Re: Armor proposal 1

[Benjamin Austin <jedi@ecn.purdue.edu>]

On Thu, 19 Nov 1998, Wright Frazier wrote:

> > 
> > I think that your stats are based on an assumption that I would not have 
> > made.  I do not recall the book stating that the armor is designed for 
> > water combat.  Now, perhaps that is being inferred but contary to that 
> > point is that the the Marines are the ones that do the primary fighting 
> > at sea.  If armor is so unrestrictive, then why don't we see mariners 
> > riding the backs of dolphins wearing steel plate?
> 
> I asked one of the original conceptualizers of AQ armor's appearence,
> and he described it too me in detail.

I'm curious as to who this was but it was probably before my time at AQ 
so it doesn't matter. 

> 
> Why do we not see marines in steel plate on doliphins.
> 	a) rust.

I was unaware that my car becomes unuseable after it rains since, if it 
were mostly rust (and it has spend its life outside), would be unable to 
support the weight of its engine.  The exception is John's car.  :)  It 
_must_ have the lightest engine ever.

Also, if items are cared for, rust is avoidable.  More to that, there is 
no salt in the water greatly reducing its corrosive effects.

> 	b) because noone has bothered to effectively writeup watermovement
> 		in armor till recently.
> 	c) Because it will slow your swimming down from the max rate.

Go right ahead and chase that ship.

> 	d) Because steel plate costs 40,000sp.


That's an economic issue and there have be times where you were either a 
minimalist or a rate 2 character if you didn't have 40,000 sp in your 
back pocket.


> 	e) Because you didn't look very hard and so few well done marine
> 		combat scenarios are run.

Look hard at what?  I've never heard a GM say "The boat approaching has 
several men running around on the deck in heavy plate so you immediately 
recognize it as a mariner vessel."

> 
> Just for note, the marine that I played up until recently always wore
> 	a leather breastplate, even when on board ship.
> 
> > 
> > The same to the water movements.  Was it said that the armor in the game 
> > is exactly the same as the armor of our medevil times?  That's the best 
> > base line that I had to go from and so I comapred it to that too.  Maybe 
> > the plate mail is big old chucks of plate strapped around someones body?  
> > I don't know - I didn't design the world.  I think that changing the 
> > armor rating or movement rates for them would drastically shift the 
> > balance of the game.
> 
> We've already covered this.  

I'm sorry.  That discussion must be with the hirudo change write-up - 
lost in the cyber mail or something.

[Rest cut to not cog email arteries]

Granted, Wright, you know more about history than I do (by far, I might 
ad).  You've been playing AQ probably more than twice as long as I have.  
Conceeded.  But looking at your arguements, your saying that there has 
been more than adequate time to pass on Jearen for the armor to reach its 
full potential on this planet.  But you've already said that most of the 
battles take place on the water.  Marines don't _wear_ armor.  Okay, 
sure.  You can sight a number of adventures that are marines and wear 
armor or you my run an adventure next week with the whole marajio deck 
out in best steel that can be found _just_ to prove me wrong; but I'm 
talking about the fact according to the book (in that the book gives them 
the all-protective fish net shirt to start with and the charpter about 
marines doesn't advocate wearing armor) the marines who fight most of the 
battles on the planet could care less aboutit and therefore wouldn't have 
spent the thousands of years to make it "perfect."  

So you can argue that the land warriors are the ones who developed the 
fine perfection in the armor.  But let's look at those.  At very few 
times has there been a standing army on Lojem Isle for an appreciable 
amount of time (at least that I can recall or have heard about).  The 
group of people that are primarily involved in comabt on the land is the 
T'orites and they don't wear armor either.  So who has been wearing this 
armor long enough to get everyone together and say "This chafes me so.  
Let's change its design,"?  Perhaps the weapon/armor smithing ought to be 
a reserved skill due to lack of use.

I apologize for coming back at you so hard but I guess that I fail to see 
were all the improvements could have been made.  It is hard for me to 
imagine the back in medival times they were running around in a suit of 
full plate better than our police swat teams with comporable protection.

Again, sorry if this sounds harsh - it is not meant to be.

BJ