Refined Hide

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Something that's always bugged me in role-playing games from the olden days to Pathfinder 2e today has been hide armor.

It's almost always depicted as a motley assortment of pelts and tanned leather crudely stitched together. It makes me not wanna wear it if I'm playing a class that requires it like a druid, especially if that druid is something like an elf which is supposed to project a more sophisticated and graceful air.

It feels like any refined non-metal armors tend to be almost exclusively leather or studded leather, which can look downright artful!

Is there a way to get around this, a way I can describe my character's hide armor so it looks pretty with decorations and symmetry and stuff? I'd like to play druids more, but I get hung up on the "crudely-stitched-together-stinky-pelts" look that it seems like EVERY depiction of hide armor has!

[aobst128]

Furs can absolutely be a refined look if you want it to be. Think high fantasy society fashion. Can be a whole finely crafted coat or just accessories on a more practical boiled leather piece. Add jewelry if you wish. You can flavor it any way you want within reason. Pick some fantastical beast where the hide came from.

[Perpdepog]

Yeah. For my money the main difference between leather and hide is whether or not the fur or scales are still present. Both armors would need to be treated to keep them from rotting, so thicker armor with fur/scales equals hide, while thinner armor that has all that stuff taken off equals leather.

You could also just treat hide armor like more complete leather armor with thicker panels and straps, perhaps with more layering between pieces, like someone took two leather armors and stuck them together.

[Akjosch]

Inspired by this post, I asked Stable Diffusion to generate me a bunch of "hide armor" concept images. Maybe something in the results will be to your taste, or inspire you?

As usual with AI art: Don't look too closely at things like hands or faces - they're not the focus in this case.

[Bigdaddyjug]

Akjosch wrote:

Inspired by this post, I asked Stable Diffusion to generate me a bunch of "hide armor" concept images. Maybe something in the results will be to your taste, or inspire you?

As usual with AI art: Don't look too closely at things like hands or faces - they're not the focus in this case.

Some of those are amazing. I need to start using that to make character portraits to upload into digital game portals like Foundry and HeroLaB.