Well, as long as I am around, you can count on 1 GM to allow this - as long as it is per RAW.

Hmm Sorry I asked this questions...though I did get the answer I was looking for on page one. Thanks folks....

I'll be perfectly honest, the encumbrance system in SR4 seems to have a few gaps. Primarily, shields is where I start to have exceptions to the rules. I personally can't justify a shield contributing to armor based encumbrance.

Follow with me for a bit here.

My prime issue with encumbrance with armor is that it stems mostly from the body stat. I read through the attribute description trying to divine why body would be applicable to encumbrance.



I've bolded what I felt are the descriptors of body that would be related to encumbrance. I believe that both of them together make a reasonable encumbrance definition. Simply that armor beyond your body x 2 is just considered too bulky or heavy for your frame to hold. However shields begin to cross the line of what is reasonable. A riot shield is typically only 5-6 pounds (2.5-3kg) and it is strapped to your forearm. Since it provides +6 impact armor, you're encumbered wearing it if you have less than 3 body, and that's without considering any armor. The problem is that armor encumbrance, by the rules, is solely determined by armor value. Yes strength plays a part in encumbrance, but none of the game charts does anything like discuss weights. This means that in many cases, as the book states, if they players are carrying a reasonable amount of gear there's no reason to worry about encumbrance. So why are there such easy to apply encumbrance rules for armor when there's such a relaxed attitude towards gear encumbrance?

Just imagine a typical riot control cop. Think any old cop basically, since they're all trained to take part in riot control. They have their shields, but they are still quite capable and effective at using their other arm. Going by Shadowrun rules, they would need to have 9 body to be able to use that gear without encumbrance. If we assume that the average cop has 4 body, then the cop is still suffering a -5 to both agility and reaction. This would undoubtedly drop the cop's agility and reaction to 0 or lower, making it exceedingly difficult just to hit something that is standing still. From video I've seen of riot cops, it doesn't look like they have issues swinging about their clubs.

Form-fitted body armor is counted as half armor for encumbrance. Why shouldn't there be a difference for shields?

I still somehow think Body+Strength would have been better for the Armor Stuff than Body x 2 . .

I like Sigma's approach. If I were to design the system, honestly, I might just cap all worn armour at BOD + STR, with no exceptions except custom-fitted armour, which would be ten times as expensive and half as cumbersome. Dermal plating would weigh you down, as would FFBA, coveralls, or any of these things. The only form of carryable protection that wouldn't encumber you would be a shield, and that's because you're already giving up use of an arm for it.

But that's not RAW. RAW is what poor Night Jackal wanted, and now s/he's rightfully terrified.

Me too, as well as allowing everythink to stack.

Further, I don't agree with the penalty, and I think this is partially a flaw of the number of attributes. I can understand and agree with the agility penalty to an extent. Bulkier armor IS going to restrict your movement and make finer control harder. When I disagree with this, it's mostly because I'm thinking of some of the agility based skills and the fine control required for them. For a lot of them, it makes sense, until you get to the some of the larger firearms. The finesse in firearms is steadying your aim. The better your agility, the less gun shake you should have when aiming. Recoil partially addresses this issue, but recoil is a matter of post-shot, not pre-shot. If you give someone a rifle they will, in most cases, have better aim kneeling than standing and better aim laying prone than kneeling. They can compensate better for the weight and small movements don't cause as large of a shake while prone compared to standing.

What I don't agree with is the reaction penalty. This is because some reactions are going to be based more on strength, and some on finesse. The linking of reaction and agility as an encumbrance penalty implies that encumbrance is one of finesse, not of ability. My biggest gripe is that when I think of reaction as a separate stat, the application of reaction and how effective is going to be dependent on your strength, agility, and to an extent body (using SR attributes). I may have awesome reaction, as defined by reflexes. Very fast, but without agility those reflexes won't mean jack in trying to react to whatever it is I'm reacting to. Likewise, if someone throws a punch at me and I can react to it and block it, that doesn't necessarily mean success if I don't have the strength to negate or reduce the force of the blow, or a body that can absorb the remaining force.

Reaction is a bit too fuzzy of an attribute, but like with any combat oriented game, initiative rules, and reaction is necessary for initiative.

I would like to add that I don't necessarily disagree with a Reaction stat or the number of stats in this game, it just seems that Reaction is a terribly applied attribute. It is used to derive initiative, and only linked to the driving and dodge skills, and has few to no uses beyond that. I would also like to express frustration at how overloaded agility is.

Obviously the same for myself, as long as its RAW I am more than willing to go with it. Its never a problem in my games anyway (IMG:style_emoticons/default/spin.gif)

I go mostly RAW but if a rule brakes fluff I some times house rule around it. But insane armor stacking can happen in my games but its mostly pointless what you've got all this armor on you it makes you unable to move and you in VR well some thugs come in and start takings it off before iceing you. Thoe onlyadavatage is in direct combat and thats not too big. Magic is there for a reason.

I would also suggest that given that said armor is apparently more structurally sound than a bunker, tossing a kilo or two of C-4 into it would do interesting things, chunky salsa wise.

Ah-hahahaha!

Thugs taking the armor while you're in VR? Hahahaha!

Ok, you're troll-sized (full mobility of a troll, only better: 8 Str, 8 Bod, 10+ Agi, 9+ Rea), you have 200+ armor, you have a MINIGUN in your chest, a 15+ initiative, 5 IP, and you think thugs will be able to steal things from you?

No sir, I think not.

See the above post, and rethink getting close enough to "toss in" some C-4.