Improved Armor Tables Part 3 - Light Armor

This is part 3 of my ongoing series on improving the armor tables.  Unlike my Fixing the Weapons Table posts, these changes should be considered entirely optional and a GM should carefully consider whether they want to use them in their game, because it might mean a lot of tweaking stat blocks behind the scenes.  These changes are designed for GMs who love history and want their fantasy worlds to be a little more grounded in it.

This improved armor tables project has been a real labor of love for me.  I have poured countless hours into research, design, and revision that I honestly probably should have spent formulating my PhD proposal or writing thank you notes to my wedding guests.  But hey, I wouldn't be me if I weren't doing this.  What is the point of free time, I ask you, if not to spend it doing something which engages you, even if what engages you is reconciling a body of historical research with an RPG rules system and compiling the results on a table for the readers of your blog?

Now that my table is (mostly) complete, I've had a bit of a debate with myself as to how I should break it up to present to you.  Should I cram it all into one long post?  No, my posts tend to be overly long as it is.  Should I divide it in two, perhaps one post presenting prehistoric and Bronze Age armors and another presenting Roman and medieval armors?  Or perhaps divide it between primarily European and primarily non-European armors?  Finally, I settled on what is perhaps the most obvious solution: one post for light armors, one for medium, and one for heavy.  The deal was sealed when I realized that I had inadvertently made seven armors of each type.  The sixth and (possibly) final part of this series will go over a new set of rules for mixing together two armors to make a composite suit of armor.

The armors presented below and in subsequent parts probably shouldn't all be available in the same time and place in your game world.  After all, one would hardly expect a medieval German warrior to be able to purchase ancient Thracian bronze scale armor or 17th century Iroquois wooden slat armor.  For this reason, and for my own edification, I have provided some historical information with each armor entry below, in order to aid the GM in determining which armors would fit best in his or her campaign setting.

The following items and rules in gold and their accompanying tables are available as Open Game Content under the OGL.  Open Game Content is ©2015 Jonah Bomgaars and d20 Despot.

Arming Doublet

Modern arming doublets; via medievalwarfare.info, myself, and the British Plate Armor Society

Cost 5gp; AC +1; Max Dex +8; Check Penalty 0; Weight 5 lbs.

   This lighter version of padded armor is meant to be worn under heavier suits of armor to serve as added protection against blows and protect the body from chafing and pinching.  Most types of armor cannot be worn without an arming doublet or some similar garment underneath.  Arming doublets for plate and full plate have reinforced ‘arming points’ where the plates are tied or strapped to the doublet, forming the understructure that keeps the armor together and its wearer moving freely. 

   All types of armor except leather, padded, woven, and hide come with an arming doublet included.  The cost, weight, and protective qualities of the arming doublets are already factored into each type of armor - they are presented here for the benefit of the character whose armor is destroyed, or who only has time to don his arming doublet before battle. 

   Masterwork armor comes with a masterwork arming doublet.  Wearing a masterwork arming doublet under non-masterwork armor has no mechanical effect, although it is noticeably more comfortable. 

   Historical Notes: All cultures that have used armor heavier than leather have developed some type of arming garment, usually in the form of a coat of padded cloth. 

   Other Names: aketon, pourpoint; Norse - vápntreyja

Leather Armor

Cost 5gp; AC +1; Max Dex +8; Check Penalty 0; Weight 5 lbs.

   Leather is tough yet flexible, ideal for crafting simple defensive garments.  The protection it offers is minimal, but better by far than cloth or bare skin in the heat of battle. 

   This should not be confused with cuir bouilli - leather that has been boiled to thicken and stiffen it - which is used to make tougher armors like leather lamellar, leather scale, and leather plate. 

   Historical Notes: While cuir bouilli makes a fine material for crafting armor, regular unboiled leather makes for an acceptable if inferior substitute.  Garments of thin hide have been used as armor across many cultures, often simply because their clothes were already made out of leather, and wearing clothes into battle is generally considered to be better than wearing nothing at all (unless you are a Celt). 

Leather Lamellar Armor

Left to right: 19th century Yi pixiongjia (Royal Armouries, Leeds); Edo period Edo period nerigawa hon kozane maru dou  (Samuraiantiqueworld, via Wikimedia); 18th century Chinese leather lamellar armor (Royal Armouries, Leeds)

Cost 40gp; AC +3; Max Dex +6; Check Penalty -1; Weight 20 lbs.

   This armor is made of overlapping pieces of leather - called lamellae - laced together into parallel strips, unlike scale armor, where the pieces of armor are fastened to a leather backing.  This makes lamellar armor lighter and more flexible than scale.  

   Historical Notes:  Although boiled leather could be used to make large, tough plates of armor, it was more commonly used to make smaller overlapping lamellae or scales.  Leather lamellar armor was used throughout much of the ancient and medieval world.  As with most types of leather armor, material remnants are few and far between, so unfortunately we can’t know just how widespread this armor type was.  Leather lamellar attained particular longevity in China, where it is attested as early as the 6th century and as late as the 20th.  In some places, such as Japan, lamellae of leather, horn, and metal were used together in the same suit of armor, forming a composite lamellar. 

   Other Names: Chinese - pixiongjia; Japanese - nerigawa hon kozane

Leather Scale

Japanese gyorin kozane (Samuraiantiqueworld via Wikimedia)

Cost 30gp; AC +3; Max Dex +5; Check Penalty -1; Weight 25 lbs.

   This armor is constructed of overlapping scales of boiled leather fastened to a backing of flexible leather or cloth.

   Historical Notes:  Leather scale was presumably the precursor to leather lamellar, just as metal scale armor gave way to metal lamellar armor in the Near East and Central Asia.  As with all leather armors, there are few surviving examples.  We know that the Japanese had employed leather scale armor called kawara.  An 18th century source attests to the construction and use of rawhide leather scale barding armor by the Apache or Comanche. 

   Other Names: Japanese - gyorin kozane, kawara

Padded Armor

Left to right: 19th century Sudanese jibbah (Royal Armouries, Leeds); Medieval footman wearing padded gambeson (Morgan Bible, via Wikimedia); 19th century Baguirmi horseman, both warrior and mount wearing padded armor (Daniel Bruun, via Wikimedia)

Cost 10gp; AC +2; Max Dex +7; Check Penalty 0; Weight 10 lbs.

   This long jacket is quilted together from dozens of layers of fabric, forming a flexible and surprisingly resilient protective garment that protects the body from bludgeoning attacks and even turns aside sword cuts and deflects arrows.  It is widely favored for being easy to make and highly affordable compared to more protective armors.  It can, however, get uncomfortably hot in unfavorable weather or the heat of battle. 

   Historical Notes: Padded armor, due to its simplicity, affordability, and surprising effectiveness, is an armor found across a wide span of time and geography.  In Europe, it was probably worn since ancient times, and definitely since the High Middle Ages - the era of the arming doublet.  Its use as infantry armor continued into the 17th century.  In the kingdoms of sub-Saharan Africa, padded armor was commonly worn by warriors and their horses well into the 19th century.  Native Americans wore quilted armor as well, sometimes stuffed with sand and with more sand and pebbles glued to the outside. Padded armor called ichcahuipilli was the main armor of Aztec warriors.  

   This armor can also be used to represent the stiff linen armor common to the ancient Mediterranean, notably worn by Greek hoplites and Alexandrian infantry, although the layers of linen armor were possibly glued rather than quilted together.

   Other Names: aketon, gambeson, padded jack; Aztec - ichcahuipilli; Sudan - jibbah

Wooden Rod Armor

Rod armor vest made by the Karuk people of California (National Museum of the American Indian)

Cost 4gp; AC +2; Max Dex +6; Check Penalty -2; Weight 15 lbs.

   This simple armor is made of dozens of rods or sticks of hard wood bound closely together with twine, sinew, strips of bark, or leather thongs.  The result is a light, stiff armor that provides some protection against clubs, axes, and arrows at the expense of restricting the wearer’s range of motion.  A full suit of rod armor consists of a cuirass, a skirt or thigh defenses, greaves, forearm defenses, and a helmet of wood or leather.  It is worn over a leather or padded cloth arming jacket. 

   These stats can also be used for bamboo armor. 

   Historical Notes: Rod armor is one of several wooden armors used by native North Americans before (and slightly after) European contact.  Its use is widely attested in the northwestern and northeastern United States and to a lesser extent elsewhere, although in most cases we only know of cuirasses of rod armor being used.  It is from an early description of an Iroquois warrior that we get a description of a full suit of rod armor complete with arm and leg protection, but this was apparently not common to neighboring tribes (at least by the 17th century). 

Woven Armor

Coconut fiber dueling armor of an I-Kiribati warrior, complete with sharktooth sword and pufferfish helmet (Kelvingrove Museum, Glasgow)

Cost 2gp; AC +1; Max Dex +7; Check Penalty -1; Weight 5 lbs.

   This light armor is woven from tough fibers, reeds, or other materials suitable for basketry.  It is common to parts of the world where leather and cloth are harder to come by, such as tropical islands. 

   Historical Notes: Armor woven from rattan was common amongst warriors of maritime Southeast Asia, including the Philippines and Indonesia, well into modern times.  Warriors of the Pacific islands, such as the I-Kiribati, used coconut fibers to weave suits of armor, sometimes supplemented with fish leather. 

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Compared to the original armor table, padded and leather armor appears to have switched places.  This is for two reasons: (1) padded armor really is surprisingly protective, and I wanted my armor tables to reflect that; and (2) I am drawing a distinction between the tough yet supple leather we are all familiar with and the thick and hard cuir bouilli that was actually used to make armor.  To be fair, D&D and Pathfinder have always drawn a distinction between the two, but I'm not sure how well it stuck in the consciousness of the player base.  I am leaving normal, un-boiled leather as a basic, low-protection armor, and adding several types of tougher armors made from cuir bouilli (one of which is a type of medium armor you will see later).

You will notice that the option of a mail shirt is no longer available as a base armor type.  This is partly because I have only included stats for full-body armors (the option of wearing only a shirt or cuirass of armor will be added in part six as an optional rule), but also because I found it convenient to limit overlap between the different categories of armor: light armor is +1 to +3, medium is +4 to +6, and heavy is +7 to +9.

-your pufferfish-helmeted d20 despot