Fixing the weights of Armor in D&D (and other misconceptions)

Ive only ever homebrewed some subclasses into dndbeyond. I think i made a homebrew magic ring once.

I dont think ive ever seen or heard of homebrewed mundane inventory items on the website. Interesting....

I meant more of a homebrew set of rules/changes, rather than an actual homebrew thing you would put on DnDBeyond, but if that's possible... that works, too.

Honestly, weight is nowhere near the largest problem with D&D armor, and if you're going to try to be realistic, you're rapidly going to wind up with a game that's not D&D. Just a few miscellaneous problems:

• There is no such thing as studded leather armor (you might have decorative studs on leather, but it's not part of the protection scheme). It appears to be a misunderstanding of brigandine armor (which does look studded -- but the armor is actually metal plates between layers of leather or cloth, and the 'studs' are rivets that hold the metal plates in position. It's basically a type of scale).
• There is no such thing as 'ring' armor (it appears to be just an artistic convention for showing chain).
• There is no such thing as 'splint' body armor (you do get some armors consisting of metal strips, such as lorica segmentata, but the strips on the torso were horizontal. The actual illustration in the PHB appears to be lamellar armor, which isn't strips at all).
• The whole concept of light vs medium vs heavy armor, where medium and heavy limit your ability to dodge, is mostly nonsense. If you have the strength to carry it, you can dodge in full plate. While we're at it, leather is bad armor, it's actually quite heavy relative to its protective value.
• Armor doesn't really make you harder to hit; it makes you harder to hurt. This means its actual protectiveness depends heavily on the attack it's trying to stop.

I always liked the armor that had many, many layers of silk under it, so it an arrow pierced your armor, the silk wrapped around the head and made it a tad easier to pull the arrow out. I think it was japanese maybe.

The rules for that would be crazy though.

"Armor doesn't really make you harder to hit; it makes you harder to hurt. This means its actual protectiveness depends heavily on the attack it's trying to stop."

AC, tohit bonus, hit points are all gross simplifications attempting to gamify things. I think the reality is, pretty much one arrow or one bullet will kill most people.  But that leads to brutal games and a lot of turnover, which isnt very fun

Quote from Pantagruel666 >>

 

• There is no such thing as 'splint' body armor (you do get some armors consisting of metal strips, such as lorica segmentata, but the strips on the torso were horizontal. The actual illustration in the PHB appears to be lamellar armor, which isn't strips at all).

 I am fairly certain that lorica segmentata is what used to be called banded armor from earlier editions. Also at a guess I would say splint is similar to samurai armor or more of a description of specific pieces of armor rather than a whole suit.

Quote from Wysperra >>

 I am fairly certain that lorica segmentata is what used to be called banded armor from earlier editions. Also at a guess I would say splint is similar to samurai armor or more of a description of specific pieces of armor rather than a whole suit.

Splint is probably a misinterpretation of ancient artistic conventions. Samurai armor is generally lamellar.

To be honest, a reasonable list only needs three armor types: non-metallic (leather, etc), flexible metal (brigandine, lamellar, mail, scale), and rigid metal (plate), with a separate modifier for coverage (any type of armor can cover body or limbs, and mix and match is possible).

Quote from SunIsGettingRealLow96589 >>

I always liked the armor that had many, many layers of silk under it, so it an arrow pierced your armor, the silk wrapped around the head and made it a tad easier to pull the arrow out. I think it was japanese maybe.

The rules for that would be crazy though.

"Armor doesn't really make you harder to hit; it makes you harder to hurt. This means its actual protectiveness depends heavily on the attack it's trying to stop."

AC, tohit bonus, hit points are all gross simplifications attempting to gamify things. I think the reality is, pretty much one arrow or one bullet will kill most people.  But that leads to brutal games and a lot of turnover, which isnt very fun

 Japan did have forms of silk armor.  They not only made arrows significantly easier to pull out, they could also drastically reduce how deep the arrow would penetrate.  Japan also had armor made out of layered paper.

Also, AD&D had modifiers for different types of attacks (slashing, bludgeoning, piercing, or missile) vs different armor types.  It sucked and slowed the game down.

Quote from 6thLyranGuard >>

Quote from SunIsGettingRealLow96589 >>

I always liked the armor that had many, many layers of silk under it, so it an arrow pierced your armor, the silk wrapped around the head and made it a tad easier to pull the arrow out. I think it was japanese maybe.

The rules for that would be crazy though.

"Armor doesn't really make you harder to hit; it makes you harder to hurt. This means its actual protectiveness depends heavily on the attack it's trying to stop."

AC, tohit bonus, hit points are all gross simplifications attempting to gamify things. I think the reality is, pretty much one arrow or one bullet will kill most people.  But that leads to brutal games and a lot of turnover, which isnt very fun

 Japan did have forms of silk armor.  They not only made arrows significantly easier to pull out, they could also drastically reduce how deep the arrow would penetrate.  Japan also had armor made out of layered paper.

Also, AD&D had modifiers for different types of attacks (slashing, bludgeoning, piercing, or missile) vs different armor types.  It sucked and slowed the game down.

Eh, back then we were more used to doing the math ourselves instead of relying on calculators or computers (we barely had those, lol)

Quote from 6thLyranGuard >>

Also, AD&D had modifiers for different types of attacks (slashing, bludgeoning, piercing, or missile) vs different armor types.  It sucked and slowed the game down.

What I recall was modifiers for different weapons against different armor class, which was exceedingly confusing when dealing with monsters or magical bonuses to AC.

Quote from Pantagruel666 >>

Quote from 6thLyranGuard >>

Also, AD&D had modifiers for different types of attacks (slashing, bludgeoning, piercing, or missile) vs different armor types.  It sucked and slowed the game down.

What I recall was modifiers for different weapons against different armor class, which was exceedingly confusing when dealing with monsters or magical bonuses to AC.

That sounds more like Rolemaster than D&D. 

First ... Holy Thread Necromancy, Batman!

Second ... please accept my apologies for not reading all six pages of this.

I find D&D is wonderful because if a table wishes, they can develop tighter rules for armor and weapons, and other tables can do their own thing too.

I like the idea of slowly improving armor rather than jumping to a full set of plate from wherever you were before.  My characters often look for a plate helmet, pauldrons, greaves, sabatons, plate cuirass, gorget, and so forth as they slide up the scale.  As a DM, if my players embraced this, I might let them slide up the AC scale one point here and another point there as they complete their kit.  I enjoy talking about the different parts of armor.  A character in leather armor has a baldric and a wide leather belt to support the weight of their arms.  He has sturdy fencing gauntlets that he keeps tucked in his belt.  He gets his armor treated with oils when he visits a town of city to keep them in good condition and supple, reducing the noise they make.  His helmet is an old reconditioned legionnaire's helmet with a brass ring around the head at the brow, a piece covering the back of the neck and hinged guards over the sides of the face.  It is great for role playing and immersion.

But, if other tables don't want to go down that path, rock on.  It's a game that we can all adjust to our group and make it feel good.

Thanks to OP for providing us a nice synopsis of their research.

Quote from CadenzaTheAdventurer >>

First ... Holy Thread Necromancy, Batman!

Second ... please accept my apologies for not reading all six pages of this.

I find D&D is wonderful because if a table wishes, they can develop tighter rules for armor and weapons, and other tables can do their own thing too.

I like the idea of slowly improving armor rather than jumping to a full set of plate from wherever you were before.  My characters often look for a plate helmet, pauldrons, greaves, sabatons, plate cuirass, gorget, and so forth as they slide up the scale.  As a DM, if my players embraced this, I might let them slide up the AC scale one point here and another point there as they complete their kit.  I enjoy talking about the different parts of armor.  A character in leather armor has a baldric and a wide leather belt to support the weight of their arms.  He has sturdy fencing gauntlets that he keeps tucked in his belt.  He gets his armor treated with oils when he visits a town of city to keep them in good condition and supple, reducing the noise they make.  His helmet is an old reconditioned legionnaire's helmet with a brass ring around the head at the brow, a piece covering the back of the neck and hinged guards over the sides of the face.  It is great for role playing and immersion.

But, if other tables don't want to go down that path, rock on.  It's a game that we can all adjust to our group and make it feel good.

Thanks to OP for providing us a nice synopsis of their research.

 you.. are a genius... i think i would use that, except my players never start at a low enough level to need or want better armour

Quote from Kotath >>

That sounds more like Rolemaster than D&D. 

 AD&D PHB, page 38, "WEAPON TYPES, GENERAL DATA, AND "TO HIT" ADJUSTMENTS" has a table of 45 different melee weapons, listing length, space required, speed factor, and additional 'to hit' adjustments vs AC 2-10. There was a similar table for 15 different ranged weapons. Said table was not well explained, and how it worked against targets with an AC of 1 or lower was undefined. AD&D 2e replaced that table with a significantly simpler system based on bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage. There is a decent overview of the madness at https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2023/06/weapon-versus-armor-from-ad-to-bx.html .

However, that isn't really the type of thing I was talking about. The issue is that armor makes you harder to hit if you must target weak spots to penetrate. If you can just penetrate the thickest parts of the armor, it's not making you harder to hit, though it may reduce the injury somewhat. Now, if all you're modeling is combat between medieval warriors, treating armor as a penalty to hit is not actually a terrible model (and treating it as damage reduction, which by far the most common model for RPGs other than D&D, has its own issues), but once you're dealing with creatures of superhuman capabilities it falls apart. 

Pantagruel,  lone time ...

My problem with implementing that table back in the day is I was never fighting armored warriors unless they were bandits.  I understand that you might be able to think your way through the exercise if you are modeling combat among armored units, but I was fighting monsters.  A monster's armor class was just a number and a concept.  Did the monster have heavy thick scales and moved slowly?  OK, AC is based on hide toughness.  Was the monster fury but real quick?  OK, the AC is based on dexterity.  But monster's armor never had a concept of weakness like a humanoid's armor where the joints were not so well protected.

So, for this reason, I just skipped it.  It never occurred to me this would speed up the game, I just skipped it because I expected to make poor rulings and the game didn't seem to want to be all about finding little exceptions for combat.  I treated it more like a role playing game.  But, in my teens, our roleplaying was pretty darn poor.

One thing to remember about those 1e tables - D&D was just getting started and was growing out of war gaming where those tables made a certain sense. In the war games you were mostly facing humans in various armors not monsters with various ACs. We have progressed considerably in the intervening 40+ years.