Armour

[Pharoah Kromium]

Though I may well play the armour rules straight, on the basis that they fit in with the heroic milieu and REH stories, I do have a couple of gripes. The concept's great - armour reducing damage, not making you harder to hit - but there are one or two problems.
Mail: stops cuts great but without padding underneath all that kinetic energy of any hit is still going to do some serious blunt trauma.
"Quilted Jerkin" aka gambeson/aketon: seriously under-rated armour - mail is only really effective in combination with this. It's good stuff against blunt weapons, less effective against cuts and arrows.

Don't get me started on finessing with arrows...

 

[sbarrie]

It think it's implied that if you're wearing mail, you're wearing it correctly - with a quilted undercoat. A character's only going to wear it wrong if they don't have proficiency with it.

 

[Pharoah Kromium]

It think it's implied that if you're wearing mail, you're wearing it correctly - with a quilted undercoat. A character's only going to wear it wrong if they don't have proficiency with it.

Fair enough, as I say, I'll probably play things unchanged to retain the heroic feel, it's just the armour geek in me. In reality it's the quilted armour that's going to make you move with more difficulty - it's bulky stuff - but in the game it's easier to move in than mail, horribly hot too.

 

[Tristan]

Pretty sure it says somewhere that a Quilted or Leather jerkin is included with mail, plate etc. so no need to worry on that.

 

[Pharoah Kromium]

The only thing I could find says that there may be quilted cloth protecting the arms or hips.
Sorry, it's probably me being incoherent but what I was trying to say is:
1. That mail is really a two-part armour -the mail stops cuts, the quilted gambeson reduces the impact.
2. That in reality it's the quilted armour that does most to restrict movement.

 

[Johannixx]

Cut your gambeson properly, and it's not very restrictive.

I concur with the above posters: If you're wearing maille, you're wearing a gambeson under it

 

[Pharoah Kromium]

Cut your gambeson properly, and it's not very restrictive.

I concur with the above posters: If you're wearing maille, you're wearing a gambeson under it

Well, mine's made to museum quality by someone who's had some 15 years experience of making and supplying authentic pieces, so I've no worries about the cut, haven't got the scales but it's a fair bit more than 2lb in weight. Full mail hauberk and chausse is pretty restrictive IMHO.
I'd agree with you that it should be assumed to be under the mail, just my stubborn mis-reading of the rules,I guess. I bow to the majority...
There are, perhaps strangely, a lot of people still unconvinced that mail requires any under-padding, full-contact experimentation has convinced me that they're wrong...

 

[Orkin]

The REH stories have Conan cutting directly through mail with his sword, which was not likely or at least not common in the middle ages, unless the mail was really crappy. We probably want to adjust current conclusions on the middle ages to adapt to Howard's perception of what was likely.

 

[Johannixx]

Conan was also superhumanly strong (or nearly so ), and Howard loved poetic license.

 

[Anonymous]

It think it's implied that if you're wearing mail, you're wearing it correctly - with a quilted undercoat. A character's only going to wear it wrong if they don't have proficiency with it.

Like that character from the Andromeda tv show, two words nipple chaff.

 

[Anonymous]

The rules depict the mail relativly accurate as far as you can in the d20 system. If you look closely you are more likely to penetrate mail if you use a mace, or better yet, a warhammer. To point out some historical facts about mail, most cultures in the 12th century did not combine Quilted Jerks w/ Mail! The Vikings were the first to do it, and for 200 years they were the most fearsome warrior to take the field. They were considered inhuman and relatively unkillable, do to the fact if you combine the two layers of armor you were much less likely to suffer a lethal wound. This you can reference on the discovery channels "the Vikings," and "the Barbarians are Coming" series. In all due respect, they should have a hvy set combining the 2 armours for an additional point or two above the mail alone, but less then combining other armour's with mail.

 

[Orkin]

...To point out some historical facts about mail, most cultures in the 12th century did not combine Quilted Jerks w/ Mail!

The show you mention, does it involve a testing lab and four or five samples of mail? The bearded reenactor in that one was Kim Siddorn, the leader of my group. (gratuitous plug)

Realistically though, mail could be penetrated with a good strong two-handed thrust with a pointy sword or a spear... as we see in Frost Giant's Daughter.

You might have your centuries mixed up. The Vikings were gone by the 12th century. In fact, there is no reason to suppose that anyone ever went without some kind of padding under mail, even the Romans used a subarmalis.

 

[Anonymous]

The show you mention, does it involve a testing lab and four or five samples of mail? The bearded reenactor in that one was Kim Siddorn, the leader of my group. (gratuitous plug)

Umm.... I believe that's the one, it did have a few lab tests. I apparently did mix up my dates, I just checked my Encarta and the end of the 11th and early 12th Centuries they started become feudalistic. Every one did where padding under there armour during that time, but only the Vikings used quilted armour underneath. Other societies of the time and even after the Vikings most just wore enough padding to make mail more comfortable, not for added protection.

As for penetrating mail with a spear... Finese fight and you don't need to worry about the DR, JMHO As in FGD, Conan more than likely scored a crit using finese, thereby doing enough damage to force a MD save which the Giant apparently fails. On a play test, my group of 3 players of 8th level faced an earth elemental, the sorcerer with a bear for an ally scored a lucky crit in which the elemental could only fail on a 1, understandibly I rolled a one (no fudging, I wanted to kill the test group off) and wasn't surprise as this seems to happen in my games. For some odd reason I seemed doomed to roll a 1 when that is the only number I can fail on.

 

[Anonymous]

I seem to have problems quoting on this site.

 

[Pharoah Kromium]

(Quote)You might have your centuries mixed up. The Vikings were gone by the 12th century. In fact, there is no reason to suppose that anyone ever went without some kind of padding under mail, even the Romans used a subarmalis.

Absolutely, mail really doesn't work very well without padding underneath!
(I've been able to compare with and without in near full-contact fighting - no padding = broken bits).
My initial post was a kind of enquiry as to how people think they'll play the armour rules; this being a fantasy game I'm not too worried about complete realism - just suggesting that quilted armour is very good but somewhat restrictive in real life.

 

[Sutek]

I seem to have problems quoting on this site.

You need to put quotation marks (") around the individual's name whom you are quoting, like this:

You're closing it fine.

The easier way is to just click the "Quote" vutton in the top right of any post.

8)

 

[Anonymous]

One of the aims with Conan was always to get something of a middle ground between the way armour works in the stories (where spears can bounce off, or even break on, mail armour on a fairly regular basis) and how it seems to work in real life. In the stories, quilted jacks are rarely worn other than by occasional low-end infantry -- they're not really "hero garb"! If Conan wears armour at all, it's mail, scale, or plate.

In real life, of course, quilted armour is effective. Probably the best historical indication of this is found in Louis XI's ordinance on the construction of jacks, which recommends 30 layers of linen with a final layer of staghide, and suggests that a man in such a jack is almost impossible to kill, if he's an experienced soldier. I posted the full text on a thread at Arador concering jack construction, for those who are interested: http://www.arador.com/discforums/index.php?showtopic=2413

So, the Conan rules are something of a compromise. Jacks are effective against low-damage weapons, but that's about all. Still, I was glad to make them considerably more effective than the meagre +1 AC for "Padded Armour" in D&D.

Incidentally, a well-constructed jack in the "Grande Assiette" pattern should not restrict movement at all. A lot of 15th century re-enactors in the group I re-enact with dispense with anything heavier for the really big battles, because it's far, far easier to move about in a well-made jack than in full plate harness.

-- Ian Sturrock

 

[Pharoah Kromium]

One of the aims with Conan was always to get something of a middle ground between the way armour works in the stories (where spears can bounce off, or even break on, mail armour on a fairly regular basis) and how it seems to work in real life. In the stories, quilted jacks are rarely worn other than by occasional low-end infantry -- they're not really "hero garb"! If Conan wears armour at all, it's mail, scale, or plate.

In real life, of course, quilted armour is effective. Probably the best historical indication of this is found in Louis XI's ordinance on the construction of jacks, which recommends 30 layers of linen with a final layer of staghide, and suggests that a man in such a jack is almost impossible to kill, if he's an experienced soldier. I posted the full text on a thread at Arador concering jack construction, for those who are interested: http://www.arador.com/discforums/index.php?showtopic=2413

So, the Conan rules are something of a compromise. Jacks are effective against low-damage weapons, but that's about all. Still, I was glad to make them considerably more effective than the meagre +1 AC for "Padded Armour" in D&D.

Incidentally, a well-constructed jack in the "Grande Assiette" pattern should not restrict movement at all. A lot of 15th century re-enactors in the group I re-enact with dispense with anything heavier for the really big battles, because it's far, far easier to move about in a well-made jack than in full plate harness.

-- Ian Sturrock

Yep, I'd go along with all that, my own experience is with 11th-12th C. gambeson and mail so slightly different.

 

[Orkin]

I think the question was about padding under armor. This is called a gambeson. A jack is, as you say, a quilted garment with plates within.


An interesting passage from Hour of the Dragon describes Conan wearing the garb of a Free Companion. This is such a strong identifier that it later fools some brigands into thinking that Conan is currently in that group.

His head-piece was a plain morion, dented and battered. The leather and mail-mesh of his hauberk were worn and shiny as if by many campaigns...

Now, was REH thinking of a padded jack or brigandine over mail?

 

[Anonymous]

Thank you Sutek.