SymbolicFrank

I think we would have to take the skill of the opponent into account as well. If that skill reduces the deflection (which I think is the simplest option), you're probably pretty good protected against simple foes, but bosses and such will hit hard. Let's say that each skill level reduces 5% of the reflection (additive, not multiplicative), that fighters get 1 skill each level and that 20 is the level cap (to keep it simple). Let's try some examples: 1. A high level wizard, wearing a robe, enchanted with 3 * 50% deflection against melee attacks. That's 150% deflection (the very max). - He gets attacked by a lowly, level 1 kobold. That kobold reduces the reflection to 145%, so he has no chance to hit that wizard at all. - He gets attacked by a level 10 fighter, who reduces the deflection by 50%. Still no go. - He gets attacked by a level 20 fighter, who reduces the deflection by 100%, so he will hit 50% on average. That wizard is toast in a few hits. - He gets attacked by a level 1 archer that is fairly close, who hits almost all the time and probably makes it hard for that wizard to get a spell off. (Only range penalty for the archer.) - He gets attacked by a mid level wizard that uses magic missiles (always hits), which do considerable damage. (EDIT: I treat MM's like regular arrows that always hit, so no magic damage.) That wizard either has to hit hard with AoE spells, take out all ranged opponents ASAP, and/or use a spell that fools opponents into hitting empty air. Or use enchantments that protect against ranged attacks and magic instead, and keep far away from melee enemies. 2. A high level fighter, wearing the best quality full plate available. It has 75% deflection and 75% damage reduction (the very max). - The lvl 1 kobold has 30% chance to hit, but he will do very little, if any, damage. - The lvl 10 fighter has 75% chance to hit, and will slowly whittle him down (if he would let him). - The lvl 20 fighter will hit every time, and do moderate damage. - The lvl 1 archer won't do any noticeable damage. - The wizard hits every time, but won't do any noticeable damage, either. That fighter can take a lot of punishment when occasionally healed. His main threats are enemies that gang up on him, and enemy wizards. 3. A high level rogue, wearing scale mail, enchanted with +25% stealth. It has 25% damage reduction. That rogue has 100% + 25% stealth, giving him an effective deflection of 125% in combat. - The lvl 1 kobold is unable to hit him. - The lvl 10 fighter has 25% chance to hit him, and will do serious damage when he does (25% reduction). - The lvl 20 fighter has 75% chance to hit him, and finish him off pretty fast. - The lvl 1 archer won't be able to hit him. - The wizard will hit every time and do moderate damage. That rogue is probably best for hiding when possible, and taking out all the squishy archers and wizards. Does that sound about right?

I agree, but that mostly makes sense for full plate mail. That's why I proposed those to be fitted. For chain mail it might make some difference, but not much. And for robes and such, the point is moot. An interesting one would be reinforced leather armor: that should be very stiff and bulky, so a custom fit would improve your agility. And the same goes for exotic variants like splint mail.

It wouldn't, if all the enemies were doing the same amount of damage, and attacked with the same frequency. Let's see, you get hit 10 times and each hit does 10 damage. If your armor deflects 25%: 1. On average, 2.5 of the hits miss, leaving 7.5 hits. That's 75 damage. 2. Each hit gets reduced by 25%, leaving 10 hits of 7.5 damage. That's 75 damage. (You get bruised and such.) 3. In the second case, we can round that down to 10 hits doing 7 damage (damage threshold), leaving 70 damage. Now, your armor also absorbs 25%: 1a. Each hit is reduced by 25%, so does 7.5 damage, rounded to 8 damage. * 7.5 hits = 60 damage. 1b. Each hit is reduced by 25%, so does 7.5 damage, rounded down to 7 damage (damage threshold), * 7.5 hits = 52.5 damage. 2a. Each hit is reduced by 25%, so does 5.6 damage, rounded to 6 damage. * 10 hits = 60 damage. 2b. Each hit is reduced by 25%, so does 5.6 damage, rounded down to 5 damage (damage threshold), * 10 hits = 50 damage. 3a. Each hit is reduced by 25%, so does 5.25 damage, rounded to 5 damage. * 10 hits = 50 damage. 3b. Each hit is reduced by 25%, so does 5.25 damage, rounded down to 5 damage (damage threshold), * 10 hits = 50 damage. If your attacker hits you for 2 damage, you would get either 2, 1 or 0 damage, depending on which variant you use, and if he hits you for, say 100 damage, the difference is marginal. Of course, if you want a damage threshold, you can do that when rounding down. That makes the difference for small damages larger. This is incorrect. There are no western finds of butted mail (what you describe as open links), mail WAS in fact riveted. The increase in protective ability and durability is interesting. Most TV shows doing some kind of armour testing tend to use butted mail and therefore draw wrong conclusions. This is dubious. If your attacker's weapon gets stuck in your shield, your shield becomes nearly unusable or breaks entirely. Then again, this issue is explained by the use of shields - the preferred use was to deflect attacks, not catch them head on. Wooden shields were most often covered in rawhide for increased durability, pure wood is not good enough and breaks rather easily if hit by an axe for example. Good point about the riveted rings, I looked it up and indeed, they used those in Europe. That makes ring mail much better, as long as you have enough padding, of course. You would still get seriously bruised and/or break bones with any successful attack, but it would be survivable. About the shields: would you carry one when wearing full plate armor? When wearing mail, I would definitely use one. And perhaps I would use one when wearing full plate to protect against missiles and spears while closing in, but it seems much better to ditch it when you get to melee range and swing your sword two-handed. You can still deflect with your arms, if needed. If you expect your opponents to wear mail or plate armor, using a two-hander to bash them seems the best choice.

Great video, Kveldulf! Best I have seen about it thus far. I especially like the part at 40 minutes in. where they show how all the joints are covered, and how flexible it all is. Then again, at 39 minutes in, they show us that armor with the groin completely open and uncprotected... ;-) (Most likely it used chain mail shorts covered with a serious plate thong to go with it.) Anyway, that goes to show what a great armor smith can do for you, and why it is silly when you can buy armor in any general store. Because it wouldn't fit, or offer much less protection if it did. That goes for chain mail armor as well, which is why the general armor most often consisted of a loose chain mail vest, optionally fitted with plates in the front and back, and kept in place with straps. Add a skirt of mail plates and some bracers for the limbs to make it complete. Which is more or less how a generic plate mail suit would look like. As they couldn't weld metal without throwing it into a forge at that time (no electricity, so no arc welders), ring or chain mail generally consisted of rings of bend wire, with a gap, and so didn't offer much protection against arrows or piercing attacks (which would force the ring open and pass through). And for protection against blunt attacks you would need padding, which can be either at the inside or the outside, it doesn't matter. Actually, that's why they used plain wooden shields: if the weapon of your attacker gets lodged into the shield, you have a good chance to finish him off. While a weapon that glances over the shield can still damage you. Btw, do you agree with the gist in my previous posts? It would be equally effective at level 1 as at level 50. For game mechanics, does it matter if deflection reduces the damage or the hits, as long as it's a percentage? The damage received over time will be the same. And with both deflection and reduction, you don't need a damage threshold, if you round down. And if you only look at the armor and enchantments, you don't need a to-hit or THAC0-analog, either. Melee attacks miss if fooled, get (partially) deflected or hit and (might) get reduced. Ranged attacks need a range modifier, like most magical attacks, which also (might) need to deal with a magic/elemental resistance, which can be a percentage as well. That is great for your heroes, as they aren't so incompetent as to miss almost all the time, as in just about any D&D combat! Because I think that's just silly. Instead, they hit clumsily at low levels. Which is much better. But then again, that also goes for your enemies. To make you better at hitting things, your skill reduces the deflection of the enemy (you get better at aiming at vulnerable parts). And for a ranged attack, it also reduces the range penalty. I would leave magical attacks simply as hit-or-miss and reduce them by the appropriate resistance. Oh, and PLEASE don't give electrical attacks a bonus to damage if they hit someone wearing metal armor or walking in water! It's REALLY silly, they should get a serious reduction to damage instead.

If we would translate the above ideas into game mechanics, you would get something like: Light armor (max 3 enchantments): - Robes, might have magic bonusses - Coats, might have skill bonusses - Leather armor, black: might have stealth/steal bonusses Medium armor (max 1 enchantment, 25% damage reduction, min strength 150% of average): - Reinforced leather: 50% blunt deflection - Scale mail: 50% missile deflection - Ring mail: 50% slashing deflection Heavy armor (no enchantments except for uniques, 25% damage reduction, min strength 200% of average): - Breast plate: 25% deflection - Plate mail: 50% deflection - Full plate mail: 50% deflection, +25% damage reduction (50% total) (You would first have a breast plate made and fitted, upgrade it to a plate mail and then upgrade it to a full plate mail.) An exceptional skilled blacksmith could add up to +25% deflection and +25% damage reduction, for ~10 times the normal price. Permanent enchantments (insert cool names where appropriate, very expensive): - Not here: +50% of all ranged attacks hit empty air - Composed: +50% elemental damage resistance - Where? : +25% stealth - There! : +50% of all melee attacks hit empty air Etc. Those values are the max for skilled mages, and they get weaker over time. So, do keep that mage in the party! And, of course, many other types of all of the above can be added. Like: Splint mail: - Medium armor - max 2 enchantments - 25% damage reduction - min strength 150% of average - min agility 150% of average - 25% missile deflection

What is armor and what does it block? In RL, a well-fitted ring mail (with as shield!) is probably the best general, medieval armor (with enough padding), and leather armor can be more restrictive than full plate. Full plate might be somewhat heavy, but it's distributed all over your body and doesn't require a shield. Simple versions leave holes at the joints, full ones don't. A full suit of ring mail would be just as heavy and restrict you more, as it doesn't stretch. And leather armor needs to be quite stiff and bulky to offer protection against slashing and piercing attacks. A leather jacket won't work. There is a reason why knights in full armor were one-man wrecking machines in those times. Full plate was just incredibly expensive, otherwise everyone would use it. So, the simplest way to balance armor is by making plate armor very, very expensive. And it has to be custom fitted, so you cannot buy it in a random shop. You could upgrade a simple plate armor by adding plates that cover the joints and protect the neck. And the skill of the smith could determine the protection level as well. To balance it further, a strength requirement would work. In AD&D-like systems, there are many ways to protect from different damage sources: Fortitude: the attacker just misses Phantom images or such: the attacker hits a decoy instead Blur: the attacker hits empty air Dodge: you move out of the way Deflection: you deflect the weapon Block: you deflect the strike (with your shield) Counter: you deflect the strike with your weapon (and strike back if you have two) Armor class: your armor negates all the damage Damage threshold: reduces all mechanical damage with this amount Damage reduction: your armor absorbs part of the blow Except for the last two, the attacker either hits or misses you. And wizards use spells instead of armor. So, actually you only have: Fooling: the attacker strikes at empty air Deflecting: you make the attacker miss completely or partly (glancing blow) Tanking: your armor negates part of the damage Full plate would be best for the last two, but magic can save the day in the first two. So, a fighter with lots of hitpoints would want a very expensive full plate to deflect hits and reduce damage taken, but a mage would want to improve his/her armor by putting a spell on it that helps deflecting damage, and spells to fool attackers into striking at empty air. But they would take full damage if that attacker does manage to land a blow. For thieves, rangers and such, you can add a slight damage reduction to their armor, use countering for deflection and stealth for fooling. That also allows either just three kinds of armor (light, medium and heavy) with many buffs, or very much customization if you want to take the types of damage (piercing, slashing, blunt, elemental and magic) into account as well.