There are two armour options presented here. Part Armours provides a set of tables to figure how much protection is presented by an incomplete set of armour. Armour Protection Values presents an entirely new system of armour in palladium based on the armour absorbing or deflecting part of a blow.

Sometimes an entire suit of armour is not available, such as when there is not time to don the whole suit, or only part of a harness is owned.

Use the following to calculate the AR of armour made from a mix of armours, or when only part of a suit is donned.

The basic Armour Rating of armour is determined by what is worn on the chest. Other armour parts add to the breast plate’s Armour Rating and SDC value.

These armours provide relatively poor ARs due to large holes in mix & match suit. Add 2 to the AR of a suit designed & made with differing armours in mind.

Definitions

When using Armour protection rules, blows must strike through armour, rather than circumnavigate it. In combat, roll to strike as normal. If the blow is not avoided, roll damage - There are no Armour Ratings. Depending upon the type of blow that landed, reduce the amount of damage taken by an appropriate amount.

Damage Definitions

Cut: Relies soley on a sharpened blade to cause damage. (knife, short-sword)

Chop: Relies on a combination of a sharpened blade and the impact force of the weapon. (battle axe)

Impact: Relies soley on the impact force of the blow. (mace, morning star)

Thrust: Relies on force on a small point to cause damage. This includes both missile weapons and thrusting weapons such as the rapier and the pike. Only use 1/2 the thrust number when dealing with missile weapons. The reason being that an arrow or bolt has more penetrating power than a pike or spear.

Note that many weapons can be used in multiple ways; a knife may cut or thrust, a long-sword chop or thrust.

Dex

PP Penalty. Warriors can reduce the penalty by 2, and further with the Armour: Heavy skill.

Armour Damage Notes:

Cutting, Chopping and Impact attacks do 1/2 absorbed damage to the armor:

Thrust attacks do 1/4 absorbed damage to armor.

Critical hits

x2 crits bypass the armour completely but do not do double damage. x3 crits bypass and do double damage, x4 crits bypass and do triple damage, etc.

Armor Definitions:

Jazeraint: Soft leather base with overlapping scales of leather, wood, bone

or metal. Also known as scale armor.

Brigandine: Soft leather, or heavy cloth base with small plates of wood,

bone or metal with another layer of heavy cloth or leather covering that.

Supposed to be superior to scale.

Lamellar: Overlapping horizontal strips of laminated leather, wood, bone or

metal sewn over chain mail on a soft leather backing. About the same as

splint except that splint has vertical strips and is supposedly not as

good.

Based on post by Steve Edwards (sedwards @ graceland.edu