With a Bullet Point: 6 Anachronistic Armors

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111910-thumb140[1]By Thilo Graf

All right, by now you know the drill – 1 page front cover, 1 page SRD, 1 page content, this time going for 6 anachronistic armours!

We kick off with two types of ballistic vests and from the get-go, both feel not only different, but actually use rules in a way that is befitting of their anachronistic origin, making them feel distinct from diverse enchanted medieval means of keeping alive: Since modern armour is made mainly to protect versus bullets, these anachronistic pieces of equipment sport an increased AC-bonus versus firearms and more importantly, don’t have firearm attacks being resolved as touch attacks versus these armours – interesting take for these armours indeed. On the light armour side, we get two versions of ballistic vests.

Reinforced ballistic armour is also interesting as a medium armour, since it does not hamper movement with regards to charges and run manoeuvres. The other medium armour, the Ceramic Armour, also sports an interesting rules-options – if the armour is damaged, its armour-rating is reduced. I actually really like this simulationalist approach and use it in my home-game as a house-rule for all types of armour, but repair DCs in an anachronistic context would have been appreciated – can the blacksmith do the job or do you require a potter or some other profession? Also, as a medium armour, shouldn’t it reduce movement to 20 ft or is this superior speed part of the armour’s rules?

On the shield side, we get riot shields and tactical shields, with riot shields working especially well versus improvised weapons and allowing for the dealing of non-lethal shield bash damage sans incurring the usual -4 penalty. Unfortunately, the shield fails to specify whether it counts as a heavy or light shield for purposes of base shield bash damage.

Tactical shields hamper firearm attacks just like the armours and count as heavy shields that feature lights mounted and a viewport. Nothing to complain here!

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are very good, apart from the ceramic armour’s glitch. Layout adheres to SGG’s 3-column, landscape presentation and the pdf has no bookmarks, but needs none at this length.

I really, really like how the armours herein feel distinct in crunch and application from standard PFRPG-fantasy armour and the overall ideas featured make them valid options without being overpowering. Gunslingers most definitely will hate these! 😉 That being said, the lack of information on the riot shield combined with the ambiguity in the ceramic armour make it impossible to rate this short pdf the full 5 stars. Instead, I will settle for a solid 4 stars.

Endzeitgeist out.

With a Bullet Point: 6 Anachronistic Armors is available from:

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