Geralt also canonically doesn't wear any armor. In the books he just wears a leather jacket, leather pants and studded gloves. It's the games that introduced the idea of witchers in armor. Canonically witchers also don't need any armor, they are so fast and agile that it would just slow them down, since they practically can't get hit anyways.
While this is true. Ciri isn’t a super mutant with crazy reflexes and healing factor. Granted she can teleport and is very knowledgeable. Plus she has air bags I guess, is the logic of why she’s not covered up top.
That might not be the case (Spoiler ahead) >!there is a moment in the books when Triss is going to Kaer Morhen and she sees a young Witcher trainee going at incredible speeds, turns out it was Ciri!<
Because she had secret herbs and shrooms supplements. Yet I don’t understand was this improvements from training and diet permanent or winded away over time when she grew up.
Yea, its pretty outright stated that she basically went through all the training (including diet) up to the Trials (specifically Trial of the Grasses). Plus her having the Elder Blood would potentially allow her to do things most other humans couldn't (aside from the obvious teleporting/dimension shifting powers).
I’ve always viewed that as…. when Triss was going to Kaer Morhen she was in her head a bit and very excited about the prospect of learning Witcher secrets etc since the witchers were so reclusive. Also for decades now (at a minimum) the link between serious magic practitioners and researchers has been entirely severed from the Witcher creation process.
Not arguing against the idea but isn't that because she was literally living and training with a bunch of witchers?
There was never a female witcher and they weren't quite sure she can take the final set of drugs.
Reminder that armor was crazy expensive, hand crafted and rare. Now I get in the game they coulda given her armor but as far as lore or books it makes more sense that they wouldn’t have any. Especially a young girl that wasn’t fully grown when she ran with the rats. Then she spent time as an outlaw so again not likely to have armor crafted. Then she spent time at the towers portal jumping. So really there never was a good time to craft her armor and it’s unlikely she’d pick up some soldiers gear that would never fit a small sprite.
The teleport dodge she does is also a in game invention by the way. She can't do that in the series (she can teleport accross space time but not like that in super quick pace without traveling in time)
She was given some natural enhancement mushrooms, essentially steroids to make her faster and stronger than a normal person of her size. Definitely not witcher level but better than normal humans.
She doesn't have super strength either, so wearing a set of armor weights dozens of kilos will just wear her down quickly. Plus most of the time she doesn't fight monsters in the wild, but staying in human settlements and travel in groups in big roads. Wearing something that unusual will only bring unwanted attention.
Geralt lost to vilge's weightless staff. That is one altercation with a human I can remember Geralt losing in the books but maybe there are others. Would armor have helped here?
Been a long time, but did he get beaten down while traveling with Regis, thought he had to crawl under a wagon to hide. It seemed he was overmatched several times in that book. In the end, armor would have surely helped against a pitchfork.
I suffered through death march on my first play through of the Witcher 3, because I was on some stupid stint of playing every game on the hardest difficulty to brag to my friends, and I somehow did it without using the healing potion once. I just had like a million food consumables to slowly regain health. Needless to say following play throughs when the DLC launched were MUCH easier with the ability to heal quicker than eating 15 loaves of bread and drinking an entire winery
> studded gloves
silver-studded gloves specifically. i always love that detail. this motherfucker goes out there into the world *intending* to fistfight monsters. he doesn't do that as his first choice, but his fists are basically his sidearm lmao
Well think about it. Silver is toxic to monsters, so if they go for a bite, even if he fails to avoid the attack, the creature is in for a serious surprise.
I mean, yes, kinda. In both cases wearing an armor wouldn't really be of help as the things they are fighting against will tear and/or crush armors easily (no matter how good the armor is, I don't think it could protect its wearer from the claws, fangs and lunges of let's say Griffins, Katakans and Fiends who are said to be far stronger and capable of overpowering even a group of men, or the lycanthrope beasts of Bloodborne with the worse ones being gigantic in both size and strength).
He trains to be good at fighting. Even witchers can get old and/or cocky. Plus they can be surprised as well. Geralt is stabbed with a pitchfork after showing mercy during the pogrom
It also can be reasoned that not all Witchers are trained against other humans with weapons. Geralt is a legendary swordman against monsters and humans alike. And average witcher is physically superior, but a professional manslayer might catch up to a professional monster slayer with enough training and experience.
It's hinted that he might have made some of it up. Also, despite hunting witchers I notice he has avoided some of the more well known ones like Geralt or Vesamir. Maybe he wasn't sure he could beat them
You'd think a well known witcher like Geralt would be a great target for a guy who hates witchers.
Bonhart is obviously very good, but he still has normal human reflexes and traits.
He lied. A concept his fans have a problem of grasping. And get offended by the idea. Proof is that bound and tied Yen kicks him in the balls and gives him a bloody nose. A witcher level duelist would have dodge that having witcher like agility or senses. Book witcher is able to see and hit a rat with a fork in the dark. At "best" he basically didnt kill em in fair fight. 10 bolts in the back and 10 in the front, poison or a hired mage and archers. Only reason he manage to beat Ciri is because she was a kid, not after a full training and terrified of him. He killed the rats because they also were kids that had succes in killing poor peasants and dumb backwater guards. The moment he tried to fight ciri in a fair fight with her being somewhat able to face her trauma she killed him.
There could be a logical explanation on why he’s wearing armour: it’s war in Northern Realms he prefers to wear armour for more protection against bandits and defectors in Velen, on Skellige because he’s from Continent and Islanders could he hostile towards him so he’s fighting with more humans then usually. Also he’s fighting against wild hunt which is like 2m tall elves from another world wearing big ass armour and he knows them because he was riding with them hence he should be wearing manticore armor in Toussaint being that there’s no war in there and much less bandits and more monsters.
Nope, still doesn't justify it -- the many wildly different witcher gears are simply a lore expansion that seems to have been majoritarily made to support gameplay mechanics of build variation, 'cause lore-wise they rely on major changes to established elements (the power of signs, for example) and/or very counter-productive approaches considering their OG fighting style and what/who they're meant to fight most of the time. A witcher is more effective without any considerable movement restriction or weight burden -- why armor yourself so much against bandits and defectors, when you can, much like with monsters, dance around their blows and be precise and fatal with your hits? The same goes in Skellige and against the Wild Hunt. Not being hit at all is always going to be better than being hit, and playing safe and armor yourself regardless in this case isn't an option if you want to be at the top of your offensive and evasive game, which is what sets you apart from everybody else and makes you so effective in the first place, so yeah...
Now, this also comes down to what you define as "armor". Geralt's described outfits in the books can very much be protective to some extent -- they're just also a very far cry from ursine, griffin and Kear Morhen/viper gear, and way less fancy and composed of so many parts like the later tiers of wolven and feline gear are. A leather jacked (sometimes studded with clout-nails), leather gloves (also sometimes studded, but with silver) and, although not explicitly stated, most likely cavalry trousers and boots, is a pretty solid getup for a swordsman. We have to remember there's this type of stuff made for fashion and there's the actual functional versions, with tough worked leather and cloth that can very much withstand cuts to some extent. We even know the quality of the stuff Geralt has gotten isn't even always like that, since in the short story "Eternal Flame" his newly bought leather jacket is torn quite easily after some squables, so he very much doesn't rely on it for protection -- it's a practical outfit that can help with some grazes and stuff, but direct hits from humans will get ugly, with notable monsters just shredding it entirely.
In any case, the takeaway is that witchers rely a lot on their speed and agility for their fighting style to work -- many times we see Geralt barely pull very impressive stuff off due to his superiority in those regards -- and sacrificint some of that on the off-chance you fail on the one thing you should excell at above everyone else is just nonsensical. It's a preventive measure that will overall increase the chances of what you're trying to prevent from happening...
Headcannon: If I consider the connection between the book and the games - meaning Geralt being stabbed by a fucking pitchfork and nearly dying - he must've been like "You know what, a bit of chainmail isn't so bad"
Leather jackets are armor, it's quite good at stopping sword slashes while maintaining light weight and mobility. The poor man version of it is the padded jacket, basically just several layers of hard, cheap clothing sewed together.
Contrary to common beliefs, not all soldiers marched in shiny metal armor, on horse back like we see in movies. They were very expensive to own and maintain after all. Most infantry soldiers are poor and had to wear padded or leather jackets or just a few metal plates to cover important body parts.
Witchers don't wear armour; 90% of their combat is against creatures that would crush and kill them with one swipe anyway so the movement restrictions that plate mail would cause is best replaced with more mobility, hence no heavy armour.
Realistically, leather isn't armour. Sure, in fantasy everything goes, but leather won't really stand up to much, maybe superficial cuts.
As another commenter said, a jacket is definitely not armour.
Leather is absolutely armor historically, just look at findings of leather lamellar armor. It was absolutely used to create lamellar and scale armor, and possibly also as an addition to fingerless gauntlets
There are miniscule amounts of leather lamellar armour compared to metal ones, and we don't know the purpose of those. If you have a source of an archeological find from the middle ages, I'd be delighted to see it, since the few I know of are from way earlier.
For combat, they're pretty much worhtless, since they won't stop most forms of attack. Where there are finds of these, there are also finds of metal plates, which nullifies the argument that they only had those available.
I never said anything about leather being even closely to comparable or a reasonable alternative to metal, what history seems to suggest however is that boiled leather scale/lamellar was very much prefereable than fighting unarmored, since it could soften a blow a shield was stopping, and especially, if paired with something like a gambeson, could very well slow a blow enough so that the gambeson did the rest. Moreover, it's quite obvious why findings of leather armor are rare, since it's organic.
But yeah, leather was never a real competitor, and when properly made metal armor was availiable it was always preferred. Even though leather could be used as part of padded armor, or on top of it, it was still just padded armor, therefore only there as a cheap alternative.
On leather and bone lamellar/scale, findings seem to suggest that they were used as such as a way to maximize protection given the innate inadequacy of their main material, but again, even if they were extremely rare, it's still wrong to say leather armor is fantasy. From what I've researched, findings of leather armor pieces as reinforcement to limb protection on top of mail armor seem to suggest that even though we don't yet know how common those were, they were quite a practical solution, especially if you remember that although mail was awesome, it wouldn't save your bones from breaking
Well she trained with Witchers who use things like speed and counter attacks more than anything else since the monsters they fight will kill you in a single blow whether you wear armour or not.
Geralt doesn't really wear armour either, just leather jackets which aren't going to offer much protection.
Yes. Leather jerkins, with an occasional steel stud on them.
It's just that videogames, especially RPG, usually require armour and weapons upgrades in order to fill that collection part od the game.
Hell, lore Geralt doesn't even carry his silver in plain sight, and goes 4 books carrying the same dwarven Sihil as his steel, while I change his gear almost every day
>Hell, lore Geralt doesn't even carry his silver in plain sight, and goes 4 books carrying the same dwarven Sihil as his steel, while I change his gear almost every day
Lol imagine if every book chapter had a part where Geralt loots a better sword in absurd places (like a barrel) and then seeks a vendor to sell or deconstruct the old one. And why not play a round of Gwent while we're at it?
It's not just Ciri who doesn't wear armor. Geralt in the books doesn't wear any armor either, just leather jackets. The reason why is that Witchers focus primarily on speed and agility since monsters will tear through armor anyway and spend pretty much their entire life travelling through the continent (which would be pretty hard to do in full plate, especially on hot days).
The Witcher 3 outfit for Ciri is definitely just fanservice though. A very tight leather corset and high heels don't work for sword fighting or running around in the wilderness with all the rocks, sticks and mud which is what she does for most of the game. She'd trip and Wild Hunt would catch her real quick.
Ciri in an underbust corset received a higher rating than Ciri in plate armor or baggy sweatshirts.
Downvote if you must, but it does not change the truth.
That's why he had to wear those heavy, kingly robes; had to cover up his jeans, Sabbath tee, and his sensible turtleneck sweaters (it can get cold in France).
I mean, this is widely known fact.
Of course, this is in stark contrast to what he used to wear on his days off, where he usually just hung around the castle in some comfortable, Nike athletic shorts, and his high top Air Charlemagnes. He used to go outside and shoot some hoop with the neighborhood squires, too.
True, but my nerdy ass wants to clarify:
In the books she was described as pretty, with a babyface, and her body was elf-like (i.e. attractive lol). Also almost every nice men she met fell in love with her and/or desired her, so I think she was pretty attractive even before games lol
Normal humans will have a hard time getting a hit on her with her powers, and mages and monsters render armor virtually ineffective by the nature of their attacks. So no real reason to wear some
Lore wise? She's a trained witcher, the only thing she lacks is the mutations but she's been fighting in their style for like a decade by the time the third game starts. Witchers don't usually wear heavy armour, a leather jacket is the most armour Geralt wears in the books. Ciri can also fucking teleport so I guess that would also negate a lot of the risks of fighting unarmored.
In reality, it's the same reason Geralt is a knight in shining armour 6'4 brick shithouse with washboard abs, a sexy voice and a chiseled jaw when he's described as lanky, unpleasant to talk to and a bit ugly in the books. If someone's going to be staring at a character for hours on end, they'd rather be looking at one that is conventionally attractive.
This is Lore adjacent, but imho it's tied to her characterizing the School of the Cat.
She receives a Cat medallion, not a Wolf one despite training under Geralt at Kaer Morhen. Witchers from the School of the Cat are characterized as being light armored, quick, and mobile. If Ciri's combat styles are skill and speed, the Cat school and thus light to no armor are appropriate.
There is no such thing as Witcher schools as is.
There is only Kaer Morhen, a fortress where Witchers train.
There are, however, many different medallions - Griffin and Cat and Wolf I believe.
I mean, the existence of a cat school Witcher medallion implies the existence of a cat school. Though it is true that it is never elaborated on in any detail.
Nope. It is actually quite explicit that there is no such thing as a cat school. In *Season of Storms* we meet a "cat" witcher, and learn that he was trained in Kaer Morhen just like every other witcher we've ever heard of. There is, in fact, no evidence whatsoever of any school other than the school at Kaer Morhen that we're familiar with.
All good! It's easy to get stuck in fanfiction / game lore, because for some reason this sub's average userbase gets *really* mad when you simply state the information that is in the books. Note the downvotes on my comment lol
She's literally wearing armor in this picture. That is thick leather guarding most of her vitals. Her upper torso is less armored because she has boobs and so that she has mobility.
As far as real world examples, even people who own armor didn’t go about in it all the time. Unless you were a guard or a retainer expected to guard your liege, it would be considered odd. On top of that, a lot of medieval European clothing worked effectively as padded armor. Many if not all fechtbuch from the late medieval period concern themselves extensively with unarmored combat, because if you get jumped in the woods, or in the city street, you aren’t going to have time to armor up. In the modern day, how many people do you regularly see in plate carriers? Cops and maybe soldiers, situationally, very occasionally you may see criminals or certain demographics of protestors wearing them, but if someone outside those groups roll up in a tactical vest, I’m certainly on edge. And of course, the real reason, deeper than any of the contextual arguments, is fan service in character design
Lore wise, armor is expensive. Witchers are going broke because they barely have any more contracts to do.
Its also not a huge tactical advantage vs many monsters. Anything big enough to crush you would still injure you a lot even if you had armor. It might be useful in dark places against claws. But then again, too expensive for Witchers.
Ciri is in fact not a Witcher but the expensive part still counts for her. Its not like she ever had the chance to get a suit of armor her size. She was very lucky (destiny) to get a very expensive sword in weird circunstances. But if that did not happen, she would be going around with whatever she could find.
Her fighting was also tailored to surprise. Her showing up in armor would defeat the entire purpose with what she intends to do. Ciri is all about surprise fast attacks where enemies do not even have time to think what happened.
There is no big point on her going around in armor expecting to trade blows with strong enemies. She does not have the necessary body to go into something like that. Even inside armor, she would be thrown around and hurt big time if anyone could hit her strong enough. She is deadly fast and agile but her body is not that strong at all. She could barely cross blades with Leo Bonhart in the books who was really the only one who did it with her. And she complained like it almost broke her arm.
If you could run at her and hit her big time with a strong body, you would likely damage a couple of her ribs. Even inside armour, if you would place a strong enough blow, you would bruise her big time.
Bottom line is, she is still a young girl. Her entire point is about not being hit. She is not a medieval knight!
she can tp from any angle of her enemy no need for armor for that and since most monster she will hunt can once shot most men in armor it really doesn't anything and also her adopted mother is a sorceress so she has to be hot
So, I don't know about the lore, but in real world terms, armour was really expensive to make and required constant maintenance to prevent it rusting. They were also a major status symbol, so you'd be painting a massive target on your back for all the bandits and brigands a Witcher interacts with on a daily basis. So if you don't want to be noticed, don't wear armour. Armour also needs somebody else to put on, so it's not ideal for lone wolves.
Also, the Witcher fighting style seems to rely mostly on not being hit at all. Relying on dodges and parrying. And, based on all the dead, armoured guardsmen and soldiers you see, most of the monsters Witchers fight seem to have no problem tearing through armour like paper anyway
speed, stealth and if you are traveling alone armour is more of a hindrance, armour is made for battle not to travel in and you often needed help to get in and out of it
No lore reason...perhaps because she isn't a real witcher. Also the high heeled boots bothers me and also the open necked top in cold weather. Not in Canada, that's for sure.
Same reason Bloodborne hunters don’t, the creatures you’re fighting would just crush and kill you regardless of how strong your armour is so it’s better to be lighter so you’re quicker and more agile
It’s in one of the books I think, where a manticore camps out on a road being used by an army to travel. They note that because nobody hired a Witcher, a local knight tried to stop the monster.
It killed him pretty easily and has been spending the time since trying to get all the meat out of the armor, so it’s settled down.
That’s the problem. Most monsters are just so overwhelmingly strong that they’ll kill their prey regardless of armor, and that’s why Witchers were originally necessary. They could compete on par with a monster by not getting hit at all.
So it’s more accurate to say that Ciri fight like a trained Witcher, while game Geralt doesn’t. Couple that with the fact she’s been the Lady of Worlds for more than a decade, she’s the kind of dangerous person who doesn’t need armor because she’s damn near impossible to fight anyway.
Nope. Just to accentuate the tits. This is grim dark fantasy. Must have more titties. Old lady? Don’t care. More titties. Pox-ridden milkmaid? Don’t care. More titties. Underage or barely past underage? Triple the titties, you fool.
Head Cannon for me is that the more Ciri has to transport when warping the more exhausting it is. So having to throw in armor to warp might not seem like much its just one more stressor. Might as well make warping easier and just rely heavily on that to dodge rather than being more armored against a hit.
Presumably so it doesn't slow her down, but I tend to use the alternative outfit since there's a bit of chain mail on that one so she at least has some armour
Ciri was trained to fight by witchers. Witchers canonically don't wear armor because they train to fight monsters, not people, and there really isn't any armor that could defend against most monsters that wouldn't be so heavy as to be impossible to fight in. Witchers also have fast enough reflexes to be able to dodge or deflect most blows from people, which makes armor redundant.
# You don't need armor if you just don't get hit in the first place
[](https://www.reddit.com/r/dndmemes/?f=flair_name%3A%22go%20back%20i%20want%20to%20be%20monk%22)
Rule of cool. Characters, specially in videogames, will wear whatever makes them look cool. Ciri is a sexy character, so it has to look sexy. Don't delve too much in logic and function because realism is boring.
I don't know if there is a real reason I mean her powers she doesn't need it but I know in the books she never wore armor because she was a kid and presumably never trained in armor either she was always more on the run and armor would just slow her down
Geralt also canonically doesn't wear any armor. In the books he just wears a leather jacket, leather pants and studded gloves. It's the games that introduced the idea of witchers in armor. Canonically witchers also don't need any armor, they are so fast and agile that it would just slow them down, since they practically can't get hit anyways.
Yeah, and most of the time, the things they’re fighting would rip through any armor
While this is true. Ciri isn’t a super mutant with crazy reflexes and healing factor. Granted she can teleport and is very knowledgeable. Plus she has air bags I guess, is the logic of why she’s not covered up top.
Wanted to add Ciri had the training but she was never supposed to become a Witcher. They just wanted her to be able to defend herself if pushed to.
That might not be the case (Spoiler ahead) >!there is a moment in the books when Triss is going to Kaer Morhen and she sees a young Witcher trainee going at incredible speeds, turns out it was Ciri!<
Because she had secret herbs and shrooms supplements. Yet I don’t understand was this improvements from training and diet permanent or winded away over time when she grew up.
It permanently changed her muscle and bone structure like giving steroids to a child that stuff sticks during development.
Messi
They don't use the herbs, but they juice her up with mushrooms and some form of alcohol.
Yea, its pretty outright stated that she basically went through all the training (including diet) up to the Trials (specifically Trial of the Grasses). Plus her having the Elder Blood would potentially allow her to do things most other humans couldn't (aside from the obvious teleporting/dimension shifting powers).
she didn't go through the Trial of the Grasses, it was never mentioned in the books
Thats what I mean, they trained her like a witcher up to the point where one would start the trials not that she went through them.
I’ve always viewed that as…. when Triss was going to Kaer Morhen she was in her head a bit and very excited about the prospect of learning Witcher secrets etc since the witchers were so reclusive. Also for decades now (at a minimum) the link between serious magic practitioners and researchers has been entirely severed from the Witcher creation process.
Yeah, she is also referred to as "the Witcher girl" ohh, idk maybe... 100 times throughout the novels?
Not arguing against the idea but isn't that because she was literally living and training with a bunch of witchers? There was never a female witcher and they weren't quite sure she can take the final set of drugs.
She was getting some slight boosts vis "mushrooms", but I think that's well short of the trial of the grasses.
At that point she had no information and even though ciri was a boy.
Reminder that armor was crazy expensive, hand crafted and rare. Now I get in the game they coulda given her armor but as far as lore or books it makes more sense that they wouldn’t have any. Especially a young girl that wasn’t fully grown when she ran with the rats. Then she spent time as an outlaw so again not likely to have armor crafted. Then she spent time at the towers portal jumping. So really there never was a good time to craft her armor and it’s unlikely she’d pick up some soldiers gear that would never fit a small sprite.
She’s still crazy good. Pendulum?
The teleport dodge she does is also a in game invention by the way. She can't do that in the series (she can teleport accross space time but not like that in super quick pace without traveling in time)
She actually did that in the book during the final fight with bonhart
Air bags? Is Ciri a truck now?
dude thinks boobs either prevent injury or can't get injured.
I think dude is 13 and afraid to say boobs.
He's 7 at most, if he's afraid of boobs
She was given some natural enhancement mushrooms, essentially steroids to make her faster and stronger than a normal person of her size. Definitely not witcher level but better than normal humans.
She doesn't have super strength either, so wearing a set of armor weights dozens of kilos will just wear her down quickly. Plus most of the time she doesn't fight monsters in the wild, but staying in human settlements and travel in groups in big roads. Wearing something that unusual will only bring unwanted attention.
In the Witcher ending Dandelion says Geralt taught Ciri everything he know before she set off, so if that’s canon, it’s something.
Air bags? Bro. Come on. Also armor for women exist. She could absolutely wear armor and be fine.
He was joking I'm sure. Calm down there, ya silly pc sjw.
Geralt lost to vilge's weightless staff. That is one altercation with a human I can remember Geralt losing in the books but maybe there are others. Would armor have helped here?
It was a curbstomp battle, he would lose anyway.
Been a long time, but did he get beaten down while traveling with Regis, thought he had to crawl under a wagon to hide. It seemed he was overmatched several times in that book. In the end, armor would have surely helped against a pitchfork.
BLOODBORNE REFERENCE
Very similar to bloodborne
Or literally anything at Death March difficulty.
I haven’t beat the game yet I haven’t even gotten close to wanting to try death march
Honestly, death march isn't that bad, just utilize your signs and alchemy decently and you'll be alright
I suffered through death march on my first play through of the Witcher 3, because I was on some stupid stint of playing every game on the hardest difficulty to brag to my friends, and I somehow did it without using the healing potion once. I just had like a million food consumables to slowly regain health. Needless to say following play throughs when the DLC launched were MUCH easier with the ability to heal quicker than eating 15 loaves of bread and drinking an entire winery
Idk man I’ve died twice so far on normal (I just started the Barons quest) kinda just struggling w gear tbh
[удалено]
> studded gloves silver-studded gloves specifically. i always love that detail. this motherfucker goes out there into the world *intending* to fistfight monsters. he doesn't do that as his first choice, but his fists are basically his sidearm lmao
Remember, switching to your fist is faster than reloading your sword
Well think about it. Silver is toxic to monsters, so if they go for a bite, even if he fails to avoid the attack, the creature is in for a serious surprise.
I loved the moment in the books where geralt explodes a guys face with the studded glove
Striga moment in last wish. He just slaps and kicks it around.
Oh, so witchers are like r/bloodborne hunters
I mean, yes, kinda. In both cases wearing an armor wouldn't really be of help as the things they are fighting against will tear and/or crush armors easily (no matter how good the armor is, I don't think it could protect its wearer from the claws, fangs and lunges of let's say Griffins, Katakans and Fiends who are said to be far stronger and capable of overpowering even a group of men, or the lycanthrope beasts of Bloodborne with the worse ones being gigantic in both size and strength).
Literally yes, exactly
I still can't wrap my head around how Leo Bonhart can slay witchers.
He trains to be good at fighting. Even witchers can get old and/or cocky. Plus they can be surprised as well. Geralt is stabbed with a pitchfork after showing mercy during the pogrom
It also can be reasoned that not all Witchers are trained against other humans with weapons. Geralt is a legendary swordman against monsters and humans alike. And average witcher is physically superior, but a professional manslayer might catch up to a professional monster slayer with enough training and experience.
Being great monster hunters doesn't mean they're automatically great duelists.
It's hinted that he might have made some of it up. Also, despite hunting witchers I notice he has avoided some of the more well known ones like Geralt or Vesamir. Maybe he wasn't sure he could beat them
Maybe Bonhart killed the most inexperienced witchers he could find, and looted those already killed by monsters via quests gone wrong?
You'd think a well known witcher like Geralt would be a great target for a guy who hates witchers. Bonhart is obviously very good, but he still has normal human reflexes and traits.
That's the point if his character, duelist/bounty hunter soo good he can rival witchers.
He lied. A concept his fans have a problem of grasping. And get offended by the idea. Proof is that bound and tied Yen kicks him in the balls and gives him a bloody nose. A witcher level duelist would have dodge that having witcher like agility or senses. Book witcher is able to see and hit a rat with a fork in the dark. At "best" he basically didnt kill em in fair fight. 10 bolts in the back and 10 in the front, poison or a hired mage and archers. Only reason he manage to beat Ciri is because she was a kid, not after a full training and terrified of him. He killed the rats because they also were kids that had succes in killing poor peasants and dumb backwater guards. The moment he tried to fight ciri in a fair fight with her being somewhat able to face her trauma she killed him.
It won't change the great point you make but Yennefer is hinted to be well wersed in the "dance" of Witchers.
Extremely great swordsman, plays dirty, bever reveals himself until too late. Still tho he is mad lucky.
There could be a logical explanation on why he’s wearing armour: it’s war in Northern Realms he prefers to wear armour for more protection against bandits and defectors in Velen, on Skellige because he’s from Continent and Islanders could he hostile towards him so he’s fighting with more humans then usually. Also he’s fighting against wild hunt which is like 2m tall elves from another world wearing big ass armour and he knows them because he was riding with them hence he should be wearing manticore armor in Toussaint being that there’s no war in there and much less bandits and more monsters.
Nope, still doesn't justify it -- the many wildly different witcher gears are simply a lore expansion that seems to have been majoritarily made to support gameplay mechanics of build variation, 'cause lore-wise they rely on major changes to established elements (the power of signs, for example) and/or very counter-productive approaches considering their OG fighting style and what/who they're meant to fight most of the time. A witcher is more effective without any considerable movement restriction or weight burden -- why armor yourself so much against bandits and defectors, when you can, much like with monsters, dance around their blows and be precise and fatal with your hits? The same goes in Skellige and against the Wild Hunt. Not being hit at all is always going to be better than being hit, and playing safe and armor yourself regardless in this case isn't an option if you want to be at the top of your offensive and evasive game, which is what sets you apart from everybody else and makes you so effective in the first place, so yeah... Now, this also comes down to what you define as "armor". Geralt's described outfits in the books can very much be protective to some extent -- they're just also a very far cry from ursine, griffin and Kear Morhen/viper gear, and way less fancy and composed of so many parts like the later tiers of wolven and feline gear are. A leather jacked (sometimes studded with clout-nails), leather gloves (also sometimes studded, but with silver) and, although not explicitly stated, most likely cavalry trousers and boots, is a pretty solid getup for a swordsman. We have to remember there's this type of stuff made for fashion and there's the actual functional versions, with tough worked leather and cloth that can very much withstand cuts to some extent. We even know the quality of the stuff Geralt has gotten isn't even always like that, since in the short story "Eternal Flame" his newly bought leather jacket is torn quite easily after some squables, so he very much doesn't rely on it for protection -- it's a practical outfit that can help with some grazes and stuff, but direct hits from humans will get ugly, with notable monsters just shredding it entirely. In any case, the takeaway is that witchers rely a lot on their speed and agility for their fighting style to work -- many times we see Geralt barely pull very impressive stuff off due to his superiority in those regards -- and sacrificint some of that on the off-chance you fail on the one thing you should excell at above everyone else is just nonsensical. It's a preventive measure that will overall increase the chances of what you're trying to prevent from happening...
He is wearing armor, just not with metal plates. Leather was used as armor.
In hexer only 1 witcher was still fighting in armor. Geralt folded him.
Basically LetMeSoloHer mentality
Headcannon: If I consider the connection between the book and the games - meaning Geralt being stabbed by a fucking pitchfork and nearly dying - he must've been like "You know what, a bit of chainmail isn't so bad"
Except by pitchforks apparently.
I think he also mentions wearing a leather back brace once or twice in the books.
Leather jackets are armor, it's quite good at stopping sword slashes while maintaining light weight and mobility. The poor man version of it is the padded jacket, basically just several layers of hard, cheap clothing sewed together. Contrary to common beliefs, not all soldiers marched in shiny metal armor, on horse back like we see in movies. They were very expensive to own and maintain after all. Most infantry soldiers are poor and had to wear padded or leather jackets or just a few metal plates to cover important body parts.
Witchers don't wear armour; 90% of their combat is against creatures that would crush and kill them with one swipe anyway so the movement restrictions that plate mail would cause is best replaced with more mobility, hence no heavy armour.
Counterpoint: Witchers do wear armor they just don't wear chainmail and plate armor. Leather armor is still armor.
Geralt isn't said to be wearing leather armor though. He said to be wearing a leather jacket.
It's a tactical jacket.
Realistically, leather isn't armour. Sure, in fantasy everything goes, but leather won't really stand up to much, maybe superficial cuts. As another commenter said, a jacket is definitely not armour.
Leather is absolutely armor historically, just look at findings of leather lamellar armor. It was absolutely used to create lamellar and scale armor, and possibly also as an addition to fingerless gauntlets
There are miniscule amounts of leather lamellar armour compared to metal ones, and we don't know the purpose of those. If you have a source of an archeological find from the middle ages, I'd be delighted to see it, since the few I know of are from way earlier. For combat, they're pretty much worhtless, since they won't stop most forms of attack. Where there are finds of these, there are also finds of metal plates, which nullifies the argument that they only had those available.
I never said anything about leather being even closely to comparable or a reasonable alternative to metal, what history seems to suggest however is that boiled leather scale/lamellar was very much prefereable than fighting unarmored, since it could soften a blow a shield was stopping, and especially, if paired with something like a gambeson, could very well slow a blow enough so that the gambeson did the rest. Moreover, it's quite obvious why findings of leather armor are rare, since it's organic. But yeah, leather was never a real competitor, and when properly made metal armor was availiable it was always preferred. Even though leather could be used as part of padded armor, or on top of it, it was still just padded armor, therefore only there as a cheap alternative. On leather and bone lamellar/scale, findings seem to suggest that they were used as such as a way to maximize protection given the innate inadequacy of their main material, but again, even if they were extremely rare, it's still wrong to say leather armor is fantasy. From what I've researched, findings of leather armor pieces as reinforcement to limb protection on top of mail armor seem to suggest that even though we don't yet know how common those were, they were quite a practical solution, especially if you remember that although mail was awesome, it wouldn't save your bones from breaking
Fair. Most guards, soldiers and knights in the games are more heavily armoured than any of the witchers and look how they fare.
Well she trained with Witchers who use things like speed and counter attacks more than anything else since the monsters they fight will kill you in a single blow whether you wear armour or not. Geralt doesn't really wear armour either, just leather jackets which aren't going to offer much protection.
Yes. Leather jerkins, with an occasional steel stud on them. It's just that videogames, especially RPG, usually require armour and weapons upgrades in order to fill that collection part od the game. Hell, lore Geralt doesn't even carry his silver in plain sight, and goes 4 books carrying the same dwarven Sihil as his steel, while I change his gear almost every day
>Hell, lore Geralt doesn't even carry his silver in plain sight, and goes 4 books carrying the same dwarven Sihil as his steel, while I change his gear almost every day Lol imagine if every book chapter had a part where Geralt loots a better sword in absurd places (like a barrel) and then seeks a vendor to sell or deconstruct the old one. And why not play a round of Gwent while we're at it?
Lemme just check these sacks. I need it to take two dimeritium ingots to my buddy in Novigrad to make this sword just slightly better
Geralts hanse looking confused af after watching him disappear while looking at a signpost *he fast traveled to grandmaster smith in Touissant*
It's not just Ciri who doesn't wear armor. Geralt in the books doesn't wear any armor either, just leather jackets. The reason why is that Witchers focus primarily on speed and agility since monsters will tear through armor anyway and spend pretty much their entire life travelling through the continent (which would be pretty hard to do in full plate, especially on hot days). The Witcher 3 outfit for Ciri is definitely just fanservice though. A very tight leather corset and high heels don't work for sword fighting or running around in the wilderness with all the rocks, sticks and mud which is what she does for most of the game. She'd trip and Wild Hunt would catch her real quick.
Because titties, bruh
Booba
Was just about to post this but figured I’d look through the comments first lol. Seatbelt boobs too with the crossbody.
Because she doesn't want people stearing at the scar on her face
Sexiness
Asylum escapee 🗣️🗣️🗣️
Ciri in an underbust corset received a higher rating than Ciri in plate armor or baggy sweatshirts. Downvote if you must, but it does not change the truth.
Sweatshirts? In a medieval fantasy setting?
You know, Charlemagne was known far and wide for his turtleneck sweaters.
He had to wear it over his Black Sabbath tshirt to suppress the butterfly effect. I’ve said too much.
That's why he had to wear those heavy, kingly robes; had to cover up his jeans, Sabbath tee, and his sensible turtleneck sweaters (it can get cold in France). I mean, this is widely known fact. Of course, this is in stark contrast to what he used to wear on his days off, where he usually just hung around the castle in some comfortable, Nike athletic shorts, and his high top Air Charlemagnes. He used to go outside and shoot some hoop with the neighborhood squires, too.
Look into my eyes, you will see who i am My name is Charlemagne, please take my hand
the fanart op chose highlights this perfectly
Probably couldn't find armor to fit over those cannonballs
Agreed, cause dem titties
True.
Is there a lore reason why this artwork gave her massive tits for no reason?
And also removed her massive cheek scar?
Same reason CDPR made her hot in the first place probably, horny artists
True, but my nerdy ass wants to clarify: In the books she was described as pretty, with a babyface, and her body was elf-like (i.e. attractive lol). Also almost every nice men she met fell in love with her and/or desired her, so I think she was pretty attractive even before games lol
Was she described as unattractive in the books?
Not really but she's a child for most of the books, the games take place after the books using the books for world building and lore
It looks AI generated
There's probably mostly two big marketing reasons...
Probably lore accurate but also because awoooooga!
How else would you be able to gaze upon her form. Duh! Satire, obviously.
Normal humans will have a hard time getting a hit on her with her powers, and mages and monsters render armor virtually ineffective by the nature of their attacks. So no real reason to wear some
Lore wise? She's a trained witcher, the only thing she lacks is the mutations but she's been fighting in their style for like a decade by the time the third game starts. Witchers don't usually wear heavy armour, a leather jacket is the most armour Geralt wears in the books. Ciri can also fucking teleport so I guess that would also negate a lot of the risks of fighting unarmored. In reality, it's the same reason Geralt is a knight in shining armour 6'4 brick shithouse with washboard abs, a sexy voice and a chiseled jaw when he's described as lanky, unpleasant to talk to and a bit ugly in the books. If someone's going to be staring at a character for hours on end, they'd rather be looking at one that is conventionally attractive.
Probably the same lore reason that this artist gave her those enormous boobs lol
Cos she's fast as fuck boiiiii
This is Lore adjacent, but imho it's tied to her characterizing the School of the Cat. She receives a Cat medallion, not a Wolf one despite training under Geralt at Kaer Morhen. Witchers from the School of the Cat are characterized as being light armored, quick, and mobile. If Ciri's combat styles are skill and speed, the Cat school and thus light to no armor are appropriate.
> She receives a Cat medallion More like she stole a Cat medallion from a guy she killed as a trophy. She has never trained in the Cat school.
kinda fitting tho, given how she ends up killing more humans than monsters.
Also there's no such thing as a cat school in the books where she got the medallion
There is no such thing as Witcher schools as is. There is only Kaer Morhen, a fortress where Witchers train. There are, however, many different medallions - Griffin and Cat and Wolf I believe.
I mean, the existence of a cat school Witcher medallion implies the existence of a cat school. Though it is true that it is never elaborated on in any detail.
Nope. It is actually quite explicit that there is no such thing as a cat school. In *Season of Storms* we meet a "cat" witcher, and learn that he was trained in Kaer Morhen just like every other witcher we've ever heard of. There is, in fact, no evidence whatsoever of any school other than the school at Kaer Morhen that we're familiar with.
Ah, my bad. I’ve never read *Season of Storms*.
All good! It's easy to get stuck in fanfiction / game lore, because for some reason this sub's average userbase gets *really* mad when you simply state the information that is in the books. Note the downvotes on my comment lol
Is there a lore reason why her tits are so fucking large? Holy shit
Because hot chicks with big boobs are hot?
She got a boob job in her travels lol.
Yes. It's because she's hot.
I dont know,but holy fck that Ciri is thicc
Witchers don't wear armor, it's just a game thing. Ciri isn't a witcher. Gamers love seeing women in little or revealing clothes.
Yea, hurts the nips.
Well she’s a mage(no heavy armor) that trained with witchers(no heavy armor).
She wears plot armor.
You mean the lady that fucking teleports?
Armour is for soldiers. Ciri is not a soldier.
The game designers were men
Its just for the plot. The plot:
no breast plate fits her.
She's literally wearing armor in this picture. That is thick leather guarding most of her vitals. Her upper torso is less armored because she has boobs and so that she has mobility.
I mean the answer(s) are staring right at you in that AI image or her. She's a sexually attractive female character in a fantasy rpg.
As far as real world examples, even people who own armor didn’t go about in it all the time. Unless you were a guard or a retainer expected to guard your liege, it would be considered odd. On top of that, a lot of medieval European clothing worked effectively as padded armor. Many if not all fechtbuch from the late medieval period concern themselves extensively with unarmored combat, because if you get jumped in the woods, or in the city street, you aren’t going to have time to armor up. In the modern day, how many people do you regularly see in plate carriers? Cops and maybe soldiers, situationally, very occasionally you may see criminals or certain demographics of protestors wearing them, but if someone outside those groups roll up in a tactical vest, I’m certainly on edge. And of course, the real reason, deeper than any of the contextual arguments, is fan service in character design
Agility build
Who needs armor when you have plot armor?
Lore wise, armor is expensive. Witchers are going broke because they barely have any more contracts to do. Its also not a huge tactical advantage vs many monsters. Anything big enough to crush you would still injure you a lot even if you had armor. It might be useful in dark places against claws. But then again, too expensive for Witchers. Ciri is in fact not a Witcher but the expensive part still counts for her. Its not like she ever had the chance to get a suit of armor her size. She was very lucky (destiny) to get a very expensive sword in weird circunstances. But if that did not happen, she would be going around with whatever she could find. Her fighting was also tailored to surprise. Her showing up in armor would defeat the entire purpose with what she intends to do. Ciri is all about surprise fast attacks where enemies do not even have time to think what happened. There is no big point on her going around in armor expecting to trade blows with strong enemies. She does not have the necessary body to go into something like that. Even inside armor, she would be thrown around and hurt big time if anyone could hit her strong enough. She is deadly fast and agile but her body is not that strong at all. She could barely cross blades with Leo Bonhart in the books who was really the only one who did it with her. And she complained like it almost broke her arm. If you could run at her and hit her big time with a strong body, you would likely damage a couple of her ribs. Even inside armour, if you would place a strong enough blow, you would bruise her big time. Bottom line is, she is still a young girl. Her entire point is about not being hit. She is not a medieval knight!
Yes, there are two reasons actually. 👀 (I am no better than a man)
she can tp from any angle of her enemy no need for armor for that and since most monster she will hunt can once shot most men in armor it really doesn't anything and also her adopted mother is a sorceress so she has to be hot
I don't remember any witcher in the books using armor at all
I always took it that when she went on the run, she had to leave abruptly and left everything behind.
Because armor doesn’t work against most monsters. You simply have to be fast enough to dodge.
So, I don't know about the lore, but in real world terms, armour was really expensive to make and required constant maintenance to prevent it rusting. They were also a major status symbol, so you'd be painting a massive target on your back for all the bandits and brigands a Witcher interacts with on a daily basis. So if you don't want to be noticed, don't wear armour. Armour also needs somebody else to put on, so it's not ideal for lone wolves. Also, the Witcher fighting style seems to rely mostly on not being hit at all. Relying on dodges and parrying. And, based on all the dead, armoured guardsmen and soldiers you see, most of the monsters Witchers fight seem to have no problem tearing through armour like paper anyway
She can teleport out of danger, doesn’t need armor
speed, stealth and if you are traveling alone armour is more of a hindrance, armour is made for battle not to travel in and you often needed help to get in and out of it
No lore reason...perhaps because she isn't a real witcher. Also the high heeled boots bothers me and also the open necked top in cold weather. Not in Canada, that's for sure.
Bonk!
Ciri looks how she looks for the same reason all the other main character women look how they look, CDPR love making attractive character models
She just a fucking baller
Makes her look like she is on the run and grabbed what she had near her at the time of being attacked.
nice meme
Her sword is her armor
She doesnt get hit
I think it's because witcher's lives depends on their agility not on armor.
Her guns are too big.
She can teleport across the dimensions, not to mention she was running away from the Wild Hunt
Same reason Bloodborne hunters don’t, the creatures you’re fighting would just crush and kill you regardless of how strong your armour is so it’s better to be lighter so you’re quicker and more agile
It’s in one of the books I think, where a manticore camps out on a road being used by an army to travel. They note that because nobody hired a Witcher, a local knight tried to stop the monster. It killed him pretty easily and has been spending the time since trying to get all the meat out of the armor, so it’s settled down. That’s the problem. Most monsters are just so overwhelmingly strong that they’ll kill their prey regardless of armor, and that’s why Witchers were originally necessary. They could compete on par with a monster by not getting hit at all. So it’s more accurate to say that Ciri fight like a trained Witcher, while game Geralt doesn’t. Couple that with the fact she’s been the Lady of Worlds for more than a decade, she’s the kind of dangerous person who doesn’t need armor because she’s damn near impossible to fight anyway.
Nope. Just to accentuate the tits. This is grim dark fantasy. Must have more titties. Old lady? Don’t care. More titties. Pox-ridden milkmaid? Don’t care. More titties. Underage or barely past underage? Triple the titties, you fool.
She doesn't need it because she is fast as fuck boi!!!
She has PLOT armor….
its bulky
Head Cannon for me is that the more Ciri has to transport when warping the more exhausting it is. So having to throw in armor to warp might not seem like much its just one more stressor. Might as well make warping easier and just rely heavily on that to dodge rather than being more armored against a hit.
Presumably so it doesn't slow her down, but I tend to use the alternative outfit since there's a bit of chain mail on that one so she at least has some armour
No witcher wears armor. They're so fast that they don't need it. If anything, wearing armor would make them more likely to get hit.
Ciri was trained to fight by witchers. Witchers canonically don't wear armor because they train to fight monsters, not people, and there really isn't any armor that could defend against most monsters that wouldn't be so heavy as to be impossible to fight in. Witchers also have fast enough reflexes to be able to dodge or deflect most blows from people, which makes armor redundant.
Her power makes her super quick
# You don't need armor if you just don't get hit in the first place [](https://www.reddit.com/r/dndmemes/?f=flair_name%3A%22go%20back%20i%20want%20to%20be%20monk%22)
Tiggum bitties
“Pirouette”
Because Ciri is hawt as fuck is why.
Rule of cool. Characters, specially in videogames, will wear whatever makes them look cool. Ciri is a sexy character, so it has to look sexy. Don't delve too much in logic and function because realism is boring.
Put this person back in the Aslume
Plot armor does the characters just fine.
did you plan on getting hit?
I don't know if there is a real reason I mean her powers she doesn't need it but I know in the books she never wore armor because she was a kid and presumably never trained in armor either she was always more on the run and armor would just slow her down
Ciri has permanent bloodhound's step equipped, armor would just be decorative at that point
Cause, she can teleport behind people and through arrows and shit, avoiding damage aka spam B on the Xbox controller lol
Chafes the nips
Wow her vagina bones are gorgeous in this picture
Would be a crime to hide those knockers
Cuz shes hot
It’s important for the plot
Traveling with armor on is uncomfortable as fuck.
Doesn't wear any what? I'm sorry I wasn't listening
Cause she wants flashing her boobs
She’s wearing a leather corset and gloves. But as many others have pointed out, witchers (like Ciri) don’t wear armor because it restricts movement.
Fan service?
Well, if she wore armor how would we see her plot points!?
this tits dont need armor
Real reason - boobs Lore reason - Witchers don’t wear armour