: Your grammar's fine, especially compared to some of the
: other posts we see here.
: I have a pretty big gripe with GURPS, but I'll post it as
: its own thread. The question of the jman's coat,
: however, is personal. ;)
: I really, truly do not believe that it is magical. The
: absorbed fraction is not magically averted, it
: definitely connects--you see the puff of dust when it
: happens. (how's that for grammar?). Yes, a myrmidon's
: blade can cut through bare flesh and bone. A kitchen
: knife can do that. Have you ever tried to chop up a
: fur coat with a sword? I don't know how many times
: I've tried that (for the purposes of game research, of
: course) and it just doesn't work. The coat might get a
: little scratched in the process but it does not get
: cut--it moves with the blade the way flesh and bone do
: not and dampens the kinetic energy of the swing. In a
: way it acts very similar to the impact-absorbing
: properties of kevlar (which stops bullets, which move
: much faster and with much more inertia than even a
: myrmidon's weapon).
: Second point: those coats are THICK. Look how much
: skinnier the Heron Guard are than the Jmen. They
: didn't go on a crash diet the day after Muirthemne was
: recaptured! My theory is they're actually wearing a
: pile of furs, three or four layers thick, the way
: eskimos do (why they would do such a thing is
: explained quite nicely in my upcoming jman campaign--I
: apologize for the shameless plug). So even if a blade
: gets through the first layer, it will have already
: lost much of its inertia, and it still has to get
: through several more layers. Try slicing through a
: pillow with your katana. Now slice through a pile of
: them and see how far you get.
: I already see the possible exception: asylumers, as a
: rule, can't swing a sword as hard as, say, a shade
: (with the obvious exception of William Wallace, who
: was born with a claymore in his teeth, and whose
: mother never forgave him for it). This is why, despite
: everything I've mentioned above, the coat only absorbs
: twenty per cent of impacts. Also, there are thin spots
: in the coat, joins and seams and neckholes (although
: apparently it's sealed at the bottom--check the jman
: dead body projectile. Maybe this explains why they
: move so much slower than Heron Guard. Then again,
: maybe that's just the 1350 pounds of gold they're
: carrying around at all times ;) ). Again, eighty per
: cent of blows still get through. If I knew a powerful
: enchantment to make my armor invulnerable, you can bet
: I would find some way to make it stronger than 20%.
Ok, for one thing i believe GURPS when it says that the coats aren't adorned with 9 tiles each the weight of a grown man. This is more than likely just a myth that got spread around by the Jmen. But i also don't think the coats were only one time the weight of a man, as GURPS says. They were probably just a few hundred pounds, i doubt even a Journeyman could carry over 1/2 a ton of weight.
: If all this fails to persuade anyone, let's look at where
: this information is coming from. Myth TFL and Myth 2
: never had a problem with the jman's coat being
: non-magical. Nobody had a problem with this until
: GURPS was written. For role-playing purposes it was a
: problem, perhaps because every player in the game
: would want one of these special coats and nobody would
: waste money on practically useless plate mail. So the
: GURPS writers flailed around frantically, looking for
: some kind of explanation that would ensure only jmen
: could wear the coats and, hey, there's magic in this
: universe, isn't there? I've got an idea (I'm speaking
: for the poor author of GURPS here, who I'm sure is a
: perfectly intelligent and decent human being), let's
: make 'em magic! Sure, it makes precious little sense
: in terms of that there computer video game thingie,
: but who cares about that? We got the serious business
: of role-playing here to worry about!
: Ugh. As far as I can tell, even if you buy this
: "magic coat" nonsense, there are still only
: two real spells in the Jman/HG arsenal: 80% heal and
: 20% enchant. They felt it necessary to create a whole
: branch of magic for these two spells? (I'm sure GURPS
: lists a hundred more, but they don't appear in the
: games, so these are the only two that interest me). I
: just don't buy it. If they had this ability, why
: didn't Alric get all his jmen together in a room (or
: at least all he could spare) in the newly-secured
: Muirthemne and have them enchant armor all day long?
: Alright, sorry about the rant, but this one really bugs
: me. It's unnecessary, it contradicts things that were
: already established facts, and changes innumerable
: facts about the actual game I love just for the sake
: of making some numbers add up correctly.
Concerning the "magical coat", i don't believe that the journeyman coat really was magical, it was probably just put in for roleplaying purposes. However, in defense of GURPS, we know that there were strong avatara before the Journeyman, and those avatara may have enchanted the armor for the Journeymen. Maybe they saw into the future and saw Balor coming and figured they'd do what they could to help the 100 guards who were to survive the destruction.
I do think, however, that the coats weren't enchanted, this is just a roleplaying feature for the GURPS game...
note: the book does mention for roleplayers to "consider this a ..." so it's not absolutely what goes on in myth, but it tries to fit it to the system.
