Some games treat suits of armor as a single item, rather than giving each piece (e.g.: breastplate, leggings, pauldrons, etc.) its own stats and armor value. Usually, this is an Acceptable Break From Reality, as it could get pretty complicated to track the value and effect of each piece, especially in Tabletop Games. It also makes sense if the game doesn't allow one to target specific body parts, as you can't decide to just hit the target wherever its armor is the weakest (or on whatever body parts aren't armored, if this is the case.) This trope can also apply if the suit is one item but the helmet is another, or if some parts (such as boots or gauntlets) just aren't treated as armor by the definition of the game.
The trope comes in two basic types:
- Type A: The entire armor is treated as one item, and protects the entire body even if it's just a breastplate, vest, or something else covering only the torso.
- Type B: The "armor" items (e.g. chainmail armor, plate armor, etc.) only cover most of the body (usually the torso, arms, and waist), but items such as gauntlets or boots also exist, although whether they are actually classified as armor by the game varies.
In either case, Magical Accessories are usually exempt from this rule for some reason. See also Body Armor as Hit Points, which also treats a set of armor as one abstract unit.
Examples:
Comic Books
- Witchblade: The Witchblade can expand itself around Sara's body to form Adaptive Armor, though mostly it forms a Stripperific outfit closer to a Chainmail Bikini. Still, when facing a bevy of baddies, this mystic artifact will encapsulate Sara, allowing her to slice-and-dice enemies without taking much damage.
Tabletop Games
- Ars Magica 5th edition: Armor is classified as either partial or full-body, though this only affects its weight and overall Damage Reduction. A suit of armor's game stats are determined only by its primary material (from leather to chainmail), ignoring any mix-and-match.
- Dark Heresy adapted the advanced rules from Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and made them obligatory, though full armor sets exist that just give a flat armor bonus to the entire body. Full flak armor, notably, grants more armor than a combination of flak vest, leggings and helmet covering the same areas, handwaved by the full armor being military grade while the individual pieces are all security/consumer grade.
- In Dungeons & Dragons, a suit of armor is treated as one unit with the armor class value and dexterity check penalty applying to the whole thing. The exceptions are boots, gloves, and helmets (and other headgear), which aren't covered and have their own stats, but usually don't provide any bonus to armor class, instead just having magic powers.
- Downplayed in Old World of Darkness. While some armors are called things like "armor t-shirt" or "flak jacket", the armor with the highest rating is simply called "full suit". While this makes some sense, it raises the obvious question of why you can't just attack someone wearing a flak jacket in the legs to ignore their armor, other than just because the game rules say so.
- The One Ring: Body armor counts as a single unit, with five different types offering scaling levels of protection against becoming Wounded. Downplayed as adventurers can also wear a helmet for a minor bonus.
- Pathfinder: In first edition, which is basically a modified 3.5 Dungeons & Dragons, armor mostly follows the same rules. There is a set of optional rules for "piecemeal armor", and it's just as complicated as you would think, particularly if you are wearing different kinds of armor (which is the main point of such rules).
- Shadowrun: Uses the B variant of the trope. Armour grants armor points to all your soak rolls, but in-universe-wise only tend to cover the arms, torso and legs. Armored boots, helmets and forearms/gloves are accessories that add additional armor points to all soak rolls, and the highest-grade milspec and security armors are full-body covering and come with those accessories included.
- Starfinder: A suit of "armor" in the game is basically an armored space suit, with full-body protection, oxygen supply, and limited radiation and hazmat protection.
- Zig-zagged in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: The game offers the choice of quick armor rules, where armor is full-body, and advanced armor rules, where characters can build a suit out of different pieces. Attacks do strike specific body parts, but under the quick armor rules, this mostly only determines potential Critical Hit effects.
Video Games
- In Battle Brothers there are only body armors, which protect the bearer from all hits on their body and extremities, even if there can be temporary and permanent legs and arms injuries too, and helmets that protect from more serious hits on the head.
- The first two Dragon Age games give the player character and companions Type B suits of armor. Although there are separate helmets, boots, and gloves, what covers most of the body is treated as one continuous piece of armor. Dragon Age: Inquisition mixes it up by allowing the player to add customized arms and legs to some of the armor sets; they're still treated as being part of the whole, but provide additional stats and attributes.
- Dungeon Crawl mostly averts this, as it uses a slot system. However, one artifact armor (Lear's hauberk) plays it straight: it is a single, heavily enchanted item that simultaneously fills the torso, helmet, glove, and boot slots, leaving only the cloak and shield slots open.
- The Elder Scrolls has gone both up and down the scale. To note:
- Arena and Daggerfall offer gauntlets, boots, and greaves each as a complete set, then separate left and right pauldrons, a cuirass, and a helmet.
- Morrowind breaks the gauntlets into single left and right items. A particularly notable single artifact gauntlet, Wraithguard, is required for The Very Definitely Final Dungeon.
- Oblivion and Skyrim go the other direction: gauntlets returned to being a single item, while pauldrons are removed entirely, being considered part of the cuirass. Skyrim also removes greaves.
- Fallout:
- In Fallout, Fallout 2 and Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel, all armor comes in one complete set including a helmet.
- In Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas body armor comes in one piece but helmets have their own slot. There are also glasses, which fit under some headgear but not all.
- Fallout 4 switches to a system in which each limb has its own piece of armor, but some outfits do cover the whole body nonetheless.
- Mass Effect:
- Armor works like this in the first game. The second game introduced the option to customize Shepard's armor by swapping out pieces of the default N7 armor for pieces purchased from merchants. However, some specialized suits of armor (such as the Collector Armor, Blood Dragon Armor, and Cerberus Assault Armor) still come in a single piece (including a helmet covering Shepard's head at all times).
- The third game carries on the second game's system, but adds a greater variety of both individual armor pieces and single-piece outfits (not to mention also the option to remove the helmet during cutscenes regardless of which outfit Shepard is wearing).
- Minecraft Dungeons, even though it takes inspiration from games like Diablo which averts this trope by having multiple armor slots, has only a single armor slot where a whole suit can be equipped.
- Monster Hunter: Stories only features complete sets of armor in one piece, in contrast to the mainline Monster Hunter games where you can mix and match armor pieces.
- Mount & Blade treats all armor as a single unit, with gloves, boots, and helmets separate. The presence or absence of certain types of improvements (such as an armored skirt) are reflected as bonuses to leg protection.
- The Outer Worlds: An armor or clothing item is a single piece protecting everything but the wearer's head. A separate hat or helmet does that.
- Unreal has the Kevlar Suit (covers from the chest to the crotch) and Assault Vest (covers only the chest, includes shoulder pads). There's also the Antitoxin and Asbestos Suits, which in addition to being classified as armors, they include environmental protection as well (against acid and fire area damage), and they cover the entire body. Those are the only sets of armor present in the game.
- Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines: Attacks don't target specific body parts, so the various armors are full-body outfits with static benefits. Each outfit morphs according to the Player Character's Clan, which can get a bit ridiculous — heavy leathers on a Malkavian male appear as an open pimp coat with no shirt.
- In XCOM: Enemy Unknown and XCOM 2 body armor is one single piece statwise, though various protective vests may be worn under it for additional protection as a utility item, and purely cosmetic Character Customization allows you to individually change headgear or body armor
