Hi.

I realised that with tRoS game mechanics, damage from weapons (any kind) can become very massive if the user of the weapon is skilled. This is ok, but I find it quite funny that it is possible to cut thruu fine plate armor with a little knife and still cause a level5 wound. This is possible f.ex. your opponent can't defend and you are skilled with your knife.

The same thing with missile weapons.. you can throw knives, rocks and other light object through tough plate, if you're skilled enough.

Has anyone created any house rules for this? F.ex. Does your MoS increase your damage to certain poin onlyt? Is there a limit? Or can you break a fully armored human's skull with bare hands?


I hope you see my point. sorry for my poor English skills.


chade

See, being a bit of a slacker, I would be happy with these being handwaved as a dagger through the armpit, or a push to the helmet, followed by a fall, followed by a fractured skull.

I find it perfectly fine that someone can kill someone in plate with a putty knife if he is skilled enough with its use. Maybe you should just narrate better. Instead of saying that the 'putty knife' as it were, went through the armor... say it went through some weakpoint in it, where it did not cover.
This will be easier to explain should SOMEBODY here finish TFOB or whichever supplement is going to have armor coverage issues in it.
*gives Brian a swift kick in the ass*
If you were to suit up in a full suit of plate, one that was articulated and was severely advanced.. sure the coverage issue would be gone, but then you'd be walking around(if walking can be used to describe that).. and instead of someone engaging you in melee, they'd just have someone with a longbow shoot you. Then you're dead.
So if you're not comfortable with the lethality of this system, make some changes to it. Make everyone half their strength or something, or use variable strength with each attack.

-Ingenious

chade0 wrote: Hi.

I realised that with tRoS game mechanics, damage from weapons (any kind) can become very massive if the user of the weapon is skilled. This is ok, but I find it quite funny that it is possible to cut thruu fine plate armor with a little knife and still cause a level5 wound. This is possible f.ex. your opponent can't defend and you are skilled with your knife.

The same thing with missile weapons.. you can throw knives, rocks and other light object through tough plate, if you're skilled enough.

Has anyone created any house rules for this? F.ex. Does your MoS increase your damage to certain poin onlyt? Is there a limit? Or can you break a fully armored human's skull with bare hands?


I hope you see my point. sorry for my poor English skills.


chade

Ingenious wrote: I find it perfectly fine that someone can kill someone in plate with a putty knife if he is skilled enough with its use. Maybe you should just narrate better. Instead of saying that the 'putty knife' as it were, went through the armor... say it went through some weakpoint in it, where it did not cover.
This will be easier to explain should SOMEBODY here finish TFOB or whichever supplement is going to have armor coverage issues in it.
*gives Brian a swift kick in the ass*
If you were to suit up in a full suit of plate, one that was articulated and was severely advanced.. sure the coverage issue would be gone, but then you'd be walking around(if walking can be used to describe that).. and instead of someone engaging you in melee, they'd just have someone with a longbow shoot you. Then you're dead.
So if you're not comfortable with the lethality of this system, make some changes to it. Make everyone half their strength or something, or use variable strength with each attack.

-Ingenious

This will be easier to explain should SOMEBODY here finish TFOB or whichever supplement is going to have armor coverage issues in it.
*gives Brian a swift kick in the ass*

Jake Norwood wrote:

This will be easier to explain should SOMEBODY here finish TFOB or whichever supplement is going to have armor coverage issues in it.
*gives Brian a swift kick in the ass*

What? Do I not work here anymore? Sheesh...

Jake

Slavegirls? Grapes?

Is Brian getting those too?

Jake

No, but he's got the army of eunichs gaurding his home and harem.

I've been using a bit of house rules on it. If someone strikes metal armours, and damage that exceeds the AV is Bludgeoning, regardless of the weapon type, showing that you didn't cut through it, but kocked the guy around. I also modify the D6 rolls for armour, if say, a thrust was meant for the armpit, on a 1 or something it might bypass the AV striking only the gambeson or a gusset.

Let's distinguish between mathematically possible and what's likely. Sure, you can put a flower-child in plate and watch them die to a ninja-samurai-highlander type, but if your opponents are anywhere near equal caliber than fights between armored individuals armed with knives will be boring as sin.

Seriously, try it with the combat simulator. Armor's very tough in this game.

If you were to suit up in a full suit of plate, one that was articulated and was severely advanced.. sure the coverage issue would be gone, but then you'd be walking around(if walking can be used to describe that).. and instead of someone engaging you in melee, they'd just have someone with a longbow shoot you.

Proofing harness against fire-arms eh? How thick and heavy was that? Therefore how many CP would be lost by wearing it? Would that not also penalize endurance rolls further than say averagely thick plate? Sure people were making plate of all shapes sizes thicknesses and quality.. but if it's big, heavy, thick, etc.. it's going to be a bitch to try to use in melee. Even on horseback.
As to coverage issues, I'd like to see that very very soon as my next character is a mix of a guy using a case of rapiers and sorcery... and should he go against a guy in plate, I would like to know some open spots to aim for. Even though this is slightly covered in the codex of battle(i think, well it is somewhere in the core-book)
I agree that armor is tough, but there are always 'weaknesses' to them all. I use that term loosely to describe anything from coverage, to quality, thickness, weight, mobility, a fall hurting more in plate than in leather, etc etc. So in my mind's eye, there is always a way to beat someone in plate.

-Ingenious

Ingenious wrote: Proofing harness against fire-arms eh? How thick and heavy was that? Therefore how many CP would be lost by wearing it? Would that not also penalize endurance rolls further than say averagely thick plate? Sure people were making plate of all shapes sizes thicknesses and quality.. but if it's big, heavy, thick, etc.. it's going to be a bitch to try to use in melee. Even on horseback.
As to coverage issues, I'd like to see that very very soon as my next character is a mix of a guy using a case of rapiers and sorcery... and should he go against a guy in plate, I would like to know some open spots to aim for. Even though this is slightly covered in the codex of battle(i think, well it is somewhere in the core-book)
I agree that armor is tough, but there are always 'weaknesses' to them all. I use that term loosely to describe anything from coverage, to quality, thickness, weight, mobility, a fall hurting more in plate than in leather, etc etc. So in my mind's eye, there is always a way to beat someone in plate.

-Ingenious

Draigh wrote:

Jake Norwood wrote: Slavegirls? Grapes?

Is Brian getting those too?

No, but he's got the army of eunichs gaurding his home and harem.

"I would like to know some open spots to aim for."

Here's a little thing I like to tell my classes.
Put your chin to your chest, put your arms flat to your sides with your palms against your body, and put your legs together. Everything that's covered is a weakness in plate armour. Pretty general but it gets the point across. Time to go out and party!

Salamander, I argued the point of quality of the suit and how it is heat treated etc, and I got responded to by many many different people saying that 'thickness matters'. And now you bring up the point about quality. And as to who the suit was made for. King Henry the 8th was a lard-ass. He was huuuuuuuuuuuuuge. I'd like to have seen him do cartwheels period, without wearing the armor. (see the 'differing types of plate armor' post by Crusader)

-Ingenious
Jake has his harem, Brian has his army of eunichs, and all I get is a free goat? --character from Ixliaph

Henry the 8th was considered a huge and impressively athletic person. He only got fat later in life.

The famous Henry VIII suit of armor frequently found on pewter miniatures and statuets is a wonderful piece. When in the Tower of London in '96 I got to see it, and I'm positive that it would have fit me quite well. I'm 6'2" and 200lbs. That's a pretty good build for a man of the time, and not the goutish figure made famous later.

Jake

Ingenious wrote: Salamander, I argued the point of quality of the suit and how it is heat treated etc, and I got responded to by many many different people saying that 'thickness matters'. And now you bring up the point about quality. And as to who the suit was made for. King Henry the 8th was a lard-ass. He was huuuuuuuuuuuuuge. I'd like to have seen him do cartwheels period, without wearing the armor. (see the 'differing types of plate armor' post by Crusader)

-Ingenious
Jake has his harem, Brian has his army of eunichs, and all I get is a free goat? --character from Ixliaph

Without trying to beat this thing to death...

I haven't followed Salamander's links just yet, but I'm assuming these articles refer to how in the later stages of plate, armorers found out the same thing that we know and use today...

The corrugation process (and another process I believe involving acid) to make thinner, but stronger metal. We use it today in canned foods and steel pipes. Turns out late medieval/early renaissance armorers found out the same thing and were able to make thinner, stronger plate.

Poleaxe wrote: Without trying to beat this thing to death...

I haven't followed Salamander's links just yet...

I think it's a tad off topic, but I want to chime in on this whole thickness issue. Thickness definitely makes for better armor. I mean, just because you can do corrugation, etc, to thinner armor doesn't mean that you can't do it to thicker armor as well. The two aren't mutually esclusive. When doing penetration tests for things you always rate how much of X material the thing can penetrate. Some wargames use the CM or Inches of armor for ratings on tanks. Basically, simply thickness matters quite a bit.

That's not to say that I think people would make thicker armor, however. Armor was at the thickness that it was, IMHO, becuase that's what people could bear reasonably. Make it substantially thicker, and it gets hard to move. As people always correctly point out here armor was made to move in, as the only thing more lethal on a battlefield than being unarmored was being unable to move well.

So, people would have worn thicker armor if they could have. Instead, given that armor was already getting quite heavy and fatiguing, they came up with other ways to improve on it.

So, yes, thickness matters, hence why plate armor isn't any thinner than it is. But as a matter of practicality you can only add so much thickness before the protection offered makes burdens the wearer beyond it's effectiveness. I mean, you could put a person in a 4 inch thick cast iron can with breathing holes if you wanted to and he'd be impervious to all but meteor impacts in a medieval world. He'd also need a sturdy wagon to get around. Armor is practical first, protective second.

All of which is to say that you guys have been talking past each other a lot.


To get back on topic, and this came up just a while ago, remember that the descriptions that the tables produce aren't that important. It's the mechanical effects that are. So if the result seems to allow something that's impossible (fists crushing armored skulls), then narrate some other description that has the same effect. Um, "A well placed blow to the opponent's unarmored nose sends cartilage up into his cranimum killing him instantly."

See, no prob.

Mike