How does fatigue work?

[Evening]

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?

I see what you're trying to do. Tolkien frequently used corslet to describe mail armour (shirts mostly) despite it being commonly associated with torso plate armours. You can emulate Tolkien and say the character is wearing a breastplate instead of hauberk, but keep in mind in TOR (and Middle Earth) there aren't metal breastplates about. M-E has scale and coat-of-plate/lamellar and hose of a fine and flexible metal mesh (mail chausses), but no body plate. There are vambraces and greaves, which can be either metal or leather. Not having metal breastplates is a good thing. Metal breastplates are substantially superior to mail and once they arrive, the 'arms' race begins and everybody (that can afford them) starts carrying poleaxes...

Well, a hauberk is by (standard) definition any mail shirt.

Interesting. I know coats were interchangeable with hauberk, but I've not seen mail shirts (shirt, maille shirt, haubergeon) called hauberks.

[Evening]

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.

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.

Here's a good quote of some weary people
There sat other guards, with drawn swords laid upon their knees. Their golden hair was braided on their shoulders ; the sun was blazoned upon their green shields, their long corslets were burnished bright, and when they rose taller they seemed than mortal men.

[DavetheLost]

A couple of observations. Firstthe word "mail" or maille can refer to any metal armour, thus chainmail, platemail, etc to distinguish which type of mail is being worn.

Also like many authors Tolkien leaves a lot unwritten and un described in his novels. Are we to assume for example that because he never mentions it in his books no one in Middle Earth ever needed the restroom? Plate armour could easily fall into this gap.

A coat of "Jack" horn plates. Sewn between. Layers of canvas was described in one medieval manuscript as turning arrows, swords, spears, etc to such a degree that when the wearer was finally brought down the attackers hacked it to pieces with axes in frustration.

Chainmail actually does not put all the weight on the shoulders like a backpack. When properly belted and strapped on it distributes it's weight rather evenly and comfortably across the body. The easiest way to take off a chain shirt? Hands above the head, bend at the waist and wiggle a bit, gravity will do the rest.

Beowulf was described as swimming in chainmail and fighting sea monsters while he did so.

I do like that characters in heavier armour become weary faster than characters in light armour, and that they have less chance of sustaining a combat ending wound. I do feel that they can become too weary to continue fighting a bit too rapidly. I exchange two rounds of blows with the Orc and then we both fall down gasping for breath is not the stuff of heroic fantasy. Or are we all missing something in the rules that should allow adrenaline to kick in? "Give me a row of Orc necks to hew and room to swing my axe and all weariness will fall from me!" This doesn't quite seem to be reflected in the rules.

[Glorelendil]

"Give me a row of Orc necks to hew and room to swing my axe and all weariness will fall from me!" This doesn't quite seem to be reflected in the rules.

Well, it is for kin of the speaker of that quote, sort of.

But I agree with you.

This is probably too complicated, but maybe Fatigue/Weary should somehow correlate to how the fight unfolds. For example (again, too complicated...I'm just brainstorming here) what if you can go a number of rounds equal to your heart before Weary kicks in, and the counter resets to zero every time an enemy is defeated? So if you have Heart = 4, as long as an enemy dies (or flees, surrenders, etc.) every 4 rounds you never get weary?

Alternately, each defeat of an enemy could restore endurance equal to that enemy's attribute level to all heroes in the fight, perhaps in place of the rule that you get endurance back after a fight. (I might add that house rule to the sim....)

Such a mechanic gives high level characters a great advantage when mowing through weak enemies. Yes, that means you could go indefinitely against enemies that average less damage against you than their own attribute level. But, dang, you should be able to go indefinitely in that case.

[Otaku-sempai]

Well, a hauberk is by (standard) definition any mail shirt.

Interesting. I know coats were interchangeable with hauberk, but I've not seen mail shirts (shirt, maille shirt, haubergeon) called hauberks.

Well, I got my definition from a pair of dictionaries of modern English, so there may be some wiggle room regarding a short, sleeveless chain shirt. Encarta does specify that the term originally meant a sleeveless chain garment that only protected the neck and shoulders--that makes for a pretty broad range.

[Woodclaw]

"Give me a row of Orc necks to hew and room to swing my axe and all weariness will fall from me!" This doesn't quite seem to be reflected in the rules.

Well, it is for kin of the speaker of that quote, sort of.

But I agree with you.

This is probably too complicated, but maybe Fatigue/Weary should somehow correlate to how the fight unfolds. For example (again, too complicated...I'm just brainstorming here) what if you can go a number of rounds equal to your heart before Weary kicks in, and the counter resets to zero every time an enemy is defeated? So if you have Heart = 4, as long as an enemy dies (or flees, surrenders, etc.) every 4 rounds you never get weary?

Alternately, each defeat of an enemy could restore endurance equal to that enemy's attribute level to all heroes in the fight, perhaps in place of the rule that you get endurance back after a fight. (I might add that house rule to the sim....)

Such a mechanic gives high level characters a great advantage when mowing through weak enemies. Yes, that means you could go indefinitely against enemies that average less damage against you than their own attribute level. But, dang, you should be able to go indefinitely in that case.

I was toying around with a rule based on the idea that a character left without enemies might take a moment of rest and recover some Endurance on the fly. This is the current version:

Catching your breath (Forward)

If you're free of any enemy and not targeted by any ranged attack you can spend the round catching your breath. You make a Athletics roll and recover 2 Endurance on a ordinary success (4 on Great, 6 on Extraordinary). You can't catch your breath if you're Wounded or Weary already.

NOTE: I made this a Forward Task because I think that one might let his guard down while Catching Breath.

Another option I was considering was to change the Knockback rules a bit, making the amount of damage soaked proportional to the armor.

[Evening]

A couple of observations. Firstthe word "mail" or maille can refer to any metal armour, thus chainmail, platemail, etc to distinguish which type of mail is being worn.

Just to get everyone on the same page here's a couple of quotes that may be helpful.

We know now perfectly well what it was — a shirt of interlinked iron rings, a fabric known as mail. Not chain-mail; this expression, hallowed though it may be by a century of common usage [by Victorian writers], is not the word for the thing at all. Mail means a net — "his breast-net" — and is derived from the Latin macula, a mesh or net; it was used in medieval Italian as maglia; the French called it mailles, and we anglicized it into mail. There is no such thing as chain mail, or chain armour, any more than there can be any such thing as "plate-mail"

And at the start let me define plainly what I mean by mail. I hold that in the Middle Ages and, indeed, as long as armour continued...the term applied properly, nay, exclusively, to that type of defence composed...of interlinked rings. Only through a late poetical licence did it come to be extended to armour in general. Chain-mail is a mere piece of modern pleonasm; scale-mail and still more plate-mail stark nonsense.

Chainmail actually does not put all the weight on the shoulders like a backpack. When properly belted and strapped on it distributes it's weight rather evenly and comfortably across the body.

Yep. If you don't belt it up, it'll always be pulling you one way or the other.

I was toying around with a rule based on the idea that a character left without enemies might take a moment of rest and recover some Endurance on the fly. This is the current version:

Catching your breath (Forward)

If you're free of any enemy and not targeted by any ranged attack you can spend the round catching your breath. You make a Athletics roll and recover 2 Endurance on a ordinary success (4 on Great, 6 on Extraordinary). You can't catch your breath if you're Wounded or Weary already.

NOTE: I made this a Forward Task because I think that one might let his guard down while Catching Breath.

Interesting. Would there be a limit on how many times you can do this? I've been looking at the Recovery rules (A character who is not Wounded, and who at the end of combat is given the time to catch his breath (to rest for at least half an hour) recovers a number of Endurance points equal to his Heart score.) and changing it to 5 minutes, recovering Heart + Body, with a 4x/day limit.

To be fair, anyone fighting all out for 15 minutes or more is going to be drop-to-the-ground exhausted. It's a weak comparison, but look at MMA fighting. A UFC heavyweight bout that goes the full 3 rounds isn't the same as two people fighting for their life, but it's similar enough to put this in perspective.

[Rocmistro]

I agree on the formal definition of "Mail"

My suggestions/comments are three-fold.

1. Do we really need 3 stages of "mail" armor. I understand we might need 3 categories of armor dice: 3d, 4d, and 5d. But do they all need to be "mail"

2. Are there really no instances in Tolkien's entire volume that reference a fully metal breastplate (a Cuirass), as it were, either directly or indirectly? (I'm not asking rhetorically; I really don't know). That seems very restrictive to me, though I won't fully argue the point from a literary point of view, it's completely conceivable from a metallurgical point of view. Making a metal breastplate is not that much more difficult than metal greaves and is in fact much simpler than making a full helmet. From a historical perspective, cuirasses preceeded mail armor by at least 1,000 years (at least in the west). In Middle-earth, it seems to me that the 3rd Age is a sort of Dark Ages of sorts, and the 2nd and 1st ages are analagous to Roman/Atlantean/Antedeluvian times, all of which had greater technology than the Dark Ages. It seems absurd to me that Hollin and Feanor and Dwarves of Old did not or could not forge at least breastplates.

3. It's important to note that a metal breasplate (ala Greek bell cuirass) is not the same as 16th century German/Italian renaissance fully articulated maximillian style armor.

4. All of this is really just a question of "how wrong am I to conceive of, in my own head, 5d Armor as being more "plated" and less "chain". Of course, it's my head and I can imagine things however I want to....

[Woodclaw]

I was toying around with a rule based on the idea that a character left without enemies might take a moment of rest and recover some Endurance on the fly. This is the current version:

Catching your breath (Forward)

If you're free of any enemy and not targeted by any ranged attack you can spend the round catching your breath. You make a Athletics roll and recover 2 Endurance on a ordinary success (4 on Great, 6 on Extraordinary). You can't catch your breath if you're Wounded or Weary already.

NOTE: I made this a Forward Task because I think that one might let his guard down while Catching Breath.

Interesting. Would there be a limit on how many times you can do this? I've been looking at the Recovery rules (A character who is not Wounded, and who at the end of combat is given the time to catch his breath (to rest for at least half an hour) recovers a number of Endurance points equal to his Heart score.) and changing it to 5 minutes, recovering Heart + Body, with a 4x/day limit.

To be fair, anyone fighting all out for 15 minutes or more is going to be drop-to-the-ground exhausted. It's a weak comparison, but look at MMA fighting. A UFC heavyweight bout that goes the full 3 rounds isn't the same as two people fighting for their life, but it's similar enough to put this in perspective.

I haven't considered the issue of how often yet. I thought that the restrictions I place above would make it quite hard to do more than once per combat, but I'll run a couple of test fights to be sure.

[Glorelendil]

4. All of this is really just a question of "how wrong am I to conceive of, in my own head, 5d Armor as being more "plated" and less "chain". Of course, it's my head and I can imagine things however I want to....

This.

I'm puzzled why there is so much discussion over technical/historical definitions of armor terminology. If you want articulated plate, just write "Plate" on your character sheet. Tolkien didn't get any more specific about armor than he did about the shape of axes or the lengths of spears, so your imagination and interpretation are 100% valid.

My concern is that there seems to be no valid mechanical reason to take 5d armor (unless you're a dwarf), and if you want to do so for roleplaying reasons it's at the cost of being a less effective combatant.