I was thinking about the armor rules and I am thinking about tweaking them a bit.

Now, it seems to me that the armor rules have been built to counter the very lethal effects of scripted combat. Combats between two unarmored figters are short indeed, but this is another matter. The problem I have with the armor rules is that when a piece of armor gets in the way of the blow that gets past the defences, the blow is either deflected with a loud "bling" or it simply slices through. This disrupts my suspension of disbelief.

This is what I have come up with thus far:


• I'll have hit locations in my system. I'll use some randomiser to determine what got hit. I'll probably borrow this from RQ or Hárn. Thrusting/piercing weapons will be less likely to hit the arms and legs than slashing/blugdeoning weapons. I'll figure this out later. Maybe I'll do it with 2D6. . .
• Each hit location will have armor dice of its own. Too bad if the hit lands at a location that does not have armor.
• Leather armor will have one armor dice, reinforced leather two, chain three and plate four.
• Armor will have a shade. DNs will be handled like with every other abilities. (E.g. DN 4/3/2) Thus I may have B3 hauberg. (Armors with lighter shades than black should be really rare. Grey weapon against a black armor would be +2 DN, I guess. That would be consistent, I think. . . )
• VA is handled just like in the basic rules.
• The armor failure is handled just like in the basic rules.
• You don't need to worry about mixed armor, because each location is handled individually. It just means that some locations have different number of armor dices.
• Each success makes the blow one step less serious. Incidental will be deflected totally, a mark will become an incidental and a superb blow will become a mark. Two successes will make the hit two steps less serious and so on.
• Note that shields still work as they did before.



What does this mean?

Leather armor will have a 1/3 chance of deflecting an incidental hit with your basic sword (VA=1). However, it will never deflect better hits completely. It also means that it is probable that a plate mail will shield you from the worst effects of a superb hit, but it is improbable that it will deflect it entirely.

I calculated the chances of getting at least 1, 2 and 3+ successes against different VAs. Remember that it is not possible to comletely deflect a mark or a superb blow with a leather armor or a superb hit with a reinfoced leather. . . You just can't get enought successes. Superb is difficult to evade even with plate.

Here is the math:

VA=0 (Knife, Primitive Spear)

Leather:

1: 1/2 or 50.0%

Reinforced Leather:

1: (1/2)^2 x 2 + (1/2)^2 = 3/4 or 75.0%
2: (1/2)^2 = 1/4 or 25.0%

Chain:

1: (1/2)^3 x 3 + (1/2)^3 x 3 + (1/2)^3 = 7/8 or 87.5%
2: (1/2)^3 x 3 + (1/2)^3 = 4/8 = 1/2 or 50.0%
3: (1/2)^3 = 1/8 or 12.5%

Plate:

1: (1/2)^4 x 4 + (1/2)^4 x 6 + (1/2)^4 x 4 + (1/2)^4 = 15/16 or approximately 93.8%
2: (1/2)^4 x 6 + (1/2)^4 x 4 + (1/2)^4 = 11/16 = or approximately 68.8%
3,4: (1/2)^4 x 4 + (1/2)^4 = 5/16 or approximately 31.3%

VA=1 (Run-of-the-Mill Sword)

Leather:

1: 1/3 or approximately 33.3%

Reinforced Leather:

1: (1/3 x 2/3) x 2 + (1/3 x 1/3) = 5/9 or approximately 55.6%
2: 1/3 x 1/3 = 1/9 or approximately 11.1%

Chain:

1: (1/3 x (2/3)^2) x 3 + ((1/3)^2 x 2/3) x 3 + (1/3)^3 = 19/27 or approximately 70.4%
2: ((1/3)^2 x 2/3) x 3 + (1/3)^3 = 7/27 or approximately 25.9%
3: (1/3)^3 = 1/27 or approximately 3.7%

Plate:

1 (1/3 x (2/3)^3) x 4 + ((1/3)^2 x (2/3)^2) x 6 + ((1/3)^3 x 2/3) x 4 + (1/3)^4 = 65/81 or approximately 80.2%
2 ((1/3)^2 x (2/3)^2) x 6 + ((1/3)^3 x 2/3) x 4 + (1/3)^4 = 33/81 = 11/27 or approximately 40.7%
3,4 ((1/3)^3 x 2/3) x 4 + (1/3)^4 = 9/81 = 1/9 or approximately 11.1%

VA=2 (Run-of-the-Mill Mace, Superior Sword)

Leather:

1: 1/6 or approximately 16.7%

Reinforced Leather:

1: (1/6 x 5/6) x 2 + (1/6 x 1/6) = 11/36 or approximately 30.6%
2: 1/6 x 1/6 = 1/36 or approximately 2.8%

Chain:

1: (1/6 x (5/6)^2) x 3 + ((1/6)^2 x 5/6) x 3 + (1/6)^3 = 91/216 or approximately 42.1%
2: ((1/6)^2 x 5/6) x 3 + (1/6)^3 = 16/216 = 2/27 or approximately 7.4%
3: (1/6)^3 = 1/216 or approximately 0.5%

Plate:

1 (1/6 x (5/6)^3) x 4 + ((1/6)^2 x (5/6)^2) x 6 + ((1/6)^3 x 5/6) x 4 + (1/6)^4 = 671/1296 or approximately 51.8%
2 ((1/6)^2 x (5/6)^2) x 6 + ((1/6)^3 x 5/6) x 4 + (1/6)^4 = 33/81 = 171/1296 or approximately 13.2%
3,4 ((1/6)^3 x 5/6) x 4 + (1/6)^4 = 9/81 = 21/1296 or approximately 0.7%

VA=3 (Superior Great Mace)

Normal Armor just doesn't cut it against a sledgehammer. That's the beauty of magical armor!

EDIT: Maybe VA=3 against a black armor would work better if if would be handled like VA=0 or VA=1, but with +1 "Ob"? I'll have to think about this one. . .

Hi newsalor,
an alternative armour system has been suggested here. To keep the Burning Wheel feel, the DN's remain the same and the number of dice changes based on the armour type. I believe that with regard to hit locations, abzu and the rest of the NYC gang are leaning toward every swing being a called shot. Also, weapon VA's increase the armour's OB.

Personally, I'm thinking about using something very similar to The Riddle of Steel for determining hit locations, and the Protective Values from HârnMaster Gold. Instead of the linear method of adding up the values of each layer, I'm also going to use the Euclidean method where you take the square root of the sum of the squares of each layer's protective values.

Hi Durgil,

Thanks for the link. I still don't think that the basic issues that I have with the current armor system have been solved. Armor is still AC in Burning Wheel.

Just like in D&D, it is harder to hit someone, who is wearing armor. :(

What did you think about the propabilities and such? Does the system sound reasonable? Though verisimilitude is not important to me in many games, when I play a sim game, I expect it.

newsalor wrote: What did you think about the propabilities and such? Does the system sound reasonable? Though verisimilitude is not important to me in many games, when I play a sim game, I expect it.

AC? I never thought of it like that. I guess I just disagree. Personally, I think BW armor similulates its real world counterparts very well.

Anyway, it's funny you should mention this now. The new armor and shields chapter is written. Just finished it last night. It's based on the thread that Durgil linked to.

Regarding your soak rules: Why can't quilted armor stop a punch or a thrown rock completely? Plated mail often protected its user completely from dozens of blows. Using these soak rules, skilled and bare-fisted children could pummel a knight into submission with a series of superb blows.

I don't think that's quite what you're looking for in this design.


As far as hit locations go, I can take em or leave em. Personally, myself and my players don't like em. If want to use 'em, go ahead.

I'm also going to use the Euclidean method where you take the square root of the sum of the squares of each layer's protective values.

abzu wrote: Tony, I hope you realize that while this may scratch your itch, something like can't be included in a system meant to encourage quick play and a appeal to a broad range of players.

abzu wrote: AC? I never thought of it like that. I guess I just disagree. Personally, I think BW armor similulates its real world counterparts very well.

abzu wrote: Regarding your soak rules: Why can't quilted armor stop a punch or a thrown rock completely?

abzu wrote: Plated mail often protected its user completely from dozens of blows.

The chances of armor degrading or scoring at least on "1".

7 dice: 72.1%
6 dice: 66.5%
5 dice: 59.8%
4 dice: 51.8%
3 dice: 42.1%
2 dice: 30.6%
1 dice: 16.7%

Chances of scoring at least one "1" is equal 1-(5/6)^D, where D is the number of dice thrown.

abzu wrote: Using these soak rules, skilled and bare-fisted children could pummel a knight into submission with a series of superb blows.

durgil wrote: I do think that armour should have an open-ended roll, which will slightly raise the probabilities.

It seems I misread your post. I thought you had armor reducing successes. You have it reducing damage stages.

Well then, given your response (which is correct), I would add that YES it is possible for a leather jerkin to deflect the entirety of a blow—especially in regards to a knife or club.


And actually, armor in BW does not make it more difficult to be hit. Hitting a target is based on the attacker's skill modified by movement, wounds and the defender's action. Once all that has been calculated, then armor comes into effect. A very different scenario than d20.

-L

abzu wrote: And actually, armor in BW does not make it more difficult to be hit. Hitting a target is based on the attacker's skill modified by movement, wounds and the defender's action. Once all that has been calculated, then armor comes into effect. A very different scenario than d20.

while i think your interpretation is just as subjective as mine, it's your game now and you can do whatever you like with it.

good luck!
-Luke

newsalor wrote: However, from a mechanical point of view the armor rules do just the same thing as AC in D&D. That is, they decrease the chances of hitting an opponent.

From a stand point of pure game mechanics, newsalor does have a point. Is there really any difference between "not hitting" and "hitting but causing no damage" from a game standpoint?

On the gripping hand, from a color standpoint, there is a different feel to it, and you are much more likely to notice the BW armor saving your ass, and narrate the blow glancing off your armor than you would be to notice that the blow missed by N in d20, where N <= your armor bonus.

However, here's a few mitigating factors about the BW system compared to d20 that I think make it work well as a game, as opposed to a gridingly detailed simulation of physical impact and injury (may I suggest Phoenix Command? ;)

A "hit but no damage" can have a game mechanical effect... loss of armor.

VA does a good job of solving the "your leather armor completely blocked my giant maul" problem. If I recall my numbers correctly, in the classic armor system, leather is DN 6, so something with even VA1 completely ignores leather.

BW encourages a common sense approach to play, such that in the proffered scenario where you are wacking on a completely unresisting but armored target, it would be totally justified to rule that you are aiming your strike to bypass armor. After all, Luke hasn't given us the rules for environmentally sealed powered battledress yet.

Those are in the annual, right?

taepoong wrote: To make this statement have merit, I think you need to state that BW armor rules decrease the chances of wounding an opponent. Technically, a BW armored knight standing still could be hit by a blind, one-armed, palsied idiot, which is far from the case using D20 AC!

rafiel wrote: On the gripping hand, from a color standpoint, there is a different feel to it, and you are much more likely to notice the BW armor saving your ass, and narrate the blow glancing off your armor than you would be to notice that the blow missed by N in d20, where N <= your armor bonus.

environmentally sealed powered battledress yet.

Those are in the annual, right?

abzu wrote:
Yes, and the rules for double specialization.

Don't forget that a "hit with no damage" in Burning Wheel can be many things -- a Push, a Charge, a Get Inside, a Lock, all of which don't have anything to do with armor.

I know, I know. I was just trying to point out that there's more options than simply pointy-stick smacking.

I can't say that I myself am particularly distraught at the lack of option number three.

I've been trying to keep my 2C from butting in, alas here they come.

As an advocat for the "classic" armour rules I've just got to say that they work in play. Seamlessly and trouble-free. For me that's the big deal here. If the numbers are yours, fine that's your boat, and I am not saying it is any less than mine.

At first my players had a similar reaction to that of Newsalor. One even used a variant of the palsied man and the knight as an objection. No objections lasted through the first game though.

Let me illustrate wrote: Sir Knight has a chainmail hauberk, covering his chest and arms, and a bit of his legs. (I'm good natured and give him 5 armour dice at DN 4).
Good odds for surviving a blow or two.

Then he fights a another knight with a sword (VA of one ), and is hit.

He rolls armour 1,3,4,5,6. Easy, he is saved by his chain.

But unlike AC a hit in BW is much more. Rolling a one on an armour die causes you to loose one die from your armour.

Suddenly Sir Knight finds himself with 4 dice at DN 5 (4 pluss VA 1). He survived blow one, but his odds are decreasing.

Luke wrote: But those are just my tastes, and who am I to say how you play, right?

Personally, I'm in favor of Luke's alternate armor rules, where VA adds to OB. It's clean and fast.

Does it suck when you roll a superb strike and your opponent just shrugs it off with armor? Sure. But let me tell you from experience, there's an incredibly visceral feeling when you're facing off against a heavily armored opponent and just bashing him...tearing his armor apart. He comes into the fight confident and aggressive because he has his armor to protect him, and the look on his face when he realizes that he desperately needs to go defensive before he reaches total armor failure is priceless. Carving him up afterward is just icing.

Really, I think the AC comparison is completely wrong. There are a number of combat tactics that will leave his armor out of the equation. You can charge him and lock him into submission, and his armor won't do squat. In fact, the armor may put him at a disadvantage to his Natural Defenses roll. Once you've got a lock, slip a dagger through his visor at your leisure.

I know, I know. I was just trying to point out that there's more options than simply pointy-stick smacking.

I can't say that I myself am particularly distraught at the lack of option number three.