Another look at armour- Negative ENDURANCE

[phantomdoodler]

So, the old issue regarding armour. Suppose I am wearing Full Plate armour and reduced to 5 ENDURANCE in a battle. After the combat, I remove my armour to sleep. But now since i would normally be dead by now without it, am I now dead?

My take on this is that armour protects, but only from the most serious blows. Keep a track of any armour worn and the total ENDURANCE bonus. This represents the negative ENDURANCE total a player can go down to, while wearing the armour, before dying. When reduced to below zero ENDURANCE, the player is in a critical position and only a few ENDURANCE points away from death. At this stage, removing and changing armour could well kill a character, due to the pain from their accumulated injuries.

For example, Knight Hobar is wearing full plate armour, providing him with 8 additional ENDURANCE points - he will only die if reduced to -8 ENDURANCE or less. He takes a hefty blow from a Gourgaz and is left at -6 ENDURANCE points. Should he unwisely decide to remove any of his armour before recoveting ENDURANCE points, the pain would kill him (even taking off his helmet would reduce his negative ENDURANCE limit to -6, his current total.

Mechanically this system is the same as the regular rules, but the negative ENDURANCE serves as a reminder that the player is still in a dangerous situation until they have recovered enough ENDURANCE to take them above zero.

Option: For Gms who want a grittier feel to combat, the player may also suffer a penalty to all their rolls equal to their negative ENDURANCE score.

 

[beowuuf]

It seems easier to just say that normally you don't take armour off - epic storytelling beats realism where knights can sleep in their armour (LW never had to strip a chainmail waistcoat off to sleep each night either). I think JD had not consdiered this metagame possibility, and armour was supposed to be either worn or discarded. He didn't think there would be a possibility of discarding armour when near death.

So I would say in line with that, when you are forced to remove armour, or when you take it off, you decide at that time if you lose the endurance or not. If you don't or cannot, then the amrour is damaged beyond repair and is discarded as useless. If you take the EP reduction, then you do so and the amrour is still considered intact to be put on later.

You can have advanced rule for only taking partial EP reduction, and therefore the armour has a smaller EP value attached to it now. It is consdiered damaged but still serviceable, and could be fully repaired with time/money.

 

[Pathwalker]

I think it's far easier to not add armour EP to endurance on a till-you-take-it-off basis, but simply add it as a bonus during combat. In other words, the only time the "+x EP" comes into play is each combat situation where it acts as a bonus vs the first damage taken. Think of it as a -x EP from first damage taken in each combat situation deal. This solves the problem, I reckon

 

[Eternalknight]

I always thought armour added to your maximum Endurance, and when you took it off/lost it, it reduced your maximum Endurance (while leaving your current Endurance alone).

 

[beowuuf]

It's as much an edge case as the other way, but you could put the armour on after losing 1 - 3EP, take it off again and effectively heal that EP.

Unless you never gain current EP from wearing armour, in which case you'd need to heal above your previous max to gain any benefit from it, which seems odd but would be a way to do it.

 

[phantomdoodler]

So heres another solution:

ARMOUR ENDURANCE
Each type of armour has an ENDURANCE score reflecting its ability to absorb damage. If you are wearing any form of armour, you may choose to allow the armour to take this damage instead, but you may only choose one type of armour to be effected per hit. Once armour is reduced to zero ENDURANCE, it is effectively useless and will need to be repaired.

For example, Shreena the Telchos Warrior is wearing a Leather Jerkin and Bracers, providing her with 10 and 5 additional ENDURANCE points of armour. She gets hit taking 12 Endurance points worth of damage, wrecking her jerkin - she takes the remaining 2 damage herself.

ARMOUR ENDURANCE
Bone Breastplate 15
Breastplate 25
Chainmail (Full) 25
Chainmail (Waistcoat) 20
Full Plate 40
Gauntlets 5
Greaves 10
Helmet 10
Hide Armour 15
Leather Jerkin 10
Leather Bracers 5
Leather Greaves 5
Padded Gambeson 5
Padded Leather Waistcoat 10
Plate mail 30
Rerebracers 5
Sabatons 5
Scale mail 20
Studded Leather Jerkin 15
Vambraces 10

In other words, armour provides 5 times its usual rate, but does not regenerate, and will need to be repaired by a craftsman, costing money, and requiring downtime. This is usually done between adventures, so characters may choose to limit the amount of damage they take to their armour, to maximise its defensive ability over the course of an adventure.

Repairing armour
Damaged armour will need to be repaired by a craftsmen, such as a blacksmith or tanner. For each hour of work, costing 2 Gold Crown worth of labour and materials, 1 ENDURANCE point may be repaired. Dwarven Gunner characters, being skilled in the ways of the forge, may repair metal armour at half this cost, but will require access to a forge, material and tools.