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Thickness of Armor Question?

Aluvial

Explorer
How thick are the various armors in the PH?

I'm ruling that full plate is a 1/4 inch thick. What do you think?

How about chain, or banded?

Aluvial
 

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From what I understand, plate mail is large metal plates attached to chain mail which is worn over padding. It would be reasonable to assume the plates are about 1/4" thick, but the chain and padding are going to add girth the the wearer as well.

I found this this http://www.medieval-ware.com/chainmailarmor.html which identifies chainmail at having a 7/16" inner diameter (rings only, no mention of the padding to be worn underneath).

Hope this helps.
 

Skinwalker said:
From what I understand, plate mail is large metal plates attached to chain mail which is worn over padding. It would be reasonable to assume the plates are about 1/4" thick, but the chain and padding are going to add girth the the wearer as well.

I found this this http://www.medieval-ware.com/chainmailarmor.html which identifies chainmail at having a 7/16" inner diameter (rings only, no mention of the padding to be worn underneath).

Hope this helps.

Thanks, I'm just looking for an easy way to determine hardness and mainly HP for armor.

If I had my vote, they should have put the a CRAFT DC and a Hardness and HP to everything in the game.

It would make things so much easier.

Aluvial
 

A quarter inch is fine for thickness of armor...

If you're a battleship.

Plate armor is much much thinner than a quarter inch. You wouldn't even be able to work with the plates, let alone move in them. As a ballpart, I'd say around 12 to 14 gauge thickness. Translated to inches, that's .10 to .075 inches.

And I agree by the way about craft DC's. I thought there was hardness and hp listings for armor though but I'd have to look.
 

Historical platemail was less than 1mm thick (1/25 of an inch) - it deflected blows through its shape, it didn't just absorb damage - that was done by the thick padding underneath.
 

So what you guys are saying, that unattended armor that takes damage has a hardness of 10 and 1 hp at any given spot.

Correct?
 

PHB armours are rather heavy by histoprical standards though, so I guess you could make it a bit thicker if you wanted, maybe up to 1/10 of an inch at a stretch. Historical platemail was quite light, really.
 

Aluvial said:
So what you guys are saying, that unattended armor that takes damage has a hardness of 10 and 1 hp at any given spot.

Correct?

Sounds about right for a weapon attack (the Hardness is a bit high, but that's the crudeness of the system) - but as its shape deflects blows, it should have an AC above 0, also. This is just to make a small hole of course.
 

Ok, so what if you pour acid over it. I used the hardness of 10 for metal.

At 1 hp per any given location, the acid would immediately eat through (if it beat the hardness), wouldn't you say?

Aluvial
 
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