[GuardDuty]

Has it ever been defined how *much* stopping power armor represents in prior editions?

In the classic editions your armor rating literally reduced the attack power, so, for example, you could clearly see that a hold-out or light pistol would basically be completely ineffective against a 5/3 jacket.

If I am balancing weaponry against armor, what would you consider as a baseline to work with?

Personally, I always considered the armor jacket/coat to be the standard shadowrunner armor, and would balance around that.  In the classic editions the 5/3 jacket was balanced to reduce the power of a heavy pistol to 4, so each damage resistance die has an even chance of success and failure. 

[GuardDuty]

I didn't coming posting about it on the forum or anything (at least not that I remember), but way back in SR3 I frequently found myself thinking "It'd probably make combat feel a little more threatening for players if they couldn't stack their armor to the point of their damage resistance dice being effectively automatic successes unless I've got their opposition using anti-vehicular weapons on them... but at least it takes 2 successes to stage a wound down"

I thought the layered armor rules worked pretty well.  You could only stack jacket type armor over armored clothing, it raised your target number for all quickness linked skills considerably, and it reduced your movement to almost nothing.  Where it fell down was allowing the armor spell to stack on top, but that's easily fixed with a quick house rule.

[adzling]

this conversation ignores the fact that all shooters are trained to shoot center of mass.

when you wear most of your heavier armor in the area you most often get shot then most often it will have more effect than 6e represents.

that right there demonstrates how poor 6e's mechanics are.

where 5e and earlier fall down is that they let the armor creep up to high to the point that you can ignore small arms fire.

a tweaking of 5e was clearly required, 6e instead went totally the opposite direction and enshrined no armor as being almost as good as armor.

which just pushed the inanity in the opposite direction.

[Banshee]

this conversation ignores the fact that all shooters are trained to shoot center of mass.

when you wear most of your heavier armor in the area you most often get shot then most often it will have more effect than 6e represents.

that right there demonstrates how poor 6e's mechanics are.

where 5e and earlier fall down is that they let the armor creep up to high to the point that you can ignore small arms fire.

a tweaking of 5e was clearly required, 6e instead went totally the opposite direction and enshrined no armor as being almost as good as armor.

which just pushed the inanity in the opposite direction.

The counter argument that you refuse to see and/or accept is that 6e damage codes are also significantly reduced to compensate for armor too so the balance of damage is still close to the same curve barring the extreme tank types, so it feels like armor doesn't do anything. If you go through and change the armor rules you would also need to increase all damage codes to match.

So is it a broken system that doesn't work ... nope!!!!
It it a stinky bad feel ststem that players don't want ... yes mostly!

[Michael Chandra]

Pfff, I love it. It just needs a bit of handling of edge cases, but for those that really care about those and intend to have them in their games, it's real easy to introduce a houserule or two. E.g. 'DV doubles without armor' or '+1 Edge (ignores edge limit) if target unarmored yet dangerous'. Or the whole 'DV becomes stun, after-resist DV halved, if pre-resist DV < Armor Boost' idea.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

Agreed.  If someone's going take the "bikinis are just as good as armor" argument seriously and run around without armor, then as far as I'm concerned they'll be forfeiting every circumstantial edge to their opponent they might have otherwise earned.

[penllawen]

Pfff, I love it. It just needs a bit of handling of edge cases, but for those that really care about those and intend to have them in their games, it's real easy to introduce a houserule or two.

Nothing says “this is a well designed system” like “here are some houserule suggestions to punish players for taking the RAW literally.”

[penllawen]

In SR6 they take this a bit further. it is now assumed that everyone will have some armor. But rather than resolving things like armor rating and armor penetration they decided to simply roll it into base damage values. This is the reason why damage values are much lower in this edition. Amor from that vest / coat / jacket or whatever is already factored and rolled into the base damage value of the attack.

Well, that’s news to me. Where in the 6e CRB are the rules for “if your players have been taken prisoner and stripped of all weapons and armour, here’s the damage code adjustment you should apply” then?

[Banshee]

In SR6 they take this a bit further. it is now assumed that everyone will have some armor. But rather than resolving things like armor rating and armor penetration they decided to simply roll it into base damage values. This is the reason why damage values are much lower in this edition. Amor from that vest / coat / jacket or whatever is already factored and rolled into the base damage value of the attack.

Well, that’s news to me. Where in the 6e CRB are the rules for “if your players have been taken prisoner and stripped of all weapons and armour, here’s the damage code adjustment you should apply” then?

It's not, but does it need to be? All it would do is screw over players who choose (or get stuck in a situation) to not wear armor. If you want that factor in your game just double damage values against "soft" targets as a house rule.
Personally I prefer to rule on the side of cool and fun for the players and not do that.

[penllawen]

It's not, but does it need to be? ...
Personally I prefer to rule on the side of cool and fun for the players and not do that.

(I know, I agree, I was being sarcastic because I think Xenon’s post is nonsense  )

[Shadowjack]

I think people that play on roll20 lose track of how shitty it is for a troll tank to roll FIFTY DICE every time they get shot. That was terrible and I'm thrilled it's gone as someone who still plays with real dice. Armor in 6E is still very effective, it's just different. In 6E you could get shot 10+ times and survive, thanks to armor. I'm talking about a basic arrmor jacket, not milspec. 6E armor is way better imo. I can see why others disagree though.

[penllawen]

where 5e and earlier fall down is that they let the armor creep up to high to the point that you can ignore small arms fire.

a tweaking of 5e was clearly required...

I endorse this view. I’ve never had a serious attempt at houseruling it, but something along the lines of

1) halve the values of all worn armour
2) keep Body the same
3) re-scale melee weapons to work off Str/2
4) take 2-3 points of DV off all ranged weapons
5) ditch some cheesy stacking armour trickery/gear

...would go a long way to calming down the worst excesses of 5e but not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

In before some poster picking holes in this example, but that’s all it is - an example. The important words are “something along the lines of.”

[adzling]

this conversation ignores the fact that all shooters are trained to shoot center of mass.

when you wear most of your heavier armor in the area you most often get shot then most often it will have more effect than 6e represents.

that right there demonstrates how poor 6e's mechanics are.

where 5e and earlier fall down is that they let the armor creep up to high to the point that you can ignore small arms fire.

a tweaking of 5e was clearly required, 6e instead went totally the opposite direction and enshrined no armor as being almost as good as armor.

which just pushed the inanity in the opposite direction.

The counter argument that you refuse to see and/or accept is that 6e damage codes are also significantly reduced to compensate for armor too so the balance of damage is still close to the same curve barring the extreme tank types, so it feels like armor doesn't do anything. If you go through and change the armor rules you would also need to increase all damage codes to match.

So is it a broken system that doesn't work ... nope!!!!
It it a stinky bad feel ststem that players don't want ... yes mostly!

im very aware of that banshee, and it's the design decision that seems to have pushed 6e into a corner re: strength not factoring into melee weapon damage and the lowered damaged codes giving unarmored opponents a free ride.

6e's assumes lot of stuff that often is not the case and the end result is a mechanical system then departs from reality often and without benefit.

[penllawen]

I think people that play on roll20 lose track of how shitty it is for a troll tank to roll FIFTY DICE every time they get shot. ...  I'm talking about a basic arrmor jacket, not milspec.

I agree that sounds bad. How on earth do you get it that high, though?

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

I think people that play on roll20 lose track of how shitty it is for a troll tank to roll FIFTY DICE every time they get shot. ...  I'm talking about a basic arrmor jacket, not milspec.

I agree that sounds bad. How on earth do you get it that high, though?

By having a mage friend.

Or, by being a MysAd without needing outside help.