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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 2465363" data-attributes="member: 3146">What do you mean by light armor? Chain shirts? Leather? Studded leather? Breastplates? A specific answer to that question will go a long way towards answering your question. A few possibilities:1. Lack of resources. The area simply doesn't have enough iron to support an iron based armor technology. Weapons will also tend towards things like flails, morning stars, warhammers, and spears that require less metal to make than swords. In such an environment, any metal armor would be prohibitively expensive and thus it is quite possible that the technology wouldn't develop at all. (Sure, a few kings could afford to buy enough iron for fullplate, but they're not going to employ several generations of engineers to develop the technology necessary for fullplate). In this case, you'd have bronze breastplates and greaves and leather based armors.2. Extreme temperature. In extreme heat or extreme cold, heavy steel armor becomes impractical. Of course, this means playing a desert or an arctic game, but in either case, the normal D&D temperature rules explain why the technology for heavy metal armor was never developed even if other technologies were developed.3. A different method of magic. If it costs enhancement bonus ^2 to make magic heavy armor (or ^2 for medium armor and ^3 for heavy armor), it will be more effective to make light armor with a higher enhancement bonus than to make magic heavy armor. This would also explain why the technology never developed in civilized lands.</blockquote>

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