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Am I the only one that doesn't understand how fur can be classified as an "armor"? I like it, don't get me wrong, but can it even be compared to padding? How is it really different from a wool sweater?

At least Hide Armor is probably as tough as my boots, which have surprisingly protected my feet from many different things at work... except a falling car rotor, lol.

Well just because the armour is given the descriptive name 'Fur' doesn't mean that it has to be 100% fur and nothing else.

Been a while since I played Skyrim but I think I always considered Fur Armour to basically be Hide Armour with extra padding - or something similar.

In any case: imo it is supposed to be more of a 'flavourful' name and not something to be taken totally literally.

That's my take on it, anyway...

You may be right, but it's appearance definitely supports the literal interpretation.

Fur armor is essentially unhaired Hide. Probably harder to preserve than Hide or Leather, but it's still animal skin thick enough to turn aside a knife or whatnot

I just had a look at the 'images' for Fur & Hide Armour and while I think that some of the Fur armour types do still look like slight improvements to me, others (eg the 'Fur Bikini') are more of a mystery.

Maybe Beth originally intended for there to be many different grades of each armour style but never got very far with that plan and just decided to chuck the skimpy armour models in without worrying about the details?

edit: ... and then there's also the female Forsworn armour to make sense of...
I'm not sure that over-thinking this is going to lead us anywhere good...

That's the magic of fantasy bs.

I believe the idea of the fur armor in Oblivion is to be close to what a barbarian would assemble in the wild. The female cuirass is strangely revealing for a piece of supposedly protective clothing, but even a little animal hide probably offers more protection than a woollen tunic.

Are you being "fur" real?

Unhaired hide? Hide Armor doesn't have hair. In fact,.strangely enough, Fur Armor is tougher than Hide Armor.



Indeed. Although, the "Fur Bikini" isn't the female version of the set in Skyrim, it's a variation of the set.

'Hairing' is the act of scraping the hair off an animal hide in preparation for tanning it into leather.

Oops, I was thinking of the huntsman's vest, which actually is clothing:

My bad!

Oh, wow! That's very stripperific. That's not a mod?

Nope, that's the female version of a lowerclass vest in Oblivion. At least it's not considered armor!

What I find baffling in most cRPGs, including TES, is that they use anachronistic armors like studded leather and fur but won't use real life armors like padded cloth or gambeson/aketon. In a setting like TES, if you can't afford plate or chain and you're a fighter or soldier, you'd be wearing something practical like that. Fur offers about as much protection as a sweater, and studded leather literally doesn't do anything. It's a misinterpretation of badly decomposed Brigandine armor remains.

At the very least, you see a gambeson as the base of the Markarth/Morthal/Dawnstar/Stormcloak guards' outfits.

So are horned helmets but they look sick.

Why don't metal studs help? Sure, they wouldn't help much against something like a mace, but should offer more protection from a sword swing (though not a thrust). The blade has a higher chance of striking the evenly spaced metal studs, preventing it from cutting through the hide/leather.

Same principle with something like ring mail, though that should offer a little more protection from sword thrusts since only the tip of then sword would realistically fit through a ring, depending on the size of the ring I suppose.

Another plus, these should be lighter and cheaper than things like platemail or chainmail.

No, it really doesn't. That's the logic Hollywood uses, but it's just not substantiated. There's no historical evidence anyone simply placed studs on boiled leather armor. Leather armor was used, in the absence of anything better, but little metal studs added to it would add literally no protection whatsoever. Adding little 'plates' or 'shingles' did happen, and that's the Brigandine armor I mentioned. Those actually do absorb and deflect blade strokes,due to the surface area. If you had nothing but little button type studs, a solid slash from a long blade would bypass most of those and cut deep into the leather.



The difference is that Ring Mail must have been at least semi-practical because it's definitely confirmed to have existed and been widely used. It does pretty well with stress tests, and isn't prohibitively heavy. Like most armors, it's worn over a padded or leather under suit and is very adept at blocking the types of slashing attacks that caused injuries that were hard to sew up in those days. Wouldn't do much against a warhammer or a large ballistic bolt, but it wasn't born by warriors who encountered those types of things regularly.



Yes, lighter and cheaper, but would it save your life? The rule of thumb is that if you can afford just one piece of armor, get a good helmet and protect your head. If you can afford two, get a shield to go with it. Having a shield and helmet with no other armor whatsoever would give you a significant advantage over a helmetless guy in leather armor when it comes to surviveability. Direct stress, especially from war arrows or solid sword slashes, make quick work of most historical leather armors. It's much harder to damage a solid shield.

I think fur armour dates at least back to Morrowind (as "Nordic Fur").

THIS is what baffles you? It's a world of magic and mystery full of creatures and landscapes surreal, but gee, studded leather breaks your immersion because scholars in the really real world got it wrong? Maybe the inherent magical qualities of the animals' hides or even the metal of the studs themselves are imbued with additional ethereal protections. In the real world, that is. I don't see the point of it in the game setting, either.

Nordic fur armors baffled me less than running into my first steam automaton in Morrowind.

We're held up on a light armor style, but nobody is talking about the fact that a race of mer long dead was technologically superior to every other race on the continent? How advanced are they compared to the Akaviri? What would Tamriel of the 4th Era look like if the Dwemer were still around and manufacturing this stuff and existing as a race?

There are serious issues here that need addressing!!

It would be long destroyed.

Why do you say that?

They have a habit of turning to potentially universe-destroying weapons when they're losing a fight, for one thing.