Armor in RPGs is often misrepresented, not only is the armor
class system flawed, but the types of armor, as well as levels of protection
among them is also misaligned. This post will be my attempt at both explaining
the problems, as well as providing my own solution.
Let’s start with the Armor Class system. In the armor class
system, your level of armor as well as your dexterity score influence how
likely someone is to damage you. Do you see the problem? It actually makes
perfect sense for your dexterity score to influence your Armor Class, after
all, that represents your skill at dodging, but the armor doesn’t help you
dodge the blow, does it? I thought not, it simply lessens the impact of the
blow, and generally pretty well. So while the idea of Armor Class isn’t wholly
unnecessary, perhaps armor should be a separate part of the whole thing.
The next part to discuss is levels of protection. You
generally see in system rules three little sections of armor: Light Armor, not
that protective, but provides free movement; Medium Armor, more protective than
light, but also more restrictive; and Heavy Armor, really protective, but
really restrictive. Well, those are some pretty misinformed rules.
Light armor is often interpreted as leather armor, and if
you’re going to use leather in your games, more power to you, just know that
leather armor is only a fantasy trope because of movies. Historically, it was
all but nonexistent. Anyways, leather isn’t very protective unless it’s thick,
and thick leather is hard to move. Combine that with how expensive large
amounts of quality leather would have
been, and you have expensive, restrictive, and ultimately ineffective armor,
what’s the point?
Ah, but here comes the gambeson, a light, cheap, and effective
armor; made by sewing together layers of linen, which is basically the same
idea as a bullet resistant vest. Gambeson was pretty good at protecting you,
unless your opponent has just sharpened their sword to a razor edge; in which
case you will get hit, but only for the first few hits, because sharpened edges
dull quickly. Gambeson were also good against stabbing and impact based
weapons. Remember how I told you they were similar to a bullet proof vest? The
layering of thick fibered fabrics allows impacts to spread outwards before they
do any damage to the actual person, which means the strike is significantly
lessened.
Medium armor is thrown in as chain, I won’t say much about
this; except that chain wasn’t much more protective than gambeson, the only difference
being it specialized in defending against cuts rather than stabs or impacts.
Heavy armor, often plate or similar steel armors is put out
there as a human tank, difficult to move in, but highly protective. In reality,
it is both highly protective and very easy to move in; because it was designed
to be. There are still issues with plate though.
First of all, they still have weight. Though not enough to
make them clunky, it is enough to tire you over time. That’s why you wouldn’t
want to wear it all day long. The second problem is visibility. Though there
were helmets designed to allow for a better range of vision, they would always
be sacrificing protection.
You probably couldn’t give two rats on a stick about any of
this, so I’ll move on to the houserule you’re all here for.
Light Armor (e.g.
Gambeson):
Damage Resistance: 6 Piercing, Bludgeoning; 4 Slashing.
Medium Armor (e.g.
Chain):
Damage Resistance 5 Piercing, Bludgeoning; 7 Slashing.
Heavy Armor (e.g. Plate):
Damage Resistance 8
You have no damage
reduction from armor while prone.
Dodge is your ability to
avoid getting hit, and is calculated as 10 + Dex mod.
The following system also puts in place a variety of
historical strategies. For example if swords do 1d8 damage, I need to use a
polearm on the guy in plate. It also puts to use the idea of wrestling an
armored opponent to the ground so you could stab them through the eye slit.
I feel that the system is simple enough to be OSR, but it
also makes the game a lot more strategic. Also, as a nice little bonus, you can
make it so that damage to armor needs to be repaired, creating a nice little
way to tax your players.
Armor needs to be
repaired when it’s been used. In order to simulate the damage done to your
armor, keep track of every time your armor fails to protect you, which
basically means your D.R. is not enough to prevent you from taking damage. For
every time this happens, your armor gains a damage point.
Damage points can be
removed from armor by paying a smith to repair it.
I’m not going to put a set price on repairs because players
should be allowed to haggle.
