Topic: A fascinating video, history in action!

[Rochndil]

If this hasn't made the rounds here yet, it needs to. Movement in full plate, live!

http://youtu.be/5hlIUrd7d1Q

Rochndil, who has worn chain, but only for a little while...

[markc]

  Very interesting and informative, IMHO. I guess from what I have seen I would require a specific number of ranks in craft:armor or the armor profession skill to craft plate that is that well made and does not have a big maneuver penalty. So I would look to limit the mail by skill, experience, political factors as well as price.
MDC 

[Rochndil]

Agreed! I have a background in blacksmithing, so I can say with some authority that making properly articulated armor is DEFINITELY a very advanced, and specific, skill. It would also be extremely time-consuming, and therefore expensive.

Rochndil, who would probably run out of patience...

  Very interesting and informative, IMHO. I guess from what I have seen I would require a specific number of ranks in craft:armor or the armor profession skill to craft plate that is that well made and does not have a big maneuver penalty. So I would look to limit the mail by skill, experience, political factors as well as price.
MDC 

[jdale]

One of the awkward issues about armor is that, while for game balance RM models increasing protection as going hand-in-hand with increasing maneuver penalties, the best armor was actually pretty maneuverable. Articulation is a feature that helps protection and mobility. In the game, we try to balance a bunch of different armor types that were used in different periods so they can all be used together, but that's not really quite how it worked...

I admit when I made my armor, I simply bought the knee and elbow cops rather than making my own.

[markc]

Jdale;
 Did you back the elbow and knee crops with skateboard pads? IMHO some of the best pads I have worn in my life were skateboard pads and if I can find a set that will do the job I need them to do I use them. But then again you cannot use them for everything as the pair I have have very hard shells.


Armor:
 I also think with some of the spells in RM it can have an impact on armor production, quality and even type.


 But again I think some solid rules on just what rank or skill bonus (without special equipment) would go a long way in reducing the "any armor I want" and "any armor I want right now" ideas.
MDC 

[jdale]

I'm not really sure. I think the pads I wore under the armor were intended for some kind of sports, but my understanding of modern sports is far inferior to my understanding of medieval combat. They do not have hard shells though, seemed redundant with the steel.

[GrumpyOldFart]

The hard shell spreads out the force, but doesn't soak it up. The padding soaks up the force, but doesn't spread it out.

One of the awkward issues about armor is that, while for game balance RM models increasing protection as going hand-in-hand with increasing maneuver penalties, the best armor was actually pretty maneuverable. Articulation is a feature that helps protection and mobility. In the game, we try to balance a bunch of different armor types that were used in different periods so they can all be used together, but that's not really quite how it worked...

Meh... yeah, really good armor is pretty maneuverable, but nonetheless articulated metal-to-metal joints have movement limitations compared to leather and cloth. The obvious example to me is that a stiff cuirass, if well made, might allow you to twist so that your shoulders are perpendicular to your hips.... but no matter how well made it is, the top part of a single piece cuirass is not going to shift to being perpendicular to what it was relative to the bottom part. So any variation on stiff plates with articulation joints between them is going to be a compromise between having the armor move along with the section of the body it covers, and having areas where you miss the plate and land on the underlay material between plates. Cloth or leather may not be as good of protection, but no matter where you hit it there's the same cloth or leather, rather than a weaker underlay material.

I think a more realistic limit would be to say that sufficient mastery of armory can reduce or eliminate minimum maneuver penalties (in the fitting process), but that there are difficulty limitations that can't be bypassed. For example, if you're wearing any more armor than just "normal clothing" (even if it's just heavy winter gear), you will auto-fail any maneuver that would fall into the "Absurd" or "Sheer Folly" columns. Column limits get worse and worse as you get closer to Full Plate.

"Minimum Fitted Maneuver Penalty" would be assuming typical craftsmanship levels. Masters would get better results.

[markc]

  I like that idea a lot, limit the actions that can be accomplished by a person wearing specific types of armor. ie no running marathons in 3 hr and 29 sec in full plate, without some major magical help that is.
MDC

[jdale]

Just saying "you can never do that" seems somewhat antithetical to the design of RM. I would rather have the maneuver penalties, so it still matters how good you are at the underlying skill, what your stats are, and there is a smooth way of handling armor that grants reduced penalties (e.g. due to superior construction or magic).

[markc]

Maybe magic could reduce the "You can not do this" difficulty as well as the maneuver and missile penalties in another list or a redesigned armor spell list.
MDC

[GrumpyOldFart]

Just saying "you can never do that" seems somewhat antithetical to the design of RM.

True... but at the same time, we're not talking about what a person is capable of, we're talking about the limits of movement of a very stiff piece of inert material. No matter how skillful you are at maneuvering in armor, you're not going to get a rectangular steel plate to stretch along the diagonal and turn into a parallelogram so you have the freedom of movement to make the maneuver you wanted.

To be fair, the limitations would probably come more from coverage than from material. Cuir Boulli full plate is more flexible than steel full plate, but it would probably have more movement limitations than steel half plate, simply because there are more armor pieces in the joints where the body under it needs to flex.

[GrumpyOldFart]

Example: Vambrace and elbow cop. If the "shell" material doesn't deform, when you twist your wrist the vambrace will either align with the elbow, align with the wrist, or align along some line in between. What it isn't going to do, under any provocation, is deform itself along a spiral so the wrist end of the vambrace aligns with the wrist and the elbow end of the vambrace aligns with the elbow. Ain't gonna happen. The elbow cop always and forever moves with the elbow, so to whatever extent the vambrace "follows" the wrist, it's going to misalign with the elbow cop. When the edges of shell material meet, it's not going to move any farther without deforming the shell material. To whatever extent you cut back the edge to gain freedom of movement at that extent of the twist, to exactly that same degree you leave a gap in the shell material when motion is at the opposite extreme of that same arc of twist. You can flare the edge out rather than trim it back to cover that gap, but flares... flares are good at shedding force on the outside of the flare, but on the inside of the flare they channel it inward. Poorly designed flares can get you dismembered, turning "slash muscles and tendons" into "sever joint."

Note that all this assumes no magic. Give me unbreakable elastic magic bonds between plates instead of leather straps, and plates that continuously remodel their own shape off of the shape of the body part they're covering, and I'll give you a set of full plate that you can do Olympic gymnastics routines in.

A "Dwarf master armorer" may just be some guy who has been doing this so long that he has learned how to:
Make very flexible steel. Useless for blades and armor, but makes good wire.
Draw extremeley fine wire.
And thus,
Make steel mesh and stranded steel cable.

[yammahoper]

Some things cannot be done. I'm willing to let the player do it anyway, but they will fail, even if they open end roll 700+.

For example, attempting a 50' running long jump will always fail (the world record is around 30').

A mnv penalty is not needed as the mnv is simply impossible.

[dlw2112]

Thanks for posting this video.  I thought it was amazing.  It really debunked some common held misconceptions about armor.

I really enjoyed.

[Alwyn]

Good video.  We had always heard that it was fairly easy to maneuver in plate when I was in the SCA.  I always stuck to leather myself, but I did wear chainmail once, which was cumbersome due to the weight.

[Alwyn]

I have heard that jousting plate was heavier and would limit some maneuvering.

[jdale]

Late period jousting armor was designed specifically for jousting, at the expense of other features not needed for the sport -- as jousting was now a sport more than a simulation of combat. The weight increased to as much as double and flexibility was definitely a secondary concern.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jousting#Renaissance-era_joust

But it's important to note that this was Renaissance period and, even then, would not have been used off the jousting field. Significant penalties could apply if you are running a Renaissance period game (which includes gunpowder) and there is an unexpected attack interrupting a jousting match, but outside of that very narrow circumstance, it's probably irrelevant.

[VladD]

At first jousting was performed even in mail armor. Heavy hauberks with sufficiently thick padding and rules for aiming on the shield would make for a fairly safe game.

When plate was introduced,the rules changed, until no shield was even allowed.

There was no specific jousting armor, but there were piece of exchange that could be added to normal field armor to reinforce parts of the body (such as the shield shoulder and arm rigidly combined and the gorget combined with the helmet) and later on even special pieces to better catch the lance to avoid it slipping and lodging between armor pieces inappropriately.

Also there were different types of jousting performed: Stech and Renn jousts. The heaviest armor exchange pieces were for the Stech joust: this was full contact jousting. Renn jousting involved spring loaded small shields in a lighter form. Each used appropriate pieces for the form (Rennzeug/ stechzeug).