Topic: Thicker armor

[Spectre771]

Doesn't RM2 (one of the companions) have formulae and/or charts for modified weapons and armour?  Making armour lighter and faster?  Changing weapon weight for more damage but higher fumble, so on?  It's not something we ever delved into.  I know Arms Companion allows for different arrow types (bodkin, barbed, long flight, etc.)

I'll see what I can dig up this weekend.

[intothatdarkness]

Doesn't RM2 (one of the companions) have formulae and/or charts for modified weapons and armour?  Making armour lighter and faster?  Changing weapon weight for more damage but higher fumble, so on?  It's not something we ever delved into.  I know Arms Companion allows for different arrow types (bodkin, barbed, long flight, etc.)

I'll see what I can dig up this weekend.

They might have, although I honestly stopped using the Companions after RoCo III. They just got too scattered for me. I think you're right, though. I do remember something about armor, but it wasn't anything we ever messed with, either.

[Witchking20k]

Layer up for your next snow ball fight- it all reduces concussion damage.  To me a critical is when you find a weak spot in the armour.

[intothatdarkness]

Layer up for your next snow ball fight- it all reduces concussion damage.  To me a critical is when you find a weak spot in the armour.

Been there, done that. But layering up makes you slower and thus easier to hit. And we're talking higher ATs here, so the concussion damage at the lower roll range is pretty low to begin with. But that's the beauty of RM: you've got your solution and I've got mine, and both likely work for our respective groups.

[jdale]

RMU Treasure Law gives +5 DB for each +10% weight up to a maximum of +25 DB.

[Thot]

RMU Treasure Law gives +5 DB for each +10% weight up to a maximum of +25 DB.

That's an excellent rule - but why the maximum?

[Hurin]

I thought there were rules in one of the companions for heavier armor and weapons. I'll see if I can find it.

[Hurin]

Found it: it was actually in Character Law (red band version, p. 18). It is just a small chart listing what to do for armors that are heavier than normal, in a chart with the title, 'Bonuses Due To Heavier Design':

You give a +5 bonus for items up to 120% weight, but these have a +5 penalty to maneuvers and cost 2x normal.
Similarly, you give a +10 bonus, a +10 penalty to maneuvers, and a 5x cost multiplier to items up to 140% of normal weight.
You give a +15 bonus, a +10 penalty to maneuvers, and a 10x cost modifier to items that are up to 160% of weight.

That's all for that chart, but you can see the basic principle clearly. I thought it was in one of the companions, but it is actually in the core RM2 rules.

[jdale]

RMU Treasure Law gives +5 DB for each +10% weight up to a maximum of +25 DB.

That's an excellent rule - but why the maximum?

I think it would be more realistic to have diminishing returns on the DB, coupled with increasing maneuver penalties, but that's probably unnecessarily complex. Sticking to relatively low DB bonuses in principle keeps out of the range where that would be necessary.

I actually think +25 DB may be too high, it essentially allows a lower AT to act as a higher one for the lower maneuver penalties.

[Thot]

RMU Treasure Law gives +5 DB for each +10% weight up to a maximum of +25 DB.

That's an excellent rule - but why the maximum?

I think it would be more realistic to have diminishing returns on the DB,

Well, you could do that by simply declaring that each 10% are not based on the armor's base weight, but weight including the increase from the previous +10%. Then the first +5DB would cost +10% weight, the next +5 woould cost 11%, then 12.1%, and so on.

coupled with increasing maneuver penalties,

<mantra>
Maneuver penalties from armor are a bullshit concept and we should know better. Ommmmm.
</mantra>

but that's probably unnecessarily complex. Sticking to relatively low DB bonuses in principle keeps out of the range where that would be necessary.

I actually think +25 DB may be too high, it essentially allows a lower AT to act as a higher one for the lower maneuver penalties.

But you are arguing here from a game balance point of view, not from a realism point of view, correct?

[jdale]

But you are arguing here from a game balance point of view, not from a realism point of view, correct?

Yes. It's really difficult to make estimates of realistic DB, since DB is a game concept that doesn't translate easily to any measurable parameter. For realism, the best thing to do would be to look at the range of values of actual armor of a given type. That would show to what extent people were willing to use heavier than normal (or lighter than normal) armor, once you've made some assumption about what "normal" meant....

[Spectre771]

RM2 - Arms Companion has the info I was thinking of.  There are several pages for the modifications that we are discussing thus far; adding metal studs to leather, adding double or triple links to chain (AT 16 is already double linked according to this), adding additional plate to.... well, plate, having double thickness armour, and mix/matching armours of different AT.

I took pics of the pages with my cell phone.  If I can get permission to post them here, I will gladly post them.  I'm always leery when it comes to posting any scans from the Companions without getting the OK from a mod.

[Witchking20k]

Layer up for your next snow ball fight- it all reduces concussion damage.  To me a critical is when you find a weak spot in the armour.

Been there, done that. But layering up makes you slower and thus easier to hit. And we're talking higher ATs here, so the concussion damage at the lower roll range is pretty low to begin with. But that's the beauty of RM: you've got your solution and I've got mine, and both likely work for our respective groups.

Completely Agree

[Hurin]

There is a lot of stuff in that Arms Companion; thanks for finding it Spectre771. I was thinking there was something I had missed, and now I know there was.

I don't think you want to post scans though; I think that would be against the rules. You can however see that the Arms Companion does extend the basic idea already present in Character Law: thicker armors give DB bonuses at the cost of additional weight (and penalties) and costs for purchasing that armor.

[Spectre771]

Arms Companion is probably my favorite "later companion."  It was great to have a companion dedicated to non-spell users.  Lots of new weapons, mods for weapons, ammo, and armour, new skills, crit tables. Ahhhhh... good old days. 

[Hurin]

It is an awesome work. Some of it is hopelessly complex and I think you would go insane if you tried to use all of it, but there's so much good stuff in there that there is something for everyone. You can also see how many of the rules first put forth in it affected later editions of the game.

[gog]

RM's range of armor is actually quite allright for a late medieval group of societies. Besides, as RM doesn't rely on a specific setting, so we would actually need an even broader range that includes straw, wood, aramid fiber, and futuristic armor types. Se we'd probably end up with not ten types of armor in RMU, but a hundred.

Armour types continue into the futuristic and present day with SpaceMaster amour types adding another 10.