Armor and arrows

[Doublepalli]

Vote away, and discuss! I personally believe it is not realistically portrayed. For instance, I honestly believe arrows should do little damage at all to opponents clad in heavier armor, from gurth shells all the way up to horror(where you can still get hit for 30-100 wearing the heavy stuff). Arrows should be bouncing off stuff like that, no? I've noticed, from leathers, to heavy, there isn't much difference when you get shot, give or take 5 points of damage. It'd be nice if the material of armor was codedly taken into account when you're shot by that elf, or what not.

[Armaddict]

I don't think armor is very realistically portrayed altogether.

There's been discussion over big revamps to it every now and again over the years.  I'm of the opinion it will be fine for now, until such a time as someone wants to tackle it head on as the big project that it is.

[evilcabbage]

i mean, you're not shooting metal at metal, you're shooting rocks and stone and wood at... stone and shell and wood.

i don't know what you expect.

[valeria]

I voted "I don't know" but really my vote is "meh."

We have a very stylized combat system.

[Doublepalli]

i mean, you're not shooting metal at metal, you're shooting rocks and stone and wood at... stone and shell and wood.

i don't know what you expect.

Yes, but lets be real here, try and slam a stone against a stone, tell me how it goes. Alternatively, take into account how -hard- certain shells are, yeah that stone rock and wood -would- bounce right off.

[Desertman]

It's a hard thing to really gauge.

If I shot someone with a stone arrowhead IRL from a standard longbow and they were wearing a hardened moose leather breastplate....I wouldn't expect much damage if any penetration at all.

But in this game you slam two stone swords together at full force and rarely if ever see them shatter.

IRL they would shatter every single time at 10% of the same force.

It's something where I have a hard time trying to use "realism" as an excuse for why archery works the way it works.

I still voted "No", but I don't necessarily thinks it could be/needs to be changed.

[Patuk]

I voted no, if only because I'd vote no to most any bit of the combat code being realistic.

[Inks]

I think while not realistic, it is fine. We don't need more reasons to prioritise strength.

[Fathi]

Vote away, and discuss! I personally believe it is not realistically portrayed. For instance, I honestly believe arrows should do little damage at all to opponents clad in heavier armor, from gurth shells all the way up to horror(where you can still get hit for 30-100 wearing the heavy stuff). Arrows should be bouncing off stuff like that, no? I've noticed, from leathers, to heavy, there isn't much difference when you get shot, give or take 5 points of damage. It'd be nice if the material of armor was codedly taken into account when you're shot by that elf, or what not.

I'd be fine with armor stopping 90% of archery attacks so long as the 10% that got through were realistically dangerous. But I guarantee people wouldn't want to play a game where getting shot by the Zalanthan equivalent of a bodkin arrow took half your HP and possibly immobilised you, because most of the places where an arrow could sneak through chinks in armour are Really Bad Places To Get Shot.*

* Not that every historical bow wound was that damaging, but I am assuming that in this scenario a PC would need a high level of skill in order to shoot past armour, and in that case, if they're a maxed archer, they are aimin' fer your deadly bits and can successfully do so.

[Majikal]

I'm fine with ignoring the realism of some zalanthan weaponry in the same way I'm fine with not roleplaying a piss or a shit 99% of the time I play, in the same way I light a glowcrystal without any explanation, in the same way I survive a fall off a cliff that I couldn't even look back up and see the top of, in the same way that I recover from all the retardedly brutal training that takes place in clans and often ends up with one or both sparring partners half-dead from a hp standpoint.

Revamping archery for the sake of complete and total realism, meh, if I wanted realism I'd go walk my dog. In the meantime I'm going to play a character that pretty much never sleeps at night, wears his quivers on his back cause it looks cooler, rarely emotes stringing and unstringing his bow and has sex that usually takes an entire day from beginning to end. Peace.

[Vositus]

Vote away, and discuss! I personally believe it is not realistically portrayed. For instance, I honestly believe arrows should do little damage at all to opponents clad in heavier armor, from gurth shells all the way up to horror(where you can still get hit for 30-100 wearing the heavy stuff). Arrows should be bouncing off stuff like that, no? I've noticed, from leathers, to heavy, there isn't much difference when you get shot, give or take 5 points of damage. It'd be nice if the material of armor was codedly taken into account when you're shot by that elf, or what not.

I'd be fine with armor stopping 90% of archery attacks so long as the 10% that got through were realistically dangerous. But I guarantee people wouldn't want to play a game where getting shot by the Zalanthan equivalent of a bodkin arrow took half your HP and possibly immobilised you, because most of the places where an arrow could sneak through chinks in armour are Really Bad Places To Get Shot.*

* Not that every historical bow wound was that damaging, but I am assuming that in this scenario a PC would need a high level of skill in order to shoot past armour, and in that case, if they're a maxed archer, they are aimin' fer your deadly bits and can successfully do so.

But then I won't get to Boromir the fuck out of d-elves and gith!

[Hauwke]

This may be a tl;dr, ctrl+f the * if you want the relavent piece thanks in advance.


In the 15th century, knights and anyone really that wore full plate armor, were quite literally almost immune to swords and spears unless you find a gap.
Full plate armor was used because a slashing edge simply could not get through, even piercing edges had a fair bit of trouble, they just bounced straight off or glanced to one side because thats just how physics works. Blunt weapons were just like: Nah fuk u mayt and were barely affected by full plate because it would dent and bend the steel plates, even tear them open if it were a flanged mace or something along those lines.

Now I understand our HG's and shield dorfs are not wearing metal plates everywhere, but if I swing a bone sword at a bone plate, That plate will either snap if its too thin or whatever. Or the sword will leave its kinetic energy behind easily doing some amount of : ow that guy swings hard
But it would other wise stop the sword.

Going around the armor finding a gap sure nuff said no protection.
*
As for arrows piercing things, it really depends on the arrow head and the material it is trying to puncture. If you shot a standard arrow at a full plate knight, it would for the most part be deflected. Sure it would leave one hell of a bruise but unless it was going perfectly straight at the plate it hits the motion will be deflected a large amount to one side.
Now as for different heads on arrows, a very thin head on an arrow could likely pierce the plate a little easier but even then I doubt it would do a whole lot unless it hits straight on. A blunter head would, I think and this is just my opinion here have a much easier time getting anywear with plate armor.
Leather armors etc would afford little protection other than simply 'catching' the arrow in much the same way ballistic vests do.
*
But here is where it gets tricky, if Im wearing this big obsidian chest plate and a guy swings his bone sword at me. I should feel only the hit itself, because its a soft material connecting with a very hard and rigid material, the force will be felt and knock you around a little but otherwise it shouldnt really go very far in terms of breaking the plate. But if its the other way around the obsidian sword 'should' be generally hard enough and even sharp enough to cut into the bone plating, not outright ignoring it but definately giving it a hard time.

But then you have leather armor, and scale armor and basically just different types of armor and various styles.
Chainmail over a padded gambeson was adequate at protecting against most forms of attack since proper chainmail was actually quite difficult to puncture with a sword. A thin knife sure but other wise it mostly stopped it. And the gambeson was to mitigate bludgeoning force, providing a mostly universal protection range.

And finally, if you want a really, really good armor system. You need different damage types rather than just

It does this much hp damage.
It protects from this much hp damage.

An obsidian plate isnt going to protect you from a hammer. Even lore wise it says obsidian is useless when struck hard.
Leather isnt going to stop a gortok goring you in your face after you do something stupid.

Its all about the ways it protects rather than the simple reduction of hp. Which means so far as I can see we are sort of stuck with a fairly terrible (unless tweaked manually and such obviously) armor system that is trying jts best.
Yes I realise this was about arrows mostly but I included the rest because I felt it was important.

[roughneck]

When I take an arrow for 40+ HP, I roleplay taking an arrow that found a chink in my pc's armor (if they're wearing it).

When I take an arrow for 10hp, I rp being grazed, or the arrow being deflected by my pc's armor (if they're wearing any).

An armor system that realistically reflects what should be happening will be largely based on speculation, with a speculative translation into what that looks like as code. It's kind of impossible. As long as armor has a coded benefit, and being good at skills has a coded benefit, I'm happy to rp the rest. 

[Doublepalli]

Fyi, I've witnessed pcs do unspeakables on pcs wearing horror armor, using wooden weapons. That's as far as it gets from realistic, heh. When that happens, you start to wonder wether or not armor actually does anything...

[Armaddict]

stuff

This is what my post was about.

Armor works fine as is.  It can be improved, but for it to be improved upon will be a -big- project.  I'd much rather wait for someone to tackle that big project (if ever) than try to do band aids, on the armor system in particular.  Band aids would probably implement only one part of the realism desired and result in something that is less useful than we want it to be.

That's just my opinion.  But your post was along the lines of how I think of it; different armors do well against different things, different weapons do well against different armors, and they are incredibly varied.

[Lizzie]

You forgot the option:
"I don't feel that it matters whether or not armor vs. arrows is realistic in this other-world post-apocalyptic dunesque D&D'ish fantasy game."

That would be my answer.

[Inks]

You forgot the option:
"I don't feel that it matters whether or not armor vs. arrows is realistic in this other-world post-apocalyptic dunesque D&D'ish fantasy game."

That would be my answer.

This is me too, here.

[Case]

You forgot the option:
"I don't feel that it matters whether or not armor vs. arrows is realistic in this other-world post-apocalyptic dunesque D&D'ish fantasy game."

That would be my answer.

Yeah but whether or not armour fulfils the expected and reasonable game advantage it should given its prevalence as a game element does matter imo.

[Inks]

Yeah, but to be honest the advantage to being heavily armored is pretty massive, it is even quite significant for being shot with arrows. We don't need strength to be even more powerful, in my personal opinion.

[Lizzie]

I've played just a couple of characters who were shot at with either arrows or spears from at least 1 room away. Usually they missed, once in awhile I'd catch a spearhead in the ribs or an arrow in my legs. It was almost always gith. Having actual experience with this, I'd say - it's working as intended.

[Majikal]

We don't need strength to be even more powerful, in my personal opinion.

[Delirium]

We don't need strength to be even more powerful, in my personal opinion.

Shameless plug for combining strength + endurance when calculating encumbrance levels.

[racurtne]

So, we need dorfs to be more powerful? 

[Delirium]

nerf dorf strength 2016

More serious:
It's frustrating for average strength characters to not be able to handle a basic kit of leather armor, weapons and a quiver without becoming encumbered.

The other option I can think of is that the effects of strength should have a shallower curve - low strength shouldn't impact you as severely as it does.

I've pretty much lost hope that items could all be refactored to have more realistic weights.  I get they have standardized weights, but IMO they're still too heavy.

[Armaddict]

It's frustrating for average strength characters to not be able to handle a basic kit of leather armor, weapons and a quiver without becoming encumbered.

I've been talking about this recently as well, since I favor elves and half-elves and humans.  Humans are usually okay.

But I'd like for elven warriors to have the option of wearing more than cloth.  Not platemail, because that would be weird, but a solid set of normal leathers shouldn't fuck them over as far as skill gains (which I believe encumbrance being at manageable starts doing).