Putting On & Taking Off Armor

THERE ARE MANY REASONS why we must remove armor. If we don’t take it off, then we can’t heal normally. Armor is always going to rub against wounds, the parasites that live in our padding will make a feast of us. The question isn’t, why do we take our armor off, but more often then not, how long does this take?

Even more important, how long does this stuff take to put back on, and what happens if you are in a hurry? What happens to characters who refuse to take it off? Well, this article looks to answer these questions, but before we can do that, we have to reassign the armor into categories.

ARMOR CATEGORY BY TYPE

There are many different kinds of armor, but they all fit into 1 of three types. Material, Metal, or Suit.

Material One-Piece Armor includes: Leather armor, padded armor, studded leather armor, and hide armor. It is all one piece and usually protects only your vitals.

Metal One-Piece Armor includes: Ring mail, brigandine armor, scale mail, chain mail, and banded mail. Also in one piece and protects the vitals, and sometimes the arms as well.

Suit Armor includes: Bronze Plate mail, plate mail, field plate, and full plate armors. Typically come in many pieces and cover either most, or the entire body.

REMOVING THE ARMOR

All one-piece armors can be taken off in 1 round if you have assistance, but if you are trying to take it off on your own, it requires 2 rounds.

Suit armors aren’t that simple, it takes 1d4 + 1 round to take off with help, double that if you are doing it by yourself.

If a character is unconscious from damage, and requires medical attention, the medic is forced to cut the armor off, this takes 1d4+1 rounds divided in half, and rounding the fraction up. This, of course, destroys the armor and it must be repaired or replaced before it can be used again.

PUTTING ON ARMOR

Putting armor on is a much more difficult process.

Material One-Piece Armors are fairly fast to put on. With assistance you can put them on in 1 round, but you’ll need 2 rounds to put it on if you don’t have any help.

Metal One-Piece Armors require 2 rounds to put on, or, 4 rounds by yourself.

Suit armors are made of several pieces, and was very difficult to get into. It takes 1d6+4 rounds to get into your suit of armor with assistance, if you are by yourself, then this number will be tripled (multiply it by 3).

Now, of course you can rush this process. Straps can be left hanging, ties left loose, and settings unadjusted. If this is the case, then it will give you a different base AC. An armor put on in haste will not grant any bonuses for weapon types, but the negatives will still be there and your DM has the right to double them if he wants to.

Material Armors can be put on in 1 round by yourself, but at the loss of 1 AC value, thus a hide armor put on in haste would serve as AC 7.

Metal Armors can be hastedly put on in 1 round by one’s self, but would also sacrifice 1 point in AC value, thus a chain mail would have a AC 6.

Suit Armors gain a bonus AC of 1 for every round spent dressing. Thus, a fighter who spends 4 rounds putting his armor on could run into battle with AC 6.


Ramifications of Wearing Armor Too Long

Like I said, armor is not clothing, it is very uncomfortable to wear and it must be taken off. I believe that the easiest method of determining how long an armor can be worn before it starts to take a toll on you is 8 hours + 1 hour per point of AC that it provides without a shield, thus a leather armor could be worn for 16 hours, but field plate could only be worn for 10.

A characters Constitution also comes into play, for every 3 points of CON, you can wear the armor for an additional hour, thus a Fighter with a CON of 12 could wear his armor for an additional 4 hours before it will become harmful to him.

The effects of wearing armor to long is –1 to CON, as well as 1d3hp in additional damages. For every hour after that, the player will lose another point of CON and another 1d3hp of damage. Taking off the armor begins the healing process, CON is regained at the rate of 1 point for every 4 hours spent out of it, hp damage must be healed naturally or magically with the exception of bonus hp from high CON scores which will be replenished with the CON.


Art by: Benjamin G. Davey