[Bradd]

Finally, no piece of gear purchased at character creation can have a rating higher than 6 or an Availability higher than 12.

Just what counts as a "rating" for the purpose of this rule? Surely it's legal to buy an armored jacket (8/4) at character creation? Assuming yes, are there any other exceptions to this rule? And are the exceptions actually listed in the rules anywhere?

[Wyldknight]

Rating is stuff like sensors, programs, medkits, etc. Anything that says something like rating x something = Price or rating x something = availability.

[Bradd]

That doesn't quite jibe with p. 310, SR4A:

Every gear item described in this chapter includes a set of statistics. Every item has a Cost, and most items have an Availability and Device rating. The other statistics depend on the type of item and are explained in the Gear Ratings sidebar.

The sidebar describes many values, some called "ratings" and some not. The "ratings" include Armor, Availability, Device Rating, Reach, and Signal. For example:

Armor: Each piece of armor has an Armor value that is split into two components .... The value to the left of the slash is the Ballistic armor rating ....

Now clearly the rating limit doesn't apply to Availability, and it's overly restrictive for armor. I suspect that p. 86 should restrict starting characters to a Device Rating no higher than 6. That fits better with armor, which is generally Device Rating 3-5, even though its Armor ratings are much higher. Unfortunately, this leaves GMs with a judgment call, because the game isn't very good about listing Device Ratings (and the table of examples on p. 222 only goes up to Rating 6).

[Wyldknight]

It's pretty much cleared up when you look at the sample characters. Most of them have armor higher then 6.

[Kontact]

That also means that you can mod a vehicle to 20 armor + 10 smart armor at chargen... which is dodgy.

But 6 is still way too low.

[Mäx]

Assuming yes, are there any other exceptions to this rule? And are the exceptions actually listed in the rules anywhere?

Armor isn't an exception to that rule, armors don't come in different ratings they only come in different modes that have different stats.
Armored jacket migh have ballistic armor rating of 8, but it's not rating 8 armor its armored jacket(rating 1 if you insist that it must have a rating)

Same as you can buy a shotgun or a sniper rifle in chargen even thought those have damage value higher then 6 or how you can buy vehicles in chargen even though those have many stats above 6.

Rating limit only applies to stuff that is listed as being available in different ratings.

[Bradd]

I'm inclined to agree, except that Matrix devices work both ways. You can choose from a wide variety of commlinks, all with different Matrix attributes, just like armor. Likewise for stock operating systems. However, you can also buy the same Matrix attributes as custom hardware modules and software, in which case it follows the rating model.

For example, this ruling would allow you to buy an MCT Tactical commlink (7/7), but you could not upgrade a Singularity Battle Buddy Basic (5/5) to the same stats with hardware upgrade modules, because rating 7 modules are not allowed. (In practice, you'll run into Availability problems anyway; I'm ignoring that to focus on the one issue.)

There are ways to explain the discrepancy, like saying the components are harder to come by than the package deal, only that's not really true according to Availability. Really I think it's just an unintended consequence of a poorly-specified rule. They intended for some ratings to normally fall on a 1-6 scale, but they did a poor job of distinguishing that from the ratings with no such limit. As new products like WAR! break some of the old limits, it's hard to say when the 1-6 rule applies and when it doesn't. Are Matrix devices supposed to have a 6 cap, or should they work more like armor now?

[Chaemera]

Armor isn't an exception to that rule, armors don't come in different ratings they only come in different modes that have different stats.
Armored jacket migh have ballistic armor rating of 8, but it's not rating 8 armor its armored jacket(rating 1 if you insist that it must have a rating)

Same as you can buy a shotgun or a sniper rifle in chargen even thought those have damage value higher then 6 or how you can buy vehicles in chargen even though those have many stats above 6.

While I'm inclined to agree with the concept, weapons aren't a good example of it, since weapons don't have any ratings involved except for Reach on melee weapons (whereas Armor is measured by its Ballistic Rating and Impact Rating). It has numerical values for "Damage Value", "Armor Penetration Value", "Amount of Recoil Compensation", and "Ammo Capacity". Since none of them are ratings, even if you wanted to argue that armor should be restricted by its ratings to the "Rating < 6 for starting gear" rule, weapons would make a poor counter-example since the only rating a weapon has (other than the device rating of it's smart-link, if applicable) is reach for melee weapons, and no melee weapon comes close to Reach 6.

Vehicles, similarly only have Ratings for Pilot, Body, and Sensor, and nothing a character at creation could consider (due to availability) rose past 6 in those.  So they aren't a good counter-example to the argument that armor should be limited at creation to Rating < 6.

Pre-War, commlinks and software were similarly Rating < 6 in all stats.

Everything else is single-rating, thus clearly being affected by the rule, so there's really nothing other than personal preference and common sense that says Armor is exempt from the rule.

[Bradd]

Vehicle Body does go pretty high without exceeding Availability 12, although I'm not sure whether it's a "rating" or an "attribute." (Same goes for commlinks, now that I think of it.)

[Chaemera]

Vehicle Body does go pretty high without exceeding Availability 12, although I'm not sure whether it's a "rating" or an "attribute." (Same goes for commlinks, now that I think of it.)

Body's not a rating, my bad earlier. However, Armor is a rating, and I just noticed that that quickly gets violated without crossing the Availability 12 threshold, so that's a good counter-example.

And you're right on commlinks, Signal is defined as a "computer attribute", as is Response. See page 217 of SR4A. Then again, they go on to have a table labeled "Signal Rating Table", which thus makes it a rating instead of an attribute... so, um, yeah, GM's call, b/c they're inconsistent.

[Glyph]

Rating, as I read the intention of the rules, is meant to apply to gear that has variable ratings, rather than things like armor value for armor, or damage value for weapons.  In other words, you can buy an armored jacket, but if you get the fire resistance modification for it, you can only get that modification up to rating: 6.

[Bradd]

Yes, I think that's the intention, but as Chaemera and I have noted, there's an inconsistency when it comes to Matrix devices. Commlinks don't have variable ratings, but commlink upgrade modules do, so are commlink Matrix attributes capped at 6 or not?

For comparison, suppose there were an Impact armor modification that works similar to a commlink upgrade, replacing the inherent armor instead of adding to it like a helmet, Rating 1–12. Would starting characters be limited to Rating 6, even though they can readily get Impact 7+ in other ways?

[Mäx]

Yes, I think that's the intention, but as Chaemera and I have noted, there's an inconsistency when it comes to Matrix devices. Commlinks don't have variable ratings, but commlink upgrade modules do, so are commlink Matrix attributes capped at 6 or not?

For comparison, suppose there were an Impact armor modification that works similar to a commlink upgrade, replacing the inherent armor instead of adding to it like a helmet, Rating 1–12. Would starting characters be limited to Rating 6, even though they can readily get Impact 7+ in other ways?

Yes on the second one and a yes on the first one too, unless the GM raises the availebilty limits(or throw this silly, silly limit out of the window ) you can't get a comlink with stats higher then 6.

[Bradd]

Yes to both is kinda consistent at least, if also kinda crazy. Throwing out the rule might not be a bad idea. There aren't many things available over rating 6 anyway! Besides milspec commlinks, the only thing that comes to mind is Damage Compensators, and at Rating 7+ they're over 20 Availability anyway.