Chainmail Bikinis & other Cheesecake art in the 4th Edition Core Books.

[DamnedChoir]

Cheesecake or no, wearing armor with a bare midriff is just stupid.

If this was GURPS, that'd be a dead character.

 

[Choranzanus]

For a dryad, maybe.

For an adventurer, this picture is ridiculous. No weapon. No armor. Pale as moonshine even though she lives outdoors, spic-n-span skin, no shoes, clothes that appear to be made out of grass that will dissolve in the next strong rain.

You don't need any of that when you can turn into huge elemental....you don't even need shoes if you have woodland stride and trackless step.

 

[Klaus]

Cheesecake or no, wearing armor with a bare midriff is just stupid.

If this was GURPS, that'd be a dead character.

I'll be sure to let the Greek peltasts and the Egyptian army of Ramses II know.

 

[Lord Fyre]

Okay, since the Dragonborn: Boobs or No Boobs? thread refuses to die, I am necroing this thread!

Since people there are saying "Boobs = Good" isn't this what they are really talking about?

 

[Aloïsius]

I'll be sure to let the Greek peltasts and the Egyptian army of Ramses II know.

They already know. They are not wearing armor with bare midriff. They are not wearing armor at all.
This is one or the other : either a good armor, at the expense of mobility, or no armor at all, allowing you to show your nostril and run away quickly from the monsters.

But armor with holes above vital parts ? Silly. Unless it's a purely ceremonial armor, maybe.

 

[jaer]

You don't need any of that when you can turn into huge elemental....you don't even need shoes if you have woodland stride and trackless step.

Honestly, I was so thinking this through most of this talk. In relation to both the wood-breastplated chick and the berry eating girl, if both are druidic in nature, the need for any clothes at all in the forest is gone. If you can walk unhindered through briar patches, you aren't worried about tree branches, either, and honestly, one could probably argue that the sun doesn't burn you.

I would think that many druids, in the safety of their woods (of course, certain woods are less safe than others), might well walk around completely naked (much the way dryads and nymphs and other fey creatures would) without much care or worry.

And in the case of a druid who does not wear cloths (perhaps, at most, some animal furs when interacting with other outside the woods or when the weather gets cold, though spells such as endure elements would negate the need for clothing even then!), would not have skirts or shirts or other cloth simply lying about to wear under her armor when she needed to armor up to defend her grove (to use the example as given). She does not even possess such things, let alone suddenly feel compelled to put them on because it's "armor up" time. Not being used to wearing even her armor, she keeps it simple enough to cover her vitals and yet open enough to be free, to still feel the cool wind and the gentle touch of nature around here. She would not want to feel entire encased in the stuff, nor with her magical ability, does she need to be.

Obviously this sort of arguement does not carry through to other cheesecakery, but in the case of the two images being discussed, my first inclination was to think of the ladies depicted as either druidic or feyish, and in either case, their attire fit entirely within my own thinking of such characters in a fantasy setting. With nature as their ally, the forest their personal garden, they don't need the things of "civilized" such as clothing. It's called au natural for a reason.

 

[Clavis]

Cheesecake or no, wearing armor with a bare midriff is just stupid.

If this was GURPS, that'd be a dead character.

Somebody should have told the ancient Celts that before they went into battle NAKED and covered with body paint.

It was a technique to undermine an enemy's fighting effectiveness by shock and distraction. Much like the constantly moving red tassel on a Chinese sword.

 

[Wiseblood]

I voted strongly favor but I would like to add a little caveat. "As long as the art is better than 99.9% of the art in 3.x. Even to the point of re-using older material such as Elmore. If WotC feels the need to use artists from third edition, I would prefer art be kept to a minimum."

 

[Dausuul]

I voted strongly favor but I would like to add a little caveat. "As long as the art is better than 99.9% of the art in 3.x. Even to the point of re-using older material such as Elmore. If WotC feels the need to use artists from third edition, I would prefer art be kept to a minimum."

Well, yes. I'd take Elmore, cheesecake and all, over 3.X art.

TSR may have been hopeless at business strategy, but they had some damn fine artists. 3.X seemingly decided cartoons, excessive buckles, and misproportioned anatomy were the way to go. And it was a sad thing.

The stuff in the 4E preview books gives me hope.

 

[Zaruthustran]

It all depends on the look they're going for. Me, I hope they go the sword & sorcery route, which in my mind is best exemplified by Cary Nord's style in the Conan comic books. In this setting, full metal armor is very rare, hot, and expensive, so not many people wear it. The fighters in this warm and dry setting prefer lighter armors with lots of exposed skin.

That said, if a fighter chooses to wear plate I want to see that armor represented as if it were designed to serve it's intended purpose. Chainmail bikinis or plate armor that exposes massive unarmored cleavage = bad.

Here're some examples of what I'd want to see:

http://www.darkhorse.com/profile/preview.php?theid=14-983&p=1

or: