Re: Armor proposal 1

[Wright Frazier <khelek>]

> > 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. 

Greg.

> 
> > 
> > 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.

Nope, there is salt and other minerals in it, just in low concentrations.
Low enough that is still drinkable.

> 
> > 	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.

I've run one down before.  Lizards move at 45 in the water.

> 
> > 	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.

And its a bad GM that without even considering things that lets someone
buy steel plate off the cuff with out even a MINOR amount of RP in it.

Steel is not plentiful.

> 
> 
> > 	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."

I've run, and seen others run vessels with many armed and armored men
on the decks.  Seen landing craft full of armored men as well.  Last one
was about a month ago.

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

I believe the hirudo stuff is covered in the gm list archives.

> 
> [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."  
> 

Marines do wear armor when they don't want to die, or would do so more
if armor was accurately protrayed in AQ.  It however is _NOT_.  If it
was, it would be mobile, and give a fair amount of protection, but nothing
horendous like full plate armor.  Which while mobile as hell, was wholey
unsuited for use on a ship.

You seem to have this mistaken impression that people wouldn't wear
armor if it was available.  Sorry guy, but not everyone is the kung fu
master from Kung Fu the series.  People wear armor because they want
to survive.  The average person take 1-2 hits to kill, maim, or put down.
Veterans take 3-4 hits.  If armor can extend this for 1 to 2 hits, then
that is a decisive advantage, and one you want if you plan to live.
The world isn't composed of rate 20 guys, or even rate 15 guys.  The
average guy is less than 10, usually less than 5.  The armor, shield,
and helmet make a huge difference in surviveability.

My problem is that the armor far from realistic in its penalties.  Armor
would be made using fish hides and stuff that doesn't rust or get hindered
by water.  This is the reason marines don't wear armor, because with the
way its written now, people can't imagine a marine using it.  Not because
they wouldn't wear it if it was practical.  For a microcosmic example
of this, look at the majority of adventurers who don't wear anything heavier
than clothes because they don't want to sacrifice the movement to wear
a breast and backplate that slows you to 1/3 of your movement.

If Jevan could swim in armor with 100lbs of stuff carrying a sword and
wearing boots, if people can run sprints in Kevin's mail, if people
can swim and effectively use a sword with only minor difficulties while
in the water, and do this stuff using real world equivilants, not stuff
that is specifically developed for water combat.  Then it is LUDICROUS
to think that Jaernians wouldn't have done it, and done it better and
in a way that is useable.


> 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.

More islands out in the world than Lojem.  Further about standing armies.
These were for all practical purposes never kept with few exceptions in
times of peace.  It wasn't till the 1600 and 1700's that we saw standing
armies appear in peace time.  Why because armies take a significant portion
of the population and force it to produce nothing.  They are just resource
sinks, and only with STRONG and very wealthy central governments can
you get a standing army.

re: Torites leading landwars.  I couldn't disagree more.  May be a view,
but torites are religious fanatics and few can face the years of mental
and physical discipline to become a priest of t'or.  It is far easier
to be a marine or warrior.  They may not be the martial artists that
Torites are, but they are more practical.  Just looking at xp cost alone,
a warrior will have many more spare xp around than a torite.  Torites are
DAMN expensive to raise.  From a roleplaying stand point it takes many
years to train ones body to the perfection of a torite, not so for
a warrior or marine.  As for why torites don't wear armor, Tor doesn't
allow them and the martial arts junk gets messed up by it.

Think of torites as shaolin monks, and marines/warriors as every other
chinese warrior.  The monk was an abosolute combat terror with hands or
spear.  A master of them could kill anyone one on one.  However that didn't
stop the average chinese soldier from wearing armor and toting a spear.
Further it wouldn't save said monk from getting speared by the 10 guys
with spears that came after him.  or for another example, Torites are
kinda like the Special Forces..while it'd be nice to have an army of'em,
you aren't going to raise an army of'em because you can't afford to
keep that many people nonproducing for the half decade it takes to train'em.

So your statement that torites are the primary land guys is completely
bogus.  They are just too expensive.

Restricting armor/weapon smithing.  That'd be fine with me since its
an intellegence skill and not something that can just be picked up
without either a) researching it b) being taught it.

> 
> 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.

Wish I still had the video tape, I had this great tape of a guy in full
plate doing tuck rolls, climbing fences, fighting, jumping around, ect...
While he was fairly loud doing it, he was not hindered.  

Plate armor ruled the battle field because it was so effective.  It was
practically impenetrable, to such a degree that edged weapons were not used.
It took a heavy blunt force trauma impact to take down a guy in plate because
you had to either render the armor immobile by damaging it, or you had
to break the bones of the wearer.  

Plate armor disappeared for 1 reasons.  Quality guns.  Otherwise anyone
who could get it wore it.  Conquistadors tromping up the shores into
central america to kill the aztecs, Swiss pikeman running for a mile
of open field to engage in a battle wearing breast and backplates, spanish
sword and buckler men, etc...  They all wore plate armor if they could
get it because the stuff worked beautifully.  Further it could stop a
knife, something a kevlar vest can't do, which I assure you was much
to the chagrin of a young man who bet another friend that he couldn't
get a kabar through the vest.  needless to say the gentleman is now dead.

Bleh, I'm rambling now.

Wright