Armor

Copyright Chris Tozer © 2018

Edited by Terence Wynne for The Guild Companion

"Historically, there are dozens of armor pieces designed to protect different areas of the body."

Locational Armor

A set of Armor is composed of several pieces; each piece designed to protect a specific part(s) of the body from damage. Below is a list of the common terms used to describe each piece of Armor and its basic function. This is not a complete list of Armor pieces—historically, there are dozens of Armor pieces designed to protect different areas of the body. It would be impossible to list them all.

These rules have simplified the armor pieces, to create a simple, flexible system of customizing armor. Also note that armor pieces do overlap one another around their edges; this is how they are designed.

Table 3.2 below shows you which pieces cover which body parts.

Typically, the AT1 – AT20 Armor Types, listed above in Table 2.0 the various core Armor Types provide protection over the largest regions of the body: the torso, abdomen, and groin. The 1 – 20 ATs listed above cover the torso and certain ATs provide protection for arms, legs, groin and other parts of the body (listed in the AT description).

Other pieces of armor listed below, such as helms, bracers, greaves, gorgets, and others all work to protect specific parts of the body. However, these other pieces can be added to the 1 – 20 core Armor Types to provide greater overall protective quality of the body and give a bonus to a character’s Defensive Bonus.

Should a character wish to wear torso protection, for example a Leather Jerkin (AT5), but protect his neck with a gorget, his lower arms with bracers or his shoulders with Pauldrons, he can do so and benefit from the addition to his defensive bonus afforded by this additional armor.

Equally a character may opt not to wear one of the core Armor Types at all and instead choose to use either a set of metal bracers, leather pauldrons or sabatons. Such a character would not be considered to be wearing one of the core ATs but he would benefit from the items’ addition to his defensive bonus.

However, he also must deal with the resulting penalty to his maneuvering and quickness abilities because of wearing these additional pieces of armor.

Table 3.0 Armor Terminology

Armor Term	Examples: Different Types of Materials/Styles
Bracers: Cover the lower arms & the wrists. Also referred to as “arm greaves” or vambraces.
Cuirass/Vest: Covers the torso (chest & back), abdomen & groin. Note: These are generally considered components of one of the 20 core Armor Types & not included in Table 4.0 Armor by the Piece below.
Gorget: Protects the neck.
Gauntlets: Protects the hand & wrist.
Greaves: Protects the entire leg including the knee.
Helm/Helmet: Protects the head the face depending on style. Helmets, particularly “full helms,” will often significantly reduce vision & hearing.
Haubergeon/long-sleeved shirt: A hauberk with the long skirts removed, so that it ended between crotch & mid-thigh length. Long sleeved leather or other material protective shirt. Note: These are generally considered components of one of the 20 core Armor Types & not included in Table 4.0 Armor by the Piece below.
Leggings: In the case of metal armor, mail (scale or chain) leggings, tied to the belt by leather thongs, & usually worn over quilted leggings. Also known as chausses. Note: These are generally considered components of one of the 20 core Armor Types & not included in Table 4.0 Armor by the Piece below.
Pauldrons: Protects the shoulders, upper arms, & collarbone.
Sabatons/boots: Protects the feet & the ankles. Usually constructed from plate or other sturdy materials.
Shirt/short-sleeve: Protects the torso, abdomen, the groin, shoulders & upper arm. For chainmail this is sometimes called a byrnie. Note: These are generally considered components of one of the 20 core Armor Types & not included in Table 4.0 Armor by the Piece below.

How to protect one’s head is perhaps the most important consideration that a combatant may have to make. Balancing protection and being able to see and hear has always been a tradeoff.

Table 3.1 below provides some examples of the types of helmets available details:

• Perception Penalty: This penalty is applied to a character who is attempting to make a perception check and reflects the difficulty to doing so that the helmet gives. Should a character wish to raise the visor of his helmet (assuming the helm has a visor), the perception penalty is halved.
• DB Bonus: This bonus is applied directly to a character’s defensive bonus. Also note that with some Rolemaster criticals the matter of whether a character is wearing a helm is the matter of life (often in a coma though) or instant death.

Table 3.1 Helmet Terminology

Helmet Name & Description	Perception Penalty	DB Bonus	Examples: Different Types of Materials/Styles
Leather Pot Helmet: A basic leather helm either as a simple leather bowl construction. Potentially with nasal & eye area protection.	-5	+2
Superior Leather (& Metal) Pot Helmet: A larger, stronger leather helmet covering more of the head. Potentially with metal reinforced components included.	-5	+3
Metal Pot Helm: A basic metal helm of either a simple bowl or slightly pointed construction. Fastened with a leather or metal strap.	-5	+4
Spangan: The frame takes a conical design that curves with the shape of the head & culminates in a point. The front of the helmet may include a nose protector (a nasal). Some spangen helms include eye protection or cheek flaps.	-5	+3
Kettle Helm: Kettle hats had a wide brim that was similar to a sun hat. The Kettle hat protected the head from downward blows & could be worn over a chainmail coif.	-6	+4
Great Helm: In its simplest form, the great helm was a flat-topped cylinder of steel that completely covered the head & had only very small openings for the eyes & mouth. Later designs gained more of a curved design, particularly on the top, to deflect or lessen the impact of blows. Also known as a bucket helm, heaume, full helm & barrel helm. This helm particularly impairs breathing, vision & hearing.	-15	+6
Aventail: An aventail is a flexible curtain of mail (scale or chain) attached to a helmet that extends to cover the throat, neck & shoulders. Part or all of the face, with spaces to allow vision, could also be covered. Also known as a camail.	0	+5
Arming Cap: A thick cloth cap worn over the entire head, not covering the face & neck. The Beige Arming Undercap is a small medieval hood that can be worn separately or as extra padding under a helmet or hat. Arming caps give added comfort & sometimes help by making the helmet fit better.	0	+1
Coif: Chainmail head piece covering the entire head & part of the neck. It does not cover the face & is usually worn beneath heavier helmet.	0	+2
Sallet: The Sallet has a visor & sloping back part that protected the neck. Some sallet versions have occularia in the form of a slit in a visor*, some have this slit in the front of the helm, or even in the brim. Some sallets have movable visors while some are fixed/non-moveable. This helm particularly impairs vision & hearing.	-10	+3
Sallet with Bevor: The Sallet Helmet was often combined with the Bevor to also provide protection for the neck & throat. Some sallets have movable visors* while some are fixed/non-moveable. Most sallets needed no breathing holes, as there was a natural gap where it overlapped the bevor near the wearer’s mouth. This helm particularly impairs vision & hearing.	-15	+4
Barbute: A barbute is a visorless war helmet often with distinctive “T” shaped or “Y” shaped opening for the eyes & mouth. This helm impairs vision & hearing somewhat.	-10	+4
Basinet: A conical/pointed shaped helmet. The visor was also often conical, giving the appearance of a muzzle or a beak. The bascinet, both with & without a visor* (visors were often removable for better visibility & ventilation). Also called bascinet, bassinet, basinet, bazineto, pig faced helmet. This helm particularly impairs breathing, vision & hearing.	-15	+5
Armet: A bowl helmet that encloses the entire head with the use of hinged cheek plates that fold backwards. A gorget was attached & a comb may be present. Later armets have a visor*. This helm particularly impairs breathing, vision & hearing.	-15	+5
Lobster Tail: A helmet with head, neck & partial face covering. The neck & sides are protected by connecting plates. The face has three thin slats, one over the nose & the others beside the eyes & over the cheeks. This helm impairs vision & hearing somewhat.	-10	+4
*Where a helmet has the option of a raisable visor and the visor is raised the perception penalty is halved. For example, raising the visor on a Basinet to look around the penalty would be -7. Not raised the full penalty of -15 would be used.

Table 3.2 Spell Modifiers Due to Helmet Worn {rules="all" border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="1"}

Table 4.0 Armor by Location explains exactly what part of the body the different armor components protect.

Armor by the Piece

Sometimes armor does not come in nicely matched sets, purchased straight from the armorer. Warriors may be forced to make do with tattered, hand-me-down sets cobbled together from various pieces, or else taken from the dead and defeated on the field of battle.

Perhaps your character is a castaway forced to scavenge for what bits of armor she can find, or a resident of a post-apocalyptic setting in which everyone must scrounge through junk heaps and burned-out storefronts to acquire their equipment.

Though such patchwork suits are almost always less effective than complete suits with pieces made to work together, the rules in this section provide everything you need to know about mixing and matching Armor Types.

Any armor which is covered by the 1 – 20 core Armor Types listed above or are included in the helmet table are not include in Table 4.0 below. Rather these items of protective covering are to be added to the appropriate Armor Type.

Example: A Chainmail Shirt & Arm & Leg Greaves (AT14) already provides a good degree of protection but a character may well want to add rigid leather boots and a plate gorget for more protection.

Such a character would then have a core AT of 14 and an additional 5 to her defense bonus thanks to wearing the boots (+1.75DB) and the gorget (+3.5DB). Naturally though this character would also have the Maneuver Penalties for the boots and gogret added to her Maneuver Penalty for wearing AT14.

Armor by the Piece Table

Table 5.0 below provides all the basic additional types of armor previously discussed; i.e. generally not considered to be one of the AT1 – AT20 core Armor Types and/or items that could be added over the top of existing Armor Types.

• Defensive Bonus (DB): All items, except for the cuirass, give a modifier to the character’s Defensive Bonus (DB). These are added normally to the character’s DB and they apply against all attacks against the character.
  The DB for the individual items is given in fractions of whole numbers. You add all of these individual bonuses to DB together and then round off to the nearest whole number (less than 1.5 round down; 1.5 or higher rounds up). The DB for the full suits has already taken this rounding into account.
• Maneuver Penalties: There are 2 columns that represent the maneuver penalties associated with the armor. Maneuver Penalties for armor are applied against all relevant mane skills equally, and against Base Movement Rate as detailed in Character Law, p.140.
• Armor Casting Modifiers: As with the core Armor Types, individual
• Weight: The weight of the armor. Full suits sometimes weigh slightly less than the individual pieces.

Note: To check both the cost per item and the production time it would take for an appropriate smith to craft this item of armor if she or he has all the materials ready and at hand please refer to Combat Companion p.34 – 35.

Wearing More Than One Type of Armor

Inevitably, a GM will need to handle situations in which a character desires to use two sets of armor over the same body area, for example a chainmail shirt (AT13), worn underneath a rigid leather breastplate (AT9).

Core armor type combinations

To calculate combined Armor Types (AT) assume the greater AT to be the base/core AT and give a DB Bonus equal to twice the lesser AT minus two.

DB Bonus for Lesser Armor = Lesser AT x 2 – 2

Example: G’narrash is a rather nasty mountain troll with a natural AT of 11. In addition, G’narrash is wearing a Troll-sized chain Hauberk (AT16). Attacks on G’narrash use the AT16 column with an additional DB bonus of; 20 = 11 x 2 – 2.

When combing armor that is not natural, all armor penalties apply (i.e. maneuver penalties, Qu penalties, missile penalties, etc.). In addition, if more than one suit of armor is used, the additional suits also have 50% of their weight count as encumbrance.

Ultimately pure practicalities and what is ultimately reasonable and feasible come into play. Perhaps wearing a chainmail shirt underneath a metal breastplate is feasible (indeed it often was worn historically) but adding, for example, coat of brigandine over the top of the breastplate, unless the breastplate was fitted extremely well, would likely significantly impair the character concerned movement, ability to fight run, or fire a bow.

Common sense combined with a discussion with the GM should resolve most situations in terms of what is reasonable.

Armor by the piece combinations

As mentioned previously, if you wear multiple items in the same location, such as two sets of bracers, you get both DB bonuses, but you also get the penalties associated with both items as well.

Perhaps wearing a lighter leather set of bracers underneath metal braces is feasible but adding a third pair again would likely significantly impair the character concerned movement, ability to fight or fire a bow.