dermal armor Options

[less_than_vince]

First of all, sorry for my english, not my first language.

I've just finish the first reading of the book. We have'nt play for now, but the dermal armor protection seem a little....irrealist. A dermal armor level 2 is'nt harder than a leather jacket!!.

In 3rd edition, that was cool, each point of armor would have reduce the attack by his rating. But now, a dermal armor level 2 only give you 2 dice (only 2 chance by dice to hit).

I know the armor raise the possibility of an attack to be stun damage, but to be less effective than a leather jacket!!! Would you put under your skin an armor so weak??

Also, why putting two armor, if they don't stack but gives you penalty for encumbrance?

[ornot]

I'll address your last point first, as that's the one I think I understand most.

As armour has both ballistic and impact ratings, one could wear two armour types with radically different ballistic and impact ratings and gain the highest rating of each. There isn't a great deal of utility in wearing multiple layers of armour though, it's true.

As for dermal armour, it allows you to improve your resistance to damage, even while naked, and has no negative impact on your agility. IIRC it does stack with worn armour, allowing you to boost your resistance to damage. I suspect levels of dermal armour are capped for game balance reason. If it were available at ratings much higher then it could render characters nigh invulnerable, and it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect some kind of encumberance penalty.

In my experience players will always choose orthoskin over dermal armour anyway, as it is less obvious and has a lower essence cost.

[less_than_vince]

Your right, you can wear two armor to benefit from impact or ballistic, I have'nt think about that.

Othorskin is also a little more useful than dermal armor. I'm sure it's a balance issu, but you must agree that dermal armor was more powerful in the third edition. A armored jacket was 5/3, now it's like 8/6, before you need to roll for hit.

The dermal armor use the same rating, but you need to roll it. So, if your naked, even with the level 3 dermal armor, you roll 3 dice. Imagine with level 1 or 2.
No armor or dermal armor, it's praticly the same.

[knasser]

Dermal plating adds to worn armour. The text says something like "confers an additional bonus to both ballistic and impact armour."

Agreed that Dermal 3 is not the best use of 1.5 essence points, but if you had them spare anyway, it's not a waste. And it's cheap at 5,000 :nuyen: a point (that's like 1BP per extra point of body) and at those prices, you could even conceivably justify going alphaware and bring the essence cost down a bit if you needed to.

Besides, not everything has to be a good deal for your character. Sometimes a GM just needs to beef up some gangers.

[Jaid]

actually, 3rd edition dermal armor added to your roll as well, it didn't work like worn armor iirc.

in any event, keep in mind that dermal armor does not count towards encumbrance, and provides both ballistic and impact armor, whereas a leather jacket gives only 2 impact armor iirc.

[less_than_vince]

You're right.
I just feel that plates under your skin should be more effective than othorskin.
Thanks for answer

[Luddite]

I have little to add, other than the fact that I love the phrase "night invulnerable."

How many layers of dermal armor would it take to be the Tick?

[FriendoftheDork]

[TheOOB]

Heck, if you wear an armored jacket, a helmet, and have dermal plating 2, you may never take physical damage from gun fire again, and if you do you're still rolling 11 + body dice for damage resistance agienst guns which is enough to significantly reduce, if not outright negate most small arms fire.

In a vacum, dermal plating isn't very good, 2 dice of armor isn't very good alone, but when combined with other armor it just makes you that much more invincible.

[X-Kalibur]

I'm personally waiting for dermal sheathing with ruthenium to make a reappearance.

[lorechaser]

[Demerzel]

I get ~26% for 3 dice with a threshold of 2.

[odinson]

Odds would be 2/9. Thats like 22.2%.

[Demerzel]

You're close. The odds of exactly 2 hits on 3 dice without rule of 6 is 2/9. However to beat a threshold of 2 you can get 3 successes, and still beat the threshold. There is a 1/27 chance of getting 3 hits on 3 dice.

So the 2/9 = 6/27 for exactly 2 hits
Plus the 1/27 for exactly three hits
equals 7/27 ~.259 ~25.9%

Lorechaser accounted for the possibility of getting 3, 4 and 5 hits when he gave the probability for 5 dice with a threshold of 2.

See this thread for some nice probability charts:
http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=16917

[less_than_vince]

You're all right.

But like one of you said it, in a vacum, a dermal armor is'nt really tough.
Combine it with an other armor, and yeah, you can be REALLY tought.
But dermal armor 2 = leather jacket (2/2)
So, «hard plastic and metal fiber plats» in 2070 are no more powerfull than a leather jacket (in plain number).

Ok, it don't count as a layer of armor (yeahhh!!!).

[bibliophile20]

[TheOOB]

Well, a leather jacket provides external protection while dermal armor's protection doesn't matter until after the attack has allready hit your body. Sure leather isn't as tough as dermal plating, but leather jackets primary defense doesn't come from it's hardness, it comes from deflection or catching the attack. A bullet in flight is quite fragile, a sheet of cardboard could easily be enough to deform a bullet and cause it to veer off course a little. When the bullet hits your leather jacket the jacket doesn't stop the bullet, but instead changes it's velocity, reducing the chance of a direct hit.

Dermal plates are harder, and thus absorb more kinetic energy, but a leather jacket is external, and thus difuses some of the kinetic energy before it even gets to your body.

[Tomothy]

[TheOOB]

[Jack Kain]

Imagine,
Troll Body 9 (I don't see myself every paying the cost for a body of 10)
Full Combat Armor+ Helmet (total 12/10)
Dermal Armor Rating 3
Bone Density Rating 4


Now that is a guy you pull out a PAC Cannon to take down.

[TheOOB]

[Tomothy]

I built a troll runner that would start with:

Body 9
Bone Density Rating 2
Bear Mentor Spirit
(13 dice for damage resistance)

Natural Armour
Orthoskin Rating 2
Mystic Armour 2
Armour Jacket
(14 dice for armour)

Reaction 5 (7)
Improved Reflexes 2
Gymnastics (Dodging) 1 (+2)
Synthacardium Rating 3
(13 dice for gymnastic dodge)

Not to mention platelet factories to reduce damage should the unfortunate ever happen. Unfortunately he's not quite as good against magic, but that's what you have a mage on the team for right?

[Glyph]

Yeah, but with the Bear mentor spirit, I assume he's a mystic adept, with at least one point towards his mage side. So there's nothing stopping him from taking the counterspelling skill for spell defense - add a counterspelling focus and a specialization, both for combat spells, and you'll be shrugging off manabolts as easily as you shrug off pistol rounds.

[Tomothy]

He was actually just a normal adept, but by dropping a point of edge (from 4 to 3) I can easily make him a mystic adept and change one of his skills to counterspelling, which I think I might do.

Is it viable to make a mystic adept who split magic 4/2 (adept/mage) and then had his spell casting side burned for cyber/bioware? If so, is it still ok to give him counterspelling? :P

[Ravor]

Well I'd rule no, if the Mage part of his Magic was burnt, then so was his Counterspelling. *winks*