Female Body Armour

[wraithminion]

The armor with the exception of raid gear for priests is not that bad. The only silly part about it is plate armor being molded for breast size. Females in plate armor would look like small, skinny men with shallow shoulders and broader hips. Joan of Arc was in plate armor and could easily be mistaken for a young boy. Other than that single issue, AOC has been pretty accurate with most armor especially with men in kilts/skirts as opposed to pants.

[Prima]

If AoC was a historical recreation or simulator, armor wouldn't drop off dead bears. It would cost tons of money to make, and you'd spend that cash on the members of the species who have almost double the strength potential. Joan of Arc was a figurehead. You couldn't see her navel because she was religious. The reason half of the historical knights weren't women was not because their mean ol' husbands prevented them (using methods not entirely clear, if women are as strong as men), it was because an army made entirely of men would have crushed them. Martial arts tournaments have weight classes for a reason: size matters.

If you're going to talk about realistic armor, let's talk about why people in full plate can run and swim like someone in a loincloth. This cherry-picking of when to pursue "realism" -- basically out of some kind of post-modern male self-loathing -- is lame and hypocritical.

So this is a fantasy setting, and that means that you have to accept the role of magic. If you were in a reality where you could outheal or block damage with your mind, and resurrect any time you took a mortal blow, would you still strap on 60 pounds of hot metal? How much confidence would that inspire in your abilities? How much intimidation could a powerful mage inspire by instead walking into the thick of battle wearing protection for nothing but their modesty?

REH's Hyboria did not have as many magic users, but magic is as common as blond hair in AoC, and that being true, I think it makes perfect sense for most player character armor to be decorative or ceremonial.

[Kurt2013]

AoC still has one of the best "systems" compared to other MMOs, but still fails short compared to good single crpgs or pen and paper games. For a game with classes and magic, they at least tried to keep as proper to the gameworld as they could (with not suceeding everywhere and easy optimization potential, but that's another topic).

Blame the current game design ideology and marketing assumptions that "people" do not want immersion and state of the art is low restriction, grind and level based gaming.

Sadly a lot would be possible with the current engine, but it would require a complete different system and a complete class and item overhaul.

Back to topic:
In the d20 conan game there was even a feat that gave you +3 to dodge when wearing only a loincloth...for being heroic