Jean Chandler

Outdoor or travelling clothes for winter including a coat or heavy jacket provides fairly significant protection.

This is a type of mail armor coat made of thinner gauge wire, significantly lighter and less bulky than ordinary mail, but also less effective protection.

Another textile armor similar to the aketon, in the form of a long quilted coat with long sleeves and extending to the knees, made of several layers of linen with some kind of filler material like horse hair or felt. Very good quality gambesons would be made of silk (these would rate an additional +1 DR). Like an aketon, a gambeson could be worn under or over mail or plate armor (or both) conferring a +1 DR to any armor which does not already incorporate a gambeson in the description. If worn over armor which already includes a gambeson underneath, the DR and the Armor Check penalty are both cumulative.

This is a doublet or corslet of stiff, quite thick leather like saddle leather. It is fairly rigid and restricts movement similarly to an iron cuirass, but is much lighter. It is not very efficient armor and offers only limited protection, there is little evidence of this type of armor being used in Europe, but it’s better than nothing. (Leather armor of this type may have sometimes been used in Central Asia)

A coat made of thick felt, which can be worn as under-armor or as stand-alone armor. This is essentially a very primitive type of gambeson, it offers fairly good protection but the armor itself is vulnerable to destruction.

A short sleeved quilted / padded garment reaching to the waist.

A vest of relatively thick but soft leather, like a modern leather jacket. Provides marginal protection.

A lamellar vest made of thick leather pieces like saddle leather, strung together on heavy laces. Provides adequate if not excellent protection.

Ordinary street clothes for winter consisting of two or more layers (under and outer clothing) do provide some protection against injuries from weapons.

This is a special type of textile armor made of so called “Buff Leather” (buffalo rawhide) over padding, in the form of a long coat with sleeves. These were worn in the 17th century.