Best and Worst armor design in RPGs. -- Please use spoiler tags for large images or strings of them

[jackofshadows]

Konung legends of the north has pretty good selection of roman/viking/slav armor and weapons.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Konung legends of the north has pretty good selection of roman/viking/slav armor and weapons.

Fuck it, maybe if I tag Grimwulf now he might respond out of butthurt at least.

 

[The Jester]

 

[Norfleet]

That depends a lot on the thickness of the armor, the arrow weight, arrowhead(bodkin, broadhead, etc), bow draw height, distance, "impact angle" and other factors.

Even the best case tests apparently fail to penetrate plate armor. Successful hits will tend to come from striking the unplated sections like the joints or eye holes. Or the horse. Having your horse shot out from under you can kill you.

The plate armor thickness is not the same in the entire body, if a arrow failed in penetrating the chest, doesn't mean that it can't pierce on "neck". I am pretty sure that even in plate armor, receive hail of shots from the heaviest longbow with poisoned steel bodkin arrows can be quite deadly.

The neck was pretty well plated, too. You would most likely take a hit in something like a helmet-hole or an armpit, as these areas would be open or unplated. Arrows were not generally poisoned: This would require the archer to carry poison, apply it to the arrow, NOT poison himself in the process, and what's more, would do little to increase battlefield effectiveness even if it worked: A guy wounded by an arrow will go down and out of fight. If you poison him, this will not make him drop from the fight any faster, but it WILL potentially kill him and thus completely ruin the ransom value. At best, archers would just stick their arrows in the crap-filled dirt where all the horses have been shitting and hope something gets infected.

That said, IMO a game which depicts armor X arrow well IMO is Mount & Blade. Sadly you can't chose arrowheads but you can with the best armor in the game soak MOST bow shots in the chest.

Pretty much NO chest shot is going to penetrate. Even modern bows firing modernized arrows completely fail to penetrate replica plate armor in made using the techniques and stylings of the period. Even tungsten and depleted uranium heads don't make it through. Those medieval armorers knew their shit.

In areas where the armor is less thick, good lucky dealing with Rhodok Sharpshooter which is BTW my favorite unity in the game

Yeah, now THAT is a crossbow. Different kettle of fish. The effective range is a good deal shorter, though, and the rate of fire awful in comparison. A crossbow bolt CAN punch through the thinner areas of plate armor at close range, although you're very unlikely to get good penetration against the main parts of the breastplate. Note, however, that a crossbowman will basically only get one shot off, and it'll have to be taken at short range to get good penetration. Modern-build heavy crossbow firing DU bolts can even pen vehicles, as they'll punch right through a car door or light truck frame.

 

[Cryomancer]

Even the best case tests apparently fail to penetrate plate armor.

The best case? Any test with the HEAVIEST warbow and steel bodkin hitting one of the less plate protected armor parts, that would be the "best case".

That said, academic studies say that "“In tests against a steel breastplate, a bodkin-tipped arrow would dent the armour
at 260ft, puncture it at 98ft, and penetrate right through plate and underlying doublet coat to the flesh at 65ft.” Source > https://web.archive.org/web/2011111...rg/artsci/docs/Champ_Bane_Archery-Testing.pdf

His study is amazing. He din't just picked a random piece of arrow, a random piece of armor and tested both. He tested many different types of arrowheads VS many different types of armor.

His conclusion

"Most soldiers on the battlefield would have been at risk from the longbow. The average archer would have had
the tools to wound or kill most armour types. Even with the advent of coat of plates, the archer would have had
an impact on an advancing army. Only the most expensive and well made plate armour wearers would have
had an advantage. Although even with plate, I only tested the impacts to major protected areas. The joints and
gaps would all still be vulnerable being mostly of maille until the 16th century. Without significant metal to
withstand the energies of an arrow or excessive padding to spread out the force, arrows of the 1400’s would
have been deadly. "

On youtube, I saw someone using a earlier medieval bow with broadhead arrow VS a late medieval plate armor. It is unfair. Is like picking a mosin nagant, testing it against a AR500 and claiming that AR500 makes you invulnerable to any bullet. When a better test would be testing many different calibers and many different ammo type. Only because your body armor can protect you from 556, doesn't mean that it can protect you from a 14.5x114mm. "but 14.5x114mm is very rare in modern battlefield", almost nobody uses anti materiel rifles vs infantry. Yes, hence AR500 offers a huge protection. Same with the best armor in medieval times. It can make the chance of dying to a arrow going down by a lot, but is not a energy shield.

 

[Dodo1610]

E L E X

Spoiler

Still has that post-apocalyptic raider look without looking overly gay

 

[KörangarTheMighty]

That said, academic studies say that "“In tests against a steel breastplate, a bodkin-tipped arrow would dent the armour
at 260ft, puncture it at 98ft, and penetrate right through plate and underlying doublet coat to the flesh at 65ft.” Source > https://web.archive.org/web/2011111...rg/artsci/docs/Champ_Bane_Archery-Testing.pdf

His study is amazing. He din't just picked a random piece of arrow, a random piece of armor and tested both. He tested many different types of arrowheads VS many different types of armor.

The flaw is that he was using flat sheets of steel and not actual armor. The shape matters a great deal and for that matter so does heat-treatment which as far as I can tell was not mentioned anywhere in this study. I don't necessarily blame him since this was done in 2006, but it's out of date by today.

I recommend everyone curious to watch the full video, but this is a time stamp to the specifics of the breastplate being tested. The longbow has a 160 pound draw weight and the arrowheads are a mixture of both plain wrought iron and case hardened wrought iron. Specs are in the description. I'm looking forward to them coming back to follow up testing the thinner sides, and other pieces of armor which they planned on before the coof hit.

 

[Space Satan]

That's just stylish

 

[Cryomancer]

he longbow has a 160 pound draw weight and the arrowheads are a mixture of both plain wrought iron and case hardened wrought iron.

Did they used bodkin in the video? At 7:47 doesn't seem to be bodkin. A photo bellow I am not claiming that piercing plate armor mainly the breast is easy. I am claiming that bodkin arrowhead + the heaviest warbow of the time has a chance depending on where hit, distance, windage, impact angle, etc.

Making a analogy imagine that I claim that a .50 BMG armor piercing can defeat any body armor and someone "no, here is, a 556x54mm AR-15 with FMJ ammo unable to pierce a AR500, clearly firearms can't defeat body armor". The PDF which I posted, tested many different types of arrowheads. Only bodkin pierced plate. And din't pierced that much.

 

[KörangarTheMighty]

At 7:47 doesn't seem to be bodkin.

 

[fork]

I'm just waiting for Infinitron to split the thread. But somehow he newer does that when it would be worth it, he does it only when he doesn't like where the often on-topic discussion is going. Are we sure he's a Jew and not a nigger?

 

[Cryomancer]

I'm just waiting for Infinitron to split the thread.

Why? Armor design is not visual only;

DOS2 armor is in the shietiest tier not in "visual" but in mechanics.

At 7:47 doesn't seem to be bodkin.

Spoiler

The PDF which I posted also used the same arrow which they used in his tests.Spoiler : Only tented a little.

 

[fork]

I'm just waiting for Infinitron to split the thread.

Why? Armor design is not visual only;

No, but bow mechanics are even less inspired by reality than armor designs.
That bow discussion up there is as off-topic as it gets.

 

[KörangarTheMighty]

The PDF which I posted also used the same arrow which they used in his tests.Spoiler : Only tented a little.

He was testing minimum thickness (1.2mm) on an unknown sheet steel with unknown iron/steel arrowheads. For comparison that's less than this mild steel helmet (1.8mm) which was pierced by the short bodkin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3QqdEX_ka8
Why his short bodkins didn't perform is a mystery, perhaps it's to do with the medium, the angle of the medium, the arrowhead material, the material absorbing the impact force behind the steel sheet, the fact that his bow was very weak in poundage. God only knows what else.

 

[Desiderius]

it's interesting that Diablo 1 has literally samurai armor in it, and seems like many of its stuff was sketched as quite pure fantasy, but in the game it all looks super sweet. I once used cloak picture from Diablo 1 as little picture for playes to buy as cloak in shop and everyone just bought one because they liked how it looked.

Diablo 1 aesthetics have yet to be rivaled, let alone surpassed.

 

[Cryomancer]

That bow discussion up there is as off-topic as it gets.

Thanks. I will try to bring the discussion back to video games.

Please. Don't split.

Why his short bodkins didn't perform is a mystery, perhaps it's to do with the medium, the angle of the medium, the arrowhead material, the material absorbing the impact force behind the steel sheet, the fact that his bow was very weak in poundage. God only knows what else.

That is my point. Projectiles VS armor requires much more information. For example, "can a body armor stop a rifle round is a silly question", as distance, ammo, rifle caliber, impact angle(...) variables matters. Can a this specific body armor model stop a .30-06 armor piercing round at 50m hitting the armor at 0º? And at 1200m if hit the armor at 45º? The question becomes more clear. Same in medieval times with arrows.

But back to video games.

One fantasy game which has amazing arrow X armor in a interesting way is Dragon's Dogma. Is not perfect, all arrows has the same speed, even a ultra heavy explosive arrow and there are no windage and a area has really strong winds, however, where you hit your arrow matters a lot. Not only "headshots", an armored cyclops has extremely thick armor, so you can't pierce his armor, however if you hit in the unarmored parts, you can deal a lot of damage. The angle doesn't have much impact but the distance has, since the game uses a flat damage reduction, there are enemies which can negate my longbow damage at very long range and take damage at closer range.

One thing which I din't liked on D&D 3E+, is that armor is the same vs everything.

On Baldur's Gate 1/2, Plate armor has a much higher value VS slahes than vs blunt attacks and lets be honest. Blunt is the best way to deal with plate IRL. I know that it is a optional rule on 2E, but still a great rule non the less.

Diablo 1 aesthetics have yet to be rivaled, let alone surpassed.

Yep. Everything is gorgeous in D1, not only armor. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

 

[Desiderius]

Sylvan Trickster from WotR. I think the hood is removable.

 

[Desiderius]

 

[Desiderius]

 

[ERYFKRAD]

There's probably a crown jewel somewhere that looks less ornate, damn.

 

[Norfleet]

Looks like a ceremonial guard's halberd rather than wargear, though. The rank and file are probably not going into battle with one that fancy. Ceremonial equipment also tends to be better preserved than common wargear, which is probably why it survived to this day.