Armor types are a failed RPG concept

[TKVNC]

I've always said, even on this site, that armor should work with damage mitigation and should be layered. The best armor has always been a layered system designed to protect the wearer from all sorts of attacks.

(...)

Mail was almost never worn alone because the metal would chafe on the joints and armpits. At the very least, a few layers of thick clothing beneath but that would hamper mobility. Most of the times, a specific style of gambeson, thinner than one used alone for battle but thicker than just 3 layers of regular clothing, would be used beneath.

(...)

Weapon variety without armor variety or vice versa is a mistake.

There's something to be said for the arms-race, since that illustrates every single military technique. As I said with the Greeks, they designed hoplite armour around what areas actually needed protection. A good example is the Early Middle-Ages, you would assume in retrospect that their mail was worn with padding - not so. The warriors of the Early Middle-Ages ostensibly wore mail directly above their tunics. This seems counter-intuitive until you look at their tactics. Very large, but mobile shields, and cohesive group combat. Evidentally, they did not expect to receive much in the way of concussive blows, so the mail preventing cuts, and resisting at least some of the piercing force of a spear must have been adequate.

It's when you start to mash time periods together, and remove a fighting man from his unit, it starts to become confusing. For a single fighter the entire approach to equipment necessarily changes.

This actually works well for games, because you can then tailor your equipment for your scenario, as a single man (or small group) you do not need a complex wagon train, and you could presumably carry (by means of a horse pack, or cart) several weapon types, and your replacement garniture to swap out parts on a harness. You're only ever going to be involved in a skirmish, so it could be managed well by the player.

[Stack of Turtles]

A suit of it also costs more than the weapons for your party.

Well, plate armor should cost that much since it contains more steel than the party's weapons put together and is also more complicated to make.

[DrSneed]

plate armor should turn you into broly

[Rand]

It's also not strictly true that armour followed cloth, to leather, to mail, to plate.

A general pattern, not a strict timeline.

[Sinfield]

Lighting bolt goes ignores AC.

You're boring me man. A entire post about your complicated armor system and when something magical comes along the answer is to just dump it?

I am not sure what you mean. Mundane armor should not be resistant to magic. Specially not against lighting. And, that was in response to Rusty. My point was that armor is already unable to resist against magic in almost all videogames and TTRPGs.

And, as such, it would reinforce the need for plate armor to be extremely effective in resisting physical attacks to have an actual reason to use magic to defeat it.


EDIT: Spelling.

I think the original post here about armor was fine, it didn't even mention magic so its just fine for representing a medieval or low magic world, its the follow up about lightning bolt that's boring. You're designing this like a modern game designer where the fantasy elements are just window dressing. Pie in the sky idea guy post, start over from the beginning.

Here's just a few things to take into consideration:
1. RPG Characters can become stronger than any real human, and thus able to wear heavier armor without exerting themselves
2. There might be new kinds of metals with different strengths, like adamantium and mythril, or repurposed materials like dragon scale
3. Warriors are expected to face unusual attacks, like fire and thunder
4. Adventurers can have magical enchantments on their armor
A lesser dev would just have enchanted armor be a +1 that reduces damage by 1 and completely ignores the complex armor/damage system already in place.

[Eyestabber]

Superb thread. I think it's time for RPGs to come to terms with the fact that the evasive ninja-type character always has been ******* ********. As the many HEMA videos online can attest, no, you cannot move your whole body faster than the other guy can move his wrists. Footwork is definitely a thing, but "dodging" isn't. And in order to support the ninja fantasy RPGs add nonsensical limitations to heavy armor, like "oh no, this is so heavy you can't move more than a couple meters without tiring out" and AGAIN, videos on YouTube show people doing the darks souls roll in full plate just fine. Wearing light armor is a "choice" in the same sense that having an old banged up car is a choice. Granted RPGs run on "rule of cool" and the ninja archetype is pervasive on everyone's imagination, but maybe it's time to try something new.

It should also be noted that RPGs were born from strategy games and the balance between light and heavy armor in those is a lot easier: usually you use light armor because you can't afford full plates for all your units. But in RPGs where you have just one or a handful of characters you will want the best protection money can buy and that is certainly not a pile of old rags. In my own RPG that only exists in my mind I would've used a underlay/overlay system for damage mitigation with regular enemies only having leather or chain mail and knight-type enemies having plate on top. So when you get hit on the plate you benefit from DR from the underlay and DT from the plate. Striking someone in a gap of their armor (like arm pits, crotch, thigh, depending on the armor type) would deny the defender his armor DT. I would make it so that more ironclad armor (meaning armor with fewer gaps) provide minor penalties to offense, like a fully closed helmet making perception worse, armor on the joints limiting movement etc. So the balance would not be light vs heavy armor, it would be heavy vs even heavier armor. I don't think many games appreciate the considerations that went into a renaissance breastplate, for instance. In D&D it's just strictly worse than full plate, BUT in real history it's the armor that eventually replaced it.

[J1M]

Plate armor with cloth padding should provide substantial protection against a fireball or lightning bolt compared to a wizard's dress in any attempt at simulation. Plus, they aren't nukes. It takes multiple of them to burn through the hit points of an unarmored level 5 character.

[Oyster Sauce]

Superb thread. I think it's time for RPGs to come to terms with the fact that the evasive ninja-type character always has been ******* ********. As the many HEMA videos online can attest, no, you cannot move your whole body faster than the other guy can move his wrists. Footwork is definitely a thing, but "dodging" isn't. And in order to support the ninja fantasy RPGs add nonsensical limitations to heavy armor, like "oh no, this is so heavy you can't move more than a couple meters without tiring out" and AGAIN, videos on YouTube show people doing the darks souls roll in full plate just fine. Wearing light armor is a "choice" in the same sense that having an old banged up car is a choice. Granted RPGs run on "rule of cool" and the ninja archetype is pervasive on everyone's imagination, but maybe it's time to try something new.

It should also be noted that RPGs were born from strategy games and the balance between light and heavy armor in those is a lot easier: usually you use light armor because you can't afford full plates for all your units. But in RPGs where you have just one or a handful of characters you will want the best protection money can buy and that is certainly not a pile of old rags. In my own RPG that only exists in my mind I would've used a underlay/overlay system for damage mitigation with regular enemies only having leather or chain mail and knight-type enemies having plate on top. So when you get hit on the plate you benefit from DR from the underlay and DT from the plate. Striking someone in a gap of their armor (like arm pits, crotch, thigh, depending on the armor type) would deny the defender his armor DT. I would make it so that more ironclad armor (meaning armor with fewer gaps) provide minor penalties to offense, like a fully closed helmet making perception worse, armor on the joints limiting movement etc. So the balance would not be light vs heavy armor, it would be heavy vs even heavier armor. I don't think many games appreciate the considerations that went into a renaissance breastplate, for instance. In D&D it's just strictly worse than full plate, BUT in real history it's the armor that eventually replaced it.

Video game characters are superhuman

[Tweed]

That said, why have a blind spot for carrying capacity in the simulationist perspective? Nobody is fighting with a pack anything like we see in a typical game. Carrying capacity should be essentially zero for everyone who is fighting.

This is actually something Anomaly and some other STALKER mods deal with to a degree, but most people circumvent by turning up carrying capacity and so on. There are different backpack types and emergency release systems you can rig to them for when the **** hits the fan. Pull the cord, backpack drops.

[Sinfield]

Superb thread. I think it's time for RPGs to come to terms with the fact that the evasive ninja-type character always has been ******* ********. As the many HEMA videos online can attest, no, you cannot move your whole body faster than the other guy can move his wrists. Footwork is definitely a thing, but "dodging" isn't. And in order to support the ninja fantasy RPGs add nonsensical limitations to heavy armor, like "oh no, this is so heavy you can't move more than a couple meters without tiring out" and AGAIN, videos on YouTube show people doing the darks souls roll in full plate just fine. Wearing light armor is a "choice" in the same sense that having an old banged up car is a choice. Granted RPGs run on "rule of cool" and the ninja archetype is pervasive on everyone's imagination, but maybe it's time to try something new.

It should also be noted that RPGs were born from strategy games and the balance between light and heavy armor in those is a lot easier: usually you use light armor because you can't afford full plates for all your units. But in RPGs where you have just one or a handful of characters you will want the best protection money can buy and that is certainly not a pile of old rags. In my own RPG that only exists in my mind I would've used a underlay/overlay system for damage mitigation with regular enemies only having leather or chain mail and knight-type enemies having plate on top. So when you get hit on the plate you benefit from DR from the underlay and DT from the plate. Striking someone in a gap of their armor (like arm pits, crotch, thigh, depending on the armor type) would deny the defender his armor DT. I would make it so that more ironclad armor (meaning armor with fewer gaps) provide minor penalties to offense, like a fully closed helmet making perception worse, armor on the joints limiting movement etc. So the balance would not be light vs heavy armor, it would be heavy vs even heavier armor. I don't think many games appreciate the considerations that went into a renaissance breastplate, for instance. In D&D it's just strictly worse than full plate, BUT in real history it's the armor that eventually replaced it.

Video game characters are superhuman

Partially devil's advocate but if the dodgy ninja is superhuman then so is the warrior attacking him.

[methoxetamine]

Superb thread. I think it's time for RPGs to come to terms with the fact that the evasive ninja-type character always has been ******* ********. As the many HEMA videos online can attest, no, you cannot move your whole body faster than the other guy can move his wrists. Footwork is definitely a thing, but "dodging" isn't. And in order to support the ninja fantasy RPGs add nonsensical limitations to heavy armor, like "oh no, this is so heavy you can't move more than a couple meters without tiring out" and AGAIN, videos on YouTube show people doing the darks souls roll in full plate just fine. Wearing light armor is a "choice" in the same sense that having an old banged up car is a choice. Granted RPGs run on "rule of cool" and the ninja archetype is pervasive on everyone's imagination, but maybe it's time to try something new.

It should also be noted that RPGs were born from strategy games and the balance between light and heavy armor in those is a lot easier: usually you use light armor because you can't afford full plates for all your units. But in RPGs where you have just one or a handful of characters you will want the best protection money can buy and that is certainly not a pile of old rags. In my own RPG that only exists in my mind I would've used a underlay/overlay system for damage mitigation with regular enemies only having leather or chain mail and knight-type enemies having plate on top. So when you get hit on the plate you benefit from DR from the underlay and DT from the plate. Striking someone in a gap of their armor (like arm pits, crotch, thigh, depending on the armor type) would deny the defender his armor DT. I would make it so that more ironclad armor (meaning armor with fewer gaps) provide minor penalties to offense, like a fully closed helmet making perception worse, armor on the joints limiting movement etc. So the balance would not be light vs heavy armor, it would be heavy vs even heavier armor. I don't think many games appreciate the considerations that went into a renaissance breastplate, for instance. In D&D it's just strictly worse than full plate, BUT in real history it's the armor that eventually replaced it.

Video game characters are superhuman

Partially devil's advocate but if the dodgy ninja is superhuman then so is the warrior attacking him.

He is superhuman too, in different ways. He just doesn't have the same superhuman speed the ninja has

[rusty_shackleford]

Superb thread. I think it's time for RPGs to come to terms with the fact that the evasive ninja-type character always has been ******* ********. As the many HEMA videos online can attest, no, you cannot move your whole body faster than the other guy can move his wrists. Footwork is definitely a thing, but "dodging" isn't. And in order to support the ninja fantasy RPGs add nonsensical limitations to heavy armor, like "oh no, this is so heavy you can't move more than a couple meters without tiring out" and AGAIN, videos on YouTube show people doing the darks souls roll in full plate just fine. Wearing light armor is a "choice" in the same sense that having an old banged up car is a choice. Granted RPGs run on "rule of cool" and the ninja archetype is pervasive on everyone's imagination, but maybe it's time to try something new.

It should also be noted that RPGs were born from strategy games and the balance between light and heavy armor in those is a lot easier: usually you use light armor because you can't afford full plates for all your units. But in RPGs where you have just one or a handful of characters you will want the best protection money can buy and that is certainly not a pile of old rags. In my own RPG that only exists in my mind I would've used a underlay/overlay system for damage mitigation with regular enemies only having leather or chain mail and knight-type enemies having plate on top. So when you get hit on the plate you benefit from DR from the underlay and DT from the plate. Striking someone in a gap of their armor (like arm pits, crotch, thigh, depending on the armor type) would deny the defender his armor DT. I would make it so that more ironclad armor (meaning armor with fewer gaps) provide minor penalties to offense, like a fully closed helmet making perception worse, armor on the joints limiting movement etc. So the balance would not be light vs heavy armor, it would be heavy vs even heavier armor. I don't think many games appreciate the considerations that went into a renaissance breastplate, for instance. In D&D it's just strictly worse than full plate, BUT in real history it's the armor that eventually replaced it.

Hema is gay and lame with ~zero relation to actual combat.

[rusty_shackleford]

Anyways, rule of cool, you're not simulating real life you're trying to simulate life in a fictional world. Elrond dodges because he's a lithe elf and it's cool.

[DemoGraph]

Shouldn't wearing nothing make me faster still?

It does!

Finally we have the real use for that epic iron plate - a way to prevent premature ejaculation.

[Brother Michael]

Superb thread. I think it's time for RPGs to come to terms with the fact that the evasive ninja-type character always has been ******* ********. As the many HEMA videos online can attest, no, you cannot move your whole body faster than the other guy can move his wrists. Footwork is definitely a thing, but "dodging" isn't. And in order to support the ninja fantasy RPGs add nonsensical limitations to heavy armor, like "oh no, this is so heavy you can't move more than a couple meters without tiring out" and AGAIN, videos on YouTube show people doing the darks souls roll in full plate just fine. Wearing light armor is a "choice" in the same sense that having an old banged up car is a choice. Granted RPGs run on "rule of cool" and the ninja archetype is pervasive on everyone's imagination, but maybe it's time to try something new.

It should also be noted that RPGs were born from strategy games and the balance between light and heavy armor in those is a lot easier: usually you use light armor because you can't afford full plates for all your units. But in RPGs where you have just one or a handful of characters you will want the best protection money can buy and that is certainly not a pile of old rags. In my own RPG that only exists in my mind I would've used a underlay/overlay system for damage mitigation with regular enemies only having leather or chain mail and knight-type enemies having plate on top. So when you get hit on the plate you benefit from DR from the underlay and DT from the plate. Striking someone in a gap of their armor (like arm pits, crotch, thigh, depending on the armor type) would deny the defender his armor DT. I would make it so that more ironclad armor (meaning armor with fewer gaps) provide minor penalties to offense, like a fully closed helmet making perception worse, armor on the joints limiting movement etc. So the balance would not be light vs heavy armor, it would be heavy vs even heavier armor. I don't think many games appreciate the considerations that went into a renaissance breastplate, for instance. In D&D it's just strictly worse than full plate, BUT in real history it's the armor that eventually replaced it.

This is right. Historically, there is no context in which having less armor in a head-on fight is more desirable than having more, perhaps save naval combat. The cost of being able to survive a polehammer to the head is not mobility, it’s money. I’ve probably posted videos from this channel a dozen times by now, but it’s just so illustrative of this fact.

► Show Spoiler

Brigands vs Knight | realistic, non-choreographed medieval combat short film

This is the “problem” with balancing the thief archetype, as you are inherently picking the underdog fantasy. Bilbo and Cugel use their swords on occasions where they have the upper hand, but violence is almost never their opening play, because they’re worse at it than most of the opponents they face. Like a lot of things, the earliest forms of TTRPGs actually got this right the first time until it was labeled as an issue.

If you want to maintain a class-based system, you need to have arbitrary restrictions on who can take certain actions and use what equipment, which is an obstacle to simulationist play. Realistically, any thief should be able to keep some mail, a helmet, and a polearm in reserve for when fighting is expected, but then you’re playing something else entirely.

I haven’t personally had the opportunity to play any skill based multiplayer RPGs or TTRPGs. Does the group play force/encourage people to differentiate? Because single player skill based systems like TES or KCD allow the player to take as much time as they need to make the same character, KCD being more severe because of how it leans into the points made above.

[Brother Michael]

Anyways, rule of cool, you're not simulating real life you're trying to simulate life in a fictional world. Elrond dodges because he's a lithe elf and it's cool.

He still wears plate though

[TKVNC]

Superb thread. I think it's time for RPGs to come to terms with the fact that the evasive ninja-type character always has been ******* ********. As the many HEMA videos online can attest, no, you cannot move your whole body faster than the other guy can move his wrists. Footwork is definitely a thing, but "dodging" isn't. And in order to support the ninja fantasy RPGs add nonsensical limitations to heavy armor, like "oh no, this is so heavy you can't move more than a couple meters without tiring out" and AGAIN, videos on YouTube show people doing the darks souls roll in full plate just fine. Wearing light armor is a "choice" in the same sense that having an old banged up car is a choice. Granted RPGs run on "rule of cool" and the ninja archetype is pervasive on everyone's imagination, but maybe it's time to try something new.

It should also be noted that RPGs were born from strategy games and the balance between light and heavy armor in those is a lot easier: usually you use light armor because you can't afford full plates for all your units. But in RPGs where you have just one or a handful of characters you will want the best protection money can buy and that is certainly not a pile of old rags. In my own RPG that only exists in my mind I would've used a underlay/overlay system for damage mitigation with regular enemies only having leather or chain mail and knight-type enemies having plate on top. So when you get hit on the plate you benefit from DR from the underlay and DT from the plate. Striking someone in a gap of their armor (like arm pits, crotch, thigh, depending on the armor type) would deny the defender his armor DT. I would make it so that more ironclad armor (meaning armor with fewer gaps) provide minor penalties to offense, like a fully closed helmet making perception worse, armor on the joints limiting movement etc. So the balance would not be light vs heavy armor, it would be heavy vs even heavier armor. I don't think many games appreciate the considerations that went into a renaissance breastplate, for instance. In D&D it's just strictly worse than full plate, BUT in real history it's the armor that eventually replaced it.

Hema is gay and lame with ~zero relation to actual combat.

It's just history, and it's useful to illustrate what it might look like, but it's not authoratative. They are not trying to actively kill people, or to stay alive. This is equally true of Buhurt.

I don't think anyone serious believes HEMA is actually the same as combat.

Anyways, rule of cool, you're not simulating real life you're trying to simulate life in a fictional world. Elrond dodges because he's a lithe elf and it's cool.

This is true, but I'd argue realism is cooler than larp. The true skill is to use realism as a base, and make changes that improve it, not just for their own sake.

[Cipher]

You're boring me man. A entire post about your complicated armor system and when something magical comes along the answer is to just dump it?

I am not sure what you mean. Mundane armor should not be resistant to magic. Specially not against lighting. And, that was in response to Rusty. My point was that armor is already unable to resist against magic in almost all videogames and TTRPGs.

And, as such, it would reinforce the need for plate armor to be extremely effective in resisting physical attacks to have an actual reason to use magic to defeat it.


EDIT: Spelling.

I think the original post here about armor was fine, it didn't even mention magic so its just fine for representing a medieval or low magic world, its the follow up about lightning bolt that's boring. You're designing this like a modern game designer where the fantasy elements are just window dressing. Pie in the sky idea guy post, start over from the beginning.

Here's just a few things to take into consideration:
1. RPG Characters can become stronger than any real human, and thus able to wear heavier armor without exerting themselves
2. There might be new kinds of metals with different strengths, like adamantium and mythril, or repurposed materials like dragon scale
3. Warriors are expected to face unusual attacks, like fire and thunder
4. Adventurers can have magical enchantments on their armor
A lesser dev would just have enchanted armor be a +1 that reduces damage by 1 and completely ignores the complex armor/damage system already in place.

On materials: Yes, that's also why armor should be piece meal and layered. So, for example, the gambeson is made out of the wool from kirin, which is extremely resistant to lighting. A scale mail made out of red dragon's scales would be immune to fire and such and be worn on top of the kirin's wool gambeson.

I don't like the +1 stuff. I prefer when magic items are wondrous artifacts. So a "+1 fire damage sword" is not something that I would use on a game, but something called "Sunblade" or "Firebrand", a weapon that has an orichalcum blade that can conduct heat without melting, which has its own uses, and also has an enchantment to ignite the blade, adding fire elemental damage to the sword when used in melee, which also can inflict "burning". Additionally, the sword can deliver a spray of fire in a slash at range.

Cold iron plates could provide resistance to any source of damage that comes from magic but they are in exchange more brittle and less resistant to impact damage than contemporary steel analogues.

But, I also like very low magic settings. For me, magic should be something that most people know it exists, but have never encountered in their life. So, I am wholeheartedly against the "magic item market" type of gameplay. I don't want these materials to be readily available. They should also be wondrous artifacts. This also applies to monsters. Yes, kirins exist and their wool can be made into lighting resistant textile armor, but they are not that easy to encounter, defeat and then collect their wool. And, even once that is procured, the actual techniques required to make the textile armor are not known to everyone.

If everyone is running around in dragon scale armor then its no longer special. And worse, then steel becomes meaningless. Just like I wouldn't want every other person to be a wizard and I wouldn't want every other wizard to be the equivalent of a 20th level Wizard in D&D with access to reality shattering spells. All of that should be extremely rare to remain fantasy.

But all of this now becomes more about the setting than strictly about armors and their implementation across RPGs.

[rusty_shackleford]

Because single player skill based systems like TES or KCD allow the player to take as much time as they need to make the same character, KCD being more severe because of how it leans into the points made above.

skill based systems with no cap on what you can learn are some of the weakest RPGs

[TKVNC]

Historically, there is no context in which having less armor in a head-on fight is more desirable than having more, perhaps save naval combat.

The irony is, a lot of sailors from the Middle Ages, or earlier, couldn't swim. It was also not uncommon for marines (that's simply soldiers onboard ships) to wear full armour, since you weren't planning on going into the water, and normally if you did, you were going to die anyway.

[rusty_shackleford]

Anyways, rule of cool, you're not simulating real life you're trying to simulate life in a fictional world. Elrond dodges because he's a lithe elf and it's cool.

He still wears plate though

I don't think Tolkien describes anyone as wearing plate armor at all, it likely did not exist

[TKVNC]

Anyways, rule of cool, you're not simulating real life you're trying to simulate life in a fictional world. Elrond dodges because he's a lithe elf and it's cool.

He still wears plate though

I don't think Tolkien describes anyone as wearing plate armor at all, it likely did not exist

Tolkine was an Early Middle-Ages scholar, and very much liked Beowulf, and the Anglo-Saxons, so I'd very much assume mail armour was what he had in mind.

[Cipher]

This is true, but I'd argue realism is cooler than larp. The true skill is to use realism as a base, and make changes that improve it, not just for their own sake.

I live for this mindset.

[rusty_shackleford]

This is true, but I'd argue realism is cooler than larp. The true skill is to use realism as a base, and make changes that improve it, not just for their own sake.

Being able to dodge really well seems much more likely than being able to conjure bolts of lightning

[TKVNC]

This is true, but I'd argue realism is cooler than larp. The true skill is to use realism as a base, and make changes that improve it, not just for their own sake.

Being able to dodge really well seems much more likely than being able to conjure bolts of lightning

Does it? I'd argue it seems more magical to perform a Matrix dodge than to simply turn energy into a weapon.

[Brother Michael]

Anyways, rule of cool, you're not simulating real life you're trying to simulate life in a fictional world. Elrond dodges because he's a lithe elf and it's cool.

He still wears plate though

I don't think Tolkien describes anyone as wearing plate armor at all, it likely did not exist

In the movie at least. But I also can’t think of a fighting character in the books who doesn’t wear mail whenever it’s available to him except Gandalf. Even Legolas wears mail and takes a shield at the Hornburg.

[rusty_shackleford]

This is true, but I'd argue realism is cooler than larp. The true skill is to use realism as a base, and make changes that improve it, not just for their own sake.

Being able to dodge really well seems much more likely than being able to conjure bolts of lightning

Does it? I'd argue it seems more magical to perform a Matrix dodge than to simply turn energy into a weapon.

quick gewgle suggests top-tier defensive fighters in MMA sit around a 60-65% avoidance rate, being a bit faster in your reflexes seems more likely than just magicking some lightning

[Brother Michael]

Being able to dodge really well seems much more likely than being able to conjure bolts of lightning

Does it? I'd argue it seems more magical to perform a Matrix dodge than to simply turn energy into a weapon.

quick gewgle suggests top-tier defensive fighters in MMA sit around a 60-65% avoidance rate, being a bit faster in your reflexes seems more likely than just magicking some lightning

Dodging a sword blow is significantly harder. And getting hit once is enough if you don’t have any armor.

[rusty_shackleford]

Does it? I'd argue it seems more magical to perform a Matrix dodge than to simply turn energy into a weapon.

quick gewgle suggests top-tier defensive fighters in MMA sit around a 60-65% avoidance rate, being a bit faster in your reflexes seems more likely than just magicking some lightning

Dodging a sword blow is significantly harder. And getting hit once is enough if you don’t have any armor.

And I'm saying we can breed(incl. genetic engineering) someone to have superhuman reflexes right now, but we can't breed someone to call down lightning bolts from the sky on demand(which would require external devices)

[Oyster Sauce]

Historically, there is no context in which having less armor in a head-on fight is more desirable than having more, perhaps save naval combat.

The irony is, a lot of sailors from the Middle Ages, or earlier, couldn't swim. It was also not uncommon for marines (that's simply soldiers onboard ships) to wear full armour, since you weren't planning on going into the water, and normally if you did, you were going to die anyway.

You'd think they'd give the lads a beach day every now and then