[The Laughing Man]

Then again we didn't have no Stick'n'shock, either and our vehicles ran on tires full of air, AIR I tell ya.

Lol at this. ^

I use this optional rule in my game and it's worked fine for a while. I've had to make armor limited to only stacking body pieces and accessories like helmets and shields.

My players (surprisingly) aren't really armor trolls, so I haven't had too much trouble on that end. In my opinion it speeds up combat alot.

I imagine it would take twice as long to roll damage each time someone hit. I do however roll resistance for spells due to the nature of them being super powerful already anyways. (On that note, I've also added dodge rolls for physical spells. Balances em out a little. )

edit: typos suck

[voydangel]

Then again we didn't have no Stick'n'shock, either and our vehicles ran on tires full of air, AIR I tell ya.

Lol at this. ^

I use this optional rule in my game and it's worked fine for a while. I've had to make armor limited to only stacking body pieces and accessories like helmets and shields.

My players (surprisingly) aren't really armor trolls, so I haven't had too much trouble on that end. In my opinion it speeds up combat alot.

I imagine it would take twice as long to roll damage each time someone hit. I do however roll resistance for spells due to the nature of them being super powerful already anyways. (On that note, I've also added dodge rolls for physical spells. Balances em out a little. )

edit: typos suck

Interesting, do you think you could line item out the house rules you use that pertain to armor and combat and damage resist rolls? maybe even with examples of how the rolling process goes? If you have time that is. I would be very interested to see what mods you had to make to have this streamlining rule work without breaking armor any more than it already is.

Also, I'm curious exactly how you worked dodge into physical spells. Do people automatically get dodge in addition to their reaction + counterspelling roll? Or does the dodge only come in when they full dodge as per normal defense rules?

***

Also, does anyone have any experience with a house rule of "armor does not stack - only use the best armor item you have, ignore all the rest."? Obviously the special rules for the armored suits and whatnot would still stand from arsenal otherwise they'd be useless, but I think you know what I'm getting at.

[Chaemera]

Also, does anyone have any experience with a house rule of "armor does not stack - only use the best armor item you have, ignore all the rest."? Obviously the special rules for the armored suits and whatnot would still stand from arsenal otherwise they'd be useless, but I think you know what I'm getting at.

I'm assuming you mean "armor that the books say are cumulative", because, as it currently stands, the rule is you only use the best armor (plus those bits of armor that specifically are cumulative).

You'll notice I'm carefully using the word cumulative because Shadowrun, to be different from everyone else, uses the word "stack" to refer to the exact effect you mention, two pieces of armor worn together with only the best rating applying.

If a character is wearing more than one piece of armor at a time, only the highest value (for either Ballistic or Impact) applies. Note that some armor items, like helmets and shields, provide a modifier to the worn armor rating and so do not count as stacked armor.

Included in that list of thing-gummies which provide a cumulative effect are the PPP system, Armor Spell, adept's Mystic Armor, natural armor (like that of trolls) and so forth.

However, a guy wearing a Chain Shirt (2/7, Arsenal, pg. 48) and Armored Clothing (4/0, SR4A, pg. 327) has an effective armor rating of 4/7. If he then put on a Helmet (+1/+2, SR4A, pg. 327) his effective armor would now be 5/9.

As for getting more restrictive than that, usually their body ought to come into play sooner or later. If you allow the custom-fitted armor optional rule, I could see armor ratings getting pretty astronomical, but aside from that, -1 to both AGI and REA for every 2 points of armor over 2x BOD can get pretty nasty pretty quick for non-trolls. At body 6 that means neither of his armor ratings can exceed 12 before he starts nuking his AGI/REA.

[Nomad Zophiel]

Also, does anyone have any experience with a house rule of "armor does not stack - only use the best armor item you have, ignore all the rest."? Obviously the special rules for the armored suits and whatnot would still stand from arsenal otherwise they'd be useless, but I think you know what I'm getting at.

That's not really a house rule. That's a rule that has many exceptions (suit sets, component armor and Form Fitting). I imagine he just removed the components. From my experience, most players who aren't combat monsters and/or on the forums play by this rule because they don't think about armor enough to notice why Form-fitting is so cool.

Back in my day, we didn't have no fancy schmancy armored underwear. We had armored jackets. That's it. No other options. If you wanted more armor you stayed in the damn car, the one with air in the tires.

[Chaemera]

I have a character that's eye-balling the Steam-punk line (Arsenal, pg. 46) because, well, the player loves steam-punk clothing. And one or two other characters that like them from the subtle perspective.

Beyond that, our combat nut has a few pieces of the PPP System. No one has really looked beyond that much.

[voydangel]

Yes, sorry, I used the wrong terminology. I did mean cumulative - such as PPP and Form fitting body armor (FFBA). So, my question should have been worded something like this:

"Also, does anyone have any experience with a house rule such as "armor such as PPP & FFBA is not cumulative with other armors worn - only use the best armor item you have, ignore all the rest - as per SR4A Basic armor rules."? Obviously the special rules for the armored suits and whatnot (such as the Steampunk Line and the Executive Suite Line) would still stand from arsenal (otherwise they'd be useless), but I think you know what I'm getting at."

The reason I ask is because it's really fairly easy to make a starting character with right around 18/14 Armor. Possibly higher if you're an adept or magician. And that's just plain annoying and (IMO) unrealistic.

[Medicineman]

The reason I ask is because it's really fairly easy to make a starting character with right around 18/14 Armor. Possibly higher if you're an adept or magician. And that's just plain annoying and (IMO) unrealistic.

I played Ghost Cartells Yesterday
I've got a "Tank Troll" (Meteor ,Pit Fighter) with an Armor of 16/12 and BOD 10
We're just at the Beginning of the Campaign.
in 3 different encounters I barely escaped Death(and only because I used every Edge Point !)
last Run, first encounter with Mafia Thugs caused the near Death of 2 fellow chars(1 Large Burst Explo Ammo AK97 meant 1 Box Overflow for Char #1 and 2 Boxes Overflow for Char 2.If the large Burst would've hit only 1 Char he would have been Dead after 1 Hour of Play !!)
in the ongoing Fight My Char took 8 Boxes Stun and 6 Boxes Physical and that only because I was the Tank !
Everything below 12-15 soak dice is plain suicidal in that official Campaign !!
The other players are looking for ways to Armor up because they don't want to loose their Chars
And Yesterday was supposed to be a light sidetrack Adventure(Break & Entering)
Well , 3 Patrolmen surprised us.They were armed with Heavy Pistols and Shotguns (standard for Lonestar,Professinal Rating 4)
End Result: our Mage was near Death 9 Boxes Damage (BOD 3 and 6/4 Vest)
Meteor got 9 Boxes Stun and 3 Boxes Physical

And that's just plain annoying
ImO its even more annoying to be at the brink of Death in each and every Encounter
 

With a Dance on the other side
Medicineman

[Nomad Zophiel]

Medicineman, since you have recent experience, I'd like your opinion. What's the viability of super stealth as a replacement for armor?

[Medicineman]

Super stealth ?
In my experience its (nearly) Impossible to dodge  or sneak away from each and every Enemy .Sooner or later you're discovered and the fight starts and when the going gets rough its better to be armored up to your Teeth (10-12 Dice Minimum and Edge ! )
I hope this answers your question If not plese rephrase it

JahtaHey
Medicineman

[voydangel]

@Medicineman: I completely 100% agree with you about not wanting to be on the brink of death every encounter, but - what kind of dice pools are being thrown at you that you were at 9 boxes stun and 3 boxes Physical when you have a soak pool of 26? How long was the combat? How many 'bad guys' were there? Even if you were just buying successes, 26 dice buys you 6 hits, rolling should net you on average 8 or 9 hits. So, for your average heavy pistol at 5P damage, the bad guys would need a dice pool of about 10, and that's just to do 1 box of stun.

I fully concede that you may be 100% in the right here, I just am not in the habit of having my NPC goons rolling 10+ dice. Perhaps I need to run an official module/campaign, I may be going way too easy on my PCs. If you could run down some of the dice pools and rolls that were made in that combat, I would really really appreciate it. Perhaps it would shed some light on where my math has gone wrong when dealing with armor and damage.

[Kot]

Just asked a friend who has Ghost Cartels about those stats. He said they're 'scary'.

[Nomad Zophiel]

Super stealth ?
In my experience its (nearly) Impossible to dodge  or sneak away from each and every Enemy .Sooner or later you're discovered and the fight starts and when the going gets rough its better to be armored up to your Teeth (10-12 Dice Minimum and Edge ! )
I hope this answers your question If not plese rephrase it

JahtaHey
Medicineman

That was it exactly and exactly what I was thinking. The problem with a sneaky bastard is that you can't get it wrong even once. Makes the Ruthineum dermal sheath and the chameleon skin quality, which both require you be naked, seem kind of silly. Now the Chameleon Suit and Form Fitting will get that 12 Armor, so that might be doable.

[voydangel]

Just asked a friend who has Ghost Cartels about those stats. He said they're 'scary'.

So ghost cartels story line is supposed to be really challenging? or is this supposed to be the "standard difficulty level"?

[Kot]

As far as i could see, most of the BBG's are top-of-the line, and you can even run into Atzlaner's warrior caste and groups of Shedim (with a Master Shedim lieutnant), so yes.
And as a smal spoiler, Fatima from JackPoint got killed in the gang wars, so i bet even prime runners had problems during that time.

[Nomad Zophiel]

The reason I ask is because it's really fairly easy to make a starting character with right around 18/14 Armor. Possibly higher if you're an adept or magician. And that's just plain annoying and (IMO) unrealistic.

Is that assuming Body<=6 or do you just mean that a character designed to be a damage sponge can easily afford the BP cost of the metatype, Body, armor itself and various built-in armor to reach those numbers? Because, honestly, if that's your one trick as a character its less annoying to me personally than being able to (for example) KO 4+ people per combat round consistently.