InGaming interview with Ion Hardie

[Red]

Armour of Comfort... Ahah...

+5 cozyness and invulneribility from the elements?

[Saint_Proverbius]

Armour of Comfort... Ahah...

+5 cozyness and invulneribility from the elements?

Think full plate minus the hinderences of full plate.

[Rosh]

Armour of Comfort... Ahah...

+5 cozyness and invulneribility from the elements?

Think full plate minus the hinderences of full plate.

Without hinderances? You mean they finally put in the dexterity penalties to full plate into their games finally?

That's one thing I always found REALLY fucking comical about the Inbred Engine games. You could have 18 dex and be wearing full plate. Your dex modifiers would still be the same.

Not just encumberance optionals, but I do recall there being some dex penalty to armors. After all, do people realize what full plate IS?

[Crow of Ill Omen]

Not just encumberance optionals, but I do recall there being some dex penalty to armors. After all, do people realize what full plate IS?

Is it when you do the buffet at Pizza Hut and don't want to make two trips?

[Spazmo]

Armour of Comfort... Ahah...

+5 cozyness and invulneribility from the elements?

Think full plate minus the hinderences of full plate.

Without hinderances? You mean they finally put in the dexterity penalties to full plate into their games finally?

That's one thing I always found REALLY fucking comical about the Inbred Engine games. You could have 18 dex and be wearing full plate. Your dex modifiers would still be the same.

Not just encumberance optionals, but I do recall there being some dex penalty to armors. After all, do people realize what full plate IS?

That fault lies with the base 2nd Ed. Rules. The 3rd Ed. has fixed this by allowing a maximum dexterity bonus to armor class, ranging from no maximum with simple clothing and robes to +0 with full plate. They also have armor check penalty, which is a penalty placed on certain skills, mostly dexterity-based ones, based on how heavy your armor is. There's also penalties to skills like climbing and swimming based on how much you're carrying. 3rd Edition is really quite good.

[Constipated BladeRunner]

Not just encumberance optionals, but I do recall there being some dex penalty to armors. After all, do people realize what full plate IS?

Is it when you do the buffet at Pizza Hut and don't want to make two trips?

Wow.
THAT was good.

[Saint_Proverbius]

Without hinderances? You mean they finally put in the dexterity penalties to full plate into their games finally?

That's one thing I always found REALLY fucking comical about the Inbred Engine games. You could have 18 dex and be wearing full plate. Your dex modifiers would still be the same.

Not just encumberance optionals, but I do recall there being some dex penalty to armors. After all, do people realize what full plate IS?

Just for shits and giggles, Rosh.. Check out this thread:

http://feedback.blackisle.com/forums/sh ... genumber=1

[Rosh]

A very good read, save for some points that fellow SCA member Panpiper had wrong.

Fighting plate is field plate. Ceremonial plate is the heavier, aka gothic plate, dress plate, jousting plate, guard plate, pikeman plate (and the list goes on, basically it's the full suit with bascinet or pig's snout) - full plate. Field plate does allow a good amount of movement with some hinderance.

Where armor becomes unwieldy is when you do not have enough strength. Then it will affect how you can wear it and move around in it, thus affecting your reactions.

Armor also takes literally years to learn all the nuances of it, chainmaille different from plate, leathers, etc. Like blind spots in a car, there are points where you do not get full advantage of your flexibility and full range of arm motions and ability to shuffle your feet as need be. Full plate would inherently detract from part of your dexterity in that regard, no matter what strength or practice you have with it. The only saving grace is being able to learn how to compensate for those hinderances over time.

A somersault would be quite challenging in plate, because the design while being custom-fitted, it's still hindering and a tuck of the knees in all but partial plate is a great deal challenging. At most, you'll do a somersault in it and then try to waddle back up.

Full chainmaille is a bit heavier than some, notably my favorite of leather with plate inserts and chain joints. Chain was used often under plate, for joints, yes. For placement reasons, you just can't wear chain elbow pads. ;D It needs to be attached to something, and while it can be bound into leather-plate suits, it would be too awkward to be attached solely around the joints in plate. Plate can be strapped and bolted over chain shirts or suspended chain, and has been. You'd wear the chain shirt for speed or light travel, the plate pieces for added help. I'd estimate a full suit of chain to be around 80 pounds, perhaps a bit less. Full plate is a lot more.

Now, for the part about being able to put on armor you find in the field in games, yes, I always found it really funny that people could just put it on. Most armor has to be specially tailored or altered for the user's structure or it would be ungainly and be even MORE of a hinderance. Even chainmaille presents a problem, and to alter it is a task in it's own.

[Constipated BladeRunner]

Wow.
That was interesting.
Though what kind of idiot thinks that it used to take two men to use a longbow?
The normal longbower could get off 20 accurate shots a min.

[OnTheBounce]

3E with the D20 system actually seems to have some things geared towards CRPGs, or borrowed from a few CRPGs, with the notable exception that you just can't do all the rules in real time combat.

That will always be the limit on the table-top: what you can do w/a rule system and still manage to have fun. I don't know about everyone else, but I don't want to have to make 27 rolls and consult as many different charts just to see if my character was able to get to the bathroom w/o hurting himself/herself.

Can't have a world without irony, it seems.

No, it doesnt possible.

What I think is truly ironic about D&D is that while it was the game that started the whole RPG-craze, after a while it was basically the dumbed-down RPG that had the mass appeal that enabled it to beat out its more complicated and "realistic" -- I place that in quotes because it's hard to use that term in conjunction w/a fantasy RPG and not chuckle -- competitors like ICE's Middle Earth Role-Playing and Avalon Hill's Rune Quest. (I'm not scoffing at anyone here, I took one look at those two and ran back to T$R's games. ) Now it seems that 3rd Ed. is heading the same direction.

Where armor becomes unwieldy is when you do not have enough strength. Then it will affect how you can wear it and move around in it, thus affecting your reactions.

Maybe they should have a ST requirement along the lines of the FO RPG Min ST for weapons, namely that it's not a hard requirement, simply that you get a penalty for every point that your ST is lower than the requirement.

Though what kind of idiot thinks that it used to take two men to use a longbow?

I'm guessing that he meant that it took two men to string the bow.

I don't know where some people get the idea that bows couldn't penetrate plate armor. There's a long string of English victories where the flower of plate-clad French chivalry was plowed from the saddle by archers. Agincourt, anyone?

OTB

[Crow of Ill Omen]

Ahhh, RuneQuest, that brings back fond memories.. A truly unworkable game system. It was just too complex. Great setting, though.

There has been a series of programs running here recently where they take a few people and train them in martial disciplines for a while. They've covevered Gladiators, Vikings ... and Medieval Knights.

Interestings, the chainmail did not appear very restrictive at all. The plate mail (the suits they used for jousting) ... well ... I was amazed they could do anything in it. Their vision was SEVERELY restricted, as was their range of motion, and their balance was impaired to the point where they walked with a comical excess of care. Once they got used to it, I was surprised by things they COULD do in it, given those limitations. FOr instance, after falling they really didn't seem to have much trouble regaining their feet, and the - shockingly - managed a fair sprint on foot.

Noone was sommersaulting, though. I think a horse would have more chance of sommersaulting than a man in plate.

[OnTheBounce]

...RuneQuest...A truly unworkable game system. It was just too complex...

What else would you expect from Avalon Hill? These were the people that could take a game about something like being a merchant in a Buck Rogers-esque setting and make it mind-numbingly complex.

After a while I became convinced that you had to be two things in order to master more than one AH game:

• Free from any pesky restrictions like work, family life or girl/boy friend.
• Independently wealthy to actually afford the games. (I shudder to think how much money I sunk into Advanced Squad Leader...)

OTB

[Constipated BladeRunner]

[
[*] Free from any pesky restrictions like work, family life or girl/boy friend.

[*] Independently wealthy to actually afford the games. (I shudder to think how much money I sunk into Advanced Squad Leader...) [/list]

OTB

I meet both the requirments.
Does that mean that I should play this "RuneQuest"?
Also, anyone who belives that arrows could under no situations go through plate is an idion and most likely has never even heard of Henry V.

[Spazmo]

As a D&D gamer, it's hard for me to understand how Warhammer gamers can spend so much money on miniatures and then have to paint them. Admittedly, D&D books and boxes aren't cheap either, but at most you'll need to spend maybe $80 to get some basic stuff, while a decent Warhammer army can easily run up into the hundreds. Not to mention some good terrain.

Most wargames scare the shit out of me. So... many... statistics...

[OnTheBounce]

I meet both the requirments. Does that mean that I should play this "RuneQuest"?

Yes, you should. First you will have a little quest to find an OOP game's materials, but you shouldn't have too many problems w/that.

[subliminal suggestion]Once you've accomplished that you are to stuff a fat wad of cash in OTB's checking account.[/subliminal suggestion]

Also, anyone who belives that arrows could under no situations go through plate is an idio[t] and most likely has never even heard of Henry V.

Here's an interesting tidbit regarding the long bow at Agincourt:

On the other hand the rate of shooting of a cross-bow cannot match that of a hand-bow. The English longbow, for instance, could discharge up to fourteen arrows a minute, and thus, when used en masse, could put up a very formidable cloud or barrage of missiles. It is calculated that about six million arrows were shot at Agincourt. [Emphasis in the orginal.]

That is from Structures: Or Why Things Don't Fall Down by J. E. Gordon, Da Capo Press, 1978, p. 84. It's a great book if you'd like a look at the physics behind everything from slingshots to suspension bridges, but don't have a heavy background in Physics.

As a D&D gamer, it's hard for me to understand how Warhammer gamers can spend so much money on miniatures and then have to paint them.

I had a friend who was heavily into Warhammer. He basically just splattered some paint on his minis, if he even bothered at all. His army looked like USDA Certified Grade-A Barnyard Shite. I went w/him to a tournament once, and I have to say it was a real pleasure watching him stomp the shite out of players whose armies were laboriously and beautifully painted. Methinks they should have spent less time on the eye candy and more time learning the rules and some semi-decent tactics.

OTB

[Constipated BladeRunner]

The generally accepted number is 20, for how many arrows a longbowmen could get off in a min, however fantastic.

[OnTheBounce]

The generally accepted number is 20, for how many arrows a longbowmen could get off in a min, however fantastic.

Okay, you're stated a position. Now state your sources. Not to mention that "generally accepted" is a prime example of an Argumentum Ad Populi.

You also have to remember that there may be some difference in the standards used to arrive at those numbers. For instance, your RoF of 20 arrows/minute might be the theoretical limit based solely on the speed w/which an archer could loose arrows, while the figure of 14 might be the "sustained rate" which accounts for things like how much ammunition was readily accessible. In the late 13th/early 14th centuries, for instance, English Archers carried only 12 arrows.

OTB

[Constipated BladeRunner]

Only carried 12 because, before Longbowmen, most English Archers where only skirmishers.
I heard that while being a tourist in England.
Also, in Timeline and several history books I have read, including Sarum, I belive.

[Crow of Ill Omen]

It's not important, is it? Maybe it changed over time or vared by region. The Welsh were renowned as experts, for instance.

It's generally a little unwise to state something as uncontestable fact, though. I've lived in England my whole life and I know virtually nothing about the longbow except how to knock a coin out of the air with a snapshot.

Regarding Warhammer. We used to play a bit. We all owned a small number of, mainly unpainted, miniatures. I wasn't an avid fan, but I can tell you that a table top game once in a while was very enjoyable.

[Rosh]

Interestings, the chainmail did not appear very restrictive at all.

No, not really restrictive at all. Think of a thick, wet wool sweater, and then a bit heaver than that. That's about the flexibility you'll have with good-crafted chain if they put good care on the arm joints. It tends to be a little loose around the elbows, too.

The plate mail (the suits they used for jousting) ... well ... I was amazed they could do anything in it. Their vision was SEVERELY restricted, as was their range of motion, and their balance was impaired to the point where they walked with a comical excess of care. Once they got used to it, I was surprised by things they COULD do in it, given those limitations. FOr instance, after falling they really didn't seem to have much trouble regaining their feet, and the - shockingly - managed a fair sprint on foot.

Yes, watching someone new walk in even field plate was rather amusing. The boldfaced part there is the important part. DEX in D&D is a combination of things as there is no other stat to be compared to it. Eye-hand coordination is one of the things used to describe it in the manuals, and you can't really have much of that anymore when 90% of your vision is the inside of a sheet of iron. That's why some did fight without helms. That kind of helm, however, is one of the points of full plate armor.

The vision-hindering helms were likely just used in large assaults, as for what they offered minus the field of vision, it was not a good trade-off.

Maybe they should have a ST requirement along the lines of the FO RPG Min ST for weapons, namely that it's not a hard requirement, simply that you get a penalty for every point that your ST is lower than the requirement.

As it should be. There's not going to be a weakling cleric wielding that heavy footman's mace like a pro, it would be more like them both trying to orbit one another.