Do your characters wear their armor all day long?

[Thanee]

My character wears her armor pretty much all the time (except when she is resting at an inn or at home or something similar).

But then again, the fatigue from wearing a pair of bracers is rather low.

Those characters that wear real armor in our games, do take it off for the night (they take it on when on watch, tho), altho there are no real penalties for not doing so.

Bye
Thanee

 

[kenjib]

Thanks for all of the feedback. This has been really helpful.

 

[Skywalker]

After a small nudge from our DM, the players have adopted more realistic behaviour towards armour. The characters don't tend to wear armour unless they are entering combat or expecting combat. It does have an impact on armour wearers but we al agree that it helps maintain the feel of the setting, which trends toward realism, and so adds to the game.

One good result is that we do consider combat options such as fighting defensively a lot more.

Unfortunately we have found more difficulty as we have gone up levels as D&D is created on the assumption that people wear armour all the time. We have begun discussing adopting a WoT/SW defence stat also.

 

[Cloudgatherer]

Had one character in my game who never took his off. He was very afraid of fire and would go so far as to bath in the damn armor... he eventually got mithral armor (full plate) and even slept in that. According to the rules, it was ok. So, yeah, he had his armor on all the time...

 

[ConcreteBuddha]

I do agree that walking around in armor is not necessarily a fatiguing endeavor. (Especially if proficient. Hence the feats.)

The problem I have is with a character hiking for 25 miles in full plate with a full backpack. That just stretches the limit of my disbelief.

I can definitely see the above happening if the character in question has the stats to support it. (Really high Str and Con.)

 

[Quickbeam]

In our group, characters with medium and heavy armor do not sleep in said armor. There are also times outside of sleeping (long treks through marshland and bogs for instance) when wearing bulky armor isn't such a good idea.

Overall though, we don't make a big issue out of characters choosing to wear full plate or splint mail all day. They suffer the AC check penalties and have lower rates of movement, so all told we figure those drawbacks are enough realism within the gaming context to satisfy the group.

 

[Deedlit]

What about sleeping in natural armor?

 

[Ziona]

We usually don't worry about wearing the armor all day, but it comes into play when we camp for the night.
For instance, if we're sleeping, you're obviously not going to sleep in your armor (my character actually sleeps in the buff!) so if your companions have an encounter while you're asleep and they wake you up, then you don't get your armor bonus to AC because you don't have your armor on.

That's about the only time we consider the weight, etc. of armor really. Also, if someone is wearing loud, clanking armor, it can be an issue if we're trying to be quiet.

 

[Humanophile]

Hah. I've had players try to claim that they were still wearing armor while doing the nasty, there's no way I'm going to get them to go without it when they'd reasonably have it on. And for the most part, D&D characters would have that kind of opinion too.

If you want modifiers, add a +2 to all forced marching DC's per category of encumberance/armor over light, and at least +2 to social DC's when carrying weapons or armor where they're clearly out of place. (Keep in mind that in most D&D worlds, not a lot is out of place. You'll get strange looks in the market, but the merchants will still happily take your money. Going courting or to the duke's ball in so much as a chain shirt, however, is a faux pas, and as such you should ask the players ahead of time whether they prefer prudence or courtesy.)

But most of the penalties to wearing armor are based on you being more memorable, or else role-playing discomfort that the characters can whine about or stoically live with as the player sees fit.

 

[Garmorn]

From my experences both in the Infantry and wearing chain and gambasons in all day LARPS; once you get use to armor it does not bother you. It slows you down and makes you tired by the days end. The army currently requires a march of 20 miles in full combat gear to pass basic so it is very possible to wear heavy armor am walk 25 to 30 miles a day. Now this will be less true for the unskilled/experenced adventures but still possible.

As for heat. I have worn and done LARPing in the Hot Texas sun (around 100+ F) and found it to be cooler wearing armor then not. The gambason assorb the sweat and cool you some what like an evaportative cooler. It works better under armor then with out. The short coming is that you need LOTS of water. Around five gallons per day.