity between PC numbers and the numbers behind everything else caused -at times- vast disparity in how the two sides interacted with the numbers and mechanics the game worlds were built upon. Most notably it lead to the MM1 math in which the monsters were laughable in comparison to the PCs, but that was not the only issue. There were also oddities such as most monsters having virtually no chance of ever breaking out of dimensional shackles; some big and strong monsters struggling to break shoddy doors and walls, and etc.

The rules need not be the same for the rules to interact in a more consistent manner.

 

[Votan]

Is there actually any evidence that pre-firearms, people hunting elephant's did not use the best armour their society had available?

I suspect that the trick is few animals directly prey on humans. So, most of the time, you can kill them at a distance with ranged weapons (bow, spear). Even in battle, the skirmishers and the archers wore light armor and their role is a lot closer to that of hunters.

I would be delighted with an elegant set of rules that actually accomplished two things:

1) Made adventurers prefer light armor

2) Made sane people want heavy armor in close quarters fighting

The would recapture the idea of putting on tough armor for battle and would still have adventures eschew it during their adventures. Consider Bilbo and the Dwarves in the Hobbit. They spent most of the book traveling and wear traveling clothes and cloaks. But at the end, when they expect to face a human/elf army (and later a goblin army) they end up on the heaviest and best armor they can find, Their cousins from the iron hills, expecting a fight, are in chain.

I think that would be a good point of compromise, too.

But making heavy armor so weak . . .

And the armor rules may be placeholders but that is one area I would have liked to see a lot more work. There are some great ideas out there like "Shields shall be splintered" that might improve things a lot and it is a known weak spot of D&D.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Keeping it simple as possible, if I were to do anything (and that's still an "if"), I'd do this:

• Light armor - as normal
• Medium armor - better AC than light, very minor movement penalties
• Heavy armor - AC like medium, slighlty more movement penalties, some very limited DR (see below)
• Shields - have their own hit points which you can use when appropriate (loosely determined)

The DR for heavy armor would be more erratic than usual DR ideas. Would probably go with something like an ability to subtract a die roll from critical hits (or maybe any time max damage is done, if that's what criticals do). A guy in plate is still getting tired, bashed around, and so forth, but when that ogre would have impaled him with the spear, he gets to knock the damage down some. What I don't want is this coming up all the time.

The shield thing is to easily model the shields always wearing out, but not make it a constant thing. You still get that +N to AC for deflecting blows. But when something is bearing down on you hard from the front, you can throw your shield in its way to absorb some of the damage, too.

As a more unified, alternate version of the above, give every armor, including shields, a check to turn criticals into normal hits. (That is, the player rolls some kind of check using the equipment to do this.) Heavier armor gets a better mod to this check than lighter armor. Each time an armor does this, it takes "damage" by losing one of this modifier. When the mod hits zero, the armor is broken. Shields aren't different mechanically in this, but in practice will get used more often and first, because they are generally cheaper.

There. Nothing changes about AC until the armor is finally "broken". Nothing to track on normal hits, rather only on criticals. Getting whacked at a lot means more chances for criticals, which makes heavier armor a better choice when you know that is about to happen.

 

[Argyle King]

Keeping it simple as possible, if I were to do anything (and that's still an "if"), I'd do this:

• Light armor - as normal
• Medium armor - better AC than light, very minor movement penalties
• Heavy armor - AC like medium, slighlty more movement penalties, some very limited DR (see below)
• Shields - have their own hit points which you can use when appropriate (loosely determined)

The DR for heavy armor would be more erratic than usual DR ideas. Would probably go with something like an ability to subtract a die roll from critical hits (or maybe any time max damage is done, if that's what criticals do). A guy in plate is still getting tired, bashed around, and so forth, but when that ogre would have impaled him with the spear, he gets to knock the damage down some. What I don't want is this coming up all the time.

The shield thing is to easily model the shields always wearing out, but not make it a constant thing. You still get that +N to AC for deflecting blows. But when something is bearing down on you hard from the front, you can throw your shield in its way to absorb some of the damage, too.

As a more unified, alternate version of the above, give every armor, including shields, a check to turn criticals into normal hits. (That is, the player rolls some kind of check using the equipment to do this.) Heavier armor gets a better mod to this check than lighter armor. Each time an armor does this, it takes "damage" by losing one of this modifier. When the mod hits zero, the armor is broken. Shields aren't different mechanically in this, but in practice will get used more often and first, because they are generally cheaper.

There. Nothing changes about AC until the armor is finally "broken". Nothing to track on normal hits, rather only on criticals. Getting whacked at a lot means more chances for criticals, which makes heavier armor a better choice when you know that is about to happen.

If we're going to add more dice rolling to armor and defenses, I'd prefer to just get rid of AC completely and go with active defenses (i.e. parry, dodge, and block.) Dexterity would make dodging easier, shields would be used to block, and actual armor would have DR which absorbs damage. Light armor would be less cumbersome and thus not hinder dodging as much as heavy armor; on the other hand, heavy armor would absorb more actual damage. That's not to say getting hit wouldn't still hurt; I've worn armor, and it most certainly does still hurt and bruise you, but that's highly preferable to the far worse effects of a weapon striking my flesh & bone body.

However, I'm aware that many people would decry that as "not being D&D."