Merlkir

If that's a suggestion for Obsidian to resurrect Angus McBride and have him do the portraits, I support it fully!

PE's world is inspired by late medieval Europe. To what degree, we can only speculate. But it has guns, it has plate armour. So it's pretty safe to say they're drawing quite a bit of inspiration from there. The Greeks and other ancient warriors did wear armour (contrary to what 300 would have you believe) and they often wore as much of it as possible. If warriors fought nearly naked, they had some silly ritualistic reason for it, or they were so poor they couldn't afford armour. Also, if you live in a society where a sheepskin cloak is the pinnacle of armour manufacturing technology, it's quite obvious why you're not wearing full plate into battle. Would I be interested if PE drew inspiration from other periods and cultures? Sure. But it has to make sense. Magically shielded naked monks are excellent, but naked warriors in a world where armour is somewhat accessible? Eeeh, why?

That's a safe bet I think. Example from history - it is believed (someone may correct me if that's not the case) that Germanic mercenary cavalrymen would wear Roman masked helmets into combat, despite them being intended for sports/ritual use. They're super creepy, so I kinda get it. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/Roman_cavalry_reenactment_Carnuntum_2008_12.jpg

BOOBS!

Here you can see the results of tests done on padded armour. It's quite surprisingly effective. http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=11131 and here's a historical overview of its use: http://www.myarmoury.com/feature_spot_quilted.php

Sweeping statements like "all swords were razor sharp", or in your case "leather armor didn't exist" are bound to be at least partially wrong. The problem as I see it - leather armor is much much more prevalent in fiction than it ever was in reality. It's important to distinguish various materials like tanned leather and boiled leather/rawhide as well as methods of construction. For instance, a couple of points from the top of my head: 1) Rawhide is different to tanned leather. It's indeed very very tough, could certainly stop a slash and it's rigid, so it might provide some protection against blunt trauma as well. The problem is it soaks water, rots and falls apart rather quickly. (although I've read that "smoking it" regularly helps with that issue) So boiled rawhide might be an armor choice for warm climate areas and people with easy access to animal hide rather than metal or (very expensive) linen for padded jacks. 2) the so called "linothorax" - believed to be armour made of glued layers of linen by the Greeks and other ancient cultures, was probaly made of leather. There is an absolutely monstrous thread about it on the Roman Army talk, for anyone wishing to dispute this claim. I'd rather you argued with the experts there than with me. The fact is - there is a single mention of linen armor in Greek texts, it talks about very specific people (not the greeks) and it sounds more like a weird padded coat than the Greek armour. There are also no finds of actual Greek linen armour, as one would expect. Tests have shown such armor would be surprisingly effective, so for a while everyone was happy with this hypothesis. The problem is - enough linen to make such armour at the time would be too expensive to make it viable. In fact, the same thing can be done with leather, which is equally effective and much much cheaper. The whitish colour of armour in depictions can probably be attributed to tanning of the leather rather than it being linen. So - don't imagine leather armor to be like your tanned leather jacket. Imagine either tough-as-hell (but brittle and difficult to maintain) rawhide, or many layers of leather glued together.

I really liked the way clothing worked in Arcanum, I did wear those jackets and stuff when I was in town. That's a great feature to remember.

There could of course be poorly crafted plate, perhaps made by some of the more savage nations trying to imitate plate they've seen their enemies wear, but doing so poorly. That would probably hinder movement.

I suspect that may be artistic license, or a hyperbole. While getting cheaper in the later periods, armour was far too expensive to throw away.

1. I posted a video made by a frickin' museum where a guy in a custom tailored piece of armor shows how easy it is to mount a horse! Jesus. 2. It's not "just some video on youtube", it's a documentary made by Mike Loades, a learned gentleman and an overall awesome chap. Who also falls from a horse in armour, on purpose, for the cameras. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMuNXWFPewg And of course, they got an expert smith to craft the armor the same way it was done in the past (you can see that video in related videos) and of course the arrow is as close to the real thing as we can get. 3. Armor was usually not made from wrought iron (if possible), but from steel indeed. Hardening of steel was a known process, so there wasn't a reason not to harden armour. As this article says: http://www.oakeshott.org/metal.html 4. We don't have anything but your word for the claim on armour piercing. Sorry, I'll take the word of experts (in quite a few articles and books I linked to) and the results of these tests I also linked to over the word of some dude on the internet. (to use your phrasing) 5. I would VERY much like to have some of the sources quoted, which you speak of. You know, the ones where it says plate armour was pierced by arrows. 6. I HAVE worn plate armour, so keep the patronizing tone to yourself, please. I think it's you who should be under serious suspicion of trolling, your ignorance seems quite extensive.

By stage combat I mean "combat as movie makers think combat looked", ie. slow telegraphed attacks, edge parries etc. And of course you're restricted in armor in a certain way, depending on how well it's crafted. Good armour for example doesn't restrict at all, or nearly so. (just watch the video I posted, where the guy shows how flexible the armor is. You couldn't move or bend a foot as much as the armor does.)

FIrst two are...how to say it, largely irrelevant. First one is horrible stage combat and the second is SCA, which is very much a sport. Hammaborg guys do good stuff.

Wow, despite not understanding a thing we said, you feel the need to insult us. What a lovely person you are!

And this is based on what? any sources, tests? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3997HZuWjk In many tests you can see the archers claim "clear penetration", but I am yet to see an arrow go far enough to pierce through the padding underneath and to do any kind of real damage to the flesh. A lone knight would stomp the lone archer into the ground most likely.

:D sorry, you're wrong in too many places. Almost everything you're repeating over and over is wrong, demonstrably so. If you will not scoff at Wikipedia as a source (of course I can provide much more expert-like websites or books): 1) Longsword as a two handed type of sword: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longsword 2) Two myths you repeat are addressed here: http://www.thearma.org/essays/TopMyths.htm I recommend paying attention to their myths number 5,7,18 and 25. Especially 18 is relevant to the piercing issue. As they explain, armor penetration with cuts was impossible, penetration with thrusts was rare and mostly successful when aimed at weak points such as joints. You'd use a halfsworded sharply tapering blade, or indeed other weapons made for such purpose. (such as a dagger. As they also mention "Yet descriptions of fights with specialized weapons designed for fighting plate armor, such as pole-axes and maces, reveal even they were able to pierce through armor only infrequently."") this point is also addressed in this popular-educational PDF made by Albion, probably the most famous modern sword manufacturing company: http://www.albion-swords.com/articles/images/sword-myth-quiz.pdf The ARMA myth number 25 addresses your idea of the amount of training and "finesse" required to fight with non-rapier swords.

kind sir, I shall direct you to this excellent motion picture explaining why you can in fact move quite freely in full plate and why mounting a horse does not require a crane, or any other kind of help. Arrows shot from a composite bow would not pierce plate armour, unless it was a magical bow, of course. Plate armour was also quite frequently used by infantry soldiers, no doubt very stupid ones who were not told it's useless unless you're a cavalryman. Who knew. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqC_squo6X4 Some of you also seem to misunderstand what all this realistic armour discussion means. Nobody is suggesting to limit PE to historical armour only, nor is understanding of real armour irrelevant due to inclusion of fantasy elements. If we understand how the real stuff works, figuring out how these magical materials or unreal constructions would work is easier and has a feel of believability. edit: the video also neatly shows how small the links of very high quality mail were and how tightly it was woven. (around 9:20) As the guy says "You can't even prick it with a needle.". Very much unlike all the crappy "replicas" one sees today, with massive rings.

Mail is quite easy and cheap to make. Because you only need long and thick enough iron or steel wire, which you circle around rod which has diameter which you want for your links it is long enough to have enough rounds to make links that mail need, then make cut parallel to rod on wire one sidedly. And now you have all links you need to make mail, then you only need to weave them as shirt. I would say that expert weaver can weave at least shirt a day. And then if smith will bother he or she will close all links and that can take another day. And you don't need any real experts to do mails (because I did one and I am very poor smith) Here a video how to make chain mail using steel wire Of course making mail will take much longer if you forge all links invidiually. smiths wouldn't really forge the links one by one, the difficulty is in riveting them together. Many of the misconceptions about mail arose from LARPers testing stuff on their butted wire mail suits. (yeah, I made one, guilty as charged)

The problem with fighting monsters is - they didn't exist, so we can't say what was used and effective against them. We can only guess. I suppose the best analog would be large animals, perhaps predators like tigers, or just large beasts such as elephants. I think I'd rather have a long spear than a sword against troll.

I realize you want to keep the thread focused on something else, but what you're saying is simply not true. Easily demonstrated by tests with real (as you call them "combat") arrows and riveted mail. Handily documented by written historical accounts. So, no, mail is pretty good protection against arrows. Here's an excellent article about mail in general, which also talks about arrow resistance. http://www.myarmoury.com/feature_mail.html

@ Grand_Commander13: Hm, it would of course depend on the quality of the plate and a specific period of history - a fine customized plate suit would cost more than a suit of mail I think, but in general I agree. Plate certainly takes a master of the craft to make right. Making mail is a tedious process which certainly requires considerable skill, but it's different type of complexity to designing, shaping and specifically hardening many different pieces of plate. What I meant was that poor warriors would perhaps use inherited or looted mail. But the topic of armour from the olden days being used later as heirloom equipment is...pretty speculative. So, yeah, in general I'd agree.

Quite right. It was still being used in parts of the world where mobility and quick of use were more important, or by less rich warriors, or as a transition armour sewn on padded jacks where the plate didn't cover the body properly.. (armpits, groin etc) But yeah, it's pretty much as you say. Of course it's kept in games for variety's sake. And if you have cultures different enough, you can usually find ways to explain its persistence. And most people won't care.

A small correction: Mail is actually very good against arrows. That's why it was so popular for so long. If it wasn't, armies of naked archers would've ruled all the ancient and medieval battlefields. What you often get when people try to test this for themselves, even on TV shows (imagine that) - they put butted mail on a wooden figurine and shoot it. A body behaves quite differently to a dummy, it gives way and moves constantly in battle. Also (the major mistake) butted mail was never really used and is considerably less durable than riveted mail. Of course mail requires some kind of padding be worn underneath. There are accounts of warriors (from the crusades for example) looking like hedgehogs and still fighting, being absolutely fine in the end. There's a muslim record of a saracen knight, who lanced a frankish knight straight on at full speed, thought him dead. The guy survived thanks to his suit of mail. Mail's pretty awesome. edit: Another fun fact - plate is crafted to spread its mass all over the body, it doesn't hang just from the shoulders and waist as mail or scale do. It's quite comfortable to wear and I would say slightly less tiring to run in for a long time than the other two.

You're not making any sense. If the opponent is wearing full plate, a longsword is going to do exactly d.ick against it. You can't slash, hack or stab through plate. So just like with a rapier, you'd have to get the guy on the ground and stick a dagger inbetween the armour. A longsword is a less specialized weapon, sure. That doesn't mean it requires less finesse. (whatever the bloomin' heck that is in your book) That means you don't have to concentrate on just stabbing the guy. But hey, all those guys who entered fencing schools and tried to learn the longsword were just wasting their time. It's enough to just hack at the enemy, you'll manage. Right. (also, a longsword really is a two handed one, so military rapiers certainly weren't longswords in any way)

this. A general answer - yes. As today's update does it, I'd put "realism" in quotes. It's about suspension of disbelief. John Howe (if you don't know him, he's one of the two main concept illustrators on the LOTR and Hobbit movies) says that all design (in fantasy illustration especially) should come from real functionality and real world principles. It doesn't have to slavishly mimick them though. The LOTR movies, to this day, are imo the best example of fantasy "realism" done right. Jackson told this to his crew "I want this to feel like a historical movie, like Middle Earth existed". And it totally worked. As Honn mentioned, the "lower" and "mundane" stuff helps keep the extraordinary things in perspective. Most weapons in LOTR are the correct size, they feel right and believable. And THEN the bloody Witchking comes up, the camera pans to his feet and the ABSOLUTELY FLIPPIN' MASSIVE FLAIL just hangs there like a boss. You believe Éowyn when she looks scared. You'd piss your pants if all you saw all your life were normal swords and this thing appeared out of nowhere. I've seen games where even larger hammers (Kingdoms of Amalur, was it?) and swords are commonplace. That common nature and familiarity imho robs them of the initial impact, it skews the internal "oh S H I T" scale you have as a player. I could go on.

Oh the Cold Steel guys. :D They don't have much skill, but certainly ooze enthusiasm. (these tests are more amusing than really informative, you can cut bamboo with a blunt sword. It sure is fun to see them cut the meat boots though :D Oh and the mail at the end most likely wasn't riveted, they never use the right make in tests like this. If it were riveted, I'm fairly certain the sword would not poke through.)