Normal humans and humanoids can soak bashing damage with their full soak pool. Normal humans and humanoids cannot soak lethal or aggravated damage without armor unless they have magical assistance.
Types of Armor
I know there are dozens if not hundreds of types of armor. Rather than to get into the minutiae of how leather armor compared to gambison armor, I've created very generic armor descriptions. Player characters can choose the type and appearance of the armor they wear within reason.
I've created the categories Light Armor, Medium Armor, Heavy Armor, and Full Plate Armor.
Light armor includes many variations of gambeson and leather.
Medium armor is typically a breast plate or chain shirt over the torso and softer armor over the limbs and joints.
Heavy armor primarily refers to chain mail and scale mail.
Plate male refers to solid metal armor, generally limited to nobility or very successful adventurers. Not only is it expensive to make, but plate armor needs to be specifically sized to the wearer.
Light Armor: 3 extra soak dice
Medium Armor: 5 extra soak dice
Heavy Armor: 6 extra soak dice
Full Plate Armor: 7 extra soak dice.
S and H class damage
Many weapons have an S (soft) and H (hard) class of damage. This means the weapon is either optimized to pierce armor or it’s optimized to savage armor-less foes. If an attack or weapon doesn’t have a specific S/H split, then assume they are the same damage rating.
Bladed weapons usually have higher S class damage and blunt force or crushing weapons usually have higher H class damage.
S Class damage is for hitting an unarmored target or a target with light armor or monsters with unusually thick skin.
H Class damage is for hitting a target wearing metal armor or metal like armor. This also includes monsters with stony or literally metallic hides as well as very thick shelled creatures like crustaceans and turtles.
Armor and Fatigue Checks
Wearing armor while engaging in strenuous activities makes it harder to pass fatigue checks. This is why many soldiers do not don their armor while on the march and why many adventurers prefer light armor over heavier armors.
Light Armor: +1 difficulty to fatigue checks
Medium Armor: +2 difficulty to fatigue checks
Heavy Armor: +3 difficulty to fatigue checks
Full Plate Armor: +3 difficulty to fatigue checks
It is normally not worth worrying about fatigue checks every day unless players insist on their character's wearing their armor 24/7.
Alertness penalties
Heavier armor usually includes a helmet. Visors restrict field of vision somewhat, and ears that are covered up restrict hearing. In game terms this results in penalties to Alertness rolls.
Light Armor: No Alertness penalty
Medium Armor: +1 difficulty to Alertness rolls
Heavy Armor: +1 difficulty to Alertness rolls
Plate Armor: +2 difficulty to Alertness rolls
Characters can choose to avoid these penalties by not wearing a helmet, but such characters are vulnerable to called head shots.
Agility Penalties
Agility penalties apply to dodge and Athletics rolls as well as magic that uses Dexterity in the roll.
Light/Medium Armor: No penalty
Heavy/Plate Armor: +1 penalty
Any armor not properly fitted: +1 penalty (cumulative)
Minimum Strength for Armor
Each armor has a minimum strength rating. A character that is wearing armor that he or she lacks the appropriate strength to wear receives a +1 agility penalty and +2 fatigue check penalty cumulative with other modifiers.
If a character is wearing armor that has a minimum strength more than two dots above the character's current strength is essentially immobilized. This is the normally the result of a character taking Strength attribute damage while wearing armor.
Light Armor: Minimum Strength 1
Medium Armor: Minimum Strength 2
Heavy/Full Plate Armor: Minimum Strength 3
Characters can wear armor with below the minimum Strength but they suffer a one die penalty on all Dexterity rolls if they do.
]Armor Costs
Light Armor: 2 gold pieces base cost
Medium Armor: 15 god pieces base cost
Heavy Armor: 50 gold pieces base cost
Full Plate Armor: 150 gold pieces base cost
Base cost refers to armor with no frills. People of all social classes generally prefer to decorate or embellish their armor in some way.
In most places, gnomes and other small humanoids can buy armor at 75% of the typical cost because of the materials saved. Creatures of large size but very similar to human anatomy such as half-orcs or orcs usually have to pay about 33% more for armor because of the extra materials needed.
Creatures of human size or smaller with unusual anatomy (tails, horns, odd body shapes) usually have to pay 50 to 100% more than the typical cost.
Creatures of unusual body shape and large size (such as centaurs) often have to pay exorbitant amounts for armor.
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