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fibonacciseries
2014-08-02, 03:26 PM
So I was just skimming the new rulebook, and I came across something that confused me. Splint Armor is almost identical to Full Plate, with the same requisite STR score, Disadvantage to Stealth, and five pounds lighter, and one fewer point of AC.

Oh yeah, one more difference. Splint Armor only costs 200 GP, less than a seventh of the cost of Full Plate.

Is there something I'm missing? Some hidden drawback I've yet to come across in the rules? Or is this just very good armor at a ridiculously good price?

Knaight
2014-08-02, 03:34 PM
It's inferior plate, nothing more. The idea is you'll upgrade to it from mail, then upgrade to plate.

Sartharina
2014-08-02, 03:36 PM
One fewer point of AC is significant.

fibonacciseries
2014-08-02, 03:39 PM
I get that it's basically just inferior plate, but it seems to me that the difference in quality is significantly less than the difference in price.

My question was basically, is there some qualitative difference aside from 1 point of AC that justifies the massive difference in price?

SiuiS
2014-08-02, 03:41 PM
I get that it's basically just inferior plate, but it seems to me that the difference in quality is significantly less than the difference in price.

My question was basically, is there some qualitative difference aside from 1 point of AC that justifies the massive difference in price?

Verisimilitude.

One is metal backing for leather or similar, the other is ornate full body custom fitted gothic plate.

Millennium
2014-08-02, 03:50 PM
One fewer point of AC is significant.
Even in a system with bounded accuracy?

Morty
2014-08-02, 03:52 PM
The armour table is a relic, without much rhyme or reason to it.

Knaight
2014-08-02, 03:53 PM
I get that it's basically just inferior plate, but it seems to me that the difference in quality is significantly less than the difference in price.

My question was basically, is there some qualitative difference aside from 1 point of AC that justifies the massive difference in price?

The difference in price makes perfect sense. Verisimilitude was already mentioned, but it also makes sense that it costs more and more to get marginally better - that's generally how things pan out realistically, and it also fits with the traditional wealth system of D&D.


The armour table is a relic, without much rhyme or reason to it.
That too. I'd really like to see it compressed into just light-medium-heavy, then having quality determine the details between it. What light-medium-heavy actually mean in setting and what quality differences entail could be addressed in a sidebar, with different options. A campaign based more on the earlier medieval period might have "heavy" almost always mean mail of different qualities, one based on the later period is more likely to have plate.

Sartharina
2014-08-02, 04:03 PM
Even in a system with bounded accuracy?Especially in a system with Bounded Accuracy, where the enemy bonuses to attack cannot trivialize it. (The minimum a +1 reduces damage taken is 5% - going from always hit to a miss on a 1. It can be up to a 50% reduction in damage, going from being hit on a 19 to being hit on a 20)

Morty
2014-08-02, 05:39 PM
That too. I'd really like to see it compressed into just light-medium-heavy, then having quality determine the details between it. What light-medium-heavy actually mean in setting and what quality differences entail could be addressed in a sidebar, with different options. A campaign based more on the earlier medieval period might have "heavy" almost always mean mail of different qualities, one based on the later period is more likely to have plate.

That would make sense. The details and properties would probably go into the PHB, with the Basic Set only outlining the simplest version of each category. Unfortunately, the table it actually contains looks like it was cobbled together to resemble the old ones, without being given much thought.

akaddk
2014-08-02, 06:27 PM
Well obviously it's broken. It's splint right down the middle...

rlc
2014-08-02, 07:15 PM
Womp womp womp womp

SiuiS
2014-08-02, 10:50 PM
The difference in price makes perfect sense. Verisimilitude was already mentioned, but it also makes sense that it costs more and more to get marginally better - that's generally how things pan out realistically, and it also fits with the traditional wealth system of D&D.


That too. I'd really like to see it compressed into just light-medium-heavy, then having quality determine the details between it. What light-medium-heavy actually mean in setting and what quality differences entail could be addressed in a sidebar, with different options. A campaign based more on the earlier medieval period might have "heavy" almost always mean mail of different qualities, one based on the later period is more likely to have plate.

Ooh, that's good. I'll have to steal that.

That's what I tried for Amtgard, come to think of it.


Especially in a system with Bounded Accuracy, where the enemy bonuses to attack cannot trivialize it. (The minimum a +1 reduces damage taken is 5% - going from always hit to a miss on a 1. It can be up to a 50% reduction in damage, going from being hit on a 19 to being hit on a 20)

Exactly.

Doug Lampert
2014-08-03, 12:20 AM
Verisimilitude.

One is metal backing for leather or similar, the other is ornate full body custom fitted gothic plate.

IMAO it destroys verisimilitude to have both. The thing is, if you can make full body custom fitted gothic plate at all, then ALL the armor you make is plate. Splint is obsoleted by half plate, or a back and breast, or partial plate, or any of a hundred variations of "cheaper plate" that are all of cheaper, better protection, lighter, and easier to move in than the roughly equivalent chain or splint or bezainted or whatever armor.

Solid sheets of hardened steel are simply better protection than small pieces of iron sewn onto backing or linked in rings or whatever and once you've got the tech to make the solid sheets at all it turns out it's actually cheaper and easier than making a bunch of small pieces and linking them somehow and that the lower need for padding means it's lighter and thinner and the superior ability of plate to spread the load rather makes it easier to move in than flexible armor where the weight mostly hangs on your shoulders.

If plate exists then there should be light plate, medium plate, and heavy plate. There should be cheap plate, moderate plate, expensive plate, and "oh my god that's expensive, you could outfit an army for what that suit costs" plate.

But there shouldn't be anyone from a civilization that's managed to figure out full plate wearing any form of body armor BUT plate until they start coming up with something like modern Kevlar and ceramic insert armor.

Drawing wire by hand is one heck of a lot of work to make inferior armor. It's so much work that no one who could get plate did it except for occasional use for things like joint protection on armor that wasn't actually full gothic plate.

Which is why a set of generic categories is actually better for verisimilitude and realism than a hard defined set of types, something like four cost multipliers and three weights. Then give a list of choices of what those armors might actually mean to various cultures and tech levels, standard D&D land is in fact at the "full plate" tech level, so the armor should be plate, but there's enormous variation available in just what that means and how protective it is.

Expensive heavy armor has one set of game statistics. Cheap light armor has another. Moderate medium armor yet another. But realistically for any one civilization they're both likely to be made of the same types of materials used in the same general types of ways.

MeeposFire
2014-08-03, 12:34 AM
IMAO it destroys verisimilitude to have both. The thing is, if you can make full body custom fitted gothic plate at all, then ALL the armor you make is plate. Splint is obsoleted by half plate, or a back and breast, or partial plate, or any of a hundred variations of "cheaper plate" that are all of cheaper, better protection, lighter, and easier to move in than the roughly equivalent chain or splint or bezainted or whatever armor.

Solid sheets of hardened steel are simply better protection than small pieces of iron sewn onto backing or linked in rings or whatever and once you've got the tech to make the solid sheets at all it turns out it's actually cheaper and easier than making a bunch of small pieces and linking them somehow and that the lower need for padding means it's lighter and thinner and the superior ability of plate to spread the load rather makes it easier to move in than flexible armor where the weight mostly hangs on your shoulders.

If plate exists then there should be light plate, medium plate, and heavy plate. There should be cheap plate, moderate plate, expensive plate, and "oh my god that's expensive, you could outfit an army for what that suit costs" plate.

But there shouldn't be anyone from a civilization that's managed to figure out full plate wearing any form of body armor BUT plate until they start coming up with something like modern Kevlar and ceramic insert armor.

Drawing wire by hand is one heck of a lot of work to make inferior armor. It's so much work that no one who could get plate did it except for occasional use for things like joint protection on armor that wasn't actually full gothic plate.

Which is why a set of generic categories is actually better for verisimilitude and realism than a hard defined set of types, something like four cost multipliers and three weights. Then give a list of choices of what those armors might actually mean to various cultures and tech levels, standard D&D land is in fact at the "full plate" tech level, so the armor should be plate, but there's enormous variation available in just what that means and how protective it is.

Expensive heavy armor has one set of game statistics. Cheap light armor has another. Moderate medium armor yet another. But realistically for any one civilization they're both likely to be made of the same types of materials used in the same general types of ways.

Ah but then the people that just love armor would not be happy. We want armor ALL OF IT!

This is also the reason that in AD&D we had a metric ton of ever so slightly different polearms all in the same place. It was to make those weapon guys happy (especially Gygax he seemed to have a thing for those weapons).

Sartharina
2014-08-03, 12:37 AM
IMAO it destroys verisimilitude to have both. The thing is, if you can make full body custom fitted gothic plate at all, then ALL the armor you make is plate. Splint is obsoleted by half plate, or a back and breast, or partial plate, or any of a hundred variations of "cheaper plate" that are all of cheaper, better protection, lighter, and easier to move in than the roughly equivalent chain or splint or bezainted or whatever armor.The problem is Splint Armor (Which was never even a thing!). I wish we had Banded Armor instead. Backing banded sheets of metal with leather is easier than trying to sculpt and get plates to interlock smoothly.

Of course, I have no idea what chain armors are supposed to even look like, and they've always seemed impractically dense to me.

I am really glad "Half-Plate" is a medium armor now!

hamishspence
2014-08-03, 12:38 AM
Ah but then the people that just love armor would not be happy. We want armor ALL OF IT!

If only because we may want to represent a wide range of eras, rather than just one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splint_armor

Sartharina
2014-08-03, 12:46 AM
If only because we may want to represent a wide range of eras, rather than just one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splint_armor

I really should have checked that article, which makes sense, and clarifies that Splint armor is closer to Plate, except with lighter limb protection and weight because limbs don't have the same range of subtle motion as the spine does, and can get away with strips of metal along the limbs.

Morty
2014-08-03, 05:31 AM
Ah but then the people that just love armor would not be happy. We want armor ALL OF IT!

This is also the reason that in AD&D we had a metric ton of ever so slightly different polearms all in the same place. It was to make those weapon guys happy (especially Gygax he seemed to have a thing for those weapons).

An illusion of verisimilitude and complexity is a sort of D&D tradition, I suppose.

akaddk
2014-08-03, 05:58 AM
Here's a thought. Why does everything have to be exactly historically accurate in a fantasy game? Can't you just assume that the versions that are in this world are simply called these names and yet have these values? Or just change the names?

Beleriphon
2014-08-03, 06:08 AM
I think the inclusion is one part tradition for D&D (since I don't think that Gary Gygax or Dave Arneson were medival armour historians) and one part inclusiveness. When it gets right down to it a suit of full harness is better than a quilted gambeson by a wide margin. Full harness is also better than maille (ie D&D chainmail) and the rules attempt to represent that fact. The fact that nobody wore only chainmail hauberks once plate style armour (whether a breast plate, full harness or something in between) became available is largely irrelevant for D&D.

If you wanted to emulate A Song of Ice and Fire where most armour falls into quilted gambesons for the masses and some kind of plate for the nobility then using the different types of armour above light as different styles of shaped steel armour is probably the best bet.

VeliciaL
2014-08-03, 11:56 AM
I can stand splint and chain being a thing. Once you get the funds you'll just upgrade to plate or half-plate, anyway, which are both flat-out superior.

No, the one that always perplexed me was studded leather. :smallconfused:

Sartharina
2014-08-03, 12:23 PM
No, the one that always perplexed me was studded leather. :smallconfused:Why does Studded Leather perplex you?

pwykersotz
2014-08-03, 12:36 PM
I can stand splint and chain being a thing. Once you get the funds you'll just upgrade to plate or half-plate, anyway, which are both flat-out superior.

No, the one that always perplexed me was studded leather. :smallconfused:

Your emoticon and your avatar have the same expression, and it amuses me. :smallbiggrin:

Knaight
2014-08-03, 01:19 PM
IMAO it destroys verisimilitude to have both. The thing is, if you can make full body custom fitted gothic plate at all, then ALL the armor you make is plate. Splint is obsoleted by half plate, or a back and breast, or partial plate, or any of a hundred variations of "cheaper plate" that are all of cheaper, better protection, lighter, and easier to move in than the roughly equivalent chain or splint or bezainted or whatever armor.
It depends a lot on the specifics. For instance, look at the development of plate armor in Europe - it took place after the black death, while the black plague was still very much a threat (it stuck around for centuries, though at a way lower level than during the black death). That drove labor prices through the roof. Meanwhile, lots of developments were made that made blast furnaces more logistically feasible - advancements in construction techniques, limited adaptation of coal in armor centers (particularly Augsburg), so on and so forth. Meanwhile, look at antiquity - they didn't have the capacity to make large plated out of steel with any reliability, but there were a number of armors based on smaller plates. Mail pretty much supplanted them in Europe, northern Africa, and Asia from turkey to India by 100 CE. A lot of that was that metallurgy wasn't as developed, particularly regarding blast furnaces. Another part was that antiquity tended to have a lot of slave labor. Rome stands out here as an area with a huge amount of slave labor, and that made mail a lot more feasible despite how labor intensive it was.

Basically, if labor is cheap and there are impediments to blast furnace proliferation or the spreading of knowledge required to produce the sort of largely homogenous metals plate depends on, having mail alongside plate makes a lot of sense. Splint also makes sense in there. On top of that, armor can last a long time - sets of mail were in use for generations, with individual link repairs coming up every so often.

D&D's list largely works in the context of transitional armors in the 13th century, with plate being a brand new invention that hasn't spread to the backwaters, and plain old mail largely being either from said backwaters or older armor that is still in use, with a number of things in between, which is where splint fits in*. Cheap labor and less industrial technology for production just spreads things out a bit. Without plate being a mature technology yet, having the assortment makes sense.


Why does Studded Leather perplex you?
Punching a bunch of holes in leather is not going to improve the protection. Putting little metal studs in said holes is damage control, and not actually helpful. Plus, the design of studded leather is based on brigandine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigandine). While there are a number of designs, a few of them were riveted inside leather. Basically, studded leather comes from looking at the outside of these, and then thinking that the rivets were studs, as opposed to rivets holding on actual plates on the inside.

*I will say that splint being the main source of armor rather than as limb protection, which is where it usually fits in.

Angelalex242
2014-08-03, 01:24 PM
Why would anyone buy splint when you can wait a bit and buy banded. Why would anyone buy plate when you can wait a bit and buy mithril plate?

It seems like showing a little patience to keep your movement rate up is more prudent then buying heavier armor at the first opportunity.

SowZ
2014-08-03, 01:28 PM
In 5e, your AC might change 10 points from level 1 to 20, as opposed to probably double that in 3.5. Making that 1 point of AC very valuable.

Morty
2014-08-03, 01:31 PM
Punching a bunch of holes in leather is not going to improve the protection. Putting little metal studs in said holes is damage control, and not actually helpful. Plus, the design of studded leather is based on brigandine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigandine). While there are a number of designs, a few of them were riveted inside leather. Basically, studded leather comes from looking at the outside of these, and then thinking that the rivets were studs, as opposed to rivets holding on actual plates on the inside.

Yeah, "studded leather" is a myth as amazingly durable as it is completely false. Mind you, as far as I remember, 'leather armour' as D&D describes it didn't exist either - leather was used for armour, but it certainly didn't take the form of leather jackets.

Knaight
2014-08-03, 02:22 PM
Yeah, "studded leather" is a myth as amazingly durable as it is completely false. Mind you, as far as I remember, 'leather armour' as D&D describes it didn't exist either - leather was used for armour, but it certainly didn't take the form of leather jackets.

Sure, but that one at least makes sense - leather jackets and such do crop up in modern knife fights and similar, it is potentially useful in niche situations (things like people trying to use a longer sword against someone grabbing them where they aren't getting much force out of the it but might be able to cut bare flesh), and grabbing leather clothing because one can't afford actual armor is at least sensible. Studded leather is just bizarre.

VeliciaL
2014-08-03, 02:29 PM
Pretty much what Knaight said. Adding studs to leather is a silly way of adding "protection."

In reality, that sort of thing (kinda) existed, because the studs were welded to metal plates underneath. In-game, that's probably better represented as a breastplate, or - perhaps ironically, given this thread - splint armor. :smallbiggrin:


Your emoticon and your avatar have the same expression, and it amuses me. :smallbiggrin:

:smalltongue:

I need a new one, actually. Had that for a few weeks. A bit hard to get new pony expressions when the show is on hiatus though. :smallbiggrin:

SowZ
2014-08-03, 02:32 PM
Yeah, "studded leather" is a myth as amazingly durable as it is completely false. Mind you, as far as I remember, 'leather armour' as D&D describes it didn't exist either - leather was used for armour, but it certainly didn't take the form of leather jackets.

Leather as armour was pretty much ceremonial, decorative, or used in mock fights in Europe. It existed in parts of Africa and Asia and may have been some usage in the Middle East, but even then not like traditional fantasy descriptions. If you go way back in human history, including Europe, wearing furs into battle might have been considered armour. But it's all very murky and the kind of leather armour you see in Dragon Age never existed.

Morty
2014-08-03, 02:51 PM
Sure, but that one at least makes sense - leather jackets and such do crop up in modern knife fights and similar, it is potentially useful in niche situations (things like people trying to use a longer sword against someone grabbing them where they aren't getting much force out of the it but might be able to cut bare flesh), and grabbing leather clothing because one can't afford actual armor is at least sensible. Studded leather is just bizarre.

True, it's not quite the same. One is fiction with some basis in reality, the other is fiction with its only basis in misconception.


Leather as armour was pretty much ceremonial, decorative, or used in mock fights in Europe. It existed in parts of Africa and Asia and may have been some usage in the Middle East, but even then not like traditional fantasy descriptions. If you go way back in human history, including Europe, wearing furs into battle might have been considered armour. But it's all very murky and the kind of leather armour you see in Dragon Age never existed.

I've heard of leather being used to make scales of sorts by steppe-dwelling peoples, I'm not sure how true it is. But yes, all in all, the kind of leather jackets and vests you see are more or less fantasy.

But we digress, I suppose. The armour table in 5e continues the proud tradition of being cobbled together from pieces of realism, some misconception and an illusion of variety. So weird things will happen.

Doug Lampert
2014-08-03, 04:39 PM
D&D's list largely works in the context of transitional armors in the 13th century, with plate being a brand new invention that hasn't spread to the backwaters, and plain old mail largely being either from said backwaters or older armor that is still in use, with a number of things in between, which is where splint fits in*. Cheap labor and less industrial technology for production just spreads things out a bit. Without plate being a mature technology yet, having the assortment makes sense.
13th century sort of works for the types all being present, but there was nothing like full gothic plate available at that time and the relative price implies we're looking at something like full gothic plate. Cheaper labor simply won't make new maille competitive with plate, it just makes it less obviously outclassed. You're still using a comparable amount of material + much more labor to achieve worse protection.

And if plate is a recent innovation so obsolescent older gear is still in use then that should impact the distribution of magical armor in hoards, not plate in the 200 year abandoned dwarf fortress.

You can solve all this with enough handwavium: Maybe blast furnaces attract red dragons or fire elementals, or something. But that's a lot of trouble to go through to avoid simply using weight and cost multipliers for quality.

Sartharina
2014-08-03, 05:03 PM
And if plate is a recent innovation so obsolescent older gear is still in use then that should impact the distribution of magical armor in hoards, not plate in the 200 year abandoned dwarf fortress.Or: Only dwarves have the means to make the manufacturing capacity to produce plate armors, and make them for human allies. Humans are stuck with maille.

Knaight
2014-08-03, 06:01 PM
13th century sort of works for the types all being present, but there was nothing like full gothic plate available at that time and the relative price implies we're looking at something like full gothic plate. Cheaper labor simply won't make new maille competitive with plate, it just makes it less obviously outclassed. You're still using a comparable amount of material + much more labor to achieve worse protection.

And if plate is a recent innovation so obsolescent older gear is still in use then that should impact the distribution of magical armor in hoards, not plate in the 200 year abandoned dwarf fortress.
I'd agree with all of this. New maille isn't competitive, and the actual centers of armor production wouldn't be making it. But with the kind of crappy lines of communication implied by a hostile monster filled wilderness, that's less of a big deal regarding what gets produced in the backwater. Similarly, plate shouldn't be found in old ruins - though if they are really old you might get a bronze breastplate or similar.


You can solve all this with enough handwavium: Maybe blast furnaces attract red dragons or fire elementals, or something. But that's a lot of trouble to go through to avoid simply using weight and cost multipliers for quality.
I don't think it actually takes that much - crappy communication, large differences in technological capacity between places, etc. cover it. Even on modern day earth, there are stone age cultures after all.

With that said, I'd still prefer a light-medium-heavy system with a sidebar explaining what that might mean for different periods. Couple it with qualities, maybe add some traits (e.g. Reinforced: +1 AC, Disadvantage on stealth checks, +2 strength requirement), and call it a day.

TripleD
2014-08-04, 01:01 AM
I've heard of leather being used to make scales of sorts by steppe-dwelling peoples, I'm not sure how true it is.


Don't know much about the steppe dwelling people, but most Native American nations used a combination of leather and wood/bone for their armor.

For example, here's a pic of Haida full-body leather and wood.

http://media-cache-cd0.pinimg.com/736x/0e/79/3e/0e793e5ce851a6be0a972757cb327e21.jpg

Leather covers the whole body, but the most vital areas are protected behind wood. So yes, even among people with no access to metallurgy, pure-leather armor was pretty non-existent.

Sartharina
2014-08-05, 01:15 AM
The job of leather and padded armors isn't to protect against direct attacks - it's for protecting against indirect, incidental, and distracting blows that tend to accumulate and occur in chaotic melee - a bit of extra safety when you block a blow but it gets forced near your body anyway (or it nearly grazes you when you disengage from a parry), or from getting sliced when someone pulls their spear back after thrusting it over your shoulder. Or not hurting yourself when you step on something ouchy. They also provide a bit of padding.

Also - laquered leather and cuir bouillie are hard and strong enough to work as scale, plate, and Lamellar armors (Though obviously not as good as metal-based armors)

Morty
2014-08-05, 11:50 AM
With that said, I'd still prefer a light-medium-heavy system with a sidebar explaining what that might mean for different periods. Couple it with qualities, maybe add some traits (e.g. Reinforced: +1 AC, Disadvantage on stealth checks, +2 strength requirement), and call it a day.

That they didn't do it casts their claim of focusing on simplicity in a rather dubious light.

inuyasha
2014-08-05, 11:53 AM
Well gee, I hope not, broken armor is useless

SowZ
2014-08-05, 02:02 PM
Don't know much about the steppe dwelling people, but most Native American nations used a combination of leather and wood/bone for their armor.

For example, here's a pic of Haida full-body leather and wood.

http://media-cache-cd0.pinimg.com/736x/0e/79/3e/0e793e5ce851a6be0a972757cb327e21.jpg

Leather covers the whole body, but the most vital areas are protected behind wood. So yes, even among people with no access to metallurgy, pure-leather armor was pretty non-existent.

That's a good point, and I don't know much about Native American history. But as soon as they'd figured out enough metal working to make metal armour, I bet that would have stopped.


The job of leather and padded armors isn't to protect against direct attacks - it's for protecting against indirect, incidental, and distracting blows that tend to accumulate and occur in chaotic melee - a bit of extra safety when you block a blow but it gets forced near your body anyway (or it nearly grazes you when you disengage from a parry), or from getting sliced when someone pulls their spear back after thrusting it over your shoulder. Or not hurting yourself when you step on something ouchy. They also provide a bit of padding.

Also - laquered leather and cuir bouillie are hard and strong enough to work as scale, plate, and Lamellar armors (Though obviously not as good as metal-based armors)

There may have been a little of that in the middle east, and was some in Asia, but not in Europe. Not really.

warty goblin
2014-08-07, 01:07 AM
Re: leather armor. It certainly did exist in Europe, or at least the Mediterranean. Tutankhamun was buried with a sleeveless cuirrass of leather scales stitched to a linen backing. There's other records of coats of scaled armor made from leather, or more probably rawhide throughout Asia Minor during much of the early and mid bronze ages as well. I've seen references to coats of mixed rawhide and bronze scales as well. A second century AD source mentions Greek hoplites wearing leather body armor. By the time you roll up to the periods most closely resembling traditional fantasy some twenty-five centuries later though, not really so much.

However in all these cases the stuff is probably more cumbersome than just plain maille, although obviously that was not available circa 1200 BC. The rawhide scale coats were probably lighter than a similar armor made of bronze, but it seems difficult to credit it as being any more flexible or easy to move in aside from that.

eastmabl
2014-08-07, 01:11 PM
I think of studded leather armor like the stories of Bibles stopping bullets in the Civil War. Sure, King James might not save you from a point blank shot, but maybe he slows down a longer shot enough to save your life. Similarly, a metal plate in your leather armor might not stop a greatsword from slicing your chest open, but it might take enough of the sting out of a hit from a mace as not to damage you.

Demonic Spoon
2014-08-07, 01:47 PM
all of these comparisons to real life are talking about the armor that soldiers wore. Presumably any martial D&D character that would resemble a soldier in medieval Europe or elsewhere will be wearing metal armor (mail or plate).

Though, I'm not sure if actual leather armor would be substantially less cumbersome than mail (as mentioned above). Maybe leather armor isn't supposed to represent something worn by soldiers as "armor", but heavier/thicker clothing that would dull attacks more than straight cloth?

Sartharina
2014-08-07, 01:49 PM
Yeah. The 'light armors' are for civilian protection, and defend against glancing attacks.

Knaight
2014-08-07, 02:27 PM
Yeah. The 'light armors' are for civilian protection, and defend against glancing attacks.

Sure, but studded leather doesn't even do that particularly well - a bunch of studs on a leather backing aren't going to be any lighter than a mail byrnie, and the byrnie is a vastly better piece of protective equipment.

Demonic Spoon
2014-08-07, 02:31 PM
could you get away with refluffing studded leather as having the studs hold in armor plates (which did happen historically) and no other changes?

Dienekes
2014-08-07, 02:43 PM
could you get away with refluffing studded leather as having the studs hold in armor plates (which did happen historically) and no other changes?

The biggest problem with that, is that coat of plates armor was really a transitional armor between mail and plate. So having it be the second weakest armor doesn't really make sense.

VeliciaL
2014-08-07, 03:44 PM
The biggest problem with that, is that coat of plates armor was really a transitional armor between mail and plate. So having it be the second weakest armor doesn't really make sense.

This. Why would metal plates woven together be heavy armor, but heavy plates woven under leather be light armor?

warty goblin
2014-08-07, 05:07 PM
I think of studded leather armor like the stories of Bibles stopping bullets in the Civil War. Sure, King James might not save you from a point blank shot, but maybe he slows down a longer shot enough to save your life. Similarly, a metal plate in your leather armor might not stop a greatsword from slicing your chest open, but it might take enough of the sting out of a hit from a mace as not to damage you.
If your leather armor takes the sting out of getting clonked with a mace, the presence of little rivets won't have anything to do with it. Arguably you'd be better off without the little rivets, since those just weaken the leather and can get ripped out and driven into your flesh. Generally one tries to avoid having to yank one's own armor out of oneself.


all of these comparisons to real life are talking about the armor that soldiers wore. Presumably any martial D&D character that would resemble a soldier in medieval Europe or elsewhere will be wearing metal armor (mail or plate).

Though, I'm not sure if actual leather armor would be substantially less cumbersome than mail (as mentioned above). Maybe leather armor isn't supposed to represent something worn by soldiers as "armor", but heavier/thicker clothing that would dull attacks more than straight cloth?
Maille is really non-restrictive, particularly if you are just wearing torso protection. The arm and thigh portions of a hauberk can be slightly cumbersome, since they 'slosh' somewhat when you move, but it's not a particularly big deal. It's really just a very heavy knit sweater, and in my experience is substantially easier to move in than a lot of winter coats.

If you need fluff for a better leather armor, go with heavy leather armor. Same stuff, but with thicker leather over your more important bits. It's more expensive since there's not that much really thick hide on your average ox, and less flexible because the leather's thicker, but it's the same stuff. As a bonus, you no longer have to look like you buy your armor at Hot Topic.

SowZ
2014-08-07, 05:56 PM
Re: leather armor. It certainly did exist in Europe, or at least the Mediterranean. Tutankhamun was buried with a sleeveless cuirrass of leather scales stitched to a linen backing. There's other records of coats of scaled armor made from leather, or more probably rawhide throughout Asia Minor during much of the early and mid bronze ages as well. I've seen references to coats of mixed rawhide and bronze scales as well. A second century AD source mentions Greek hoplites wearing leather body armor. By the time you roll up to the periods most closely resembling traditional fantasy some twenty-five centuries later though, not really so much.

However in all these cases the stuff is probably more cumbersome than just plain maille, although obviously that was not available circa 1200 BC. The rawhide scale coats were probably lighter than a similar armor made of bronze, but it seems difficult to credit it as being any more flexible or easy to move in aside from that.

I admitted that there may have been some leather armor in the Middle East, but I've seen no strong evidence for leather armor as anything other than a complement to metal armor.

Sartharina
2014-08-07, 07:04 PM
I admitted that there may have been some leather armor in the Middle East, but I've seen no strong evidence for leather armor as anything other than a complement to metal armor.So, every single spear-or-billhook-wielding Conscript that had any amount of self-protection on the battlefield wore metal armor?

VeliciaL
2014-08-07, 07:15 PM
So, every single spear-or-billhook-wielding Conscript that had any amount of self-protection on the battlefield wore metal armor?

If they wore armor at all - and a lot of them didn't - I'm pretty sure what they wore was a Gambeson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambeson). I.E. quilted armor.

Quilted armor is a lot more effective than people think. It was even worn under metal armors for extra protection; mail over a quilted coat could be really robust.

Part of me wants to houserule the gambeson as the +3 AC, disadvantaged stealth light armor.

SowZ
2014-08-07, 07:17 PM
So, every single spear-or-billhook-wielding Conscript that had any amount of self-protection on the battlefield wore metal armor?

A lot more than you think, I'd wager. A large portion were professional soldiers or man-at-arms and a lot of them could afford their own armor. The conscript army is something you would sometimes do if you didn't have a real army and were under attack and wanted to scare attackers off, but even then you usually wouldn't. People have this image of peasant armies that has very little to no basis in fact. The concept of fighting a war with draftees didn't really start until the invention of the gun. At any rate, if you weren't a pro and couldn't afford metal armor, you aren't going to use valuable leather on something that has very little chance of saving your life but a guaranteed chance on making you slower. There are techniques to make somewhat effective leather armor, but those techniques weren't spread in Europe. And no leather armor from anywhere in history would ever be effective against medieval weapons.

So yeah. Europe didn't have leather armor. It is a fiction. Quilted armor existed, that's true. But it would be a lot cheaper than leather and not as constricting, so it would make more sense to wear.

Let me ask you this. Do most soldiers in modern warfare who can't afford kevlar wear trashcans on their bodies, or do they go in with no self protection?

'What makes sense' isn't evidence. If you can bring up any evidence, I'll read it.

Icewraith
2014-08-07, 07:20 PM
Nooooooooo you'll break all the heavy armors! Don't do it!

(A max dex character in that armor would have the same AC as a plate wearer. You're making the new Mithral Chain Shirt. Dex is already way too good a stat if certain assumptions about how the system works continue to hold.)

Tholomyes
2014-08-07, 07:25 PM
So yeah. Europe didn't have leather armor. It is a fiction.As opposed to the Dragons and demons, we've come to know and love in our D&D games, which were known to be a great nuisance to Medieval kingdoms.

Let's face it, this game is entirely based on tropes common to the fantasy genre. Some are true to reality, while others aren't. Leather armor might not be all that true to reality, but it's present in fantasy fiction and fantasy tropes. This is my biggest problem with realism, when it comes to discussions about gaming. It's not synonymous with Simulationism. Simulationism is, as the name seems to indicate, the ability to simulate the genre that the game is a part of. When that genre breaks from reality, so must simulationism.

VeliciaL
2014-08-07, 07:26 PM
Nooooooooo you'll break all the heavy armors! Don't do it!

(A max dex character in that armor would have the same AC as a plate wearer. You're making the new Mithral Chain Shirt. Dex is already way too good a stat if certain assumptions about how the system works continue to hold.)

I got my terms mixed up: It should be 12+Dex AC, disadvantaged stealth (and essentially replacing studded leather).

Not gonna argue with you about Dex being too powerful though. :smallbiggrin:

Sartharina
2014-08-07, 07:32 PM
As opposed to the Dragons and demons, we've come to know and love in our D&D games, which were known to be a great nuisance to Medieval kingdoms.Yes, yes they were. Fortunately, there were lots of Saints around to vanquish them. :smalltongue:


Let me ask you this. Do most soldiers in modern warfare who can't afford kevlar wear trashcans on their bodies, or do they go in with no self protection?From what I've seen, they tend to wear motorcycle jackets and pants. Not to stop bullets, but to protect against incidental damage.

SowZ
2014-08-07, 07:40 PM
Yes, yes they were. Fortunately, there were lots of Saints around to vanquish them. :smalltongue:

From what I've seen, they tend to wear motorcycle jackets and pants. Not to stop bullets, but to protect against incidental damage.

A leather vest or jerking wouldn't be armor at all since it wouldn't be hardened. But leather clothes would have been really expensive in medieval times.

TheOOB
2014-08-08, 02:15 AM
Several people have mentioned that having unrealistic armor breaks, verisimilitude, which is using that word wrong. That word means a sense of realism in the context of the fictional world. D&D has never had realistic weapons or armor, but the weapons and armor they do have is fairly consistant.

For splint mail, I'd use the cost and stat line to represent any armor that is made of a number of small metal plates covering the majority of the wearers body(unlike half plate which is larger plates that mostly cover the torso, and full plate which is larger sculpted plates that covers the entirety of the users body and must be custom made.)

VeliciaL
2014-08-08, 11:55 AM
Several people have mentioned that having unrealistic armor breaks, verisimilitude, which is using that word wrong. That word means a sense of realism in the context of the fictional world. D&D has never had realistic weapons or armor, but the weapons and armor they do have is fairly consistant.

For splint mail, I'd use the cost and stat line to represent any armor that is made of a number of small metal plates covering the majority of the wearers body(unlike half plate which is larger plates that mostly cover the torso, and full plate which is larger sculpted plates that covers the entirety of the users body and must be custom made.)

It's not just verisimilitude, it's about armor that's patently rediculous, which is how I feel about studded leather and how many posters feel about leather armor in general.

Pretty much agree with you on splint, though.

warty goblin
2014-08-08, 12:32 PM
I admitted that there may have been some leather armor in the Middle East, but I've seen no strong evidence for leather armor as anything other than a complement to metal armor.

The use of leather body armor ('spolas')by classical Greek soldiers is pretty well confirmed, textually. It's certainly a stronger case than layers of linen being glued together. The Mycenaean boar tusk helmet was a leather cap covered in sectioned tusks, confirmed by both archaeological finds and Homer. It's obviously augmented leather, but definitely leather. In addition, there's archaeological evidence that Mycenaean warriors were using Egyptian scale armor at some points in history; several bronze scales from Egyptian armors (one bearing the kartouch of Ramesses II) have been found in a Mycenaean context. Given that the Egyptians were pretty clearly using leather/rawhide scale armor at around that time, it seems pretty unlikely that the Mycenaean Greek warriors who were coming into enough contact with Egyptians to be bringing their armors home didn't at least know of the stuff.

SowZ
2014-08-08, 01:28 PM
The use of leather body armor ('spolas')by classical Greek soldiers is pretty well confirmed, textually. It's certainly a stronger case than layers of linen being glued together. The Mycenaean boar tusk helmet was a leather cap covered in sectioned tusks, confirmed by both archaeological finds and Homer. It's obviously augmented leather, but definitely leather. In addition, there's archaeological evidence that Mycenaean warriors were using Egyptian scale armor at some points in history; several bronze scales from Egyptian armors (one bearing the kartouch of Ramesses II) have been found in a Mycenaean context. Given that the Egyptians were pretty clearly using leather/rawhide scale armor at around that time, it seems pretty unlikely that the Mycenaean Greek warriors who were coming into enough contact with Egyptians to be bringing their armors home didn't at least know of the stuff.

Egypt is in Africa, and I admitted there was African use of the stuff. There may have been Greek use of it, I'm not as familiar with the classical period in the Mediterranean. My claims have typically been book ended with, "In medieval Europe," though, which no one has provided any real evidence for. Probably because none exists.

hawklost
2014-08-08, 01:45 PM
Egypt is in Africa, and I admitted there was African use of the stuff. There may have been Greek use of it, I'm not as familiar with the classical period in the Mediterranean. My claims have typically been book ended with, "In medieval Europe," though, which no one has provided any real evidence for. Probably because none exists.

Still looking for the evidence of Orcs and Goblins "In medieval Europe" too, but haven't found any. Also never really heard of a Barbarian in medieval Europe or even really any Druids at that time.

Who is to say that the other races don't have a preference towards different weapons and armors than the medieval Europeans had. Not every race might value being having high AC over other things. You could even look at the Cultural Scots (before medieval time though), some of them chose to enter battle without any kind of armor cause they felt it made them stronger, it didn't but it was their choice of 'armor'.

Knaight
2014-08-08, 02:09 PM
So, every single spear-or-billhook-wielding Conscript that had any amount of self-protection on the battlefield wore metal armor?
Cloth was way more common in the medieval period, particularly in the middle east. Moreover, by the late middle ages this was pretty much the case in some armies. If you look at the paintings and records of armor purchases you see ridiculous amounts of plate being bought for whole armies in the 1400's. It generally wasn't full plate, but it was common. By the time the more exotic polearms (e.g. billhooks) were getting common, plate was super prevalent through Europe.


Still looking for the evidence of Orcs and Goblins "In medieval Europe" too, but haven't found any. Also never really heard of a Barbarian in medieval Europe or even really any Druids at that time.
This argument could be used for just about anything. I've never seen any evidence of machine guns in medieval Europe, that doesn't mean that they belong in a fantasy game. Plenty of people like their armors and weapons more realistic, and that means scrapping studded leather. At the very least plenty of people like the mundane stuff to behave according to real world standards - a watermill will rotate when in a river, a sword is swung around like a sword, and fantasy weapons and armors should at least work from a basic physics perspective. That puts studded leather in a bad place, pretty much eliminates a number of weapons (e.g. the Cloud Strife style sword, which basic density calculations put at hundreds of pounds even with conservative dimensional estimates), and generally produces a more down to earth aesthetic a lot of people like.

As for barbarians and druids, medieval Europe includes the migration period, in the 6th through 9th centuries. There were plenty of tribal cultures around, and plenty of war chiefs with followers who followed them due to their success in raiding and battle. Essentially, there were the people that fantasy barbarians are largely based off of - they were also based off of the various tribal peoples the Romans dealt with, but it's not like there was a particularly clean break from antiquity to the early medieval period, especially in areas outside of roman influence. Druids are a similar case - Papal influence in the 6th and 7th century were pretty limited outside of what was previously the Roman core, and even in the 8th century there were places it wasn't that common. The term "druid" largely refers to northern European culture, particularly the British Isles, and while monastic influence got there pretty quickly (Ireland was one of the big hot spots of monasticism), there were still centuries in the medieval period where that wasn't the case.

warty goblin
2014-08-08, 02:12 PM
Egypt is in Africa, and I admitted there was African use of the stuff. There may have been Greek use of it, I'm not as familiar with the classical period in the Mediterranean. My claims have typically been book ended with, "In medieval Europe," though, which no one has provided any real evidence for. Probably because none exists.

There's also buff coats, which are absolutely confirmed as being used in Europe circa 1650, which is no longer the middle ages, but is significantly more medieval than a character fighting with a pretty significant number of things on the D&D weapons list. Or scale 'mail' for that matter.

Morty
2014-08-08, 02:17 PM
This entire discussion would be purely academic if WotC had done the sensible thing and made the armour table generic, allowing players to fill in their own descriptions depending on how much of a toss they give about realism. Because, you know, simulating the variation of armour in any given era and place kind of isn't D&D's job. But I also have the feeing a not-insubstantial part of the fanbase would scream bloody murder if the weapons and armour section looked different than it used to.

Palegreenpants
2014-08-08, 03:03 PM
Now, imagine using these armor rules in a different technology-level setting. For instance, people in my custom world have access to wrist watches, plumbing, gas lighting, and bottled beer (no gunpowder, however.) Adapting 5E's armor table to this 16th-century esque setting required a major re-fluff.

VeliciaL
2014-08-08, 03:18 PM
Now, imagine using these armor rules in a different technology-level setting. For instance, people in my custom world have access to wrist watches, plumbing, gas lighting, and bottled beer (no gunpowder, however.) Adapting 5E's armor table to this 16th-century esque setting required a major re-fluff.

I could see such a setting still having stuff like full plate, honestly. It was gunpowder that obsoleted the stuff in the first place.

Hell, 15-16th century was actually when full plate was most prominent.