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Let me try another (friendlier) tack, too...

I love the reason to wear armor being "we have to sneak across Mordor and it's a disguise". Perfect. Yes, it's heavy and fatiguing and if you get into a fight you're going to be worse off, but avoiding detection seems more important. That's an excellent example of weighing pros and cons: heavy armor is worse than useless as armor (according to game mechanics), but you are balancing that against the need to remain undiscovered.

My issue is that all the reasons to wear heavy armor are either non-combat related, like the above example, or for pure RP when you're willing to "max-min" (whatever the opposite of min-max'ing is) for the purposes of storytelling: "Well, my character is a veteran warrior so even though the math says this is dumb I'm gonna wear heavy armor." Awesome. I love that.

But it shouldn't be necessary. There doesn't have to be no good mechanical reason for...no scenario in which combat mechanics recommend...wearing heavy armor. We could have it both ways.

Let's look at weapons. Sure, my sim could probably tell you which weapon is optimal for different circumstances, depending on whether you would rather have a shield, or have a low Edge rating, or a high Injury rating, or whatever. But the reality is that all of them are close enough that you can pick whatever weapon fits your character conception. If you really want to optimize your odds you can switch weapons or drop the shield and swing two-handed or whatever, based on circumstances (i.e. what you're fighting, how many of them there are, how you built your character, who you are with, whether or not you are being attacked, etc.) But you don't have to and you'll do fine.

Parry is the same way...depending on your stance, your skill, and your opponent, sometimes you want the shield, sometimes you don't. Or you can just always go one way or the other and it will be fine.

Armor, on the other hand, is heavily skewed toward good and bad choices. It's not a couple percentage points difference, it's double-digit. Worse, there seems to be no predictable scenario (again, combat mechanics related, not storytelling) in which the bad choice becomes the good choice. You can't say, "Well, I'm going to do worse against the occasional troll, but when the waves of goblins come I'll be ready." Heavy armor is "less worse" against the waves of goblins than it is against the troll, but still worse than medium armor, and Ricardo's Law of Comparative Advantage does not apply to armor choices.

You don't have to care at all about this issue; playing the game just ignoring the underlying mechanics and rolling the dice is 100% valid and fun. You can pick armor for RP reasons, never spend Valour points on weapon and armor qualities, and just not worry about whether or not your character is "good" at combat.

But for some of us balancing the RP with making effective gearing/build choices is part of the fun. And armor is currently not a fun choice.

P.S. By the way, yes the hobbits wore no armor on most of their adventure...until they were going to war. Then they wore armor.

SirKicley wrote: In the end, there has be a thin line between verisimilitude and game balance.

P.P.S. I personally don't care about verisimilitude, historical accuracy, etc., although I realize many people do. If realism dictated that "anybody who could afford it would take the hauberk" then I say to hell with realism. That's not an interesting choice.

I do find that the rules governing heavy armor are too strict. Beefy guys who have been trained since boyhood to wear heavy armor (your typical medieval knight) should be able to wear heavy armor without finding themselves at a serious disadvantage in all (or virtually all) circumstances. This is wrong; the rule is broken.

The saving grace is that the heaviest armors, such as full plate, seem to be all but nonexistent in Middle-earth. Even the ancient Numenoreans did not seem to wear it--possibly because the Numenoreans were primarily mariners; if they went to war, they did so by sea, not by land. Just the same, there should be circumstances where it is more advantageous to fight in partial plate armor than in a lighter one--at least for characters trained in the use of such armor.

One thing that everyone seems to be missing from their thoughts and simulations here is that Endurance can be returned in combat ... In fact it can come back pretty quickly if you practice. For instance in our group we have a Hobbit that can fairly regularly Sing back 7 Endurance for the group with the Rally Comrades action. There is precisely no way to remove a Wound.

Many people have been posting about how the rules should work as a satisfying game first and foremost (a point in which I agree) however the rules are absolutely focused on team-based play and this should really be taken into account. As much as I can't second guess the game designers I do feel that the expectation is for PCs to be losing Endurance and recovering it during fights. It certainly feels thematically appropriate. If this was factored into the fights where characters were losing due to endurance reaching zero I get the feeling it would far more clearly show the advantage of armour.

Just my thoughts here, feel free to disagree.

Otaku-sempai wrote: The saving grace is that the heaviest armors, such as full plate, seem to be all but nonexistent in Middle-earth. Even the ancient Numenoreans did not seem to wear it--possibly because the Numenoreans were primarily mariners; if they went to war, they did so by sea, not by land. Just the same, there should be circumstances where it is more advantageous to fight in partial plate armor than in a lighter one--at least for characters trained in the use of such armor.

On a slightly tangenal note, I kind of feel that having 3 stages of essentially what amounts to Chain Armor is a bit of overkill. Is there any reason to suppose that the "Chain Hauberk" could not visually be interpreted as metal breastplate with chain underneath? Ie, if your character wanted to wear a chain hauberk and call it a metal breastplate, do you think there is a problem with that interpretation?

bluejay wrote:One thing that everyone seems to be missing from their thoughts and simulations here is that Endurance can be returned in combat ... In fact it can come back pretty quickly if you practice. For instance in our group we have a Hobbit that can fairly regularly Sing back 7 Endurance for the group with the Rally Comrades action. There is precisely no way to remove a Wound.

...

Just my thoughts here, feel free to disagree.

True, Endurance can come back, but the Weary condition cannot (at least, not that quickly). I think that's the part that some of the pro-heavy camp is rallying against. The Hobbit can sing back the light armored fighter, but not the heavy armored fighter. That feels off (to some of us).

The only example of plate in middle earth that I recall is in Peter Jackson movies, where he has the elves show up to Helm's Deep wearing some pimped out elven plate.

I don't recall any examples of plate in the books though.

Anyways, the reason fatigue isn't usually implemented in most RPG systems is that it really only hurts players, never monsters. Monsters are there to die miserable deaths. They have no other purpose. So they're assumed to get killed before getting tired. Not so player, for whom there are always more monsters waiting around the next corner.

Considering the degree with which Mordor outnumbers the free people, this is even an accurate description of what the free peoples put up with.

Sauron:So, you killed my 50 orcs? That's cool. 300 more waiting for you around the next pass, another 500 in the valley after that, and then 2000 in the plains...

Rocmistro wrote:

bluejay wrote:One thing that everyone seems to be missing from their thoughts and simulations here is that Endurance can be returned in combat ... In fact it can come back pretty quickly if you practice. For instance in our group we have a Hobbit that can fairly regularly Sing back 7 Endurance for the group with the Rally Comrades action. There is precisely no way to remove a Wound.

...

Just my thoughts here, feel free to disagree.

True, Endurance can come back, but the Weary condition cannot (at least, not that quickly). I think that's the part that some of the pro-heavy camp is rallying against. The Hobbit can sing back the light armored fighter, but not the heavy armored fighter. That feels off (to some of us).

That's fair but of course you can continue to sing back Endurance before you get Weary. Most characters try and leave at least some buffer between the two values (and knockback can be used strategically here, as my players do).

Ah, but that's just it.

A fully armored character...

might have a great shield, a helm, and a mail hauberk.

Add to that, say, a Longsword...

And the fatigue is OVER the max endurance of the character in almost all circumstances. Sometimes including dwarves.

That is, a human being wearing such armor would START the battle weary. That's kinda not cool, because real Knights wore armor heavier then that and somehow managed to do fine.

Rocmistro wrote:On a slightly tangenal note, I kind of feel that having 3 stages of essentially what amounts to Chain Armor is a bit of overkill. Is there any reason to suppose that the "Chain Hauberk" could not visually be interpreted as metal breastplate with chain underneath? Ie, if your character wanted to wear a chain hauberk and call it a metal breastplate, do you think there is a problem with that interpretation?

Well, a hauberk is by (standard) definition any mail shirt, but especially a knee-length chain shirt as discussed in TOR; a breastplate could be worn over it, but not incorporated into it. The chain shirt that Gimli puts on before the Battle of Helm's Deep in Jackson's TTT is a hauberk. Any chain shirt (and scale mail and ring mail) is going to put all of its weight on the bearer's shoulders; this is what makes a full-length hauberk so wearying.