Sectional Defences

[Cosmosemeritus]

Re: Sectional Defences

 

I had a source book around somewhere that listed lacquered wood, along with leather and iron, as being a major component of Japanese armor. I couldn't tell you how accurate it is (there's so much bad information out there), but I liked the idea so its in my game. Besides I've tried chopping down an oak with an axe. Dem hardwoods is hard!

 

Electricity is a fickle thing and the metal armor vs electricity debate will continue until Mythbusters stick a pig carcass in metal armor on top of a pole during a thunderstorm. I use low ED values in my game primarily so that I can keep the DC of magic spells down to a manageable level while still allowing the spellcasters to be competitive. So its purely a numbers racket for me.

[Curufea]

Re: Sectional Defences

 

Electricity always follows the easiest route. Just like water going downhill.

A lightning bolt will hit a suit of plate, and go straight into the ground to be grounded - without passing through the person inside. They would not be electrocuted.

However - the metal will heat and they would suffer third degree burns which may kill them.

Also the sweat or other moisture on their body would boil and could cause blunt trauma from the steam explosion.

 

There have been cases of people surviving lighning strikes because they were totally drenched in water - it conducted around them. The were still burned, however - by the steam.

[input.jack]

Re: Sectional Defences

 

I also intend to utilize an END cost for armor during combat/strenuous activity but I am not using LTE so I've come up with formula:

 

Armor uses 1 END for every 3pts of DEF

Multiply this number by the % of the body the armor covers

 

So the above chain shirt would cause 2 END as a base

Modified to 1 END (48.148% of 2)

 

ooooh, this is so feeding my Rolemaster itch...

 

 

Um...armor doesnt cost endurance...thats what makes it different from a forcefield, right?

[input.jack]

Re: Sectional Defences

 

And I just got done having a conversation with one of the players about why they can't stack defences...because of the padding...didn't even connect the dots.

 

Ok, I'm convinced.

 

For the group I game with we ruled that "layering armor" was allowed, and it gave you the stacked penalties. However, since in HERO each increase in DC represents twice the force of the previous DC (as demonstrated by the fact that every 5 points of STR doubles your lift, and therefore your punching force), that logically each point of DEF is "twice as tough" as the previous point of DEF. (Again, that +5 STR doubles your lift, adding 1d6 normal, which on average generates 1 Body of damage).

 

So if the lighter armor was worth at least half as much as the heavier armor being layered, we allow the combination to add +1 DEF to the value of the heavier armor.

 

Most people look at the penalties and weight compared to getting a measly +1 Def and stop trying to layer armor.

 

But they can if they want to.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Sectional Defences

 

Um...armor doesnt cost endurance...thats what makes it different from a forcefield' date=' right?[/quote']

True, but carrying weight requires STR which uses END. Innate Armor doesn't weigh anything outside of a character's own body weight, but Real Armor does, and a lot of Real Armor is tiring to wear.

[input.jack]

Re: Sectional Defences

 

Who used laminated wood armour? The Chinese? I can't recall ever seeing any anywhere' date=' but then the Chinese used some pretty weird (and stupid) things as weapons and armour.[/quote']

 

Much Japanese armor was laminated wood. Chinese armor too. Its actually remarkably effective, and not weird or stupid at all. The reason the Japanese and Chinese used so many esoteric things for armor and weapons is that their region has very poor quality metal. Good steel is very rare, and so they devised the method of making swords (katanas, for example) which only have good, high-quality steel for the edge. The rest of the blade is of lower quality material, but they forge it so carefully and intricately (what with all the folding and such) that the result is superior to a European weapon made of far superior materials.

 

Basically, because their materials were poor, their skill and effort increased dramatically, yeilding a better result.

[Wilfred_Death]

Re: Sectional Defences

 

I had a source book around somewhere that listed lacquered wood' date=' along with leather and iron, as being a major component of Japanese armor.[/quote']

 

Having in my youth studied Karate, I found there was always that idea promulgated that 'Samurai' armour was 'wood' and Karate Masters could therefore punch through it.......

 

Not meaning to pick on Cosmosemeritus, but this is one of my pet peeves, there are so many sources that claim that - because Master told them so, and haven't thought it through properly.

 

There is a Web Site ( I don't have the Link ) showing Step by Step how to create Jap Armour, and it's not wooden. - its An SCA site....

 

From my research into the matter, and especially after consulting with an Engineer friend who make Armour co's he's in the Varangian Guard.

 

One can reason that the Japanese had good quality Metal Working techniques for small pieces of Metal, like Sword Blades.

However their technology of making Steel Plates in reasonable sizes was rubbish.

 

Consider the Helm / Kabuto:

This is constructed of ( the top part ) multiple metal strips, riveted together,

And sometimes even has a Hole in the Top ( EEEEK! ) Which can let Arrows in

 

Able to make Small Plates... Jap Armour is constructed mostly thus:

Boiled Leather / Cuirboilli - Base - the Padding

this is then coverered with strips of interlaced layers of small rectangular scales ( Kozune )

Other parts like the inside of the sleeves may be of regular Chain ( Chain Mail )

Some Of the Plates are actually covered by Cloth or Leather - It seems weird, but for instance the Knee (copfs ? ) parts are made this way.

Thus a ceremonial suit does look very much like cloth / Wood until examined closer.

 

Later after the Arrival of the Portuguese, you see Japanese Armor incorporating Portuguese Made Breastplates................

 

ramble ramble...........

Much Japanese armor was laminated wood. Chinese armor too. Its actually remarkably effective' date=' and not weird or stupid at all. The reason the Japanese and Chinese used so many esoteric things for armor and weapons is that their region has very poor quality metal. Good steel is very rare, and so they devised the method of making swords (katanas, for example) which only have good, high-quality steel for the edge. The rest of the blade is of lower quality material, but they forge it so carefully and intricately (what with all the folding and such) that the result is superior to a European weapon made of far superior materials.[/quote']

As far as I know this is erroneous.

 

I can state definitely that the "(katanas, for example) which only have good, high-quality steel for the edge. The rest of the blade is of lower quality material" part is wrong.

I can definitley state that:

The Sword is made from 1 Pig - ie One block of Iron

This is heated , fullered out to a longer piece,

Brushed with Charcoal ( thus introducing Carbon - to make Steel )

Folded over in Half and welded together.

 

This process is repeated multiple times: This imparts a laminated structure to the Sword blade

 

The Tempering Process involves Painting the forged Blade whith Chrome Containing Clays

The Clay is artfully applied in different thicknesses.

THe Clay coated Blade then Heated ( to the color of the rising sun WYB )

Then Quenched in a water trough

 

This process enabled the metal to have a differentiated cooling time

The thinly coated edge cooled faster and thus is made of small crystals enabling a Sharp edge

The ridge and the back cooled slower thus having larger crystals for flexibility.

The chrome luckily provided a rust resistant finish.

 

as far as I can tell - a single piece of metal was used for the entire blade-

 

Damascened Weapons have a similar construction process, however here 2 different Pigs are combined together One Usually being Meteorite Iron - High In Nickel, hence the distinctive 'Stripy' Appearance.

[mayapuppies]

Re: Sectional Defences

 

True' date=' but carrying weight requires STR which uses END. Innate Armor doesn't weigh anything outside of a character's own body weight, but Real Armor does, and a lot of Real Armor is tiring to wear.[/quote']

Which is why I implemented the optional rule of Armor using END

[keithcurtis]

Re: Sectional Defences

 

Wilfred_Death, I don't know the case in Canada, but in the US, abbreviating Japanese as Jap is considered somewhat derogatory, having gone out of fashion sometime after WWII.

 

Keith "word to the wise" Curtis

 

PS. The editors of DC comics were surprised to find out that Wog is a racial slur in Great Britain, and thence stopped their characters from referring to Green Lantern Kilowog as " 'Wog ".

[Fitz]

Re: Sectional Defences

 

Much Japanese armor was laminated wood. Chinese armor too.

 

Much Japanese armour? You may be right, but I strongly suspect not, since otherwise there'd be more evidence of such. I know of only one harness that could be described as being made of wood, and that is a pressed and laquered bamboo armour in the Japanese Imperial collection which was made for a very old man, in his nineties, and only because it was light enough for his doddery old frame to carry -- he was certainly never expected to get into combat. I've read extensively on the subject of Japanese arms and armour, and have found no instances of any materials other than iron, steel or rawhide being used as the primary defensive structure, even for low-quality munition armour issued to the arrow-fodder.

 

It would be foolish to say that wood was never used; I haven't read every single thing ever written in all languages on the subject, and historical description can be remarkably spotty. However, the paucity of evidence for its use leads me to believe that it wasn't. (Or else that it was so common that it didn't rate a mention, but in that case I'd expect some physical evidence to have survived).

[Markdoc]

Re: Sectional Defences

 

Yep, just to follow up on the other comments, I know of no evidence of wood being used for armor in Japan. The display suit Fitz meant doesn't count - lacquered wood was used as armour in medieval France for exactly the reason Fitz mentioned: it was light and you could make it look like metal. But it wasn't meant for defence and it's existence doesn't mean that medieval knights used wooden armour.

 

Japanese armour has been made of iron since long before katana were invented.

 

The only reference I can find to wooden armour in asia is in Serindia, by Aurel Stein, where he describes small wooden scales found at a site called called Lou-Lan. He thought they might be armour, but most modern historians think they were decoration.

 

Makes sense really - leather armour requires no more tech than wood and is stronger, more flexible and more durable. Wooden armour would break on the first decent impact.

 

I guess you could include the various rattan/fibre type armours from the pacific and parts of africa if you really wanted to stretch the definition of wood, but otherwise I know of no wooden armour from any culture.

 

Cheers, Mark

[Cosmosemeritus]

Re: Sectional Defences

 

Looks like I opened a can of worms unintentionally.

 

I have no evidence, nor do I believe, that wood was used historically for personal armor in any practical sense. I have read about such armors, but discount the references as lacking credibility.

 

However, we're talking about energy defense in a fantasy game. It is not unimaginable for a variety of fantastic materials be used to defend against a damage type (energy) virtually unknown in realistic history. It can be argued that in a campaign where such attacks are more common, through magic or machination, defenses would be developed from whatever materials worked and were available.

 

Now after reading much of this thread I've changed metal armor in my game to have 1-2rEd as I am now convinced that maille, plate and lamé would provide some protection to heat, electricity, cosmic rays, etc. I also allow a limited layering of armor, so that the low ED metal armor can be augmented by the ED of the liner material. Wood, crystal, and chitin are also available materials.

[Cosmosemeritus]

Re: Sectional Defences

 

I scrolled back to Mayapuppies' original post...

 

Sorry for the hyjack hope your question was answered before this flight was diverted.

[Markdoc]

Re: Sectional Defences

 

I scrolled back to Mayapuppies' original post...

 

Sorry for the hyjack hope your question was answered before this flight was diverted.

 

 

Oh, he's used to it by now

 

cheers, Mark

[mayapuppies]

Re: Sectional Defences

 

I actually get pretty happy when my thread initiates a hijacking debate.

 

But, yeah, I've amended my theory and made the appropriate changes. I also found the hijacking interesting since one of the races I have utilizes a particular tree bark for armor and weapons.

[Old Man]

Re: Sectional Defences

 

The only instance of wood being used for armor is in Raymond Feist's Rift War series.

[Curufea]

Re: Sectional Defences

 

And for shields.

Which the Japanese were notorious for not using.

[Old Man]

Re: Sectional Defences

 

Which always mystified me. Shields are dreadfully useful and effective, almost regardless of shape, size, or construction. Yet this one country never, ever used them. Why?

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Sectional Defences

 

Two-handed fighting styles. If they weren't using one sword two-handed, they were using two of them.

[Markdoc]

Re: Sectional Defences

 

Which always mystified me. Shields are dreadfully useful and effective' date=' almost regardless of shape, size, or construction. Yet this one country never, ever used them. Why?[/quote']

 

Actually, pre-samurai japanese soldiers did use them. They dropped the shield as the courtly warriors of the Yamato became samurai because their preferred weapon was the bow - the mark of the true warrior - and a shield is not much use to a bowman. The whole sword fetish did not arrive until much later, which is why the original samurai code was called Kyuba no michi ("The Way of Horse and Bow"). You can see this in their amour too. Early samurai armour was this ridiculous thing called an O-yoroi, which even contemporary writers agreed was heavy, clumsy, uncomfortable and difficult to fight in. Modern writers have noticed it also makes you look like you're pregnant with a widescreen TV. It was fine for sitting on horse-back and shooting arrows, because the weight was then carried by your hips and the saddle, while your arms were free, but most hand to hand combats on foot degenerated into wrestling with knives, because the enormous shoulder-protectors (called O-Sode) made swinging a sword difficult (Games Workshop fighters still have this problem ).

 

So, combat consisted of:

1. Introduce yourself and your family.

2. Explain why you should be allowed to kill your opponent

3. Trash talk

4. Ride around - shoot arrows at each other

5. If necessary, close to hand to hand combat

6. Fall over - it's almost impossible to get up or bend over wearing an O-Yoroi, so you're going to end up grappling each other on the ground and trying to stick a knife (tanto) or shortsword (wakazashi) in your opponent

7. Cut opponent's head off and wave it in a triumphant fashion. I's considered polite to wait until they are dead first, but not strictly necessary.

8. Repeat - steps 1-3 can be skipped at this point, if things are hotting up.

 

In other words, it was a ritual thing, and shields weren't useful for most of this. By the time they got more serious about killing each other in large numbers, armour had gotten lighter and more streamlined, bows had fallen out of favour and the weapons of choice were swords (used mostly like a bastard sword: a mixture of one or two hands), long spears (two handed) and a variety of polearms (also used two handed).

 

So, no shields, even though they knew how useful they were (samurai did use big bamboo pavises during sieges) - the chinese levies in the mongol invasion fleet gave the samurai big problems, even though they were, by pretty much anyone's standards, bottom-scrapings in terms of quality: but they fought en masse with spears and shields, had armour good enough to stop most samurai arrowfire and didn't play by the rules (see above )

 

In otherwords, Japanese armies didn't use shields for the same reason contemporary Swiss ones didn't - they were using both hands for their weapons and relied on a swift rush into contact to counter missile troops.

 

cheers, Mark

[Cantriped]

Re: Sectional Defences

 

Speaking of sectional armor rules a while back, when I first got FH I went though and set up tables so that I could calculate sectional Armor weights for piecemail (bits and pieces of other armor all hogepoged together.

so without further adue here it be.

[center]Total % of Armor Weight By Hit Location
Hit Location Covered	% Of Armor Weight
3 (Head)	.5
4 (Head)	1.4
5 (Head)	2.8
6 (Hands)	4.6
7 (Arms)	6.9
8 (Arms)	9.7
9 (Shoulders)	11.6
10 (Chest)	12.5
11 (Chest)	12.5
12 (Stomach)	11.6
13 (Vitals)	9.7
14 (Thighs)	6.9
15 (Legs)	4.6
16 (Legs)	2.8
17 (Feet)	1.4
18 (Feet)	.5
[/center]

Example: Kiaus has decided for some strange reason to wear the Full Helm that he found after killing some Do-gooders. The Full Helm provides 8 DEF to Hit Locations 3, 4, and 5 (all the Head locations). A Full suit of DEF 8 Armor would normally weigh 40 kg, so Kaius’ player checks the Table above and sees that Hit Locations 3, 4, and 5 have listed % of .5, 1.4, and 2.8 respectively, so he sums these up (.5+1.4+2.8=4.7), and Multiplies 40*4.7% (or 40 * 0.047 on a Calculater), and Gets 1.88 kg.

[prestidigitator]

Re: Sectional Defences

 

In my fantasy games all metal armor (that is, armor made primarily of metal) provides its full, "DEF," in rPD, and half of this in rED. This is as much for play balance as, "realism." It still has the full standard weight listed in 5ER. There is the assumption that all such armor has padding (even light leather in some cases) underneath. No one has ever actually tried to layer full sets of armor, but if they did I'd likely start mounding major penalties to all physical actions and DCV on top of the normal Encumbrance rules.

 

As for wooden armor, many fantasy campaigns probably have enough magic incorporated in them that we could probably make it as effective as we like. Likely such armor would be made of rare materials and/or, "artificially," enchanted to some degree.

[Bismark]

Re: Sectional Defences

 

If you want credible non-magical wooden armour - check out some of the Inca stuff. It's a bit basic, but was used for 2 specific purposes, both of which I will mention together because the construction method was pretty much the same:

 

They used a circular shield about 1'/30cm (or slightly larger) made of planks of the 'ironwood'-type hardwoods found in that part of the world, and bound with bronze (they used bronze for helmets and weapons - including some rather nasty-looking axes and halberd-type weapons).

 

Discs of bronze-bound ironwood (made the same way as the shields) were also used by upper-class warriors as armour (usually one covering the centre of the chest and occasionally one on the back), suspended by straps (I think they were leather straps, but as my book on the subject has 'gone walkies', I cannot check it). It is analogous to the leather-backed bronze discs used by various Italian tribes that fought Rome during the early Republic, but is probably better protection (ironwood is tough - it must have taking some heavy-duty lumberjacking to get it in the first place).

[Frenchman]

Re: Sectional Defences

 

Really? Bronze you say. Have a source/link? I'd love to see one.

I was under the impression that the Inca (and other pre-columbian peoples in the new world) had no knowledge of forging metals, and worked only with beaten copper and gold.

And my memories of geology spur me on to say that I don't recall any signifigant sources of Tin in the Incan area. Nevermind, it's in Bolivia.

[Bismark]

Re: Sectional Defences

 

Inca bronze artifacts include medical instruments like trepanation knives (one was found dated c. 1400 AD) - oddly enough, this has become the subject of companies specialising in replica tools and weapons (e.g. http://www.aurorahistoryboutique.com/ahb.cfm?a=PA00002); as I mentioned, my original sourcebook has disappeared (probably temporarily - I need to tidy my place up); a brief mention turned up on a Missouri state university webpage (http://history.missouristate.edu/jchuchiak/HST%20350-Outline%208.htm) - I did a quick 'google'. The Inca empire was of course, absolutely vast (especially if you include all the subject and tributary regions), so I would be surprised if there were not notable tin deposits within its frontiers.

 

About the only other metal-using pre-Columbian cultures I have come across are the Purempecha (called the Tarascans by the Aztecs) who apparently edged their wooden Maquahuitl-equivalents with copper rather than obsidian; the metal-using status of the Natchez (Mississippian) culture has been in dispute for a few years, I gather.

 

I must stress that I work on some archaeological treatises but my main area of knowledge is the Mediterranean and Eastern Europe/Central Asia - I am just an 'interested hobbyist researcher' where other parts of the world are concerned.