Armour prevents the loss of hit points by absorbing the damage instead. The damage that armour can take before needing to be repaired is listed in the Armour Table below.
Note: Armour only protects the area it covers. Poor quality physical representations will be penalised at the Refs’ discretion.
Armour can be stacked up to a maximum of seven points of protection. Damage is deducted from the outermost armour first.
Hits that find a gap in your armour count as having hit an unarmoured location.
| Armour type | Value |
|---|---|
| Soft leather, padded armour | 1 |
| Furs, thick/studded leather | 2 |
| ring mail | 3 |
| chain mail, brigantine, scale mail | 4 |
| plate mail | 5 |
Helms
Helms give additional protection when combined with armour.
- Leather helms will add one point to the torso.
- Metal helms will add two points to the torso.
This is in addition to the maximum seven armour points.
Damage Reduction (DR)
Damage Reduction represents things negating or dispersing some of the incoming damage due to resistances such as using a shield, casting certain magical protections or an extremely tough hide.
DR is separate to Armour and is applied before Armour is damaged or Wounds are taken and is not lost from taking normal damage as Armour would be.
DR reduces Damage of a specified type by an amount, any damage remaining is applied as normal, attacks of different types will not be reduced. So DR1 (Physical) would reduce a 4 Point Physical attack to a 3 Point Wound, but would not stop a Magical attack.
Attacks that do things other than cause damage (stuns, knockdowns etc.) are NOT STOPPED by DR.
Attacks that ignore Armour DO NOT ignore DR.
Shields
Shields provide ‘Damage Reduction’ against all direct attacks they are braced against and the wielder is aware of. This works against Ranged attacks, Melee attacks and direct Magical attacks (not area attacks like Blast or Storm). The DR value is based on the size of the Shield. If you are not sure what size shield you have please ask the Refs.
Attacks such as Break or Shatter spells or a Crush will reduce the DR value of a Shield. Attacks that reduce the DR of a Shield to zero effectively destroy the Shield. The DR of a Shield can be restored with certain Skills or Spells.
Excess damage after the DR goes to the characters arm. If you are holding a shield to cover your Torso to protect yourself from missile or spell damage, and the attack does damage in excess of the DR, that damage will go to your Torso rather than your arm.
If your arm is Critically Injured, you cannot block anything with a shield.
Attacks that do other things like Knockdown, Stun etc will still affect the target as normal.
- Small shields and bucklers provide 1 point of DR.
- Medium sized shields provide 2 points of DR.
- Large shields and tower shields provide 3 points of DR.