Reviled SCA buff tonry edward s <c60est1_at_corn.cso.niu.edu> wrote
>As one of Sandy's "reviled SCA buffs," I thought I'd toss in my two cents
>worth on arm protection. Inexperienced fighters are the ones most likely
>to lose an arm, mainly because they leave their arms out in front of
>themselves too long. A reasonably competent fighter is usually pretty
>safe, even from the unchivalrous (but not rare) arm-hunter. Still, even
>a good fighter can misjudge his timing and get hit. That hurts, and
>armor helps protect against pain, even if not loss. We do this for fun,
>not as an exercise in masochism. Well, most of us...
I seem to recall that Roman legionaries trained in head/torso attacks, as one of the few close quarter useing the sword as predominant weapon civilised armies this is worth thinking about.
>As for RQ, the reason for armor on arms, legs, whatever is simple - the
>hit location table. If you can be hit somewhere, you can take damage
>there. Take enough damage and you're dead. Ergo, armor everything as
>much as you can.
But this assumes the hit location table is reasonable - it may be okay if the target is just standing there letting you hit him, or is a heavily armoured lump moving relatively slowly like a medieval knight (or an SCA fighter in a demo bout :] - I have never seen them fight except at displays) but if one is a fast moving opponent whose arms are in motion it is not. Shoulders are another question - they were often armoured with the torso and are easier to hit.
Even if you think the distribution on hit probabilities is reasonable, the fact that if you have a shield the fact that you actually have to make a parry to have it protect an arm is a true obscenity - instead the attacker after hitting the left arm (assuming a right handed fighter) should have some chance based on the shield type of actually avoiding the shield (unless the defender actually fumbles his shield parry and actually opens up to let the sword of the opponent inside.
The current need for arm protection in RQ is driven by the current hit location system - if arms were a rare target, or the combat system reflected the fact that arms are not defenceless due to having weapon or shield to provide 'passive' defence then heavy arm armour would not be so necessary.
Aden
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