Layering Armor

[KillWatch]

I remember seeing SOMETHING regarding this but I don't remember what book, so I was hoping someone here could help me with the rule;

What are the effects of layering armor?
A knight in a cold region could wear Quilted+Chain+Full Plate. What are the official effects of this?

Do you combine or do you simply go through the armors individually?, like say you roll a 22 strike you beat the Plate's A, so obviously you beat the Chain and Full Plate's AR.

But you should recieve additional protection from layering and not just SDC, adding full or half AR to the total.

what is the rule and how do you work layering?

[ZorValachan]

This may be based off my PFRPG 'house rules', but if so it was directly influenced by PB Compendium of Weapons, Armour, and Castles.

The layering 'effect' is already built into the AR and SDC.

Meaning, when you have Plate and Chain, it's assumed to have a guy who put on 'clothes', then put on 'quilted armour' (to prevent chaffing), then chain over that, and at the last Plate.

Studded leather assumes the studs are already on leather.
Leather assume you have padded or quilted underneath.

I still have disdain that they kept the SDC from 1st edition in 2nd edition without adding any.
The common character at level 1 has more HP+SDC than most armour, and he heals. I house ruled it that the SDC was 10x. Just added a zero.

[Spinachcat]

I would be wary about letting players layer armor. If you look at pictures of "dressing in full plate", you often see that the warrior first puts on a cloth layer, then a chain layer and then a plate layer to become "full plate"

Knights in cold regions would be more likely would wear Cloth + Light Chain + Fur Coat. Full Chain and Plate are just too heavy to dance around in all day long. We are talking 30-50 pounds of cold, uncomfortable metal.

The common character at level 1 has more HP+SDC than most armour, and he heals. I house ruled it that the SDC was 10x. Just added a zero.

Wow. That's a lot of SDC! I can see x3, but x10 sounds extreme. I do agree that as it stands armor does get wiped off pretty quickly. Personally, I do not worry too much because since everyone gets an auto parry, that cuts down on lots of the armor hits.

[Dog_O_War]

I don't play Palladium Fantasy, but I do know armour. And Fullplate armour is impossible to layer further than it already is, without a modern material.

Fullplate (or field plate, as well as platemail) consists of several layers of armour already. A typical suit has a layer of cloth, then a layer of fine chain over the chest. Over that layer of chain is another layer of chain, slightly larger, and covers joints and such. Then there is the actual plates, which go over-top of this. The gloves and boots don't typically have as many layers, usually just cloth then leather, then chain (or cloth then chain then plate), and most warriors don't use the full helm, instead using only a chain coif, possibly a "lighter" helm to go over-top that (instead of the full helm).

When a person wears fullplate, they are wearing the best the times had to offer in protection, mainly because it was layered. Really, the only type of layering possible would be to remove the cloth layer and fine chain layer and replace it with a cold-weather outfit of some descriptor, offering protection against the elements. For the lighter armours, a layer of chainmail could fit over a suit of leather, but things like breastplates and splintmail or banded mail already consist of a layer armour effect.

You could further layer fullplate, but then your players would begin to take on a look similar to a child in the 50's wearing a big snow-suit, unable to put their arms down.