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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mouseferatu" data-source="post: 3693094" data-attributes="member: 1288">Naive? I don't think so. Consider:In the real world, different armors were better for different purposes. Plate, for instance, rendered the sword almost obsolete, but it was (relatively) easily penetrated by a good warhammer or crushed by a flanged mace. Chain might stop a slash, but could be punched through with a thin and/or powerful arrowhead.So it's true that different armor works for different purposes. I'll grant you that. But...The average warrior in a D&D setting is, for the most part, facing the same basic sort of attacks as a warrior in the real world. Swords, axes, maces, and bows work the same in both contexts. The bite of a dire wolf includes both puncturing and crushing, but each attack individually is not substantially different from a piercing or bludgeoning weapon.A slash is still a slash. A stab is still a stab. A wallop is still a wallop. This is true whether it comes from a weapon wielded by a human, a weapon wielded by an orc, or the natural attack of a monster.Now, of course there are exceptions. Some monsters in D&D have wonky attacks. Some monsters are big or strong enough that even if they're "just" stabbing you, it's not going to be like a "normal" stab.But then, I'd argue that--using metals like steel and iron and bronze--it's almost impossible to build an effective defense against that sort of attack. Certainly the shape and style of one's armor is going to have little impact.So, should armor in D&D look just like historical armor? Nope. There are cultural and aesthetic differences, certainly. And people in D&D do have to deal with abnormal possibilities, such as being grappled by a worm the size of a city bus.But at a level of baseline practicality, the armor in D&D has to deal with the same sorts of abuse--cutting, stabbing, and crushing--that historical armor did. So while D&D armor should not necessarily equal historical armor, it also should not deviate too dramatically, either. And thus, while it's perfectly acceptable to have funky, blatantly-fantastic armor (as long as it doesn't reach the point of being woefully ineffective), historically-accurate armor should also sometimes be portrayed, because it's not rendered out of place by virtue of this being a fantasy setting.</blockquote>

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