Better Quality Armours

Better Quality Armour

Some thoughts and speculation 

The company having felt that it was rather hacked to bits in its adventures against the goblins made a point of trying to get some better Armour and this got me thinking about how you might justify the possible Armour bonuses This is not a complete listing but my thoughts on the subject which I will hope be useful to you and allow you to take it off in your own direction.

Thick robes I feel the options here are limited using even heavier materials would help at the cost of extra wright  as would using silk in the construction as silk has interesting qualities analogous to those of modern ballistic cloth in some ways  

The bonuses I would give to these are as follows 

Heavier +1 but +2lb in weight at least

Silk +1-+2 but more expensive by a level at least

Padded - I see a number of options here, it can be made thicker thought there are limits to this as the armour can only be thickened by a limited amount before it starts to hinder movement further or it could be made of felt, historically felted armours where quite capable of the same levels of protection as afforded by mail and being lighter and cheaper became very popular in some places, during the crusades being a notable one and in use by the Eastern late roman empire (Byzantines) Armenia being famous for its felts. Or in the absence of felt it could be wadded, that is made like cricket pads of two layers of stout cloth such as canvas stitched together into tubes and stuffed with scraps of rags and animal hair. This again can be very good armour but can get very stiff as any one who has tried to bend a cricket pad in the middle can attest

The bonuses I would give to these are as follows 

Thickened +1to +2 but with +5% armour penalties for +2

Felted +1 to +4

Wadded +1 to +3 cheaper but +5% on armour penalties for level +2 & +3 & +2 Fatigue factor

Leather I see a number of options here as well as with padded you could make the armour of better or thicker materials, or you could extend the areas covered by the thick stiff "plates" this would include adding this protection to knees and elbows, upper arms  and thighs to the point where the armour begins to resemble plate armour made of leather  

The other option would be to make the armour using an alternate method using a lightly quilted soft leather garment as the base, something like two sheep skins sown together face to face fur inwards and either wearing the traditional stiff leather plates over that or replacing them with facing this with thicker but still soft leather such as you might use for boot and shoe uppers. perhaps reinforced by scales of thick leather over vulnerable areas where movement was not important 

The bonuses I would give to these are as follows 
Thickened - +1 but at least one pound heavier over all
Extending the “plates” +1 to +3 but this is the most expensive way of doing this so each bonus costs half as much again as it would normally
Quilted leather +1 unpleasant and uncomfortable in hot weather &  +2 Fatigue factor
Faced quilted leather +2  unpleasant and uncomfortable in hot weather & +2 Fatigue factor

Reinforced Faced Quilted leather +3 unpleasant and uncomfortable in hot weather & +2 Fatigue factor 

Studded leather - some of the ideas from leather armour above also work for this type of armour as does the addition of more metalwork, larger washers around the rivets and plates held in place by these rivets between the layers of leather.

Thickened  +1 but +2lb in weight at least

Extra Metal +1 to +3 but 2lb in weight per plus at least can be cumulative with thickened to get +4  and be effectively brigandine armour.

Scale mail - the first and easiest option is to upgrade the padding worn under the armour but this would increase the weight and have its limits as beyond a point the padding would get in the way of the movement of the amour making it more restrictive as well as fatiguing 

The bonuses I would give to these are as follows 

Extra padding   +1 but +2lb in weight at least & +3 fatigue factor 

Chain Mail the first and easiest option is to upgrade the padding worn under the armour but this would increase the weight and have its limits as beyond a point the padding would get in the way of the movement of the amour making it more restrictive as well as fatiguing. The inclusion of a proportion of punched rings as opposed to riveted ones would also increase the armours protective value, the best quality elf and dwarf mails for example are both   made of split rings and then all the rings are welded solid by magic The main difference being that dwarf made mail uses normal sized rings and the elf made stuff uses rings of around half that size and thickness. The other option is doubling using two layers of mail over vulnerable areas or areas like the shoulders which will be more likely to take hits. The other option with mail is to make it loser fitting so that the movement of the mail soaks up more of the force of impact.

The bonuses I would give to these are as follows 

Extra padding   +1 but +2lb in weight at least & +3 fatigue factor
Doubling +1but increase the weight by 20% & +1 fatigue factor
Solid rings +1 to +3 depending on the proportion used can be even higher if the Armour is made with magic
These can be cumulative if required 

Banded Mail the first and easiest option is to upgrade the padding worn under the armour but this would increase the weight and have its limits as beyond a point the padding would get in the way of the movement of the amour making it more restrictive as well as fatiguing. Thicker & or additional banding is also a possibility but it will add to the weight improving the quality of the mail would also help but less so than in a straight chain mail armour.

The bonuses I would give to these are as follows 

Extra padding   +1 but +2lb in weight at least & +3 fatigue factor 
Better mail +1 
Heavier Banding  +1but 10% heavier and +1 fatigue factor 
More extensive banding +1 but 15% heavier +2 fatigue factor & +5% to all armour penalties.

Splinted Mail the first and easiest option is to upgrade the padding worn under the armour but this would increase the weight and have its limits as beyond a point the padding would get in the way of the movement of the amour making it more restrictive as well as fatiguing other than that the options are very similar to those for Banded armour.

The bonuses I would give to these are as follows 

Extra padding   +1 but +2lb in weight at least & +3 fatigue factor

Better mail +1 
Heavier Splinting  +1but 10% heavier and +1 fatigue factor 
More extensive splinting +1 but 15% heavier +2 fatigue factor & +5% to all armour penalties.



Plate Mail  here you would as with leather armour first extend the areas protected by articulated plates

Note;

I have excluded Ring Mail as I don't think it really existed and put it down to a Victorian  misinterpretation of the Latin name for "Chain Mail" also a misnomer by the by literally rendering  Lorica Hammata as ring armour and this being picked up by the Gyax fellow when he was writing his war games rules which evolved into D&D