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 Security Armor, Bringing it back |
 Jun 21 2006, 09:48 PM
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#26
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Great Dragon  Group: Members Posts: 5,889 Joined: 3-August 03 From: A CPI rank 1 country Member No.: 5,222  |
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Jun 21 2006, 09:50 PM
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#27
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,430 Joined: 10-January 05 From: Fort Worth, Texas Member No.: 6,957 |
Gracias senor!
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Jun 21 2006, 10:18 PM
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#28
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,556 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Seattle Member No.: 98 |
Now, stick your opponents in 2070's armor that provides nearly the protection of an APC, and the logic changes... 8) I was unaware that the M995 round was intended to be effective against/through the side of vehicles. Cool. |
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Jun 21 2006, 10:25 PM
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#29
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,635 Joined: 27-November 05 Member No.: 8,006 |
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.
Exactly the problem trying to avoid. The logic not only changes, it gets run over in an AWESOME way. :dead: |
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Jun 21 2006, 10:25 PM
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#30
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,889 Joined: 3-August 03 From: A CPI rank 1 country Member No.: 5,222 |
I guess it's also useful for any other targets that may be covered in 3+mm of RHA like... uhh... assorted steel plates? |
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Jun 21 2006, 10:30 PM
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#31
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,556 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Seattle Member No.: 98 |
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. |
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Jun 21 2006, 10:32 PM
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#32
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,556 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Seattle Member No.: 98 |
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? |
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Jun 21 2006, 10:36 PM
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#33
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,889 Joined: 3-August 03 From: A CPI rank 1 country Member No.: 5,222 |
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.
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? |
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Jun 21 2006, 10:46 PM
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#34
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,635 Joined: 27-November 05 Member No.: 8,006 |
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. :)
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. |
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Jun 21 2006, 11:27 PM
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#35
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,556 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Seattle Member No.: 98 |
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 :P |
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Jun 21 2006, 11:30 PM
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#36
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,430 Joined: 10-January 05 From: Fort Worth, Texas Member No.: 6,957 |
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.
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Jun 21 2006, 11:37 PM
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#37
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,889 Joined: 3-August 03 From: A CPI rank 1 country Member No.: 5,222 |
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. |
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Jun 21 2006, 11:40 PM
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#38
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,556 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Seattle Member No.: 98 |
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.
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Jun 21 2006, 11:42 PM
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#39
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,556 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Seattle Member No.: 98 |
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? |
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Jun 21 2006, 11:52 PM
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#40
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,889 Joined: 3-August 03 From: A CPI rank 1 country Member No.: 5,222 |
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. |
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Jun 22 2006, 12:05 AM
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#41
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,635 Joined: 27-November 05 Member No.: 8,006 |
No need to wait.
Ya, well SR1-3 had a combat system problem with all-or-nothing damage that has been addressed by SR4. 8) I don't see how bringing the problem back is a good thing to aim for.
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? :) |
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Jun 22 2006, 12:09 AM
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#42
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,889 Joined: 3-August 03 From: A CPI rank 1 country Member No.: 5,222 |
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...
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Jun 22 2006, 12:17 AM
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#43
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,556 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Seattle Member No.: 98 |
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.
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Jun 22 2006, 12:36 AM
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#44
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,635 Joined: 27-November 05 Member No.: 8,006 |
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.
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Jun 22 2006, 05:20 AM
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#45
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,556 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Seattle Member No.: 98 |
I've got a guy in my group who summons up F9 and F10's all the time. It's fucking *annoying* :P
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Jun 22 2006, 12:13 PM
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#46
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,635 Joined: 27-November 05 Member No.: 8,006 |
??? Ummm, and he's still alive? |
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Jun 22 2006, 05:31 PM
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#47
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,556 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Seattle Member No.: 98 |
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. |
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Jun 22 2006, 06:40 PM
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#48
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 475 Joined: 13-March 06 From: dusty Mexican borderlands Member No.: 8,372 |
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. |
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Jun 22 2006, 07:01 PM
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#49
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,635 Joined: 27-November 05 Member No.: 8,006 |
They didn't have much grounds before, either. :P Especially for Bind. Outside of maybe you not letting them know up front that it could happen that the spirit would resist using Edge?
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. |
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Jun 22 2006, 07:16 PM
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#50
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,430 Joined: 10-January 05 From: Fort Worth, Texas Member No.: 6,957 |
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. |
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