Armor Is Useless: Difference between revisions

* Practically none of the ''[[Redwall]]'' characters wear armour, except Martin and the Badger Lords. Tsarmina's [[Mooks]] were an exception, but the armour was described as "cumbersome" and hindered more than it helped (particularly when {{spoiler|the heroes flooded the castle}}). Possibly justified because mice and other small mammals have slightly tougher skin than humans, their fighting style in the books is based more on speed which armour would hinder, and going by the flexibility of most rodent and mustelid skeletal structures it would be ''really'' difficult to make armour to fit them without severely restricting movement.

** Also the Redwall forest is not particularly industrialised - something of a lack of iron mines and foundries to provide the wherewithal for armour to be common. Note also that even swords are pretty rare in the books, with most combattants using spears, clubs and knives as melee weapons. Not a great smithing tradition, you might say.

* ''Perfect Dark'': The first novel (yes, novel) notes the uselessness of armor in the games. The evil company is so huge that it's offensive division is constantly outclassing the defensive division. Nobody is telling the right hand to stop inventing guns that can chew through the bulletproof vest they issue the company soldiers.

* Partial credit for the Thalesians in David Eddings' {Elenium} and {Tamuli} - Thalesian knights go to war in chainmail, not in full plate, as Thalesia is full of deep rivers and streams, making platemail more of a hazard than a help. A chainmail shirt is easily removable, whereas by the time you have a chance to get a full suit of riding armour off, you'll have drowned.

 

== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

** Monks in particular embody this trope since they lose almost all of their abilities if they put on anything heavier than a wool shirt. Additionally, they gain a bonus to Armour Class based on their Wisdom and level. It is fairly easy, magic aside, for a monk to quickly outstrip even the heaviest armoured fighters.

** In the 3.5 Edition, many players feel that Armor Class itself, encompassing all types of defense, is useless because most monsters have a high probability of hitting you anyway, due to their huge Base Attack Bonuses granted by racial hit dice, their often enormous strength, and the fact that their natural attacks do not follow the same degradation formula that weapon users do. It does limit the extent of Power Attack that can be levied against players and certain creatures do make extensive use of weapons, meaning that their last few hits have a lowered chance of hitting you, but it doesn't change the fact that against anyone who doesn't use weapons will tear a player character apart and there's nothing his or her armor can do about it. Players ultimately discovered that [[The Law of Diminishing Defensive Effort|the best defense is a good offense]], sacrificing Armor Class for the sake of increased attack power, effectively turning most characters into [[Glass Cannon]]s.

* [[Star Wars]] d20 had armor that really was useless, unless you were already almost dead. It provided damage reduction only when you were out of vitality points or against a critical hit, when damage went to wound points. So for most of a battle, all most armor did was provide a situation bonus to one ability and an armor check penalty to certain skills. ...yay? It also denied you your class-based AC and limited your max Dex Bonus. This could be designed to reflect the stormtrooper armor's uselessness.

** In ''[[Star Wars]]: Saga Edition'', characters gain bonuses to their Reflex Defense (the defense that keeps blaster bolts hitting you) from armor or a [[Statistically Speaking|level-based bonus]], and they don't stack. At higher levels, it's better to go into a fight naked, rather than wearing the heaviest protection you can find. However, it isn't played completely straight as the bonuses to Fortitude Defense from armor do stack and with the right talents, you can get them to stack with the Reflex Defense as well.

** Admitedly, the weaponry used by other species includes, but is not limited to, [[BFG|armor-piercing rocket-propelled grenades]], [[Absurdly Sharp Blade|mono-edged high-speed shurikens]], [[Abnormal Ammo|armored flesh-eating acidic worms]] or [[Energy Weapon|droplets of superheated plasma]]. And thats just what the line infantry uses. Especialists and other elites can, and often do, pack much deadlier weaponry. On the other hand, flak armor provides quite decent protection against lasbolts, bullets (even high-caliber ones) and most conventional melee weapons and its one of the best armors available to starting characters in the [[Dark Heresy|RPG]].

** Dark Eldar wyches play this trope to a tee, with a superhuman athleticism that means the less armour they wear, the more they've practised to avoid needing it (and wearing less armour allows you to be more agile). A wych who goes into battle [[Full-Frontal Assault|wearing nothing]] will mess your heavily-armoured troops up badly.

* In '''[[Ammo]]''' almost every player character has some sort of manga-inspired power, but only a few will be even moderately defensive, or last more than a few battle turns. Armors, both passive or [[Powered Armor]], are ''required'', even against the weakest foe. Between normal unprotected humans a round kick is often lethal, and two is overkilling.

* For [[Wild Talents]] this is a [[Zig-Zagging Trope]]. Armor is both hugely important and easy to circumvent, much like in real life, and attack powers with Non-Physical can ignore most armor outright. With that said, it's also possible to build armor that normal weapons and even many superpowers can't penetrate, and stacking all three types of armor (light, medium, and heavy) will make you pretty damn hard to stop.

** Technically, they ''did'' print statistics for armor, if "it does nothing" counts as statistics.

** To quote the ''Player's Guide'', "Everyone else simply does without."

* ''[[Deus Ex]]'': straight in the first game. Armored soldiers from UNATCO and Majestic 12 have as many hit points as homeless bums. NSF terrorists are actually weaker.

* An eroge RPG ''[[Lightning Warrior Raidy]]'' has an infamous "Spell" skill that does ''fixed'' damage no matter what kind of armor you're wearing. The stronger the armor late in-game you wear, the more of your speed and evasion are reduced. So people just end ups wearing mid-game armor and rely more on avoiding hits.

* The improved graphics of ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess]]'' reveal that Link wears chainmail under his trademark green tunic. But he takes exactly the same amount of damage from goblin attacks with the armor as he does without it in the prologue.

* Averted in the multiplayer online game World of Tanks, that is all about armor. Highly armored vehicles take little or no damage when shot by much weaker vehicles. There are weaker spots in hulls or turrets, but that´s relative to the overall endurance of the vehicles, and only an appropriately powerful gun can truly exploit them. For example, a Tier IV Russian light tank like the A-20 could empty his ammo rack on a Tier IX Heavy like the IS-4, without causing serious damage.

 

== [[Real Life]] ==

** The Soviet Navy feared the Iowa-class battleships above any other ships in the US fleet because of this. There is a story that they even nicknamed them the "Cockroach Battleships" because, when the Sovs ran simulations, they just wouldn't die.

* Modern body armor, intended to stop bullets, is fairly defenseless against bladed weapons - the fiber weave is designed to stop (or at least slow) relatively blunt objects travelling at high speed, and can be cut or pierced by a sharp edge much like any other cloth. This has been a problem for some, such as prison guards, who wear [[Bulletproof Vest|Bullet Proof Vests]] as part of their standard equipment, but frequently face lower-tech threats than firearms. Stab vests, designed to protect against knives, have the opposite problem of offering no protection against bullets. Fortunately, most modern vest designs try to combine both protections in one way or another.

[[Category:Tropes in Shining Armor]]

[[Category:This Index Is Useless]]