Pretty much yes. Blunt force is kinda the apex. No amount of personal protection protects you enough when the force hits. With plate you would disperse it to kinda spread it through the area of the plate itself and with padding you would divert force into deformations of the padding. But given enough force neither of them protects you.

That being said those protective options are still the best there are against blunt force and that would remain until the introduction of firearms.

Plate or padding

In essence both, but it’s pretty much its own separate entity called Nordic model