Kingdom Come Deliverance Armor Guide: How to pick the best armor
In the realism-focused world of Kingdom Come: Deliverance, your armor is more than just protection in battle. It's a great many things, and interacts with your clothes and other layers to establish social status as well as protect you in battle. his makes the question more difficult to answer: what's the best armor to equip?
In this basic armor guide we're going to talk you through the different types of armor in the game, how layering works, and take a look at some recommendations from us on the best types of armor to equip. Let's get into it!
Kingdom Come Deliverance: Armor Types & their uses
In the world of Kingdom Come Deliverance you're going to come across five main types of armor, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. They are as follows:
Plate Armor
Generally the most expensive and impressive armor type, Plate Armor is the sort of all-metal armor you think of when you think of classical knights. It's the second heaviest armor in the game.
It's best combined with other armor types, however, since gaps in the armor leave some vulnerability and it'll always be vulnerable to more blunt attacks. More on that in a moment.
Maille (aka Chainmail)
Maille armor is also known as Chainmail, and it's an absolutely vital type of armor. It can be worn on its own, and when it is it offers a great compromise thanks to its combination of protection and flexibility of movement.
Maille is still vulnerable to particularly forceful attacks thanks to its flexible nature, and it's at its best when combined with Plate or Gambeson armor, with the maille worn underneath the heavier armor.
Brigandine Armor
Essentially the middle ground between the Plate and the Maille, Brigandine Armor is much smaller plates of metal sewn into leather or cloth for a more flexible plate armor solution. It's not as protecting as plate armor or as flexible as maille, but it's a strong mid-point between the two.
The nature of the armor's materials means that it's usually a fair bit heavier than Plate Armor and thus the heaviest in the game, but it's also more commonly found out in the world as it's far easier to make.
Gambeson Armor
Gambeson Armor is a padded type of armor that's made out of thick layers of wool and other fabrics. It provides padding, making it ideal for protecting against blunt attacks and padding out better types of armor, but it can also be worn as a cheap set of armor in its own right if you wish.
At its best, the Gambeson is best used as a layer of extra protection underneath either Maille or Plate Armor, since the weaknesses offset each other - Gambeson Armor makes up for their weakness to blunt attacks, while cutting attacks will bounce off those other armors.
Lamellar Armor
While not as advanced as the other armor options, Lamellar Armor may provide the price-to-protection ratio you need, another plate-like armor that's only worn on the upper torso. It's cheap, but your legs will always be vulnerable and this armor breaks down and becomes less useful quite easily.
It's very mobile armor though and isn't all that heavy, so it can be used well when in combination with other types of armor in a layering system.
Laying across all 20 equip slots for the best armor protection
While there's ionly five types of actual armor in a basic sense, these five types of armor can be combined in interesting ways and there are of course a numerous types of armor within any given category.
Most important is that you need to combine armor to get the best protection for Henry. Where many RPGs just have one slot for each part of the body, Kingdom Come Deliverance has a more realistic setup where Henry can layer multiple items of clothing in different places for maximum defense.
There's 20 equipment slots in total:
- 4 Head Armor Slots - for a Helmet, an Arming Cap, a Coif, and a necklace, cape or cloak.
- 6 Hand Armor Slots - for a Shield, a Melee Weapon, A Bow, Bolts & Shafts and two Ring Slots.
- 6 Chest Armor Slots - for a Hood or Gorget, Chest Armor (Plate/Brigandine), a Shirt (or Gambeson), a Tabard or Surcoat, Gauntlets and Arm Armor.
- 4 Leg Armor Slots - three armor slots (Cuisse, Poleyns & Greaves), and footwear.
As you can see, there's a great deal of scope for customization, and through layering armor and equipping different pieces from different armor sets you can create something truly unique that's tailored to your play-style.
In an ideal world, the best armor set will have protection from each of the three main damage types in the game - stab, slash and blunt. No one armor type is good at all three, so you'll want to mix and match based on our descriptions above to ensure you're as protected as possible.
In addition to the broad descriptions of what each armor class is best at, every piece of armor in the game also has stats about how they fare against each of these damage types among a range of other combat and non-combat stats.
Consider all these stats and how they layer carefully, as when the layering system is used properly the highest defense stat isn't always the best potential option.
It's spinning plates, a balancing act, but this is also what it was in real life, and this is another aspect of Kingdom Come Deliverance's hardcore pursuit of realism.
Where to find Armor in Kingdom Come Deliverance
One of the major issues in Kingdom Come Deliverance is that pretty much everything is quite difficult to come by. Armor is expensive, for instance, and cash doesn't come easy while stealing carries harsh penalties.
As a rule, one of the things we'd advise you do early on is steal the Talmberg Armor early on in the game when you're presented with the objective to escape Talmberg Castle. You can grab a horse during that quest, too. This is a good starting point for armor, and you can build from there.
You'll find armor merchants scattered across the world in places like Talmberg and Samopesh as well as other towns, and armor can be temporarily rented from military camps too if you're so inclined.
As an aside, ensure you're taking care of your gear too. Clean your armor and repair your armor regularly, as the condition of it will have an impact on your reputation on the social side of Kingdom Come Deliverance's simulation - if you look good, people will trust and respect you more.