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We finally got back to playing with the kids again last night and I started looking at the armour side combat. Only one person has had a suit of armour destroyed. The rest have been playing for 2 years in their original suits of armour. Most battles see one of the characters near death in pristine armour. It's not doing its job.
So I'm thinking of trying a damage reduction approach. Each armour will retain its AR. In order to inflict any damage, you have to roll higher, otherwise it acts like natural AR and the hit is just deflected/absorbed.
Each type of armour will be given a damage reduction amount against three types of attacks. Thrusting, cutting and blunt. The max I was thinking would be 20 points for plate. So if someone with a 2D6 sword and +10 to damage would have to roll a 11 or 12 to inflict damage to the person. Every combat that the armour was hit in would result in a -1 reduction of the AR until it could be repaired. So holes get bigger and easier to hit until it was at -50% at which point your armour would no longer offer protection. I was also thinking that each battle would reduce the damage reduction by one as well.
I think it would be simple enough to track, and with my games anyway, the characters tend to inflict enough damage that most hits would still cause damage.
Any thoughts? Anyone else try something similar? How did it work?

The higher level you get the less effective armour gets until its pretty much full plate is about as effective as wet cloth.
I changed it so mostly the only bonus you get to penetrate armour is your weapon proficiency plus to strike. (weapons can get up to plus 2, as well as some perks)
I gave Rigid armour some damage reduction as well (between 5 and 10 points) and added enchantments for up to +5 AR
Also with full plate, if someone crits you still take double damage, but the armour takes half of it, sort of negating the crit but not.
Added some extra armour damage enchantments and perks
(i.e if you penetrate armour you still damage the armour and that sort of thing)

Those could work. One GM I played with only allowed armor to be penetrated by the natural roll (so if the die showed 8, it didn't matter if you had a +13 to make it 21; you hit, but the armor took the damage).

Another GM declared that armor can't be beat without called shots. Normal rolls to attack will not beat the armors AR, even on natural 20s. He also upped the ARs by between 4 and 8, IIRC, depending on the armor (the more complete suits got upped more, I think that full plate for him was AR 24 or 25).

Ive been (extremely slowly, as i have lots of other irons in the fire) reworking the Palladium system into something more playable.

The changes im going to make to armor, i think, would help with what you're looking for.

It basically goes like this:

A.R. (as it currently exists) - which is beaten by passive attack rolls - ceases to exist.

If you're wearing armor, all attacks hit the armor by default. (Similar to how in Rifts, even non-EBA suits that have open spots, the attacks always hit the armor by default).
Armor has a coverage rating - A.C.R. - that is the target number to defeat if you want to make a called shot to bypass the armor. Coverage Rating also applies to non-armor cover (like hiding behind a low wall, etc). Exact same mechanic. Shields too (shields provide a cover rating).

So if you are wearing leather armor that covers most of your body, it might be ACR 15-18 (due to the nature of leather, its not really possible to have all spots covered). That means to hit your personal HP or SDC, the attacker has to make a called shot and beat the ACR, otherwise the shot just lands on the armor.

For shields, they provide a Coverage Rating against ranged attacks (the attacker must make a called shot to shoot around the shield); in melee, they ADD to the Coverage Rating of your armor (+1 to +3 depending on the size of the shield W.P. would provide +1 to ACR at levels 6 and 12).

Armor (can) also have an Armor Reduction Rating - this is the amount of damage the armor can absorb without really taking damage. So even if the enemy hits your armor, it may take relatively little damage. I wouldn't go hog wild here; i'd say that full plate (with apropriate under-armoring/padding) would probably have an ARR of ~5 to 7. Other hard/splinted armors like Lamellar, Brigandine, etc, would be 4-6, maile would be around 2-4. Leather, almost none. (I can post a separate rant about how leather armor is not really a thing). This all assumes you're wearing the proper padding (a gambeson or similar padded garment) under your armor.

Some weapons can have an Armor Penetration Rating - this directly counters Armor Reduction Rating point-for-point; in an SDC setting, i would also consider the APR to be the amount of damage that blows through your armor to your SDC/HP if it isnt countered by ARR.

For instance, i fyou had an ARR of 3, and someone hit you with an Armor Piercing Weapon with an APR of 6, then 3 points of damage would still hit you inside the armor - it got through and did a little damage.

Thats just a brief run-down, and it needs to be run through the paces with math to figure out where its broken.

A version I went with is to take the AR as listed. Reduce it by 4. That is how much damage is absorbed from every hit on a person so armored. For every point of damage armor absorbs, it loses SDC. Everything over its AR is transferred to the person inside. When you roll a critical, you can either do double damage, or ignore armor. If you have a *3 or *4 critical, you can reduce your multiplier by 1 and ignore armor, or use your full multiplier.

So, let's say I have a suit of armor, that is listed in the book as having an AR 11 and a SDC of 44 (can't remember if this a real suit or not). In this system, it would have an AR of 7 and an SDC of 44. I have 20 HP and 20 SDC myself.

Someone stabs me with a knife for 5 damage? My armor absorbs all of it, and its SDC goes down to 39.
An then ogre hits me with a club for 15 damage? My armor absorbs 7 of it, its SDC becomes 32 (39-7), and my SDC goes down to 12 (20-8 points not absorbed by armor).
Guy with a knife gets a critical hit on me? He can either do double damage (5*2), of which my armor will absorb 7, or he can ignore my armor and do 5 points to me.
Ogre gets a *3 critical on me? He can either do 45 damage (which my armor will absorb 7), or he can ignore my armor and do 30 damage to me.

They then get to argue about who gets my stuff. My money is on the ogre.

I like this version because it works with the statistics in the book, gives critical hits a clear advantage, and makes wearing armor and just taking the hits a good idea at times.

dreicunan wrote:Those could work. One GM I played with only allowed armor to be penetrated by the natural roll (so if the die showed 8, it didn't matter if you had a +13 to make it 21; you hit, but the armor took the damage).

This was the first way that I tried. I didn't end up caring for it.

Mark, your way seems pretty interesting. I might give it a try beside my way and see how they compare.

Another thing I would add, and is in direct conflict with the book:

Shield should get a bonus to parry arrows. Shields should get to auto-parry arrows. Shields are Cover when used against arrows. I don't care if you're the love child of Legolas and Kate Bishop, you're going to find it harder to shoot a man holding a table than the same man standing in the open, because there will be a big chunk of wood that randomly interposes itself between you and 50% of the target.

I agree, and even when not actively trying to parry with a large shield it should give you some cover.

Shields impose a negative to hit in my games and provide a substantial bonus to parry. If you want to hit a guy behind a shield, take the two attacks and make a called shot.

Mark Hall wrote:Another thing I would add, and is in direct conflict with the book:

Shield should get a bonus to parry arrows. Shields should get to auto-parry arrows. Shields are Cover when used against arrows. I don't care if you're the love child of Legolas and Kate Bishop, you're going to find it harder to shoot a man holding a table than the same man standing in the open, because there will be a big chunk of wood that randomly interposes itself between you and 50% of the target.

While I run first edition and play "free and loose" with the rules, I completely agree with you mark and I like your idea about AR -4 is damage absorbed by armor.

The system has to "feel right" at 1st level and feel just as right at 15th level. It's up to us GM's and players to make the system match out own ideas of what "game reality" means. I've seen people that don't like the idea that Palladium's system can be fluid but until the RPG police knock down my door and make me stop, I'm using these ideas.

Whiskeyjack wrote:Shields impose a negative to hit in my games and provide a substantial bonus to parry. If you want to hit a guy behind a shield, take the two attacks and make a called shot.

DO you play that using 2 attacks means it doesn't go off until the second attack, or the person just gets one attack per round less ?

First attack is aiming, second attack is shooting, so at the end. Same way I do it for the spell casters.

Lots of folks have house-rules for armor; the way I see it, if I house-rule it, I want to do three things:
1. Retain and employ the stats: AR and SDC should be meaningful.
2. Close the gaps where armor becomes irrelevant
3. Simplify the system, or at least don't make it any more complicated.

I've seen AR used as a value of damage reduction (any damage above the AR counts against the wearer) and as a bonus to parry (your strike must beat his parry plus his AR, or else you hit his armor). Either approach works for me. Most other approaches tend to require additional legwork.

The problem is armour penetration scales with level, armour protection doesn't.

kiralon wrote:The problem is armour penetration scales with level, armour protection doesn't.

As characters progress, they tend to get better strike bonuses (more from skill improvement) and inflict more damage (more from weapon improvement). The scaling is smoother with armor penetration than damage reduction, and I like the idea of armor penetration, but I'm fine with either approach.

The problem with the rules as written is that armor becomes less and less relevant as opponent strike bonuses come into play. A +9 to strike will automatically penetrate most light armors and penetrate plate armor 55% of the time. Now, if AR could be added to a defensive skill roll, then it would continue to be relevant in fights between high-level combatants. Otherwise, it becomes less and less important as you go.

That's why I'm looking for a change. Only one character has lost a suit of armour, and he's the Merc. The rest have taken a hit or two with the rest bypassing altogether. So for about 10 battles, the armour has absorbed about a dozen hits. The other issue, especially when you get into higher strength campaigns, is that you will completely loose your armour in one or two hits. So a strong thrust from a giant spear will somehow completely destroy a suit of leather armour.
When I get a chance this weekend I'll post what I'm thinking of trying in my game. I'm going to give it a go for a session, and then the next try Marks method and compare the two for ease, relevance and realism.
With the group potentially being drawn into the minion war, they'll be fighting heavy hitting opponents so I want armour to actually mean something and do its job by helping them survive.

So, here's what I was thinking. It might turn out to be too cumbersome, but I've managed to get the info fitting nicely into the armour of the character sheet.
So the way I've worked it to try and keep with realism is that each armour has a reduction amount for three types of attacks. Thrusting, cutting, and blunt. I'm just going to put a few of the main types.

Padded:Thrust -2, Cut -5, Blunt -10
Studded Leather: Thrust -10, Cut - 12, Blunt -10
Leather of Iron: Thrust -12, Cut - 15, Blunt -12
Maille: Thrust -5, Cut - 12, Blunt -12
Scale: Thrust -12, Cut -15, Blunt -15
Plate: Thrust -20(-10), Cut -20, Blunt -20(-15)

Plate has a reduced reduction against weapons specifically designed to penetrate it like warhammers, maces and polearms.

Hotrod wrote:I've seen AR used as a value of damage reduction (any damage above the AR counts against the wearer) and as a bonus to parry (your strike must beat his parry plus his AR, or else you hit his armor). Either approach works for me. Most other approaches tend to require additional legwork.

I have to say, I like "Armor as Parry Bonus", too. I think it's a bit more elegant than my approach, since it doesn't involve altering the AR.

Whiskeyjack wrote:So, here's what I was thinking. It might turn out to be too cumbersome, but I've managed to get the info fitting nicely into the armour of the character sheet.
So the way I've worked it to try and keep with realism is that each armour has a reduction amount for three types of attacks. Thrusting, cutting, and blunt. I'm just going to put a few of the main types.

Padded:Thrust -2, Cut -5, Blunt -10
Studded Leather: Thrust -10, Cut - 12, Blunt -10
Leather of Iron: Thrust -12, Cut - 15, Blunt -12
Maille: Thrust -5, Cut - 12, Blunt -12
Scale: Thrust -12, Cut -15, Blunt -15
Plate: Thrust -20(-10), Cut -20, Blunt -20(-15)

Plate has a reduced reduction against weapons specifically designed to penetrate it like warhammers, maces and polearms.

I considered something like this, based on the numbers in CWA&C, but I mostly abandoned it as too fiddly... too many things to keep track of, especially as PF does not, by default, track whether a weapon is cut, thrust, or bludgeon.

It's pretty easy to figure that out just by the attack type. If they're swinging a sword, it's a cut, if they're stabbing with it it's a thrust. The head of a hammer is blunt, the spiked side is a thrust etc.
I like the way it looks on paper, but the real test will be in play. As you say, it might be finicky. If it turns out that way, I might combine hotrods AR+ parry and your AR -4 for damage reduction the next session.

Thinking about WJ's combining of the two, I'd also note that it precludes the need for a "ignore armor but deal critical multiplier-1 damage". Exceed their parry total, and you hit the meat. Even if you roll a natural 20, you might hit their armor.

Mark Hall wrote:

Hotrod wrote:I've seen AR used as a value of damage reduction (any damage above the AR counts against the wearer) and as a bonus to parry (your strike must beat his parry plus his AR, or else you hit his armor). Either approach works for me. Most other approaches tend to require additional legwork.

I have to say, I like "Armor as Parry Bonus", too. I think it's a bit more elegant than my approach, since it doesn't involve altering the AR.

You can also do both, which is probably my favorite way. It works like this:

Scenario 1: An attacker swings a battle axe and rolls a 15 to strike with bonuses. The defender in full plate chooses not to parry and instead counterattacks (essentially a simultaneous action), since his armor has an AR of 17, and his practiced eye can tell that the blow is heading to a well-protected area. The attacker gets a lucky damage roll and does 20 points of damage. The armor takes 17 points, while the defender takes the other 3. At the same time, the defender is launching his own counterattack, which the attacker cannot parry or dodge.

Next round, the attacker swings again, rolling an 18 to strike with bonuses. Since the defender sees the swing coming at a vulnerable area, he parries or dodges, and rolls a 9 with bonuses. This means the defender gets hit. However, 9 + the defender's armor rating of 17 = 26, so the defender's armor takes the damage. This time, the attacker does only 8 points of damage, so the armor takes all of it.

Scenario 2: A thief in full cloth armor gets attacked in the street by a soldier with a mace. The soldier rolls a 12 to strike. The thief rolls a 6 to parry. Even adding in his armor rating of +5 makes it 11, which is not enough to overcome the strike roll, and the thief takes full damage.

The soldier attacks again, rolling a 15. This time, the thief rolls an 11. Adding in the armor rating of +5 is 16, enough for the thief's armor to take the shot. The soldier rolls 7 to damage, and so the armor takes 5 damage, reducing its SDC to 1, and the thief takes the rest.

The soldier attacks a third time, rolling a 14. The thief rolls a 13. Adding in the armor rating of +5 is enough for the thief's armor to take damage, and the soldier rolls a 5 to damage. However, the armor only absorbs 1 point, because it only had 1 SDC left. The thief takes the other 4 points, and is now completely unarmored.

Although the thief has been hitting the soldier during this time, too, the soldier's half chain had 20 SDC to start with, so it's still holding up.

The benefits of this approach:
+Gives armored combatants a big advantage over unarmored opponents.
+The benefits of armor scale up with the heavier, tougher, more expensive varieties. Heavy armor enables more "I can take it" tactics and a tank-like role in combat.
+Both AR and SDC remain important, and both have diminishing returns of benefit at higher values.
+Allows armor to be overcome in three ways: with skillful/lucky attacks, by strong attacks that overwhelm the per-hit protection of the armor, or by depleting the armor's SDC.

The downsides of this approach:
-By making armor more effective across the board, this will mean that combat requires more hits to beat armored opponents.
-The extra "but did my armor take it?" check and the "How much goes to armor and how much goes to the wearer?" check after a parry or dodge attempt adds an extra bit of math. It could very slightly increase the time to resolve most hits.

I like this. I'm going to adopt it and see how it works in live play. Thank you Mark and Hotrod!

Men at Arms should get a WP Armour so they get armour bonuses as they get better at using their armour and protecting their weak spots (Just like wp sword). Magic Classes shouldn't be able to take it, except maybe priest.

kiralon wrote:Men at Arms should get a WP Armour so they get armour bonuses as they get better at using their armour and protecting their weak spots (Just like wp sword). Magic Classes shouldn't be able to take it, except maybe priest.

That's a neat idea. I like it. How would it progress? How would it fit with the current system, and how would it augment the proposed system collaboration by Mark and Hotrod?

It wouldn't augment it, it would just go along with the current skills. plus to strike gets out of balance with armour penetration because wp bonuses to strike, item bonuses and magic bonuses, so for it to balance out, either the manufacture or magic bonuses need to be high enough to cope (easiest method to fix issue) but palladium restricted the AR bonus to 1 or 2. Letting Armour get enchanted up to +10 to AR would balance the problem, and if you go this way, I suggest giving the armour the plus as damage resistance as well, nothing like spending half a million gold on armour only to get it chopped off in 1 combat. So +10 Full plate is AR 27 SDC normal and 10 Damage resistance.
If you go the skill way just write up a table for light and heavy armour that has bonuses to AR and bonuses to Damage Resistance and/or sdc that tends to match the total strike bonuses.

Mark Hall wrote:Another thing I would add, and is in direct conflict with the book:

Shield should get a bonus to parry arrows. Shields should get to auto-parry arrows. Shields are Cover when used against arrows. I don't care if you're the love child of Legolas and Kate Bishop, you're going to find it harder to shoot a man holding a table than the same man standing in the open, because there will be a big chunk of wood that randomly interposes itself between you and 50% of the target.

Or more. Depending on the style of shield used (a Norman Kite Shield will cover you from chin to ankle) you may have almost no target.

In my system (above), shields provide a separate Coverage Rating that you can only get around by making a called shot (against ranged attacks; against melee attacks they improve your Armor Coverage Rating). Since you are making a called shot to get around the shield, you cannot additionally try to bypass the characters’ armor.

Really, it comes down to playability. Real armor of the period generally made you relatively impervious to the weapons of the day. Otherwise people would not have worn it. Shields were, in a lot of cases, used more than armor because of how hard it was to get around one.

But you cant really replicate that in a game because otherwise Armor would = invicibility. Armor also generally isn’t destroyable. I dont care how often you hit me with a sword (or anything short of a pole weapon with an armor piercing/damaging head like a Lucern Hammer, the rear spike on a Halberd or Pollaxe, etc)... you aren’t going to destroy my plate armor. The most you’re going to do, even WITH a heavy-headed weapon like i described above, is bend or pinch certain parts of it, or on a VERY lucky hit, actually punch through the plate - but in most cases the spike-heads will glance off. You can hit me with a sword all day, ill just laugh at you.

(If you want to see an IRL example of what im talking about, watch Battle of the Nations or other HMB tournaments - theyre fighting with real, live-steel weapons. Only the edges are blunted. They fight until exhaustion in a lot of cases. And no, no matter how sharp your sword is, it will not cut real plate armor. Check out the Detroit Fight Club - theyre local to the area of Palladium’s headquarters and qualified for the BoN this year).

Even maile was relatively impervious to all but some very specialized weapons. You can hit me with a sword all day if im in a properly made maile hauberk (riveted; butted mail was not actually used and is a modern convenience) with a proper gambeson under it. You wont hurt me. Now, you CAN punch through it with weapons pointy enough to get into a ring and force it to split open, but in a lot of cases, the would will be superficial, because it then has to penetrate the gambeson, which is a lot harder than people think it is.

Thats why i went with the modifications i did - making AR the target number to Called-shot around the armor. That way, the vast majority of the time, shots will hit your armor, making the armor worth wearing. But if the opponent really wants to try to take you down, he can burn the extra actions to make a called shot to get past your armor. Its about as realistic as you can get without making it broken.

Most knights (and later, professional soldiers/mercenaries) in full plate armor died of heat exhaustion, dehydration, or by being borne over by multiple guys, and held down and stabbed someplace vulnerable.

Father Goose wrote:

kiralon wrote:Men at Arms should get a WP Armour so they get armour bonuses as they get better at using their armour and protecting their weak spots (Just like wp sword). Magic Classes shouldn't be able to take it, except maybe priest.

That's a neat idea. I like it. How would it progress? How would it fit with the current system, and how would it augment the proposed system collaboration by Mark and Hotrod?

This isn’t a terrible idea.

You could use it with my system by simply having it increase the Armor Coverage rating, or by having it give you Armor Reduction Rating. (As initially conceived, my ACR/ARR/CR system was intended primarioly for Rifts, and ARR was going to be something that only large vehicles and walls/buildings/fortifications had, but low amounts on the heavier armors wouldnt be too broken)

In the Vanilla Palladium system, i’d have it give AR bonuses and grant damage reduction even IF the shots get past your armor.

we use the natural die rolls to determine if it hits armor or not, due to this

zerombr wrote:we use the natural die rolls to determine if it hits armor or not, due to this

A viable solution. That keeps skill from trivializing armor, but in doing so it makes skill irrelevant to penetrating armor.

Hotrod wrote:

zerombr wrote:we use the natural die rolls to determine if it hits armor or not, due to this

A viable solution. That keeps skill from trivializing armor, but in doing so it makes skill irrelevant to penetrating armor.

Which, in all honesty, is actually pretty accurate to how armor really worked (as Colonel_Tetsuya noted).

Found this one
Hand to Hand Mercenary
Lvl
1 +1 Damage, +1 Initiative
2 +2 Parry/Dodge, Armour and Shields get Invulnerability: 2
3 2 Attacks Per Melee, +1 AR In all non-rigid armour
4 +2 Damage, +2 Initiative, Shields get Invulnerability: 3/6 (Wood/Steel)
5 +3 Parry/Dodge, +2 AR in all non-rigid Armour, Armour Invulnerability: 3
6 3 Attacks Per Melee
7 Critical Strike on 19-20, +3 Initiative
8 +3 Damage, Quick Draw, Shields get Invulnerability: 5/10 (Wood/Steel)
9 Pick 3 Kick attacks, +3 AR in all non-rigid Armour and +1 AR to rigid armour
10 Stun 18-20, Armour Invulnerability: 4
11 +4 Damage, + 4 Initiative
12 4 Attacks Per Melee, +4 AR in all non-rigid Armour and +2 AR to rigid armour
13 +5 Damage, Critical from behind
14 +4 Parry/Dodge, Shields get Invulnerability: 10/15 (Wood/Steel)
15 5 Attacks Per Melee, + 5 Initiative

zerombr wrote:we use the natural die rolls to determine if it hits armor or not, due to this

Do you use this against monsters? Seems like a high level monster with high AR could get very dangerous if characters aren't adding to hit bonuses to their rolls?

Coming back to this again in preparation for my next session.
I've been thinking on another issue that kind of bugs me, and that's the actual SDC of the armour. While I can fully appreciate armour taking damage during combat and needing repair, the speed with which armour can be destroyed is also out of whack.
Using Marks combat example above (it matches closest to partial scale) one hit with a dagger and two hits with a club have completely destroyed a suit of armour made from metal and leather. Realistically, armour should survive most battles with nothing more than some dents or small holes if plate, cuts or tears if leather, and some broken chains if mail.
I'm going to try to figure out how to enact this in game play. Maybe reducing the AR by a point after each battle until they can get it repaired. This would also make having metalworking or leather working skills quite useful.

Whiskeyjack wrote:Coming back to this again in preparation for my next session.
I've been thinking on another issue that kind of bugs me, and that's the actual SDC of the armour. While I can fully appreciate armour taking damage during combat and needing repair, the speed with which armour can be destroyed is also out of whack.
Using Marks combat example above (it matches closest to partial scale) one hit with a dagger and two hits with a club have completely destroyed a suit of armour made from metal and leather. Realistically, armour should survive most battles with nothing more than some dents or small holes if plate, cuts or tears if leather, and some broken chains if mail.
I'm going to try to figure out how to enact this in game play. Maybe reducing the AR by a point after each battle until they can get it repaired. This would also make having metalworking or leather working skills quite useful.

The way I get around this is damage reduction. The armour ignores the first x points of damage depending on the type of armour. Then give the warriors training in moving so a blow deflects rather than smashes straight in and the damage reduction works well.

kiralon wrote:

Whiskeyjack wrote:Coming back to this again in preparation for my next session.
I've been thinking on another issue that kind of bugs me, and that's the actual SDC of the armour. While I can fully appreciate armour taking damage during combat and needing repair, the speed with which armour can be destroyed is also out of whack.
Using Marks combat example above (it matches closest to partial scale) one hit with a dagger and two hits with a club have completely destroyed a suit of armour made from metal and leather. Realistically, armour should survive most battles with nothing more than some dents or small holes if plate, cuts or tears if leather, and some broken chains if mail.
I'm going to try to figure out how to enact this in game play. Maybe reducing the AR by a point after each battle until they can get it repaired. This would also make having metalworking or leather working skills quite useful.

The way I get around this is damage reduction. The armour ignores the first x points of damage depending on the type of armour. Then give the warriors training in moving so a blow deflects rather than smashes straight in and the damage reduction works well.

There are some design taboos I've noticed in the game:

1. Indestructible suits of armor are almost unheard-of. The only instance I'm aware of is in 1st Edition of High Seas, where one minor N.P.C. for hire has a suit with an AR of 12 that is indestructible. Even rune armor isn't invincible. In a world where shields are basically invincible and invincible weapons/tools are a thing, this seems strange.
2. Natural AR effectively provides limitless SDC, but this is rare among playable races, and very few magic items confer natural ARs to their wielders (the only instance I can think of off the top of my head are some rings in Western Empire).
3. The ability to create, improve, or do major repairs on armor is very uncommon among player characters, and the system for doing so is not well-defined (The Hinterlands blacksmith guidelines are pretty vague). Given the emphasis on player armor taking damage, it would seem to drive them to seek N.P.C. support between fights.
4. It's almost impossible to find N.P.C.'s or suits of armor with depleted S.D.C. values in the game. I can't think of any off the top of my head.

The books seem to be written mostly by GMs (or people who mostly GM), and I think these design taboos reflect this, putting it on the player to keep track of armor SDC while N.P.C.'s either start with pristine armor or enjoy a natural AR.

How much of a factor do you want to make armor? In my own house rules designed to make melee equipment choices more interesting, I made the AR reduce damage and add to defensive rolls (parry/dodge), which makes armor provide huge combat advantages. However, I retained armor SDC, both because I wanted to keep existing stats relevant and because I didn't want to bog combat down into a defensive slugfest (I also doubled damage for 2-handers).

That said, this topic has inspired me to revisit this issue, and I think I have a workable solution: only have light armor (cloth, leather, and padding) take damage from edged weapons and fire, and don't bother tracking damage to heavy armor, unless you're fighting a giant, equivalent monster, or someone using magic or magic weapons specifically designed to wreck armor (weapons made from one of the exotic dragon god blood metals does this).

The ironhide rings from the western empire aren't even rare, just expensive. . . Stupid things. Natural AR of up to 16
With the first ed smithing skills I allow the players to carry around a repair kit, and depending on their skill rolls, depends on how much sdc is repaired in a 4 hour period, but they cannot restore lost ar (need a forge and repair materials).
The players usually quite enjoy repairing their armour.
The damage reduction works pretty well, because full plate for example can ignore up to the first 10 points of damage of a blow, daggers and small weapons have trouble scratching it, unless you are really strong. So a paladin in the middle of a fight with goblins is basically wearing invincible armour, but against giants not so much.

I wasn't looking at invulnerable, just durable. Armour only really goes through two scenarios in the RAW rules. Pristine armour on a corpse, or plate armour is hit twice with a sword and immediately falls apart.
I like your idea on just ignoring most damage except to light armours unless designed to damage that armour. I think I would add axes to weapons that would damage metal armours though. I think a combination of that idea with kiralons damage reduction will work great.
Out of curiosity, how would you handle giant on giant combat? Would their weapons damage giant armour, or would it be fairly ineffective?

I use size categories for giants
7-12 ft +1d of damage
12-18ft+2d of damage
18-24ft+3d of damage
and I use the supernatural strength bonus tables as well, so if supernatural strength says 2d6 for a standard punch, I add that damage to the weapon strike too.
Giants are friggin dangerous, one hit can end your day if you are unlucky.

and for armour each size category I add %50 sdc, so full plate what was normally 180 sdc, is 270sdc for 7-12 ft, 360 sdc for 12-18ft etc

Whiskeyjack wrote:I wasn't looking at invulnerable, just durable. Armour only really goes through two scenarios in the RAW rules. Pristine armour on a corpse, or plate armour is hit twice with a sword and immediately falls apart.
I like your idea on just ignoring most damage except to light armours unless designed to damage that armour. I think I would add axes to weapons that would damage metal armours though. I think a combination of that idea with kiralons damage reduction will work great.
Out of curiosity, how would you handle giant on giant combat? Would their weapons damage giant armour, or would it be fairly ineffective?

Thanks! Out of curiosity, why would you single out axes for damaging metal armor? I could weapons and tools designed to pierce hard surfaces such armor, maybe (pickaxe or mattock, for instance). In my house rules, Battle Axes are already great at striking through the damage reduction of an armor thanks to their high damage/extra damage from the w.p. axe skill.

In my house rules as written, giants would do damage to giant armor, so they would smash through each others' armor pretty quickly (especially considering that all true giant base damage is doubled, and skilled 2-handed weapon attacks are at x4 damage, with all damage bonuses doubled). Armor still does a lot for them, it just doesn't last long in true giant vs true giant combat.

kiralon wrote:I use size categories for giants
7-12 ft +1d of damage
12-18ft+2d of damage
18-24ft+3d of damage
and I use the supernatural strength bonus tables as well, so if supernatural strength says 2d6 for a standard punch, I add that damage to the weapon strike too.
Giants are friggin dangerous, one hit can end your day if you are unlucky.

I actually did something similar, but also reset all of the weapon damages around 1d4 being the standard size... so, a dagger did 1d4, a short sword did 2d4, a long sword did 3d4, and a two-handed sword did 4d4. A bit smoother curve, and it made scaling up weapons less ridiculous.

Mark Hall wrote:

kiralon wrote:I use size categories for giants
7-12 ft +1d of damage
12-18ft+2d of damage
18-24ft+3d of damage
and I use the supernatural strength bonus tables as well, so if supernatural strength says 2d6 for a standard punch, I add that damage to the weapon strike too.
Giants are friggin dangerous, one hit can end your day if you are unlucky.

I actually did something similar, but also reset all of the weapon damages around 1d4 being the standard size... so, a dagger did 1d4, a short sword did 2d4, a long sword did 3d4, and a two-handed sword did 4d4. A bit smoother curve, and it made scaling up weapons less ridiculous.

Not a bad idea, especially considering in my games a fighter can be taught a specialisation in a weapon which increases the die to the next one up, so 2d4 would become 2d6.

Hotrod wrote:Thanks! Out of curiosity, why would you single out axes for damaging metal armor? I could weapons and tools designed to pierce hard surfaces such armor, maybe (pickaxe or mattock, for instance). In my house rules, Battle Axes are already great at striking through the damage reduction of an armor thanks to their high damage/extra damage from the w.p. axe skill.

I'm just speaking from bladed weapons when I mention the axe. Basically it comes down to edge geometry and physics. They hit in a fairly small area, unlike the long edge of a sword, and all of their weight is at the impacting end, again unlike a sword which is more center balanced. This allows them to to hit a lot harder on a smaller area. At the very least, a battle axe is going to put a serious dent in metal armour, on a good hit it is very likely going to punch through.

Whiskeyjack wrote:At the very least, a battle axe is going to put a serious dent in metal armour, on a good hit it is very likely going to punch through.

No, it really wont.

I dont think people have a good concept for just how good real armor really was.

It will dent metal armor, and can definitely deform it in ways that impair the user or cause injury to the user. (Including breaking bones in areas where the armor is directly up against bone without padding/room for curvature) But no axe blade is going to "cut" sheet metal/steel. Its just not a thing. Even large pole arms like a Halberd or Lochaber Axe, that feature prominent axe blades and have all sorts of leverage and momentum (a Lochaber Axe wielded by a charging horseman can cut clean through a 6x6" pole) cant "cut" or penetrate plate armor.

They can mangle it (if you caught a guy in an era-appropriate breastplate with a charge and a Lochaber Axe strike, it would probably crumple the breastplate pretty badly, maybe even break some ribs, but because he's not braced against an immovable object, the rest of the power will simply carry him off his feet before it can do more damage) badly and probably severely injure the man wearing it.. but he wont be dead and depending on how it is creased/bent, he might still be in fighting shape.

Even weapons specifically designed to defeat plate armor (like the spikes on the backs of war hammers/a "military" pick, and also featured on the backs of many axes in later years) will almost always glance off (because armor is not flat, its sloped) and even when they penetrate aren't likely to immediately kill the guy wearing it (the few areas where they can actually penetrate - on the torso, upper legs, and upper arms - areas where the mass of the body means the weapon wont just deflect off or even push the limb out of the way - the armor is usually sitting several inches off the body).

Plate armor was really, really good. Now, this is a game, and you cant accurately replicate that without making armor absurdly broken, so im not suggesting that.

Axes went largely by the wayside as a mainstay of infantry weaponry well before high plate coverage was a thing. They weren't ever really massively adopted; axes were used primarily because people already had them (or in the case of pole-arms with axe-type heads, because they were a lot cheaper and easier to produce than swords en masse) "Battle Axes" were something that was pretty niche, and largely only used by particular cultures or at very specific times before being abandoned again.

Remember that most people on the battlefield weren't wearing plate armor. It wasnt until well into the middle ages that infantry started to wear what would even be called "heavy" armor like maile, lamellars, or brigandines; so you weren't going to see tons of people armed with anti-plate-armor weapons when most of the people you were fighting werent wearing heavy armor (or any armor at all beyond a gamebson or other padded/layered armor).

If you check out Skallagrim on YouTube, he does (and has links to other creators who also do) test cuts against various types of armor with various weapons. It can give you a better idea of what actually did what, if you want a bit more realism.

And dont get me started on jousting

I had observed the same issue where armor really wasn't doing much. There are a lot of interesting ideas here. Some seem to get a little complicated.

My house rule is pretty simple. If the attacker does not make called shot to bypass the armor, the armor takes damage. If the total attack roll is higher than the AR half of the damage goes to the armor and half to the character. If the roll is equal to or lower than the AR, the armor takes all of the damage. To make a called shot bypassing the armor the attacker uses one extra attack for the extra aim and must total higher than the AR+4. Otherwise they hit the armor.

This has been easy to remember for the players and seems to work really well. Armor in my games often takes a good bit of damage and has to be repaired or replaced. I have some front line fighters that spend a lot of money on armor. And, often the damage the armor takes has kept the character alive where they would have been killed otherwise which is the intent of armor.