OSR: 1d20 Ludicrous Taxes

My thoughts on taxes in medieval-ish settings remain controversial. So it goes. Here are some more taxes.

Paranatural (edited)

States traditionally tax things for two reasons. 

1. To discourage something, as part of a broader policy. The state doesn't want everyone to wear imported fabric when local fabric will do, so imported fabric is heavily taxed.

2. To raise revenue. Raising existing taxes is often difficult. Rates are set by tradition; adjust them and people might rebel. New taxes are safer. The state doesn't care how many windows you have. Windows are just a convenient measurement of building size, occupancy, etc... until people start making buildings without windows. 

The second method leads to ludicrous or counterintuitive taxes. If a thing is legible to a state, it has been taxed at some point. To make a setting weirder (but never as weird as real life), take a thing and imagine how a slightly disorganized state would tax it. The more legible, the better. Counting is very legible. Weight and volume are tricky. Emotions, names, etc. are next to impossible.

People will try anything to get out of paying taxes. I remember a vague quote I can't source that goes something like, "Since the poor cannot pay, and the rich will not pay, the burden falls ever on the middling sort." For more information (and things to argue about), see Seeing Like A State (Scott, 1998) and/or The Art of Not Being Governed (Scott, 2009).

1d20 Ludicrous Taxes

1. Distance Tax
Pay for perspective. The state is shrouded in a fog-like effect. Pay to wear an amulet that grants 10', 50', 100', etc. of clear air. Peasants navigate by ropes and painted floors; the rich display art on billboards. Amulets expire monthly.

2. Language Tax
The state wants polyglots. The more languages you can demonstrate, the less tax you pay. Monoglots have to wear a special hat (and pay for it, of course). With fluency in five or more languages, you are exempt from the salt tax and road tax, but have to spend an hour a week instructing the youth (who will lob spitballs at you with unnerving accuracy).

3. Sword Tax
To discourage violence and rebellion, swords are heavily taxed. Maces, bows, cannons, tridents, etc. are not as heavily taxed. Outlandish weapons proliferate. Desperate tax inspectors search for anything that could potentially be a sword, including cutlery, daggers, elves (around the ears), etc.

4. Gravity Tax
Pay up or float off. Your local Civic Mage pours some gravity into you every Thursday if you've paid your taxes. If not, gravity fades over a few weeks until you drift upwards like an untethered balloon. Peasants wear lead shoes and shuffle. Misers and the elderly bounce around indoors, eating off the top of wardrobes. Maybe the entire state is inverted?

5. Vwl Tx
Xpnsv. Brdn flls mstly n wrtrs. Xprmntl vwls.

6. Left Turn Tax
Inspectors on every street corner directing traffic and collecting coins. Continual urban smuggling. Pedestrians unaffected unless carrying more than 20lbs; relay chains sometimes employed on market days.

7. Stair Tax
A prosperity tax without the need for accurate records (in theory). Promotes sprawling buildings, or, where that isn't possible, ladders and bucket elevators.

8. Hat Tax
Hats (or at least some form of head covering) are mandatory (and vital, given the local climate). Arguments over what constitutes a hat, what materials are allowable, etc. dominate all discussions. Hoods are popular among the peasantry, as they are taxed as shirts. Among the nobility, enormous convoluted constructions or shoes with head-sheltering backs proliferate. Tax inspectors are fed up and have started attacking milliners in the dead of the night.

9. Height Tax
The state wants tall soldier-citizens. The state doesn't have the right to ask a citizen to remove their footwear. I'm sure you can work out the rest. Epidemic of broken ankles and bruised foreheads.

10. Frog Tax
The state hates frogs. If you have a frog on the premises, even a depiction of a frog, or even an item that could be mistaken for a frog by an overworked inspector, expect a very heavy fine. The Resistance operates frog farms, smuggles them into the homes of the loathsome nobility. Frog-hunting terriers are prized.

Pieter Brueghel the Younger

11. Colour Tax
Another prosperity tax. How many colours can an inspector see when they look at your house, your clothes, or your place of work? Dyes and paints proliferate. Families choose a shade and slather it on everything. Arguments over hue and tone pit tax collectors against artists and dye-makers. Tax collectors carry painted wood chips for reference.

12. Travel Tax
To discourage emigration and searching for better work (and also to use up a surplus of strong dvangerworm cord). Citizens are assigned a home ring (iron, bolted to the foundations), and are physically tethered to it with cord. Can buy additional 100' lengths of cord for a fee. Cord colours and banding patterns change annually. Streets are a tangle. Doors have gaps. Nobles have carts with miniature houses and portable rings. Anyone without a cord is shunned or mobbed. Foreigners escorted from the border to their residence under armed guard. Lengths of cord lopped off as punishment for crimes. Maximum cord lengths sometimes tattooed on arms.

13. Nipple Tax
A convenient measure of household membership and livestock. Poultry is popular, as are snails. Mutilation doesn't get you out of the tax, but does inspire proverbs and epithets. "Nipplesnipper here doesn't want to pay."

14. Furrow Tax
Fields taxed by furrows, by walking along one end and counting the number of lines. Farmers plough in spirals, ovals, or curls. Same methodology applied to village road layout, with similar results. General cultural distaste for hard edges and terminating lines.

15. Clerical Tax
Polytheism is more-or-less mandatory, since different gods control crop growth, weather, metallurgy, commerce, travel, childbirth, etc. Each quarter, or for a special fee at any time, citizens select the number of gods they wish to invoke and pay the appropriate tax. Priests of various gods are jealous of their own portfolio, yet try to add more domains to increase revenue. Invoking a god without paying the correct tax sometimes attracts divine wrath, as the gods also get a cut (via state-sponsored rites and sacrifices).

16. Infernal Tax
Selling souls (or other services) to a select cadre of devils is culturally acceptable, but in return, the state demands its share. The devils like the arrangement (for both fiendish and economic reasons), and form a shadow bureaucracy. The state trades its share to the devils for additional benefits.

17. Pot and Bucket Tax
Any container that can contain the owner's head is taxed and stamped. Buckets, barrels, pots, and cauldrons develop elongated forms, narrow necks, or simply disappear. Massive wine and oil decanting stations on the border. Pans (with lips shorter than a thumb's breadth) are taxed as shields.

18. Sobriety Tax
Used to maintain the oligarchy. If everyone is inebriated, the sober have a monopoly on clear-headed decisions. Somewhat hampered by the need for skilled labour, the desire of the nobility to get drunk and stay drunk, and constant supply chain issues. Little streams of alcohol trickling from the rocks cause erosion. Burning braziers of herbs in public locations. Probably a bad idea, but all the reform-minded folks are absolutely smashed and can't agree on a course of action.

19. Shoe Tax
Foreign shoes are ruining the state's economy! Foreign nails, foreign leather, foreign fashions! Shoe imports are taxed, forcing most visitors to buy new shoes at the border and ceremonial burn their old footwear (or sell it to eager vendors). Nobles wear additional imported shoes on the end of their regular shoes and display dazzling cabinets of impractical footwear.

20. Tax Tax
A surcharge applied to a household or citizen's tax total, based on the number of taxes paid, the difficulty of collection, and the whims of the tax collector. A tax tax tax is applied to the tax collectors.

OSR: Hireling Morale and Fear

I reread Verbruggen's The Art of Warfare in Western Europe During the Middle Ages during my holiday. It drove home just how critical morale is to combat, and how poorly OSR games implement NPC morale.

Julia Zhigadlo

Part 1: Hirelings

Morale

Morale can mean two things: morale as in mutinous or morale as in terrified.

The "we've had time to think about it" morale, the kind that damp socks, cold food, and confusing war goals can affect, is fairly easily handled by most OSR-type games. Obtaining and motivating hirelings is relatively straightforward: high pay, bullshit and lies, and not doing anything too disreputable or dangerous in front of them.

Modern D&D-type games assume the PCs are a competent group of local heroes out to save the world and/or get rich. Hirelings are so far behind the power curve, and so at odds with the narrative structure, that they rarely enter into the equation, unless it's a "rescued" goblin or someone to mind the stronghold.

Whether by straight-up capitalism, feudal relationships, mercenary contracts, obtaining combat hirelings is not difficult. Keeping them in line when a fight starts is the tricky part.

Shame and Love

When faced with imminent death, only two things can keep a person from giving up and fleeing: fear of shame and a desire to protect the person next to them.

As death approaches, high-level human thought stops completely. Fear, in some ways, provides immense clarity. It's deeply wired, hard-coded when our ancestors were still worms. It has root access to every biological system in the human body, and when death approaches, fear makes use of all of them.

Abstractions won't help. The only thing that can defeat fear are two equally deeply rooted emotions: shame or love.

Shame:
Fear of being thought a coward. Fear of ostracization. The nebulous sense of being cut off from the stream of the life you know. Anathema. Cast out. What will your family think? What will your country think? What will your fellow soldiers think?

Love:
I am fighting next to my family. I must protect them, as they would protect me.

Military training, modern and ancient, seeks to reinforce these pathways. "Come back with your shield or on it." I.e. having fought and then carried the bloody heavy thing home, or dead. Don't cast it aside and run. Stories of heroism. The fate of cowards. The visible rewards of victory.

In some military forces, a fighting unit was the community. You fought next to people you'd known your entire life, who shared your experience, who you knew and (hopefully) trusted. Failing that, long and difficult training breaks down existing social structures and builds new ones, ideally forging a unit that occupies the place of family in the conscious mind. Unit leaders become parental figures.

The third option, a poor substitute for shame or love, is training. Training can allow a person to act without thinking, even when terrified out of their wits. The spinal cord doesn't need wits. But all the training in the world won't help because fear can creep into every limb and strangle even well-honed instinct.
 

OSR Hirelings

-Have no particular loyalty or bond to the PCs.
-Will not suffer any shame from leaving some lunatics to die in their magic murder-hole.
-Have no training in common with the PCs.
-May not share a community, values, or social structures with the PCs.

Typical Dungeon Combat Includes

-Narrow hallways
-Poor lighting
-Unknown enemies
-Reaction times measured in seconds

Lack of Tools

Matt Colville

It's not the only problem, but it is a problem. Dungeons are weird places. Generic medieval foot soldiers are trained (and not very well) for a very specific role. It was hard enough to get them to perform that role on a battlefield, let alone in a strange and highly dangerous space.

You can hire people who might have those tools, but you can't make them immune to fear.
 

Magic Immunity to Fear

Ok, maybe you can make your hirelings immune to fear. That spell or ability is now more important than light or cure wounds, because the moment it drops and a fight starts, morale will break, and the hirelings won't be prepared for it by many smaller shocks and close calls.

Soldiers Don't Fight

In medieval warfare, large decisive battles are rare. Sieges are common. Raids, for economic damage or just to make an enemy force spend time and money getting an army together, are constant. Nobody fights unless they absolutely have to.

And in a decisive battle, combat is also surprisingly rare. The classic heavy cavalry charge smashing into a forest of pikes sometimes did happen, but usually after a few mock-charges or tests. Being charged is terrifying, but even the bravest knights in sturdy armour had difficulty launching themselves at full gallop towards a wall of steel and wood.

Battles were long and deliberately exhausting; an exhausted enemy is easy prey for fresh and rested reserves.

In comparison, dungeon combat is short, sudden, and deadly. How often does combat run more than ten or twenty rounds? A single battlefield engagement might take hours; dungeon combat is decided, one way or another, in a few seconds.

Dungeon combat is also unpredictable. A battle takes a few hours to set up after days of marching; a dungeon conceals death around every corner and behind every door. A battle contains a few predictable units. Dungeons contain immortal skeletons coated in jelly, giant spiders, sentient pie-selling pigs, etc, etc.

An army is the wrong tool for a dungeon if you want to avoid mass casualties and panic. A small group of highly trained professionals, each capable of acting independently and without orders, is ideal.

Chris Austin

Morale Tests

Now that we've established that the morale of hirelings will be constantly tested, how should this test be implemented?

The usual approach is as follows:
-give hirelings, individually or collectively, a numerical Morale value.
-create a table of when to test (if outnumbered, after X casualties, etc.)
-create a table of modifiers (allies surviving, proximity to a holy day, etc.)
-roll some dice and compare numbers. If the numbers are bad, the hirelings flee. If the numbers are good, the hirelings do not flee.

The AD&D 1E DMG has some short tables on pg. 67. AD&D 2E has some longer and fiddlier tables on pp. 69-71.

The method works, but it requires looking at tables and doing math in the middle of a tense situation.

Alternative Morale Rules

Morale is, in a sense, how effective a hireling is in combat. Will they run, freeze, or fight? Can they be trusted to hold the line or carry out a plan?

Hit points are already an abstraction. They're not meat points - effects that drain HP don't necessarily need to cause physical damage, merely degrade a target's ability to avoid a fatal blow. 0 HP doesn't necessarily equal death, but does mean the target is out of the fight. Morale can easily be rolled into the same abstraction. Why have a separate system?

A Knight's charge deals 2 automatic damage; hirelings have 1d6 HP. A Lich's fear effect deals damage instead; anyone reduced to 0 HP instead ages 2d100 years and is driven insane, etc In a large formation, fear and disorganization (especially under cavalry charges) can lead to trampling or crushing death as soldiers are herded together. Trampling in a dungeon corridor seems feasible, if a bit strange to describe.

Most of the time, I roll 2d6 compared to 7 minus the number of terrible things the hirelings can currently see (dead comrades, manticores, etc.). If they roll over, they panic. If they roll under, they hold... for now.

https://www.wiktenauer.com/wiki/Gladiatoria_(MS_U860.F46_1450)

How To Avoid Morale Failure

It's possible to hire or obtain a coherent, well-trained unit that can resist fear. Small medieval mercenary warbands were capable of extraordinary feats when cornered because they knew they were fighting for their lives, alongside people they lived with and relied on. Peasant levies, ordinarily treated as fairly useless blocks, developed alarming confidence and competence as they developed a sense of community.

A single lance (an archer, a page, and a knight, or equivalent) is one of the smallest coherent units you can reasonably hire.

Acolytes

Medieval armies are comprised of what Bret Deveraux calls "retinues of retinues". Stacked tiers of obligation. Great lords have little lords to bite 'em, and so on, down to a lone farmer-knight with a spotty page and a tired old horse, who is obliged to round up a levy of 2 when his lord puts out the call to war.

A typical D&D party is an (often leaderless) retinue. Even in my most medieval-inspired games, where people from the Second Estate carried considerable social power, they were rarely the people who decided what the group should do next. RPGs are a collaborative experience.

Each PC can have a retinue. Some games tie the number of hirelings and followers a PC can support based to a PC's charisma score. This makes some sense - Charisma is an underused stat and it makes sense - but it really shouldn't be the primary limiting factor.

AD&D differentiates between hirelings (who get paid a fixed rate) and Henchmen (who get a share of loot, gain XP, and act as backup PCs). These specialists are treated as valued members of the party (and can therefore potentially benefit from the shame/love motivations described above). They've got a vested interest in keeping everyone alive. They are members of the same unit.

Giving someone a proper share of the loot is a big investment for most groups. Players tend to err on the side of greed and avoid hirelings, but if they do pick up a few, I make sure they roll Save like PCs (see below).

Downtime Training Camps

If the PCs need more help than a few acolytes can provide, running a training camp to prepare masses of hirelings for dungeon activities could be fun. Paper monsters, obstacle courses, lessons in identifying common traps and magic items, etc. In some settings it could even turn a profit.
 

Inspiring Speeches

They help and they're fun too, if your players like that sort of thing.
 

Uniforms, Unit Names, and Standardized Equipment

Also helps improve long-term morale and effectiveness. Players sometimes enjoy picking a colour scheme, banner, and organization name.

Daniel Landerman

Part 2: PCs and Fear

The GLOG has Saves against Fear. This isn't Fear, the supernatural spell-like effect of AD&D, but regular emotional fear. In properly terrifying situations - the sudden appearance of an unexpected vampire, the explosive rebirth of a hydra, the sight of a friend immolating after drinking a potion - I have the PCs to save against Fear. If they fail, I tell the player "your character is afraid. What do they do?"

Some people treat this like an abominable heresy. The GM is allowed to poison a PC, alter their appearance with a potion or mutation, change their alignment (if applicable) with a curse (though this isn't really common anymore), add plausible details to a backstory, tell a player their PC thinks an object or person looks suspicious, but describing an emotional state goes too far!

Seems arbitrary to me. And Saves against Fear work out fairly well in play. Reminding players that their characters are still human and still subject to fallible responses is useful. Players, in turn, often make remarkably realistic and interesting choices when their PCs are afraid. 

A very small number of abilities won't work if a PC is afraid, but otherwise, there's no mechanical effect. The PC can still fight effectively if the player decides they can. But most of the time, since the player has a decent grasp of their character's motivations, they do something entirely sensible, like running away, freezing, hiding behind an ally, or vomiting into a bucket.

And yes, if a PC is a notorious vampire hunter and the sudden appearance of a vampire is more of a "hooray, bonus time!" situation, their player is free to object and automatically pass the test. It doesn't come up often.

OSR: The Heavenly Leech and Viper Treacle

It is difficult to make medicine gameable.

Actually, I should clarify. It is difficult to make medieval medicine gameable in an OSR context. Systems of diagnosis and treatment are too complex to replicate without pages and pages of explanatory text on historical or fictional notions. Adding complexity to the healing process in RPGs seems to just slow down access the "interesting" part of games. Nobody turns up to game to roll on the "hemorrhoid treatment progress" table.

So instead of trying to come up with a "Doctor" class, I've put a few miscellaneous and interesting quotes and observations in this article. Enjoy!

Chirurgia, Roger of Salerno. Christ the Physician applies several treatments.

The Nature of Suffering

Suffering purifies the soul, or so Christian theology said. The body is a corrupt vessel. Why bother maintaining it, clothing it in soft cloth, feeding it delicious food, and gratifying carnal desires when they might impede progress towards eternal bliss? If you become diseased, it's because you are being tested or punished. Accept it.

On the other hand, Christ - the heavenly leech of the title - healed the sick, so clearly suffering isn't entirely laudable. And aside from a few saints, most people, when faced with disease or injury, sought treatment of some sort. Virtuous suffering is easy until you have to pass a kidney stone.

If treatment was unavailable or ineffectual, victims could console themselves with theology.

But if we not only hear this word "death," but also let sink into our hearts the very fantasy and deep imagination thereof, we shall perceive thereby that we were never so greatly moved by the beholding of the Dance of Death pictured in Paul's, as we shall feel ourselves stirred and altered by the feeling of that imagination in our hearts. And no marvel. For those pictures express only the loathly figure of our dead bony bodies, bitten away the flesh; which though it be ugly to behold, yet neither the light thereof, nor the sight of all the dead heads in the charnel house, nor the apparition of a very ghost, is half so grisly as the deep conceived fantasy of death in his nature, by the lively imagination graven in thine own heart. For there seest thou, not one plain grievous sight of the bare bones hanging by the sinews, but thou seest (if thou fantasy thine own death, for so art thou by this counsel advised), thou seest, I say, thyself, if thou die no worse death, yet at the leastwise lying in thy bed, thy head shooting, thy back aching, thy veins beating, thine heart panting, thy throat rattling, thy flesh trembling, thy mouth gaping, thy nose sharping, thy legs cooling, thy fingers fumbling, thy breath shortening, all thy strength fainting, thy life vanishing, and thy death drawing on.

If thou couldst now call to thy remembrance some of those sicknesses that have most grieved thee and tormented thee in thy days, as every man hath felt some, and then findest thou that some one disease in some one part of thy body, as percase the stone or the strangury, have put thee to thine own mind to no less torment than thou shouldst have felt if one had put up a knife into the same place, and wouldst, as thee then seemed, have been content with such a change -- think what it will be then when thou shalt feel so many such pains in every part of thy body, breaking thy veins and thy life strings, with like pain and grief as though as many knives as thy body might receive should everywhere enter and meet in the midst.

A stroke of a staff, a cut of a knife, the flesh singed with fire, the pain of sundry sickness, many men have essayed in themselves; and they that have not yet, somewhat have heard by them that felt it. But what manner dolor and pain, what manner of grievous pangs, what intolerable torment, the silly creature feeleth in the dissolution and severance of the soul from the body, never was there body that yet could tell the tale.

-Thomas More's Last Things.

  
Side Note: I normally use translated or transliterated primary sources on this blog, but the original text is worth reading:

I saye, thy selfe yf thou dye no worse death, yet at the least lying in thy bedde, thy hed shooting, thy backe akyng, thy vaynes beating, thine heart panting, thy throte ratelyng, thy fleshe trembling, thy mouth gaping, thy nose sharping, thy legges coling, thy fingers fimbling, thy breath shorting, all thy strength fainting, thy lyfe vanishing, and thy death drawyng on.

The next time you're ill, be sure to describe your symptoms in these terms.

Since immorality and selfishness caused disease, it followed logically that righteous living would not only be good for the immortal soul but also likely offer immunity against earthly pestilence. As San Bernardino urged his Italian congregations in the early fifteenth century, charity rather than physic should be there first resort during epidemics; there could be no better preventative medicine than almsgiving, which pleased God and disposed him, in turn, to show compassion. But knowing from personal experience that generosity alone could not guarantee survival, or ease the spots and stains of sin, medieval men and women also sought to safeguard their physical, as well as spiritual health, through prayer and pilgrimage.

[...]

The rich might choose to pay for special masses to be said during epidemics; or secure for themselves the promise of a year free from the malign effects of 'want, emptiness, loss of cattle, fumes and evil vapours, cramps, dropsy, cancer, leprosy, asthma, unclean spirits, shame, bad luck... water, fire, lightning, tempest, plague, and sudden death' simply by fasting on bread and water and having a mass of St Anthony said on their behalf.

-Medicine & Society in Later Medieval England, Carole Rawcliffe

High Mortality

The myth of 40 being old age has been so thoroughly demolished it's barely a myth anymore. Infant mortality skews the average downwards, and infants died in all sorts of horrible ways. Aside from the usual infections, poisons, and fires, anyone who raised both pigs and children took a chance. Open wells, mad dogs, ponds, woodpiles, and wagons claimed their share.

Chances are good your everyone in your class on your first day of school was/will be alive when you turn/turned 20. Death, in the modern west, is a rare and tragic event. In medieval Europe, death was a constant companion, even in periods without sweeping epidemics. PCs in OSR-type games are often a bit blase about the tragic demise of their companions. I'm not sure that's a problem.
 

Pain Relief

There's a persistent idea that pain relief, aside from alcohol, wasn't available in medieval Europe. This isn't true. It was easy, even trivial to make sleeping draughts and soporifics.

It was very difficult to make sleeping draughts and soporifics that didn't kill their victims.

The two main ingredient of powerful medieval soporifics, opium and hemlock, could easily be lethal. Proportions were given in widely varying measures. Freshness of ingredients, or even their local name, also defied standardization. But there's a sort of brilliant logic to medieval draughts. They typically contained a soporific (alcohol, henbane, opium, lettuce, and/or hemlock) and a laxative or emetic (henbane, briony, gall, wine). The patient would be rendered insensible by the potent soporific, but, ideally, the drug would pass from their system one way or another before permanent harm resulted.

Side Note: yes, lettuce used to be mildly soporific.

Wound Man, the medieval superhero.

Oof Ouch My Bones

Medieval medical theories (below) might be obtuse, but battlefield surgery tends to sweep away theories and focus on practical results.

Removing a dart or arrowhead before the wound became critically infected was a difficult task. Hammers, tongs, and curses were commonly employed. If possible, removal was postponed until a natural cyst formed around the foreign body. Styptics of dried egg and resin helped with external bleeding where cauterization was not possible, and stitches helped close wounds, but serious internal injuries were often beyond a surgeon's power.

Skilled medieval surgeons managed to perform cataract surgery without anesthetic, bright artificial lights, or stainless steel. Thick ropes and strong servants, recommended by medical textbooks, helped.
 

The Death and Dismemberment and Disfigurement Table

A classic Death and Dismemberment table should include some hideous wounds.

An examination of the skeletal remains of Sigh Hugh Hastings, a Norfolk Landowner who died in 1347 aged less than forty, reveals that he suffered from osteoarthritis, probably caused by continuous practice with a broad-sword or other heavy weapon, and compounded by the physical wear and tear of military campaigns in France. Although he was the son of a nobleman and had spent time at Court, he evidently consumed coarse bread containing particles of grit (of the sort eaten by the peasantry), which had caused progressive dental deterioration. A blow to the mouth had, moreover, deprived him of at least five or six front teeth, so that by the time of his death he must have found eating very difficult indeed.

Facial disfigurements were by no means uncommon during this period: the heroes of one of the most popular chivalric romances of the fifteenth century, Le Mort d'Arthur, regularly identify each other by their most recent wounds; and in this respect, at least, the author (who must have sustained quite a few cuts and bruises during the course of his own turbulent career) seems to have been drawing on personal experience. We know that in 1374 a quarter of recruits serving in the Provencal army were badly scarred on the hands or face; and that many English soldiers mutilated in the wars with France returned home in a parlous condition to beg. Even allowing for the exaggeration common in such cases, we cannot but marvel at the powers of survival mustered by one Thomas Hostell, whose misfortunes had begun in 1415 at the siege of Harfleur. There he had been

smyten with a springolt through the hede, lesing his oon ye, and his cheke boon broken; also at the bataille of Agingcourt, and after at the takyng of the carrakes on the see, there with a gadd of yren his plates smyten in sondre, and sore hurt, maymed and wounded; by meane wherof he being sore febeled and debrused, now falle to great age and poverty, gretly endetted, and may not helpe himself.

-Medicine & Society in Later Medieval England, Carole Rawcliffe

Or if you'd prefer a modern source:

A lot of rural people in Iowa in the fifties had arresting physical features - wooden legs, stumpy arms, outstandingly dented heads, hands without fingers, mouths without tongues, sockets without eyes, scars that ran for feet, sometimes going in one sleeve and out the other. Goodness knows what people got up to back then, but they suffered some mishaps, that's for sure.

-The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir, Bill Bryson

 

The 4 Humours

Straight from Wikipedia:

Humour	Season	Ages	Element	Organ	Qualities	Temperament
Blood	spring	infancy	air	liver	warm and moist	sanguine
Yellow bile	summer	youth	fire	gallbladder	warm and dry	choleric
Black bile	autumn	adulthood	earth	spleen	cold and dry	melancholic
Phlegm	winter	old age	water	brain/lungs	cold and moist	phlegmatic

But that's boring and dry. Instead:

Sanguineus:
Of yiftes large, in love hath grete delite,
Iocunde and gladde, ay of laughing chiere
Of ruddy colour meyne somdel with white;
Disposed by kynde to be a champioun
Hardy i-nough, manly, and bold of chiere.
Of the sangwyne also it is a signe,
To be demure, right curteys, and benynge.

Colericus:
The coleryk: froward and of disceyte,
Irous in hert, prodigal in expence,
Hady also, and worchith ay by sleyght.
Sklendre and smalle, ful light in existence,
Right drye of nature for the grete fervence
Of heet; and the coleryk hath this signe,
He is comunely of colour cytryne.

Fleumaticus:
The flewmatyk is sompnelent and slowe,
With humours grosse, replete, ay habundaunt,
To spitte invenons the flewmatic is knowe,
By dulle conceyte and voyde, unsufficiaunt
The sutill art to complice or haunt;
Fat of kynde, teh flewmous, men may trace,
And know hym best by whitness of his face.

Malencolicus:
The malencolicus thus men espie:
He is thought and sette in covetise,
Replenysshith full of fretyng envye;
His hert servith hym to spende in no wise,
Trayterous frawde full wele can he devise;
Coward of kynde when he shuld be a man,
Thow shalt hym knowe by visage pale and wan.

-The Four Complexions

Humorial theory was the core of theories about the body. Diseases caused an imbalance in the body's humours; a physician could, by applying the correct treatment, drug, diet, or environment, correct this balance. It was rarely as simple as an excess or defect of one humour. Instead, the complex interplay of age, location, organ, diet, and personal balance contributed to the balance and dictated the necessary treatment.

Since virtually every condition and treatment could be described in these terms, humorial theory flourished. It is a perfect self-contained paradigm; any challenges are absorbed without disturbance. Since the human body can recover from many injuries without (or in spite of) the aid of dubious medicines, the theory seemed to be successful.

Practical preventative medicine focused on simple and recognizable advice: eating sensible portions with fresh vegetables and fruit, regular sleep and exercise, avoiding conflict and stress, moderate drinking, and quiet living. Then as now, people tended to ignore this advice and do whatever they wanted.

Off To See The Whizzard

Gunshow

Most medieval illustrations of physicians have them examining a flask of urine. Uroscopy was, for centuries, the defining trait of physicians, and an easy target for satirists. Charts linking urine's colour, texture, sediment, and odour to a variety of diseases were readily available.

Now in every man is body is foure qualitees: hete and colde, moyste and drye. Hete and colde they ben causers of colours. Drynes and moystene they ben causes of substance. Hete is cause of rede colour; drynes is cause of thyn substance; moystenes is cause of thycke substaunce. And thus, if the uryn of the pacient be rede and thicke it signifieth that blode is hote and moyste. If it be rede and thyne hit sheweth that colere hath dominacioun, ffor why colere is hote and drye. If the uryn appere white and thicke hit betokeneth fleume, ffor fleume is colde and moyste. If the uryn appere white and thynne, it signifieth malencoly, ffor malencoly is colde and drye. Then thu hast considerid wel as this, then beholde the diversite of colours of the uryns.. . 

-Wellcome Library, Western Ms, 537 ff. 16-16v, quoted from Medicine & Society in Later Medieval England, Carole Rawcliffe

Uroscopy allowed discreet analysis at a distance. Rich patients dispatched daily urine samples to distant physicians, who sent back daily advice or reassuring notes. Fortified with charts and frequent practice, physicians felt reasonably confident in their diagnoses, and experienced practitioners probably drew reasonable conclusions about the heath of their patients. Analysis of blood, feces, and sweat was also encouraged.

If anyone feels like making this gameable, they're on their own.
  

Practical Medicine

Treating humorial imbalance according to the complex instructions of medical authorities was rarely practical or affordable. Physicians used their judgement, and a healthy dose of practical folk remedies, where more complex cures failed.

Some cures seemed worse than the disease.

Note, it is necessary for lethargics, that people talk loudly in their presence. Tie their extremities tightly, rub their palms and soles hard; and let their feet be put in salt water up to the middle of their shins, and pull the hair and nose, and squeeze the toes and fingers tightly, and cause pigs to squeal in his ears; give him a sharp clyster [enema] at the beginning... and open the vein of the head, or nose, or forehead, and draw blood from the nose with the bristles of a boar. Put a feather, or a straw in his nose to compel him to sneeze, and do not ever desist from hindering him from sleeping; and let human hair, or other evil-smelling thing, be burnt under the nose. Apply moreover the cupping horn between the shoulders, and let a feather be put down the throat, to cause vomiting, and shave the back of the head, and rub oil of roses and vinegar, and smallage juice thereon.

-Rosa Anglica

That'll cure your lethargy, if only to get away from your physician.

Bloodletting, as a preventative measure as well as a cure, was very popular. Unlicensed and lightly trained phlebotomists were widely available. Healthy and hearty people chose auspicious days for bloodletting; the sick, aged, or infirm sought it as a last resort. As no effective methods for stopping blood flow existed, accidental deaths were common, but the practice seemed to carry significant benefits. It's well known that the more invasive and impressive a placebo is, the greater its effects. A placebo injection carries more weight than a placebo pill.

At the Augustinian priory of Barnwell, in Cambridgeshire, for instance, the brothers were bled on average seven times a year, being allowed to take three days' rest in the infirmary on each occasion. Since they were exempted from the punishing round of liturgical practice, allowed a more generous and nourishing diet than usual and permitted to take as much gentle exercise as they wished, it is easy to see why they felt much better afterwards.

-Medicine & Society in Later Medieval England, Carole Rawcliffe

If direct bloodletting was too dangerous, leeches or cupping were available. Cauterization, burning infected flesh or creating new wounds to remove superfluous cold or moist humours, was also common. A treatment for "stubborn headaches, dropsy, epilepsy, disorders of the eyes, throat, nose and ears, coughs, nosebleeds, and 'flux of the wombe that cometh of the reume' went as follows:

bid the patient open the bowels with an evacuant which will also clear his head, for three or four nights, according to the strength, age, and habits of the patient. Then tell him to have his head shaved; then seat him cross-legged before you, with his hands on his breast. Then place the lower part of your palm on the root of his nose between his eyes; and where your middle finger reaches mark that place with ink. Then heat an olivary cautery. Then bring it down upon the marked place with one downward stroke of gentle pressure, revolving the cautery; then quickly take your hand away while observing the place. If you see that some bone is exposed, the size of the head of a skewer or a grain of vetch, then take your hand away; otherwise repeat with the same iron or, if that has gone cold, with another, till the amount of bone I have mentioned is exposed. Then take a little salt in water; soak some cotton in it, apply it to the place, then leave it for three days.

-Albucasis, quoted in Medicine & Society in Later Medieval England, Carole Rawcliffe

Cauterizing the head or limbs was merely agonizing. Cauterizing the neck or torso was more dangerous, and could, if done improperly, cause the patient to burst.

The Baby-Eating Bishop of Bath and Wells

Treacle

To most people, "treacle" is molasses or golden syrup; a thick sugary liquid that belongs in the kitchen, not the pharmacy.

But in late medieval Europe, treacle (or theriac), was the most potent cure on the market. It was hailed as a panacea, a universal cure. Applied internally or externally, in small or large doses, it was the preferred treatment of anyone who could afford it.

Treacle was compounded and aged according to a variety of ancient recipes. On the principle of opposition, treacle was made partially of known poisons, so better to counteract other poisons. The flesh of vipers was a common ingredient, but the general principle seemed to be to be to mix every known medical or pseudomedical ingredient in honey. Like the ingredient list of a modern energy drink or some fictitious drugs, a little bit of everything was thought to help.

Transport from its point of origin in Italy or Greece to Europe afforded many opportunities for adulteration or dilution, so any lack of effect could be blamed on the age or concentration of the cure-all. Treacle's mistique and association with ancient esoteric texts may have helped its reputation. Honey and opium can't be entirely unpleasant, even if mixed with bitumen and roast viper.
   

Astrology

Knowledge of practical astrology was vital for medieval physicians. The time and place of treatment could only be determined by careful examination of the stars and their effects on the humours of mankind. Using astrology for medical purposes was tolerated. Using it for predictive purposes was dangerously close to witchcraft.

Since astrology is also a total system - it is self-contained, difficult to directly disprove, and willing to absorb criticism - it is difficult to use in RPGs. Making up new constellations and their attributes, then adding fake planets, tends to result in pages of tedious background information. Using "real" astrology for a fictional world seems anachronistic, like having Wales next to Faerun.

It's difficult enough to remember to use weather in D&D-type games. Astrology seems like one more thing to forget to track.

Retroactive Identification of Causes

In October 1348 Phillip VI of France requested the faculty of medicine at the University of Paris provide him with a consultative document explaining the causes of the Black Death, then endemic throughout his kingdom. The ensuing report, which was drawn up by some of the leading medical authorities of the day, and represented the most scientific thinking in Europe, unequivocally - and perhaps conveniently - attributed the outbreak and severity of the disease to circumstances beyond the control of any human agency. Indeed, the fate of its victims had already been decided at one o'clock on the afternoon of 20 March 1345, when there took place

an important conjunciton of three higher planets in the sign of Aquarius, which, with other conjunctions and eclipses, is the cause of the pernicous corruption of the surrounding air, as well as a sign of mortality, famine, and other catastrophes...The conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter brings about the death of peoples and the depopulation of kingdoms, great accidents occuring on account of the changes of the two stars themselves... The conjunction of Mars and Jupiter causes great pestilence in the air, especially when it takes place in a warm and humid sign, as occured in this instance. For... Jupiter, a warm and humid planet, drew up evil vapours from earth and water, and Mars, being excessively hot and dry, set fire to these vapours. Whence there were in the air flashes of lightning, lights, pestilential vapours and fires, espeically since Mars, a malevolent planet generating choler and wars, was from the sixth of October 1347 to the end of May of the present year in the Lion together with the head of the dragon. Not only did all of them, as they are warm, attract many vapours, but Mars, being on the wane, was very active in this respect, and also, turning towards Jupiter in its evil aspect, engendered a disposition or quality hostile to human life.

-The Black Death and Men of Learning, A.M. Campbell, quoted in Medicine & Society in Later Medieval England, Carole Rawcliffe

Since we are currently in the middle of an epidemic, I'd like to commission any bored individuals with knowledge of astrology to check for unwholesome conjunctions in Wuhan between 6 October 2019 – 11 December 2019.

I've tried using sites like this one, but they require a degree of specialized knowledge I can't be bothered to obtain. COVID-19 is obviously a phlegmatic disease (cold, wet, associated with the lungs and lethargy), so that's a good starting point.  It is extremely odd that these two plagues are both associated with the 6th of October. The only other plague I can find that began on October 6th is Instagram.

Coincidence?

Yes, coincidence. But still. I'll send a free PDF of MIR to the person who produces the most coherent, fully cited, and comprehensive astrological origin for COVID-19.

OSR: Arms and Armour: The Power of Plate

OSR-type-games traditionally use one number to represent how hard a character is to hit. For the purposes of this article, we're going to call that number Armour Class (AC).Dexterity (the stat) might increase* that AC. Wearing armour also increases AC*. The higher** the number, the less like a character is to take damage.

*Or decreases, if you're using descending armour class, but you get the idea.
**Or lower, see above.

And that's usually fine. It's just a game after all. It's not a game about armour or even (arguably) a game about fighting.

But it's also not very realistic. Armour doesn't work like that.

Desperta Ferro no 4

How Does Armour Work

I'm going to lean on this article by Bret Devereaux fairly heavily. It (and the entire blog) explains complex topics in a clear, pop-culture-accessible way. You can also look up hundreds of videos of reenactors and enthusiasts doing surprising things in armour.

Armour is good. Humans are squishy. Everyone who could afford to wear armour did. "Afford", in this case, means both financially and energetically. Armour is heavy; if you can't do your job while wearing it, you'll die anyway.
 

Why Realism?

Because the real world, particularly the past, is interesting, weird, and unintuitive. If you can make realistic things work in your games, they can add a layer of complexity and value.

If you can't, they can add a layer of tedious and pointless bookkeeping. There are a lot of systems out there that claim to "fix D&D" by emulating "realistic medieval combat". Nine times out of ten, they're enthusiastic and detailed but utterly tedious. Stances and guards and fifty different kinds of polearms. Rules for every helmet. There's a market for that kind of complexity, but I like simple rules to explain complex concepts.
  

Trade-Offs

Cost and Abundance: tend to only matter in the first few sessions. Once the PCs have money, they'll try to buy the best gear locally available.

Inventory Slots: a better trade. The more Inventory Slots you fill with Armour, the fewer you have for weapons, tools, and supplies. (Inventory Slots are equal to a PC's Strength score, or 10, or 12, or some other arbitrary but low number.)

Stat Penalties: a strange trade. The better your armour, the fewer roles you can perform. You are less likely to set up an ambush and more likely to be caught while running away.

Assumptions

It's the 14th century... ish, Europe... ish. Full plate armour exists, but is not particularly common. Firearms and cannons are primitive. Everything exists in a murky transition between feudal power and monarchical states. Mercenaries are becoming more common. Wizards are present, but not common and not apocalyptically powerful.
 

Damage Types

For clarity.

Slashing. The most common type. Animals with claws, swords wielded by untrained users, etc. If you can do it with a bread knife, it's Slashing damage. Makes a horrible mess of unarmoured flesh but is defeated by most armour.

Piercing. Pressure applied at a point. Daggers, arrows, crossbow bolts. Arrows are a borderline case in some ways, but I didn't want to give them a separate damage type. Piercing damage punches directly through armour or, more likely, hits a weak point like a joint or a gap.

Bludgeoning. Pressure applied broadly. Hammers, chair legs, trampling. Big bruises, concussions.

Crushing. Unstoppable pressure. A hippo's bite, falling off a cliff, a hammer trap, etc. Turns plate armour into a squashed tin can. Typically, not reduced by armour or spells. Firearms and cannons might deal Crushing damage.
Elemental. Acid, Ice, Fire, Ice, Lightning, Stone (maybe? Might be covered by other damage types), Void (Sonic), and Water. Stuff you can't avoid, even in armour. Hot sand or oil deals fire damage.

Magic. The darkest magic. Or just regular magic. Bypasses mere metal, leather, and flesh. Sometimes deals damage directly to a creature's soul.

Branca branca branca!

Rules

 
Leather Armour
"Leather Armour" is fictional; armour made of leather existed. This tier covers quilted fabric, fish leather, wood, hide, etc. It's cheap. It's abundant. Leather Armour occupies 2 Inventory Slots and reduces incoming Slashing damage by 3. It does not penalize Stealth or Movement.

Chain Armour
Chain armour is expensive. It occupies 4 Inventory Slots and reduces incoming Slashing damage by 6.

Plate Armour
Very expensive. It occupies 6 Inventory Slots and reduces incoming Slashing and Bludgeoning damage by 6, and Piercing damage by 4.

Shields
Common. A Shield occupies 1 Inventory Slot and must be wielded in 1 hand. It reduces incoming Slashing, Bludgeoning, and Piercing damage by 2. A shield can also be sundered, destroying it but reducing incoming damage from one source by 1d12.

Magic Armour
Very rare, possibly temporary, possibly cursed. Reduces incoming Magic damage by some amount. Enchanted shields, amulets, charms or caps are also viable. Magic Armour can also decrease or completely negate Elemental damage.

Bits of Armour
You can subdivide armour into pieces, granting fractional bonuses or using hit locations. That seems like a lot of effort to me. Yes, a steel helmet and breastplate with limited other armour is realistic, but it rarely seems to come up in play. Either a PC can afford a full suit and wants the full benefits, or they can't and don't.

Axel Sauerwald

Weapons

This list is not exhaustive, but should let a GM assign both damage and size to most weapons.

Improvised
Improvised weapons typically occupy either 1/3rd or 1 Inventory Slots. They deal 1d4 damage and can be thrown 10'. A shield can be used as an improvised weapon.

• Broken Bottles: Slashing
• Rocks, Chairs: Bludgeoning
   

Light
Light Weapons occupy 1/3rd of an Inventory Slot. They can be thrown 30'.

• Daggers: Piercing

Medium
Medium weapons occupy 1 Inventory Slot. If wielded in 1 hand, they deal 1d8 damage. If wielded in 2 hands, they deal 1d10 damage.

• Swords: Slashing or Piercing
• Axes: Slashing
• Hammers: Bludgeoning
   

Heavy
Heavy weapons occupy 2 Inventory Slots. They deal 1d12 damage and must be wielded in 2 hands.
Big Swords Slashing or Piercing damage.

• Big Swords: Slashing or Piercing
• Big Axes: Slashing
• Big Hammers: Bludgeoning
   

Reach
Reach weapons occupy 2 Inventory slots. They deal 1d8 damage, but let the wielder fight from the second rank of a formation, where they can't be hit by anything but Reach or Ranged weapons. They must be wielded in 2 hands.

• Spears: Piercing
• Complicated Polearms: Pick a damage type pair. Slashing and Piercing. Slashing and Bludgeoning. Piercing and Bludgeoning. Though I'd suggest making Bludgeoning damage harder to find, or reducing its damage to a d6.
   

Ranged
Ranged weapons occupy 1 Inventory Slot and have a base 30' range. They must be wielded in 2 hands.

• Bows: 1d6 Piercing
• Crossbows: 1d12 Piercing. Takes 1 round to reload.
   

All melee weapons add the wielder's Strength bonus (usually 0, sometimes +1 or -1, occasionally +2 or -2) to their damage.

Magic weapons either add Magic damage to an attack, or turn all the attack's damage into Magic damage (or Elemental damage).

• A +2 Dagger might deal 1d6 Piercing damage and 2 Magic damage, or it might deal 1d6+2 Magic damage. Depends on your system and preference.
• A +2 Dagger of Fire might deal 1d6+2 Fire damage, 1d6 Fire damage and 2 Magic damage, or 1d6 Piercing damage and 2 Fire damage. Again, there are a few ways to divide damage.

 

Additional Rules Clarification

Attack rolls vary with system, class, level, etc, but should be somewhere between 50% and 90%, in ideal conditions. Critical Hits, (a 1-in-20 chance) deal double damage.

Being prone reduces damage reduction by half. Depending on the system, prone targets may also be easier to hit with melee attacks. "Prone" covers conditions where a target is easier to hit. The more you can do to imperil or impede your target, the better your chance to hit.

Osprey #155

Fearful Symmetry

You can start to see how it all fits together.

Wearing Plate armour and carrying a Shield (the best available mundane defense) reduces most incoming damage by at least 6... but at a cost. A PC's damage output is reduced (because they can't wield a 2-handed weapon). 7 of their very limited Inventory Slots are full of stuff that's only useful in combat, 8 if you include a weapon.

Plate without a Shield still fills up 6 slots. Piercing weapons can sneak through a few extra points of damage, but in return, a PC can wield a mighty two-handed weapon and deal some significant pain.

Chain is a decent compromise. Damage reduction against the most common form of damage, especially in a dungeon, but relative vulnerability to both Bludgeoning and Piercing damage. A shield helps cover those gaps.

Leather only occupies 2 Inventory Slots, so it's viable for low-capacity PCs, or PCs who need to carry a lot of other items. It doesn't penalize Steath or Movement, so sneaky-types can wear it without fear.

No armour is also viable. If you don't get hit, you don't need to worry about damage reduction, and there are a lot of ways to not get hit. And you've got all those sweet Inventory Slots to fill with items that can save your life, or get you rich, in non-combat situations.

Inventory switching becomes a critical issue. In the GLOG, the first 3 Inventory Slots are quick-draw, meaning a PC can access them immediately. They could be weapons, vital tools, spellbooks, a lantern, etc. Anything else requires 1 full round to access.

If a PC wants to focus all their resources on combat, they may want to pick Plate armour (in their general inventory), a Shield (in 1 quick-draw slot), a Sword (in 1 quick-draw slot), and... well, something else. With 9 Inventory Slots full of stuff, and with weapon and shield at the ready, they're in trouble if they get into a non-combat situation. Holding a lantern or torch will be difficult; they'll need to drop it to draw their sword and raise their shield.

Wheeeee...
Cavalry charges hurt.

Rock Paper Scissors... Lizard Spock

The discussion so far has focused on equivalent arms and armour: fights where both sides have the same tools and tactics. But typical dungeon inhabitants change the considerations.

Giant Spiders, Centipedes, etc.
Armour as leather (-2 Slashing damage) or unarmoured. You could also add bonus damage from bludgeoning sources. Chitin is fragile. They typically deal Piercing damage (bites), plus secondary effects (poison, paralysis, etc.)

Goblins, Kobolds, etc.
Unarmoured, or Leather (-2 Slashing damage). Some organized goblins might have shields (-2 Slashing, Bludgeoning, and Piercing damage). They typically deal Piercing damage (daggers,  spears, arrows).

Orcs, Hobgoblins, etc.
Leather (-2 Slashing damage) or Chain (-6 Slashing damage). Sometimes Shields (-2 Slashing, Bludgeoning, and Piercing damage). Rarely, Plate (-6 Slashing and Bludgeoning damage, -4 Piercing damage), but typically with two-handed weapons instead of with a shield.

Mimics, Giant Rats, Zombies, etc.
No armour. Typically deal Slashing or Bludgeoning damage.

Skeletons, Golems, etc.
Immune to Slashing and Piercing damage. Typically deal Slashing or Piercing damage.

Oozes
Typically immune to Piercing damage. Frequently have other immunities. Typically deal bludgeoning or acid damage.

Ghosts, Liches, Other Horrible Things, etc.
Immune to everything except Magic damage. May take some types of Elemental damage. Typically deal Magic damage.

The conclusion seems clear. Bring many damage types, switch between them, and try to either deal Elemental or Magic damage. But rarity, risk, cost, and lack of inventory space will by necessity limit these options. There's no optimal solution, but there are a lot of interesting solutions. And that's very appealing.

KILART (choe, heonhwa)

Dungeon Tactics

Dungeons are weird environments. Medieval warfare is not designed for 10' hallways, pit traps, and goblins who can see in the dark.

Arms and armour adapt to the pressures faced by their users. Time lag exists, as it always has (and in some fields, always will), but it's worth examining what pressures medieval armour faces underground.

When history moved slowly, as it did before 1900, rulers were slow in learning realities in the exercise of government, and some, like the Bourbons, never learned at all. It took a very long time before rulers came to realize that armed service would have to be paid for or that they needed to concern themselves with the wants of the lower orders from whom their armies were drawn. We have been living since under Henry Adams’ law of the acceleration of changing times, which obscures for us the time lag that existed for our ancestors between the fact of change and the social and political understanding of what had happened.
-The First Salute: A View of the American Revolution

How the "fact of change" and the "understanding of change" will depend on your setting. Is crypt-robbing an established profession, with guilds and a long history? Arms and armour will reflect this. Is it new or sporadic? Arms and armour will be adapted, sometimes imperfectly, from battlefield use.

Maneuvering
Rolling, dodging, leaping, and climbing are all feasible in full plate.

Heat
Mines are warm, but so is the desert, and people wore full plate in the desert. Not worried.

Water
Evidence exists that it's possible, with effort, to tread water and swim along the surface for a few minutes in plate armour. I've yet to see anyone ascend from the depths in plate armour. Drowning is still a very real possibility if someone falls into water or is carrying other heavy items. Just because it's possible doesn't mean it's sensible.

Visibility and Awareness
Armour is noisy. A good helmet, by necessity, restricts vision and hearing. Both are flaws in a dungeon. Corridors echo. Pit traps and ambushes are obscured. I'd expect to see a lot of helmets with folding fronts or visors, so an armoured warrior could switch from scanning mode to combat mode immediately. Forgoing a helmet entirely is still silly, unless you're storing your brain elsewhere.

Training
Cavalry combat is useless underground. Horses are great on an open field. You can't joust, you can't practice a full-speed charge, and you can't rely on your fellow explorers. They're just in it for the gold, after all.

A wall of spears and pikes is still formidable... if you can get it to hold. A formation 30 across and 3 deep is sturdy. In a confined space, with no room to maneuver, wheel, or retreat in good order, that same formation in miniature is very vulnerable to disruption. One fireball, one panicking hireling, one lucky goblin, and the whole formation goes to hell. It doesn't have the width to fill gaps.

So I suspect most "realistic" dungeon fights would be two small groups encountering each other, sizing each other up, possibly charging to within 10' or so, and then, after some posturing, retreating.

Dungeon combat requires much more tactical finesse than most armies in the 14th century could manage. Groups need to coordinate and execute complex plans. They need to adapt to unprecedented situations.
 
Hirelings and Followers
Morale is crucial. People typically won't fight to the death. If they do, it's usually not for high ideals or promises of gold. It's because they want to protect themselves or the person next to them, or because they fear being shamed or outcast for their behavior. That's it.

A peasant hired to hold a torch will be quaking in their boots at every noise underground. At the first sign of combat, they're gone. Running is almost always a better answer than fighting.

A combat hireling will fight based on their leader's charisma; the personal bond between leader and follower, the expectation of a culture, the pressure of tradition. Better pay will help get your hirelings to combat but won't nessesarily hold them in line. A share, or a half-share, instead of wages binds the hireling to a group; they feel like they're part of a unit, not a disposable accessory. Morale tests and reaction rolls are critical.
 
Spare Shields and Weapons
It's definitely worth giving a shield or two to a hireling, but in a combat situation, retrieving a spare shield might not be viable. Access to a variety of weapons is also good.

Marching Order
For groups of 4 or more, marching order becomes critical. Who's in front? Who's watching for ambushes from behind? Where's the squishy wizard?

The most common plan seems to be to put your best fighters in front, your squishy support people in the middle, and backup fighters behind.

Ranged attacks in cramped quarters are tricky. Firing into melee is very dangerous (thought that might not stop a suitably motivated PC). In larger rooms, the ability to deal damage without putting yourself at risk is valuable.

Pedro Krüger Garcia

Downsides

This system can make some dice rolls meaningless.

Traditional One-Number Armour Class

• It's your turn to act. You roll a dice. It's not a hit. Nothing happens. Boo.
• It's your turn to act. You roll a dice. It's a hit. You roll and deal damage. Yay!

New Damage-Reducing Armour

• It's your turn to act. You roll a dice. It's not a hit. Nothing happens. Boo.
• It's your turn to act. You roll a dice. It's a hit. You roll and deal damage. Yay!
• It's your turn to act. You roll a dice. You hit! Yay! You deal damage. Nothing happens. Boo.

Instead of a binary outcome (failure+no damage;success+damage), you've got 3 outcomes, 2 of which end in disappointment (failure+no damage;success+damage;success+no damage).

You could switch to an auto-hit system like Electric Bastionland. All attacks hit; armour reduces damage. Situational bonuses and penalties increase or decrease damage dice size or add extra dice.

But E.B.'s system doesn't really support leveling progression. You're as good as you're going to get when you start. Leveling (such as it is) improves your HP, but doesn't really change your effectiveness.

Bookkeeping
It require a bit more math. Modifying a standard character sheet to list all available damage reductions should save time. I'm not sure the tradeoff is worth it.

Testing
I'm still fiddling with these numbers, but that's the beauty of the concept. Once you've chosen your variables, you can change the values to suit individual tastes. If you think Leather Armour should provide more protection against Piercing weapons, add it.
 

Advantages

Arise My Minions
It makes mass combat math easier. The GM could roll all the attacks individually, but rounding methods save time.

40 goblins armed with daggers (1d6, piercing) attack a knight in plate armour and with a shield (reducing incoming piercing damage by 6). Goblins have a base 50% chance to hit, so 20 attacks hit. Of those, 1 is expected to be a critical hit, so the GM rolls 1d6x2. The Knight takes that much damage, -6 of course.

If the Knight is knocked prone, the goblins have a 70% chance to hit. 28 attacks hit. 1 is expected to be a critical hit, but all 27 other attacks deal 1d6-3 damage. Ouch.

Don't get knocked prone. Goblins will stick daggers in your eyes.

Rewards Versatility
Having a mix of damage types will almost always be rewarding. There's not one universal answer. Piercing damage is good. but some common dungeon creatures (skeletons and oozes) negate it completely. Ranged weapons are good, but you might not be able to use the. Etc. Again, it encourages interesting choices and compromises.

Alters Expectations
It's easy to tell a story about the past that fits our current notions. Just a big pile of tropes, reinforced by other bits of media that are also made of tropes, until any relation to reality vanishes.

Armour is good. Wear it if you can.