S&S Armor in D&D

[thorswulf]

I have always assumed that suits of armor in D&D are full suits, covering the whole body, except possibly the head. While this is fine in a medieval fantasy world most S&S yarns are failry light in the armor department. At best, most of the heroes wear a chainmail shirt that barely covers their lower arms, and does not protect the legs or head at all. Well who am I to argue with these S&S stereotypes?
I was toying around with a few additions to armor for a more S&S style game. First we have a couple of ideas I lifted from Barbarians of Lemuria: The Hero harness for men and the female counterpart the Chainmail bikini. Lets face it, neither of these things offer much protection, but they are part and parcel of the S&S Iconography. I give then an AC of 8, and they cost 10 GP. Second, is the Mail corselet. This is a sleeveless tunic of mail that is worn over the clothes. It provides an AC of 6, and costs 20GP. The third item is the metal reinforced leather brigantine jerkin that covers only the torso. It also provides an AC of 6 and costs 15GP. This item is also of use in a traditional medieval setting.
In a classical setting like ancient Greece or Rome I treat armor as if it was equal to Chainmail. The Roman Lorica Segmentata protected the torso mainly, and unless heavy greaves were worn it left the defense of the legs to the Scutum, or shield. Same thing with the Greek Bronze cuirass, greaves, and their lage hoplon shield. I assume the cost of these large shields is not included in the armor, and that for 5 more GP it is. You still have to purchase a helmet to protect your head! The only kind of warrior who would have worn anything close to plate for protection would have been the Catephracts of Persia and Byzantium.
The last item for you more barbaric types are heavy furs. We are not talking deer hides, more like bear, moose, an aurochs, or bullhide. Heavy Furs cost 15GP but give protection equal to leather. I assume the majority of the furs cover the torso, lower legs(shins), and lower arms. Not only protective, but warm ans cozy too!

[edsan]

I have been toying with the full armor AC issue in D&D for awhile and I think the most elegant solution, rather that set an AC value in stone for each of the multitudes of defensive vestments available in history and fiction is to have scale from which the GM may "eyeball" a number for each new thing that comes along or for mismatched or non-full-body sets of armor.

From perusing pre-2nd D&D rules we get the following

Shields: -1 AC

Leather AC 7
Chain AC 5
Plate AC 3

It is important to not that the "Plate" armor is not a full encasing of metal of the inconical "jousting knight". That kind of armor, named "Suit Armor" in the BD&D Rules Cyclopedia has an AC value of 0.

So this is what I'd say we have so far:

Shields - 1 point
Light Armor - 2 points
Medium armor, full - 4 points
Heavy armor, full - 6 points of armor
Very heavy armor - 8 points
Sealing armor - 1 point

From this scale we can use our intuition and come up with values for each type of armor.

So a chain hauberk, being partial medium armor could be considered to grant one less point of protection than the full thing, so AC 6. A chainmail bikini (egads!) being very, very partial medium armor could be one point worse for an AC of 7, equivalent to a full suit of leather but showing off a hole lot more flesh.

As for helms I always assumed full sets of armor include one. EPT has a rule where not using an helm reduces the AC by one 1/6 of the time, i.e. any blow that misses an armored but unhelmeted character by 1 has one chance in six of still hitting.

If you want you can also differentiate between open helms/pot helms and the all-enclosing full helm. Just assume the latter grants one extra point of armor if used with a non-sealing armor. You can do something similar with shields and rule that really big ones, such as those used by Roman legions grant 2 points of protection instead of just one.

So I guess the chart I've come up with so far would look like this:

Base Protection Values - Full Suits
Light Armor - 2 points
Medium armor, full - 4 points
Heavy armor, full - 6 points of armor
Very heavy armor - 8 points

Modifiers
No head protection - 1/6 chance of -1 point
Sealing armor (covers the body entirely) - +1 point
Partial armor - -1 point
Very Partial Armor - -2 points
Shield - +1 point
Large shield - +2 points
Full helm - +1 point (does not stack with sealing armor bonus)


Another example: imagine a cataphract covered head to toe in scale armor with a closed helm and a large knight's shield. Scale is obviously medium armor (4 points) and in this case it counts as sealing (5 points), however it is of lower quality than chain (4 points), the knight's shield is worth 2 points. So we get a final total of 6 for an AC of 3, equivalent to wearing a plate armor without a shield.

For combined armor you can also use the scale. A PC with normal leather armor and shield finds a closed helm and a pair of plate leggings and vambraces. Wearing it all together would come up to...

Leather (light, full) - 2 points
Closed helm - +1 point
Vambraces + leggings (Plate, very partial) - 4 points
Shield - +1 point

So averaging the leather and plate for 3 we get a final protective value of 5 for an AC of 4.

[parmstrong]

I find the easiest way to scale AC in a S&S-style game is to allow a fighting man a level based bonus to their AC as long as they are wearing a minimum amount of armor. For example, As long as a fighting man is wearing leather armor or less they get the following bonus to AC:
level 1&2 bonus = +1
level 3&4 bonus = +2
level 5&6 bonus = +3
level 7&8 bonus = +4
etc...

[apeloverage]

You could just change the names - for example instead of leather, chain and plate you could have furs, leather and chain.

[snorri]

The rule nr 1 is: no matter how really the armor cover the character, it gives full AC. So a chainmail bikini is a chainmail.

In E&S as the AC is ascending on 12 scale (from chainmail), and abilities scores on 12 rather on 18, I also stated AC=DEX unless you got a better armor. So a high dex characetr don't need an armor.

With S&W ascending armor, the same is really easy to do : AC=DEX, unless you got a better armor. So, the AC table form S&W can be used to calculate the reverse (something like AC= 21-DEX must be ok - low DEX caharacters really need an armor!).

In all these versions, shield bonus does aplly.

[edsan]

What about this variant for S&W using the ascending AC system?

Base AC = DEX or 9, whichever is better.

Characters wearing armor which grant them an AC lower than their DEX one gain no benefits from it.

However...

The base AC from DEX can only be used against attacks that the character is aware of when he has freedom of movement. So when being shot by an archer you can't see, attacked from the back or when you are entangled or held your AC is 10+armor bonus.

This variants makes even a PC with DEX 18 want to have some form of armor on him.

[kesher]

These fine solutions, though personally it gets a bit fine-grained for me. Currently, instead of "leather/chain/platemail", we're just calling armor "light/medium/heavy", and then players simply describe it however they want. Though I do admit to liking the "hero harness" idea...

Parmstrong, I've gone back and forth about some sort of FM AC bonus that increases as levels rise. I'm not using it right now, but who knows...

[Zulgyan]

Mar 14, 2009 21:05:28 GMT -6 apeloverage said:

You could just change the names - for example instead of leather, chain and plate you could have furs, leather and chain.

If think this is the best solution is you want a simple mod for a lighter armour campaign.

[supernaught]

I was wondering how others deal with wear and tear of armor in their sword and sorcery campaigns? I have considered on an attack roll of 20 armor must make a save or lose one point off their protective value. Higher quality armor would gain a bonus to saves. I think this would add a bit of excitement and adds uncertainty which I favor in my games. Battle after battle in the dark beneath the world would certainly have an effect on the quality of protection one girds himself with. Discarding a useless breastplate after repeated blows by an serpent man's stone mace has a certain flair for the dramatic and can give a real sense of desperation when deep inside the Lair of the Iron Spider a warrior finds his armor in tatters. Of course, periodic upkeep costs could cover this as well and requires less book beeping ;D

[parmstrong]

Mar 14, 2009 21:05:28 GMT -6 apeloverage said:

You could just change the names - for example instead of leather, chain and plate you could have furs, leather and chain.

Wow... that is such a simple solution it just blew my mind! I love it.

[machfront]

Mar 14, 2009 21:05:28 GMT -6 apeloverage said:

You could just change the names - for example instead of leather, chain and plate you could have furs, leather and chain.

That's essentially what I was thinking.
Just relax your definition of what each armor type means. A chain shirt becomes what chain mail is understood to be. Same with Leather Armor. It could quite simply be a breastplate and some soft leather leggings. Or for that matter, it could be a small chest harness thing as in the Ator films.
No mechanics needed.

[apeloverage]

Thanks everyone!

If you wanted to complicate it a bit, maybe helmets should do more - there must be some reason for wearing no top but an elaborate helmet...

(this is more S&S as depicted by Frank Frazetta than as in the actual stories)

[edsan]

These are my helmet rules for EPT:

- A suit of armor assumed use of a helm otherwise the AC bonus it grants decreases by one.

- Full helms/Great helms grant a +1 bonus to AC. (they also cost double and affect perception)

- If the character is wearing no suit of armor he gets +1 AC from an helmet and +2 AC from a Great Helm. This bonus stacks with that of a shield.


Since I rule big'honking shields grant a +2 AC bonus these rules allow naked gladiators to face each other in the arena with only a helmet and shield for an AC of 6 to 4

[apeloverage]

You guys might be interested in this discussion on a more S&S version of (Basic) D&D: www.freeyabb.com/goblinoidgames/viewtopic.php?t=800&mforum=goblinoidgames