[UmaroVI]

Or you could just use a Yamaha Sakura Fubuki. Tasers are useful because they are legal, not because they are highly effective - one of the big things that makes SnS so good is being able to add damage to it from narrow bursts. Other than legality, a Defiance is worse than a Yamaha Sakura Fubuki with Stick-n-shock in every way.

[Psikerlord]

I agree with the OP on all the first three points and we have houseruled all of them:

- cyberlimbs get a free +1 armour but can't be upgraded with further armour.
- Form fitting and PPP armour is availability 15, is subject to armour degradation, and reduces BEFORE the armour it is under (not logical, but good for game balance).
- SnS does not scale in damage and is availability 15.

Course everyone has their own set of houserules when playing SR4A. A few of our other houserules to address stuff  we felt was unbalanced:

- Spirits only get half force Edge and can't be commanded to use it.
- No Restricted Gear quality
- No races other than core book
- Sprite power Diagnostics only applies to non-combat gear
- No traditions except from core book.

[Mäx]

Or you could just use a Yamaha Sakura Fubuki. Tasers are useful because they are legal, not because they are highly effective - one of the big things that makes SnS so good is being able to add damage to it from narrow bursts. Other than legality, a Defiance is worse than a Yamaha Sakura Fubuki with Stick-n-shock in every way.

Sakura with S&S is nice but, not that much better unless you really need the extra range(it has more ammo yes, but i can get 6 shockers for the same price).
It also has the nasty problem that if the fight isn't over in the 6 and a half IP:S it has ammo for, it's out of ammo for good(as it takes way too long to fully reload)
And ofcource the burst doesn't for example help at all against spirits(so it has worse damage against the one target type where it really matters)

[Joush]

As for Form Fitting, I mostly agree with Crash. It's just "the thing to have" like armored vests are now. There are little to no good reasons to not having one, but that just makes it an optimal choice, not an overpowered item.

Except armored vest aren't the thing to have now. You have to pick between soft body armor or hard, or a simple plate carrier with strike plates made from steel or ceramic, how much coverage is required..

It's more like if there was one kind of armor that was clearly much better then all others. Anyone that needed armor and wasn't using it would be clearly either too poor or badly connected to get their hands on it, or stupid. It's not an optimal choice, that would just be the best gun. It's an accessory that literally everyone who wears armor should have.

I said this once and i said it again, there's somethink seriously wrong with the way you run the world if the runners can wear a full-body condom where ever they go.

It's explicitly listed as fitting under armor and clothing, breathing and stretching easily. It's more like everyone wearing thermal underwear that can stop an assault rifle round and won't overheat them. Given the lives runners live, it's not even unreasonable to suggest that they'd wear it the vast majority of places. (Given that they'd wear a far less subtle lined coat around too.)

It's written like the person creating it had only the loosest grasp on how the game works, or was assuming the rule (also in Arsenal) that you can wear any one suit of armor without encumbrance was in effect, regardless of if it was or not.

Fun fact: Nothing in the form fitting armor rules says you can't layer form fitting armor with form fitting armor. 12 armor at three body, anyone? Or do you prefer 16 at 4? A nice round 20 as a reward for 5 body? How about a troll with 8 body having 32?

[Kontact]

Obvious cyberlimbs are obvious.

Funny, Page 344 of SR4A says that they are  imminently recognizable... Unless covered by clothing.

So, don't allow them to be covered by clothing?

Keep reading.

In some cases, they are glaringly obvious and outlandish. This
tends to affect the character’s social dealings.

Perhaps dropping 2 B/I armor into a hand or foot is one of those cases? 
If you didn't think it was outlandish, then you wouldn't have brought it up.

There's no realistic way that a hand can provide 2 points of ballistic and impact protection and look normal.
The limb would need to basically be a hardpoint for a long shield piece traveling proximal from the wrist or ankle.

[Joush]

I'll give you that it's outlandish.. but the book says nothing about armor making a limb bulkier or larger. It's simply impossible for there to be any logical way that a hand or foot capable of full normal functioning can hold enough armor to equal, all together, a full suit of heavy body armor. It doesn't make sense that a hand could somehow provide as much protection while remaining full use as a hand, as someone wearing a heavy leather jacket.

You are trying to defend the rules as written for reach for abstract in game consequences the rules should have. It's not a bad option if you really don't want to introduce a house rule, but nothing you say is going to convince me that these rules should be this way, or were intended to work this way.

[KarmaInferno]

DMSO turns other drugs into contact vector, however. So in this case, so chemical protection should work.

(double-take)
For the past several weeks, I've been reading DMSO as making the other chemical INJECTION, not contact. In fact I've said it more than once in this forum thread.

You know that Dimethyl Sulfoxide is a real-world chemical, yes?

Pretty nifty stuff. Mix it with lemon juice, stick your finger in it, suddenly taste lemon in your mouth.

Also used to dissolve stuff in industrial applications, as it's weakly acidic.



-k

[The Big Peat]

Or you could just use a Yamaha Sakura Fubuki. Tasers are useful because they are legal, not because they are highly effective - one of the big things that makes SnS so good is being able to add damage to it from narrow bursts. Other than legality, a Defiance is worse than a Yamaha Sakura Fubuki with Stick-n-shock in every way.

Sakura with S&S is nice but, not that much better unless you really need the extra range(it has more ammo yes, but i can get 6 shockers for the same price).
It also has the nasty problem that if the fight isn't over in the 6 and a half IP:S it has ammo for, it's out of ammo for good(as it takes way too long to fully reload)
And ofcource the burst doesn't for example help at all against spirits(so it has worse damage against the one target type where it really matters)

Price is kinda irrelevant at least for guns - so yes, its not that difficult to have tons of tasers, or mod some to be semiautomatic... but the fact that the Fubuki is more expensive doesn't really count against it, and neither does its loading as you just carry a spare.

Any combat that goes beyond 12 IPs is, by and large, one you should be running away from. And probably one where you could have brought along your machine pistol, if not something bigger.

The Fubuki does more damage (against anything but spirits), has better range, is more concealable (which I consider a fair sized plus) and requires less reloading. Some of these benefits might be fairly minimal, but it is at worst overall equal and in my opinion, better.

Plus you can always put Stick n' Shock into something that fires even more bullets. Like said machine pistol. Which really changes the damage modifiers.

I don't think tasers are crap and I don't think there is no place for them. But they're not superior to Stick n' Shock and they're not good enough that removing Stick n' Shock does nothing to effect the ease of using non-lethal weapons; at least at my table.

[CanRay]

Typical Shadowruns don't happen on plains or even forest conditions.  Typically, they're in buildings, back alleys, dark streets...

What was it that a Police Research Paper said about gunfights in a city between criminals and officers?  Nope, can't find the reference book.    Probably lost in one of the many moves...

Most gunfights happen at 21 feet or less.

-Jn-
Ifriti Sophist

Thanks JN.  Hopefully that book is still just packed somewhere.  It's OOP now. 

[JoeNapalm]

I'll give you that it's outlandish.. but the book says nothing about armor making a limb bulkier or larger. It's simply impossible for there to be any logical way that a hand or foot capable of full normal functioning can hold enough armor to equal, all together, a full suit of heavy body armor. It doesn't make sense that a hand could somehow provide as much protection while remaining full use as a hand, as someone wearing a heavy leather jacket.

You are trying to defend the rules as written for reach for abstract in game consequences the rules should have. It's not a bad option if you really don't want to introduce a house rule, but nothing you say is going to convince me that these rules should be this way, or were intended to work this way.

Actually, cyberlimb armor has a totally different function than body armor - and one that is easier to achieve.

Body armor had to cover your soft, squishy, 98% water meat body. It has to dissipate nearly all of the energy from any projectile, while still being wearable by your sweaty, squishy meat body.

Cyberlimb armor just needs to absorb enough energy to protect the titanium and ceramic limb underneath. It doesn't have to worry about much other than that.

For example...a Class IIIA soft vest will stop a 12ga slug dead in it's tracks, but the blunt force trauma from the impact can still kill the person wearing the vest if it hits them, say, directly over their heart. That same Class IIIA armor over a cyberlimb would result in no damage, because it stopped the slug and the shockwave didn't do diddly to the metal underneath.

So, same weapon, same projectile, same amount of energy impacting the target. Armor worn over meat, result is death. Exact same armor for a cyberlimb, result is mild annoyance.

All of that aside, consider the costs. I think a lined coat is, what? ¥700? What does the armor on a limb cost? My guess is that the limb armor is using more advanced materials.

-Jn-
Ifriti Sophist

[Mäx]

It's explicitly listed as fitting under armor and clothing, breathing and stretching easily.

Yes, but the full suit is still a full-body condom.
The fact you wear other clothes on top of it doen't change that.

The Fubuki does more damage (against anything but spirits)

No it does same damage(6s +2 from the short narrow burst) against anything but spirits, against witch it does worse damage.

[Tsuzua]

Obvious cyberlimbs are obvious.

Funny, Page 344 of SR4A says that they are  imminently recognizable... Unless covered by clothing.

So, don't allow them to be covered by clothing?

Keep reading.

In some cases, they are glaringly obvious and outlandish. This
tends to affect the character’s social dealings.

Perhaps dropping 2 B/I armor into a hand or foot is one of those cases? 
If you didn't think it was outlandish, then you wouldn't have brought it up.

There's no realistic way that a hand can provide 2 points of ballistic and impact protection and look normal.
The limb would need to basically be a hardpoint for a long shield piece traveling proximal from the wrist or ankle.

Consider that the previous sentence is

They are often chromed or matte colors but visibly mechanical in nature.

  It's clear they're talking about stuff like the cosmetic mods in Augmentation where you can cover it pink neon lights depicting lewd acts.

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. 

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. 

We would have see way more characters using cyberlimbs over the years if it wasnt' for the fact that they sucked so horrifically that no one touched them.  I'm not saying everyone has one, but it should be a decent enough percentage roughly like that of trolls or dwarves (2% each).

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.   

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.

[JoeNapalm]

I'd love to see a boost to Bone Lace and Orthoskin...

...but that may be because my favorite PC has them.

Yeah, I can't really make any other argument. *Grin*

-Jn-
Ifriti Sophist

[The Big Peat]

Oops, brainfart. And there's some other places narrow spread DV doesn't help too much. Anyway, I stand by the rest of the post.

[Joush]

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.