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Moving Target ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 118 Joined: 16-December 06 Member No.: 10,387 ![]() |
I was playing around to see how much armor you can pack onto a starting character, and what I came up with surprised me. As far as I can tell, you can build a legal starting character with 35/29 armor and no encumbrance (except for the automatic -1 penalty for using a shield). He can even have pretty solid magical defenses, mostly thanks to the Astral Hazing metagenic quality.
I wouldn't expect any GM to allow this character, but it's an interesting study in where all the bonuses come from, as a way to consider what might be worth disallowing. At the end, I'll list the detailed build. First, though, a summary of where all that armor came from -- the character has 64 combined (B + I) points of armor, which come from: 35 - SR4 core book (armor jacket, helmet, ballistic shield, dermal plating, troll natural armor)Also, a character with Body 10 (troll max) should only be able to wear 40 combined points of armor without encumbrance, so there are 24 points of encumbrance reduction, either through natural armor that doesn't add to encumbrance, explicit encumbrance reduction, or ways to boost Body. Those come from: 8 - SR4 core book (dermal plating, troll natural armor)I think the biggest offenders are the stacking armor types (FFBA and PPP) from Arsenal. The Restricted Gear quality also makes a big difference, though that's an issue of frontloading character power rather than long-term power creep. Metagenic qualities and softweave armor are each minor contributors on their own, but they add up. Note that Genetic optimization, while not necessary in this build, is another cheap way to increase Body (and thus the encumbrance limit). The build (only the parts that apply to armor rating and encumbrance): Metatype: 40 BP (Troll)While this takes up a good chunk of the character's build, he still has 255 points left with which to round himself out -- not too bad! Did I miss anything? Are there ways to boost starting armor even further? One last note: A more balanced defensive build would be a Fomori mage, wearing this same gear but dropping the cyberware. You'd lose a bit of armor (-5/-5, or -2/-2 if you spend 1 point of Essence on Orthoskin 3) and gain massive magical defenses. Here, though, I was just looking at max armor. |
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Lo-Fi Version | Time is now: 24th July 2025 - 08:52 PM |
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