RE: (TFT) Minimum ST for armor?

["Ty Beard" <tbeard@tyler.net>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: tft-owner@brainiac.com [mailto:tft-owner@brainiac.com]On Behalf Of
> Charles Gadda
> Sent: Thursday, August 15, 2002 10:16 PM

> > > I dont know if a DX penalty for armor is realistic.  I understand
> > > that a person wearing properly fitted plate can do acrobatics!
> >
> > This claim was in GURPS, I believe, but I have never seen any supporting
> > evidence. Any SCA-ers out there who can help us out? I do know
> that in my
> > younger days, I found torso pads and headgear to be rather uncomfortable
> > to
> > use in Tae Kwon Do sparring. In fact, the headgear was probably
> > the worse
> > because it restricted your peripheral vision. Shin guards and gloves
> > caused
> > no problem, though feet guards were a bit clumsy. This was high density
> > foam
> > construction and rather light, I'd imagine, compared with
> > medieval armor.
> > The torso armor was bamboo in cloth and was both hot and
> > constricting. You
> > felt like you were fighting in a turtle shell.
>
> Actually, page 34 of Embleton and Howe's "The Medieval Soldier"
> (a wonderful
> book showing reenactors in full gear - all colour photos) shows a man in
> reconstructed full plate doing a headstand.

Does this qualify as "doing acrobatics"? I could have done a handstand in
all the TKD gear, but it definitely slowed me down compared with sparring
without pads. So the real issue in my mind is whether the armor
significantly reduces one's fighting ability.

> That said, DX penalties are
> still applicable, just not to the degree that TFT does it. In fairness,
> though, I think it was sort of an abstraction to simulate (loosely) the
> penalties that Ty is describing, along with heat, etc.

Yes, I think that's the real purpose of it. An average man in TFT drops from
a 50% chance of hitting to a 5% chance when he straps on plate armor --
surely too extreme.

> > Also, the DX adjustment is critical to stave off the "everybody hits all
> > the
> > time" problem (if only for a short while). A DX of 12 is a 75% chance of
> > success. So you'd have to go to some kind of parrying system like GURPS
> > (ick) or have some other defensive adjustment.
>
> I would suggest just having a defensive adjustment, at least for shields.
> Having shields absorb damage is a little odd - they are intended
> to deflect
> the blow altogether. An adjustment like -3 to DX to hit someone using a
> large shield would not be out of line. Combine with Defensive
> Quickness for
> more experienced fighters and it should get interesting.

A number of us have fiddled with defensive systems over the years and I
agree that shields should primarily adjust your chance of being hit, though
I think that they absorb damage as well. But such systems complicate TFT's
mechanics.

I now think that the best solution is to remove (or mitigate) the problem
that creates the need for such murderous DX adjustments. That's what I tried
to do with my d20 mechanic.

--Ty
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