17th to 18th Century Armor

[McQ]

Have an area that has technologies from the 17th century and one other in the 18th. Seems in these time periods armor was not used often due to firearms being introduced.

A "Pikeman's Suit" was a Breastplate, along with some cavalry and officers wearing something like half plate.

Some might wear a Brigandine (+4 AC, Medium, Max Dex +2, Armor Penalty -5)

And there is an occasional coat or suit of leather.

This makes the selection of armors very limited and in most cases would have none at all. If so, would I need to make firearms with high criticals and damage?

Suggestions?

[Kaeso]

Have an area that has technologies from the 17th century and one other in the 18th. Seems in these time periods armor was not used often due to firearms being introduced.

A "Pikeman's Suit" was a Breastplate, along with some cavalry and officers wearing something like half plate.

Some might wear a Brigandine (+4 AC, Medium, Max Dex +2, Armor Penalty -5)

And there is an occasional coat or suit of leather.

This makes the selection of armors very limited and in most cases would have none at all. If so, would I need to make firearms with high criticals and damage?

Suggestions?

In the 17th and especially 18th century armor became obsolete as flintlock riffles became more and more deadly. The only thing that comes close to armor in that era are either the armor the Polish-Lithuanian winged hussars dressed in, or the Cuirass from the Napoleonic Cuirassiers.

[Sylivin]

I would highly suggest looking into d20 modern for ideas. The name of the game is cover and avoidance. Armor still exists, but your class bonuses to AC are more important.

Remember also that guns of that time period took some time to reload and were rather inaccurate. Moving quickly and getting up into an enemy's face is a good idea for a small group (PCs) which is something heavy armor makes difficult anyway.

As for firearms I would make them do more damage, maybe 2d6 or 2d8 on average. Range penalties would start quite close and I would suggest no masterworking (aka: keep them as powerful, inaccurate weapons to make up for the loss of armor). In addition smokeless powder does not exist yet which means snipers, rogues, and anyone else stealthy would still use crossbows or normal bows. Even non-sneaky PCs might find it difficult as NPCs would be able to track them by their smoke cloud.

Of course, all this goes out the window with magic. A wand of scorching ray is more powerful and easier to hit with. Many of the negatives of guns can be handwaved away with magical enchantments, but likewise become much less dangerous in a world with protection from arrows (which works on all non-magical ranged weapons), wind wall, and entropic shield. Commoners and foot soldiers become more deadly, but spell casters will still reign supreme.

[faceroll]

What if you were to make it so those armors granted something like DR4/-?

With damage reduction, fighting in huge battles, a creature can get hit multiple times with volleys of bullets, but survive. Due to the d20 rules, 100 soldiers firing at a single target, even if the target is invisible, will take an average of a lot of damage, due to criticals.

DR4/- on crappy armor works for your troops, since they're less worried about getting hit and more worried about taking damage, just due to the statistics of volley fire. Your PCs, on the other hand, have to fight things that womp out 20-50 damage a hit, so they would rather have a high AC and totally ignore that body crushing blow than a trivial amount of damage.

Just make sure that your PCs have mithril full plate/breastplate/chain shirt and have around 7 levels before they're getting super DR4/- equipment.

[myancey]

What if you were to make it so those armors granted something like DR4/-?


I like the DR idea. Use the armor rules from UA. http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/armorAsDamageReduction.htm

[McQ]

I've found that Padded and Leather light armor, Breastplate for medium armor, and Half plate for heavy armor *could* fit into this era. It limits what armor is available, but anything above the light armors would likely be worn by military or guards, so it's not entirely an issue.

I like the idea of Damage Reduction and will look into finding a copy of the D20 Modern.

The last problem is how to manage all the other armor types existing in the world, and why they would have medieval armor. The technology of crafting firearms, and the explosives needed are the reason for this region's dominance. As such, firearm distribution is guarded, and only a neighboring faction has managed to steal them.

Could this account for other regions using only medieval technology? And the potential for medieval armors (possibly only used by thugs unable to afford a firearm) to exist infrequently within the region with guns?