Hey, It's been awhile since I posted but I've finally got a chance to start a RoS campaign. Anyway here are some questions I would like some help with.

Armor, wearing and donning.


How fatiguing is wearing armor(leather, chain or plate) during travel? How much difference would traveling on horseback make. (alot I'm sure)

How much time does it take to get into certain kinds of armor. Any of you ARMA guys have some advice?


Lastly a question about initiative and attacking.

During a fight with a friendly member of the walking dead. The worm-eaten foe was put on the defensive (good parry by the PC). But I decided this undead didn't care about defense. So the question, can you attack from the defender position without buying initiative? May own take was that losing an exchange ment the battle had turned against you and only through buying initiative could you attack from this "weaker" position.

Thanks in advance for any help.

I can't speak on armor--I only know the theory of how it worked in combat; my experience in practice is minimal.

On the other hand, I can talk about TROS rules. :-)

During a fight with a friendly member of the walking dead. The worm-eaten foe was put on the defensive (good parry by the PC). But I decided this undead didn't care about defense. So the question, can you attack from the defender position without buying initiative? May own take was that losing an exchange ment the battle had turned against you and only through buying initiative could you attack from this "weaker" position.

Wearing armor wasn't actually as fatiguing as most people nowadays seem to think it was. Even heavier armors were carefully load balanced and the weight distributed. That's not to say that it was nothing, but not as much as you would think.

Far more of a factor was heat, actually. Try wearing a leather jacket for long on a sunny day and you'll see what I mean. Chain wouldn't have been so bad heatwise except for the padding you wore under it to stop it damaging your skin. And as for plate - air inside gets heated up both by your own body temperature (the same phenomina that makes wet suits work worked against you) as well as the metal heating up from the sun, and the air between the armor and you could quickly become stifling.

Sitting on a horse wouldn't have helped a whole lot, except that since you were exerting yourself less wou wouldn't generate as much heat yourself.

As for walking dead, yeah, they're nasty. Without initiative they (or anything else) can still attack, they just attack last, like Jake said. For living opponents, attacking second often means your attack wont happen, thanks to pain and shock etc, but for walking dead who don't feel much pain or shock... well, it can be nasty...

Brian.

The only way to truly stop Walking Dead, seeing as how they ignore the vast majority of Pain and Shock, is total dismemberment, followed by fire, once the pieces are no longer a direct threat.

Or banish the spirit, if you're a sorcerer, but that's different.

As for armor, I've a small amount of practical experience, some of it recent..

Just Sunday, I spent about 4 hours duking it out in armor. It'd been a year since I'd done this on anything resembling a regular basis, and my armor wasn't fitted as nicely as it should have been. Due to the factors of the bad fitting, and my lack of acclimatization, I was quite sore for most of yesterday, and am still a bit sore today. Chances are, if I'd done a better job at getting my armor prepared before Sunday's war practice, and had been doing this weekly for the last month or so (let alone daily for months) I'd not have been nearly so sore, and probably would not have tired nearly as easily during the 4 hours of intermittent battle.

As for heat, Brian is indeed correct when he mentions it as a factor; If you're not exerting yourself, the heat isn't nearly so bad, but if you are (such as marching, or fighting) you will become exhausted quickly. If the character is riding, and is not wearing a helmet, travel will be uncomfortable, but bearable. They will almost certainly need to hydrate frequently to replace moisture lost through sweating. If the character is wearing a helmet, due to paranoia or dangerous environs, they will be a much greater risk of heat exhaustion, heat cramps or even a stroke. THe reason why is that the head is one of the primary means of radiation of heat, and if it is closed in, it cannot do this job, and the character will quickly feel the effects as the heat builds in their head.

There aren't any particular rules for this in TRoS, but you should be able to hedge something with the facts. If you need more information of the effects of heat and exertion, I'm sure there are military medical texts which discuss heat exhaustion and heat cramps which are a factor of both combined with layers and additional weight.

Thanks for all the input.

Wolfen it sounds like you might be able to answer my 2nd question about armor. How long would you say it would take to don some armors? Of course I figure plate would take a long time and you'd need a helper. But how much easier would full chain be?

In my game last weekend the party spotted some armed people wandering down a hillside toward their camp and begin perparing for the worst. The Stalnish knight in exhile wanted to try putting on his full chain (or parts at least) before the wanders spotted the camp. I discouraged it, telling him he wasn't certain if there would be ample time. But I realized I don't really have an idea how long it would take.

A chain birnie (shirt) or hauberk really doesn't take much longer to pull on than a regular shirt would (a little longer, because it's heavier, but not by much). Chain leggings take a little longer to pull up and belt on, but again, it's not all that much more than regular clothing.

If you want to add plate accessories etc, that's when it gets time consuming because they have to be placed, strapped on, tightened, etc.

Brian.

I wear a fairly historically accurate coat of plates, Wisby style.. quick to get into, but you do need someone to strap you in from the back. My legs are only partial, and are almost certainly not historically rigged, as I've got them suspended from a army-style web-gear belt. The arms are still forthcoming, but from the loaner gear I've worn, it's a matter mostly of a few straps here and there, which definately goes faster with someone assisting, but doesn't generally take too long. My helm is also of questionable historical accuracy, and the inner rigging is not at all, consisting of martial arts headgear for padding, and a chinstrap from a military issue kevlar.

Still, all in all it takes me maybe 5-10 minutes to get armored up when I'm not lollygagging around and taking my time getting the whole rig on. Probably if I did it under life and death circumstances on a daily basis, I could cut it down to 3 minutes or so.

But yeah.. Though the SCA doesn't use a lot of full-chain harness, (seeing as how it's protection is negligible against blunt weapons, and it's not the lightest stuff in the world) I've seen more than a few hauberks go on. If you're not wearing your gambeson, it might take you all of about 30 seconds to pull on the gambeson, then the hauberk (or birnie) and finally the coif (if you wear one). Another minute or less for the chausses (leggings). Unless the wanderers were less than 30 seconds out, he'd have had time to at least put on his hauberk.

Speaking of armor.. For anyone interested in some pretty accurate armor (as well as some historically-inspired and fantasy armor) I'd recommend Vistar Armoury for either good pictures, or good purchases. They're the place where I got my coat of plates.

Again thank you for the help and thanks for the intresting link Wolfen.