Improved Armor Tables Part 5 - Heavy Armor

This is part 5 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 week's subject is heavy armor.  This is the armor for those who can afford it, for while it may be more restrictive and, well, heavier than other armors, the protection it provides is second to none.  In the category of heavy armor, we have banded armor, bronze plate, mail-and-plate, heavy mail, bronze panoply, plate, and full plate.  This is armor for your characters that can take a beating and give one back in return: your stalwart legionnaires, your axe-wielding sea-raiders, your shining knights errant, and your bloodthirsty horsemen of the steppe.

Fans of plate armor will be pleased to see that, in these tables, plate and full plate offer more flexibility than they do in Pathfinder or D&D 3.5.  This is some of the best armor ever made, worn by the wealthiest warriors of Europe.  They would not have fought in it if it restricted their movements and limited their ability to fight.  It may have been heavy, but the way it was made and worn distributed its weight across the whole body, making it feel lighter than mail.

Read on to see the stats for all these armor types and learn more about them.  As before, I have provided some historical information with each armor entry in order to aid the GM in determining which armors would fit best in a particular 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.

Banded Armor

Left: A reenactor in reproduction lorica segmentata (via Wikimedia);
Right: surviving pieces of Roman banded armor recovered in Scotland (Scottish National Museum, Edinburgh)

Cost 250gp; AC +7; Max Dex +2; Check Penalty -7; Weight 40 lbs.

   Also known as laminar or segmental armor, this heavy armor is made up of solid overlapping bands of metal (called lames) fastened together with internal leather straps.  This construction grants greater flexibility than a solid breastplate would, at the expense of structural integrity.  It is worn over a thick leather tunic or an arming doublet.  Many types of banded armor are designed to be broken down for ease of storage and transport. 

   Historical Notes: The classic example of this armor is Roman lorica segmentata, the armor worn by most modern depictions of Roman legionnaires, although historically mail (lorica hamata) was probably much more common in the legions.  Classical lorica segmentata, in use for the first two and a half centuries AD, is usually just a cuirass of banded armor.  Roman legionnaires and cavalrymen also sometimes made use of a manica - a type of banded arm guard also used by gladiators and probably adopted from the steppe horsemen of the east.  The ancient Parthians are known to have used banded limb armor in combination with scale cuirasses.  Romans certainly knew about banded leg armor, as some of their neighbors used it, but whether Romans ever adopted it is unclear. 

   For a full suit of banded armor, we must look to Central Asia or Japan.  Laminar armor was one of several popular armors used by the steppe peoples of Central Asia and the warriors of Iran, along with various forms of brigandine and lamellar, until Mongolian-style mail and plate began to supersede them.   Japanese armors were primarily lamellar until the introduction of firearms to the island, when banded armor made of more solid steel bands that better resisted musket shot became the chief armor of the samurai. 

   Other Names: laminar, segmental armor; Japanese - kiritsuke iyozane, munemenui dō; Roman - lorica laminata, lorica segmentata (fun fact: lorica segmentata is not a surviving Roman term, but a Victorian neologism coined to describe this type of armor)

   Pedantic Historian's Note: Banded armor should not be confused with 'banded mail', a type of armor postulated by Victorian medievalists to have existed, based on some medieval illustrations, but now widely considered not to have existed.  Banded mail's lifespan was extended by early RPG designers, whose use of outdated scholarship ensured that  'banded mail' would still show up in fantasy RPGs to this day, although most people are unaware of the Victorian definition(s) of the armor type and probably assume it to be another way of describing Roman lorica segmentata.  Nonetheless, it should never be referred to as banded mail, because the word 'mail' refers exclusively to the armor of interlocking rings commonly referred to as chainmail.  

   For more information on lorica segmentata, see Lorica Segmentata Volume I: A Handbook of Articulated Roman Plate Armour, by M.C. Bishop (available for free on Scribd)

Bronze Plate

Pieces of bronze armor in the British Museum:
Helmet - Corinthian, 400 BC, dedicated to Zeus by the Argives as spoils of war; Greaves and Foot Guards - Greek or Italian, 520-480 BC, foot guards are rare and were probably not widely used; Cuirass - Greek or Italian, 4th century BC

Cost 800gp; AC +7; Max Dex +1; Check Penalty -7; Weight 50 lbs.

   The simplest and earliest of the heavy armors, bronze plate consists of a heavy bronze breastplate and backplate, a protective skirt of bronze plates affixed to leather or cloth, greaves to protect the lower legs, and sometimes forearm guards.  The head is protected by a heavy bronze helm.  The inside of the armor is padded with multiple layers of linen to absorb blows and prevent chafing.  The areas of the body covered by the plate are very well protected, but the structure of the armor leaves many gaps that could be exploited by a skilled opponent. 

   Historical Notes: This is the classic hoplite armor (although most hoplites from the time this armor was popular would have worn cuirasses of leather plate or reinforced linen).  But don’t restrict your view of bronze plate to that of Classical Greek hoplites.  Other Bronze Age cultures, including pre-Classical Greece, used very different looking bronze plate.  Often the breastplate and backplate were smaller, and attached over the shoulder by broad bronze-plated straps that doubled as pauldron.  Some had very small breastplates supplemented with broad bronze girdles.  This armor is meant to represent any heavy bronze armor that provided less coverage than bronze panoply. 

   Other Names: Greek - hopla

Mail-and-Plate

Left: Late 15th century Turkish mail-and-plate armor for man and horse; Center: 18th century Sidhi mail-and-plate armor;
Right: late 16th or early 17th century mail-and-plate armor for an elephant (bargustawan-i-pil); all armors on display at Royal Armories, Leeds

Cost 800gp; AC +7; Max Dex +3; Check Penalty -5; Weight 40 lbs.

   Essentially a combination of light mail and lamellar, mail-and-plate armor retains the flexibility of light mail with the added protection of overlapping steel plates.  It consists of a close-fitting suit of light mail with lamellae of steel  incorporated directly into the structure of the armor wherever it wouldn’t impair movement.  Simpler examples of mail-and-plate armor may just have four plates fastened over the lower torso with additional plates over the forearms and shins - a style known as ‘mirrored armor’.   Masterwork suits of mail-and-plate tend to have more plates than rings. 

   Historical Notes: This advanced type of armor evolved in the Middle East or Central Asia, where light mail and lamellar armors were in common use.  It was influenced by Persian ‘mirrored armor’, to the point where some suits of mail-and-plate feature incorporated ‘mirrors’.  It was common throughout the Middle East, Russia, Persia, Central Asia, and India in the Late Middle Ages, although it may have originated much earlier.  It spread far, to Japan, Indonesia, and the Philippines, and it was in continued use in all of these areas into the nineteenth century.  

   Other Names: plated mail; Japanese - karuta, tatami; Korean - gyeongbeongap; Moro (The Philippines) - baju lamina; Persian - zereh bagtar; Russian - behterets, kalantar, yushman; Turkish - zirh gomlek; 

Mail, Heavy

14th or 15th century European mail hauberks at the Royal Armouries, Leeds.
The head is protected by a coif (as on the left) or a steel helmet and mail aventail (as on the right). 

Cost 300gp; AC +7; Max Dex +2; Check Penalty -6; Weight 50 lbs.

   Mail is made of tens of thousands of interlocking, riveted metal rings, resulting in a supremely flexible and resilient armor.  Typically, it comes in the form of a hauberk or byrnie - a long tunic covering the torso and upper arms and extending down to the knees, often split down the middle to allow the wearer to ride a horse.  A shorter shirt of mail is referred to as a haubergeon.  A hood of mail - called a coif - protects the head and neck, though a mail collar hanging from a plate helmet is called an aventail or a camail, and mail face protection is called a ventail.  Mail armor for the legs are called chausses.  Mail armor for the hands typically takes the form of a mitten, but the palm is always of leather or cloth to aid in gripping the weapon. 

   While mail is quite heavy, the main drawback of the armor is not so much its weight as how it is distributed; the whole armor hangs off the shoulders and - if belted - the waist.  Masterwork mail might reject the heavy hauberk for a more form-fitting suit of mail tailored to the body of the wearer, perhaps even including glove-like hand protection with individual fingers.  Some advanced suits of mail may include metal plates to protect the knees, elbows, and shoulders.

   This armor is worn over a padded arming jacket.

   Historical Notes: Mail is one of the most widespread and long-lived types of armor in history.  It appears to have originated in barbarian Europe around the 4th century B.C., where it was known to the Celts and the Etruscans.  It was adopted by the Romans and spread by them across Europe and by their rivals throughout the Near East and Asia, as far as Japan.  It was the defining armor of the Middle Ages in Europe, though it declined in popularity with the advent of more effective plate and brigandine.  It was still used in warfare in Africa in the 19th and early 20th centuries.  It even saw a brief attempted European revival in the trenches of World War One as protection against shrapnel.

   Other Names: Roman- lorica hamata

Bronze Panoply

(Schuppi, via Wikimedia)

The Dendra Panoply

Cost 1,000gp; AC +8; Max Dex +0; Check Penalty -8; Weight 55 lbs.

   This heavy armor is constructed of plates of bronze covering the torso and hanging down in a long skirt to protect the upper legs.  The arms are protected by large pauldrons and separate forearm guards, and the lower legs are protected by greaves.  A thick gorget, in conjunction with the helmet, protects the head.  Leather and linen lining keeps the plates from rubbing together and acts as padding for the wearer.  While it provides excellent coverage, it is also quite restrictive, and most of the weight hangs from the shoulders, making it heavy and unwieldy. 

   Historical Notes: The bronze panoply is the ultimate ancient expression of protection over maneuverability.  The only complete panoply we have comes from a 1400 BC Mycenaean burial at Dendra.  It weighs 18 kilograms after sitting in the ground for 3400 years, but a modern reconstruction (described in this thread) weighs about 24 kg including all the leather and linen padding and the complete helmet.  The owner describes being able to play cricket and shoot a bow in it but not being able to lift his arms high enough to throw a javelin. 

   There is some debate whether this armor was intended to be worn by a charioteer or if it was a high status front-line infantry armor.  Although we have only found one suit of Mycenaean bronze panoply, it may have been more widespread, and neighboring cultures may have used similar armors.  

Plate

Left to right: Italian Gothic armor, late 15th century; German Gothic armor, late 15th century ; German plate armor from Nuremberg, 1540; all on display at the Royal Armouries, Leeds

Cost 1,500gp; AC +8; Max Dex +1; Check Penalty -6; Weight 70 lbs.

   This highly protective armor consists of large, shaped plates of steel that cover most of the body, with mail filling in the gaps.  Typically, it includes a breastplate and backplate to protect the torso, vambraces and bracers for the arms, cuisses and greaves for the legs, and articulated gauntlets and sabatons for the hands and feet.  The most basic gauntlet is shaped like a mitten, providing coverage to the back of the hand but allowing only the thumb to move independently; a masterwork suit of plate might have fully articulated gauntlets to allow all the fingers their full range of motion.  The neck might be protected by a plate gorget or a mail aventail.  The mail that covers the gaps between plates is integrated into the padded arming doublet to which the plates are strapped. 

   Solid steel plates provide more protection than mail, and a system of straps distributes the armor’s weight more evenly across the body, making it less cumbersome as well.  Its burnished steel surfaces are also quite pleasing to the eye and offer areas for decoration and embellishment, adding to the armor’s appeal as a status symbol.  Skilled armorers are required for the construction of a suit of plate armor, which must be fitted to the wearer and angled to deflect blows away from vital areas. 

   A captured suit of plate armor has a 10% chance of fitting a new wearer, otherwise it must be resized.  Resizing a suit of plate to fit a new wearer of the same size category costs 100 to 400 (2d4x50) gold pieces. 

   Historical Notes: Plate came to the fore in the 14th century as an armor for wealthy knights.  Advances in metalworking, such as the invention of the blast furnace, allowed for the creation of very strong, light, and flexible steel that made for a superb defensive panoply that was also pleasingly shiny.  Armorsmiths soon developed new defensive (and aesthetic) features for the armor, like fluting that guided blades and points away from joints and vital areas.  By the latter half of the 15th century, plate armor was increasingly essential not just for knights and other cavalrymen but for all melee combatants. 

   As plate armor developed, more specialized protective plates were developed and less mail was required to cover the gaps, eventually leading to the development of full plate, which saw its heyday in the very end of the Middle Ages through the 16th century. 

   While European-style steel breastplates were spread across the world by the early age of exploration, plate armor seems to have developed and seen widespread use only in Europe. 

Plate, Full

Left: Jousting armor of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, 1575; Right: Foot combat armor of King Henry VIII, 1520;
Both on display at the Royal Armouries, Leeds

Cost 5,000gp; AC +9; Max Dex +2; Check Penalty -5; Weight 65 lbs.

   The very best plate armor requires no mail to protect the gaps in the armor, for any gaps are protected by cleverly shaped projections of plate or clever interlocking lames of steel.  In terms of sheer protective power, this is the best possible style of armor.  It is so finely crafted and tailored to its wearer that it hardly impairs their movement compared to other heavy armors.  Those skilled in wearing full plate can even perform cartwheels in their armor.  The helmet - called a ‘close helmet’ - encloses the entire head and attaches to the armor without the need for a gorget or aventail.  This armor is worn over a padded arming doublet. 

   A captured suit of full plate has a 5% chance of fitting a new wearer, otherwise it must be resized.  Resizing a suit of plate to fit a new wearer of the same size category costs 200 to 800 (2d4x100) gold pieces. 

   Historical Notes: Full plate is the finest armor in history, the culmination of hundreds of years of experimentation in plate armor.  Expert craftsmen combined hinges, sliding rivets, internal straps, and rotating sockets to create armor that covered nearly the entire body and allowed a surprisingly full range of motion.  These suits of armor were never widely used, so great was their expense that only the wealthiest aristocrats and royalty could afford them.  Full plate saw its peak in the 16th century, specifically during the reign of Henry VIII in England.  Henry VIII’s foot combat armor for the pollaxe (seen above, right), constructed for the tournament of the Field of the Cloth of Gold, is probably the best suit of plate armor ever made, at least among those that have survived to this day.  It features overlapping bands of steel that cover every possible gap, including notoriously difficult-to-cover areas like the back of the knee and the sensitive bits between the legs.  It so thoroughly covers the body that NASA studied it when designing space suits in the 1960s. 

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Well, we've covered light, medium, and heavy armours, shields, and even gone over hide and chitin armors, but that doesn't mean this series is over.  The next installation of Improved Armor Tables will have rules for partial and piecemeal armors, with some common examples.  I also feel that this would be an excellent subject for a d20 Despot product, with original illustrations, additional tables to aid the GM in selecting available armors for any given campaign setting, example magic armors, and further optional rules for customization.  So stay tuned for more info, dear readers!

-your cap-a-pie d20 despot