(I make no apologies for these ridiculous nerfs.)
In the Veins, cultures almost never use Platemail.
The Weeping Knights of the Knotsmen and some Duregar may
make some occasional use for expeditionary purposes.
Those guarding fixed positions inside cities may have plate
and large shields.
No-one else ever will.
Squeezes are simply not accessible to anyone in plate and
are difficult to anyone in chain.
Sumps and Swimming are made so difficult they verge on
suicidal. The armour drags you down and gives you hypothermia if you survive.
No-one wearing plate may attempt a climb of hard, very hard,
or above.
If any PC is wearing Plate then when the party rolls
encounter dice, a 1 causes a normal encounter, a 2 means the plate has gone
wrong, roll a d6
1. Rusted. Now loses 1 AC per week unless cleaned for d4
hours a day.
2. Dented. A random limb now has limited extension.
3. Noisy. Squeals all the time.
4. Trapped. You are stuck in a narrow space and need friends
to free you.
5. Slow. journey will take x2 as long.
6. Freezing. Roll for hypothermia.
Or roll on this much more fun chart.
I like medium armor = Str check to swim, full armor = sink like a stone.
ReplyDeleteThis looks like something you'd write while in full-on Veins book completion mode.
Yep. I'll g+ you the latest version.
DeleteI guess if you want to heavily discourage the use of heavy armor in a dungeon crawl do what you want.
ReplyDeleteIt's not a dungeon crawl, its the Underdark. Different thing.
DeleteThese are good rules, I like them on a narrative level. What mechanical system do you propose for veins, because if we're talking b/x lab lord this makes dex super important. It also raise queations about what sort of heavy armor substitutes exist.
ReplyDeleteIts designed for Lamentations but hopefully applicable for any. Modualr system as I knew half the people would throw away half the rules
DeleteThere are no real alts for heavy armour. Drow have stuff you can steal which is pretty good but generally neither you or your opponent will have it.
In LOTFP this makes a fair amount of sense as hit bonuses for fighty types rapidly overwhelm armor. I do wonder about special heavy armor such as custom made full plate, which seems like it's less restrictive then chain armor, but that's silly historical argument and has no place in a game.
DeleteI myself am limiting armor class in my setting stuff to a soft (armored human/normal creature) max of AC 18 and an absolute (Powered Armor, extra-planar horrors) of AC 20. This protects the GM from scenarios where the players all have absurd ACs due to magic, bonuses and special armor but allows the inclusion of such things. I am happy to see Veins coming along.
I think if you are fit and skilled there are a lot of things you *could* do in well made full plate. But veins is about long term travel and if caving long term in full plate you would just die. The accumulation of stuff would grind you down.
DeleteI mean cavers even take the cardboard tubes out of thier toilet roll to reduce weight.
Yeah that absolutely makes sense, I mean I assume adventurers are astonishingly fit, I mean how often do they climb 50' of rope no trouble?
DeleteMy own setting is more megadungeon, so trips into the dungeon are more like a day or two maximum. I like your plate rules in so far as they mirror my power armor rules.
1) You want to climb a 'rope' wearing 800 lbs of bronze plates?
2) You want to cross a rickety rusted catwalk in 800lbs of bronze plate?
3) You'd like to sneak up on someone while wearing a clanking alchemical steam engine on you back?