I hope this sheds some light on the discussion.
Offtopic. We're discussing constrictor snake armor.
Great story Yukongil. It is just a pity that the picture of the snake you captured within the last couple of days was take over 2 months ago, as it is referenced on this website ->2nd Post.
a google search for snake armor revealed this, so yeah! such things are completely realistic, so take that, naysayers! :P
lol
Offtopic. We're discussing constrictor snake armor.I hope this sheds some light on the discussion.
well...now don't I feel silly...
also, I don't know if I should tell the doctor, but I can't feel my leg
This issue has come up in my group and I simply ruled that the snake's barding attaches in the same way a horse's head barding does. It has a bit that it bites down on and is firmly attached at the head then forms segmented plates down the snake's body. This comes with the slight downside that a constrictor is unable to use swallow whole as the bit is currently blocking the entrance to it's throat, unless you have magic stuff that makes the bit unnecessary.
Nothing silly about Sir. Hiss. Nothing at all
I had a similar thought about Lowly Worm's bowtie but all Richards arguments went out the window with that shoe. Really? A shoe? C'mon, that's just silly :P
A couple of examples that might help make snake barding less silly though. Vipers heads are bigger than their body so a bit/collar thing could work. Or... grampa pierced the scute of a turtle to attach a chain. Every(some) scale(s) could have rings to clip barding too Or... if the snake recently fed it would have many places to hold barding. This last should be good for 6 to 8 weeks :P
I have a leash for my skink, it goes around her ribs, not her legs. Sure she could get out if she tried (her legs would not stop it anymore than a ferret's legs would). It does stay on her when she tries to get away, which is what I really need it for anyway.
So to be clear,
A dragon doubling up his armor class by wearing dragonhide armor is totally legit, right?
So to be clear,
A dragon doubling up his armor class by wearing dragonhide armor is totally legit, right?
Only if its a youngish dragon, and thus still small enough to have dragons 3 size categories bigger than it is to provide the scales for the armor. Which makes a kind of macabre sense...
So to be clear,
A dragon doubling up his armor class by wearing dragonhide armor is totally legit, right?
What do you think leather is?
What is funny is how people are going for a binary response to the theoretical semblance of reasonableness in this thread. There is either the no it cannot be done because there is no where to attach the armor camp, and then there is the "in a world where magic exists" why can't armor for a snake exist?
From a bio-engineering standpoint, it could easily be done, and I don't understand why people are having such a hard time with this. The snake has a very tough skin and thus has a higher natural armor than say a human. If you simply used a couple of piercings (several tribal people already do this to various parts of their body) along the top side and along the spine one could find points where you could attach armor. Yes, there is a chance that these piercings could become infected or break off or be shed. At that point you apply healing or simply treat the wound (mundane version) to prevent infection. If eventual shedding of the skin removes the piercings aka lanyards then you simply redo the piercings.
Bingo, you now have your attachment locations, and only on the "top" side of the snake so as to keep it from having problems with locomotion.
These piercings you propose would be horrible.
1. They act as a force concentrator. A blow done to the armor would be absorbed in specific locations. The entire purpose of armor is to diffuse blow, so they more or less just neutralized the bennefit of the armor. This is pretty much the reason I don't allow armor spikes.2. Do you realize how much snakes continously contract and expand? They would limmit movement very awkwardly. Not to mention feeding. Would love to see these tear out after it just ate that halfling. Or how about the fact that snakes don't just use their underside to move.
What is funny is how people are going for a binary response to the theoretical semblance of reasonableness in this thread. There is either the no it cannot be done because there is no where to attach the armor camp, and then there is the "in a world where magic exists" why can't armor for a snake exist?
From a bio-engineering standpoint, it could easily be done, and I don't understand why people are having such a hard time with this. The snake has a very tough skin and thus has a higher natural armor than say a human. If you simply used a couple of piercings (several tribal people already do this to various parts of their body) along the top side and along the spine one could find points where you could attach armor. Yes, there is a chance that these piercings could become infected or break off or be shed. At that point you apply healing or simply treat the wound (mundane version) to prevent infection. If eventual shedding of the skin removes the piercings aka lanyards then you simply redo the piercings.
Bingo, you now have your attachment locations, and only on the "top" side of the snake so as to keep it from having problems with locomotion.
These piercings you propose would be horrible.
1. They act as a force concentrator. A blow done to the armor would be absorbed in specific locations. The entire purpose of armor is to diffuse blow, so they more or less just neutralized the bennefit of the armor. This is pretty much the reason I don't allow armor spikes.
2. Do you realize how much snakes continously contract and expand? They would limmit movement very awkwardly. Not to mention feeding. Would love to see these tear out after it just ate that halfling. Or how about the fact that snakes don't just use their underside to move.
So you think...when was the last time you engineered something for your snake, let alone a snake large enough to carry you?
There are plenty of armors that are able to move with the intended wearer that do not need to be static and are supposed to and allowed to move around. Think of chain mail, basically all it needs to do is prevent something slicing or piercing so as to prevent the flesh from being splayed and an organ being hit or vein/artery spilling too much blood.
But your comments Caineach just go to show that you are finding a way to say no to something, and are lacking in imagination. This whole game is about using your imagination....you really should think outside the box sometimes...
ps skin is incredibly tough, especially on a creature that supposedly has natural armor. Do you think it would be too hard to create something elastic to go between the armor and the tie down, and create enough piercing/lanyards to still allow it to be attached effectively? I do...
And to continue, you ban armor spikes. Interesting. Do you ban leveling up? I mean, really is there any reason that a person that is level 2 has more blood than a person that is level 1? If you don't think so, apply a bleed effect to both and see who lives longer...does that make any sense??
It is called fantasy for a reason....
So you think...when was the last time you engineered something for your snake, let alone a snake large enough to carry you?
There are plenty of armors that are able to move with the intended wearer that do not need to be static and are supposed to and allowed to move around. Think of chain mail, basically all it needs to do is prevent something slicing or piercing so as to prevent the flesh from being splayed and an organ being hit or vein/artery spilling too much blood.
Have you ever worn chain mail? It is one of the worste armors for moving with you. It is dead weight, hanging like a curtain from your shoulders. That dead weight is part of the advantage though, since it absorbes a lot of the momentum when it is hit and difuses it.
But your comments Caineach just go to show that you are finding a way to say no to something, and are lacking in imagination. This whole game is about using your imagination....you really should think outside the box sometimes...
Just because I can imagine something doesn't mean I can't see dozens of problems with it, or think it is insanely stupid.
ps skin is incredibly tough, especially on a creature that supposedly has natural armor. Do you think it would be too hard to create something elastic to go between the armor and the tie down, and create enough piercing/lanyards to still allow it to be attached effectively? I do...
Yes, skin is very tough. You can hang yourself with a few rings through your skin, and then be swung arround. It holds up amasingly well to pressure. It tears fairly easily from jerk (change in acceleration) applied unevenly though. Getting hit with a weapon is extreme jerk, and piercings only create force concentrations that amplify it.
Adding elasticity to the bonds increases the freedom of movement of the armor, but that is not necessarily a good thing for a snake. It will increase how much the armor slips in place when the snake shifts, causing unexpected changes in weight distribution and disturbing the snakes movement. Snakes don't handle unexpected movement well. And you still haven't fixed the movement problems this causes snakes who use their upper half to aid in movement, since they will be trying to push off something that is attached to them.
And to continue, you ban armor spikes. Interesting. Do you ban leveling up? I mean, really is there any reason that a person that is level 2 has more blood than a person that is level 1? If you don't think so, apply a bleed effect to both and see who lives longer...does that make any sense??
Yes, actually it does, because HP is an abstraction. You don't have extra blood. You have learned how to better deal with wounds, avoid damage, and in general minimize injuries. At lvl 1, a dagger is a serious threat. At higher levels, you know how to twist so that the wound that would have gone to your lungs (1/2 your HP), instead is a graze that doesn't penetrate your ribcage(1/10 your HP, or less) Likewise, you learn how to deal more deadly blows or counter enemy defenses, represented by damage bonuses. This abstraction doesn't work very well for things like stealthy attacks you are unaware of, but for the most part it works fine. I personally think there should be a rework to coupe de gra because of it, giving everyone an ability similar to the assassin's death attack, but you can't get everything you want. I mean, the rules don't even allow you to slit someone's throat when you have a weapon up to their necks if they are aware of it.
It is called fantasy for a reason....
So just because something is fantasy I should discard physics? I love this argument. I love kicking this argument in the shins, stabbing it, and watching it bleed on the ground. Everyone plays D&D differently. Everyone is looking for different things in the game. People expect different levels of realism. And yes, realism is something that can be expected in a game with magic, where superhuman feats are possible.
Some people want typical shounen anime, with people bouncing off the walls, running so fast they are invisible, and making 10 attacks simultaneously. I would totally allow this in that type of game in a heartbeat. Some people want 3 musketeers, high on the swashbuckling and heroics, where people are exceptional and better than normal men but with practice they could possibly achieve the results. It would take a lot of convincing for it in this style game, but I may allow it. Some people want Song of Ice and Fire, where bad things happen and they run into real flaws and limitations. Things are bound in what we know, except when magic gets involved. I'm in that last group, and I would never allow it in that type of game. It changes the tone drastically.D&D supports all 3 play styles. It supports the middle style the best, IMO, but the others work fine. Just because you want to play in a more fantastical world doesn't mean I can't play the game I want to, or that those limitations somehow limmit my creativity. In my experience, bounding a problem usually increases creativity. Allowing things like this in the base rules reduces the ability of a GM who prefers a more realistic game to easily run his game and changes the base assumptions about the setting and player expectations to one that is more fantastic.
Couldn't you just make a half circle of plates that clamps down on the area where the snakes scales meet his underbelly? Kinda like one of those bracelets that only protect upper forearms. The snakes of course wouldn't be a solid chunk like the bracelet but segmented plates to allow for expanding and stretching.
>'can I give my snake companion armor'
>165 postsguys
guys
seriously
Really of all the threads on this board you find this one unreasonable?
Well, it's the thread with the highest post count on the front page, and is an extremely minor issue... :PReally of all the threads on this board you find this one unreasonable?>'can I give my snake companion armor'
>165 postsguys
guys
seriously
If people were treating it like a rules question instead of advice or suggestions/houserules, it would be 10 posts. Where all of them say "yes."
Just make armor for the snake like those toy plastic snakes that bend and stuff. There. It's an armored bending snake.
but snakes are cool!
Has anyone considered the possibility of using Sovereign Glue and individual armour plates? This would remove the issue of attaching the armour to the snake, and it would still distribute the force of the blow evenly.
Of course, since snakes shed their skins, you will probably have to spend a bit on re-applications of glue when the individual plates fall off.
But hey, completely plausible armoured snake!
hello all,
sorry its been awhile, things took a little turn for the worse for a moment. Good news is that the doc thinks I'm out of the woods concerning the copious amounts of venom that was pumped into me during my experiment. Also good news is that I have several roommates now. Bad news is that they are all suffering multiple snake-bites from what they describe in their more lucid moments as;
An Metal Snake God of Death
yeah...totally my bad ya'll
From what I can make out of their venom-induced fever gibberish though, it seems the armor is holding up well, though Slith may have modified it, as one of the guys here is sporting some wicked stab and puncture wounds not attributed to snake fangs and keeps muttering about; "oh why God does it have spikes, why God, why?" Could be that Slith has found my blue-prints for Snake Armor V.2, but I would think that such metalurgical feats beyond a snake...but then I thought a snake would be unable to function in armor as well, and we all know how that turned out.
anyways thanks for listening, so far these guys have been pretty out of it, I'll keep you posted.
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hello all,
sorry its been awhile, things took a little turn for the worse for a moment. Good news is that the doc thinks I'm out of the woods concerning the copious amounts of venom that was pumped into me during my experiment. Also good news is that I have several roommates now. Bad news is that they are all suffering multiple snake-bites from what they describe in their more lucid moments as;
An Metal Snake God of Death
yeah...totally my bad ya'll
From what I can make out of their venom-induced fever gibberish though, it seems the armor is holding up well, though Slith may have modified it, as one of the guys here is sporting some wicked stab and puncture wounds not attributed to snake fangs and keeps muttering about; "oh why God does it have spikes, why God, why?" Could be that Slith has found my blue-prints for Snake Armor V.2, but I would think that such metalurgical feats beyond a snake...but then I thought a snake would be unable to function in armor as well, and we all know how that turned out.
anyways thanks for listening, so far these guys have been pretty out of it, I'll keep you posted.
NOOOO WHAT HAVE WE DONE
hello all,
sorry its been awhile, things took a little turn for the worse for a moment. Good news is that the doc thinks I'm out of the woods concerning the copious amounts of venom that was pumped into me during my experiment. Also good news is that I have several roommates now. Bad news is that they are all suffering multiple snake-bites from what they describe in their more lucid moments as;
An Metal Snake God of Death
yeah...totally my bad ya'll
From what I can make out of their venom-induced fever gibberish though, it seems the armor is holding up well, though Slith may have modified it, as one of the guys here is sporting some wicked stab and puncture wounds not attributed to snake fangs and keeps muttering about; "oh why God does it have spikes, why God, why?" Could be that Slith has found my blue-prints for Snake Armor V.2, but I would think that such metalurgical feats beyond a snake...but then I thought a snake would be unable to function in armor as well, and we all know how that turned out.
anyways thanks for listening, so far these guys have been pretty out of it, I'll keep you posted.
Perhaps that's what the Dethklok song "Better Metal Snake" is about.
According to Richard Scarry, a worm can...
Some worms can even be used as a Mount!
All of which should be readily available and immediately applied to your Companion snake.
I don't see anything under snakes saying you can't armor it. What's silly is arguing reality in a fantasy-based game that all but requires you to have and use magic. Anyone seen any fireball throwing magicians or healing priests lately on your way to work, maybe at Walmart? Yea no, me either, so much for reality. And yes, I'm very late to a resolved conversation, oh well. :D
Ooo, can you make Rhino Hide barding for your Rhino animal companion?
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All you people with wide eyed notions of creatures like pegasus, and unicorns better go pray that Gailbraithe does not suddenly take an interest in the equestrian arts, because if he should, all your horses are about to suffer!
Unicorns aren't that impossible, but yeah, pegasus would need some serious muscle mass to work those wings. Plus a huge ribcage to support them. And would break its legs on its first landing anyway.
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Unicorns aren't that impossible, but yeah, pegasus would need some serious muscle mass to work those wings. Plus a huge ribcage to support them. And would break its legs on its first landing anyway.
That's true. Pretty much any larger than normal flying creature (or even larger than normal vermin) is scoffing at physics.
I remember, back in Dragon Annual 1, there was an article about figuring out the weight of giants, and how it would be impossible for them to stand and move around, due to the square-cube law (since muscle strength only increases linearly, while weight / mass increases on a different scale entirely). There was even a funny mention of how the largest giants (cloud giants and storm giants) had a natural levitate ability, which the author of the article suggested was a side-effect of how even the smaller giants needed that sort of innate ability just to be able to support their weight.
Dragons, back then, were also assumed to have something magical in their brains that helped them lift and move their vast bodies (with the wingless gold dragons being the most clear cut example of this, having utterly abandoned the pretense of using wings to fly and having much stronger-developed 'magic pearls' in their brains).
The writers of the game have gotten better over twenty-five or so years at ignoring these sorts of questions and just waving their hands, but that doesn't really stop stuff like this from coming up.
.
I'm still of the mind that a 500 gp or so minor magical enhancement could allow a properly shaped suit of 'snake barding' or 'bird barding' to function without impeding the animal its designed and magically enhanced for any more than 'dog barding' or 'bear barding' would hamper a dog or bear.
It shouldn't be too expensive, since, as James Jacobs already said earlier, it's not unbalancing the game to allow a Druid who picked a snake or a bird rather than the ubiquitous big cat, to armor up his companion.
Indeed, I'd be all for encouraging Druid players to pick something other than a big cat...
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Dragons, back then, were also assumed to have something magical in their brains that helped them lift and move their vast bodies (with the wingless gold dragons being the most clear cut example of this, having utterly abandoned the pretense of using wings to fly and having much stronger-developed 'magic pearls' in their brains).
I blame Flight of the Dragons and the novels that inspired it. :)
Another thought on snake barding: There are a lot of beings in-game that no doubt have developed armor similar to what would be valuable on the engineering end of things. Serpentfolk and couatls certainly, along with any of the half-body type creatures like lillends and lamia matriarchs that decided to go as fully armored as possible. (And lillends and couatls are a bird- and snake-barding twofer!)
Throw a little magic at it and bam, good to go.
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If you made barding for a giant eagle, would it be called "birding?"
They probably hawk that stuff to druids at the fantasy Petco analogue.If you made barding for a giant eagle, would it be called "birding?"
Hawk!
Good one.
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Agree with the call for civility but not for the threadlock, since most people in the thread weren't looking for a fight.
Though a move to the homebrew section might be in order if the current direction holds true.
The thing is that the question was resolved ages ago - the OP's GM allowed it, and he's going ahead with the concept. As things stand they've simply degenerated into outright offensive name-calling and flaming - hence why I'd like it to be locked and all the flamers flagged.
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The thing is that the question was resolved ages ago - the OP's GM allowed it, and he's going ahead with the concept. As things stand they've simply degenerated into outright offensive name-calling and flaming - hence why I'd like it to be locked and all the flamers flagged.Agree with the call for civility but not for the threadlock, since most people in the thread weren't looking for a fight.
Though a move to the homebrew section might be in order if the current direction holds true.
Yeah, there is that.
Damn shame we can't have nice things.
I personally like a lively discussion, as we are able to enjoy a multitude of perspectives and get input from myriad sources outside of our normal circle of gaming companions.
As I said previously though, when someone starts using names and/or taunts, I believe that there is no need to continue as it is now just an argument over whether the sky is blue or if it is simply clear (unless you are in Los Angeles then it is just black).
And to the OP....way to go sir. I will give you a cookie today at our gaming session!