Topic: What's Your Favorite Armor Type?

[pastaav]

It's quite interesting to see that AT 4 and AT 12 are quite popular armor types, although according to the rules these ATs are AFAIK not available to player characters, but are animal/monster hides only. Were these armors freely available they'd be among my top picks.

I think AT11 and AT12 is often used to model stuff like dragon scale armors and similar.

[jolt]

With 66 members voting there are 3 AT's that have double-digit percentages:

AT 14 with 12.4% has the current highest percentage.
AT's 20 and 10 both have 10.2%

The next highest are 16 and then 1.

I'm surprised that any Soft Leather received any votes at all.  Any Soft Leather is inferior to AT 1 in almost every way.  You get hit earlier, you take a crit earlier, and the crits scale up faster vs. no armor at all.  With Soft Leather you're easier to hit, wound and crit

However, I agree with markc's rule.  When he first mentioned how he used AT 2 as the baseline way back when I tried it in one of my games and we've gone with it ever since.  Characters without armor now behave, IMO, much more believably. 

jolt

[Marc R]

The utility of leather may also come up in other factors, unrelated to the attack tables.

Like, if you are in clothes, and I'm in soft leather. . .

We run away from an army of goblins through brush, then push through a thicket of thorn bushes, to stumble/fall/roll down a slope, arriving at the bank of a river, we think we've escaped, and assess ourselves. . .

Standing on that bank, we'd both be dirty, but while I might have a few scrapes or thorns in my head or hands, you should really be shredded up bloody and perhaps nearly naked, clad in tatters and rags.

As a GM, it's often to your advantage to be wearing something tougher than clothing when running around in the wilderness, often for reasons having little or nothing to do with combat.

[jolt]

That's a valid point but, IMO, highly situational.  A leather jerkin (AT 5) is really only protecting your torso.  That tumble through the thorn bushes is still going to leave that AT 5 guy pretty miserable.  I admit that I voted my armor types based solely on their uses as armor.  Nevertheless, I don't think many adventurers are going to buy armor based on marginally possible enviromental benefits.

jolt

[yammahoper]

That's a valid point but, IMO, highly situational.  A leather jerkin (AT 5) is really only protecting your torso.  That tumble through the thorn bushes is still going to leave that AT 5 guy pretty miserable.  I admit that I voted my armor types based solely on their uses as armor.  Nevertheless, I don't think many adventurers are going to buy armor based on marginally possible environmental benefits.

jolt

They will if the GM gets in the habit of STRESSING those benefits and penalties.

Mildew, rust, rot, skin infections, fevers, bogs, marshes, broken terrain, heat, direct sunlight, sand, encumbrance, rashes, boils...all impacted and possibly caused by armor.

[Marc R]

Exactly, it all depends on the GM, when players are tossing fireballs around, whole structures go up in flames, and when the firestorm starts and it begins to rain flaming bits and cinders. . . .

I've done the "run through the bramble" wearing jeans and a leather jacket, which is a jerkin, more or less. . .when facing thorns, rather than bull through with my legs, I used my protected arms to break the path for me. When partially armored, one tends to put the armored part to the forefront. . .considering that even just a solid pair of boots and a good pair of gloves can allow you to traverse areas otherwise risky in streetclothes, upping that to full torso cover is even moreso.

I won't argue that those armors aren't questionable combat utility as is, but the move to AT2 for the non naked, and a GM who likes to use environmental factors, suddenly makes them a bit better.

[yammahoper]

Totally unrelated, but all the SL in my game is +20 superior, with rare exceptions.  Our elders were masters of leather working.