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Dumpshock Forums _ Shadowrun _ Security Armor
Posted by: Pallantides Jun 19 2006, 08:33 PM
Since the Search function didn't seem to turn up any results, I was wondering if anyone had converted the old SR3 Security Armors over to SR4?
Never having played SR3 myself and only owning the BBB, I eyeballed the stats at 10/12/14 for each Ballistic grade, but overall the armor conversions seem pretty spotty. Does anyone else have anything cooked up?
Posted by: Shrike30 Jun 19 2006, 08:37 PM
A suit of SR4's "Full Body Armor" and the helmet that goes along with it would be comparable to SR3's "Light Security Armor", in my mind.
Posted by: X-Kalibur Jun 19 2006, 08:46 PM
| QUOTE (Shrike30) |
| A suit of SR4's "Full Body Armor" and the helmet that goes along with it would be comparable to SR3's "Light Security Armor", in my mind. |
I'd hate to see what kind of numbers they give military grade combat armor then.
Posted by: Brahm Jun 19 2006, 09:00 PM
I was guessing it translated roughly to Medium Security Armor, or sitting somewhere between Light and Medium. It has some of the other features of Security Armor such as an optional environmental seal.
Posted by: Brahm Jun 19 2006, 09:04 PM
| QUOTE (X-Kalibur @ Jun 19 2006, 03:46 PM) | ||
I'd hate to see what kind of numbers they give military grade combat armor then. |
Although the helmet had an extra +1 and the suits had a +1 (+2 for Heavy) over their civy counterparts, by far the biggest difference between Security and Mil Spec was the hardening. I think they could get away with not having any different numbers at all with the suit, just hardening, and maybe an extra +1 on the helmets.
Posted by: Shrike30 Jun 19 2006, 09:22 PM
SR2's Milspec was a lot more impressive than SR3's milspec. I was almost sad to see how much they'd been toned down, actually.
SR3's Milspec armor made APDS ammunition pretty much a requirement.
Posted by: Pallantides Jun 21 2006, 05:39 PM
Hmm, so we're looking at 10/12/14 vs 12/14/16 Ballistic? Sounds good, I'll probably side with the latter.
Milspec maybe 16/18/20 with Hardened?
Posted by: Brahm Jun 21 2006, 05:45 PM
| QUOTE (Pallantides) |
| Hmm, so we're looking at 10/12/14 vs 12/14/16 Ballistic? Sounds good, I'll probably side with the latter. Milspec maybe 16/18/20 with Hardened? |
Er, no. That's more insane than spirits.
Posted by: Jaid Jun 21 2006, 05:54 PM
| QUOTE (Brahm) | ||
Er, no. That's more insane than spirits. |
heck, that's almost as good as citymaster's armor, isn't it? =P
Posted by: Shrike30 Jun 21 2006, 06:00 PM
You've got to keep this stuff in perspective with what we're slinging around, don't forget. If nothing else, use the Panther AC as a baseline.
At 10/-5, and figuring in the 1 net success needed to actually hurt something, a PAC reliably punches through 16 points of armor. With 3 net successes, it can do 18, with 5 net successes 
it can do 20. Hardening it means anything staged down to stun damage will be ignored.
Heavy milspec armor running 20 Hardened, then, would require 5 sucesses with a PAC to do anything to the wearer (at which point he'd probably nearly fill his condition monitor rolling 15+body against an incoming 15 DV).
Some of the fluff back in... was it Fof?... mentioned they were working towards a powered version of this stuff. If you want to assume that they've managed to pull that off in a light fashion (it's powered enough to assist with it's own weight and allow the user to sling larger weapons), then a PA-Milspec soldier's basic "rifle" might be built on an machinegun frame, probably an MMG or HMG. If memory serves, the MMG profile is 7/-3. Assume APDS ammunition, and figure in that one basic success again, and your performance is nearly the same as the PAC (you're reliably punching through 15 points of armor), except now you've got an autofire option. The PAC would probably become a Designated Marksman's weapon, packing a little more punch but being much more accurate over range than the MMG-rifle carried by most of the people in a squad. Scope it and put a suppressor on it, and you've got a decent, if slow-firing, rifle. Another option would be the WA-2100, loaded with APDS, but IIRC this won't outperform the basic rifle except in fluff terms and max range.
The PAC feels a little gimped this time around. 20 points of hardened armor is going to make someone nearly invulnerable.
My suggestion would be to eliminate the "medium" grade of both kinds of armor. Assuming they're wearing a helmet, FBA gets a user to 12/10 (IIRC). So, Light Sec Armor would be 12/10, Heavy Sec Armor would be 14/12. Light Milspec Armor would be 16/14 Hardened, and Heavy Milspec Armor would be 18/16 hardened.
This is all assuming, of course, that you want people in this kind of armor to be even vaguely killable If that's not the case, slap on another point or two of armor and go to town. Or you could keep the medium grades, have Heavy Security and Light Milspec overlapping at 16/14 (with the Light Milspec being Hardened), and have Heavy rolling 20/18 Hardened (and hopefully being used for extremely special applications type stuff ). All of these numbers assume helmets.
Posted by: James McMurray Jun 21 2006, 06:03 PM
If you want unkillable the safest thing to do is not give stats. Surround them in a protective bubble of plotdevicium.
Posted by: Nim Jun 21 2006, 06:04 PM
Just a side point, but I think your numbers are off by 1, Shrike. DV has to actually be ABOVE the rating of hardened armor in order to penetrate, doesn't it? Not just equal?
Posted by: Shrike30 Jun 21 2006, 06:20 PM
If that's the case, bump all my required successes by 1 
Posted by: Brahm Jun 21 2006, 06:33 PM
| QUOTE (Jaid @ Jun 21 2006, 12:54 PM) | ||||
heck, that's almost as good as citymaster's armor, isn't it? =P |
Not almost.
Citymaster has Armor 20. With one of those on and a tweaked Body 15 a Troll could basically become a Citymaster (Body 16).| QUOTE |
| My suggestion would be to eliminate the "medium" grade of both kinds of armor. |
That is what I was getting at before when I suggested that Full Body Armor basically was Medium Armor. Although I could also see reduced armor versions being available since it is all custom made items anyway, allowing the environmental seal option for lower Body people. I'd give Mil Spec at most 14/12 and 16/14, or even just the same 12/10 and 14/12 but hardened. Otherwise you are still in the range of man-powered mecha, even if Emo would think man-powered mecha AWESOME.
Posted by: Shrike30 Jun 21 2006, 07:43 PM
I work under the assumption that military units in environments where you're using Milspec armor load APDS almost exclusively. If it's just a UCAS patrol out there in Armored Jackets with helmets, they might be loading Standard ammo (which would require 3 successes to do Physical damage to someone in similar armor).
APDS in an assault rifle immediately has you penetrating armor 12 with the basic 1 net success. The minute you start talking about putting APDS in sniper rifles or even LMGs, it's not going to matter if your 14 points of armor are Hardened or not. Milspec armor is designed to get hit by milspec ammo... a bunch of gangers spraying hardball-fed Uzi IV's at some UCAS troopers in Milspec should be signing their own death warrants.
If this stuff isn't hardened, then at 16 points of armor it's possible to pummel the wearer into submission by hitting him a number of times, despite the presence of body armor... it basically becomes a glorified suit of Security armor.
This stuff should not be seen on the streets of Seattle unless martial law is declared, and it should not be stuff your runners encounter unless they're in the habit of breaking onto alert-stance military bases and harassing the guards. Security armor would be viewed as being heavy enough for most encounters (I envision SWAT teams as wearing Full Body Armor with helmets, parallel to helmeted LSA, mostly due to it being a little lighter and imposing less of a problem with mobility), with HSA being deployed for groups like riot cops, HTR, and corporate enforcers. LMA would be the thing that elite infantry groups wear into the kind of combat zones where the life expectancy of some squaddie with an Armored Jacket and a helmet is measured in hours. HMA would be special deployment only, difficult to procure, very expensive, but also nearly as good as being in an APC in terms of protection for the wearer.
Like I said, I wouldn't set HMA at 20. 18's a really good, solid number to be sitting on. If you get below 16, pretty much any heavy-caliber weapon loading APDS is going to penetrate the armor simply by hitting it, and the places this armor is designed to go are pretty much full of heavy-caliber weapons.
Posted by: James McMurray Jun 21 2006, 07:49 PM
As a clarification (not that I think anyone has mentioned it yet): burst fire does not count when determinging if an attack penetrates armor.
Posted by: Shrike30 Jun 21 2006, 07:50 PM
Nah, but it's real good for upping the damage once you've blown through.
Hell, even if you *don't* blow through, putting a 10-round burst from a submachinegun into someone wearing 16 points of non-hardened armor (assume they've got body 5) is going to do 15-(21/3)=8 points of stun, on average (there's a reason I houseruled the armor a bit, but this discussion is RAW). Change that to an assault rifle, and 2 net successes would likely have this character flat on his ass unconcious (6/-2, 17-(19/3)=10.66 points of stun, round to 11, on average).
EDIT: This gets even more ridiculous the minute you load something besides Standard ammo. Assault rifle loading Explosive ammo (not EXEX, just EX) sits at 7/-3. Fire a short burst (the typical "I can hit this guy" burst) and you're looking at doing an average of 4 points of stun with every burst that makes the requisite 1 net success.
Posted by: Brahm Jun 21 2006, 08:06 PM
The numbers for APDS and Ex-Ex are a whole other ball of stupid.
But that aside Shrike30, drawing from current day realities of military that isn't actually true. The heaviest armor still stops most FMJ rounds from penetrating out past a fairly short distance, but armor piercing certainly isn't the norm for military load outs. Then you are putting them up against taking direct 10 round narrow burst? OMG, no shit they shouldn't be walking away from that.
But just moving past Reality™, it makes thing get really AWESOME (read:stupid) from a gaming point of view to have that sort of super high end armor. That APDS? It might penetrate, but your numbers are still off on damage sponging. Body 5 people aren't going to be wearing 14 Armor because they won't be able to move much less fight. So you are looking at 21 dice minimum.
Posted by: Shrike30 Jun 21 2006, 08:25 PM
Body 5 lets you wear up to 10 points of armor without noticeably slowing down. Wearing 14 points of armor incurs a -2 die penalty on a variety of things (as the +2/+2 helmet does not count towards the armor rating for purposes of calculating encumberance).
What I was trying to demonstrate was that someone firing a pistol-caliber weapon on full auto loading normal ammunition was not only capable of putting someone wearing 16 points of unhardened armor flat on his ass, he was probably going to manage to pull it off. Simply swapping to a weapon more likely to be seen in the field (an assault rifle) made it likely that eating that burst would knock the armored target unconcious in one volley, despite not having made it through the armor. I added the "AR short burst of explosive" example to put this in a context people might be more familiar with.
As for AP ammunition not being the norm for military loadouts, we aren't talking about a normal military loadout (which would likely see troopers wearing armored jackets and helmets, like I described). The minute you start talking about sticking people into full body suits that make them look like something out of a sci-fi movie (which certainly matches the few pictures we've got of SR's milspec armor), you're beyond the scope of a normal military deployment.
Shadowrun has stats for jet fighters, t-birds, and (if you duck back into previous versions) aircraft carriers. Putting together stats for the heaviest body armor built to date and having them able to survive a few plinks with an assault rifle, then saying "you should pray to your deity of choice that you never fight someone wearing this unprepared" doesn't sound unreasonable.
Please explain to me where I blew my math on the soaking. I figured in the 1 net hit required to do damage, and the average 3 body/armor = 1 less point of damage... no, wait, I found it. EDIT: no, I didn't find it. Those numbers are correct, as far as I can tell.
Posted by: Shrike30 Jun 21 2006, 08:34 PM
As a small addition to that, 7.62x51mm SLAP ammunition and the 5.56x45mm M995 round (with a tungsten carbide penetrator) have been around for a while in US military service. I'm not sure how commonly they're deployed, but I get the impression it's not super-rare.
Posted by: Apathy Jun 21 2006, 09:13 PM
What makes us think that they'd have stuff that was any sturdier than the security teams? Ballistic armor that our soldiers wear today isn't really any better than high-end security armor. Additionally, my [limited] experience has been that the Army has a much more callous perspective about the inevitability of casualties (Can't sue the Army for dangerous/insufficient equipment, but that sort of thing happens in private industry all the time.) At most, I'd think the difference between security and milspec would be the hardening.
Today's armor is much more about blast- and shrapnel protection than stopping bullets. Soldiers are expected to use cover and concealment to avoid the bullets. Additionally, the Army tends to think about the lowest common denominator. 'We can't use armor that's too heavy/restrictive, because the really un-coordinated (low agility) privates won't be able to shoot straight.'
The one exception I could see to this rule would be the uniform for MPs (military police) or other 'occupying forces' in 'hot' zones. They don't get the normal options of hiding and taking cover, and usually aren't using as many active skills (spending most of their time standing around acting as a visual deterrent.) I could see the Army throwing some extra layers on those guys, but still only a few extra points.
Posted by: Nim Jun 21 2006, 09:34 PM
The problem with looking at modern-day usage of body armor in the military as a basepoint is that it's in a state of flux. Compare the use of body armor in today's militaries to the usage in the same forces just 20 years ago. My perception, at least, is that is far closer to being standard issue now, where it was used only in special circumstances just a couple decades ago. Keeping that in mind, it seems safe to assume that continuing advances in the state of the art (especially with renewed interest in the entire field right now) will have the situation 20 years from NOW bearing little resemblence to today...either because armor will improve, or because weapons will improve, or both.
There's really no point in guessing based on 'armies today do X'. Probably better to just look at the situation as it's outlined in the book (in terms of the effectiveness of armor versus the weapons of the day, and the cost / disadvantages of using that armor) and go from there. What will win wars best?
Posted by: Shrike30 Jun 21 2006, 09:41 PM
| QUOTE (Apathy) |
| What makes us think that they'd have stuff that was any sturdier than the security teams? Ballistic armor that our soldiers wear today isn't really any better than high-end security armor. Additionally, my [limited] experience has been that the Army has a much more callous perspective about the inevitability of casualties (Can't sue the Army for dangerous/insufficient equipment, but that sort of thing happens in private industry all the time.) At most, I'd think the difference between security and milspec would be the hardening. |
Previous versions of SR have indicated through fluff, game stats, and pictures that military-grade armor is significantly heavier and better protecting than security-grade armor. SR2's stats for milspec armor, if memory serves, let you get 14 points of ballistic armor (in SR2 terms, as well... we've had Armor Inflation since then) on the high end, whereas security armor went up to something like 8.
Plenty of sources talk about your average grunt wearing an armored jacket and a helmet. This provided nearly as much protection as Light Security Armor in previous editions and implied a much greater level of mobility and much lighter weight. Milspec armor, then, was obviously not intended for basic grunts to wear.
The basis of this in modern armor? Virtually none. Look to a lot of cyberpunk sources for the kind of imagery you should be imagining here.
Security armor is reminiscent of the "shell" armor types worn by police in anime like Bubblegum Crisis, or the plate armor of the Wolf Brigade in Jin Roh, or the kind of armor worn by the Judges in Judge Dredd: obvious plating covering vitals, often styled for intimidation, and some sort of ballistic undergarment providing protection for the rest of your body. Lots of pictures of corporate goons or other big, scary looking guys in SR books are wearing Security armor.
Military armor has always been depicted as being, essentially, a suit of armor. Not a body sheath and plates, not particularly open to the air... a suit, looking a lot like we imagine powered armor might (although they have previously said it isn't powered). Massive heavy plates interlocking over the chest, limbs inside of hard shells with guards protecting the joints, a sealed helmet with environmental systems, strange bugeyes, and some sort of flexible seal that lets it turn at the neck. The eyes probably glow, the armor makes noise when you move in it... it's not subtle, it's just solid. You could probably put the wearer on an airless moon and have him fight in it, or napalm the field he's in the middle of and have him turn up the AC.
It's not that security teams wouldn't necessarily have access to this stuff... it's that security teams don't have a NEED or WANT for this stuff. Security teams rarely find themselves battling a mechanized force in a destroyed city, under heavy shelling for days at a time, or assaulting fortified positions with autocannon and mortar coverage. Security teams talk to people, chase runners down hallways, and have to be able to turn sideways and let someone holding a bunch of photocopies run to the meeting they're late to... while they're well trained and aggressive, turning them into walking, death-dealing humanoid monsters interferes with productivity at the office. Nobody likes walking past a 6'6" hulk of armor with glaring eyes built into it's helmet carring a machine gun down the hallway.
Posted by: Austere Emancipator Jun 21 2006, 09:44 PM
| QUOTE (Shrike30) |
| As a small addition to that, 7.62x51mm SLAP ammunition and the 5.56x45mm M995 round (with a tungsten carbide penetrator) have been around for a while in US military service. I'm not sure how commonly they're deployed, but I get the impression it's not super-rare. |
7.62x51mm SLAP ammo is by all accounts extremely rare/simply unavailable, unless you're a Swedish sniper. The 7.62x51mm equivalent of the M995, the M993 tungsten AP rounds, is deployed in number. AFAIK, the M993 can penetrate heaviest common forms of body armor (NIJ level IV), no idea about M995. Either will zip right through any flexible body armor.
In fiscal years 05-07, the US Army procured in the order of 1.4 billion M855 5.56x45mm ball cartridges in commercial packs, clips, linked for SAWs, etc., vs. 15.2 million total M993 AP cartridges. That's 1 5.56x45mm AP for every 100 FMJs. Also, while the FMJ ammunition is justified as a "training standard item used in both training and combat", the AP rounds are "war reserve" only -- although, for whatever reason, an extra $3 million worth of M995 AP rounds were purchased to support the "global war on terrorism" in 2005.
For 7.62x51mm, it's ~280 million M80 ball cartridges vs. 8.7 million M993 AP, and here the AP ammunition is also for "training and combat" instead of being a war reserve item.
In any case, current military small arms armor piercing ammunition is designed and carried for use against light armored targets (like APCs), and certainly not against opponents wearing body armor.
Posted by: James McMurray Jun 21 2006, 09:47 PM
AE, where are those numbers from?
Posted by: Austere Emancipator Jun 21 2006, 09:48 PM
http://www.asafm.army.mil/budget/fybm/fybm.asp
Posted by: James McMurray Jun 21 2006, 09:50 PM
Gracias senor!
Posted by: Shrike30 Jun 21 2006, 10:18 PM
| QUOTE (Austere Emancipator @ Jun 21 2006, 02:44 PM) |
| In any case, current military small arms armor piercing ammunition is designed and carried for use against light armored targets (like APCs), and certainly not against opponents wearing body armor. |
Now, stick your opponents in 2070's armor that provides nearly the protection of an APC, and the logic changes...
I was unaware that the M995 round was intended to be effective against/through the side of vehicles. Cool.
Posted by: Brahm Jun 21 2006, 10:25 PM
| QUOTE (Shrike30 @ Jun 21 2006, 03:25 PM) |
| Body 5 lets you wear up to 10 points of armor without noticeably slowing down. Wearing 14 points of armor incurs a -2 die penalty on a variety of things (as the +2/+2 helmet does not count towards the armor rating for purposes of calculating encumberance). |
Check the armor rules closer, there was a recent thread here about this. It is Armor compared to just Body. So 12 - 5 = 7 point penalty. Body 5 buddy is going nowhere fast. He'll need to be cutting edge just to move at all.
| QUOTE |
| Now, stick your opponents in 2070's armor that provides nearly the protection of an APC, and the logic changes... |
Exactly the problem trying to avoid. The logic not only changes, it gets run over in an AWESOME way.
Posted by: Austere Emancipator Jun 21 2006, 10:25 PM
| QUOTE (Shrike30) |
| I was unaware that the M995 round was intended to be effective against/through the side of vehicles. Cool. |
I guess it's also useful for any other targets that may be covered in 3+mm of RHA like... uhh... assorted steel plates?
Posted by: Shrike30 Jun 21 2006, 10:30 PM
| QUOTE (Brahm) |
| Check the armor rules closer. It is Armor compared to just Body. So 12 - 5 = 7 point penalty. Body 5 buddy is going nowhere fast. He'll need to be cutting edge just to move at all. |
So that's why people wear armored jackets, which hand your normal Body 3 person a -5 penalty? Or how about Full Body Armor? Yeah, that stuff's great... and a beefy SWAT member at body 5 is going to be dragging around with a -5 penalty wearing it, too?
Check the armor rules closer. You compare it to 2xBody, and it's for every 2 points you exceed that by. A body 3 person wearing an armored jacket (8/6) takes a -1 penalty, for being 2 above (3x2=) 6.
Posted by: Shrike30 Jun 21 2006, 10:32 PM
| QUOTE (Austere Emancipator @ Jun 21 2006, 03:25 PM) |
| I guess it's also useful for any other targets that may be covered in 3+mm of RHA like... uhh... assorted steel plates? |
Hey, steel is something you encounter in an urban environment, as is concrete and rebar. In theory, so is body armor, and I thought the usual M855 was stopped by Class III armor?
Posted by: Austere Emancipator Jun 21 2006, 10:36 PM
| QUOTE (Shrike30) |
| Hey, steel is something you encounter in an urban environment. |
Stand-alone steel is not common, though. AFAICT, AP small arms ammunition will not increase penetration of most building materials nearly enough to justify the increased cost. There's only so much you can do with a 52 grain bullet at Mach 3.
| QUOTE (Shrike30) |
| In theory, so is body armor, and I thought the usual M855 was stopped by Class III armor? |
NIJ level III is indeed rated to protect against M855s. But that's just for the 10" x 12" plates on your chest and back, anything else is unprotected. And, really, do you foresee US soldiers engaging a lot of enemy combatants with modern rigid body armor in the near future?
Posted by: Brahm Jun 21 2006, 10:46 PM
| QUOTE (Shrike30 @ Jun 21 2006, 05:30 PM) | ||
So that's why people wear armored jackets, which hand your normal Body 3 person a -5 penalty? Or how about Full Body Armor? Yeah, that stuff's great... and a beefy SWAT member at body 5 is going to be dragging around with a -5 penalty wearing it, too? |
No, a Body 5 person wearing the 10/8 Full Body Armor doesn't have a penalty at all. Armored Jackets worn by Body 3 people? Yes, they do get a penalty of -(8-3)/2 = -3, which should lead you to a better understanding of how bulky the Armored Jacket is.
| QUOTE |
| Check the armor rules closer. You compare it to 2xBody, and it's for every 2 points you exceed that by. A body 3 person wearing an armored jacket (8/6) takes a -1 penalty, for being 2 above (3x2=) 6. |
As written it is very clear that you compare to Bodyx2 to see if there is a penalty and use just Body to calculate the penalty. But I forgot to half it, rounded up, so it is only a -4 penalty to Reaction for Body 5 wearing armor 12. Which is still damn nasty, yes. They are going to get hit a lot more often, get hit harder, and obviously be much more vulnerable to Gitching when getting shot at.
EDIT I just checked the thread this was mentioned in. You posted to the thread a couple of times, guess you missed the discussion about the penalty calculation on page 149?
All in all you do not want to be getting yourself into an armor penalty situation in SR.
Posted by: Shrike30 Jun 21 2006, 11:27 PM
I'll have to verify it in my BBB when I get home, but we'll go with that for now. It seems a little weird, though, that a person with body 4 is incapable of having a -1 or -2 penalty from their armor.
Milspec armor in SR2 and 3 was scary, scary shit. If you weren't slinging a sniper rifle, PAC or APDS ammunition, firing at a suit of medium milspec + helmet dropped the TN to stage down damage on pretty much everything to 2. Hell, in SR3, you didn't even have to ROLL unless you had AP ammo or could beat that much hardened armor with raw Power. If Milspec is going to make a return in SR4 and have any vague vestige of it's former durability, it's going to have to have pretty high ratings, or it'll just get swisscheesed.
Obviously, we're making this shit up as we go. If the armor penalty rules are actually as stiff as you're saying, something like Milspec would have to have something to compensate for it... either a fixed, permanent penalty ("This armor is power-assisted, but bulky... you always have a -2 Encumberance penalty wearing it"), or some change to the Encumberance rules (which I doubt).
AE: with any luck, we won't get in a major land war with another superpower in the future. Doesn't mean we shouldn't plan for it
Posted by: James McMurray Jun 21 2006, 11:30 PM
What about lowering the base DV of the attack by the armor rating, but otherwise acting as normal armor with bonuses similar to full body armor (perhaps even lower if balance requires it)? I've done absolutely no math, so the idea may be ludicrous, but it popped into my head so I figured I'd let it pop out.
Posted by: Austere Emancipator Jun 21 2006, 11:37 PM
| QUOTE (Shrike30) |
| Doesn't mean we shouldn't plan for it |
Sure. That's what M993 and M995 is for. It's just not designed or meant to be used as a counter to body armor.
Posted by: Shrike30 Jun 21 2006, 11:40 PM
The house-rule I'm currently using for armor (and the numbers I've thrown out for Milspec do NOT reflect this houserule) is that rather than adding dice to the damage resistance roll, you first compare the armor rating to the incoming hit to see if it's Stun or Physical, then you knock half of the armor rating off of the DV of the incoming hit (rather than rolling and averaging 1/3 of the armor rating, with deviation). That's made conventional body armor a lot more useful in my game, and in the case of Milspec it would drop the needed numbers somewhat.
Posted by: Shrike30 Jun 21 2006, 11:42 PM
| QUOTE (Austere Emancipator) |
| Sure. That's what M993 and M995 is for. It's just not designed or meant to be used as a counter to body armor. |
How is it issued, then (if it is)? Are soldiers told to load a few magazines in case they encounter an armored target? Do they just fill their loadouts with AP if they expect to be fighting armored targets? Does the machinegunner carry some of each type of ammo, or just all AP when he expects to need it?
Posted by: Austere Emancipator Jun 21 2006, 11:52 PM
Not ever having witnessed the internal workings of the US DoD, I cannot with confidence answer any of those questions. As I mentioned before, though, M995 is officially a war reserve item only, so I imagine those see extremely little use.
What the criteria are for distributing M993 to combat troops, I cannot say. At a guess, the most common use for it right now is probably anti-material work with the M24. I suppose it would be given to machine gunners when high priority units are tasked with missions where light armored vehicles are a serious threat -- in other words, I doubt many are getting shot out of M240s in combat zones at this time.
Posted by: Brahm Jun 22 2006, 12:05 AM
| QUOTE (Shrike30 @ Jun 21 2006, 06:27 PM) |
| I'll have to verify it in my BBB when I get home, but we'll go with that for now. It seems a little weird, though, that a person with body 4 is incapable of having a -1 or -2 penalty from their armor. |
No need to wait.
| QUOTE (page 149) |
| If either of a character’s armor ratings exceeds his Body x 2, apply a –1 modifi er to Agility and Reaction for every 2 points (or fraction thereof ) that his Body is exceeded. |
| QUOTE |
| Milspec armor in SR2 and 3 was scary, scary shit. If you weren't slinging a sniper rifle, PAC or APDS ammunition, firing at a suit of medium milspec + helmet dropped the TN to stage down damage on pretty much everything to 2. |
Ya, well SR1-3 had a combat system problem with all-or-nothing damage that has been addressed by SR4.
I don't see how bringing the problem back is a good thing to aim for.| QUOTE |
| Hell, in SR3, you didn't even have to ROLL unless you had AP ammo or could beat that much hardened armor with raw Power. If Milspec is going to make a return in SR4 and have any vague vestige of it's former durability, it's going to have to have pretty high ratings, or it'll just get swisscheesed. |
Even numbers as low as I'm suggesting, sadly, doesn't really change that much. With an Assult Rifle, and for the heavier armor even the sniper rifle, you need either some sort of armor penetrating ammo, a good number of hits on the attack roll, or a Called Shot of some sort before the target needs to roll soak on hardened armor. Even with those 25mm HEAT rounds in the XXL, think shooting exploding Italian sausages at Mach 2+, you'd need to roll two hits to get through hardened armor 16. If that isn't scary, then I suggest you might be using the entirely wrong system for your game. Try Nobilis maybe?
Posted by: Austere Emancipator Jun 22 2006, 12:09 AM
Of course if you think it's sane that 25mm HEDP rounds would have trouble penetrating what's basically the equivalent of 2 "armored jackets", well...
Posted by: Shrike30 Jun 22 2006, 12:17 AM
Hey, I said it before and I'll say it again, the Panther XXL is sadly underpowered, especially with the RAW. Any time you can put specialty ammunition into a rifle and make it perform as well as something like the PAC, there's problems.
Posted by: Brahm Jun 22 2006, 12:36 AM
Even without the protection from the PAC, the rest is intact for hardened armor 14. It is part of why Force 7 spirits, which effectively have hardened armor 14, are so damn scary.
Posted by: Shrike30 Jun 22 2006, 05:20 AM
I've got a guy in my group who summons up F9 and F10's all the time. It's fucking *annoying*
Posted by: Brahm Jun 22 2006, 12:13 PM
| QUOTE (Shrike30) |
| I've got a guy in my group who summons up F9 and F10's all the time. It's fucking *annoying* |
??? Ummm, and he's still alive?
Posted by: Shrike30 Jun 22 2006, 05:31 PM
Hasn't popped his skull yet. Behold the wonder that is the twink.
... actually, not exactly true. He popped his skull once, which lead to such yelling and screaming from a couple of the players in my group who didn't like my interpretation of when spirits use Edge (namely, when you try and bind them, in addition to at other times usually deemed necessary by the summoner... something that they'd been aware of for several sessions, but had never killed this character before) that I finally said "fuck it... Critters in general don't have Edge" (which solved a number of problems, let me tell you), rerolled the drain, and bound the spirit to him.
Odds are he's going to kill himself again at some point. It'll be amusing to watch, especially since nobody has any grounds to complain this time out.
Posted by: Geekkake Jun 22 2006, 06:40 PM
Frankly, getting back to the encumberance issue, I don't even use those rules. It's one of the few rules that I ditch in favor of the PCs, simply because I don't want to have to worry about them remembering their mods when I probably won't. It hasn't really caused by balance issues. Of course, the one guy with FBA only used it once, once every NPC in the area was almost done, just for the enviroseal protection against the Seven-7.
Nevertheless, I understand that armor can be heavy and cumbersome. I just don't care, and will hand-wave it away with "superior technology" using goat-spider silk and such-like for flexible, light armor.
Posted by: Brahm Jun 22 2006, 07:01 PM
| QUOTE (Shrike30 @ Jun 22 2006, 12:31 PM) |
| Hasn't popped his skull yet. Behold the wonder that is the twink. ... actually, not exactly true. He popped his skull once, which lead to such yelling and screaming from a couple of the players in my group who didn't like my interpretation of when spirits use Edge (namely, when you try and bind them, in addition to at other times usually deemed necessary by the summoner... something that they'd been aware of for several sessions, but had never killed this character before) that I finally said "fuck it... Critters in general don't have Edge" (which solved a number of problems, let me tell you), rerolled the drain, and bound the spirit to him. Odds are he's going to kill himself again at some point. It'll be amusing to watch, especially since nobody has any grounds to complain this time out. |
They didn't have much grounds before, either.
Especially for Bind. Outside of maybe you not letting them know up front that it could happen that the spirit would resist using Edge?| QUOTE |
| Critters in general don't have Edge" (which solved a number of problems, let me tell you), rerolled the drain, and bound the spirit to him. |
It certainly tames down those highlevel spirits. Our GM just goes by the [edit]house[/edit] ruling that asking a spirit to use Edge is service by itself, which works fairly well. We don't have twinked out mages though, nor even if we did would summoning muchless binding such powerful spirits as that be a wise decision. Because they are played as sentient beings that are quite likely to look down on a mage much as we look down on a bug.
Posted by: James McMurray Jun 22 2006, 07:16 PM
Noooo! All spirits are just tools to be used and discarded!!!
Seriously though, treating spirits as NPCs instead of robots goes a loooong way in balancing them. People don't care so much about abusing the hell out of a toaster, but if the toaster had a personality and might decide to come looking for you later, that's a different story altogether.
Posted by: Nim Jun 22 2006, 07:22 PM
James...just out of curiousity, what's your take on spirits for your game? Are they actually ongoing characters? Is it possible to summon the same spirit again, later, and have them remember you?
Posted by: James McMurray Jun 22 2006, 07:31 PM
It hasn't really come up yet, but they are fully fledged NPCs. Nobody has yet tried to summon the same one as before, but I'd allow it, most likely with a penalty to the conjuring test and/or an increase in time as you're forced to sift through the astral yellow pages rather than just grabbing whatever lands under your finger first.
Also the casters in my group have yet to try binding anything. Low force spirits aren't really worth the effort, and an army of them would detract from everyone else's fun. High force spirits are likely to smack you around on the binding test, especially since they'll probably be using their edge in order to avoid slavery.
Posted by: Shrike30 Jun 22 2006, 07:33 PM
| QUOTE (Brahm) |
| They didn't have much grounds before, either. Especially for Bind. Outside of maybe you not letting them know up front that it could happen that the spirit would resist using Edge? |
The spirits had rolled Edge the last 3 times he'd bound one at that Force, nobody was unaware of the fact that they were doing it, and I've got a group of players that understands math. The fourth time he tried it, it killed him at the beginning of a session. The whole skullpop/arguement/"fuck it" chain was a bit of reorganization in our group when I informed my twinks and their proteges that GM rulings existed for a reason, and I was going to close down the game if it continued to be a lot of combating their egos every time something detrimental happened in-game.
Posted by: Geekkake Jun 22 2006, 07:34 PM
| QUOTE (Shrike30) | ||
The spirits had rolled Edge the last 3 times he'd bound one at that Force, nobody was unaware of the fact that they were doing it, and I've got a group of players that understands math. The fourth time he tried it, it killed him at the beginning of a session. The whole skullpop/arguement/"fuck it" chain was a bit of reorganization in our group when I informed my twinks and their proteges that GM rulings existed for a reason, and I was going to close down the game if it continued to be a lot of combating their egos every time something detrimental happened in-game. |
Good, then you can play in my game.
Posted by: Nim Jun 22 2006, 07:37 PM
I haven't come up with a way to justify it yet, but I'd be tempted to say that spirits only (and always...) spend Edge to resist summoning when the magician spends Edge to PERFORM the summoning
Posted by: Lindt Jun 22 2006, 07:42 PM
| QUOTE (Austere Emancipator) |
| http://www.asafm.army.mil/budget/fybm/fybm.asp |
Im SOO entertained right now.
I love the ammo budget...
5.56mm $214,555,000
7.62mm $113,555,000
9mm $3,848,000
12.7mm $125,112,000
I will NEVER gripe about the cost of an afternoon at the trap range again. 3.8 million usd in pistol bullets... thats NUTS.
Posted by: Geekkake Jun 22 2006, 07:44 PM
| QUOTE (Nim) |
| I haven't come up with a way to justify it yet, but I'd be tempted to say that spirits only (and always...) spend Edge to resist summoning when the magician spends Edge to PERFORM the summoning |
I'd disagree with that. I'd imagine that summoning isn't necessarily a big deal to a spirit. But I would say that a spirit always uses Edge to resist binding.
Posted by: Nim Jun 22 2006, 07:46 PM
| QUOTE (James McMurray @ Jun 22 2006, 02:31 PM) |
| It hasn't really come up yet, but they are fully fledged NPCs. Nobody has yet tried to summon the same one as before, but I'd allow it, most likely with a penalty to the conjuring test and/or an increase in time as you're forced to sift through the astral yellow pages rather than just grabbing whatever lands under your finger first. |
See, I was actually thinking it'd be interesting to go the other direction. Give conjurers a bonus to summon known spirits, and a penalty to pull in a total stranger. Of course, if you have a habit of using and abusing your summoned spirits, the ones you know best don't LIKE you very much. It would reward characters for making nice-nice and paying attention to their interactions with spirits.
It'd be a larger departure from the RAW, but you could even go so far as to say conjurers can ONLY summon a (non-Watcher) spirit if they know its name. Let them have a certain number of known spirits to start with (determine their type and force and write it down). Then, the names of new and more powerful spirits becomes another valuable reward that characters can receive as part of their pay / have as a personal goal / etc etc.
Oh, and reduce a spirit's force by 1 every time it's killed (disrupted?) in combat. Will discourage conjurers from using spirits as disposable resources.
All of that would be house-rules, and they'd change the dynamic, but I don't think they'd do violence to the flavor of the gameworld.
Posted by: James McMurray Jun 22 2006, 08:03 PM
Geekakke: I agree with that. Freethinking beings do everything they can to avoid slavery. Since there's no risk involved in spending edge to resist it, there's no reason not to. That is unless the summoner is willing to do some bargaining, but in that case he could instead summon the spirit and bargain rather than summon the spirit and bind.
Nim: That's not too bad of an idea (both of them). If it comes up in my group we'll definitely discuss both methods. For the name knowing it would require a lot of retconning to make the campaign shape that way.
Posted by: Shrike30 Jun 22 2006, 08:07 PM
Let's move this pretty heavy derail of the thread http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?act=ST&f=26&t=13522 I started a new topic.
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