Of course, it's not flimsy clothes, Irontruth. Typical work clothes are quite tough materials. It's still a question of weight. If you need to do heavy work, or march far, every ounce of weight slows you down and tires you. I suspect you'll agree with this.
It doesn't matter. Let them march for a day with a full plate on, and THEN I will listen to their arguments. Even between ragged, heaving breaths. That you can actually do backflips wearing one is not relevant. Indeed, it is obvious you can move in them and even do strenuous activity, or they would make a pretty big sitting duck on the battlefield. Take a look at a fireman, if you will. Helmet. Police in riot outfit? Helmet, kevlar vest and shield. There isa reason for this. Andyou don't have to be an albadian sorceress whose magic produces waste heat to appreciate this.
Platemail is no heavier than standard military gear today, which soldiers march all day in. I would rather wear it all day than carry arround the modern infantry backpack. The weight is much better distributed.
There have been numberous studies on how much weight a soldier can carry traveling and still maintain combat effectiveness. They were supprized when they realized that non-cavalry knights in full plate carried almost the exact same ammount of weight as has been recommended by the studies.
Sure. But everyone is not trained to walk for eight hours wearing fifty kilos of gear. I do not understand why everyone thinks everyone would be in a fantasy setting. And those who are not would most likely use partial armour, such as helmet, heavy gloves, and some chest armour. Moving quickly is a very, very valuable ability. And unless you expect to march straight into a battlefield, partial armour gives you enough protection to withstand some battering. Just because dwarven stone armour is a possibility in a given setting does not mean everyone will want to use it. If you add in magical protection like mage armor and bracers of protection, there are even more reasons not to wear heavy armour. That said, there is no excuse for stupid armour.
Sure. But everyone is not trained to walk for eight hours wearing fifty kilos of gear. I do not understand why everyone thinks everyone would be in a fantasy setting. And those who are not would most likely use partial armour, such as helmet, heavy gloves, and some chest armour. Moving quickly is a very, very valuable ability. And unless you expect to march straight into a battlefield, partial armour gives you enough protection to withstand some battering. Just because dwarven stone armour is a possibility in a given setting does not mean everyone will want to use it. If you add in magical protection like mage armor and bracers of protection, there are even more reasons not to wear heavy armour. That said, there is no excuse for stupid armour.
I agree entirely. Though it is not unreasonable to assume that anyone in a military position would be capable of marching in full armor.
One part of this that doesn't often come up is the fatigue and heating that any kind of heavy armour brings. Whatever armour was, it was heavy to wear. In a military campaign, you got to wear the armour on the march as well, except for some people who asked the would be ambushers to wait while they donned their armour. Thus, wearing lighter armour, even at the cost of leaving your legs unprotected, was often an acceptable choice. Cavalry changed some of this, of course, letting heavily armoured warriors reach their enemies, but still...
Does fighting for a day in full plate armor count? Actually it was SCA style plastic full plate not metal stuff but they generate heat just the same even if it isn't as heavy. In fact any armor that doesn't breath at all generates tremendous amounts of heat not just heavy armor those armored vests police wear are just as bad and we wore a special under armor shirt with it to help with the excessive sweating. A full suit of leather armor would be a nightmare to march in just as much as full plate. Still do you want to live through combat? If so then you wear the best armor available and learn not to mind the heat. Running around in a skimpy outfit during combat is suicide in most cases. The historical peoples that DID do that did so because protective armor was too hard to get. And running around with little to no clothing on was actually better than wearing regular clothing because your wounds were cleaner when you sustained them.
Sure. But everyone is not trained to walk for eight hours wearing fifty kilos of gear. I do not understand why everyone thinks everyone would be in a fantasy setting. And those who are not would most likely use partial armour, such as helmet, heavy gloves, and some chest armour. Moving quickly is a very, very valuable ability. And unless you expect to march straight into a battlefield, partial armour gives you enough protection to withstand some battering. Just because dwarven stone armour is a possibility in a given setting does not mean everyone will want to use it. If you add in magical protection like mage armor and bracers of protection, there are even more reasons not to wear heavy armour. That said, there is no excuse for stupid armour.
I would expect most adventurers to have such training however. They have to march all over the countryside fighting all manner of dire beasts.
Still do you want to live through combat? If so then you wear the best armor available and learn not to mind the heat. Running around in a skimpy outfit during combat is suicide in most cases. The historical peoples that DID do that did so because protective armor was too hard to get.Or they played combat roles that didn't rely on pitched battle. Skirmishers. Guerrilla warfare. etc. Where speed and surprise were more important than staying power.
I WAS a skirmisher or ambush style scout depending on the battle. Did I want to go home covered in bruises? Nope. So I wore good armor. Girl's don't do well on the front line of a battle, we do wonderfully running around the edges of the fight and picking off people from skirmish or attacking past the front lines with a pole weapon or a bow. Why? We simply don't have the same reach a man does, so we are at a disadvantage in a melee fight unless we find a better way to fight. I went florentine style when skirmishing and shield and light spear for ambushing. Why the shield? Because I would pop out of nowhere score some killing shots then retreat from the melee with my shield giving me superior protection as I backed away toward my waiting melee allies. That and a shield covered in brush makes an amazing piece for both camouflage and cover. They once marched right past me (5 feet) without noticing little me because of my neat shield.
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Sure. But everyone is not trained to walk for eight hours wearing fifty kilos of gear. I do not understand why everyone thinks everyone would be in a fantasy setting. And those who are not would most likely use partial armour, such as helmet, heavy gloves, and some chest armour.
While I kind of agree with you, (I'm a soldier) and the fact taht we where not trained with to bear our full combat load didn't mean we didn't do it a lot from (basically) day one. It's a lot less of needing to be trained to do it and a lot more of just not stopping when you feel like it. That and 13th Warrior's "grow stronger". :)
Moving quickly is a very, very valuable ability. And unless you expect to march straight into a battlefield, partial armour gives you enough protection to withstand some battering. Just because dwarven stone armour is a possibility in a given setting does not mean everyone will want to use it. If you add in magical protection like mage armor and bracers of protection, there are even more reasons not to wear heavy armour. That said, there is no excuse for stupid armour.
A lot of people jump on "stupid armor" like the the chainmail bikini, but kind of fail to understand the point of wearing armor. Anatomically, there are no weak points in the body, just weaker points. The groin, the armpits, and the lower neck are three areas that basically no armor actually protects from bleeding out. Other than those, the most basic and optimal protection needed from armor is the stomach (soft tissue with a lof ot vitals, not protected by the rib cage) and the head. Next is the genitals (for males) and the ribcage (heart, lungs, and spine). So like you said, manuverability, range of motion, and the ability to move are extremely useful. The chainmail bikini and similar armors have a lot of advantages, from easily concealed and very quickly donned, to the fact that if they need immediate medical care, all pretty much everything is accessable. There is little protection, but honestly, there are not a lot of potential options from other heavier armors that females would realisticaly benefit from. If they are more of a frontline warrior, a woman's center of gravity is different than men's, and heavy armor will mostly be a hinderance rather than a help in most cases. In general, female warriors relly less on brute force for strikes (in melee) than they do a lot of quick ones. Statistically speaking men often do more choping or thrusting strikes while woman either do a lot of side-to-side slashes or downward stabs, going for multiple wounds rather than a lesser deeper ones. At the same time, for ranged combat, even closer ranged, the heavier the armor, the less effective woman would be. It's not as much the wait as it is the fact that simply bending, turning, or twisting is very restricted, again with woman having a different center of gravity, and less upper body strength, specifically in the back and abbs for this.
So the truth is, almost any female (and a lot of males too) wearing more than say leather or partial chainmail is actually the stupid fan service armor that is absolutely unrealistic unless it is almost purely for show (or to conceal their sex from a distance, but honestly even that does not reaally work well, as generally (again) women have a different center of gravity and would move differently in armor).
I feel a need to add that SCA fighting is essentially different from real combat, simply because you forbid various maneuvers. Real fighting means you take every chance to brutalize your enemy, especially when he's weak, particularly if you can strike at a sensitive area like the face, the groin, the neck, or the like. There are wrestling moves designed to hurt armoured foes in both asian and european warfare, often aiming to break someone's neck. Kicking is a severely effective weapon in close combat if you know what you're doing. Now, SCA fighting is entertainment, and certainly should not have these things, but it is important to be aware of it.
I should add that the differences that exist between SCA fighting and that on the old school battlefields by their very natures lead to the consequences discussed above. You wear armour, because you don't need to march in it, and since it is plastics, there is far less cost to wearing it due to less weight, less dents, cuts, and so on. Given this, it isn't surprising that people with that background think everyone obviously should wear all the armour they could get their hands on, is it?
I feel a need to add that SCA fighting is essentially different from real combat, simply because you forbid various maneuvers. Real fighting means you take every chance to brutalize your enemy, especially when he's weak, particularly if you can strike at a sensitive area like the face, the groin, the neck, or the like. There are wrestling moves designed to hurt armoured foes in both asian and european warfare, often aiming to break someone's neck. Kicking is a severely effective weapon in close combat if you know what you're doing. Now, SCA fighting is entertainment, and certainly should not have these things, but it is important to be aware of it.
Very true we aren't trying to actually kill or even hurt each other. But getting slammed in the chest by an enormous polearm wielded by some solid guy hurts... even through armor. I would hate to take such a hit unarmored.
The only way skimpy armor would make sense would be if the protection it offered were magical -- creating some sort of force field that protects the areas that it doesn't cover. Then the appearance of the armor would simply be a matter of taste or style.
The only way skimpy armor would make sense would be if the protection it offered were magical -- creating some sort of force field that protects the areas that it doesn't cover. Then the appearance of the armor would simply be a matter of taste or style.
Yes and no. I made the point a long time ago, either in this thread or another, that so long as I can slip a metal band on my bicep and suddenly my groin has an AC bonus, the same is true of any chain mail bikini.
However, in the game itself magical leather armor is not the same as magical plate mail armor.
So I would probably rule that magical chain mail bikinis could be the rough equivalent of, say, magical padded armor or something, but could not match magical plate mail.
You wear armour, because you don't need to march in it, and since it is plastics, there is far less cost to wearing it due to less weight, less dents, cuts, and so on.
I feel the need to say. Yes our armor is cheaper than real full plate would have been but as I said this would be the only real reason not to wear armor... you couldn't afford or acquire it. Which do you think is easier marching in armor or fighting in it? Obviously fighting in it gets you hotter much faster and we can do that for hours. You over play the effect hot sweaty armor actually has on fatigue. Sure it's much more comfortable to march without armor. But in combat you would have to be crazy not to wear whatever armor you can get.
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Alzrius does make a good point about the magical bit. I can in fact recall a perfect example from a novel. Alias (heroine from the curse of azure bonds) is clearly depicted with some pretty cheesecake mail. The whole front of the thing is open from navel to neck showing the goods. And go figure, the armor is explained as having a magical force that repels blows as if the armor where whole, aside from one single dagger the villain has. Thus the magic argument holds up.
BUT, the point to be made is even in a legit fantasy novel, one I enjoy greatly, the heroine is still cheesecake. I pose the following, if sexual expectations were on a even field in fantasy and gaming, then men and women would both have their own slices of cheesecake in most settings and writing, that is not the case. The vast majority, go figure, is still male oriented. While I am not an expert of every piece of fantasy writing, I still suspect that it is much harder to find pound cake geared towards the ladies. Men with gleaming bronze skin and a sword and little else. Before anyone says it, yes I also understand there are other sexual orientations beyond straight men and women, I am not touching on them as this post would be massive, and I lack the experience to speak to them with confidence. Thus, and this is only IMO of course, that we folk whom like women (straight or otherwise) are constantly being sold on the lovely nearly naked heroine sort of like the drug of the same name. While I find this marketing tool somewhat offensive, I shall never say that it does not work. A scantily clad heroine will get my attention nearly every time. It is also worth mentioning that some older works of fantasy (using John Norman's Gor series here) take the sexy women theme to a whole new level, and are on the banded book list for it. Why do I point this out, because, in that series, men are also objectified, though not nearly as often as women. Yet the scantily clad men (which is most of them it seems)are kajiru masters, and NOT seen as pound cake for the ladies.
Conclusion: sexualized heroines are a tool to sell books and movies. They in most ways reject the realities of ancient battles via their tiny armor and unbound locks. They are drawn to draw the eye of mostly men, and IMO can sometimes hurt the gamer subculture by shouting to the rest of the world that gamers are teenage boys or creepy old men, sitting around a table looking at psudo porn and playing with toy swords. On a most basic level, publishers and game labs are taking advantage of a biological need that is strong in men, and making money from it. Makes one ask, what do THEIR wives look like?
The female warrior in the chainmail bikini goes with the male barbarian wearing nothing but a loincloth, with the latter actually being slightly more realistic. But making serious use of either would require a combination of magical enchantments and bizarre fashion preferences that is difficult to justify.
I guess my problem with the comparison of loincloths vs. bikinis is that I suspect few women would want the loin-cloth Conan as eye candy. In my experience with Mrs Gersen and her sisters and girlfriends and so on, women do NOT find powerful-looking, masculine men in art to be appealing. What they want is a guy with no body hair, floppy head hair, long eyelashes, pouty lips, a weak chin, grossly-overdeveloped pecs (like boobs!) and abs, and no discernable musculature anywhere else (little dainty wrists and forearms, etc.). And he has to be striking that absurd pose that shows off his "line" between the hip and abdomen (which I think makes him look like a sissy, and my wife thinks makes him look "hot").
And it's the same way with the ridiculous outfits and poses the "women" in a lot of fantasy art are shown in. I'm not a hardcore feminist or anything, but even I find the overwhelming prevailence chainmail bikinis and Seoni-poses to be puerile and annoying -- so I can only imagine how obnoxious they must seem to actual females.
The female warrior in the chainmail bikini goes with the male barbarian wearing nothing but a loincloth, with the latter actually being slightly more realistic. But making serious use of either would require a combination of magical enchantments and bizarre fashion preferences that is difficult to justify.Actually, the loincloth is far more realistic. Though not so much for the northern barbarian types it's often associated with in fantasy.
It's what you were wearing when you got caught up in the action. It's not armor. It doesn't pretend to be armor. You're hunting in the forest or hanging around the village. Casual wear.
The chainmail bikini isn't armor either, but it pretends to be. Now, if the wearer wasn't dressing for battle, but the local fetish club, I wouldn't have a problem with it.
Reminds me of John Amos's comment about how after he did the Beastmaster, he got invited to a lot of strange parties. LOL
Like Fabio or any other Romance model.
Naw, Fabio is a paragon of masculinity compared to what I'm envisioning! For example, my wife would consider this cheese cracker to be "too macho."
Kirth, in your conversations with your wife and her various relations, have you found one single factor that differentiates a person being attracted to a characters physicality, rather than their personality? Everyone I talk to puts personality above physicality, but then, I end up hanging out with people who think the same way I do.
God, I hope that made sense. I guess I'm saying that Fabio looks like a creeper to me, and none of my female friends have disagreed with me on that one.
Coming from a hot nation in the Pacific, and being familiar with warrior cultures of the Pacific and through South East Asia, I find all this talk of wearing heavy armour a bit hilarious - I'd love to see a few guys in full plate try negotiate the wilds of Papua - they'd have been eaten by the natives pretty quickly. Ditto with most of the other heavy jungle areas.
It would simply have been canned food.
Conquistadors found "The high heat and humidity of Central and South America could make heavy iron armour and steel items mostly impractical"
and likewise dropped off their protection to more pratical attire.
I can only suggest it would be similar in any of the wilds of Golarion.
Similarly, move into the desert regions and the heavy armour struggles.
Heavy armour with full covering only really works in the right regions.
I guess I'm saying that Fabio looks like a creeper to me, and none of my female friends have disagreed with me on that one.
Thats a bit harsh, Fabio has always come across as a pretty decent guy in interviews, and the famous Fabio V Clooney stoush only showed what a gentleman he is (as opposed to how much of a hat George is).
That said, I wonder if he called your female friends and asked them out of they'd still think he's a 'creeper', frankly they come across the same way a bunch of dumpy guys do when they know they have no chance on Earth with a pretty girl so then claim she's up herself, a gold-digger, or a range of other piggish remarks.
Smacks of envy.
The chainmail bikini isn't armor either, but it pretends to be. Now, if the wearer wasn't dressing for battle, but the local fetish club, I wouldn't have a problem with it.
I don't have a problem with it now. :D
As mentioned earlier, this greatly depends on the desired tone.
What prevents a the chainmail bikini displayed in a piece of art or on a miniature from having an Armor Bonus of +6, a Maximum Dex Bonus of +2, An Armor Check Penalty of -5, etc. - without the benefit of any enchantment?
Unrealistic? I don't really care.
It just gets stupid. If you're playing a silly game, that's fine.
No.
It is just showing that our disagreement is pretty fundamental. In game, I would describe her as wearing Chainmail (or plate, or whatever).
Or to put it another way -
I agree with your point there theJeff that it's good to be able to get an accurate picture of what to expect based upon the illustration/description. Now there may very well be a reason that the huge axe that guy is holding is depicted as a small stick (through subterfuge/magic/whatever) however short of that being the case I expect WYSIWYG.
full plate is as comfortable as a tshirt
that you can do acrobatics and backflips in it
even swim yada yada.
1: It is comfortable though not as much as a T-Shirt to the average person.
2: That is impossible I will give you that.3: You can Swim in it. or at least you can long enough to get help.
It just gets stupid. If you're playing a silly game, that's fine.No.
It is just showing that our disagreement is pretty fundamental. In game, I would describe her as wearing Chainmail (or plate, or whatever).
Or to put it another way -
"How often to players actually describe themselves as wearing a backpack with 30 to 60 pounds of equipment in it?"
"How often to players actually make provision for their disposing of their waste?"
"How often to players actually tend to the physical needs of their animals (including familiars)?"
For My Group:
1: All the Time.2: All the Time.
3: All the Time.
And Glamoured Armour is common for my parties and my characters.
I guess I'm saying that Fabio looks like a creeper to me, and none of my female friends have disagreed with me on that one.Thats a bit harsh, Fabio has always come across as a pretty decent guy in interviews, and the famous Fabio V Clooney stoush only showed what a gentleman he is (as opposed to how much of a hat George is).
That said, I wonder if he called your female friends and asked them out of they'd still think he's a 'creeper', frankly they come across the same way a bunch of dumpy guys do when they know they have no chance on Earth with a pretty girl so then claim she's up herself, a gold-digger, or a range of other piggish remarks.
Smacks of envy.
If he called my female friends, I assume they would ask how he got their numbers. :P
I was asking Kirth a (perhaps impolite) question about the parameters of his experience. No insult, but I really wasn't talking to you about what a greek god Fabio is.
If the character is described as wearing chainmail, I'll assume a full suit and the protection that comes with it. If the character is described as wearing a chainmail bikini, I'll assume no armor or magic.
As I said. "Our disagreement is pretty fundamental."
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A lot of people jump on "stupid armor" like the the chainmail bikini, but kind of fail to understand the point of wearing armor. Anatomically, there are no weak points in the body, just weaker points. The groin, the armpits, and the lower neck are three areas that basically no armor actually protects from bleeding out. Other than those, the most basic and optimal protection needed from armor is the stomach (soft tissue with a lof ot vitals, not protected by the rib cage) and the head. Next is the genitals (for males) and the ribcage (heart, lungs, and spine).And the chainmail bikini protects any of those?
I guess it offers minimal protection to the ribcage and to the groin. None to the head or stomach.
I was trying to say more that between nothing at all, the chainmail, and much heavier armor, the chainmail is slightly better than nothing, and probably a lot better than heavier armor for practical use. It's not optimal, but it's actually not that terrible either.
Side note, PF also introduced the Armored Kilt, which is basically the male chainmail bikini. . .
Side note, PF also introduced the Armored Kilt, which is basically the male chainmail bikini. . .
Not Quite. The Armored Kilt is intended to augment other armors.
But it can be used alone.
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Kirth, in your conversations with your wife and her various relations, have you found one single factor that differentiates a person being attracted to a characters physicality, rather than their personality?
I find that personality doesn't usually get a chance, because if the appearance and/or magnetism isn't good enough, the woman will lack sufficient interest to even find out what the guy's personality is. Watch a group of mixed people sometime; it's fascinating. For example, Thursday evening, eight or so people from work went to the local pub afterwards for a pre-St. Patrick's Day pint. Here's what I observed:
After the initial chit-chat had turned into general side conversations, the three women -- unconsciously but very pointedly to an observer -- turned away from the less-attractive guy and spoke only to the other three men, and to each other. All four guys talked to all of the other guys and all of the women. The less-attractive guy could ask questions, make comments, etc., and the other guys would answer him and generally include him in the conversation; but the women absolutely would not speak to him or answer him -- although they would make it seem like they just didn't hear him, or were already talking to the person next to them, etc. And he's an incredibly nice guy, better traveled and more worldly than the younger fellow, better in touch with social norms than the older guy, and generally more outgoing than the tall guy.
What struck me is that I'm 99% sure the women had absolutely no idea they were ignoring him. You could ask them later and they'd all say, "Sure, I talked to everyone there," and pass a polygraph on it. It was unconscious and as natural as breathing.
Men are just as selective when it comes to physical appearance. It's not a woman thing; it's a human thing.
Men are just as selective when it comes to physical appearance. It's not a woman thing; it's a human thing.
In most of the animal kingdom with sexual dimorphism, the male's responsibility is to go to outrageous lengths to attract a mate -- any mate -- and the female gets to pick and choose. Look at peacocks with those ridiculous plumes. Humans are no different. The striking difference I can immediately think of is in lions, and that only works because one male kills or drives off all the other ones.
My point is that it's not just women. Men do the same thing. People tend to treat attractive people better than ugly people. It's sad, but it's true.
If an attractive person smiles at you, you might think "That's nice!" Whereas if an ugly person smiles at you, you might think "What do they want?" Of course this isn't done on purpose. It's a mostly subconscious reaction. Once you're aware of this bias it becomes easier to see people in a different light, and not to fall into these behaviors.
Kirth, in your conversations with your wife and her various relations, have you found one single factor that differentiates a person being attracted to a characters physicality, rather than their personality?I find that personality doesn't usually get a chance, because if the appearance and/or magnetism isn't good enough, the woman will lack sufficient interest to even find out what the guy's personality is. Watch a group of mixed people sometime; it's fascinating. For example, Thursday evening, eight or so people from work went to the local pub afterwards for a pre-St. Patrick's Day pint. Here's what I observed: ** spoiler omitted **...
Spoilered as it's a bit of a derail.
I wasn't very specific when I asked, but when I mentioned personality, I wasn't talking about someone with an air-quoted great personality, as much as the middle guy you described with what you called considerable presence. Or would you say that said presence is a physical trait rather than a personality trait?
My own experience of the physical/personality divide is totally weird. For years and years I had an embarrassingly large facial cyst. Women would still talk to me, but I had an air-quoted great personality; when you're physically repulsive, people treat you like a piece of furniture, and hooking up with a good looking (or any) chick just doesn't happen.
Once I finally got the cyst removed, my confidence shot through the roof. I'm no more handsome/alluring/super-hot than I was before, but I feel like I am, simply for the fact of not being physically repulsive. The weird thing is, people seem to believe me.
My point is that physicality and personality are very closely tied together, and beyond that super-nuanced statement, it all heads off into "Hell, don't ask me" territory.
I wonder if this would be the best place to put; This?
