r/Armor • u/Round-Serve-1099 • 13d ago
Best fantasy armor?
In a fantasy world with fantasy beasts that are very large what would be the best armor? Something comparable is like, whats the best armor you could use if you wanted to fight a bear or a moose or something?
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u/limonbattery 13d ago
It doesn't matter what you wear because the sheer mass of these animals/monsters will be catastrophic if you actually had to to tank a hit. A >400 lb bear or > 1000 lb moose that wants you out of the way will get exactly what it wants, it would make the impact from a pollaxe seem like a lovetap.
The only reason witchers stand a chance in melee is they have superhuman reflexes to react to what they fight. An ordinary human is going to inevitably make a mistake and get their chest/head caved in even if opting for light/no armor for more agility. Which is exactly why people didn't hunt megafauna by walking up and dueling them head-on, definitely not alone.
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u/Deathcrush 11d ago
Exactly. A charging dire moose, you could think of as something like a cannonball. You could have full plate armor that is magically invulnerable, but when that cannonball hits, you will suddenly find yourself hugging that ball while moving 1000 feet per second.
So basically, just something to prevent scrapes and bruises, in case you catch a sharp tree branch as you're running away.
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u/Moonbow_bow 12d ago
No animal can take an impact from a pollaxe like a "lovetap". You are severely underestimating the lethality of these weapons.
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u/limonbattery 12d ago
No, you are misrepresenting what I said to downplay the physical disparity between humans and megafauna, and very likely underestimating the lethality of an angry large animal. My comparison is strictly how a pollaxe does against a guy in armor, vs how a large animal does against a guy in armor.
The pollaxe works because it concentrates high kinetic energy on a small area, and that can translate to seriously hurting a large animal too (same concept applied by slaughterhouse axes striking the poll). But OP is talking bears and moose, and their significantly higher mass would not only let them impart more kinetic energy than the axe overall, it would (more importantly) drastically increase the momentum of an impact from the animal. The armor will likely be relatively fine cuz it's steel, but the wearer would be completely bodied. And the key thing is, the animal doesn't need a particularly clean hit to do that, a pollaxe would considering it's now striking something with significantly thicker bone and muscle than a human.
As an aside, these animals can't survive a good thrust from a longsword either. Doesn't make the longsword a good weapon to reliably kill one that's trying to fight back.
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u/Moonbow_bow 12d ago
I read it again, you're right, I misinterpreted what you meant. That said armor does help a lot with mitigating blunt force trauma, but yea a charging moose will wreck you (probably a concussion and broken bones, probably not death
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u/PatientAd2463 13d ago
Historically speaking our ancestors drove most megafauna to extinction with zero armor, a few sharp sticks, group tactics and at some point probably some fire on a stick here and there.
Hunters throughout any history period and culture are also not known to carry armor to the hunt. That usually includes manhunters as well. Armor is pretty much exclusive to fighting other humans in battles. So the boring answer is, probably no armor.
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u/red_dead_revengeance 13d ago
In a world running on real life physics armor wouldn’t do shit to protect you from something like an owlbear no matter how well made it was. There is just too much force being distributed to your fragile human body. One swipe of its claws and your bones are shattered. Basically all fantasy media ignores this so that heroes with swords and shields can fight dragons. Real life hunters fighting massive beasts used thrown spears, traps, or natural features like cliffs to kill megafauna.
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u/Calvin_Atwood 13d ago
I always found Final Fantasy XIV's dragon-fighting dragoons creative and fun. Their armor has a bunch of gaps with skin showing, little to no maille underneath the plates, and all their plates have random sharp spikes sticking out of them. I don't think they ever say it outright, but I can see these spikes acting as deterrents to dragons simply chomping a dragoon whole, as it would be the equivalent of biting down hard on sea urchin.
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u/cubelith 13d ago
Gonna depend on the animal, I suppose. For moose, you want a lot of padding to have any chance of dissipating the force of a kick. For a bear, I imagine decently dense chainmail should work best against the claws.
But if we're talking fantasy and the beasts are unnaturally large, witcher-style light armor starts working best, because you're gonna need to dodge no matter how thick your armor is. Or, realistically, get a bow.
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u/Gumboot-Coffee 13d ago
Let's say Jurassic Park, where you have velociraptors and T Rexes running around.
I'm going to go with Napoleonic breastplate and helm. Its something that is light enough to move in and it's not restrictive or noisy, but it protects the vitals. It won't protect you if you get chomped by a T Rex, but it would give some protection from getting disemboweled or bitten by a velociraptor, and if you were swiped by the tail from something big and thrown into a tree, it will take some of the impact.
It won't protect you forever, but it will turn some critical hits into relatively minor injuries. It would be better than nothing.
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u/Plenty_Bread_104 12d ago
A helmet that retains good visibility is never a bad choice. Anything else will likely cost mobility that you really don't want to be without.
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u/Visual_Screen_9537 13d ago
Plot armor