Giant Sized Armor questions

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VR Dragon
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Giant Sized Armor questions

Unread post by VR Dragon »

So giant sized weapons do an extra dice of damage and are 50% bigger and heavier about. So how come the logic doesn't apply to armor? We know its heavier but no place states that it gains any extra SDC fir this trouble. So how much would you think would be a reasonable ammount?

Does anyone have any house rules about this?
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Re: Giant Sized Armor questions

Unread post by The Dark Elf »

The size of the armour may not equate to its relevant protection. It is still just as thick, it just covers all of the body the same as small armour.

Trolls and dwarves and other strong races may be able to wear thicker heavier armour which may give more protection but that would a different type of armour (new).

But I'm no armour specialist.
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Re: Giant Sized Armor questions

Unread post by Cinos »

The Dark Elf wrote:The size of the armour may not equate to its relevant protection. It is still just as thick, it just covers all of the body the same as small armour.

Trolls and dwarves and other strong races may be able to wear thicker heavier armour which may give more protection but that would a different type of armour (new).

But I'm no armour specialist.


Coverage = AR (It also factors general stopping or deflecting power of the armor, which size will factor mildly). SDC = Durability, how much punishment the armor takes before being scrapped. Size clearly relates to durability in everything else in the game (between giants or gnomes base SDC values, to robot scaling in size). It's an oversight at best, it should definitely increase the SDC values by 25 to 50%. AR should remain relative though.
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Re: Giant Sized Armor questions

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arez9438 wrote:Soldier of od has this correct.


Thanks for the support. What exactly did I say about this?! :lol:
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Re: Giant Sized Armor questions

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We've always given it 30-110% SDC.
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Re: Giant Sized Armor questions

Unread post by kiralon »

Every 6 feet of size over 7 feet = +%100 sdc (and cost and time to make) also an extra 1d of damage done by weapons and an extra hp dice per level.
so an 18 foot tall jotan = +%200 sdc, 3d6 hp per level and a dart that normally does 1d4 damage does 3d4.
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Re: Giant Sized Armor questions

Unread post by Soldier of Od »

I may as well give my opinion anyway! For the smaller 'giant-sized' characters like wolfen, ogres etc. I don't give any bonus to their armour's S.D.C. This is based on published NPCs of these races with armour stats the same as the basic human sized armour in the main book (e.g. the typical wolfen soldiers in Eastern Territory). For true giants I keep it simple and just double the S.D.C. of their armour.
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Re: Giant Sized Armor questions

Unread post by ShadowLogan »

VR Dragon wrote:So giant sized weapons do an extra dice of damage and are 50% bigger and heavier about. So how come the logic doesn't apply to armor? We know its heavier but no place states that it gains any extra SDC fir this trouble. So how much would you think would be a reasonable ammount?

Does anyone have any house rules about this?

In general you may be right, but w/n Rifts I do believe they get more protection due to the large size (Naruni Wave 2, IIRC has examples).

As far as a house rule, I'd work out the increase in mass (or weight, just be consistent) and maintain that as compared to a normal size suit (of the same construction/materials) as mass seems to have a much greater role in protective values than dimensions. If the amount is small, I wouldn't worry about it.
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Re: Giant Sized Armor questions

Unread post by GlitterKnight »

That always seemed to me to be one of the "balance" decisions, like "giant size" weapons only adding 1d6. Being some kind of giant gives lots of benefits, better armor on top of extra PS, damage, SDC, etc, would be more on top of something already very mechanically advantageous.
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Re: Giant Sized Armor questions

Unread post by MrShowtime »

The only problem with questions like this is that it only focuses on one half of the equation. If you add SDC to giant sized armor, do you take SDC away from Gnome sized armor? If the giant has "more" armor on and the gnome has "less" does that not give the gnome a distinct speed advantage making it a lot harder to be hit? Do you allow a dodging gnome to run between the legs of his giant attacker and cut his Achilles before the giant can even lift the giant sized weapon out of the crater in the dirt? And that begs the question: If both are trained identically, who is a better warrior? Giant or Gnome? what means more in your battles? power or speed? where does the balance end and one swing of a giant hammer end things? Of course why would a Gnome battle a Giant and vise versa? There are so many questions but it's all about balance. if you give a plus somewhere, you should give a negative somewhere else. while it doesn't always balance out between races it should overall.
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Re: Giant Sized Armor questions

Unread post by VR Dragon »

MrShowtime wrote:The only problem with questions like this is that it only focuses on one half of the equation. If you add SDC to giant sized armor, do you take SDC away from Gnome sized armor? If the giant has "more" armor on and the gnome has "less" does that not give the gnome a distinct speed advantage making it a lot harder to be hit? Do you allow a dodging gnome to run between the legs of his giant attacker and cut his Achilles before the giant can even lift the giant sized weapon out of the crater in the dirt? And that begs the question: If both are trained identically, who is a better warrior? Giant or Gnome? what means more in your battles? power or speed? where does the balance end and one swing of a giant hammer end things? Of course why would a Gnome battle a Giant and vise versa? There are so many questions but it's all about balance. if you give a plus somewhere, you should give a negative somewhere else. while it doesn't always balance out between races it should overall.



So what is the plus for the extra X5 weight modifier for giant sized armor? Same SDC amount but much heavier. Not like bigger critters have SNPS or anything.
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Re: Giant Sized Armor questions

Unread post by kiralon »

MrShowtime wrote:The only problem with questions like this is that it only focuses on one half of the equation. If you add SDC to giant sized armor, do you take SDC away from Gnome sized armor? If the giant has "more" armor on and the gnome has "less" does that not give the gnome a distinct speed advantage making it a lot harder to be hit? Do you allow a dodging gnome to run between the legs of his giant attacker and cut his Achilles before the giant can even lift the giant sized weapon out of the crater in the dirt? And that begs the question: If both are trained identically, who is a better warrior? Giant or Gnome? what means more in your battles? power or speed? where does the balance end and one swing of a giant hammer end things? Of course why would a Gnome battle a Giant and vise versa? There are so many questions but it's all about balance. if you give a plus somewhere, you should give a negative somewhere else. while it doesn't always balance out between races it should overall.


The giant would win, the gnome has less armour on, but isn't as strong compared to the weight, so he wouldn't be zipping around, and as a gnomes speed and dexterity are close to being the same as a giants he doesn't really have much in the way of a speed advantage. The gnome mostly has inertia on his side as it takes more time for the giant to swing his weapon around, but as the weapon is bigger the end of it will usually be moving faster, and the thing about dodging between the feet might be possible if the giant was just standing there, but while he moving or walking. My size ratio to my cat is about right for gnome to giant, and my cat tries to run between my feet every now and again and I accidently kick it in the face, it has never made it through unscathed and that's just with me walking, and a giant could accidently stand on the gnome and kill it. Any blow from the giant would pulverise a gnome and a gnome would have to get an extremely lucky blow in to fell the giant as his weapons have less power and penetration.
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Re: Giant Sized Armor questions

Unread post by kiralon »

relicandcheese wrote:Here's a thought... (Bit of round about thinking here, stay with me...)

Imagine a square foot of any given armour material. Stretch or otherwise hold that material in place with a solid wood back to it (representing a wearer) and start slashing it with a sword. Eventually the material is broken, probably sliced roughly in half. Now take another new, but same material and start peppering it full of arrow holes. Eventually, you reduce it's SDC to 0, but it won't necessarily be two parts. It would more likely be "swiss cheesed" (for lack of a better term.) Do the same for a third piece and whack it with a simple ball mace. It eventually becomes pulverised.

Take the same material and DOUBLE it in size. SAME THICKNESS, but 2 square feet. If you slash it the same number of times IN THE MIDDLE with a sword as you did the 1 square foot, do you figure it would hold out longer? Start peppering THE MIDDLE of the 2 square foot material with THE SAME NUMBER OF ARROWS. Does the armour last longer? Bludgeoning it IN THE MIDDLE THE SAME NUMBER OF TIMES with a mace, would it still stay together longer?

The answer to all of the above questions is yes, of course BUT... the PROTECTION at the MIDDLE is still depleted. We often hear in this game take so-and-so amount of SDC from the MAIN BODY. That's why I capitalized MIDDLE of the material. SDC being reduced to zero means the armour is done, but it doesn't fall from a characters body in a pile of dust.

My point (at last) is that the SDC DOESN'T change unless you increase it's thickness. So while a giant's armour weighs more, that's only because it's covering more surface area with the SAME THICKNESS. More material, but not necessarily more protection. Increasing thickness would offer more SDC, and maybe even a slight boost in AR (which tends to include both penetration resistance, and coverage value), but weight would need to be adjusted accordingly, and possibly even movement restrictions increased (penalties for speed, climb, prowl, swim, etc.)

Ok! Did I get my point across alright? :-D

Now, that's the simple way of looking at it. One might want to add 20% to giant armour and subtract 20% from gnome armour, based on the fact the the "one square foot" is most of the gnome, and a fraction of the giant. But in my humble opinion, there's no way the SDC halves or doubles without increasing or decreasing thickness.


If you don't double the thickness you aren't doubling its size. Giants could easily carry double thickness armour, why would they make armour to human specifications for thickness. And the AR reductions for damage is what you are talking about when you have done enough damage to armour to make it like swiss cheese.
The other thing you are missing is that yes slashing the same exact location would penetrate, but as there is twice the width and height for you to strike. you would have to do a lot more damage over a bigger area to make the chest piece useless, and you are assuming you hit exactly the same location over and over. Making a hole and then striking through it isn't easy, if it was that easy people would just strike through the hole in the helm that people see through.
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Re: Giant Sized Armor questions

Unread post by kiralon »

kiralon wrote:By the way, the extra die of damage makes sense, and even 1 extra die for every 6' feet I could live with, but why an extra die for HP's? Wouldn't the various creature's SDC values represent there increased sized? (Just a side question...)


I don't play with living things having sdc unless they have an exoskeleton or subdermal armour or something like it, I play palladium 1.5 as there were things about 2nd ed I couldn't swallow. Dudes in full plate doing backflips and flying roundhouse kicks, 2nd ed Mind Mages etc, and first ed had some neat stuff that should have been kept, like the different hth's
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Re: Giant Sized Armor questions

Unread post by Lukterran »

It seems logical that Giant armor would be thicker than human sized armor. Increasing the total SDC only seems logical for the same type of armor.

On a side note giants probably couldn't use cow hide as leather for their armor. It would be two thin in comparison to the weight and size of the giants. They would probably have to use some other beasts hide to make their leather with.
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Re: Giant Sized Armor questions

Unread post by kiralon »

Laminated cow leather should work but is leather better protection then their own skin ?
Maybe melech leather would work
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Re: Giant Sized Armor questions

Unread post by Jerell »

Leather of Tusker is what you want.

I think for my games I did something like +25% SDC for Ogres and some Wolfen. And 50%-100% more SDC for true giants.
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Re: Giant Sized Armor questions

Unread post by say652 »

Since most strikes are going to be to the waist or legs why should the giant size armor gain more sdc?
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