D&D 5E Video of guys in plate mail as reference for you!

[Greg Benage]

Don't forget, in addition to that you can also swim in plate.

Eh. This guy managed about ten feet, or just shy of one round's worth of swimming. He's a former certified lifeguard and spends 100 hours a year in his armor.

http://vimeo.com/13634653

 

[Raxxius]

I can't find the right thing on the internet at the moment but my instructor has an English Longbowmans sword which for all intents and purposes looks exactly like a scimitar. Long, heavy, curved blade with a twisted crossguard to help protect the fingers. Its awkward and heavy (about triple the weight of the Gladius, if not more), difficult to wield but much like the scimitar was designed to be used by men with superior upper body strength that didn't want or expect to be in direct combat for very long at all. One swing and it should all be over, you really wouldn't want to be using this thing for very long at all.

The following pic is about the closest I can find but the twisted parts of the guard are longer in reality to protect fingers on one side (very important for a longbowman) and trap weapons with the other rather than the decorative appearance here
View attachment 64706

The weapon you're refering to is a Falchion, it has a few different designs, but largely it was an axe in sword form, weight balance towards the tip of the blade to allow for power over finesse, sharp on a single edge makes it easier to make and maintain. Common weapon used by the Longbow mercs.

 

[Cannyjiggit]

I have also always heard that the term "chain mail" was a redundancy, as that is what the old term "mail" meant. Though I suppose that the term has been expanded to cover any linked or overlapping armor such as "scale mail".

Scale mail comes more in the same vein as plate mail in that its maille along with scale armour made of small (compared to plate) overlapping plates much like animal scales do, usually from cuboilli or something similar rather than metal.
Chanmail however is not a redundant term because maille also covers ringmail.
Ringmail is not quite as effective but much simpler and cheaper to make in that the weave pattern uses 2 sizes of rings, large ones running across the body with the smaller ones perpendicular to that holding the larger ones together. The term is also occasionally used to refer to hard leather with metal rings sewn onto it for added strength but thats a rather false name for that style of armour.
Chainmail is made (or at least the simpler way of making it) by making chains of same sized rings with every other link having 2 rings instead of 1 and then connecting the chains together in parallel to match up the single links with the doubles. Chainmail leaves smaller gaps, is more flexible and doesn't expose as large an area when it gets damaged.

Chainmail close up looks like this:


Whereas Ringmail is like the cuff on this gauntlet - the main part is chainmail but hard to see the weave:

 

[Scorpio616]

And wasn't armor built to protect from picks and maces as well as swords? I would have found the demo more convincing if they'd demonstrated that it was heavy enough to deal with those and not just a sword.

Those weapons stand a much better chance of causing noticeable damage to the plate and probably hurting the guy inside. Sword will leave a scratch, those other weapons might leave a dent or hole.

 

[Grainger]

If you step out of the Eurocentric view, and look more broadly, across cultural lines, the world was a bit more of a melting pot. Heck, we had stone age peoples wandering around during Europe's late-Renaissance.

The book is a toolbox. It doesn't represent a single culture and time period. Nor does it represent all known cultures and time periods. It is merely a collection of some of the most common and/or recognizable stuff from history. It is for the makers of the game world to sort out the historical and regional details.

Perhaps true, but IME DMs just allow the players to have anything at all from the equipment lists, irrespective of original tech level or culture. It's assumed by DMs and players that the PHB equipment (weapons, armour, general equipment) are the baseline, and exotic stuff is added on to this.

 

[EroGaki]

About 6 years ago, there was an absolutely fascinating thread about this sort of subject:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?242110-History-Mythology-Art-and-RPGs

I'm uncertain if I'm linking it correctly or not. :/

 

[fireinthedust]

Yeah, but flails are so brutal.

also, this isn't related to anything, but have you seen Braveheart? You know that scene where Mel Gibson kills the guy in his bed, and he's just got that really long chain with a steel ball on the end of that? What is that? Is that just a different kind of flail? Because it's so cool.

Isn't that the spiked chain from 3e? In Heroes of Horror there are two NPC stat blocks that use it, and I believe they're illustrated. Oh, and in the MM there's the minor Vampire who has a spiked chain. It gives you range, it's two handed, and I think it's an exotic weapon.

 

[fireinthedust]

Question: What is roman legionary armour? Is it Banded mail? Or would it be a breast plate or what?

 

[Umbran]

Question: What is roman legionary armour? Is it Banded mail? Or would it be a breast plate or what?

Well, the Roman Legions existed for centuries, so it wasn't just one thing - they evolved over time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_military_personal_equipment

 

[Grainger]

Yeah, the earliest Roman warriors had no armour, then they fought as Hoplites, so may have had Hoplite style armour (linen).

The earliest actual legionaries had a single (small) rectangular metal plate on their chests. Then they borrowed the idea of chain mail from the Celts, and the professional Roman army adopted this. Next, they went over to what people tend to think of as the classic Roman Legionary armour (which I always imagine is banded in D&D terms). Chain certainly existed side-by-side with this, and may have done so for some time.

Later, some troops wore scale armour (which is presumably where D&D gets it from, as I don't think scale was used in medieval times). Eventually, Roman troops were more lightly armoured again, and ended up looking more like "dark age"/early medieval warriors.