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[Tawa]

So, as I've mentioned a few times before, I'm working on a 30 Years' War inspired Pathfinder setting. To go along with this, I've redone the armor table from scratch, using a homebrew piecemeal armor system that's supposed to encourage the players to pick and choose rather than just go for a full set. I've tried to balance it, but seeing as I'm not exactly a master homebrewer, I'd like to run the table and rules I've written thus far past you guys.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

All characters have three slots – head, torso, and legs. One piece of armor can be worn in each slot. You can mix heavy, medium, and light armor as you please--they're intended as guidelines.

Armor class (light/medium/heavy) is determined by how heavy your character’s armor is.
   - If the weight of your character’s armor is less than or equal to 20 pounds, they are wearing light armor.
   - If the weight of your character’s armor exceeds 20 pounds, they are wearing medium armor. They are slowed down to 20 ft. per round.
   - If the weight of your character’s armor exceeds 30 pounds, they are wearing heavy armor. They are slowed down to 20 ft. per round and run at 3 times their maximum speed, rather than 4.

Add up all the armor check penalties to get your total penalty. Fractional armor check penalties only apply once they add up to a whole number (so, for example, a buff coat and morion will add up to a total -1.5, but only -1 is applied.)

The armor is kind of a mix of things from the early modern period; because the base armor table covers a reasonably wide variety of historical armor, I figured that for variety anything that was in use roughly between the birth of William Shakespeare (1564) and the end of the Thirty Years' War (1648) was fair game. I still feel like it could use some more variety, though, so I'm very much open to suggestions.

[smjjames]

The two light armor helms seem rather pricey, especially since the stats are a lot closer to the gambeson and buff coat than the comparable priced medium stuff. Also, the costs for the morion  and secrete seem flipped.

If I were one of your players, I’d probably skip the light armors entirely and get the burg-net and half cuirass. Course that’s before making any class considerations.

[scriver]

What about combining spell failure?

[Jimmy]

I can see your basic formula is +1 AC per 5 lbs, which mostly works for the core rulebook's normal 'best' sets (chain shirt +4 AC 20 lbs, breastplate +6 AC 30 lbs, full plate +9 AC 50 lbs).

Thus, I'd give light armors +1 AC chausses for legs at 5 lbs, bump tassets to 10 lbs for +2, and full tassets to 15 lbs for +3. Keep your helms at +1 per 5 lbs too except for the secrete. For armors, stick to the same for light, but subtract 3 lbs off each medium from the total, and 5 lbs off heavy from the total. Drop the AC for medium and heavy torso by 1 each to max out at +3 and +4 respectively, and remove one of the light torso pieces, maxing at +2. Make head and legs more expensive than torso too.

So a Dex based character wanting 'best' medium armor could wear an armet and full tassets for +6 AC at 30 lbs with no cap on their Dex, or light for tassets and morion for +4 AC at 20 lbs. Alternatively, wearing a +3 medium cuirass and secrete gets +4 AC for 15 lbs, or +5 AC at 20 lbs with chausses, but means you deal with a +3 max Dex bonus on armor. A max AC character could wear a +4 heavy cuirass torso, a +3 armet head, and a +3 full tassets legs for 45 lbs total. On the other hand, you could take a +4 heavy cuirass and add just one of the other two options to end up with medium armor instead, but you're dealing with a lower max Dex bonus as a trade-off for lighter weight on the torso.

[scriver]

Also lol secrete

[smjjames]

That'd be this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secrete_(helmet)

Tawa, if you're not changing the price of that one, maybe give it the ability to be worn under a hat or hood. Might not justify the price, but it'd certainly make it more appealing to those that use light armor and want to wear hoods or hats or whatever.

[GiglameshDespair]

An armet weighs 15lbs? What is it made from, lead?

[smjjames]

An armet weighs 15lbs? What is it made from, lead?

Got curious on that and googled it. Turns out that more everyday or combat ones were around half that, more like between 6 and 9 pounds, 15 is much closer to ones meant for jousting.

I guess it depends on how much tawa is going for historical accuracy vs balanced gameplay.

[Tawa]

That'd be this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secrete_(helmet)

Tawa, if you're not changing the price of that one, maybe give it the ability to be worn under a hat or hood. Might not justify the price, but it'd certainly make it more appealing to those that use light armor and want to wear hoods or hats or whatever.

I wrote up a big description for it, actually, with perception check DCs and everything! That helmet warmed my heart. It's the exact kind of weird pseudo-experimental weaponry I love from the 1600s.

An armet weighs 15lbs? What is it made from, lead?

Will cut down on the weight. I figured that going heavy on the weight would be alright because the base game tends to overestimate the full weight of a suit of armor, but that is pretty weighty for an armet.

The two light armor helms seem rather pricey, especially since the stats are a lot closer to the gambeson and buff coat than the comparable priced medium stuff. Also, the costs for the morion  and secrete seem flipped.

If I were one of your players, I’d probably skip the light armors entirely and get the burg-net and half cuirass. Course that’s before making any class considerations.

Morion and secrete weights are intentional, but thanks for pointing out the issue there. I tried to account for various combinations, but I had a habit of only comparing to the "best" armor in each category (e.g. chain shirt). The fact that I adapted it from a confusing system where your armor type was dependent on how many pieces of each type you were wearing.

-snip-

I read this, understand what you're saying, and like your ideas, but I couldn't think of a good way to respond outside of this meta-response (and I didn't want to make it look like I skipped your post) :v
I think that I'll trim it down. I like the mix-and-match style of helmets, but I feel like the leg armor boils down to "tassets" or "heavier tassets" and seems silly when you consider that tassets are supposed to hang off of a breastplate (meaning that they don't really make sense in the context of pairing them with light armor.) Will post new version soon.

E: Screw it, I'm scrapping it. I can't seem to conjure up anything that really satisfies me, so I'll just stick with re-skinning the base armor table. Thanks for the help, though, everyone!

[Gentlefish]

Chain leggings are a thing yeah? Though I guess considering the time period they might not have been common. What about greaves that are tied padded armor beneath?

[Jimmy]

Yes, chain leggings are a thing. That's why I suggested chausses as a light leg armor option. They were fairly common through the European middle ages.

Thanks for the work Tawa! I actually really like your ideas for piecemeal armor. Tell me, is your campaign going to include magic in your pseudo-30 Years' War setting? I'm wondering about the implications of such on a historical context.

[Tawa]

I reworked the piecemeal armor ideas into an armor table reskin :\ I left the secrete in, though (and you can still wear it with light armor,) and listed some helmet ideas after the new table. I like the idea, though--as a big Mount & Blade fan, the idea of mixing and matching armor really tickles my fancy--so I might revisit it sometime, probably when I'm working in a broader context, like a traditional fantasy setting with a mess of armor ideas from 600+ years of history rather than a less-than-100-years, western-half-of-a-single-continent constraint.

Anywho. There's magic, but it's rather heavily controlled. The basic ideas:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

- It's explained by a quantum theory-style set of laws called "arcane physics"; wizards have determined that magic works on different rules than regular stuff like walking around and lifting things, but that it still works on rules that are internally consistent. Nobody's really sure how divine magic works, though; since people from all corners of the earth seem capable of it, the one thing that's generally agreed upon is that whatever deity really exists doesn't really care whether or not the diviner gets their name right.

- Back in the early days of the setting, the polytheist "barbarians" of the north practiced arcane sorcery under their shamans, but that ground to a halt when they converted to the dualistic southern religion inspired by Gnosticism (the many gods Pathfinder expects have been replaced with "saints" that serve the same function--thanks for the idea, Darklands!) The not!Gnostic clergy all but banned arcane magic and kept a close eye on divine magic, making sure that anybody stronger than the average first-level adept was reined in by the church.

- One of the big breaks in interpretation of scripture that the Not Protestants have is that the Not Demiurge, who is charged with creating magic as part of their act of creating the natural world, is ignorant of the suffering they wrought, rather than being actively malevolent. As a result, the Not Protestants think that magic is fine and dandy, which was one of the reasons early religious wars tended to end in favor of the Not Protestants, who were happy to employ combat wizards.

- After a Peace of Augsburg stand-in, arcane magic became legal under church law (the Not Catholics changed their beliefs in magic--where it was once thought to be pure evil, they instead deemed it to be another part of the natural world,) but is heavily controlled by governments. In most countries, wizards have to be licensed and a dedicated branch of the government seeks out sorcerers before they hurt anybody. It's now practiced (in small numbers, of course) in universities and such as a science of the natural world. However, using magic on people without their consent is generally considered a crime; depending on where you are and what spell you used, somewhere between assault and high treason.

- And, of course, there's still rare magic stuff sitting about. Since I intend to run it with P6 rules (since it's going to be a people-based campaign, rather than a monster-based one, I prefer to keep things relatively low-key,) magical artifacts are really rare compared to regular Pathfinder games where the game expects you to be dripping with magic by level 10. But that doesn't mean there aren't holy swords and ancient pagan artifacts and the like strewn about; really, I think that magical items being rare makes them cooler and more precious by default.

As a side note, I think the setting is pretty close to being finished:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

- I have 1 part of the setting--Not The Holy Roman Empire--fleshed out in great detail, with eight powerful vassals and one particular type of lord thoroughly elaborated on alongside a general history of the empire.

- Seven countries ("What If Harold Godwinson Didn't Take An Arrow To The Eye", "France Meets Catalonia", "Wizard Navarre", "In Which Venice and Syria Have A One Night Stand", "Definitely Not The Ottoman Empire", "Polish-Lithuanian-Finnish Commonwealth", and "Sweden X Ireland OTP" complete with Christina Augusta meets Gustavus Adolphus,) are described in less-but-still considerable detail, with basic histories, political systems, and defining features outlined.

- A few others (best described as Not Ming China, Egypthiopia, and Iroquois-Confederacy-But-Every-Time-They-Add-A-Tribe-An-Inuit Tribe-Joins-Too) are roughly described, mainly to add flavor and to explain aspects of the lore that are more relevant (e.g. the main religion originated in Egypthiopia, the Swedish-Irish established trade with ICBETTAATAITJT.)

- Everyday life is more or less complete. I describe the way average people live and demographics, put down information on trade and currency (gp and sp and such are still in place, though I changed "copper pieces" to "brass pieces" partly for flavor reasons and partly because copper is, to my understanding, relatively rare as a pure metal for coinage,) describe the workings of armies and the types of weapons used in war, and elaborated in detail on the kinds of clothes people wear because like half the reason I made this setting is because 17th century fashion is really fricking cool.

- The three main religions (Not Catholicism, Not Protestantism, Not Islam) are described in considerable detail, with origins, spread, beliefs, symbols, and organizations all described. Not Christianity has a set of saints, two deities, and a death personification to choose from; Not Islam has the two gods, the death personification, and a bunch of one-note angels to pick from (Not Muslim clerics are allowed to pick two gods to devote themselves to, one deity and one angel, meaning that they have greater flexibility in some ways than Not Christians, but some combinations of domain are impossible.)

- Magic is described in great detail; how it works, the history of its study, all that good stuff in the first spoiler up there but more articulate. I also describe magical creatures in relatively brief terms; the more frightening ones have retreated into secluded places and long-lost ruins, following the advance of humanity and significant technological growth, but low-key ones like ghosts or vampires are out and about like they'd be in more traditional settings.

- I've got the basic outline of a first adventure's plot written out (a first for me; last time, my modus operandi was something like "Vikings are cool. Let's do that,") along with a first encounter explicitly designed. I have a rough idea of how the game should progress past the first "adventure", but I want to leave it kind of open for now since I'll have plenty of time to elaborate later and how the players handle the first adventure will radically alter the setup of the rest of the game (depending on who they end up working for, how well they do, who they side with afterward, stuff like that.)

- M A P S. I've got two big fancy maps of the empire and the countries nearest it. One is a political map showing the boundaries of the empire and the aforementioned eight most powerful territories in it. The other is a geographic map I hacked together using Victoria 2's terrain map textures. Thanks, Victoria 2!

Does it sound like anything important is missing there? I want to be thorough and not give a boring skin-deep description of the world I've created like I have in the past.

In case I haven't gushed enough about the impeccable style of the first half of the 17th century, every single thing about early 17th century clothes was absolutely dank as hell. The second half gets in on it too, but this guy and his son ruined it when they made this nonsense cool

[Jimmy]

Damn, Gustavus Adolphus? Is this set before or after his death? Because if the group is at the The Battle of Lützen and manages to prevent his death, the Thirty Years' War is headed in a hell of a different direction. The dude was a genius of warfare, able to adapt to the changing technology of the day and leverage it into decisive victories. If he lived past his 40th year, Sweden's gonna be a hell of a contender on the world stage afterwards.

Ahem, excuse my fanboyism, but I'm a huge fan of the 1632 series by Eric Flint. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in a reinterpretation of the Thirty Years' War.

[smjjames]

What about the colonies in the Americas? The Spanish colonies in the carribean would already be up to a century old and if you start right when the Thirty Years wars start, the colonies of other countries would already be at least a decade old.

Obviously the who colonized what would be different, but it’s something to consider in case your players inexplictedly decide to run off to the Americas. If they time it right, they might be able to join the pilgrims in 1620.

[Tawa]

(I think you guys get this, but just so we're 100% clear, this is a completely made up fantasy world. The people in it are "based on" or "inspired by" the real world in the same way the Earth Kingdom in Avatar is "based on" China, or that Diesel (1997) is "based on" Stardust Crusaders; that is, they're superficially very similar to the point of being rip-offs, but are otherwise entirely divorced from one another. This is a love letter to the trappings of a period, not some weird alt-history work.)

The working plan is to have the players be critical to the sparking of and subsequently opening stages of a massive, pan-continental war. I intend for something a bit more cinematic and "scheme-y" than some guys dying and their replacements getting chucked out a window, however.

I am not a huge fan of colonialism, as you might imagine, and I also enjoy the idea of advanced Native American nations free from the yoke of European colonizers. As such, the especially wide ocean and better luck with resources on the Not America side of the sea has made colonization unfeasible.