what I'm looking for is basically the lazy man's armor
I want something like plate armor (ex gothic) but i don't really want to pay a bunch to get period clothing

or if somone wants to explain how it all works...

How about armour that's shaped like clothing? :p

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What about something like Almain rivet, or 16th century munition armor? You should be able to strap that on over most anything.

Greek and Roman armor would work, too--muscled cuirasses and lorica segmentata. Heck, plenty of artwork shows Greeks in armor with no clothing at all! Helmet, greaves, cuirass and a big smile.

I'm sure there is plenty of SCA armor made to be strapped on over non-period clothing. It's not likely to be the most historical stuff, but some of it looks all right. (Depending on your point of view!)

Matthew

The majority of plate should not require special clothing underneath. Cloth is soft, after all, and should squish up just fine as the plate is strapped on over it. You might not be able to move as well as you would in period garb, but it would be fine for walking around, possible chafing aside. There might be issues with particularly tight fitting pieces of armour-- I'm thinking greaves and vambraces in particular-- but apart from that you would be fine. I wouldn't want to walk around in a Gothic harness wearing jeans under those skinny legs, though. Major chafe-city right there.

The exception to this would be plate that requires pointing or other methods of attaching to a under-garment. In those cases, you do require 'period garb'-- a gambeson, jupon, or pourpoint-- with the necessary pointing for lacing the armour plates on. This could be circumvented though by creating some sort of leather harness with the points attached to it. It wouldn't work as well as a proper garment, but you could still shamble about in jeans and a T-shirt under the armour if you were so inclined.

thanks guys i was just under the impression that the period clothing was also prettu annoying to put on

don't know where i read that but based on what you guys have said it dosent sound too bad

An example of "modern clothing" being worn with working armor:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdC-WBAjPkk

...I would recommend wearing gloves with your gauntlets, however.

Anyways thanks guys this has been really helpful

Depending on the definition of "plate," transitional forms like the reinforced surcoat or the pair of plates/coat of plates could be easily worn over modern clothing too. Mind that _any_ form of plate armour would probably require pretty substantial clothing underneath -- even if it doesn't require historical undergarments, it's probably not going to be very comfortable with nothing more than a T-shirt underneath. A denim or leather jacket would probably be the bare minimum.

(For comparison, note that modern ballistic plate carriers are made of multiple layers of cloth. They're the arming garment if we treat the rigid inserts as the equivalent of medieval or Renaissance armour plates.)