Issue 3 - Armor! (Part 1)

An Examination of Armor Systems in Old Fantasy RPGs, the OSR and Beyond

Howdy ho folks, Harrigan here again. Welcome to Issue 3 of my blog-like thing, Harrigan’s Hearth.

In this issue, I’m going to start what will probably be a multi-part series that examines the way armor is modeled in melee combat in the OSR and perhaps a little beyond — actually, let’s say in select medieval fantasy RPGs that lean towards grounded or believable combat. Meaning no super-powers, no outlandish feats, no abilities that really separate the heroes from the rabble surrounding them in stark ways. You can be a better swordfighter and get more actions in a round, but you don’t suddenly gain the ability to hit the ground with your hammer and knock everyone down because you leveled up. Think of the older editions (OD&D through 2nd Edition) of Dungeons and Dragons, older simulationist games like Rolemaster and GURPS, and many retroclone and modern neo-OSR games and you’ll be in the right ballpark.

So. Let’s get started.

RPG ARMOR: IN THE BEGINNING

In the granddaddy RPG, D&D, we have the much heralded, derided, discussed, beloved and dissected Armor Class. This is where the armor you wear, usually combined with some kind of bonus from your Dexterity and often a shield, will determine a value your opponent has to hit with a d20 roll. Let’s set aside descending and ascending armor class for the moment¹, as both are functionally the same for the topic I’d like to crack open, which is abstract vs. simulationist armor systems.

Abstract Armor Systems

In these systems, usually for the sake of speed, the game often combines the ability to avoid being struck with the ability to withstand being struck. It’s not about whether you’ve been hit — it’s about whether you’ve been damaged, or dealt a meaningful and lasting blow.

It sounds simple, but in my experience too many tables fall into the trap of “I miss,” or “I hit,” when they are narrating their combat results. A “miss” against a not very mobile, heavily armored foe likely looks quite different from a miss against a lithe and wary cheetah. One you can rain ineffective blows on all day long; the other you’ll be lucky to come within three feet of before it darts away. Keeping this in mind during your combats can help to keep them from becoming dull affairs where the d20 is rolled until someone is out of hit points.

I remember, as a young gamer running AD&D, going so far as to try and break down what an attack result meant. That is, if you’re a 1st level fighter in AD&D and are trying to strike someone clad in chainmail armor who is also carrying a shield (AC4), you need to roll a 16 or better to land an effective blow. I was thirsting for more at the time, so I drove this abstract system towards the other end of the spectrum, breaking down…

• Results of 9 or less miss completely — you don’t even nick your foe.

• Results of 10 to 15 hit home, but are rendered ineffective by the shield and / or armor of your foe.

To this I tried to factor in the opponent’s Dexterity, whether it was the shield or the mail that deflected the blow, and so on. An exercise in futility, I now understand, because the system is meant to be abstract, and if I want a lot more crunch and detail in blow-by-blow combat — well, there are other systems out there doing that, and there have been since the 70s or 80s.²

As much as I like the simplicity and speed of these abstract systems, they do have their issues — especially when combined with d20-powered combat. More on that below. But first…

Simulationist Armor Systems

I suspect most folks reading here know these games. They break melee into much shorter, blow-by-blow combat rounds, they include partial and piecemeal armor coverage, they model the power of swinging a weapon vs. thrusting it, they consider whether damage is blunt, slashing, or impaling, they consider rigid vs. pliable armor, and they posit that heavier armors are more protective, but also make you slower and easier to hit. Weapon and armor quality is considered, balance and reach is factored in… you get the idea.

There’s a lot in that. To varying degrees, this is Rolemaster, MERP, Chivalry & Sorcery, Palladium Fantasy, HârnMaster, Pendragon, GURPS, Fantasy Hero and dozens of other old systems that were determined to ‘do it better’ than D&D. And now, in 2024, it’s hundreds if not thousands of OSR and OSR-adjacent games that are equally determined to do the same — if usually not with the same level of crunch and system mastery required from the table.

For a long time, after kicking AD&D to the curb in 1988, this was my jam. My particular toast, butter and jam was GURPS, and I believe to this day that it is still near the very top of the pile when it comes to modeling detailed melee combat — in a very simulationist way that remains quite playable.

Great. Neat. So what?

Well, with my review of the pre-print version of Mythic Bastionland coming, my mind’s been on these kinds of topics. Chris McDowall, who has been dabbling in and designing skirmish games recently, really drove some new ideas into his new RPG. In Part 2 of this series I’ll start getting into some specific systems that handle armor in what I think are interesting ways, but before I close up shop tonight I wanted to hit one last topic:

Exhaustion in Melee Combat (and the role armor plays)

If you’ve played low-level D&D where either the PCs or the opposition has access to heavy armor such as plate mail, you’ve probably seen some combats where… it takes some time to land blows. Above, I touched on some simple approaches I personally use to keep whiffy d20 combat interesting, and one of the best examples I’ve seen of this in practice was two years ago when I ran one of my favorite adventures, Winter’s Daughter, for my son and his girlfriend. We were using a house-ruled White Box Fantastic Medieval Adventure Game as the core system, and while I dearly love that game, low-level characters really struggle to hit the best armor classes.

Cut to my son’s plate-clad fighter facing off against a snooty elf lord who was also in plate mail, and… I think we might have had five rounds in a row with no hits. Five rounds where “nothing happened.” However, we simply didn’t narrate it that way. Blows were struck and deflected by shields. Swords rang together. Sparks flew. Shields were bashed into breastplates. Names were called. One or the other was forced back by a rain of blows, but finally held their ground and fought fiercely back. Eventually, telling blows were struck, but the scene resolved before there was a victor. It was quite satisfying, in the end, but when I recently relayed this nugget to crew over on the BS Landia Discord I frequent, Gabe from the excellent podcast Analytic Dice dropped this little gem:

And eventually they should just get tired.

Yes! And this is one thing that I think few RPGs address, at least those that don’t require a spend of energy points, fatigue or some other closely measured and jealously spent metacurrency.

I love the idea of heavily armored knights in single combat staggering around as the battle stretches on, exhausted and unable to land the finishing blow… until one of them lets their guard down, has a lapse or otherwise makes a mistake.

Hollywood doesn’t often reinforce this very realistic take on medieval combat, but there are a couple of notable exceptions. Check out Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel for a desperate and grim take on this kind of combat (spoilers ahead if you have not see the whole movie)…

And then have a gander at this… I’ve never seen Roman Polanski’s Macbeth in its entirety, but when I ran across this clip last year I was pretty floored. The sound editing leaves something to be desired, but this is cool stuff for 1971.

And if you’re, like me, interested in some analysis of that final scene…

But back to RPGs and how to model this kind of wearing-down over several rounds… and specifically, in the context of this issue, how to model it in an abstract but still engaging way.

You can imagine there are some fundamental building blocks here — how many hit points the combatants have, how much damage weapons deal on a successful hit, whether armor makes you harder to harm vs. easier to hit while reducing the amount of damage dealt… it’s a difficult thing to design without establishing all those cornerstones.

So, next issue I’ll muse on how I might do this in a variety of systems: White Box Fantastic Medieval Adventure Game, The Black Hack, Cairn, and ShadowDark. I’ll look at concepts like the Fray and Escalation dice from 13th Age, and Usage Dice from The Black Hack. I’ll consider some mechanics from ICRPG, and even look at Cortex Prime’s expendable Resources in a new context.

In closing today, I’ll also ask your opinion on which you’d like to see first…

Oh, and feel free to leave comments regarding what systems you’d like to see covered — or not! — in this series.

Until next time!

Break camp, mount up and ride off!

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1. Yo Jim!

2. I don’t have early versions of things like Tunnels & Trolls, The Fantasy Trip or Runequest to know if things like damage reduction were modeled, but certainly by the time Palladium Fantasy and GURPS roll around in the 80s, many simulationist games are doing this. It’s likewise worth noting that AD&D had considerably more crunch in melee combat, though I never used most of it. Weapon Speed Factors, Weapon Type vs. Armor Type — these subsystems always struck me as tacked-on, awkward, and not even close to being worth the additional complexity they bring to the table.