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I assume the modern stitching deflects blows better
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Oct 16, 2021 14:45
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That, and after my first few dungeon crawls I moved to a more consulting-based career path.
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Oct 16, 2021 15:23
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It's hard to search the accuracy of DnD given the lack of documentation for the equipment of real dragon hunters.
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Oct 16, 2021 17:10
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Ghost Leviathan posted:A lot of games like D&D (we can probably blame D&D for among other things popularising this) mess this up because traditionally you had lots of armour or a bigass shield, not both. To be fair if you were fighting ogres and dragons you might adopt heavier gear.
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Oct 16, 2021 17:35
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RPGs want to create a lot of weird gradations between types of armor both to give their players upgrade trees and to try to make sense of a bunch of wildly different fantasies coexisting in the same place. A robin hood where the heaviest thing he has is leather, a merlin with just a robe and funny hat, a heavily-armored fighter, a nearly-naked barbarian. They have to make up a lot of disadvantages to armor (aside from the one most realistic ones, like cost, time to put on, or carrying weight) to justify the lower armor levels. I dunno why a wizard isn't allowed to wear a chest plate but a priest gets to have chainmail.
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Oct 16, 2021 18:00
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SlothfulCobra posted:RPGs want to create a lot of weird gradations between types of armor both to give their players upgrade trees and to try to make sense of a bunch of wildly different fantasies coexisting in the same place. A robin hood where the heaviest thing he has is leather, a merlin with just a robe and funny hat, a heavily-armored fighter, a nearly-naked barbarian. They have to make up a lot of disadvantages to armor (aside from the one most realistic ones, like cost, time to put on, or carrying weight) to justify the lower armor levels. The tldr is that "heavier armors" and arcane spell casting doesn't mix well because if you were unfamiliar with the armor it would gently caress with the precise movements needed to cast a spell. In 5th edition dnd you can cast spells fine in full plate if you are familar/trained to wear it. Clerics generally have less work they gotta do because their God does a lot of the heavy lifting. Also wizards are op.
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Oct 16, 2021 18:07
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DnD priests are based not around any historical priesthood but on an ad-hoc PVP counterplay to player Vampire that was just shredding other players. Not a DnD specific problem but I've been losing my mind the last few years about games like Path of Exile and The Witcher where you have like, the chest piece for full plate, a leather hat, chainmail boots, and foppish opera gloves or some poo poo. Partially just on gameplay reasons (I think it's dumb busywork) but also just kind of like...why do they mix and match seemingly random bits of different coverage but not layer over the same location.
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Oct 16, 2021 18:07
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SlothfulCobra posted:RPGs want to create a lot of weird gradations between types of armor both to give their players upgrade trees and to try to make sense of a bunch of wildly different fantasies coexisting in the same place. A robin hood where the heaviest thing he has is leather, a merlin with just a robe and funny hat, a heavily-armored fighter, a nearly-naked barbarian. They have to make up a lot of disadvantages to armor (aside from the one most realistic ones, like cost, time to put on, or carrying weight) to justify the lower armor levels. D&D grew out of wargaming and its immediate antecessor was Chainmail - a game for accurately simulating combat in medieval Europe. In its basic form it's a reasonably accurate depiction of what was known in the 1960s. Stuff like ringmail has been shown to be bullshit since, but much of it is fine. Gary Gygax took a lot of pride in his analysis of armor and weaponry. The primary reason wizards can't wear metal armor is that it makes them too powerful and unbalances the game.
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Oct 16, 2021 18:09
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Ghost Leviathan posted:A lot of games like D&D (we can probably blame D&D for among other things popularising this) mess this up because traditionally you had lots of armour or a bigass shield, not both. I don't think I've ever heard about this. Is there a good source for reading about this medieval heavily-armored shieldless swordfighting style?
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Oct 16, 2021 18:17
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Tulip posted:why do they mix and match seemingly random bits of different coverage but not layer over the same location. This thread does not tolerate anti-Morrowind viewpoints. 
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Oct 16, 2021 18:17
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D&D wizards also started out as reskinned siege weapons.
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Oct 16, 2021 18:20
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Fuschia tude posted:I don't think I've ever heard about this. Is there a good source for reading about this medieval heavily-armored shieldless swordfighting style? I don't know specific recommendations offhand, but look up "Historical European martial arts" and you should be able to find some bibliographies, lots of videos too. There are a number of surviving swordfighting manuals from the late Middle Ages if you want to go to primary sources. But basically, the two weren't used together all that often (Roman soldiers are a notable exception) because the idea of a shield is you stop from getting hit in the first place, and heavy armor is so you can get hit all day and it won't injure you. It's largely redundant to have both, it just makes it heavier and slows you down. If a guy is in late medieval plate armor you can whack him with a sword for hours and it isn't going to do poo poo. It's why maces and war hammers were a thing, concussion will go through the armor and do damage.
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Oct 16, 2021 18:24
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the romans were not really at the level of armor that you would start to consider abandoning shields, although their shield is maybe abnormally heavy-duty for their armor level and they are heavily-armored for their era in general. you abandon the shield when you can stand around outside of an archer's point-blank range and he can't do poo poo to you
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Oct 16, 2021 18:45
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Also, when your opponent is wearing heavy armor, and you want something that can kill him, you're most likely going to need a weapon that requires both hands to use, so using a shield simply isn't an option. A poleaxe, for example, or a longsword - from what I've read, armored longsword fighting was less about cutting at your opponent and more about getting really close and essentially wrestling while trying to get your sword point through a weak spot in their armor, like their armpit or the vision slit in their helmet.
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Oct 16, 2021 19:00
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Jazerus posted:the romans were not really at the level of armor that you would start to consider abandoning shields, although their shield is maybe abnormally heavy-duty for their armor level and they are heavily-armored for their era in general. you abandon the shield when you can stand around outside of an archer's point-blank range and he can't do poo poo to you Yeah this is important too. Late medieval plate armor is incredibly advanced compared to what the Romans had. Roman armor was good but you weren't a walking tank like a well equipped knight was.
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Oct 16, 2021 19:05
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Jazerus posted:the romans were not really at the level of armor that you would start to consider abandoning shields, although their shield is maybe abnormally heavy-duty for their armor level and they are heavily-armored for their era in general. you abandon the shield when you can stand around outside of an archer's point-blank range and he can't do poo poo to you Armor is most effective when it covers the entire body. The Romans were aware of this concept but for some reason (maybe relative lack of design skill, or the larger scale of armies?) only considered it practicable for the late heavy cavalryman, the Persian-model clibanarius.
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Oct 16, 2021 19:19
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Tulip posted:Not a DnD specific problem but I've been losing my mind the last few years about games like Path of Exile and The Witcher where you have like, the chest piece for full plate, a leather hat, chainmail boots, and foppish opera gloves or some poo poo. Partially just on gameplay reasons (I think it's dumb busywork) but also just kind of like...why do they mix and match seemingly random bits of different coverage but not layer over the same location.
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Oct 16, 2021 19:25
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e^^^ lol A major thing about shields is that while you can use a spear with a shield, you can't use a proper big-rear end pike with a shield (or at least, any sort of big shield, sometimes small shields were used). And when you're talking about formation fighting, as opposed to dueling, big rear end pikes are really, really good. "Poking somebody with something sharp" is a pretty good way of killing them, given that we're largely bags of water, and being able to poke first is pretty good.
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Oct 16, 2021 19:43
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skasion posted:Armor is most effective when it covers the entire body. The Romans were aware of this concept but for some reason (maybe relative lack of design skill, or the larger scale of armies?) only considered it practicable for the late heavy cavalryman, the Persian-model clibanarius. I think a big part is that Roman metallurgy straight up wasn't as good as it was in the late medieval period. Roman production of metal equipment was carried out on an amazing scale, especially for the time, but the quality of their metal simply wasn't that good. If you want to make a gauntlet with individual lobstered fingers, say, you need really good steel or else it'll be too weak/brittle to provide any protection at a weight your soldier can accommodate.
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Oct 16, 2021 20:00
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There's also just a different underlying logic at play. A medieval knight is buying his own equipment to protect himself on the battlefield. He's going to get the absolute best equipment he can afford. Legionaries are being state supplied and on an individual level are disposable. Their equipment was fairly good because the state required an effective army and sending out a bunch of dudes in garbage armor with wooden swords wasn't going to work, but they weren't lavishing money to protect every single soldier as best as possible.
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Oct 16, 2021 20:09
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yeah medieval guys that aren't knights end up, uh, not in plate because that poo poo is expensive. there's never been an army where everybody was simply fully plated at all times afaik
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Oct 16, 2021 20:11
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Fantasy also seems to have a weird aversion to cloth armor like gambesons for some reason. I think The Witcher is the only place I've seen them used.Telsa Cola posted:The tldr is that "heavier armors" and arcane spell casting doesn't mix well because if you were unfamiliar with the armor it would gently caress with the precise movements needed to cast a spell. In 5th edition dnd you can cast spells fine in full plate if you are familar/trained to wear it. They'll say this, but then not reference the characters having to precisely swish and flick anywhere else in the talk about spellcasting.
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Oct 16, 2021 20:21
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SlothfulCobra posted:They'll say this, but then not reference the characters having to precisely swish and flick anywhere else in the talk about spellcasting. that's called the spell's "somatic component" and it's one of the biggest (and most common) cheats in d&d for an arcane spellcaster to simply ignore them. everyone forgets that wizards almost always have to wave their arms around like an idiot, there are relatively few spells usable with just an incantation or at will
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Oct 16, 2021 20:29
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SlothfulCobra posted:Fantasy also seems to have a weird aversion to cloth armor like gambesons for some reason. I think The Witcher is the only place I've seen them used. This is Marnid erasure
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Oct 16, 2021 20:32
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wizards aren't real (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Oct 16, 2021 20:32
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Arglebargle III posted:wizards aren't real Whoa whoa whoa. Do you have a historical source to back that up
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Oct 16, 2021 20:34
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I DMed a very material-precious campaign once and forced the magic user to keep very close track of her tiny bells, small scraps of paper, bits of herb, feathers and basilisk scales and poo poo. It was kind of fun making her kneel on the forest floor and describe what she was doing with her alchemical crap, it lent a lot of flavor to the scenario The most fun was forcing them to hunt a very spry deer after none of them had packed provisions. I warned those fuckers I wasn't handwaving and I didn't
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Oct 16, 2021 20:34
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Jazerus posted:yeah medieval guys that aren't knights end up, uh, not in plate because that poo poo is expensive. there's never been an army where everybody was simply fully plated at all times afaik It depends a little on what you'd consider "fully plated". Yeah, the intricate custom-fitted suits that covered pretty much every bit of your body from every angle were always reserved for the higher echelons. But as time went on new metalworking technologies emerged that made plate armour much more affordable, to the point where it ended up being cheaper than the labour-intensive chain maille. Towards the 16th and 17th century, you actually did end up with armies where the majority would be in plate armour covering them from head to knees like this one, and more comprehensive suits covering the lower limbs wouldn't be a rarity either. 
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Oct 16, 2021 20:35
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Arglebargle III posted:wizards aren't real https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wizard_of_New_Zealand
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Oct 16, 2021 20:37
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Perestroika posted:It depends a little on what you'd consider "fully plated". Yeah, the intricate custom-fitted suits that covered pretty much every bit of your body from every angle were always reserved for the higher echelons. But as time went on new metalworking technologies emerged that made plate armour much more affordable, to the point where it ended up being cheaper than the labour-intensive chain maille. Towards the 16th and 17th century, you actually did end up with armies where the majority would be in plate armour covering them from head to knees like this one, and more comprehensive suits covering the lower limbs wouldn't be a rarity either. To be fair, this sort of armor is pretty similar to what the Romans were equipping their troops with. It's basically as much armor as you can equip people with before custom-fitting the plates or inventing Velcro. Dealing with the arms and legs is the biggest difficulty with plate armor, and troops get exhausted in poorly-fitted armor, so 1/2 or 3/4 plate is just the way to go unless you are talking about small numbers of elite troops.
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Oct 17, 2021 00:04
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SlothfulCobra posted:Fantasy also seems to have a weird aversion to cloth armor like gambesons for some reason. I think The Witcher is the only place I've seen them used. Spells in dnd have different components which the player is rules as written required to fulfill and these are vocal, somatic (motion), and material (herbs and poo poo). It can generally get pretty gritty trying to keep track of this constantly, and it often gets forgotten, but a wizard that is either gagged or tied up, or is stripped naked with no access to their supplies is not going to be casting, or is going to have the list of spells they can cast be extremely limited. Especially since Wizards have to prepare their list of spells daily and if they say, pick all spells that have a verbal component and then get their mouth glued shut they are hosed. Telsa Cola fucked around with this message at 01:14 on Oct 17, 2021 |
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Oct 17, 2021 01:05
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It should be noted that Roman plate armor was not used for a particularly long time, only a century or two, and was used along with with mail and scale rather than replacing it. It is of very different quality than later plate, even the relatively cheap munitions plate, and may have even been adopted because it was cheaper to produce rather than it offering any kind of advantage over mail. Mail is the big game-changing armor technology of the Hellenistic and Roman eras, being first invented by the Celts and then spreading to the Greeks and Romans who adopted it wholesale. It uses a much more plentiful metal than bronze breastplates (which remained prestige objects), protects better than a linothorax, is flexible and easy to repair, and is relatively easy to mass produce with slave labor. It was used before the lorica segmentata and stayed in use much, much longer as well.
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Oct 17, 2021 01:09
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FishFood posted:It should be noted that Roman plate armor was not used for a particularly long time, only a century or two, and was used along with with mail and scale rather than replacing it. It is of very different quality than later plate, even the relatively cheap munitions plate, and may have even been adopted because it was cheaper to produce rather than it offering any kind of advantage over mail. IIRC from reenactors, the segmentate is easier to wear and less tiring than the hamata. And since the Romans did not use thick padding like gambeson under their mail, my understanding is the segmentata does protect better than mail. But with the Romans, GF already mentioned that they are equipping an army, not an elite corps, so cost was always a factor. However what they made sure to do was make sure as few of their guys died as possible, because they were drat good at patching people up from non-life threatening wounds. So they have excellent protection for their torso with armor of some kind. One of the biggest shields used by rank and file armies to protect the rest of the body, and then a fantastically designed helmet with the Gallica style at the height of the empire. The arms and legs are exposed, but its unlikely that their guys would die from a slash to the arm or shin, and can be patched up and still be a soldier in the next campaign.  I love the Gallica helmet as its an extremely well thought out design. It has plenty of protection for the head, the brow rib helps prevent anything from glancing down into the face, the cheek plates can protect against cuts from spears or swords, and the big neck covering provides extra defense. Matt Easton has a story about working on a failed pilot for a bbc tv show wherein the premise was teach a bunch of normal people to be gladiators. What they found is that big neck cover is in the exact right place to stop an attack that goes over the scutum and tries to rake across the back, which is one of the few viable attacks against a roman legionary actively defending with his shield.
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Oct 17, 2021 01:41
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Those ear holes are pretty rare in helmets too and show how much importance was placed on command and control. Everyone has to be able to hear officer orders, whether spoken or trumpeted.
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Oct 17, 2021 01:45
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Jazerus posted:yeah medieval guys that aren't knights end up, uh, not in plate because that poo poo is expensive. there's never been an army where everybody was simply fully plated at all times afaik Plenty of unknighted medieval soldiers wore full plate.
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Oct 17, 2021 02:12
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In A Legionary's Life the combat placed considerable emphasis on protecting yourself, managing your energy, and wearing your enemy down by attrition rather than a decisive blow. Does this match with what we know of roman doctrine and drill?
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Oct 17, 2021 02:26
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The Lone Badger posted:In A Legionary's Life the combat placed considerable emphasis on protecting yourself, managing your energy, and wearing your enemy down by attrition rather than a decisive blow. Does this match with what we know of roman doctrine and drill? Unfortunately that requires knowing how battles were fought, and we don't. Best we can do is reasonable guesswork. That said that description sounds reasonable. Most battles were lost when one side broke and ran, rather than being decided purely by combat. The legions simply presenting an unbreakable rock of a force for enemies to slam uselessly against until they ran makes sense with the combination of equipment and training they had. Romans were rarely up against armies with their level of organization. When they did, they had a whole lot more trouble winning than usual.
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Oct 17, 2021 02:32
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Grand Fromage posted:The legions simply presenting an unbreakable rock of a force for enemies to slam uselessly against until they ran makes sense with the combination of equipment and training they had. Romans were rarely up against armies with their level of organization. When they did, they had a whole lot more trouble winning than usual. This is absolutely true because it's an effect that can be observed throughout history. Training, cohesion, and discipline count for a helluva lot even today.
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Oct 17, 2021 03:28
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Yeah, can't be understated that the Roman army is explicitly a machine of imperial conquest. Not that they wouldn't sometimes go up against enemies with near equivalent levels of training and equipment, (and after all, the Romans aren't the only ones who can steal ideas) or even fight each other in one of those fashionable civil wars, though I imagine they were capable of changing up their tactics when necessary. The Romans also developed their gear and tactics over time; iirc, the signature gladius short sword was used in Spain at the time and the Romans adopted it because it worked well with their shield wall tactics. Legionaries were apparently trained in a lot of different things, too, so they could be as self-sufficient as possible in the field. Building fortifications and assembling siege weapons, supposedly even building roads.
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Oct 17, 2021 03:55
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:This is absolutely true because it's an effect that can be observed throughout history. Training, cohesion, and discipline count for a helluva lot even today. Spartan Battle Manual posted:Superior training and superior weaponry have, when taken together, a geometric effect on overall military strength. Well-trained, well-equipped troops can stand up to many more times their lesser brethren than linear arithmetic would seem to indicate.
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Oct 17, 2021 05:29
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