Darnit, I deleted the post of the weapons! Thankfully I have the info saved, but not the specific text of the post.
I'm working on armor today. The most interesting thing is that full plate armor didn't exist until perhaps the year 1400. The "plate" that existed c. 1200 was mail-and-plate or half-plate, with iron plates and splints supplementing chain armor. By 1400-1450, plate armor was steel and less expensive than chain because it was less labor-intensive.
So I think what I'll do is like this:
Gambeson: AC 8
Brigantine: AC 6
Chain and Gambeson: AC 5
Half Plate and Gambeson: AC 4
Buckler: -1 AC
Shield: -2 AC in this narrow setting but -1 AC in other settings as normal.
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| Replica gambeson. I was unable to find a photo of an original. |
For the record, here is our current Weapons table:
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| Click to enlarge |
Nice work! I particularly like the medieval tone to your rules. The historical accuracy has a very Gygaxian feel to it. And I too suffer from oversized phalanges :-/ My texts most of all, since I still have a mini-sized-cellphone.
ReplyDeleteThanks. The implied setting of standard D&D is not very medieval. It's medieval fantasy. Actually I like to say that it's the Wild West meets Renaissance fair.
DeleteThis setting is laughably ignorant. A real medieval buff would blanch at the errors I am making. But it is supposed to feel more medieval. Everyone you don't know is horrible, war is a force of nature rather than a tool for change, bad things are constantly happening, and the best you can do is find your place in a horrible, static world.
I truly believe there is great opportunity for laughs, triumphs, adventure in a benighted, dirty, awful frontier such as this.
So... based on my vague medieval knowledge, this ranking of 1200's armor is pretty much fine. As far as I know, brigandine only got stronger than mail from the 15th century.
DeleteIs there a reason for "half plate" (coat of plates over mail over gambeson) only having one point better AC than mail+gambeson? And are there separate helmets?
On the weapons front, I wonder about the utility of gygaxian "10 identical polearms entries", but apart from that and what sword short sword refers to here (as the viking sword was equal in length to the arming sword; a gladius?), the weapons seems fine too.
Hm. It didn't occur to me that I had trod Gary's footsteps with all the pole arms! The reason for so many is that they are cultural markers as well as just weapons. Maybe you're right and I should cut it down a little.
DeleteThe short sword is more like a long knife - something a bandit or commoner could get away with carrying.
The reason plate isn't as good as in standard D&D is because at this time plate was made of hardened iron rather than steel.
Helmets are included - it's an assumption I made but didn't write down.
Thank you for your help!
Well you don't have to remove all the extra pole-arms per se, but each having its own (identical) entry feels a little bit unnecessary.
DeleteShort sword vs. long knife is a complicated distinction.
Ah, so the reason the jump from mail to coat of plates is smaller than the one from gambeson to mail is just so the coat of plates is weaker than full plate. That works I guess. I just wish some armor fit the AC 7 gap... :p (or value the helmet as a separate -1 AC and shift everything except gambeson up? my need for smooth numbers strikes again!)
The OD&D armor categories are beautiful and elegant, and this set is not. That's true.
DeleteIt's early. The more thinking I do, the better it will look.
Thank you for bringing these issues of inelegance up - I am also a fan of pretty numbers and charts :)
"Thick gambeson" for AC 7. :-) More seriously, sewing some sort of reinforcement onto the cloth of the gambeson would not be crazy talk.
ReplyDeleteIn some sources, too, brigandine/brigantine is basically as protective as segmented plate. That's what it is, after all - overlapping plates riveted to a backing, but effectively worn inside-out so that that the rivets are on the outside.
That is a really good point. It also doesn't have to be 100% historically accurate.
DeleteI should like to avoid AC 2 though, it just seems like too much armor.