Armor
Armor serves as an important protective layer in combat. It acts as modified Damage Reduction for combat damage. Each type of armor reacts differently to different types of damage, the primary three being Piercing, Slashing, and Bludgeoning.
In the table below, each armor has a column dedicate to each damage type. The number in the space determines how much protection the armor grants the wearer from this type of damage. The text after the number dictates what happens once damage has exceeded this threshold. Common descriptions are:
- "Sublethal": Damage over the threshold is converted into Sublethal Damage.
- "Wearer": Damage over the threshold damages the wearer of the armor, but leaves the armor undamaged.
- "Both": Damage over the threshold damages the wearer of the armor and the armor as well.
- "Both (slashing/piercing/bludgeoning)": Damage over the threshold damages the wearer of the armor and the armor as well, but converts it to the appropriate type for the wearer. If the armor is destroyed by this blow, the damage is not converted.
- "Slashing": Damage over the threshold is converted to slashing damage. No further DR is applied.
- "Piercing": Damage over the threshold is converted to piercing damage. No further DR is applied.
- "Bludgeoning": Damage over the threshold is converted to bludgeoning damage. No further DR is applied.
Sublethal Damage is reduced by twice the normal amount for the appropriate type of damage (almost all sublethal is bludgeoning), and never damages the armor.
If your dexterity is higher than the Effective Dex rating for a suit of armor, your dexterity is effectively reduced to that amount when wearing that armor.
The deflection bonus of armor is a bonus to the wearer's AC that is due to the armor's shape or design.
| Armor | Slashing | Piercing | Bludgeoning | Deflection | Health | Hardness (vs bludgeoning) |
Effective Dex/ Armor Penalty |
Price(uV) | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Light Armor | |||||||||
| Padded Armor | 4/both(bludgeoning) | 0/both | 4/wearer | -- | 8 | 6 | No | 5 | 10 lb |
| Leather Armor | 5/bludgeoning | 2/both | 2/wearer | -- | 10 | 8 | No | 10 | 15 lb |
| Ring Leather Armor | 8/bludgeoning | 4/both | 2/wearer | -- | 12 | 10 | 12/-1 | 15 | 20 lb |
| Chain Shirt | 15/bludgeoning | 6/both(bludgeoning) | 2/wearer | -- | 20 | 15 | 11/-1 | ? | 25 lb |
| Brigandine | 10/bludgeoning | 5/both | 4/wearer | -- | 10 | 15 | 10/-1 | ? | 20 lb |
| Heavy Armor | |||||||||
| Jack of Plate | 6/sublethal | 8/sublethal | 6/wearer | -- | 20 | 14 | 8/-3 | ? | 25 lb |
| Scale Mail | 10/bludgeoning | 4/sublethal | 8/wearer | -- | 30 | 8 | 8/-2 | ? | 30 lb |
| Lamellar Scale | 10/bludgeoning | 10/sublethal | 8/wearer | -- | 25 | 12 | 9/-2 | ? | 25 lb |
| Chainmail | 20/bludgeoning | 8/both(bludgeoning) | 2/wearer | -- | 15 | 15 | 8/-5 | ? | 40 lb |
| Weave Chain | 20/bludgeoning | 8/both(bludgeoning) | 4/wearer | -- | 20 | 15 | 7/-5 | ? | 45 lb |
| Splinted Mail | 15/bludgeoning | 2/sublethal | 4/wearer | -- | 25 | 16 | 8/-4 | ? | 45 lb |
| Breastplate | 4/bludgeoning | 4/both | 2/both | +2 | 20 | 16 (2) | 10/-3 | ? | 45 lb |
| War Armor | |||||||||
| Tight Chain | 20/bludgeoning | 10/both(bludgeoning) | 2/wearer | -- | 20 | 15 | 7/-6 | ? | 50 lb |
| Half Plate | 20/sublethal | 10/both | 2/both | +2 | 20 | 14 (4) | 6/-6 | ? | 50 lb |
| Full Plate | 20/sublethal | 10/both | 2/both | +4 | 25 | 14 (2) | 7/-7 | ? | 55 lb |
| Enforced Full Plate | 20/sublethal | 12/both | 4/both | +6 | 25 | 14 (4) | 6/-8 | ? | 60 lb |
| Additions | |||||||||
| May be added to Jack of Plate, Scale Mail, Lamellar Scale, Splinted Mail, Breastplate, Half Plate, Full Plate, or Enforced Full Plate | |||||||||
| Short Spikes | - | - | - | -- | - | - | -1/same | ? | 2 lb |
| Long Spikes | - | - | - | -- | - | - | -2/same | ? | 6 lb |
| Joint Protection | - | - | - | +1 | - | - | Same/-1 | ? | 4 lb |
Wearing Multiple Pieces of Armor
In general, a character may wear either one suit of heavy or war armor, and one set of light armor, but there are certain exceptions. A breastplate cannot be worn with anything else. Jack of Plate may be worn in conjunction with any other heavy armor except for a Breastplate (it works very well with Chainmail) or with tight chain, though it cannot be worn with any light armor. Leather and Ringed Leather Armor cannot be worn together, but any other combination of two light armors is possible.
The order in which armor is worn is of great importance. The higher the armor is listed on the table, the closer to the skin it must be worn. Thus full plate is worn over everything, and padded armor is worn under everything.
Armor bonuses are dealt with one at a time, and if cleverly combined, can give very good returns. Let us say that Roland is wearing Chainmail over Jack of Plate. He is hit by an arrow which does 22 damage. First it deals with the chainmail, which reduces its damage to 14 - 14 damage is dealt to the chainmail itself (which takes no damage as its hardness is 15), and 14 damage passes through, converted to bludgeoning. This is then dealt with by the jack of plate, which happens to be very good at dealing with bludgeoning. It reduces this damage to 8, which is then passed directly to Roland. Because he was wearing two pieces of armor, Roland is double protected, and takes only 8 damage, not the 22 he might have taken. The choice of combinations is very important - Jack of Plate works well here because chainmail both converts piercing to bludgeoning and is very poor against bludgeoning itself, whereas it is excellent agains slashing. Thus against a slashing attack the chainmail does most of the work, against piercing the two types work well together, and with bludgeoning Jack of plate deflects most of the damage. Leather, which is poor against bludgeoning, would be a worse choice, but still better than chainmail by itself.
Trying to stack converting armor over armor which is good against the converted type is the best choice, but barring that it is best to combine it so you have a combination that is good against all types of damage.
