Armor / Damage Types in RPGs Compared to Real Life

This video features a comparison of rpg vs real life, an armor review (brigandine) as well as a discussion of armor & damage types based on tests I've done in the past.

Video on the different types of cuts (slash, chop, hew, etc):

Review of the brigandine:

Spear vs. riveted mail hauberk:

My favorite online store for reproductions of historical arms and armor, fantasy swords, etc:

Support the channel, get bonus content and other rewards:
For one-time donations:

Books about history and/or martial arts, swords, knives, video/audio equipment, and other stuff I recommend:

Where to get HEMA gear and practice swords:

Get in contact or see a list of my video uploads:

Channel-related shirts and other merch:

My side channel (for rambles, vlogs, opinions, gaming, etc):

Knives on Gearbest:

Intro song:
"Illuminate" by Vindsvept

Outro:
"Highland Storm" by The Slanted Room Records

#skallagrim #swords #endhimrightly

[mattes]

The best armor is still gambeson, underneath chainmail, underneath fullplate, behind a castle wall. You are basically invulnerable in that case.

[juliennemaeurazephiguzman]

"And probably the reason why you're watching this instead of working"
Ouch. Felt that right in the priorities.

[castsmith]

we all know that dying person with 1 hp can still work like a healthy person

[FablesScribe]

Skyrim logic: wearing steel plate armor or any heavy set, get hit by a sword, see blood spilled out of you

IRL logic: A loud metal noise after the strike

[windhelmguard]

i think my favourite system was in fallout 2, where armour had three stats:
AC (armour class)
DT (damage threshhold)
DR (damage reduction)
AC states how likely it is for an attack to glance off the armour, implementing this requires no extra steps as the opponent has to make a to hit roll either way, just add the armour class to the to hit difficulty and there you go.
DT states how much damage the armour can absorb at a direct hit, so even if a hit solidly connects and does not glance off, the armour can still prevent the wearer from taking damage if the attack is too weak, , this, again, does not require an additional roll of any kind, just compare the armours DT to the attackers damage roll and if that roll is too low the damage is zero and if it is not, you just subtract the armours DR from the damage roll to get the amount of damage you take.
it's an elegant system and a quick one if you can do basic maths.


if you then just add damage spread to each weapon (with blunt weapons having lower max, but higher minimum damage, piercing weapons having higher max and lower minimum damage, with slashsing weapons somewhere inbetween) you can get a decently quick, but also somewhat realistic gaming experience.

[MikaelKKarlsson]

Protip: When going to fight a bunch of Hobbits; don't forget your codpiece.

[jpmchausse]

Gorilla tape gambeson. Even helps stop leaking when you get stabbed!

[fq]

Kingdom Come Deliverance has a system where weapons have different blunt, cut, and pierce stats and the damage you deal with cuts thrusts and with force is dependent on that. (The armour also has cut, pierce, and blunt protection.) It seems quite life like and similar to what skall explains.

[kaidrescher]

6:35 in the indie game Kenshi this actually happens, depending on the weapon the damage can be both crush and slash, like oversized swords that tend to be balanced with both

[LookItsCollin]

"watching now instead of working." Actually, I'm developing a combat system right now and using this as another resource in that process, so I AM working, haha

[somethingsomethingsomethingdar]

I have solved this for my D&D game by describing how attacks hit or miss.

A roll of 1-10 the character dodged the attack.
10-AC the character uses his armor or weapon to block the blow
Beat the AC and damage a little? You find an opening and manage a cut or a blow but do minimal damage.

Beat the AC and do a large amount of damage? You find a gap in his or her defenses and strike true. You see blood start to come from the strike

No matter what follow the rule of cool and make your players feel like bad asses

[OmegaCKL]

Someone needs to create an RPG collecting all of Skallagrim's knowledge. Would 100% buy.

[LuckySketches]

Joke's on you, I'm watching this instead of SLEEPING!

[restoredtuna]

5:36 I have a solution to this in my campaign. An armour with the ‘Plated’ trait has; -4 slashing, -3 piercing and -2 bludgeoning. As well if a weapon dealing piercing damage gets a critical hit on the plate armour, there is no damage reduction.
As another example chain mail has the ‘Ringed’ feature; -3 slashing, -2 piercing, and disadvantage to stealth checks.

A small reduction in damage for using certain damage types will encourage the players to pick the right weapon for the job, which in both cases here was Bludgeoning, but Piercing has an edge as well against plate, leaving low damage attacks from slashing weapons dealing almost none. Works for a certain types of game.

[sherlockbatmanholmes]

I think skalligrim should do an analysis on the thumb tac vs berry b benson duel from the bee movie.

[WillcraftAnimations]

I'm working on my own tabletop RPG (which will most likely never be finished, knowing me) and the way I accounted for armour gaps is giving the player the option to specifically target a weak point, letting them deal more damage or just bypass the armour's protection altogether, but making it more difficult to actually land the hit. Nice and simple, and it's optional too, which always helps keeping things simpler for people who like it that way but allowing for some extra complexity for players who don't mind that.
This video has given me some more ideas, like separate protection values for each damage type (making textile armours absorb more points of blunt damage than piercing or slashing damage for instance) and the consideration of additional damage types to do more justice to axes, spears warpicks and such. Maybe chopping damage and... penetrating damage? I don't know, and I don't even know if I'll end up going for it since as you said, making a tabletop is a battle between complexity and simplicity. You want complexity to make the game believable and allow for more options and whatnot, but you also want simplicity so that the learning curve isn't insane and the game isn't tedious as hell even once you've learned.

[depthcharge]

“Watching this instead of working.” Hands up, you got me :P

[Linkedition]

Complex calculations in RPGs is what computers are for. I am all for complex stats in videogames, but keep it off my tabletop.

[foxsapprentice]

I feel like Skalligram is literally a blacksmith from the past that came to the future LOL

[nicolaiveliki]

I developed a system that disposes of damage types in favor of damage parameters, like sharpness multiplying damage to the opponent (after damage reduction) and penetration reducing the enemy armor's damage reduction. You don't need any tables, only your base damage, the damage parameters and your enemy's damage reduction and you're good to go