Uh oh. Cross posted from a thought I had on the Dag boards, relevant here:
The Rule:
3.7.1. Studded, scaled, or brigandine Armor can only be counted as Armor if 2/3 of the target area is covered by metal or leather, or the studs/rings/plates are no more than 1/2 inch apart.
The problems...
Arrakis wrote:Not trying to pick on you here, Thrush; it was merely your armor that made me think of this.
ThrushSvartehjertet wrote:
So, when the rules say:
5.3.2 - Studded, scaled, or brigandine armor can only be counted as armor if 2/3 of the leather is covered by metal, or the studs/rings/plates are no more than 1/2" apart.
don't they mean "the studs/rings/plates are no more than 1/2" apart
at most"? The other option is that they mean "the studs/rings/plates are no more than 1/2" apart
at at least one point", and I don't think that's what we want it to mean.
I'm saying: The edges of the washers in that picture in the horizontal and vertical directions may be as close as 1/2", but, diagonally, there are (mathematically, for 1" diameter washers with exactly .5" edge-to-edge spacing horizontally and vertically) going to be gaps of 1.21" between washer edges. Do those holes not violate the rule, in spirit, if not by letter?
If not, would you opine that 2" square plates, rotated 90 degrees to be regular diamonds and then aligned in a similar grid pattern so that the points of the diamonds are only .5" apart, but there are gaps of 2.7"x2.7" in between them diagonally is legal armor by these rules?
I will mock up images later if anyone expresses undue confusion regarding what I'm talking about. Just let me know.
Oznog wrote:Actually, I hate to break it to you:
5.3.2 - Studded, scaled, or brigandine armor can only be counted as armor if 2/3 of the leather is covered by metal, or the studs/rings/plates are no more than 1/2" apart.
Look at what the wording actually says. If you have only two studs on a piece, as long as they're less than 1/2" apart it satisfies the wording. You'd think you're looking at sentence specifying the maximum size of a spot which isn't covered by a stud, but no, that's not what the sentence says. In fact any size gap is allowable, as long as the studs which ARE there are only 1/2" apart. So if you wanna Beadazzle a dragon in the middle and leave no studs for the rest of the armor, technically, that's "legal", but to place a single stud AWAY from the main dragon without a line of studs connecting it is not.
It is pointless to dissect what this rule literally means for square vs offset or any unusual pattern, because you're reading something different than the rule actually says. The next thing you're gonna try to think through is "ok, maybe it means 'must be within 1/2" of at least 3 neighboring studs". Doesn't fix anything. Putting 3 studs in the middle, less than 1/2" apart, satisfies it. The rule actually says any stud placed on the armor must be 1/2" from another, but doesn't address coverage at all.
What you're probably thinking it means is:
1. Studs are supposed to be in a square rows 1/2" apart horizontally and vertically. But that doesn't encompass offset patterns (which is more common) and the rule doesn't say this. In fact there's no way to develop this idea into a coherent sentence to address anything BUT square patterns.
2. You can't place a 1/2"x1/2" square block anywhere on the armor without touching a stud. THIS addresses coverage, but there are geometric oddities in the way a square block works and what it allows. Do you let the player turn the square to the orientation which makes it hit a stud to pass it, or that if any orientation exists where it can be places without touching a stud then it's legal? For a square pattern, the first idea allows 0.5"+stud diameter row spacing, but the second idea requires 0.35355"+diameter spacing.
3. You say that you can't place a N-inch diameter CIRCLE anywhere on the armor without landing on a stud. In fact, when you say a 1/2"x1/2" can't be places in any orientation without landing on a stud, you're effectively saying a 0.707" dia circle cannot be found free of studs (think about it!). This actually makes much more sense since it doesn't have orientation questions and has fewer oddities in how it reacts to different geometries.
For a 1/2"x1/2" square pattern of zero-diameter studs, that would be saying a 0.707" dia circle can't be placed, or 576 studs/sq ft. Note that for the 0.5" dia circle and a square stud pattern, the rows and columns must be 0.35355" apart- which is probably "a bit much".
For an offset pattern with a 0.707" dia circle, they'd be 0.612" apart horizontally and the next row needs to be 0.459" apart, or 513 studs/sq ft.
For the 0.5" dia circle, they'd be 0.433" apart horizontally, and the next row needs to be 0.375" apart.
None of this actually has a lot of meaning for studs, since 1) it doesn't adjust well for actual area covered by metal. For 1" metal disks, their number required per sq ft is indeed lowered, but a "negligible diameter" stud like a rivet gives almost no metal coverage anyways. And 2) studs aren't functional armor anything. This argument has more logic when talking about spacing between rings, since those have some chance of stopping a weapon.
Arrakis wrote:Oznog, you are correct. I've done some math to check what the diameter:spacing ratios need to be for gridded row configurations of metal disks on thin leather, to see what the rule as I feel it was intended to read would permit.
For a configuration of non-staggered horizontal rows of disks to pass the "must cover 2/3 of the area" qualification, it must satisfy the equation:
s/d = sqrt(5*pi/8)-1 =~ 0.401
So, for .5" spacing, you'd need 1.25" or larger disks. For 1" spacing, you'd need 2.5+" disks. For 1" disks, you'd need .4" spacing or less.
For a configuration of non-staggered horizontal rows of disks to pass the "no more than 1/2"" qualification, it must satisfy the equation:
s = 0.353553*sqrt((0.5+d)^2)- 0.5*d
That means, that for 1.25" disks, the spacing has to be essentially zero. That's the maximum disk size for non-negative spacings. For 1" disks, 0.030" spacing. For .5" disks, 0.1" spacing. For .25" round-head studs, 0.14" spacing.
I can show anyone who's interested the math.
Oznog wrote:You know, you're right! I never thought about the disadvantages that leaves large disks in a square pattern. In an offset pattern, it wouldn't have as much of a problem but square...
It's still arguable that leaving a 0.5" dia hole between large disks or rings is not up to a basic quality standard. You could go offset, add a smaller ring/stud in between (kind of neat pattern there), or go with a larger clearance circle on the rules. Personally I think a 0.5" circle is pretty extreme. A 1" circle is still 0.707" spacing of a square pattern of small studs and 288 studs/sq ft. After all, the inside of a ring itself will probably be larger than 0.5", leading to a problem where you'd jam your regulation 0.5" wooden dowel inside a ring and fail it for not covering the inside.
Arrakis wrote:That's an example of plates spaced within .5" horizontally and vertically that should, by all rights, fail as armor, for those of you who weren't gettin' it, if there were any of you.
Kyrax wrote:I agree with you that the diagram shows something that clearly doesn't meet the intent of the rule. So what's the solution?
Arrakis wrote:Either what I posted above ("Whatever the checkers think is armory enough that particular day," which would probably reduce min-maxing...) or
5.3.2 - Composite Armor: Studded, scaled, or "brigandine" armors will only be considered to be Armor where the metal plates, scales, or studs have gaps no larger than a penny (~.75") between them at any point. Any gaps larger than that will be considered breaks in the protection of the armor and strikes to those areas should be counted as though they had struck bare skin.
That's easy and takes care of everything. Now, all .5" spacing square grid patterns of square plates will pass (the corner gaps are less than .75"), so that's nice for people building to the spirit of the old rule. Additionally, the armor is now defined as being Armor (and conferring the in-game advantages of such) only where (not when! not if!) the metal plates, scales, and studs actually ARE, i.e. no more two-studs-in-the-middle-of-a-surcoat loophole. As for rings, it should be plain from the wording that a ring or washer with an ID >.75" is not a valid component of a composite armor.
A nice addition to that that I like is:
5.3.2 - Composite Armor: Studded, scaled, or "brigandine" armors will only be considered to be Armor where the metal plates, scales, or studs have gaps no larger than a penny (~.75") between them at any point. Any gaps larger than that will be considered breaks in the protection of the armor and strikes to those areas should be counted as though they had struck bare skin. Studs, scales, and plates may not be smaller than the gaps between them.
Which handily outlaws cheesy bradded-suede "armor" and quick-rivets-on-a-leather-jacket "armor" while allowing small scales or rings if one is willing to pay the price of density (the same price one pays for wearing maille). This even allows armor like BH's crotchentine, so long as the gaps at the corners are <.75". And if they do happen to have .8" gaps, say, he could easily add .3" diameter rivets in each gap to make it armor!
Oznog wrote:That IS an interesting addition. I'll have to think about that. The wording is odd in that the "gap" can't be clearly interpreted I think because "gap" tends to mean a linear distance, I think the idea is that if you had a hypothetical loose reinforcing item of the same type used in the armor and were able to place it without landing on any of the existing studs/rings then yes that's too much of a gap.
But, the wording you suggest would probably be read by many as exactly that, and it is fairly simple wording.
"Open space" might be better than "gap". Because, again, by "gap" someone could look at a square pattern and place a test disk between disks and say "well, it touches both, so it looks ok" but by "open space" I think that'd direct people to placing the test disk in the center of the large area in the middle. Or "largest open space" or "largest gap"?
Oznog wrote:OK, this looks to me like it makes the absolute minimum coverage with disks to be 30.3% metal, and that happens with the offset pattern 0.73 of the disk diameter apart.
The square pattern would require 39.25% coverage, and only 0.414 of the diameter apart.
You wanna verify that calc with yours?
Arrakis wrote:CaydenNikaal wrote:Question: What about the thickness of the metal? What if someone makes a bunch of scales for their jerkin and the scales are say 24 ga. sheet metal? This SHOULD fall under Rule 0 for safety reasons, but this is a hypothetical I'm putting forward :P.
Near as I understood it, metal armor thickness was limited for safety reasons. But I may be understanding that wrong.
Yeah, I believe that metal thickness for non-plate armors is limited at 16 ga. elsewhere in the rules.
Oznog: I'll take your values as correct; they don't contradict my intuition and it's the weekend, so I don't feel like mathing, just now.
At some point I'll draw up minimum passing armor patterns for this new rule wording just to show the most minimal coverage allowed by this revision and post them, to let everyone actually
see what the minimum composite armors are.
So, yeah. I'll post continuing coverage here, probably, in digest form.
Full thread here:
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