Hey, if my Strength is 12 there's a penalty for me wearing Chain mail. Speed should be reduced by 10'. Wearing Plate still only imposes this penalty once? So a guy with an 8 Strength wearing full plate still has a 20' move speed (barring anything else changing that)?
Assuming you are using the variant encumbrance rule, your speed drops by 10 feet when the weight of your inventory is greater than 5 times your Strength score.; by 20 feet when the weight of your inventory is greater than 10 times your Strength score.
Well, Dwarves can get a bonus to Wisdom as well. By that same though, Wood elves make good Clerics as well...since they start with a move speed of 35'. Wearing heavy armor without adequate Strength drops their speed to 25'.
Filcat: Plate & a shield is 70lbs, luckily this guy has Mithril Plate...
Assuming you are using the variant encumbrance rule, your speed drops by 10 feet when the weight of your inventory is greater than 5 times your Strength score.; by 20 feet when the weight of your inventory is greater than 10 times your Strength score.
If you have less strength than the 'Strength'-column on the armor table indicates, you get a 10ft speed penalty. It only applies once.
To be clear, the Strength column is only relevant if you're using the simpler, normal encumbrance rules. Under the variant encumbrance rules, you ignore the strength requirements since the rules already reduce your speed if your carrying capacity isn't high enough to manage its weight.
What is typically overlooked is how armor rests and distributes weight. Plate armor may have a much greater overall weight, but remember it is comprised of many smaller pieces that rest in localized areas. A suit may be 70-90lbs total, but the piece(s) that rest on the shoulders and back would be comparable to a suit of chainmail. On the whole, you may have 2-3x more weight overall, but the fatigue level only factors to about a 15-30% increase (depending on quality, design, etc.)
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Characters:
Grishkar Darkmoor, Necromancer of Nerull the Despiser Kelvin Rabbitfoot, Diviner, con artist, always hunting for a good sale Bründir Halfshield, Valor Bard, three-time Sheercleft Drinking Competition Champion, Hometown hero
...A suit may be 70-90lbs total, but the piece(s) that rest on the shoulders and back would be comparable to a suit of chainmail.
In my admittedly limited experience, an appropriately worn suit of plate actually feels noticeably less "ugh... get this heavy crap off of me" than chain does, because the distribution of weight is massively different and massively important to how heavy a suit of armor feels when worn (because the scale can tell me all those chain bits are only 40 lbs., and there is at least 60 pounds of stuff in the suit of plate, but my body insists that the chain must be at least twice as heavy because the entire weight of it just hangs there being as unhelpful as possible - so it's like the difference between helping your friend walk to their car drunk, or trying to get them to the car when they are passed out).
While I can't claim to have worn full harness (technical term for a suite of plate), I have studied historic fencing and combat for the past decade alongside modern military kit. I my opinion, I'd love to go medieval because everyone throws out the comparisson of, "Well knights were amazingly fit because their armor alone weighed as much as a modern Soldier's armor, weapon, ammunition, and stocked rucksack. They tolerated the weight while on campaign for months." Too many horrible tidbits, but specifically to weight, there are many modern demonstrations that show that plate armor imposes almost no mobility or speed restrictions. In fact, modern combat load (with rucksack) is much more limiting because it rests the load on the shoulders and a bit on the hips. Even chainmail was improved greatly when someone realized that a thick belt around the hips/stomach split the weight distribution in half (top and bottom).
To use the wonderful example, base chainmail is like carrying half of your passed put friend to the car - no support, focused weight bearing. "Improved" Chainmail (semi-attached to a gameson, belt to ease shoulder burden, etc.) would be a black-out, stumbling friend with only sloppy major motor functions. Full plate fits like a friend with the spins hanging on your shoulders.
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Characters:
Grishkar Darkmoor, Necromancer of Nerull the Despiser Kelvin Rabbitfoot, Diviner, con artist, always hunting for a good sale Bründir Halfshield, Valor Bard, three-time Sheercleft Drinking Competition Champion, Hometown hero
While I can't claim to have worn full harness (technical term for a suite of plate)...
Yeah, I always default to the D&D-isms when talking on RPG boards so that everybody knows what I'm talking about, since anybody who's familiar with D&D knows the D&D terms and what they mean, but would probably think I'm nuts if I said "the claymore is one of my favorite examples of longsword" without me including the pedantic (not meaning that insultingly) explanation of that particular thing being a D&D-ism in my post or them having gone beyond/outside gaming material in study of the subject (because, no matter how weird it seems to me, most games that have similar equipment lists to D&D duplicate the D&D-isms rather than correct them).
as someone who has fought in full contact tournaments in full plate and chain, let me tell you plate is vastly superior in terms of weight distribution and protection. As Barlow has suggested, its all about distribution of the weight and the arming jacket that must be worn underneath it to attach pieces such as spaulders and tassets to via buckles and straps. this helps some of it to hang off your arms (which is pretty damn draining in a fight tbh) some to sit on top of your shoulders and some to hang off your hips. it feels like fighting while having a small child clinging onto your back, but as long as it is fitted properly and made for you, i've known guys who can jump to their feet from being flat on their back wearing full harness.
I think this thread is done. The OG post has been long answered, and the somewhat off-topic conversation is a great read, but mostly repeating the same things. I think we all agree that armor doesn't limit the user as much as fantasy would have you believe, and that D&D isn't a historically accurate game.
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if I edit a message, most of the time it's because of grammar. The rest of the time I'll put "Edit:" at the bottom.
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Hey, if my Strength is 12 there's a penalty for me wearing Chain mail. Speed should be reduced by 10'. Wearing Plate still only imposes this penalty once? So a guy with an 8 Strength wearing full plate still has a 20' move speed (barring anything else changing that)?
Assuming you are using the variant encumbrance rule, your speed drops by 10 feet when the weight of your inventory is greater than 5 times your Strength score.; by 20 feet when the weight of your inventory is greater than 10 times your Strength score.
If you have less strength than the 'Strength'-column on the armor table indicates, you get a 10ft speed penalty. It only applies once.
Dwarves are the exception, since they have a race feature that lets them ignore this. That's why you might have seen a lot of Dwarven Clerics :p
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Well, Dwarves can get a bonus to Wisdom as well. By that same though, Wood elves make good Clerics as well...since they start with a move speed of 35'. Wearing heavy armor without adequate Strength drops their speed to 25'.
Filcat: Plate & a shield is 70lbs, luckily this guy has Mithril Plate...
DM: You can't carry all that gold and silver, its too heavy.
*A harpy encounter happens, harpy tries to carry me off*
DM: How much do you weigh.
Me: 180 lbs.
DM: You're an elf with a longbow and light armor, how do you weigh that much?
Me: See the coins you gave us, they're heavy.
The chart for rolling your height and weight in DnD are awful.
I usually look up BMI (it's total bull, but gives an idea of what weight might be)
And/or wiki people who have the build I imagine. (Pro Athletes height/weight are ready to find)
What is typically overlooked is how armor rests and distributes weight. Plate armor may have a much greater overall weight, but remember it is comprised of many smaller pieces that rest in localized areas. A suit may be 70-90lbs total, but the piece(s) that rest on the shoulders and back would be comparable to a suit of chainmail. On the whole, you may have 2-3x more weight overall, but the fatigue level only factors to about a 15-30% increase (depending on quality, design, etc.)
Characters:
Grishkar Darkmoor, Necromancer of Nerull the Despiser
Kelvin Rabbitfoot, Diviner, con artist, always hunting for a good sale
Bründir Halfshield, Valor Bard, three-time Sheercleft Drinking Competition Champion, Hometown hero
In my admittedly limited experience, an appropriately worn suit of plate actually feels noticeably less "ugh... get this heavy crap off of me" than chain does, because the distribution of weight is massively different and massively important to how heavy a suit of armor feels when worn (because the scale can tell me all those chain bits are only 40 lbs., and there is at least 60 pounds of stuff in the suit of plate, but my body insists that the chain must be at least twice as heavy because the entire weight of it just hangs there being as unhelpful as possible - so it's like the difference between helping your friend walk to their car drunk, or trying to get them to the car when they are passed out).
While I can't claim to have worn full harness (technical term for a suite of plate), I have studied historic fencing and combat for the past decade alongside modern military kit. I my opinion, I'd love to go medieval because everyone throws out the comparisson of, "Well knights were amazingly fit because their armor alone weighed as much as a modern Soldier's armor, weapon, ammunition, and stocked rucksack. They tolerated the weight while on campaign for months." Too many horrible tidbits, but specifically to weight, there are many modern demonstrations that show that plate armor imposes almost no mobility or speed restrictions. In fact, modern combat load (with rucksack) is much more limiting because it rests the load on the shoulders and a bit on the hips. Even chainmail was improved greatly when someone realized that a thick belt around the hips/stomach split the weight distribution in half (top and bottom).
To use the wonderful example, base chainmail is like carrying half of your passed put friend to the car - no support, focused weight bearing. "Improved" Chainmail (semi-attached to a gameson, belt to ease shoulder burden, etc.) would be a black-out, stumbling friend with only sloppy major motor functions. Full plate fits like a friend with the spins hanging on your shoulders.
Characters:
Grishkar Darkmoor, Necromancer of Nerull the Despiser
Kelvin Rabbitfoot, Diviner, con artist, always hunting for a good sale
Bründir Halfshield, Valor Bard, three-time Sheercleft Drinking Competition Champion, Hometown hero
Yeah, I always default to the D&D-isms when talking on RPG boards so that everybody knows what I'm talking about, since anybody who's familiar with D&D knows the D&D terms and what they mean, but would probably think I'm nuts if I said "the claymore is one of my favorite examples of longsword" without me including the pedantic (not meaning that insultingly) explanation of that particular thing being a D&D-ism in my post or them having gone beyond/outside gaming material in study of the subject (because, no matter how weird it seems to me, most games that have similar equipment lists to D&D duplicate the D&D-isms rather than correct them).
as someone who has fought in full contact tournaments in full plate and chain, let me tell you plate is vastly superior in terms of weight distribution and protection. As Barlow has suggested, its all about distribution of the weight and the arming jacket that must be worn underneath it to attach pieces such as spaulders and tassets to via buckles and straps. this helps some of it to hang off your arms (which is pretty damn draining in a fight tbh) some to sit on top of your shoulders and some to hang off your hips. it feels like fighting while having a small child clinging onto your back, but as long as it is fitted properly and made for you, i've known guys who can jump to their feet from being flat on their back wearing full harness.
I once saw a guy do handsprings and cartwheels in full plate.
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I think this thread is done. The OG post has been long answered, and the somewhat off-topic conversation is a great read, but mostly repeating the same things. I think we all agree that armor doesn't limit the user as much as fantasy would have you believe, and that D&D isn't a historically accurate game.
if I edit a message, most of the time it's because of grammar. The rest of the time I'll put "Edit:" at the bottom.