Heavy armor

[Thakazum]

Treadmill shows medieval armour influenced battles

Nothing surprising but interesting, nonetheless. RPGs tend to have very lax rules governing the use of heavy armor. I mean... there are rules for sure but the impact of traipsing around in full plate would be more than just a matter of -10 swimming skill or something. It would probably be impossible to run through anything more than a few encounters.

[redwullf]

Truth. And, by extension, encumbrance in general. We treat the whole encumbrance/heavy armor issue, generally, with little thought. In reality, just huffing up a flight of stairs with plate mail, back-back, weapons, waterskins, bags of coins, etc., would leave even a "fit" person with a strong desire to lie down for a breather.

[Thakazum]

The title about this article on io9 is "Knights in shining armor were the worst idea in military history [Secret History]". Funny :)

[DavetheLost]

Just for kicks I had some friends try to carry and organize all the gear they claimed their characters were handling with ease.

Watching some one try to grab a specific item in the bottom of a sack while the rest of the group simulates combat by poking sticks is quite funny.

[scadgrad]

I find the rules in B/X LL adequate enough for a rules light gaming experience. We're not trying to pull of full scale war gaming simulation here. Wearing heavy armor and carrying a lot of kit slows you down, and in D&D that means you can't always move and attack your opponent in the initial round and if things go pear-shaped, you're likely committed to the fight and will have a difficult time fleeing. I suppose if enterprising DMs wanted to add an exhaustion rule, they could very easily do so as a house rule. Something like after 1 minute or so of fighting Plate-wearing combatants lose their DEX bonus to AC and suffer a -2 to hit their opponents.

The article/study is somewhat flawed in that it seeks causality in the French losses at the Battle of Agincourt when the matter is really already decided. The English Archer was a highly-skilled combatant and there were upwards of 10,000 by some estimates, nearly all of them armed with very deadly bodkin-headed arrows. They represent a substantial advance in military tech that the other side lacked and we see this sort of thing throughout history. This withering volley of fire as the French knights slogged across the muddy field is relatively the same as similar tragedies we see later in the American Civil War and at Gallipoli. Throwing repeated waves of men into that sort of withering missile fire, doesn't usually work out too well for the guys on the receiving end.

[mystaros]

For general movement fatigue, there is the old, often ignored rule wherein if a party does not rest in the dungeon for one turn in six (i.e., 10 minutes in every hour) they suffer a -1 penalty on all to hit and damage rolls (LL pg. 44). I would suggest increasing this for metal-armored characters, wherein if they do not rest, they suffer a -2 penalty to hit and -1 to damage rolls. I would also suggest this should be cumulative; this kind of fatigue should not be restored until characters have rested for twice the amount of time missed.

For wilderness movement, movement seems to be all-daylight long, more or less, so the average party moving 60' per round or 12 miles per day is making 1 mile per hour. Though never explicitly stated in the wilderness movement rules, there must be some sort of rest in there as well, and this too should be accounted for on the 1 turn per hour rate. the exception would be when riding horses, in which the fatigue every hour applies to the horses, and the riders should only be fatigued from lack of rest every two or three hours. Forced March assumes no breaks at all, so characters in combat half way through a forced March would suffer -6/-6 (light) or -12/-6 (heavy) if afoot, -3/-3 or -6/-3 if riding horses.

For something more complex, 1st edition Gamma World had an interesting Fatigue Factor rule, wherein they broke down the fatigue caused in combat by each different weapon and armor class. The fatigue didn't effect combat until the 11th round of combat at the earliest (that was, of course, the two-handed sword), and every round after the first of fatigue, the Weapon Class was reduced by 1 further point (i.e., -1 at 1st round, -2 at 2nd round, -3 at 3rd round, etc.). This actually is a poor rule, as sometimes, going down one Weapon Class could actually improve one's chances to hit, so most folks just applied it as a penalty to the hit roll. It was modified by high Physical Strength, by 1 point per point of PS above 15.

Rather than use the charts, I've created a simple formula for Fatigue Point Factor, which determines the round of combat after which a character starts to suffer fatigue:

Weapon: 20-Max Die Damage+Strength Modifier
Armor: 10+Armor AC (includes Shield not Dex)+Strength Modifier

Each round thereafter for each of weapon and armor, the character starts to suffer a -1 penalty to hit; the weapon and armor penalties combine! If the total penalty reaches double digits, the penalty worse than -10 is also applied as a penalty to AC and to damage dealt.

Thus a STR 15 fighter kitted in plate mail and shield wielding a long sword would begin getting fatigued after Round 13 with his weapon and Round 13 with his armor. at Round 14 he has a -2 to hit; at Round 15 a -4; at Round 16 a -6; 17 -8, 18 -10, and at Round 19 -12, thus with -12 to hit, -2 penalty to AC, and -2 penalty to damage.

Fatigue is lost for each round catching a breather; this means no attacks for weapon, no movement or defense for armor and shield. This changes the effective round of combat for fatigue purposes only.

If you switch out your weapon, you do not lose fatigue already gained, but you recalculate where in the combat you would have started gaining fatigue, and do not gain more fatigue until you have exceeded that point.

If said above fighter changes to using a dagger, he would not gain fatigue until after the 17th round. If he switched out at Round 15, he already has -2 Weapon fatigue; if he continues fighting, he still has -2, but this does not increase until he hits the 20th round, when he would get -3 from wielding a dagger.

I think the best example of fatigue in long-term combat in the movies is in Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai," by the end of the final combat, the samurai can barely keep their blades aloft, and some of these were very experienced warriors of many battles.

[bighara]

For my games, I enforce encumbrance, resting every 6 turns (in the dungeon), armor reduces movement rate*, and that you cannot sleep or swim in heavier than leather armor. I do use a house rule where your STR modifier moves the possible weight carried up (or down) by 10 lbs. per modifier point. (i.e. an 18 STR character can carry 70 pounds before being slowed by the weight.

*The limited movement AND the weight slow the character (penalties stack).

[elf23]

*The limited movement AND the weight slow the character (penalties stack).

I've noted that sentence in the rules several times, but never understood what it's getting at. Elucidation would be appreciated!

[rredmond]

*The limited movement AND the weight slow the character (penalties stack).

I've noted that sentence in the rules several times, but never understood what it's getting at. Elucidation would be appreciated!

As I see it and thought of it properly before this thread (thanks!) heavy metal armor limits your movement due to it's lack of flexibility and range of motion - no doing back flips in plate mail! And it weighs a ton - so the fact you can't walk normally in it despite the weight... then add the weight, that would really slow down the dungeon crawl.

[rredmond]

*The limited movement AND the weight slow the character (penalties stack).

I've noted that sentence in the rules several times, but never understood what it's getting at. Elucidation would be appreciated!

As I see it, and never thought of it properly before this thread (thanks!) heavy metal armor limits your movement due to it's lack of flexibility and range of motion - no doing back flips in plate mail! And it weighs a ton - so the fact you can't walk normally in it despite the weight... then add the weight, that would really slow down the dungeon crawl.