by pelni

ctimmins wrote:

Herodotus, in The Histories (Book 9; 9.22, 479 BC) says:

"As the cavalry was attacking by regiments, the horse of Masistios [the Persian commander], which stood out in front of the rest, was pierced in its ribs by an arrow, and in pain the horse reared up on its hind legs and threw Masistios to the ground. As soon as he fell, the Athenians [hoplites] attacked him. They took his horse and killed Masistios as he was struggling to defend himself. But at first they were unable to kill him because of the way he was armed. Since he was wearing a breastplate made of golden scales next to his skin, and over it a crimson tunic, they accomplished nothing as they struck against the breastplate. Then someone realized the reason for this and jabbed him through the eye, at which point he collapsed and died." (p. 674 in The Landmark Herodotus Pantheon Books, New York).

Putting this into a typical FRPG game -

1- Was the breastplate made of golden scales likely magical?
2- Was the spear to the eye a "called shot"? A "natural 20"? Or just a good hit?

I just rewatched the Lord of the Rings movies and then re-read the fantastic blog posts on ACOUP (historian Bret Devereaux) The Battle of Helm’s Deep and Siege of Gondor and, as he does a lot elsewhere on his blog as well, the subject of weapons against armor comes up a lot. He loves to complain about movie weapons magically piercing plate armor that there would be no way in reality for a weapon to cut through.

If I learned anything from all that (and from reading about military history in general) it's that when you inflict damage with a cutting or piercing weapon against someone in armor that pretty much means you must have hit a gap in the armor somewhere.

So no critical hit needed, that's just what it means when someone manages to cause damage to someone wearing armor.

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