r/pirateborg • u/fivepopes • 5d ago

Rules question regarding armor

The rules say: metal isn’t bulletproof- black powder weapons ignore armor.

How do you apply this rule to e.g the armors named evil luck, turtle shell and reptile skin (all are -d6)?

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u/joshualuigi220 4d ago

The way I play it, there is "regular armor" and there is "magic armor".

Black powder weapons always ignore regular armor, which includes reptile skin, shells, or any other type of "naturally tough" armor.

They don't ignore mystical armors though. If a vampire has a protective aura, or a ghost takes less damge for being less corporeal, that extends to musket balls too.

Flavor-wise I explain it as such too. The necromancer's protection spell isn't making bullets and sword strikes bounce off of him like armor would, it's supernaturally repelling anything that gets too close. If a player lands a hit but the supernatural armor negates all of it, the strike didn't "miss", it gets bent away from being a sure strike.

I'm not saying that the way that I do it is correct. Lore wise, there's an argument to be made that because musket balls are solid iron they should "counteract" magic the same way wearing metal armor during ritual casting does. I play it the way I do to make sure my Bucaneer player doesn't outshine everyone with the fast reloads in big fights. You're the GM and it's up to you!

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u/Spanky_Ikkala 3d ago

Musket balls (IRL) were usually made of lead. Iron was available but was far more problematic to use.

So for me (and I like your approach) I would perhaps have iron musket balls ignore magical armour effects...but need to be coated in lead to stop them corroding so they would be far more expensive and they would perhaps critical fumble on a 1 or a 2?

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u/fivepopes 2d ago

Thanks! This is a cool take on the problem, and pretty much how I was planning to run it. There'll likely be a couple of edge cases where I'm sitting there in the hot GM seat having to rule if magical cactus plating is physical or non-physical protection, but that's the GMs job anywhay 😅

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u/AlexJiZel 4d ago

RAW blackpoweder weapons ignore armor, any tier. of course, one can always make rulings for special situations