What even is armor proficiency?

[Tevo77777]

In real life, a mail shirt wouldn't affect how you move significantly more than a backpack of the same weight.

In real life, a mail shirt would also be near useless as armor.

The only thing mail does is stop cutting, or slashing if you want a D&D term, but due to still being just one layer of supple clothes it only diminishes the power of blows a little, meaning the slashing blows get turned into blunt ones, and blunt and piercing impacts are not really affected.

Furthermore, the shirt only protect the torso efficiently, which is not as good as one may think since all your other important fleshy parts like the neck are basically a death sentence if hurt in a combat situation, and if you're likely to survive your less-important fleshy parts like the limbs getting struck initially you'll be enormously hindered.

Historically, mail armor isn't a shirt most of the time, it's a mail long dress with long flowing sleeves (to protect legs and arms), worm above a padded gambeson (to absorb impact), with various pieces of metal or leather to protect the head, neck, hands and feat, plus a thick midsection belt to avoid having allof this weight resting solely on your back. It is actually harder to move in that outfit than in battlefield-ready plate armor, as the weight moves around much more freely.

D&D characters don't have to worry about most of those concerns, but still it means that the fiction it represents consider that significant mail armor = issues for the non-trained.

"Mail shirt would be near useless as armor."
>Looks at all the Vikings that had just mail shirts, helmets, and shields
>Looks at all the Frankish warriors who till 950 AD had just mail shirts
>Looks at all the infantry who couldn't afford mail sleeves and mail going to their knees till around the 1200s
>Remembers how a shirt of mail could cost as much as a house or several horses, according to Anglo-Saxon documents

1200 to whenever mail got replaced with full plate armor or a breast-plate (Somewhere around 1400-1500s, is like 300 years.

500-1200 is like 700 years.

>Memories of Late Romans having mail shirt as well
>Google Late Romans
>Lots of Mail Shirts

Correction, 250-1200 years

The only problem a mail tunic provides is the weight, it's a flexible and decently comfortable armor. This is literally why in Pathfinder 2e, its noisy but "Flexible" to be very easy to move in.

Linothorax Armor literally would be harder to move in, despite being far cheaper and almost as protective.

"The only thing mail does is stop cutting, or slashing if you want a D&D term, but due to still being just one layer of supple clothes it only diminishes the power of blows a little, meaning the slashing blows get turned into blunt ones, and blunt and piercing impacts are not really affected."

>Swords were literally the most expensive weapon after the Axe
>Most of the peoples who wore mail shirts or could afford them...fought militias that used almost entirely spears
>Lots of memories of people testing arrows on mail and it stopping them just fine
>Memories of documentaries about how mail works
>No mention of these weaknesses or weaknesses in general

I am very skeptical of this information that goes against basically everything I know about armor and like five books I've read.

>Linothorax Armor was replaced by mail
>Why would armor that could easily stop cutting, stabbing, arrows, ect ect.... be replaced by armor that only was good against slashing?
>Mail was more expensive and harder to make

I'm pressing X so hard.

- Knowing this stuff is literally my living.

This is where I am a bit confused. What do you mean? There are no physically weaker classes are there? I mean... is a Strength 20 Wizard... weaker than a Strength 20 Fighter? Like, I get that Fighters are more commonly Strength 20, but... if I have a Strength 20 Wizard and he can't wear full plate, I am really scratching my head. Interfering with spellcasting makes sense unless you MC one level of fighter...

I'm not sure any argument other than 'balance' and 'another D&D conceit' is going to convince me.

Why would you make a 20 Strength Wizard, when in some editions of D&D the Wizard had like 1-4 hit points and in most editions has like 1d6 or 1d8 to start? That's literally the lowest HP can go for the edition.

There are four or five stats you would be better off having a 20 in.

I mean, I guess a Rogue could also have a 20 Str..... and just like be blind, clumsy, unable to lie to people... (Wisdom, Dex, Cha are all better things to have a 20 in as a Rogue)

Also, IRL anyone who can fit any definition of a wizard either needs glasses and is out of shape, or they're unqualified for their position. There is a reason why bodybuilders and scholars rarely have overlap.

Time constraints.

I knew a guy in high school who was top of the school gov, played basketball, had great grades...and he didn't sleep and was a massive overachiever. I knew other friends as successful as he was and they all had mental breakdowns.