Talking about Armour today!
Along with Weapons, which I made some changes to the rules for recently, Armour is part of a Character's wargear. Wargear isn't a formal term in the game (maybe it should be!) but if I'm playing an RPG in which my Character is expected to do some fighting, I want to know what they fight with, and how they protect themselves.
In Other Games
So what does armour do? I've been thinking about examples from different games, e.g.
In 5E games, Armour makes you harder for your enemy to hit. Or rather, to land a telling blow. AC incorporates both Dexterity and Armour to account for a fast Character dodging the blow; or a heavily armoured Character being hit but protected by their armour. I like this system but it requires enemies to be rolling against the Characters, which is not a thing in Legends of Alba.
In Into The Odd style games, and Mork Borg, Armour reduces incoming damage. This makes sense but having played with this mechanic I don't really like it. It never feels good to be subtracting from a number you roll and it makes a low damage roll - already a disappointment - even worse. Both of these systems have quite brisk combat compared to 5E but the impact that armour can have on bogging it down is actually one of the reasons I haven't used either of those games as the basis for Legends of Alba.
In 24xx games, any equipment can be Armour. If your Character would take damage, you can always describe how something in your inventory is broken or lost to avoid the damage completely. I like how straightforward this is. My only issue with it is the implicit survivability of Characters with deep pockets. The rule of common sense is an important part of 24xx games but personally I'd want to be a bit more specific about this.
Looking outside of RPGs, wargames often allow for an Armour Save. If your Warhammer 40K Space Marine has Power Armour, he avoids damage on a roll of 3 or more on a D6. It might just be familiarity but I do like this and have thought pretty seriously about just doing this for Armour in Legends of Alba (e.g. Characters have a base 6+ Save, that improves by one for each item of Armour they wear). But I don't like the introduction of this extra step to combat with the Armour Save. It also introduces of a completely new concept of 'saves' more generally: If a Character gets an Armour Save, can they get other types of Saves? I'm trying to keep this rules light, so no thank you.
In Legends of Alba
Here's the current rules for Armour in Legends of Alba:
Armour
Protects Characters from Wounds. When a Character suffers a Wound, they may instead break an Armour [A] item they have equipped and ignore the Wound.
Broken Armour must be repaired to be used again.
So of the options mentioned above it's mostly a constrained version of the 24xx approach.
How much of a drag is it to have your equipment break? It's easy enough to repair equipment at a Settlement but you'd be without it till you reach one. That could lead to some interesting decisions, or just be annoying. Something to focus on with playtesting.
Why are we breaking armour at all? Well, this piece of equipment has taken a blow that otherwise might have killed you. How likely is it to be in a decent state after that? When I was a teenager I once cycled out in front of car and went head first into the windshield. Luckily I was wearing my helmet, so I was fine. My helmet was not. I certainly wouldn't have wanted to rely on it to protect my skull from a second impact. So it seems more of a stretch of the imagination that your armour is completely fine after a battle, than completely trashed and in need of repair or replacement.
Other Ideas
A slightly more forgiving version of this would that instead of breaking your Armour to avoid the damage, you 'Check' it but putting an 'X' next to it on your Character Sheet. You can't use Checked Armour. When the fighting stops, you check your gear: Roll a dice for each Checked item. The roll could be based on the item's quality or a flat value, but on a Success you'd refresh the item by removing the 'X' from it on your Character Sheet. A Failure would indicate that, on inspection, you find the item too badly damaged to rely on. It's now Broken, as above. I don't mind this, but as with the Armour Save discussed above it's an extra step, so it's going to have to fight for its place.
A slightly different direction to go with Armour is to lean into how it almost functions like HP (protecting you from life-threatening damage) and have each item of Armour contribute +1 to a stat e.g. Defence (or Guard?). Whenever you'd suffer a Wound, you subtract from this value. If you're at 0 Defence and suffer a Wound, that's it, you suffer the full effect of the Wound. Your Defence would recover either after the battle, or as part of making camp (as you rest and repair your gear).
I quite like the abstraction of 'Defence'. Your Character has some protection from harm, but this will get worn down the more they rely on it and, the longer a fight goes on, the more chance there is they'll be seriously hurt. It adds an extra stat, yes, but there's no rules or procedural overhead. This actually provides some scope for cutting rules because with Defence I could maybe be do away with the different types of Wound (Minor, Major, Mortal) and just have them all be bad?
The idea of 'Defence' stat also allows for things other than armour to protect your Character. For instance a Hunter's Sharp Reflexes might contribute +1 to this value, or a Druid might be able to conjure a Spirit Ward to achieve the same effect.
Hmm this is definitely one to think about!
-Till next time!
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