From about the end of the 14th century, the second most popular way to kill a FULLY armoured knight on a horse was to shoot his horse full of arrows, drag him to the ground and stick a dagger through his occular. You might also knock him on his back with a maul or a bill hook if he was still standing. Poor living conditions, disease and infection was the number one killer. Just prior to plate, arrows (in combination with full time professional soldiers) was also a big killer. After the introduction of gunpowder armour was worn on limbs less because to make it “proof” meant making it too heavy. Soldiers today still typically wear helmets; and vests if their army can afford them. However, there were very few people that were 100% armoured.
I think you are mistaken to assume that people will suddenly get 100% cover. Almost nobody will manage this. I can think of ONE suit of foot armour in RL that is like this. It belonged to Henry VIII and was created for the field of the cloth of gold; and do you want to know something really funny? He never even fought in it!
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My experience with armour suggest to me that if one blow does not injure someone, twenty or thirty similar blows won’t injure them either. That’s a pretty rough statement and there are exceptions, like concussion and breaking fingers, but I’d hold that it is generally true. It’s a bit like dropping a china plate; it breaks or it doesn’t, five small drops aren’t the same as one big drop.
I’ll digress for a moment. When I joined the SCA I built a suit of armour and went to an event in Christchurch. In my forst day of fighting, I didn’t manage to kill anyone. I wounded one person and he eventually killed me. Day two, I got a few kills but I was still dying nine times out of ten. Part of this was because I couldn’t hit hard enough and partly was because I lacked skill. Some people probably think “this system doesn’t work, I’m off!” I didn’t. Getting so completely trashed inspired me to do better. If I’d gone to my first event and WON, I probably would have given up. I would have thought “that was easy, I’ve mastered this, I’m off to find something more challenging”. Maybe we’re just different people when dealing with a situation like that.
Assuming that armour gives you an advantage in combat that allows you to beat someone without armour most of the time, this sense of dissatisfaction will happen under any system. It also assumes that the poor n00b has joined a group of selfish bastards that won’t lend them some equipment when they start playing. This may be what you are used to, but in groups I associate with people lend each other kit and help each other build stuff. Heck I probably give away an average of a suit of armour a year.
Typically, my personal armour has spent more time on other players at larps than on me and I can’t even begin to count the number of people I’ve helped to build armour. I can see a more likely reaction to seeing the effectivness of armour and that is the person decides they want to attend an armouring workshop and build some for themself.
Also, you don’t need a forge to build armour, but I agree that the tools, expense and skills of starting an armoury are beyond what I’d expect from most players.
Ninja123, you seem to have a “glass half empty” attitude to larp. Is there a reason for this? I’ve seen so many different ways of doing stuff in martial arts, larp, sport fighting and reenactment that when I hear of new ways to do stuff I almost always think “that could work, sounds like fun!” But your attitude seems to be “Oh my God! It’s different to what I do so either it is wrong or I am wrong. I must find a way to prove it is wrong so my way is right!” I’m not trying to attack you here, I’m just wondering why you feel such a small thing will have such catastrophic consequences.
There are hundreds of ways of reenacting combat that have wide followings and they all have to balance up different factors to (hopefully) get something that works for them.