[Mäx]

Calling it a condom, while funny, is disingenuous. It's explicitly stated to breath.

Not really disingenuous when i'm using it to descripe what it looks like. Whether or not it breathes is really relevant.
And you sure as heck can't wear multiple worm fitting armors at the same time.

Also, i would say that you really can't wear the suit in most normal places out in town.

[Crash_00]

Also, i would say that you really can't wear the suit in most normal places out in town

Why?

Nothing in the text suggests that it would be obvious when worn under other clothes and you could easily keep the hood tucked into a pocket ready to go if needed.

As for the full body condom, it really seems more like a wetsuit to me than a condom.

[Joush]

And you sure as heck can't wear multiple worm fitting armors at the same time.

>Citation Needed.

The rules for form fitting are awful. The author apparently never thought to forbid doubling down on it.

[Crash_00]

As far as layering armor goes, do you really need to be told on every piece of armor what you can and can't layer it with? Sometimes it should be common sense.

That said, the form-fit rules aren't that bad. It describes the three versions of form-fit, but refers to them collectively as form-fit. So, if you "double up" or "triple up", you're only going to get the benefits of the highest form-fit because you aren't wearing any other armor.

[Joush]

Only if you deiced that Form Fitting Armor doesn't count as armor, otherwise there's no reason not to count Form Fitting Armor as "other armor" when layered with form fitting armor. You could argue that was the intention was that only a single suit of FF can be worn, in fact, that's almost certainly how it should work. But how FF should work and the RAW are pretty far from each other.

[Mäx]

Nothing in the text suggests that it would be obvious when worn under other clothes and you could easily keep the hood tucked into a pocket ready to go if needed.

Well it might work if you wear somekind of set of clothes that cover your whole body.
Maybe my problem is that many of my builds are female, so the FFBA just doesn't work with the clothes, especially not the full-body version.

Also saying you can wear multiple FFBA:S because it dosen't explicitly say you cant, is really disingenuous.

[Crash_00]

Only if you deiced that Form Fitting Armor doesn't count as armor

No, it's if you decide that form-fit isn't other armor. The terms is where most people get caught up. Shirt, Half, and Full suits are all collectively referred to as the form-fit armor.

If I'm wearing (somehow) a form-fit shirt over a form-fit full body suit, which is the other armor?
of the passage in Aresnal:

When worn in combination with other pieces of armor, the
form-fit armor rating is added to the other armor’s rating

Keeping in mind that form-fit armor refers to all three versions.

But how FF should work and the RAW are pretty far from each other

Only if you choose to interpret it very loosely and counter-intuitively.

[Medicineman]

I still remember the  discussion about  the Troll with BOD 15 who's wearing 30 Layers of Softweaved Formfitting 1/2bodies 
Which are RAW but not RAI
(And No ,I don't want to start a futile Discussion about War !'s Items ,the Baby's already in the Well)

he who dances near the Well
Medicineman

[Joush]

When worn in combination with other pieces of armor, the
form-fit armor rating is added to the other armor’s rating

Keeping in mind that form-fit armor refers to all three versions.
[/quote]

What part of that seems to suggest to you that other armor can not refer to a suit of form fit armor? The passage describes the special rules for Form Fit. Any suit of Form Fit uses those rules. If you use two suits of Form Fit, those rules apply to both.

The subject of the sentence is a worn suit of armor in combination with other suits of armor. The form fit armor rating of that armor is added to the other armor's rating.

There is nothing in that sentence that suggest you can't wear two suits of form fit armor and have the rules apply to them both.

[Kontact]

As for the armor, it's internal.  Otherwise, you couldn't armor synthetic cyberlimb and still have people have to make Perception (3) tests to spot its artificial nature.  It also explains the fairly large amount of capacity it uses up.   

Can you take an agility enhancement from a leg and put it in a torso.  Armor from a troll cyberskull skull and apply it to a gnome foot?  There's noting in the rules that says you can't.  It's just nonsense. (Well, let's face it, lots of things about cyber are nonsense.  You can build a full cyberbody for a dwarf that has higher body and strength than one for a human, and it has the same capacity and everything?)

The point I'm trying to make here is that the same thing can be different for different limbs.  Otherwise it's just numbers on a piece of paper, instead of a functioning piece of armor on an imaginary limb.  So, maybe armor 1 in a synth hand is the same as armor 1 in an obvious hand, just serious internal reinforcement.  But you can't put armor 2 in a synth hand.  A synth half-arm, sure, and it provides protection up to the elbow.  Why wouldn't Armor 2 on an obvious hand provide the same sort of protection?  Anyway, that's just how I like to view things.  I know its a game, and you sometimes have to sacrifice realism to make it work, but you don't always have to.

Also cyberlimbs should be fairly common in any era of shadowrun.  They were suppose to be the go-to fix for a host of limb issues.  Docks workers are suppose to be cybered enough that they don't use lift suits anymore.  Thematically, they also fit it quite well even considering SR's shift from cyberpunk to post-cyberpunk.  In older editions, they represented how people had to give up their humanity to keep with the cutting edge.  In the current edition, they represent that have metal arms are cool and are way awesomer than normal human limbs. 

Again, I'll point you to the book.

In today’s world of transplant-friendly bioware, the use of cyberlimbs is
sometimes viewed as crude and outdated. On the other hand, they are
cheap and easy to service and upgrade, so in the end they became even
more popular for the less fortunate. Additionally, since cyberlimbs are
capable of superior performance than natural ones and are compat-
ible with a variety of specialized technologies, this kind of cyberware
remains in high demand.

So, they are crude, outdated, low-class, and for laborers.  In other words, (and this is all I've been saying the whole time, so, readers, please pay attention to this part,) they will penalize a character who has to infiltrate any high-class environment.  They don't play well in Bellview or an arcology.  They are an advantage which may limit the places a character can operate effectively as a potential dice pool penalty on social rolls and by drawing attention from security.  This may not matter to many characters, but it matters to some.

I also think it's unlikely for people to freak out even if they did know they were armored limbs.  First off, it's perfectly legal.  You don't even have to buy a fake permit for it.  Secondly, consider the wealth of armor and how even messengers can wear 6/6 jumpsuits, I think armor wearing is quite common.  After all, this is a world were there are dogs that look like men and go on murderous rampages during full moons and violent gangs can operate in the fairly nice parts of downtown Seattle.   

Wearing armor and being armor are two different things.  Carrying a gun is normal.  Having a gun, literally inside your hand, is not normal.

Balancewise, the issue isn't that mundanes can have a ton of armor.  That's one of the few things mundanes have going for them.  It just really kicks the other defensive ware options to the curb.  You should become tough because you replaced your bones with metal like Wolverine or have kelver for skin and not because your doctor chopping off your hands and feet due to you coming down with diabetes. 

Since bone lacing, othroskin, and dermal plating are a tad on the weak side regardless of the state of cyberlimb armor, I'll be for buffing them and then nerfing cyberlimb armor.  My quick and dirty suggestion is to double the effectiveness of the defensive ware and then have cyberlimb armor on partial limbs only apply for that limb.  This also will tend to increase the essence cost of being defensive enough that mundanes don't really care, but mages will.  Thus it helps keep mages lower defenses relative to combat focused mundanes, but cybermages can still totally exist.
 

There are a lot of cyber options out there, but none of them are as effective as going robocop.
I don't think they should be.  Getting a limb or torso made of or covered with R4 armor is better than a layer of sub-dermal kevlar.  Having titanium bones won't protect you from getting shot in the liver.  So on.

Location should matter, and a hand is not a vital area.  Removing a whole arm as a viable target for small-arms fire is going to significantly protect about 12% of the body, (9% from the coverage of the arm and 3-4% from the arm's coverage of the side.  A leg will get you about 18% of the body completely protected.  The torso is just so much more surface and so much more important.  It seems like there should be something to reflect that in the rules.  Maybe some kind of curve of effectiveness.  Dermal Sheath 1 protects many more important organs and blood vessels than any of the subsequent sheathes.  But, it's kinda dumb that replacing your torso with a big metal shell of avali 20 armor plating isn't as effective as a kevlar vest.  Maybe beefing up other cyber armor a bit, like the orthoskin is a good idea with some sort of diminishing returns, but robocop is not to be nerfed.  Not ever.

[Joush]

Of course, a lot of people that would be freaked out to see your arm is black carbon fiber with piezoelectric musculature and joined to an unnatural range of motion won't be bothered by a guy with a turtleneck and a pair of gloves.

[The Big Peat]

Joush, while there may be confusion in RAW as to whether you can stack FFBA, I would say it seems to be fairly clear RAI and common sense that you can't.

If you were to ask to do it at my table, you'd just get a look, and maybe a 'lulz'. Which is as much argument as you'll get out of me on the score anywhere. If you disagree, fine. Just stick me as another tally in the dissenting column.

Also on FFBA, while I can see dispute as to whether the full body suit counts as discrete, the half-body suit definitley should. Which isn't a lot less.

[Tsuzua]

Can you take an agility enhancement from a leg and put it in a torso.  Armor from a troll cyberskull skull and apply it to a gnome foot?  There's noting in the rules that says you can't.  It's just nonsense. (Well, let's face it, lots of things about cyber are nonsense.  You can build a full cyberbody for a dwarf that has higher body and strength than one for a human, and it has the same capacity and everything?)

The point I'm trying to make here is that the same thing can be different for different limbs.  Otherwise it's just numbers on a piece of paper, instead of a functioning piece of armor on an imaginary limb.  So, maybe armor 1 in a synth hand is the same as armor 1 in an obvious hand, just serious internal reinforcement.  But you can't put armor 2 in a synth hand.  A synth half-arm, sure, and it provides protection up to the elbow.  Why wouldn't Armor 2 on an obvious hand provide the same sort of protection?  Anyway, that's just how I like to view things.  I know its a game, and you sometimes have to sacrifice realism to make it work, but you don't always have to.

Even giving that, I can have synth human armor 3 and you still need a perception test to see that's it's a synth arm.  Sure I may or may not be able to move it to a gnome or troll, but that's irrelevant. 

Again, I'll point you to the book.

In today’s world of transplant-friendly bioware, the use of cyberlimbs is
sometimes viewed as crude and outdated. On the other hand, they are
cheap and easy to service and upgrade, so in the end they became even
more popular for the less fortunate. Additionally, since cyberlimbs are
capable of superior performance than natural ones and are compat-
ible with a variety of specialized technologies, this kind of cyberware
remains in high demand.

So, they are crude, outdated, low-class, and for laborers.  In other words, (and this is all I've been saying the whole time, so, readers, please pay attention to this part,) they will penalize a character who has to infiltrate any high-class environment.  They don't play well in Bellview or an arcology.  They are an advantage which may limit the places a character can operate effectively as a potential dice pool penalty on social rolls and by drawing attention from security.  This may not matter to many characters, but it matters to some.

I was talking more about your statements about how people would freak out about a dude with an armored limb like it's a rare monstrosity when an armored limb looks like unarmored limb and when there are pretty of people who have them.  Also looking poor isn't as large of a disadvantage as you think.  Sure that means you can't be Bond, but it's a really good cover for a janitor, cook, guard, etc.

Wearing armor and being armor are two different things.  Carrying a gun is normal.  Having a gun, literally inside your hand, is not normal.

A lot of stuff in shadowrun is not normal in multiple senses of the word compared to nowadays.  Heck being a shadowrunner isn't one.  Also, we weren't talking about cyberguns here.  They have a lot of problems.  But I would point out that cops might want to get one since they can't be disarmed.

There are a lot of cyber options out there, but none of them are as effective as going robocop.
I don't think they should be.  Getting a limb or torso made of or covered with R4 armor is better than a layer of sub-dermal kevlar.  Having titanium bones won't protect you from getting shot in the liver.  So on.

Location should matter, and a hand is not a vital area.  Removing a whole arm as a viable target for small-arms fire is going to significantly protect about 12% of the body, (9% from the coverage of the arm and 3-4% from the arm's coverage of the side.  A leg will get you about 18% of the body completely protected.  The torso is just so much more surface and so much more important.  It seems like there should be something to reflect that in the rules.  Maybe some kind of curve of effectiveness.  Dermal Sheath 1 protects many more important organs and blood vessels than any of the subsequent sheathes.  But, it's kinda dumb that replacing your torso with a big metal shell of avali 20 armor plating isn't as effective as a kevlar vest.  Maybe beefing up other cyber armor a bit, like the orthoskin is a good idea with some sort of diminishing returns, but robocop is not to be nerfed.  Not ever.

If you read my passage, you would see that I was talking about partial limb cyberarm being nerfed.  If you're robocop (using full limbs), you can easily get +15/+15 armor and +20/+20 with only a bit of effort along with a host of other benefits such as stat boosts.  That's way more if you had just buffed orthoskin 3 (+6/+6). 

What I want to stop is the Cyberleper system that's 1 essence and 23600Y and gives your +4 physical track and +8 armor.  If the GM will kick you in the nuts and have everyone run from your poor face because a robot slapped his mother once, you can get the Synthetic Cyberleper system for 4000Y more and get only +4 armor.  That is still better than the other defense options.  The issue isn't that you get +8 to resist damage for that much.  It's more that it's the only defensive way.

Also my proposal encourages people to go Robocop (heavy body replacement).  Otherwise you can get a lot of the good out of cyberlimb armor with the hands and feet and maybe the odd foreleg.  You go Robocop if you want the stat boosts.  Now you may also want to Robocop for the armor and stat boosts.  If you just want armor, you get one of the more focused ware options.  But I don't think Robocop is a dude who's just got cyberhands and feet.

[Kontact]

Even giving that, I can have synth human armor 3 and you still need a perception test to see that's it's a synth arm.  Sure I may or may not be able to move it to a gnome or troll, but that's irrelevant. 

Well, if you've got a whole arm, then the whole arm can be reinforced internally.  I was imagining a situation where the 2 armor you can fit in the 4 capacity cyberhand would provide the same level of coverage as the 2 armor you could fit into the 5 capacity of a synthetic lower limb.

I was talking more about your statements about how people would freak out about a dude with an armored limb like it's a rare monstrosity when an armored limb looks like unarmored limb and when there are pretty of people who have them.  Also looking poor isn't as large of a disadvantage as you think.  Sure that means you can't be Bond, but it's a really good cover for a janitor, cook, guard, etc.

A lot of stuff in shadowrun is not normal in multiple senses of the word compared to nowadays.  Heck being a shadowrunner isn't one.  Also, we weren't talking about cyberguns here.  They have a lot of problems.  But I would point out that cops might want to get one since they can't be disarmed.

Ah!  I think I've found the disconnect.  The text specifically talks about armor being installed on a limb.  I took that to mean that it was external, and the capacity is taken up by the anchor points.  Do you instead see it as filling some sort of cavity inside the limb?

Also, the thing about some people not being able to afford to look low class is about the Face.  Joush was saying earlier that anyone could take an Agility of 1, then buy a customized cyberlimb with 9 agility and be superhuman awesome forever.  My point was that not everyone can take cyber.  Sure the rigger can get away with that, but the rigger should have an awesome robot arm.

If you read my passage, you would see that I was talking about partial limb cyberarm being nerfed.  If you're robocop (using full limbs), you can easily get +15/+15 armor and +20/+20 with only a bit of effort along with a host of other benefits such as stat boosts.  That's way more if you had just buffed orthoskin 3 (+6/+6). 

What I want to stop is the Cyberleper system that's 1 essence and 23600Y and gives your +4 physical track and +8 armor.  If the GM will kick you in the nuts and have everyone run from your poor face because a robot slapped his mother once, you can get the Synthetic Cyberleper system for 4000Y more and get only +4 armor.  That is still better than the other defense options.  The issue isn't that you get +8 to resist damage for that much.  It's more that it's the only defensive way.

Also my proposal encourages people to go Robocop (heavy body replacement).  Otherwise you can get a lot of the good out of cyberlimb armor with the hands and feet and maybe the odd foreleg.  You go Robocop if you want the stat boosts.  Now you may also want to Robocop for the armor and stat boosts.  If you just want armor, you get one of the more focused ware options.  But I don't think Robocop is a dude who's just got cyberhands and feet.

If you apply the weakest limb rule to partial hands and feet, you're going to see costs go up and certain character types shy away from the idea of getting armored hands and feet.  After all no sam out there wants to be stuck at their natural maximum.  As to the extra damage boxes, the faq is not errata.  It's still a GM's call as to whether a partial limb is a limb. (Which I think is sort of like arguing that a partial erection should get all the benefits of an erection..)

As to increasing the worth of other options so that people don't need to abuse hands and feet, I'm not against the idea at all.  Personally I'd like to see more of a non-linear system of cost and benefit, sort of like with Wired Reflexes.  That's not particularly related except in the idea that more of the same has less impact, in effect and essence.

[JoeNapalm]

Yes, but the full suit is still a full-body condom.

Don't worry, if that bothers you you can always stack as many shirts or half suits as is necessarily to give you the armor you wanted. Leaving the hood off until you need it hardly seems like the biggest drawback in the world even if you just wear one full suit.

Calling it a condom, while funny, is disingenuous. It's explicitly stated to breath. Again, this is trying to come up for a roleplaying drawback to balance an option that is otherwise much to good. In any place where armor would be a normal part of life (and that seems like most of them for shadowrunners in the 6th world) you could wear a full body suit.

Wait wait wait...

You suggest that people can layer as many suits of Form Fit as they want, because the rules do not expressly state that you can't, and in the same post call someone ELSE disingenuous?

Wow.

The rules shouldn't have to expressly forbid what is obviously ludicrous, and the GM should forbid it if he's worth his pizza. The book would be 10,000 pages if they had to cover every possible contingency - the rules are there to limit stacking, and to suggest that anything can be repeatedly layered is pretty obviously NOT in the spirit of those rules.

Trying to break the system by feigned obliviousness is the lowest form of rules lawyering.

-Jn-
Ifriti Sophist