D&D 5E Realistic/Historic armor for D&D (Homebrew)

[DammitVictor]

The most effective weapons for piercing armor are always the least effective weapons for bypassing Armor as DR systems. Bows and crossbows are especially cheated, while early firearms' abilities are almost ludicrously exaggerated.

The fundamental premise that these rules are based on, that weapons do different amount of damage based on size, is itself laughably unrealistic.

And I would point out that metal plate armors either stop a blow entirely or they make it worse. Flexible armors like the gambeson and maille can absorb some of the impact, but plate either absorbs all of the impact or it caves in and starts tearing up your flesh on its own.

Yes, right through your gambeson if you're still actively fighting.

 

[Arch-Fiend]

The most effective weapons for piercing armor are always the least effective weapons for bypassing Armor as DR systems. Bows and crossbows are especially cheated, while early firearms' abilities are almost ludicrously exaggerated.

The fundamental premise that these rules are based on, that weapons do different amount of damage based on size, is itself laughably unrealistic.

force= mass*velocity^2

momentum=mass*velocity

human powered acceleration of mass is an effort of diminishing returns once you can begin to accelerate a mass up to about 100m/h because the human arm has a limited field of motion and the forces which accelerating that arm apply quadraticly rather than liberally

thus at about 100m/h you need to begin to start increasing mass (with minimal reduction in velocity) in order to impart any meaningful change in force or momentum,

so yes, heavier weapons do more damage (unless you dont think hitpoints represent physical wounds in which case i have a different forum thread for you)

And I would point out that metal plate armors either stop a blow entirely or they make it worse. Flexible armors like the gambeson and maille can absorb some of the impact, but plate either absorbs all of the impact or it caves in and starts tearing up your flesh on its own.

Yes, right through your gambeson if you're still actively fighting.

most breastplates are domed several inches from the chest, not only to act to deflect blows away from your body (something i maybe should think about in my armor as dr system now that i mention it) while also meaning any strikes that plasticity deform that armor have room for that armor to deform into besides your body. the tops of helmets were the same way, the sides of helmets less so but typically hitting the side of someones head is going to cause their neck to tilt whether instinctively or not which is going to massively harm your edge alignment and slow your impact down to a weaker impact, though they are going to feel that on their neck, so much so that it can be enough they leave the fight (rarely die though)

the better and thicker the armor is the less likely your going to be able to plasticly deform the metal into a shape that begins to harm the wearer just by wearing it. and it doesent take much to create armor which doesn't plasticly deform very easly at all, weapons with a lot of weight and thus also a lot of momentum can make up for that. but you see those arrow tests, it takes a bit, some weapons like maces were designed specifically to damage armor and even then the weakest parts of armor are going to be the least vital, few people die to bruises on their arms and legs, it takes a hell of a lot of force to get through the breastplate, so in comes the lance.

 

[DammitVictor]

force= mass*velocity^2

momentum=mass*velocity

Congratulations. Now explain to me which of these numbers governs whether or not a strike punctures a critical internal organ or blood vessel, thus causing the target to stop fighting.

Unless you think hit points represent a living body's homogeneous capacity to absorb physical impact... in which case you should stop talking about realism until you've had a few more decades to acclimate your consciousness to this layer of mathematical reality.

 

[Arch-Fiend]

Congratulations. Now explain to me which of these numbers governs whether or not a strike punctures a critical internal organ or blood vessel, thus causing the target to stop fighting.

both of them, one is the central force in kenetic energy which describes the energy that is propelling an object through space and through substances that occupy space. the atmosphere is a fluid that provides some resistance but not nearly as much as critical internal organs, blood vessels, and everything between those and the atmosphere. momentum describes the mechanic which keeps that object in motion when forces around it are acting to resist it, the atmosphere again providing some resistance though while the weapon is swung the energy is building thus momentum to builds, however the critical internal organs and blood vessels and everything in between them and the atmosphere has so much resistance that the arm can not actually built up kenetic energy to propel the weapon when the weapon is impacting thus the arm must rely on what force and momentum it built up before impact to drive the object toward critical internal organs or blood vessels.

Unless you think hit points represent a living body's homogeneous capacity to absorb physical impact... in which case you should stop talking about realism until you've had a few more decades to acclimate your consciousness to this layer of mathematical reality.

5E - ludonarrative dissonance of hitpoints in D&D i seem to make a good argument that DAMAGE represents a living body's homogeneous compacity to absorb physical impact being tested even if i dont make a good argument that hitpoints represent a living body's homogeneous compacity to absorb physical impact.

i didint design this homebrew to create armor that is realistic for how hitpoints are represented, i designed this homebrew to create armor that is realistic for how damage is represented, its not my fault that weapons in 5e deal more damage based on how heavy they are and that different creatures have resistances, immunities and vulnerabilities to different kinds of weapons because of an inherent quality of how their bodies react to being physically impacted by those weapons. i have to create armor thats realistic in handling those mechanics, not hitpoints

 

[DammitVictor]

My point is, you can't make the model for how armor protects its wearer from damage realistic when it's based on the similarly unrealsitic model for how weapons deal damage. D&D players have all these weird ideas about "realism" that are almost entirely based on the abstract gaming conventions of previous versions of D&D and they lead people who want "realism" in their games to make D&D both less playable and less realistic.

You can't try to "fix" these things in isolation, or else you only end up making them more embedded in the models that produced them. You're confusing the map for the terrain.

 

[Arch-Fiend]

My point is, you can't make the model for how armor protects its wearer from damage realistic when it's based on the similarly unrealsitic model for how weapons deal damage. D&D players have all these weird ideas about "realism" that are almost entirely based on the abstract gaming conventions of previous versions of D&D and they lead people who want "realism" in their games to make D&D both less playable and less realistic.

You can't try to "fix" these things in isolation, or else you only end up making them more embedded in the models that produced them. You're confusing the map for the terrain.

how is weapons hit you and thus it deals damage unrealistic? thats what happens in reality, it doesent matter if the fact that the proportions change in the game in an unrealistic way. all of the properties of weapons and other forms of damage in the game reflect the idea of them being able to do physical harm, my goal was thus to create a system of armor which realistically reflects the notion of armor reacting to how damage functions in this game as a defense against it. it doesent matter how much damage it does to what is wearing that armor, what matters is the armor itself works in a believable manor given what we know about damage in this game. what happens to the person under the armor is subject to a different group of philosophers even if i happen to be one of them. and its happening somewhere else on this forum

also i didint fix anything, i simply made mechanics work a way that they would work in reflection to my perspective on what the best interpretation of how damage works in 5e D&D. just because i say its realistic doesent mean thats fixing something, that simply means its not the way 5e's ac mechanics work which i find to be less realistic based on my notion of how damage works in this game, which i put work into in examining. if you would like to argue how AC is a 1:1 comparison to reality in terms of how realistic it is in the game based on your perspective of how the mechanics of the game work, be my guest, but dont tell me how i see the game is wrong unless you have a good argument for how the way you see the game is right. (and if its going to be purely about how hitpoints work, take it over to where im talking about hitpoints)

 

[Arch-Fiend]

Errata 3

-added the overwhelmed condition, a condition where a characters ac decreases as they are surrounded by enemies and the effectiveness of their guard against attack diminishes.

-changed the function of opportunity attack to account for the increased threat of being surrounded in combat

 

[Arch-Fiend]

Errata 4

-added +2 to field plate, breastplate, and halfplate's unmodified armor protection to represent how the large plates it is made from are formed to create solid domes over the chest, face, and top of head that can absorb impact from direct hits and must deform some in order to come in contact with the wearer.

-reduced the full armor protection of certain armors while granting them a bonus to touch ac to represent the ability for them to glance blows that would otherwise hit if unarmored. it is a feature of plate armors and 2 natural armors

 

[JiffyPopTart]

how is weapons hit you and thus it deals damage unrealistic? thats what happens in reality, it doesent matter if the fact that the proportions change in the game in an unrealistic way.

I'm going to guess that the point of the question was "Why try to make armor more 'realistic' for a system that boils down all injuries into a very unrealistic bucket of hit points."

5e (and DnD in general) doesn't do bone breaks, concussion, or bleeding out and still conscious. It has a bucket of X hit points that when they are exhausted you are either dead, dying, or just unconscious. Up until that point you are fit as a fiddle. There is no "You got smacked on the arm with a mace and your elbow is shattered" nor is there "You got hit by one arrow, but its cut your femoral artery and you are going to be dead in 3 rounds even though you were at full health and you are 20th level." I don't have a problem with the system working the way it works...but that is the foundation the combat rules are built upon.

Compare this system to Rolemaster...which has a much more detailed (and yet more unusable in my opinion) system of actually trying to incorporate bone breaks and femoral artery hits and such and you get this spell system. NOTE: This is two different spells...one to heal fleshwounds and a second to heal bone wounds.

 

[Arch-Fiend]

I'm going to guess that the point of the question was "Why try to make armor more 'realistic' for a system that boils down all injuries into a very unrealistic bucket of hit points."

5e (and DnD in general) doesn't do bone breaks, concussion, or bleeding out and still conscious. It has a bucket of X hit points that when they are exhausted you are either dead, dying, or just unconscious. Up until that point you are fit as a fiddle. There is no "You got smacked on the arm with a mace and your elbow is shattered" nor is there "You got hit by one arrow, but its cut your femoral artery and you are going to be dead in 3 rounds even though you were at full health and you are 20th level." I don't have a problem with the system working the way it works...but that is the foundation the combat rules are built upon.

Compare this system to Rolemaster...which has a much more detailed (and yet more unusable in my opinion) system of actually trying to incorporate bone breaks and femoral artery hits and such and you get this spell system. NOTE: This is two different spells...one to heal fleshwounds and a second to heal bone wounds.

View attachment 115297

how is weapons hit you and thus it deals damage unrealistic? thats what happens in reality, it doesent matter if the fact that the proportions change in the game in an unrealistic way. all of the properties of weapons and other forms of damage in the game reflect the idea of them being able to do physical harm, my goal was thus to create a system of armor which realistically reflects the notion of armor reacting to how damage functions in this game as a defense against it. it doesent matter how much damage it does to what is wearing that armor, what matters is the armor itself works in a believable manor given what we know about damage in this game. what happens to the person under the armor is subject to a different group of philosophers even if i happen to be one of them. and its happening somewhere else on this forum