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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Willie the Duck" data-source="post: 8781677" data-attributes="member: 6799660">Someone recently mentioned it to me and included a reference to the ahistoric studded leather concept, so I think it's a good guess that the book is more fantasy-focused than historical accuracy. 2e AD&D Arms and Equipment guide is similar.Funnily, 5e armor entry for studded leather doesn't mention metal ("Made from tough but flexible leather, studded leather is reinforced with close-set rivets or spikes."). It's hard to imagine a non-metal rivet in the default fantasy materials list*, but not hard to imagine a non-metal spike. If it were a historic armor, I'd be strongly arguing something along the lines of 'you know what they mean,' but with an armor we just finished pointing out didn't really exist**, I don't know that I'm in a hurry to do so (plus, the whole druid/non-metal thing is pointless and bizarre at this point anyways). *obviously dragon-scales-as-material can do anything you want, or you can make one out of space-age material in such a campaign.**to any large degree. Armor never meant for real combat has existed about as long as armor has.I assume the 5e armor chart is part of the whole 'make 5e an A/D&D greatest hits edition' thing we've heard it was. Bring back the TSR-era armors (not that 3e or 4e didn't have most of these, but the iconic armors of 3e were chain shirt, breastplate, and plate -- 3 relatively realistic armor options -- while everthing else was an also-ran) and have the play loop resemble the old ones (the roguish characters stuck with leather or studded, the warrior-types wore ring or splint or scale until they could afford full or partial plate). I get the why, even if I'd have preferred it be different. Broad and bastard swords -- I think bastard sword was a casualty of finally getting the longsword concept right-ish*, and broad sword just was never popular enough (didn't help that it was objectively worse than a longsword in the editions that had it). Scimitars had druids and Drizzt keeping them notable until 3e came along and made them the crit-fishing sword. Shortswords saw enough representation on the magic item table to carry them to when they were a common finesse/two-weapon-fighting weapon. The rest? Just kinda faded.*side benefit: not having a new generation of 8-10 y. o. new players running around using that word, although I have no idea if that was really part of the thinking. This raises the side point -- most armor was about the same weight and bulk, and thus there weren't a whole lot of 'light' armors*. Gambeson (as a separate piece of armor), leather (when used), linothorax, hides, all of these would still be worn in large suits looking not-unlike the guys in plate harness or chain hauberks or whatever. Predominantly because why not? Sure, there's some variation like maybe the archer or pikeman (or naval combatants) wouldn't bother with certain pieces, different helmets based on how much you value visibility, obviously entire regions of the world where bundling up in poorly-breathing suits was more or less challenging, what you wear on the road (or in non-war situations) vs a set battle with prep-time, and so on, but in general there's a specific amount of mass that's easy to wear and people generally did. Most of the reasons to want 'light' armor at the same time you want armor at all are D&D-isms -- you want the dashing roguish types in fantasy stealth-armor or fantasy outlaw crook in medieval biker-gang leathers-analog or swashbuckler in... I guess light armor*. I think it would make perfect sense in a theoretical 6E for the light armors to be some kind of 'hidden armor' or 'reinforced clothing' (with the cheap/low-stealth one currently occupied by Padded being 'improvised armor' or the like). Or just get rid of light armor altogether and maybe make rogues and Dex-fighters and such just be somewhat better at fighting unarmored than wizards or paladins outside their plate would be (if we're trying to preserve existing dynamics at all). *The whole Three Muskeeteers vibe would work fine with no armor at all, since the entire conceit is this is what they did in a civilian setting. In war they would have muskets and the battlefield armor of the day, but in AD&D terms that means missing out on the +1-5 magic bonus on the armor as well.</blockquote>

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