|
|
Padded armour is mostly found among the poor and unskilled. Only the poorest excuses for armed forces would be caught dead in padded armour. The bulky and restrictive nature of the armour makes it a poor substitute for a stout set of leather.
Village militias, bandit packs, and primitive barbarian hordes are the most common users of padded armour. In short, this includes anyone who cannot afford leather armour, cultures without the technology to tan hide, or those who have no other option at their time of need.
Padded armour, being little more than multiple layers of leather, tends to soil and wear out easily. Although newly fashioned sets may sell cheaply, padded armour must be replaced often, even if it is well cared for. Lice, sweat, dirt, fleas, and insects all take their toll.
If the GM judges that a set of padded armour has seen its last days, the armour is now rotted and torn, and little more than bulky clothing. Importantly, heavily soiled armour increases the chances of catching a disease by 5%.
Under ideal conditions, a set of padded armour should be replaced monthly. However, when travelling through heavily infested swamps or in forests, padded armour may require replacement as often as every few days. On any long journey, spare sets of padded armour should be taken along as if they were spare sets of clothing. Too much frugality before a journey can lead to much discomfort later.
Naturally, those who have no access to better armour try to make the best appearance whenever they can. Therefore, decorating one's padded armour is the most common form of upgrading the appearance of one's forces. All armies and nations have banners and shields adorned with their own colours, and these colours are often repeated in intricate patterns on their padded armour. This is most often seen when the local king or noble quickly recruits the local farmers' militia to defend his lands or aid him in launching an assault. The colours of the lord are either quilted into the design of the armour in checkerboard fashion, or painted or dyed onto the hastily prepared protection.
In similar fashion, the most ingenious of knights have been known to use quilted armour to camouflage their own soldiers as peasants of the opposing ranks, taking devious advantage of the militia's known lack of combat training.
This is only one of many reasons why low level warriors are neither feared nor respected by the armed forces. Certainly in the case of padded armour, one can tell a knave by his suit.
Hardened leather armour is actually strong and stiff, having been hardened in boiling oil and then stretched over a wooden or stone model of a man's or woman's chest. The resulting breastplate and shoulder guards are combined with a tunic or kirtle and, in colder climes, leggings of wool or soft leather.
This is the most common form of modern armour. The materials (leather and oil) are readily available in all civilized lands. Only the techniques for boiling and shaping the leather is necessary, and this is not a difficult feat for a leatherworker.
This armour is both inexpensive and durable. While the leather is extremely stiff, it is never fashioned into anything larger than a breastplate, which keeps restriction of movement to a minimum. Naturally, this arrangement means leather armour affords no protection to the joints, but this is true of most types of armour, and is a challenge all civilized races have been attempting to overcome since wars began.
In severe combat situations, leather armour may need to be replaced weekly. However, the armour is easily cleaned, reasonably unaffected by weather, and resists all but the severest of abrasions. This means a good set of leather can be worn daily for many months without need for replacement. Many retired warriors and middle-class militia have a set of leather armour stored away that they take out and polish at least annually.
Because raw leather comes from a by-product of medieval daily life (i.e., eating beef and other meats), in civilized societies leather armour is very common. Even rural communities have little trouble manufacturing leather armour for the troops within a few days.
Cows are not the sole source of hide for tanning. Horses, sheep, and camels can be used just as easily. In short, the creature must have a thicker skin than that of a normal man, but not quite as thick as that of an elephant or bear.
Irregular human forces (e.g., militias and levies, freemen, commoners above peasant level, barbarians, and light infantry) are the primary users of leather armour, for the following reasons:
Another benefit of leather armour, much extolled by those of a more disreputable persuasion, is the ease which it can be silenced. While leather armour is not typically noisy, its buckles and fasteners tend to rattle and clink. Unlike metal armour, leatherise, high availability, and low price make this the armour of choice for the general human population.
Overbearing and grappling while wearing such armour inflicts additional damage based on the wearer's size. A small creature inflicts 1D2 points of piercing damage, a man-sized creature inflicts 1D3 points, and a large creature inflicts 1D4 points. These values are considered for each individual attack, not for every round that a creature is grappled.
Spiked armour is usually made specially for the wearer and costs about 150% of the price of a normal set of hardened leather. Spiked armour is occasionally used to equip gladiators, pit fighters, and other specialists.
Chain mail is only slightly heavier than ringmail armour and much lighter than any of the plate armours. Important to the wearer, however, is the fact that the weight of a suit of chain mail does not rest evenly upon the body. Rather, most of the burden of a chain suit rests upon the shoulders, making chain armour feel heavier than it really is.
In game terms, this means chain mail can be worn for only about a day before the shoulders of even the strongest warriors begin to fatigue. Experienced warriors usually carry a second set of lighter armour (often leather) for use when travelling or at night when not on watch.
In general, chain mail is worn by mid-level fighters, guardsmen, mercenaries, and men-at-arms with some official capacity. The price of chain mail is equivalent to many years income for most peasants, and is thus out of reach for most common folk. However, some middle-class families have a set or two of heirloom chain mail armour handed down from glorious days past for use in dangerous days to come.
Typically, town guards and noble patrols are bedecked in chain mail armour. It is perfect for short duty tours and gives the noble warrior a great advantage over the local rabble. Just the difference between chain mail and leather armour alone can give the officer a significant advantage over most ruffians. Anyone wearing chain mail armour with any sort of heraldic crest or uniform is usually assumed to be a local official of some kind by the experienced and perceptive traveller.
Because chain mail armour is not usually worn for long periods at a time, its underlying padding rarely suffers the problems of padded armours. The metal mail, however, will rust if not oiled and scrubbed with a wire brush weekly. After a month of neglect, chain mail armour loses one level of armour rating since it is no longer as flexible and links may have begun to rust.
Historically, by the time the armourers craft had advanced to the point that plate mail had become common, steel had replaced bronze as the best metal for constructing armour. Thus, aside from ceremonial armour, most bronze plate mail appears in areas where copper and tin are plentiful and iron is rare.
In general, since bronze plate mail is designed to be lighter and more flexible than normal plate mail, bronze plate armourers use leather and padding under the bronze plates instead of the heavier chain mail. Also, to reduce the overall weight of the armour, there are no bronze plates attached to the moveable joints.
Bronze plate offers better protection than normal chain mail and a lower price tag than standard plate mail. Since bronze plate is usually backed with stiff layered armour rather than loose chain mail, bronze plate mail isn't as flexible as standard plate mail.
Who would use bronze plate mail in a standard campaign, when so many other alternatives exist? Plate mail is a sign of nobility to the general population. What does the lowly peasant or innkeeper know of the advantages and disadvantages of various types of plate mail? Little to be sure. In fact, this armour is one piece of equipment whose price is not determined by its true value in combat but by its perceived value to persons around the wearer.
Any knight worth his salt acquires full plate armour as soon as he can, even if it means selling prized items of magic or a stout war-horse. If a knight can scrape up 6000 silver pieces but can't get the extra 2000 silver pieces to buy a real set of plate, bronze plate is the only real choice open to him.
More than a few low-level adventurers with perhaps a little too much gold to spend and not enough experience or training in such matters often are cheated into buying bronze plate mail that has been painted silver. They immediately lose 2000 silver pieces in the deal by taking home the inferior armour. After even one such sucker-sale, the charlatan salesman skips town for a few weeks or moves to a different part of the city.
Naturally, such gullible warriors usually don't discover their mistake until the heat of battle, when a weapon strike that would have bounced off a real set of plate mail dents or cuts through the bogus plate. Caveat Emptor!
Much like their cousins in the sunlight, the Drow have invented their own form of special armour. As they are unwilling to share there secrets with any other race, little is known about the composition of this armour.
What is known for certain is that Drow chain mail uses adamantite, the strongest metal known, as the principal component of their mystical alloy. It is mined by myriad Drow-allied races in great quantities, and the Drow war machine is wholly dependent on adamantite-related technologies.
This alloy has special properties due to the peculiar nature of the radiation emanating from the Drow homeland, giving even the basic form of the alloy the equivalent of a magical +1. Drow weapons, shields, armour, etc., all begin with a +1 bonus, and based on the alloy, the amount of time spent in the forge, and the secret processes used, it can increase to as much as +5. The alloy does not radiate magic in the traditional way (a Suss Magic spell reveals no trace of magical properties).
Whenever Drow alloyed creations, including armour, are exposed to direct sunlight, their magical bonuses are immediately lost and they begin to utterly and irreversibly decay. This happens even after one short exposure, meaning that even a set of Drow armour that is immediately returned to utter darkness or the nearest Drow homeland will still decay. Physical decay begins 1D12+8 days after exposure to sunlight. The armour completely falls apart after another 1D12 days have passed.
If extraordinary precautions are taken, an adventurer could theoretically use a set of Drow armour, if worn only in the dead of night and returned to complete darkness (e.g., a light-proof chest or vault) before the break of day. However, the armour must be returned to the Drow homeland once every two weeks to be re-exposed to the radiation. Armour must remain in the homeland two days per day spent above ground. If the armour is not returned to the Underdark before two weeks have passed, the magic of the armour is permanently lost. Decay then begins as described above.
The fragments of metal that remain after Drow armour deteriorates may be collected and reused for future forgings. However, the metal is non-magical until the forging process imbues the enchantment.
The surface elves contend that these conditions are poor workmanship on the part of the Drow, but scholars have noted many parallels between elven and Drow alloys.
For example, one possibility is that just as the strange magical emanations of the Drow homeland aid in the construction of their special adamantite objects, it is has been surmised that moonlight, pure and cool, may have something to do with the forging of elven mithril armour. The fact that mithril is as reflective, light, and pure as adamantite is dull, heavy, and dense has not escaped observation.
What is certain about the two magical types of armour is that such parallels cannot be sheer coincidence. Somewhere in the distant past of the two races, when times were better and before the dark elves retreated to the earthen depths, there must have been one common armour technology. The Drow took the secrets of forging elven metals with them when they left, but had to discover something to replace both the mithril and moonlight components of the ancient secret art. What they eventually discovered, perhaps after many centuries of experimentation, was a magical alloy more abundant than mithril, yet not as stable as elven chain.
Elven chain mail is the only form of armour made of a legendary elven alloy, a light-weight silvery steel of great strength. Even without enchantment, elven chain mail is typically half the weight of its human-forged counterpart.
The elves guard the secret of making elven chain mail with more ferocity than they protect even their own children. In the entire history of the elven race, the number of elven armourers who learn the secrets of forging elven steel is extremely low. Needless to say, these masters of the art tend to be ancient in the extreme, and the choice of an apprentice comes but once every thousand years. This is the highest honour accorded to any single elf, save being chosen by his peers to lead the elven race.
Recently, the elves have begun cashing in on the demand for high-quality armour, and have been forging suits of Mithril for other races.
Apprenticeship is not a gift bestowed by the wealthy or powerful, but chosen by magical testing in a secret ceremony. Some outsiders would argue that the training makes the armourer, but tradition holds great sway in elven circles.
Human and dwarven armourers have been able to divine at least some of the secrets of the elven armourers, but not the most important ones. They know, for example, that mithril silver, that part of mithril which gives this purest of metals its glimmer in the moonlight, is somehow alloyed with other materials. The process of alloying has never been duplicated outside of an elven master forge, so most armourers believe some form of magical manipulation is involved in the process somewhere.
Furthermore, anyone hoping to forge elven armour must be able to see the magical emanations radiating from it. While this may be done artificially through magic, this task is geared more toward the elves' natural eyesight. Drow armourers (presumably) work under similar conditions.
Naturally, when one has a thousand years to perfect the skills for one's job, just about anything is within grasp. The dwarves call this an unfair advantage, while the humans don't even bother trying anymore. Life is too short, they feel, to waste time on creating something that would be easier stolen or purchased.
Elven chain mail is used by elven troops, both cavalry and infantry. It is common among the grey elves and advanced elven cultures, but less common among the high elves. It is extremely rare among the wood elves.
Since the material is so strong and valuable, in those rare instances when a suit of elven chain mail is damaged to the point of needing repair, the suit is never discarded, but returned to the armourer for repair or replacement.
By the numbers of suits estimated to exist by human military planners and master armourers, best estimates are that it might take upwards of ten years to make just one suit of elven chain. Otherwise, they reason, there would be a lot more of the armour in use by the elves, and many more suits would be found in the lairs and treasure hordes of monsters across the realms.
In addition to the normal weight and flexibility advantages of elven chain, magical elven chain mail is so weightless that it can be worn under one's normal clothes. It is so comfortable and unrestrictive that it can be worn constantly, even while sleeping. Magical elven chain is so soft to the touch that it can be worn without any padding beneath it. This makes magical elven chain the ideal armour for travellers, excluding only the greatest of knights, who by tradition prefer plated armours over all others.
For rogues especially, a set of magical elven chain mail is a more prized possession than even full plate armour. Adventurers have lost their lives over mere rumours of magical elven chain.
High-quality dwarven plate is the boilerplate version of human plate armour. It is 50% heavier than equivalent mails, making a single suit of dwarven-sized plate mail armour weigh approximately the same as a set of human-sized plate mail.
Additionally, the denser armour affords protection equivalent to plate mail +1, and the armour itself saves against equipment damage at +6, in addition to any bonuses permitted if the dwarven plate in question is also magically enchanted. Stories about dwarven plate armour withstanding the smelting fires of a dragon's breath may be boastful exaggeration, but it is an established fact that dwarven plate often survives an attack that its wearer does not.
As mentioned, dwarves prize combat effectiveness over a warrior's appearance. It is therefore very rare for the iron appearance of dwarven plate mail to be adorned in any way.
Much like the Drow, dwarves do not make dwarven plate for non-dwarves. Not only is it considered impractical to spend one's time building a suit of armour no dwarf can ever hope to wear (a waste of time), but the dwarves will admit to having no skill in working with the peculiarities of the human body. Dwarves tend to ignore things like flexible joints, as their range of movement is already restricted by nature. An ancient dwarven warrior's saying goes something like If it doesn't fit, bend it. If it still doesn't fit, break it! Along those lines, another popular dwarven saying is Never let your armour impede a good fight.
Dwarven full plate armour does not exist. Not only would dwarves look like miniature iron golems when so protected, but dwarves prefer to let their facial expressions speak for them in combat. The problem of free movement plays a big part in this practical decision as well.
No human has ever managed to convince a group of dwarves to forge a set of full plate armour for them. If such a task were even to get past the bargaining phase, it would quickly become apparent to all concerned that the dwarves have no experience or knowledge of such constructions and lack the motivation to learn it. Dwarves themselves claim they'd rather be beating their hammers on orc skulls than beating them in the forge.
Curiously, gnomes have offered to give full plate their "best shot" from time to time, but so far, no human has been brave enough (or foolish enough) to accept the offer.
Because of its small size (approximately 1' in diameter), a buckler protects against one attack per melee round. The user can choose which attack he wishes to use his buckler against, but he must declare this before the attack roll has been made. This increases the defender's armour class only by 1 against that single attack.
Note: Bucklers should be treated not as full shields when determining the armour class of the user, but more as a special item that can be called upon to add extra protection for one attack per round.
A small shield (approximately 2' in diameter) can be used to protect against two frontal attacks of the user's choice. Like the buckler above, the user can choose which attacks to use his shield against, but must decide before the attacks are rolled.
Like the buckler, the small shield should be considered a special item used for defense, not as a general addition to frontal armour class.
With a medium shield, a character can defend against any number of frontal or flanking attacks in a given round. In this instance, the character applies the +1 armour class bonus for the shield to his overall armour class rating, but must disregard the shield bonus during the occasional attack from the rear.
Standing around 6' tall, the body shield provides a great deal of protection to the user, improving the overall armour class of the character by 1 against melee attacks and by 2 against missile attacks. As with all shields, these bonuses apply only against frontal and flanking attacks.
Due to the size of a body shield, it would be impossible for a Dwarf or Hobbit to use one.
