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Lord have mercy, for I started a discussion about plate armor in Middle earth.

Terisonen wrote: ↑

Wed May 24, 2017 2:38 pm

Lord have mercy, for I started a discussion about plate armor in Middle earth.

Shields shall be splintered and armour (of some indeterminate type) shall be dented.

Terisonen wrote: ↑

Wed May 24, 2017 2:38 pm

Lord have mercy, for I started a discussion about plate armor in Middle earth.

Right... But is this Lord a Lord of Rings.... or Plates?

Lord of the Gambesons.

We'll have the Platemail as a reward. Nobody would select a 6d armour with Enc. of 24 anyway...
However, one made of Mithril and Ancient close fitting would be nice

Well we're extremely off topic. I wouldn't be opposed to standing guards or soldiers wearing full plate, but not the travelling adventurers that PC's generally are. I would have no problem with there being platemail in the game so long as it was impractical to travel in and difficult to equip in a hurry.

Cold be hand and heart and bone,
and cold be thread for cause unknown:
never more to rear dissention's head,
never, till the Sun fails and the Net is dead.
In the black lines debate shall die,
and still on server here let it lie,
till the admin lifts up his hand
over dead text and I am banned.

With that hopefully suitable apology I want to resurrect this conversation here instead of starting a new thread because a future searcher will be able to see all the other excellent points made above arguing against including plate in the game. If my decision to do that was a poor one I will accept admin correction.

But I wanted to point out an angle on this question that seems missing in the debates. In order to make my point I have to establish a little credibility by revealing a piece of personal information. I've been involved in the operation and maintenance of nuclear powered naval vessels for over 20 years. This involves a substantial amount of familiarity with metallurgy and metal fabrication techniques for large pressure vessels and metal plates. I do *not* have hands on "metalsmithing" experience but I feel my reader needs to know something about my knowledge level in this area to begin to accept my judgement below.

I think it is not credible that there was no plate armor among the more advanced cultures of Middle Earth because the gates of Minas Tirith were made "of steel and iron." No wood is mentioned. Every impression is given that they are solid pieces of those metals. If they are not, the head of Grond was said to be of black steel. Surely that was a solid cast of same.

If the skill was available to craft these items I find it hard to believe that high level smiths amongst at least the Dwarves, High-Elves, and the Numeoreans couldn't figure out how to make plate armor. Especially given their longs lives, devotion to craft, and the setting's long history of war. I totally understand it not being starting or common war gear but I'd argue it almost *has* to exist or have existed somewhere in the setting because it's so very hard to explain why it would not be possible given the gate mentioned above.

I'll happily yield to correction but I wanted feedback because a complete absence of plate has been bugging me ever since I started reading all the ToR material and contemplating a game.

v/r
feld

Add "Plate Armour" to the armour list in page 123. Give it an Encumbrance of 24, a Protection of 6d and the Type Plate armour (so that Cultural Virtues and Qualities that enhance Leather or Mail armour can't affect it).

You're good to go now.

<grin> I already did (though I called it Enc 25, it's only available as a Hoard find or Reward vice starting gear). I was just hoping that someone with the traits metal-lore or old-armor-lore could educate me on why its absence in the RAW made more sense than its presence. I generally find C7 has thought through everything more than I have ...

feld wrote: ↑

Sat Feb 03, 2018 8:53 pm

With that hopefully suitable apology I want to resurrect this conversation here instead of starting a new thread because a future searcher will be able to see all the other excellent points made above arguing against including plate in the game. If my decision to do that was a poor one I will accept admin correction.

That's okay! I did start a new thread about a region guide for Gondor because I had completely lost track of this discussion. My bad!

I think it is not credible that there was no plate armor among the more advanced cultures of Middle Earth because the gates of Minas Tirith were made "of steel and iron." No wood is mentioned. Every impression is given that they are solid pieces of those metals. If they are not, the head of Grond was said to be of black steel. Surely that was a solid cast of same.

If the skill was available to craft these items I find it hard to believe that high level smiths amongst at least the Dwarves, High-Elves, and the Numeoreans couldn't figure out how to make plate armor. Especially given their longs lives, devotion to craft, and the setting's long history of war. I totally understand it not being starting or common war gear but I'd argue it almost *has* to exist or have existed somewhere in the setting because it's so very hard to explain why it would not be possible given the gate mentioned above.

I'll happily yield to correction but I wanted feedback because a complete absence of plate has been bugging me ever since I started reading all the ToR material and contemplating a game.

v/r
feld

We do know that some form of plate armor existed in Tolkien's Middle-earth; all we have to do is point to the Haradrim soldier that Samwise saw fall in Ithilien and his "corslet of overlapping brazen plates", though that is just bronze mail.

The Elves could have developed plate mail, but why should they? They would seem to favor lighter armor that would not inhibit their mobility and agility. The Dwarves, particularly in Moria, would be better candidates; however, there seems to be nothing in the legendarium to support this hypothesis. At the least, it might be reasonable to guess that the Dwarves had invented something like scale mail.

Perhaps the Númenóreans did not develop plate armor because they were primarily mariners, and plate mail and deep water are a deadly combination for the wearer. It might be more perplexing that it didn't come to be used in either Gondor or Arnor. I think that Tolkien just didn't want it in his legendarium. There might have been some culture(s) in Middle-earth that had at least adopted the cuirass, much like the Haradrim possessing overlapping plate armor.