Studded Armor

Game Stats

• Type: Over Armor
• Slashing Resistance:
• Crushing Resistance:
• Impaling Resistance:
• Burn Resistance:

Description

Studded armor describes any linen or leather armor reinforced with knobs, rings, or widely spaced plates of rigid material.  Usually these "studs" are made of metal, though more easily available materials such as bone may be used as well.  Conceptually, studded armor may be thought of as two pieces, the foundation armor and the reinforcing studs, despite the fact that studded armor is always worn and purchased as a single item.

Advantages

Studded armor combines the light weight and relative comfort of linen and leather armor and adds extra protection in the form of the studs.  The studs provide essentially no additional protection against bludgeoning attacks, and are generally too widely spaced to defend against impaling attacks.  However, they do provide some additional protection against slashing attacks, while adding little in the way of weight to the armor.

Disadvantages

Studded armor has little in the way of true disadvantages.  The studs are relatively easy to bypass with the proper weapon, and they do add some to the weight of the foundation armor.  They may also increase the noise it makes, although this is easily avoided by adding a second layer of fabric over the studs to keep them from rubbing against one another.

Regional Variants

Studded armor is usually considered a low status armor, and takes the form of the linen or leather armor underlying it (high-quality linen armor is much more likely to be reinforced with scales than studs).

Most of the regional variation in studded armor comes from the material the studs are made of, which is itself mostly a product of local availability.  Bronze and iron are the most common, though the azhua of the Sunset Islands and Ahuizotl often wear studded leather reinforced with bone, and some osankari armor is reinforced with sea worm chitin.   Occasionally studs are made of high-quality steel, usually scavenged by outlaws from higher-quality equipment.

Party Associations

None.