Beautiful real-life armor

[SonicMage117]

Dragonskin fades

https://www.blackravenarmoury.co.uk/product-category/armours/odinson/

 

Just beautiful to look at really

[Chilloutman]

LARP, nuff said

[Drowsy Emperor]

I don't know why these people hate the wealth of armor history so much they'll invent bogus designs in 2018

 

Leather in general is not a suitable material for armor, since it cannot stop even the most primitive of weapons. It is a supplementary material to steel in making a variety of armor designs.

 

This can be tested by dropping a heavy rock on your toes while wearing a typical Timberland boot on one foot and a steel reinforced construction boot on the other. This simple experiment will, besides potentially making you a cripple, demonstrate that leather alone is not that great for stopping dangerous things from making contact with the flimsy human body - particularly a heavy, sharp piece of steel aimed with intent to kill you.

Edited May 9, 2018 by Drowsy Emperor

[SonicMage117]

Interesting!

[Raithe]

Isn't there technically a slight difference between supple leather.. and actual boiled leather that does provide more of a firm defense against the typical bronze and early iron age weapons from those periods in time?

 

There's a vast difference between a bronze age khopesh, or antenna sword, the iron age roman spatha, and a damascus steel scimitar.

 

Of course, that was also the reason they the Legions swiftly evolved to metal lorica segmenta and then early forms of chain mail...

 

Of course, if you just want some interesting and pretty designs...

 

 

 

Check out https://www.princearmory.com/gallery/

Edited May 9, 2018 by Raithe

[ShadySands]

What if I just want to wear it while playing video games?

[Malcador]

What if I just want to wear it while playing video games?

Only counts if you play CoD with it on.

[Blarghagh]

I don't know why these people hate the wealth of armor history so much they'll invent bogus designs in 2018

This world is ruled by entertainment and aesthetics. There's no other reason than 'it looks cool'.

[Drowsy Emperor]

Isn't there technically a slight difference between supple leather.. and actual boiled leather that does provide more of a firm defense against the typical bronze and early iron age weapons from those periods in time?

 

There's a vast difference between a bronze age khopesh, or antenna sword, the iron age roman spatha, and a damascus steel scimitar.

 

Of course, that was also the reason they the Legions swiftly evolved to metal lorica segmenta and then early forms of chain mail...

 

 

The boiling process makes leather very brittle so, unless reinforced with steel, it can't really withstand a blow a weapon. It can reduce arrow penetration somewhat, so it's better than nothing.

 

Some historical sources suggest that it was the poor man's option or even for braces and shins of knights who couldn't afford the whole metal kit, but a picture I saw had the boiled leather wrapped around chainmail for a little bit of added safety, rather than being the primary means of protection.

 

I don't understand in what sense you meant those swords were different - relative to each other they're certainly not equal, but when properly sharpened they're a heavy piece of metal and should piece leather like butter. Sharpening is both a matter of material quality and skill of the sharpener, and even a poor metal can be made extremely sharp with dedication, if only for a short while.

 

Even the primitive obsidian weapons of the mesoamericas, which look like a plank with bits of rock stuck in, can be sharpened to the degree that it can chop a horse's head right off: They have swords of this kind — of wood made like a two-handed sword, but with the hilt not so long; about three fingers in breadth. The edges are grooved, and in the grooves they insert stone knives, that cut like a Toledo blade. I saw one day an Indian fighting with a mounted man, and the Indian gave the horse of his antagonist such a blow in the breast that he opened it to the entrails, and it fell dead on the spot. And the same day I saw another Indian give another horse a blow in the neck, that stretched it dead at his feet.

Edited May 10, 2018 by Drowsy Emperor

[Azdeus]

 

Isn't there technically a slight difference between supple leather.. and actual boiled leather that does provide more of a firm defense against the typical bronze and early iron age weapons from those periods in time?

 

There's a vast difference between a bronze age khopesh, or antenna sword, the iron age roman spatha, and a damascus steel scimitar.

 

Of course, that was also the reason they the Legions swiftly evolved to metal lorica segmenta and then early forms of chain mail...

 

 

The boiling process makes leather very brittle so, unless reinforced with steel, it can't really withstand a blow a weapon. It can reduce arrow penetration somewhat, so it's better than nothing.

 

Some historical sources suggest that it was the poor man's option or even for braces and shins of knights who couldn't afford the whole metal kit, but a picture I saw had the boiled leather wrapped around chainmail for a little bit of added safety, rather than being the primary means of protection.

 

I don't understand in what sense you meant those swords were different - relative to each other they're certainly not equal, but when properly sharpened they're a heavy piece of metal and should piece leather like butter. Sharpening is both a matter of material quality and skill of the sharpener, and even a poor metal can be made extremely sharp with dedication, if only for a short while.

 

Even the primitive obsidian weapons of the mesoamericas, which look like a plank with bits of rock stuck in, can be sharpened to the degree that it can chop a horse's head right off: They have swords of this kind — of wood made like a two-handed sword, but with the hilt not so long; about three fingers in breadth. The edges are grooved, and in the grooves they insert stone knives, that cut like a Toledo blade. I saw one day an Indian fighting with a mounted man, and the Indian gave the horse of his antagonist such a blow in the breast that he opened it to the entrails, and it fell dead on the spot. And the same day I saw another Indian give another horse a blow in the neck, that stretched it dead at his feet.

 

 

When it comes to those blades the biggest difference is that they all have different hardness, the kopesh could be bent from actually delivering a blow on your opponent if you were to get a hit to actual bone, but they all will cut you goodly. Leather will give you a bit of respite though from cuts, but not enough and if someone were to actually try and run you through you'd be in trouble.

And leather wasn't exactly cheap and plentiful back then either...

 

If a poor man wanted armour he'd wear a gambesson, they work really, really well, and it's kind of depressing seeing them as some low tier armour in all forms of RPG and games while they should be much more effective.

[Drowsy Emperor]

It's also interesting that D&D, for gaming purposes, tends to present armors as a progression whereas in reality it seems to have been a rather simpler situation - unarmored (a.k.a unlucky and possibly soon-to-be dead) or you either wore something was quite good, (the aforementioned gambesson) moving quickly into all but invulnerable (on the armored segments) starting with decent chainmail.

 

There is a progression, historically speaking, but it cannot really be made to accommodate the gamey balance between characters with specific (magical) powers or skills (thieves) that need to be weaker by design than fighters that are allowed to wear everything. 

 

I had a similar 'simulationist' problem with Fading Suns since it assigns a typical progression of armor values to various medieval armors vs all sources of damage.... in a universe that has advanced guns. 

Edited May 10, 2018 by Drowsy Emperor

[Azdeus]

Well, in rulesets with AC you do come across a load of other annoyances which tend to drive me insane.  A naked rogue has better chances of survival than a naked fighter (If you go by archetypical stat allocation), apparently all fighting schools forgot to teach people what parry or block is.

There are a load of misconceptions about medieval armours all around the rpg-world, not entirely surprising considering that they haven't really been in use for hundreds of years, but it's still frustrating.

 

Some of the best systems I've come across just accept the inherent imbalance in armours and embrace it. The feeling of panic when your group runs into people in full plate armour, even when you outnumber them four to one is quite delicious!

[Drowsy Emperor]

IMO the best solution is (this heavily depends on what kind of game the players want to play, so it comes from my perspective), to have combat short, deadly with a smaller impact of gear relative to inherent racial traits. 

 

Talislanta did this really well with a template system that was flat out imbalanced according to what particular races were ideally like, no hit point growth (only skill growth) and simple combat resolution (armor was just a flat damage reduction number). This meant that some PC's could kill other PC's in one or two hits right away because one might be an non-combat artificer and the other could be a giant warrior monstrosity.  It also meant that gear was secondary to the actual role of the PC within the gameworld (you can't stack up on magical crap and suddenly slap that giant silly - magic only allows for small edges) and avoided the whole numbers optimization game inherent to D&D. 

 

This way players learn to respect other races/monsters, have to play cleverly to get around stronger enemies and while they get better over time, they don't become a army slaughtering arrow-cushion as they do in D&D.

Edited May 10, 2018 by Drowsy Emperor

[Azdeus]

Yeah, it's a much better system.

In the EON (Swedish only) ruleset they have similar ideas though more advanced combat systems. Armor has flat damage reduction (Though gambessons are woefully inadequate in value) and a very variable damage system, one-hit kills are very possible. You don't have a health pool but a "death save" that increases in difficulty with different injuries. It's still somewhat forgiving though, since you are more likely to be knocked out and later die from your injuries if you do not get help, so they do manage to have a feeling of risk in there while at the same time being somewhat forgiving. There is basically no magic to speak of though, so if you get your lung punctured you will have to hope someone got surgical skills up to snuff and that you do not die from the later infections. The magic might actually give you a slight edge on surviving that infection though. You do often get a chance to say farewell to your companions though, because you are likely going to slowly die a slow and painful awful death from having your bowels perforated. Gives you lots of time for farewells.

 

I really like it though, because you do get a heroic feel of things while at the same time you always have the threat of death in all combat, wether it is a tavern brawl and some drunk farmer with a knife or on a battlefield.

 

Beasts and monsters have their own damage table that often emphasizes counterattacks and mauling, requiring you to have specialized weapons to deal with them (Mainly polearms/spears, they have a special weapon quality), you don't go hunting for bears or zombies with a sword or hammer.

 

If you really want to get that full plated warrior down, you had better go get yourself an arbalest and some people to distract him so you can line up a shot from close range. Or wrestle him down and shove a dagger through his visor.

[Drowsy Emperor]

I have to say the Swedes have really pounced on making RPGs. Symbaroum seems to have been quite a hit and there is one called Trudvang chronicles and that probably has some of the best art I've ever seen in an RPG book (if not the best, consistency and quality wise). And I have a huge collection of RPG books so it takes quite a bit to impress me. 

[injurai]

I wonder if most ornate ceremonial armor of the past wasn't actually for ceremony or rank, but was simply the noble prodigal nerds proto-larping.

[SonicMage117]

I've never larp'd but admittedly after seeing these armors, I kinda want to :D

[Gfted1]

Pfft, Id Lightning Bolt the hell out of you guys in that weaksauce armor:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZ04mfAY2BU

[injurai]

I haven't seen that video in ages

[HoonDing]

People pay for that crap?

[Drowsy Emperor]

I want to play that game with them with a tazer.

[LadyCrimson]

Real warriors only need animal skin loincloths for armor. Everything else hampers movement and is overkill. Plus, isn't as sexy.

 

 

....I don't think leather armor was ever really intended to prevent major slicing/direct hits damage. It was more just to save the skin from those almost-got you glancing-miss blows (those "papercuts" can hurt/distract after all!), as well as from brush and bushes when you decide you have to suddenly flee into the woods.

[Blarghagh]

I want to play that game with them with a tazer.

 

Add in some fireworks, flamethrowers, projections.

[Skazz]

 

I want to play that game with them with a tazer.

 

Add in some fireworks, flamethrowers, projections.

 

 

I'm now 92% sure this was the exact thought process behind the invention of real-life wars.

[Blarghagh]

Now we just need to find an equivelant of healing magic.