Alternate Armor rules

[luke]

So Pete and I have been toying around with alternate armor rules for quite sometime. After a discussion with Mikado (Louis Nava) at I-CON I think everything gelled and we finally have something to work with. We tested these out this weekend at AGoG with Thor and Gerry.

Alternate Armor:
There is no overall armor roll. Each location is armored separately according to the type of armor worn. Players declare shots to various areas (at the standard +1 Ob pen), undeclared shots hit chest/center mass.

Leather gives 1D per location
Plated Leather gives 2D per location
Chainmail gives 3D per location
Plated Chain gives 4D per location
Full Plate gives 5D per location

Chest location of all armor types grants +1D bonus.

When struck in an armored location, test armor (like a skill or stat) vs obstacle 1. If the test is successful, the blow is shrugged off.

Versus armor adds to the obstacle of the armor test.

Thus a VA - weapon is Ob 1
a VA 1 weapon is Ob 2
a VA 2 weapon is Ob 3

If the obstacle of the test exceeds the number of armor dice, then the attack automatically penetrates -- unless the defending player choose to spend a Fate or Deeds point on the roll (no persona points allowed).

Armor failure/damage works as per previous rules: 1s count by quality and remove dice from that location.



This method does change the defensive values of armor a little bit from what we are used to, but not so much as to skew them entirely.

However, this method is in complete compliance with the resolution mechanic of the game -- obstacle, DN, shade, artha, etc.

Ideas I am toying with: Making all armor tests open-ended, rather than simply allowing for Fate points to be added in when necessary.

Shields? What to do with shields. Being the half-way point between armor, skill and weapons they present a bit of a challenge in this system.

Allowing them to add dice to Block actions (or count as auto-blocks) is cool, but how do we factor in VA? I'm loathe to add another roll to the situation: Roll your shield vs Ob 3, you failed. Roll your Block now. Ok, roll your armor. I just don't see another way around this.

thank you everyone who contributed to this (Pete, Louis, Thor, Gerry). What does everyone else think?
-Luke

[Durgil]

My initial reaction to this new system is that it makes sense and I like it. I also think that making the tests open-ended makes sense. I mean, theoretically it's always possible for any type of protection to prevent a weapon causing damage.

[luke]

My initial reaction to this new system is that it makes sense and I like it. I also think that making the tests open-ended makes sense. I mean, theoretically it's always possible for any type of protection to prevent a weapon causing damage.

Cool. Now what about the numbers. You're a big math gamer (you did do those probability charts for us), can you see how it skews the numbers? Some places the new system is better, some places it's worse.

-L

[Lxndr]

Idea on Shields:

Shields give bonus dice that, as now, work as blocks (either adding to 0 dice, or adding to the dice devoted to a block or the block part of the Counterstrike maneuver).

However, VA applies to shields as -1D per VA, rather than +1Ob... never subtracting more dice than the shield is worth (so VA 3 vs. a 1D shield removes just that one die).

---

As for armor dice being open-ended, I'm all for it. Perhaps Shield dice are open-ended as well... which would require maybe rolling 2 different types of dice for shield + block, similar to rolling two different types of dice for rolling Grey Will + Black Sorcery.

[Mad Hatter]

I like this, Luke. I will definitely adopt it whenever running BW games of my own. It just seems to click with me better than the old way.

From a playtest perspective, time to invest in those shinguards! My poor orc lost all his toes in our little skirmish at AGOG.

Shields bothered me in my system, too, and I never really came up with a good solution. They are like a weird combo of armor and a weapon. Maybe if you treat it like armor, but the character must make a block roll to activate it against a blow? If he succeeds, add the shield armor dice into his defense against the blow. If he fails, location armor alone must save him.

[Kublai]

I like these rules, too. I think the open-ended roll is necessary.

VA should subtract dice from Shields. Shield never blocked the shot entirely as armor does, so you can't give it an obstacle modifier. For example, if I have a 2D shield against a VA of 1, I would need 2 successes to do what? Block it completely? No, right?

This system will also encourage and even necessitate artha use on armor rolls. So even leather could possibly have a chance of stopping an axe if enough artha is used. This will help balance the loss of protection, a loss which is made evident with some math.

The great thing about the use of artha on an item is that I feel eventually that artha might translate into some kind of physically evident residue - magic! Chain armor that's been heavily influenced by massive amounts of artha might develop the protection equivalent of Plated Chain, but without the penalties.

[rafial]

Hmm... I'm mostly indifferent, as I never had much problem with the current armor rules. I guess the only thing I don't like about these new rules is that they constrain the narrative interpretation of the result. In the current armor rules, failue/success of the roll can be interpreted as where the blow fell, or as actual penetration of the armor itself. So hit location didn't need to be worried about, except as color, unless somebody was striking for specific effect. I guess what specifically rankles me is the notion that unaimed strikes always hit the body.

Hmmm... these new rules already strike me as a bit TROSie. I wonder if you couldn't go with that, and say the target of the strike must always be declared, and then have it hit on target or drift based on how good your roll was. Say if you succeed against an Ob2, you hit you target, but if you only would have succeeded against an Ob1, your opponent is allowed to take the hit somewhere else.

Hmmm again... Another suggestion. On an unaimed strike (Ob1) the opponent gets to decide which location is hit, on an aimed strike (Ob2) you do.

I kinda like that last one ;)

[Durgil]

Cool. Now what about the numbers. You're a big math gamer (you did do those probability charts for us), can you see how it skews the numbers? Some places the new system is better, some places it's worse.
As far as I can see, the numbers match up. If you find the average probability of rolling at least one 1 with two to six dice for each type of armour, the odds almost matches up exactly. Therefore, those characters that roll a realatively fewer number of armour dice with the old system would benefit from this system where those who roll realatively more would, in a way, be penalized. Something that I just became aware of though is that it doesn't really matter if the armour roll is open-ended. You are only looking for one success, therefore, if you roll a 6, you don't have to roll another dice, the 6 was a success. It only matters in the case of a VA of 1 or more, or where you need more than one success. Also, I know from the play-testing we did at Gencon together last year that we typically "called" our shots, but now you are making that mandatory for everyone. This isn't a bad thing IMO, but it does change the system enough that you are essentially comparing apples to oranges.

I will continue to keep analyzing it though and will post what I find out. I'm still sticking with my initial reaction to the rule change.

[Durgil]

As far as shields go, this is the way I look at it, which is rather TROS-like. Anything held in the hand can potentially be used to defend or attack with; somethings are better at defending with such as a shield, and somethings are better at attacking with such as a sword. Also keep in mind that no body in their right mind would not defend themselves in some way from a strike with what ever they have, even if they are armoured like a tank. With all of that said, I think shields should be resolved more like attacks. Maybe with the number of dice determined by the size of the object, and the Ob determined by the number of successes of the attack. Being a big fan of TROS, I don't think be similar to that system would be a bad thing as far as combat goes, but the mechanics of the two games are different enough that thev rules could never really be the same.

[luke]

ss. It only matters in the case of a VA of 1 or more, or where you need more than one success.

Right, that's what I'm talking about. You're wearing chain sleeves, you get hit in the arm with a SQ Axe. That's 3D vs Ob 3, a tough test. You roll 2 successes, but one is a 6. You reroll it and get a 4. Armor saves.

Should this be inherent or artha driven? I do agree with Pete's point about investing artha in armor tests to make it "special." I think that's cool.


Also, I know from the play-testing we did at Gencon together last year that we typically "called" our shots, but now you are making that mandatory for everyone.

Careful, I often run my demos fast and loose -- allowing "free" called shots in order to demostrate the various aspects of wounding and armor (and to get them finished reasonably quickly).

anyway, seems like a favorable reaction so far.
I like Wilhelm/Rafial's suggestion about the defending player getting to choose where he takes the hit.

-L

[Kublai]

Re: Shields. What if shields were translated into penalty for the attacker, rather than a bonus for the defender? That is, a heater grants 3D to block at this point. But what if it increased the attacker's Obstacle by 3? VA would reduce that Obstacle. The shield becomes like "cover" for ranged attacks.

For example, Grog attacks Buford with a sword. Buford has a heater shield and blocks. Buford's skill is 3 and he rolls 2 successes to block. With the shield bonus, that makes it an Ob 5 for Grog to hit. Since Grog has a VA 1 weapon, he reduces that Ob to 4.

[Thor Olavsrud]

Hi Luke,

I thought the new armor rules worked very well, a definite improvement. It's nice not to have to worry about a floating target number.

I haven't played with shields enough to feel able to comment on them. However, I do think it would be nifty if targets and heaters provided a small bonus to pushes.

I'll also add that my personal preference is to require at least 1d be spent on the block (in a block and strike) for the shield to come into play. I think that plays into the "nothing is free" philosophy of the system, and represents a fighter giving up a certain amount of positional advantage in order to keep that shield in front of him. It's all about commitment. That's just a preference though, and not something I feel super strongly about either way.

[Thor Olavsrud]

From a playtest perspective, time to invest in those shinguards! My poor orc lost all his toes in our little skirmish at AGOG.

Sorry about those toes man. I really didn't think you'd mind if I just borrowed a few...or 10. :twisted:

[Mad Hatter]

Sorry about those toes man. I really didn't think you'd mind if I just borrowed a few...or 10. :twisted:

All in the name of fun, my friend. Still, I always seem to get majorly spanked in these demos. I think Luke somehow does in on purpose to make the new players feel better. :wink:

[Thor Olavsrud]

All in the name of fun, my friend. Still, I always seem to get majorly spanked in these demos. I think Luke somehow does in on purpose to make the new players feel better. :wink:

Yeah, I was a ringer. Which is why I went straight for your unprotected feet. :twisted:

[Mikado]

Shields:
In the old system shields remove successes from the attacker causing a weaker hit. Why can't the same work for the new system? Player rolls shield dice (DN4) with the VA subtracting dice. The only thing I see is you might have to add an extra die or two to shields overall.
Buckler---------------------------------------2d (wood)
Round Shield (barbarian type)--------3d (usualy wood with iron bands)
Kite Shield (Knight type)---------------4d (metal) Name might be wrong
Tower Shield, Wall Shield--------------5d (metal)
I think armor dice should be open ended as well. That will allow someone with leather armor the possibility to shrug off a hit from an axe (Ob 3) by getting, however remote the chance, a 6/6/4+ on one die.

[Mikado]

Oh yea!!!
I was waiting to see the final product for this, looks great so far Luke!

[LordSmerf]

I really like the idea of spending Artha on Armor... Just think about how cool it is when your armor Epiphanies...

Now if we can just figure out how to spend Artha on Weapons (as opposed to weapon Skills), that would be cool.

Thomas

[mike_ravenwood]

In contrast, I really don't like spending Artha on armor. To me Artha should be something the PC reaches from deep within to struggle on and should be spent on more active tasks, not in an inamte objects. Hell make Artha investments to armor as a buffer to damage. Roll a 1, drop a point of Artha invested to not lose that die, hell the armors been with you since "the beginning" it should give you a little love. Also, make Standard armor a closed test, and SQ Armor open-ended.



Sorry I haven't been posting much. damn job GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!

[Durgil]

Re: Shields. What if shields were translated into penalty for the attacker, rather than a bonus for the defender? That is, a heater grants 3D to block at this point. But what if it increased the attacker's Obstacle by 3? VA would reduce that Obstacle. The shield becomes like "cover" for ranged attacks.
I like this rule! Coupled with Luke's new armour rule ideas, I think this will work vary well.

Something else though that I'm wondering about is how the current wound system will function with a combat system that always or almost always calls its shots. What happens if an attacker scores a mortal wound while swinging at his opponent's arm? Obviously as a GameMaster I'd rule that it's lopped off but where? Below the shoulder, at the elbow, at the wrist – even in a medieval-like setting, these don't necessarily mean death, which is what a mortal wound should translate into.

[Kublai]

I think where you are hit on that location is completely up to the story at that point. And Mortal Wounds don't always mean death, as my characters can attest to! It just means you probably will die, unless some hasty measures are taken and you spend copious amounts of artha.

That said, I encourage you to create a hit chart for GMs who can't (or won't!) decide the fate of the blow. Just like we used to do in D+D! :)

[LordSmerf]

I feel the need to point out that if you lose a limb it doesn't really matter too much where it gets cut off. At least one, likely more, major arteries have been severed. This means that you are bleeding, and you are bleeding a lot. You need some expert medical attention, and fast. Remember: no blood transfusions, so if you lose too much blood you straight up die...

Thomas

[mike_ravenwood]

I usually follow this rule for hit location damage. The smaller the target the lower the damage level required to cut it off. For the Arm example I say Severe throught Mortal can cut one off, although Severe is not a sure thing it would depend on the weapon, no cutting off arms with daggers, at least not in one blow. The higher VA weapons would cleave limbs with more success. Legs would start flying at Traumatic. The head is special case. One, players don't like getting their PC's heads cut off left and right, so things like vision loss, speach problems, and physical paralysis are slightly nicer for the damage levels proceeding Mortal. On the other end, locations like fingers hands feet can't result in a Mortal Wound in inital blow. They could bleed to the next wound level and die from a severed hand or foot.

[Mikado]

In my opinion, if you’re going to use the shield as a penalty to the attacker by raising the obstacle to hit, you should also let the attacker use extra successes to bypass armor.
You should use the called shot rules to hit a specific location and take further penalties to bypass on a 1:1 or 2:1 basis, depending on the power level of the game. The obstacle penalty should be declared first, you are trying to hit a difficult spot

EX: Attacker with a b6 in axe fights a defender with heavy armor (5d) and a knight’s shield (3d). Obstacle 1 base hit, plus 3 Ob for the shield needs 4 successes to hit for base damage. The defender would get 3 armor dice (-2 because the axe has a va of 2) needing 4 or better on one die for no damage. If the attacker chose to bypass armor he could raise his Obstacle by 2 (total Ob 6) and reduce the defenders armor by 1 or 2 (depending on ratio used) causing the defender to roll less dice.

[Durgil]

I haven't studied the numbers in enough detail to suggest any yet, but I'm trying to think of a way to keep the majority of the old system intacked with the exception of the DN always staying at 4. This could be done by having the number of required obsticles change for the different types of armour. That is if anyone is still interested in solving this delima.

[Kublai]

Trying to keep the original system but adjusting obstacles is tricky. Sure it works for uncalled shots, but what happens on a called shot? How could one die get Obstacle 3, for example?

[Durgil]

Just like in the alternative system presented in this thread, I'd have all armour rolls open-ended, but that's a very good point about the called shots. In my attempt to keep the current system as unchanged as possible, I forgot about that aspect. That might completely derail my current train of thought.

[Mikado]

Has anyone solved the shield situation?

[JKahrs]

I have some thoughts on how shields should work. It addds some complication to the system. Basically, shields (and other parrying items retian thier dice ratings. If you choose any manuver other than block or counterstrike, you roll a reflex test with the maximum nuber of success being the shield's rating (reflexes 4 rolls 4 dice and only counts the first sucess if using a buckler note that a 1 on any of the dice still represents damge to the shield.) Sucesses reduce the number of opponent's sucesses. Basically, a fast guy is going to partially block a lot whereas a slow person, even with a big shield, just can't get it around all that often.

If you choose block or counterstrike, then you get to add the shield's dice rating to your dice pool.

[Blackberry]

The idea isn't bad, but that makes any simple swing now comprise 3 separate rolls and 2 in-stream computations just to see if the hit got through.

Roll to hit
Roll Reflexes to get shield up
Modify shield dice by success
Modify armor dice by VA
Roll armor dice

[luke]

right.
and we must keep it to:
roll attack
roll defense/shield (if applicable)
roll armor (if applicable)

[JKahrs]

Yeah, looking back over it , it does seem a bit complex. Elegnace is tough. :cry:

[eruditus]

I added to the topic

http://www.burningwheel.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=520

[Blackberry]

How would armor failure figure into this? You couldn't keep it the same, or better armor (plate at 5D) would fail almost constantly and leather almost never.

[JKahrs]

But that makes sense. I mean once you startr putting rivets and chain in, all sorts of complications can occur. Leather, and cloth either work or they don't.

[Blackberry]

But that makes sense. I mean once you startr putting rivets and chain in, all sorts of complications can occur. Leather, and cloth either work or they don't.

Plate is 5D. That means every time it gets hit, it has a 5/6 chance to fail (for run of the mill). That just doesn't seem right.

[JKahrs]

granted but you are always going to run into modeling problems like that on the extreme ends of any system. If it really bothers you, why not always roll one different colored die aand only that die counts for the purposes of the "1"

[luke]

How would armor failure figure into this? You couldn't keep it the same, or better armor (plate at 5D) would fail almost constantly and leather almost never.

I hate to say it, but it is the opinion of the author that the more complicated a device, the more likely it is to malfunction or break.

Chainmail and plated chainmail harnesses are infinitely more complex than the lighter armors. Of course they can stop a lot of punishment, but the likely hood of something crucial breaking, I feel, is much higher than say, a boiled leather jerkin.

The always contentious armor failure rules are going to stand as is. However, there will be additional grades of superior quality armor to compensate (slightly).

-L

[Blackberry]

I understand that complex objects have more opportunities for failure, but did chain mail really have strap failure every other hit?

[JKahrs]

Not to be flip, Blackberry, because I understand your concern, but do you have an alternative in mind?

[luke]

I understand that complex objects have more opportunities for failure, but did chain mail really have strap failure every other hit?

I have no idea. However, I do know that armor like chainmail and plated chain was very expensive to maintain. In fact, it took constant care from a group of specialists to maintain it in fighting condition. It was so expensive, in fact, that its use was restricted to a class of wealthy land owners and lucky, successful mercenaries.

So, while I do not know the precise frequency of its failure, I am confident that it broke a lot -- probably in every instance of its use.

-L

[eruditus]

This is definately a metagame form vs function issue. I think chain and plate probably didn't fail as often (and keep in mind that superior armors get to reroll this failure). Also keep in mind that this is not the armor in its entirety but just on that location. I think this certain makes thinks fair, exciting, and accurate enough. Keep in mind that most PCs are fighting far more than the average soldier that actually wore this stuff. Live steel reinactors may disagree but then they aren't trying to kill each other.

[Claymore]

Hello everyone!

Long time no see :D

I hopped over here a couple of days ago to find out when the Monster Burner was coming out and to prepare for a new Burning Wheel campaign starting this Friday and lasting throughout the Summer (I ran one last year, it was a success!).

I wanted to quickly chime in about the proposed Armour rules. In my own campaign I used a slightly different approach, each location got 3 dice at the standard book TNs. Every success recieved reduced the Attacker's IMS by 1. So if you took an Incidental hit, you would need 1 out of 3 successes to turn the strike, and if you took a Superb hit you would need 3 out of 3 successes to avoid being damaged altogether. However each success still reduced the IMS by 1, so even if you took that Superb hit and only got 1 success it would reduce the IMS to a Mark effect.

The system worked fairly well, but I had not incorperated the VA rules, which I kind of missed.

The Proposed System
The system seems to work, but one thing I'm a bit uncomfortable about is that your IMS result still plays no part in making the armor save easier or harder. This just doesn't seem right to me, a weapon's inherent Armour Piercing ability is considered, High Strengh is considered, but a well placed solid blow is not doesn't factor into armour absorbtion.

The one suggestion I'd make is that the proposed system is the default for a Mark hit. If an Incidental hit is recieved, either reduce the obstacle by 1 (to a minimum of Obstacle 1), or add an extra die to the check. If a Suberb hit is recieved, increase the Obstacle by 1.


Just my 2 cents :D

-Claymore

[Blackberry]

Hmmm...

What if the armor roll reduced the hit successes, then you compared to IMS for damage?

E.g., you hit me with 5 successes. I get 2 successes on my armor. That reduces your damage to 3 successes and a Mark instead of a Superb hit.

VA would just nullify the first X armor successes. So an axe in the above example would pierce right through my 2 armor successes and do a Superb hit.

[luke]

Hmmm...

What if the armor roll reduced the hit successes, then you compared to IMS for damage?

E.g., you hit me with 5 successes. I get 2 successes on my armor. That reduces your damage to 3 successes and a Mark instead of a Superb hit.

VA would just nullify the first X armor successes. So an axe in the above example would pierce right through my 2 armor successes and do a Superb hit.

In our tests, we have found this to be a poor representation of the workings of medieval armor. It fails to represent the fully armored soldier being able to withstand scores of arrow shots and dozens of heavy blows. One Superb shot with 7 successes and it's over.

-L

[Ubby]

To circle back to shield use for a second...

Luke, what process for shields are you leaning towards? What has worked best in play test?

I like the concept of VA reducing Shield Dice the best because it seems more streamlined than other ideas, but are current Shield dice values (i.e. 3D for Heater, 1D for Parrying Blade, etc.) adequate?

Also, is it fair to double-penalize the defender? Should a person facing a VA 3 attack lose 3D on shield (making many shields worthless) AND face an Ob 4 Armor roll?

For example, Bolt Vanderhuge is wearing a chain hauberk and has a heater (4D torso Armor, 3D Shield). He faces his arch-nemesis, Thick MacRunfast bearing a large mace (VA 3 I believe. If not make it a magic mace with VA 3). In this hypothetical situation, the shield is worthless (-3D Shield Dice against VA 3) and the chain hauberk faces an Ob 4 test (assuming a hit). Seems to me the shield and armor combined would offer somewhat better protection than just the armor alone.

Perhaps losing Shield Dice to VA lessens the Ob modifier to the Armor Roll? Let's examine the above example, taking this idea into account.

Thick MacRunfast swings his mace. Since the mace has a VA 3, it nullifies the shield and a Shield Block roll to lessen the number of successes of Thick's attack cannot be made. The attack succeeds. The shield, while not being able to deflect the attack, has absorbed some of the energy. By losing 3D, the shield has reduced the VA to 0 (assuming a 1 to 1 lost Shield Dice to lost VA ratio). The Chain Hauberk now faces an Ob 1 test to absorb the remaining energy of the mace attack.

Ugh. So much for "streamlined". :?

[luke]

The current numbers in the ongoing armor playtest are:

DN 4 for all non-heroic armor

Ob 1 for any hit, VA increases Ob by one per VA point.

Leather/quilting: 2D per location
Plated Leather: 3D per location
Chainmail: 4D per loc
Plated Chain: 5D per loc
Full Plate: 6D per loc

The chest area (torso/abdomen/shoulders) is the heaviest armored area and provides a bonus die for all types of armor.

1s reduce the dice of the armor as it becomes torn, dented, ripped or damaged.

Meeting the obstacle of the armor test means the character has warded off the blow.

Fate and Deeds may be spent on armor tests. As of yet I'm uneasy about Persona points adding dice.

Shields:
We only just started to playtest shields. Unfortunately, the guy who was playing the shield-fighter in our game just took a severe wound to the chest -- largely because he didn't know how to use his shield. ::sigh::

Shields add dice to Block and the defense half of the Counter moves. Also, characters with Shield Training may use them to perform the Block and Strike action.

Current thinking on Shields is that VA reduces the amount of dice you roll. Even though it's a different mechanic than for armor, it's pretty cut and dried that way. Some weapons just smash right through the fabric of the shield. However, this DOES NOT prevent a player from allocating skill dice to the Block-half of his Block and Strike actions. So even though the material is weak, his skill still allows a chance at deflection.

We even tried out Shields ignoring VA altogether, but that doesn't sit well with me.

The other way to go about this would be to have VA raise the obstacle of Block and C/S maneuvers. Sounds pretty simple, but in order to keep this consistent and simple, I feel this should be made the rule across the board.

In most cases, this works fine. Swords and Axes, hard to Block, right? But what about a SQ Knife with a VA 1? That doesn't make so much sense. We could say if your weapon VA is lower than your opponent's, you get the margin as an obstacle penalty. That's not terrible..., but it is a bit more on the fly book keeping.

You see why I just want to stay with the first option?

-L

[eruditus]

This all seems right on target. The only thing I would change is decreasing VA by 1 for an Incidental hit and increasing VA by one for a superb hit.

[Durgil]

I'm sorry to resurrect a seemingly dead thread, but I had some ideas concerning this subject that I thought I'd present just to see what you guys thought.

Okay, I really like Luke's new idea for armour, but I think that the one success and your character is wound-free is more appropriate for the more rigid types of armour, i.e. Cuirboille and Small Plates; Large, Metal Plates; and Full, Plate Armour. For the more flexible armours like Leather, Quilted Armour, and Mail, I like the rules that Claymore brought up here (http://burningwheel.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3777#3777) in the thread. Here are some numbers that I've tried a little on my own and seem to work pretty good.

FLEXIBLE ARMOUR: When struck in a location protected by flexible armour, roll the prescribed number of dice, and for each success rolled, reduce the attackers IMS by one. VA reduces the number of dice rolled for each point.

Leather – 1D for any location covered.

Quilted Armour – 2D for any location covered.

Mail – 4D for any location covered.

RIGID ARMOUR: When struck in a location protected by rigid armour, test the armour vs. an Ob of 1. If the test is successful, the blow is shrugged off. VA adds to the obstacle of the armour tested.

Cuirboille and Small Plates – 2D for any location covered.

Large, Metal Plates – 3D for any location covered.

Full, Plate Armour – 5D for any location covered.

Each location is armoured separately according to the types of armour worn and are accumulative.

Example: A character wearing plated mail over quilt armour is struck in a location covered by all three materials by a superb hit with a sword that has a VA of 2. The most outer layer is a large, metal plate, therefore the player first rolls three dice vs. an Ob of 3. The player only rolls two successes, so the strike makes it past that material. Next the player rolls six dice, four for the mail and two for the quilt, and gets four successes but also two ones. The four successes reduces the superb hit to no damage taken, but the two ones rolled for the flexible armour means that the outer most layer of that type of armour is damage at that location and looses a dice if hit there again before it is repaired.

[Lunchbox]

Shields - No skill = must script a block or deflect. Skilled = always get a free block or deflect. Block = The dice of the shield, open ended, count va to block. Deflect = double the dice of the shield, not open ended, do not count va. All still loose ones.

Armor - I am generally wary of too many rolls. In my ideal world the attacker would make one roll and the defender might make one roll. A fast character would be harder to hit while a tough character would be harder to damage. Burning Wheel is pretty damn close to ideal so I don't know if my ideas are an improvement or not.
What if Forte dice, Armor dice, and Shield dice were put together into a "Defence Pool" and the dice from this pool were all rolled together to reduce the damage done. Make the dice open ended and have the successes remove pips from the damage(a mark B8 strike reduced to a B3 strike by 5 successes from the defenders Defence Pool). Still one 1 held out of the pool for damaged armor.
I would like to see the different DN's of armor and shields done away with and the difference between types be shown in the number of dice rolled. I want to be looking for 4 or better on my dice all the time. Until I epiphany that is.
I love the mechanics of spell casting and think that the same ideas could be applied in other areas of the game to tie together a more consistent rules feel. Wil + Sorcery, Pow + Axe, Agl + Bow.

I had better stop writing before I ramble myself into a circle I can't get out of.

[Angaros]

I have some late thoughts on the subject. Just crawled out from under my rock to find updated armor rules in the making. Nice. It's even nicer to see they resemble the rules I propsed almost a year ago :lol:. So, it's no surprise I like what you've done Luke, but I have some ideas to share too.

Keep the dice-per-materials idea. I like it. I would however, do what Durgil said and make VA reduce the number of dice avaliable for the armor roll. This seems like the most logical solution: armor penetrating weapons lower the effectiveness of the armor to that of a lower level.

If you run out of dice due to VA armor dice reduction, you have two options (when writing the rule); either state that no dice = full armor penetration, or say that instead of eating dice, VA ups the DN. For example, being hit on the arm with a VA3 weapon where you have only 2D protection would eat three dice. Since you only have 2 and need 1 to be able to roll at all, you then up the DN by 2 steps to 6. This still leaves a chance for armor to work, but as we know, increasing the DN dramatically lowers the chance of success. I'm also for using armor roll successes to counter IMS successes. One armor success lowers the IMS by one -- this means you need three armor roll successes to fully negate a S hit.

Talking numbers (without accounting for OE rolls), this means that a guy in 6D armor have a 66% chance of fully negating a S VA0 hit, 50% for a S VA1 and 12,5% against a S VA3 hit. Sounds reasonable to me. Should you be struck by a VA4 weapon (dunno what that would be), you would be down to 2 dice, meaning a S hit would become I at best with 2 armor successes (25% chance). But that's also reasonable, don't you think? Using these rules, it is also easy to use heroic and legendary armor with DNs of 3 and 2. Mmmm.... eog. ;)

I do not like the complexity in the layers idea of Durgil's. In my opinion it is better to use a wider scale of dice (say 1D to 8D for the sake of discussion) and write what each level on the scale requires in terms of protection and layers.

As for shields I have not thought much on the subject. Perhaps you could say that a shield gives 1D to 4D of passive defense on certain locations (counts as armor if these areas are struck), and are easier to block with than a weapon (like in TRoS).

[Thor Olavsrud]

I would however, do what Durgil said and make VA reduce the number of dice avaliable for the armor roll. This seems like the most logical solution: armor penetrating weapons lower the effectiveness of the armor to that of a lower level.

From what he's communicated to me, Luke's philosophy is not to take dice away in this situation. Hence, the new armor rules raise Ob for armor tests instead. If I'm wearing chain, I get a B4 armor test under these new rules (forget the chest for this example). If someone hits me with a warhammer (VA 3), I make a B4 armor test vs. Ob 4. Simple. Warhammers are scary things.

On the other hand, I have very little to fear from a guy with a knife (VA 0). I get a B4 armor test vs. Ob 1.