A pc brought up a question today , can he wear cloths under his leather armor and would the soak/defense ratings stack like sheild? same thing with robes can pcs wear robes over there armor adding an aditional defense ? I cant find anything in the rules to say they couldnt .

thanks for your thoughts on this eveyrone take care : )

drallcome said:

ragnar63 said:

Where in the rulebook did you find this? I can't seem to find any statement that different armors wouldn't stack. The entry in the equipment section only says that armor and shields stack and makes no mention at all about different types of armor. I didnt check the errata though, maybe it's in there.

Using a bit of common sense, one could see that SOME kinds of armor could be "stackable".

You'd think that wearing bulky robes (+1 def) would still make you a bit harder to hit, even though you're wearing leather armor underneath (+2 soak, i believe).

I seem to remember seeing that armour doesn't stack you take the best. I think the confusion is that in WFRP 2 armour did stack. That being said there are other advantages to stacking things. Robes hide the fact that you are waring chain underneath....

The rules only say that the benefits of armor and shields stack and gives the example of plate armor and a tower shield. This implies that only one type of armor may be worn, but the rules do not explicitly say that. The problem with allowing armor to stack is where do you draw the line? Surely everyone can wear cloth under whatever other armor they have? And while the description of robes implies that they are available to wizards and priests only (may explain why they are rare), couldn't you wear a robe over chain? Encumbrance offers some disincentive. Full Plate over chainmail would have encumbrance 14, but a character with Str 5 could easily accommodate this and carry a tower shield and hand weapon. But then how do you explain that Breastplate and Chain is the same encumbrance as Chainmail, while being better defense and soak than Chainmail alone? While we're at it, why does a Chain shirt provide a defense of 1 when a full suit of Chainmail provides none? The answer is that each is a separate armor and they don't stack. You pick your armor and trade off defense, soak, and encumbrance.

And there is the practical question of "functional encumbrance." Sure maybe you can carry 2 suits of full plate, but if you are moving so slow I can stick a poignard in the visor (or armpit, or crotch), did it really help you? So in our game we handwave stacking; put on a robe over the chain if you want to disguise your armor, but it slows you down enough (+/-) that it doesn't provide the armor benefit that your get from only wearing robe (and receiving the associated mobility).

May not be the most realistic way to handle it, but the only other alternative that we can see is accounting level encumbrance, and that's no fun for anyone.

(History check: I want to say red box D&D handled some items the same way: encumbrance wasn't just weight, it also estimated how bulky and unwieldly an object might be.

//H

mac40k said:

Perfectly valid answers and I agree with you.

But I still think this should have been stated in the rules. I hope it gets clarified in the next FAQ/errata version.

To be honest i think that its kinda taken into account that when you put on a chainmail you don't do it over your bear skin, for several reasons. First off you will chafe, badly, I'm talking infections and all sorts of nasty, also it will get cold, very very cold if its a cold day or worse if warm then you suddenly have hot metal against your skin. So yer a little common sense.

When it comes to plate armour you actually wear a padded jacket underneath or the blow against the metal plate will still break your arm so you need something to absorb the blow.

Ideas:

Superior cloth armor!

Winter furs

A buckler

Leather bracers and greves

The idea of wearing multiple suits of armor is just plain stupid (pardon my French). First of all, everyone who wears any kind of armor also wears a set of clothing beneath it. This is basically a question of comfort and warmth. Secondly, armor is suffocating and limits your mobility to say the least. If you've never worn any armor then think of cold winter days where you put on as much clothes as possible to keep warm. Multiple layers of clothes makes it hard to move around (gracefully) and any physical exertion will make you sweat uncontrollably within minutes. Thus wearing multiple armors is just not practical in any way. Never! There's a reason people have never done this historically speaking. Today you don't see military or police officers walking around in two sets of bulletproof vests.

Besides all of the above it says in the players guide on p. 102 (top right): "A character can only benefit from one suit of armor at a time"

Nuff said

Ideas:

Superior cloth armor!

Winter furs

A buckler

Leather bracers and greves

I think a much better system would involve Agility being used to determine defense (aka chance of being missed).

I feel like right now it's an incredibly lackluster stat, with the most amount of focus put on soak and Strength. Hell, even the Swordmaster uses Strength on ALL ATTACKS, even on Flight of the Phoenix.

That just seems ridiculous. I think Agility needs to be made more relevant. You either go Toughness/Armor/Soak and can tank a load of damage, or go Agility and be able to evade most damage, but are squishier per whole.