Is Leather Armor really BS?

There are a lot of reenactors and “historical scholars” who want to tell you that “leather armor” never existed.  They tell you that because the movie makers are putting women (and men) in these bondage looking leather “armors” that fantasy leather armor not only didn’t exist, but that it would have been complete BS had it existed.

Guess what?  That’s the beauty behind FANTASY!  OK, Fantasy is not my only argument here.  But before I attempt to explain my position, let me rip theirs apart.  Just because movie leather armor looks stupid, with studs in the weirdest places and cut outs in the wrong spots does not mean that leather armor could not have existed.  That would be like arguing that because fantasy artists like to put women in cheesecake chain mail that all mailes were BS.  Guess what - Chain mail works!  OK, it doesn’t stop everything, but it beats wearing nothing!

And that’s the point about leather armor!  It was better than nothing.  The vast majority of the NPCs in my game who wear leather armor are the foresters.  These folks would be moving through a forest where they would encounter thorns, burrs, and generally pointed sticks.  They are not wearing supple suede like you find on a woman’s purse.  They are instead wearing 6-9oz leather (that’s the thick stuff).  Would it stop an arrow from a war bow?  No!  Flat out No!  Would it stop a rose bush - probably.

What about studded leather?  Well, the way Legend Quest sees studded leather, the studs are actually specialized rivets made to be about the size of a quarter (that’s 24.26mm for you non-USA folks).  A stud that is more like 4mm is useless, but a pattern of these larger studs, just might be lucky enough to stop a slashing weapon from cutting all the way through.  And this is the point!  Just like a gambeson will often prevent a slashing weapon from cutting skin or serve to partially cushion a bludgeoning weapon, so too can leather or studded leather armor serve.

Now, if you are playing a game where leather armor stands up to knights charging on horseback with lances, your game rules are goofy.  You shouldn’t have needed a “historian” to tell you that.  Am I saying these reenactors are wrong?  No.  But like so many folks arguing on the internet, they are making a very specific argument then pretending that the answer there extends far more broadly than it really should.

It is true that neither cheesecake chain mail nor supple leather armor will stop a broadsword, an 8’ spear, or a morning star.  But this fact does not mean that all leather armors (and I do believe most of these guys are only fighting the supple leather armors) are complete BS - their words.  Look, if my choices were walking out onto a battlefield wearing full plate or leather, of course I would choose plate.  If my choices were supple leather or a loin cloth - I’d choose supple leather.  Just because I want better doesn’t mean I could afford it.

Look, I do see leather armor as gambeson with a layer of leather on the outside, which is not what is most commonly depicted in the movies.  My studded leather actually has large “buttons” that could serve to get in the way of something.  My hardened leather and (leather) lamellar are a bit more accepted by the “scholars”.  Any and all of these can work effectively in a fantasy game, and are not unbelievable in a realistic setting.  You just need to know what you expect from armor.  Weak armor is weak, but historic or not, it’s still useful.

All About Golems & Halflings

What’s a great mix?  A golem’s strength and a halfling’s speed.  That’s only part of what Golems and their Many Uses & The Halflings of the Triad who build them aka All About Golems & Halflings is all about.  Yeah - the title's a little too long!

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Not complicated - Entwined

That’s how one of our Patreon patrons described the way we handle world building.  You know how sometimes you’ve been searching for that perfect word - yeah, we think he found it for us.

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Is Your Magic Balanced?

One of the most difficult “systems” to get to work in a FRPG is the balance between magic and melee.  If a mage can attack multiple people while doing more damage than a warrior can and to each of them, then it seems obvious that magic is over powered.  But magic can be restrained by allowing the warrior to attack every combat round, but the mage only has a certain number of “shots” in him.  So when does it balance?

Well, let’s look at a couple of examples.  In Legend Quest, the least powerful fireball can be cast by a mage who is not an absolute beginner, but isn’t some super experienced guy either.  That least fireball will do 2-15 points of damage to people who most commonly have 24-36 Life’s Blood.  While this doesn’t seem like a lot, LQ does have bleeding damage too, so once you’re below half, you’re in ever increasing some serious trouble.

Far more importantly, a spear in the hands of someone with a Strength Attribute of 4-6 (humans are 1-10, with 4 or 5 being average) will also do 2-15 points of damage.  So the mage does the same damage, but can hit multiple people with one spell.  So right now, the mage is definitely more powerful because it is the same damage to multiple people.

But the warrior can attack every turn until he exhausts himself.  Now in LQ the warrior (assuming a Strength of 6 and an Endurance of 6 - most warriors would have these or slightly better) would begin to exhaust himself after eight attacks.  The ninth attack would cause 3 points of Fatigue damage, and so would every other attack after it.  But he would probably have a Willpower of 4 or 5 (again, average), so assuming the lower 4 - he has 24 Fatigue points.  That means 8 turns before getting tired and then 8 more turns (3x8 = 24) of exhausting himself.  16 attacks seems to be quite a few.

The mage is going to take 2-15 points of Fatigue in casting the fireball.  Now he’s probably got a Willpower of 6 for 36 Fatigue points.  But with an average 8.5 Fatigue points, he’s only got four spells in him before he will pass out from exhaustion.  Four spells vs. 15 attacks (the 16^th one would have driven the warrior unconscious, so we’ll call it 15 attack attempts).  The four hit multiple people.  The fireball is 20’ in diameter.  So is the mage hitting four people?  Depends on the circumstances, but that seems pretty reasonable.  So all in all, it sort of seems even.  Granted, the mage can get all of his guys beat up in four turns, and the warrior gives them a lot more opportunities to attack back, but in the end, it does still sort of feel pretty fair.

Now, not every game allows you to make easy comparisons.  A lot of games, especially those using character classes, have lots of stuff mixed into experience and advancement.  Having more points of damage you can take matters too, so if that is part of your advancement, then you have to understand the differences between glass cannons and tanks.  But!  We can make some comparisons by pitting them against each other.

As the level of experience increases, so do the factors of divergence.  In other words, comparing higher “level” characters gets really complicated because of the variations in characters as well as the way different groups might apply optional or variant rules.  Now I pretty much just play LQ now, so I sat down with players of the fifth edition of that other game to talk through how the characters shape up.

I remain skeptical because I saw the way that the more military classes progressed in this sort of straight line fashion and the mage classes progressed in what has normally been considered a geometric progression, so that by the time you got to the higher levels, the mages did everything and the warriors just tried to keep them from getting killed.

But we did some compares with ninth level characters, and it didn’t turn out that bad.  We found pretty much the same type of thing we just described - The mages did about the same damage as the fighter types, but did it faster, but were done with their spell casting while the fighters were still going.  Overall - not too far off each other.  I have to admit - I was pleasantly surprised that it was even close.

Now, let’s not be silly.  If a mage can “charm” an enemy and turn him against his friends (charm, dominate, possess, etc.) then that mage has shown a level of power that just might be over powered, but a lot of that comes down to role-playing situations or defenses, and not pure numbers.

So with both games seeming to be fairly balanced between magic and melee, there remains a point that really matters:  magic items.  The items given to the various styles of play can have an enormous impact on the game, no matter how balanced they might be when the rules were written.  Giving a PC a wand that removes his restriction of only so many spells per day changes the game.  Giving a warrior a sword that increases his damage to mage levels without restricting his number of attacks changes the game.

So what’s the right way to go?  Well, the problem is that game balance rests in the hands of the GM.  Tip the scales too far one way and you can ruin your game.  Tip them the other, and ruin the game.  We’ll give you advice, but it is really going to come down to experience.  You will (or already have) get to the place where you can sense the disturbance in the force.  You know what is going to happen if you give that character that item.  So don’t.  Or at least, after you do, learn from this mistake and don’t do it in the next campaign.