The 3 main pieces of armor worn are Helmet, (Body) Armor, and Leggings (tasset, fauld, cuisse). This really only comes into play if using a targeting system, like with the body part die. You of course don't have to go into that much detail. You can simply say a player takes a hit, damaging their armor, but reducing actual injury to their person.
If you want to go into further, you can add more protection to the "exposed" areas by adding individual pieces of armor: pauldron/torque, bracers, guantlets, and greaves. If a player takes a targeted hit to Arm, it is anything above the elbow. A hit to Hand is anything below the elbow. A hit to Leg strikes above the knee. A hit to Foot is anything below the knee. Doing specific hits like this means players must discard, repair, or replace damaged armor. Of course this is a lot of extra tracking and spending that can be tossed aside if you're just wanting a bare bones style of combat and armor class.
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| Pauldrons with heavy breastplate |
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| Gauntlet with medium scalemail or chainmail |
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| Bracers with light/leather armor |
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| Greave or standard boot and upper leg armor |
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| Greave 2 or complete leg (heavy) armor |
As for the pros and cons of additional armor, allow me to explain. Let's say you're a dwarf "tank" fighter, clad head to toe in heavy armor. You carry no shield because you wield a two-handed battleaxe or warhammer. You routinely take hits because you don't have a way to block. You could say that you deflect blows with the haft of your weapon, but likely you'd still take a hit to your hands doing so. So there you are, scrapping and brawling in your tunnels against goblins, orcs, duergar, etc.
Bad news first. You're super slow because your armor and large weapon weigh you down. You take a penalty of -3 or -4 to your Speed. Good news: you get a bonus to Constitution/Fortitude/AC equal to the penalty you endure for Speed. If you're just going to stand there while your enemy whacks at you with his sword, you've got to be able to take a licking and keep on ticking. After all, you are a dwarf.
You're a human fighter in medium/normal (non-plate) armor. You use a sword and shield. You protect your hands with gauntlets, but you don't have pauldrons. On the off chance that you take an Arm hit, it deals +2 damage because you were struck directly with no armor to reduce the hit. Because you're a "standard" race with "standard" overall armor, you don't take any penalty to your speed. Let's say you get a +2 bonus to unarmed attacks if your sword is dropped or knocked away. Bashing an opponent in the teeth with a metal glove is going to hurt considerably more than being punched with a bare fist. You can shield bash opponents to stagger them backwards one square. If your shield is damaged/broken and discarded, you can switch to a hand-and-a-half grip on your sword dealing +1 damage.
A final example: you're a lightly armored ranger primarily using your bow for distance attacks. You wear leather bracers to steady your aim/draw, dealing +2 damage to projectile attacks. Speaking literally and historically, that is why archers wear a stiffened leather bracer on their forearm. Because you're lightly armored, you're fast on your feet, gaining +2 to your Speed. However, because you don't wear metal armor, if you get into close combat, hits are going to do +1 damage. Technically, in the illustration above, the ranger character is wearing leather pauldrons and a leather skirt, but that is purely for aesthetics - they don't give any protection. In my mind a ranger is going to accept minimal armor coverings because it would encumber them as they stalk the woods. The light suede covering on arms and legs is just to protect against scratches and scrapes from thorns and twigs as they move through the underbrush.
At last we come to leggings and greaves. To me, leggings are there as a "just in case" against Leg/Foot hits. I think these would primarily come into play if you're a mounted fighter. If you're sitting higher on a horse, it's likely that an enemy with an axe or sword is only going to be able to reach your lower half. To work this into gameplay, you could change any Hand/Arm targeted hits into Foot/Leg hits. The opponent certainly cannot reach your head, so any Head rolls hit your body instead. Strikes to your torso remain possible and deal normal damage to your (body) armor. However, if your enemy has a ranged weapon or pole-arm, the strikes remain as rolled. If your opponent is mounted as well, there are no hits at all to lower body - everything goes against Head, Body, Arm, and Hand.
I'll have to work out whether fully armored knights are wandering about. I rather doubt it because to do so would be slow, awkward, and exhausting. Sure, a hardy dwarf can trump around in armor that would totally tucker out a mere human. You can modify this by having a character with really high Strength or Fortitude, but they would be lessened in other attributes like Dexterity and Speed.
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