Why don't individual pieces of armor have their own bonuses?

[Yqatuba]

I've never been entirely sure, but I assume it's because treating all suits of armor like onesies is just easier than having to calculate each piece (especially if a character is wearing a suit made of different kinds of armor.) That said, if someone only has a chainmail tunic or leather pants, how much ac bonus should it give? (I assume not 0).

[Java Man]

There is a system for that! Ultimate combat has rules for 'piecemeal armor.'

https://aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?Name=Piecemeal%20Armor&Category=Optional% 20Rule%20Systems

[Mysterious Stranger]

The other to consider is that other than at very low level most armor ends up being magic. For a magic item to function you usually need all the component pieces to be worn or it is useless. The piecemeal armor rules allow for the exception to that, but that is only if you are using the optional rule. In practice it is rarely worth using those rules. Even in the real world armor usually worked better wearing complete suits that were actually built at the same time.

[Quixote]

I think it's pretty much the same reason that armor makes it harder to hit you, versus reducing the damage you take from a hit. Or why a loss of hp doesn't come with a roll on the broken leg/punctured lung/etc table. Or any of the other gazillion things that this combat simulator leaves out. It's just a matter of trying to keep the game streamlined enough for people to play and balancing that with enough crunch to make it satisfying.

There are plenty of games out there that are far more complex than Pathfinder, and way more that are much, much simpler. I think it's just a matter of hitting that sweet spot for your target audience.

[Mudfoot]

For your examples, chainmail tunic is essentially the same as a chain shirt depending on what it covers. Maybe +3 instead of +4.

The leather pants...if you're talking about Sean Connery in Zardoz, +0. But even if you mean trousers, still +0 against anything able to reach the torso, because that's where people will attack anyway.

[MrCharisma]

Mudfoot wrote:

For your examples, chainmail tunic is essentially the same as a chain shirt depending on what it covers. Maybe +3 instead of +4.

The leather pants...if you're talking about Sean Connery in Zardoz, +0. But even if you mean trousers, still +0 against anything able to reach the torso, because that's where people will attack anyway.

I was gonna say exactly this.

If you want to give an AC bonus to leather pants just make them an ARMOURED KILT.

But really Quixote hit the nail on the head - the rules are there to facilitate fun. There's a balance between realism and playability that all systems try to strike.

There are other systems that do piecemeal armour better, that have more crunchy rules, etc. It' about finding the system that works for you.

[Yqatuba]

Mudfoot wrote:

For your examples, chainmail tunic is essentially the same as a chain shirt depending on what it covers. Maybe +3 instead of +4.

The leather pants...if you're talking about Sean Connery in Zardoz, +0. But even if you mean trousers, still +0 against anything able to reach the torso, because that's where people will attack anyway.

Well, you can't normally attack specific body parts in Pathfinder, so if the only rule you changed was how pieces of armor work, you'd still be protected by wearing just pants, even if it doesn't make much sense.

[avr]

The last thing Pathfinder needs is a bunch more magic item slots, so I'd be opposed to allowing +1 mirrored leather pants with a +2 grinding chain tunic or vice versa.

[Quixote]

And I feel like, if you change how armor works but not address the idea of hit location...it's incomplete. They kind of go hand-in-hand.

Plus. I mean. There are SO MANY pieces of armor. So many. Where do you draw the line? Do you really want to figure out the effects of two dozen different little bits and bobs you buckle on? I do not.

[PossibleCabbage]

The other thing about making stuff like this super granular, is that Pathfinder allows for a wide array of different bodies as well as sartorial preferences. So abstracting it lets you say "oh, that armor works the same for everyone in the correct size category" and you don't have to worry about whether or not wearing pants gives you better AC than wearing a skirt.

[Claxon]

Java Man wrote:

There is a system for that! Ultimate combat has rules for 'piecemeal armor.'

https://aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?Name=Piecemeal%20Armor&Category=Optional% 20Rule%20Systems

There is, and people mostly tried to abuse it to get higher ACs or ignored it because your AC was generally worse unless you found some loopholes.

[Tacticslion]

Java Man wrote:

There is a system for that! Ultimate combat has rules for 'piecemeal armor.'

Linkification for edification

:D

[mardaddy]

For regular play - yes, avoid piecemeal.

BUT I would prefer the piecemeal approach for certain RPG applications that make sense, like playing in a Dark Sun-type setting where metal is extremely rare, and heavier or more "complete" armor coverings would be far more fatiguing due to environment creating it's own issues of "choices have consequences."

[Derklord]

Yqatuba wrote:

Well, you can't normally attack specific body parts in Pathfinder, so if the only rule you changed was how pieces of armor work, you'd still be protected by wearing just pants, even if it doesn't make much sense.

Not if the default presumption is that any attack targets the torso. Which, considering that the torso is the easiest body part to hit, is soft, and contains plenty of vital organs, is actually a pretty good presumption.

Of course, if an attack has a 5% chance of hitting your legs, and your leg armor prevents that hit being relevant, +1 AC perfectly represents that. Of course, now you need a conditional AC bonus based on opponent's size, distance, and weapon type; and no one is willing to suffer playing with that just because you want to use a Ken Kelly drawing as your character art piece!

[Lucy_Valentine]

Yqatuba wrote:

I've never been entirely sure, but I assume it's because treating all suits of armor like onesies is just easier than having to calculate each piece?

It's because Pathfinder is a rehash of a system that was a rebuild and complexifying of a system that was a neatening of a system that was an extremely simple base system with a whole bunch of extra tat tacked on, where said original simple base system came from wargaming where parsimony with the dice rolling is important, and as such weird approximations are built right into the core of it.

I mean, if you want to get fundamental, that's why.

[Crayon]

1. Impractical. It kinda works in something like GURPS or Deadlands Classic that uses Hit Locations, but for Pathfinder it's not really workable.

2. Armour is more than the sum of its parts. The Ars Magica supplement Lords of Men explains this pretty well - opponents aren't going to bother attacking armoured parts of your person making individual pieces of armour far less efficacious than a full-suit.