In my group, we agreed that we could accomplish a few things all at once by applying a little logic to the way we play with armor and encumbrance. The primary reason for this is that we like to try to reduce the amount of dice getting tossed around the table. By adding only a wee bit of bookkeeping and math, the realism goes up, the amount of dice rolling goes down, and combat goes faster. We have found this to work well in practice. However, if anyone sees any glaring problems with any of these house rules I have listed, especially the armor/encumbrance rules, please let me know so that we can address them. My group consists primarily of math nerds, so we like number crunching. And, oddly, don't tend to min/max much, so we tend to not see the flaws in our logic at times, cause were just not looking for exploits...
First a logical basis for some of the rules:
1. "Armor only protects what it actually covers."
2. "Called shots to bypass armor and/or get bonus DV are too generalized."
3. "Armor is restrictive and/or heavy. Even with all the new ultra breathable 2072 stuff, when you stack on that many layers of clothing, it gets harder to move, and can start to get kinda burdensome."
So, using that logic, here's how we work it in my gaming group:
1. "Any items that would normally fall under the umbrella of the helmets and shields rules only count for called shots to the area protected by the piece."
2. "Called shots to legs and arms are at -4. Called shots to hands, feet, or head are at -7. Called shots to bypass armor can be used to bypass individual pieces of protection. Disarming is unchanged."
3. "All armor ratings (both ballistic and impact, but not magical or natural) are added together at full value when determining armor encumbrance penalties. However, you calculate your limit by adding your (modified) agility, body, strength and reaction, instead of just body x2."
We also say that everyone starts with (Charisma x2) bonus BP to spend on Contacts (only). They can still spend their 'stock' BP on more contacts if they want of course.
When "hacking on the Fly", the threshold the opposing system needs to find you is the hackers (stealth + spoof), rather than just stealth.
Also, kudos on a few other rules I've seen on here - we might incorporate them into our game. Those are:
• Change Availability of hacker programs to Rating*3, making maximum starting rating 4.
• Change DV of Stick'n'Shock ammo from 6S(e) to -S(e), meaning that it does the weapon's normal base damage, changed to Stun and electrical.
• Change movement rates to 4m walking/12m running (human, elf, ork), 3m walking/10m running (dwarf) and 6m walking/18m running (troll). Critter walking speeds would be reduced to 40% of their current level and running speeds to half their current level. Vehicle Speed and Acceleration ratings are unaffected.
• All magical skills are defaultable for magically active characters: Otherwise PCs without Aura Reading can't assense even the simplest of things, and astrally projecting characters who didn't buy Astral Combat are utterly helpless against astral attacks.
Also, I would like some thoughts on the following house rule that we are considering:
"Hits (total, not net) generated when making hacking rolls are limited by your Logic + Intuition, much like hits on spell-casting rolls are limited by the force of the spell."
If anyone would care to comment on any/all of these? I am always very interested in feedback, thoughts and ideas to make our games run smoother and faster.
