I probably didn’t say camp mat armour was fine. But I probably didn’t say that rubber swords were okay either, yet that was implied. I believe that steel armour at larps is an unnecessary danger, especially helmets at night when people are sprinting around in the dark. Nothing says ouch like sprinting into a heavy helmet with your face.
My reasoning for this is simply that I WANT more equipment and costumes in games. How often do players not bring kit to games because their character cannot afford to purchase it under the game rules? All the time! I’d love to see battalions of armoured knights walking around the place.
I’m not really fussed if people want to use or ban rubber armour. I can do either. I’d hope that players who are in for the long haul would eventually put together some steel armour.
Orcs WERE armoured warriors in LOTR movies.
I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to cut through steel armour. I have. It’s bloody solid stuff. If someone stood very still and let you really wind up on them, you could probably not put a one handed sword through a steel helmet. I base this on the fact that I cannot and I hit harder than most people I know. You could probably lay them out on the ground though.
Hit points and armour points work reasonably well and I think they will remain the most popular form of combat resolution for fantasy larps, especially ones with unrealistic amounts of combat. They have a lot of things going for them; they work well with magic, buffs, healing, boss monsters, races etc etc etc. But they do fall down when you look closer and the rules just grow and grow and grow trying to patch a logically flawed system.
Lets look at an example of play using the Mordavia rules…
Bob has 2hp + tough (1hp) + mail shirt (2ap) + a helm (1ap) for a total of 3hp + 3ap = 6 total points.
He heads off into the woods and encounters an bandit who hits him once on the right arm before Bob kills him. Bob now has 3hp + 2ap because armour points are lost before hit points, even when the armour is not struck.
Frodo the thief sneaks up on Bob and grabs the helmet off his head and runs off into the woods. Has Bob just lost a point of armour or can he assume the lost piece was damaged? Frodo puts the helmet on. Does Frodo gain an armour point or not?
This is just one of the many many flaws that you’ll encounter with hit points and armour points. There are a hundred other questions that can be asked about the same rules:
- why, if I was shot in the bare chest with an arrow, are all my greaves and vambraces damaged?
- why, when I loot the dead after a battle, is every piece of armour completely stuffed?
- why is a mail hauberk, that has been hit twice with a club, completely stuffed?
- why does wearing a single greave offer me no protection, even if I get hit there three times and nowhere else?
- a person is armoured in just a helmet, I hit him in both shins with the edge of a shovel, why can they still sprint?
I’ve done a reasonable amount of fighting in full armour with rattan weapons. These hurt where you don’t have armour, but where you are armoured with plate, they don’t hurt at all (except heavy head blows). We have from time to time done poleaxe combat in heavy transitional harnesses (think mail hauberk with steel limbs, steel breastplate and steel helmet with mail aventail). You get so completely tired doing this style of combat that sometimes you just take a break from parrying and let the other guy whack you while you recover some energy. A few solid blows on the shoulders really doesn’t do much so as long as you protect yourself from face thrusts and stay on balance, you can just suck it up and recover some energy. Unless the person physically throws you to the ground and levers open your visor, you’re pretty much safe.
Ninja, you should try playing a game in full steel armour and see if you think being invulnerable to weapons would actually be worth the pain and suffering.