Hardened armor, Just does not seem that effective. Options

[Omenowl]

Under the current rules hardened armor is mostly a nuisance rather than a real deterrent. A dragon facing an ares predator with AV rounds has en effective armor of 3. It doesn't stop the bullets and hardly seems intimidating.

What I propose is making hardened armor subtract directly from the damage value computed (modified by the AP value).

On a similar note I would like to see APDS and AV do less damage -2 DV as they are not intended to have stopping power, but rather penetration.

[Karoline]

I've seen one or two people suggest that hardened armor that isn't removed is automatic hits. This is because RAW hardened armor is an all or nothing thing. Either the bullet bounces off the armor with no effect or completely blows through it like it isn't even there (With as little as 1 DV of difference).

As for a reduced damage on the APDS and AV ammo... that would make it effectively useless. The only real upside to -AP is that you do more damage (And occasionally switch from S to P damage). If you take off 2 DV from something that gives -4 AP you've effectively made it weaker than a normal bullet because 4 points of AP avarages 1.3 less hits from the defender which means an average of 1.3 more damage. But if you lower the damage by 2 then you are going to average .66 less damage per shot with APDS than you would with regular ammo, though you would have a slightly better chance of doing P damage. Given the cost and availability that really doesn't seem to be a good tradeoff.

AFAIK APDS don't have any less stopping power than a regular bullet, but I could be wrong as I don't know much about guns and ammo.

[kzt]

Armor piercing rounds work because they are very stable and don't break up. Effective anti-personnel rounds upset easily and break up. So armor piercing rounds produce ice-pick through and through wounds.

Of course, the way that pistols in SR are just as good as rifles at punching hole in armor is absurd, so it's clear that reality isn't one of the things that SR designers care about. Or they have no clue about reality. Or A + B.

[Omenowl]

I've seen one or two people suggest that hardened armor that isn't removed is automatic hits. This is because RAW hardened armor is an all or nothing thing. Either the bullet bounces off the armor with no effect or completely blows through it like it isn't even there (With as little as 1 DV of difference).

As for a reduced damage on the APDS and AV ammo... that would make it effectively useless. The only real upside to -AP is that you do more damage (And occasionally switch from S to P damage). If you take off 2 DV from something that gives -4 AP you've effectively made it weaker than a normal bullet because 4 points of AP avarages 1.3 less hits from the defender which means an average of 1.3 more damage. But if you lower the damage by 2 then you are going to average .66 less damage per shot with APDS than you would with regular ammo, though you would have a slightly better chance of doing P damage. Given the cost and availability that really doesn't seem to be a good tradeoff.

AFAIK APDS don't have any less stopping power than a regular bullet, but I could be wrong as I don't know much about guns and ammo.

It is not how armor works in the game. Even hardened armor still rolls to reduce damage. As a GM or player dragons and juggernauts under the current rules don't do much intimiditation. Big deal load up a few APDS or AV rounds and watch it go down in a hail of fire. Get a sniper rifle and you are looking at -7 armor and 9P.

As for the Armor piercing use the raw damage of the weapon and apply the AP value. Then compare to the armor values to see if the damage is stun or piercing. After that reduce the Damage by 2DV and roll to see what the final damage is for the modified armor and body. And it does make a huge difference in weapons such as pistols to use APDS because against oppoents you are looking at armor values less than 10. Subtract 1 for an ares predator and another 4 for APDS and you get a major difference between S and P. Not so effective with Rifles and sniper rifles, but then again the armor isn't as effective at those levels for causing stun damage.

[Generico]

Except that doing stun often drops people faster than doing physical, which would make APDS against people double useless.
It would however, still help against drones, which is ostensibly the whole point of APDS ammo.

[Draco18s]

It is not how armor works in the game. Even hardened armor still rolls to reduce damage.

Yes, it does, but there are values of hardened armor that are less than useless.

4/4 Hardened armor (F2 spirit or a drake) is completely pointless because you'll always be doing P damage and the value is so low as to only get 1.33 hits on average. That is neither scary or impressive. The only thing drakes can shrug of is the white nerdy guy punching him, anything stronger and he goes down like a sack of potatoes.

[Omenowl]

Yes, it does, but there are values of hardened armor that are less than useless.

4/4 Hardened armor (F2 spirit or a drake) is completely pointless because you'll always be doing P damage and the value is so low as to only get 1.33 hits on average. That is neither scary or impressive. The only thing drakes can shrug of is the white nerdy guy punching him, anything stronger and he goes down like a sack of potatoes.

I think you are validating my point of why hardened armor should count as automatic successes.

[Jaid]

I think you are validating my point of why hardened armor should count as automatic successes.

not really. *should* drakes be completely impervious to attacks? is that a desirable goal? do we want them to be nigh-indestructible? i personally have no particular problem with drakes being extremely resistant to weak attacks like normal punches and kicks, or assorted other natural attacks, but why should they be immune to bullets?

[otakusensei]

Hardened armor should not be 3-4 times more effective than normal armor. It's simply armor with a special property that has a chance to bounce weak attacks.

[Draco18s]

I think you are validating my point of why hardened armor should count as automatic successes.

That was my intent.

not really. *should* drakes be completely impervious to attacks? is that a desirable goal? do we want them to be nigh-indestructible? i personally have no particular problem with drakes being extremely resistant to weak attacks like normal punches and kicks, or assorted other natural attacks, but why should they be immune to bullets?

Not impervious, no. But think about how much damage a pistol does. 4P (on the low end) +NH, where NH is >= 1. That's 5 damage, minimum, which will superceed the drake's armor* (doing physical) but only deal out 1 box of damage: he's bleeding, the bullet penetrated, but it isn't a hindering wound. Compared to a drake by RAW who get shot by the same pistol and is sent reeling with 4 boxes of physical despite being FAR MORE ARMORED than a dude wearing armored clothing (4/0 normal armor).

Point 1: Scales cover the full body, far more than the fabric that the human is wearing for (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) 500. Full body light armor by RAW provides 6/4 or better.
Point 2: Scales provide so called "hardened armor" which allows the wearer to ignore the stun from an impact (better than the clothing). Only HA a humanoid can get provides at least 8/8, if not more**
Point 3: Bullets penetrate both with equal effectiveness? REALLY? That's not how physics functions.

By RAW drake scales are about as effective at stopping bullets as 2 leather jackets, except that when the bullet is stopped (no penetration) they're so tough as the nerves underneath feel nothing (no stun). This makes no fucking sense.

In any case, if we do alter HA to provide auto-hits on the damage resistance test values would need to be altered downwards to some degree. We would also have to indicate how AP effects a target that has both normal armor and hardened armor (eg. which is subtracted first) and if the DV is compared to NA+HA or just the NA value when determining S vs. P damage (5 HA + 5 NA vs. 7 damage = ? only matters if the value is greater than NA but less than NA + HA; and I find it amusing that people here can't conceive of a by RAW situation in which a single target would have both HA and NA, despite examples).

*I think in the last conversation on this matter, HA value was not used to determine S vs. P damage, but in either case 5 > 4 and 5 > 0 and the result is the same.

**Unable to locate it at the moment.

[Muspellsheimr]

The alteration that I have been running with for some time now, & works quite well:

Hardened Armor provides "Automatic Hits" on Resistance Tests, but otherwise functions as normal armor (such as being affected by Armor Penetration).
Immunity provides Hardened Armor (or equivalent) equal to the Character / Critter's Magic attribute.

Determining stacked Armor & Hardened Armor: Worn armor applies first. Natural armor applies second. For all other instances, Hardened Armor is applied first (note that Hardened Armor only provides "automatic soaking" when the Damage Resistance is made, not when determining if damage is Stun or Physical). This generally only applies for calculating Armor Penetration.

No other changes are necessary.

[Draco18s]

Worn armor applies first. Natural armor applies second.

Where's magical armor come in? Can AP reduce it?
(In your house rules, anyway)

[Shinobi Killfist]

I like these ideas. One of my big problems with vehicles was the on off nature of hardened armor and what that meant to being damaged. You either blew up or you weren't hurt, there was very little in between.

And yes currently 4/4 hardened armor is a joke, why even bother making it hardened at that level.

[pbangarth]

And yes currently 4/4 hardened armor is a joke, why even bother making it hardened at that level.

If we limit our thinking to bullets, then the 4/4 armor does seem like a waste of time. But there are a lot of attack forms in the Shadowrun universe that are not bullets. Some of them are low in DV but still deadly. for example, a drake living in Amazonia may be very well situated to ignore blowgun attacks or insects that take out armored trolls. Or what about a magical attack with range Touch, that works as long as a hit is made? Yes, Shadowrun has long focussed on the urban enclaves of the world, but that doesn't mean things don't exist 'out there'. If one of those things wanders into the city, it could be at a great disadvantage, being an easy mark for any ganger with a Predator. But let's see how the ganger does with the tables turned.

[Draco18s]

Vehicular armor isn't actually hardened armor (read the rules), just that vehicles don't suffer from the effects of a "stun" attack which is effectively the same thing as hardened armor, but not identical to.

For instance, vehicles that take damage pass some (by the poorly written RAW, all on some occasions) of it onto the passangers. IMO even if the vehicle is "taking stun" the passengers would also be taking that stun (the vehicle resists, lowering it, the passengers then resist the rest) but a vehicle with HA would not pass on the damage unless the HA was breeched (eg DV > HA).

So you can end up with an HE missile impacting a tank and creaming those inside with very little damage to the tank (somehow--can't think of a way this might work, unless the vehicle has A LOT of boxes, likely up on the naval ship level).

[Omenowl]

If we limit our thinking to bullets, then the 4/4 armor does seem like a waste of time. But there are a lot of attack forms in the Shadowrun universe that are not bullets. Some of them are low in DV but still deadly. for example, a drake living in Amazonia may be very well situated to ignore blowgun attacks or insects that take out armored trolls. Or what about a magical attack with range Touch, that works as long as a hit is made? Yes, Shadowrun has long focussed on the urban enclaves of the world, but that doesn't mean things don't exist 'out there'. If one of those things wanders into the city, it could be at a great disadvantage, being an easy mark for any ganger with a Predator. But let's see how the ganger does with the tables turned.

Sure it has its uses. At the moment though it does not do much for dragons, juggernauts or a few other creatures the players may face. Last thing I need is Johnny with the Automatic rifle having a harder time killing a cybered troll more than a western dragon.

[Draco18s]

Except that getting hardened armor is next to impossible as a player, and even less possible to get it at those levels.

[Karoline]

Except that getting hardened armor is next to impossible as a player, and even less possible to get it at those levels.

I didn't even know it was possible outside of sitting in a vehicle.

That aside, my issue is far less with the 4/4 protection of the drake, and far more with the protection of say... a tank. I don't know the exact stats of a tank, but lets pretend 24/24 armor and 20 body (Or something else with those sorts of stats, doesn't matter). Someone fires on the tank with a sniper rifle with AV ammo. The combined AP is -10, giving the tank only 14 armor. Now, lets compare 5 net hits (14 damage) to 6 net hits (15 damage). Now, the 14 damage shot simply bounces right off the tank's armor. It's luck if it scratched the paint. But if the sniper was just a touch better and got 6 net hits and thus did 15 damage, then the exact same bullet suddenly not only pierced the armor, but did (15-buying hits from 34 dice) 7 damage. So basically a tiny change takes the bullet from being harmless, to half taking out a tank. I for one don't like the way this works out; the old 'ping ping BANG' syndrom. Something is either utterly immune to it, or the fact that it is theoretically immune doesn't matter in the least. The fact is that 10 points of hardened armor isn't really much better than 10 points of regular armor, because as soon as someone bypasses it, it doesn't matter. The fact that the hardened armor is somehow better than the regular armor doesn't matter if the attack damage is high enough to get into physical damage.

[Draco18s]

I didn't even know it was possible outside of sitting in a vehicle.

I think there's some super expensive high grade very-very-F armor out there that gives like 10/8 HA.

There's also being possessed by a spirit.

[Omenowl]

I didn't even know it was possible outside of sitting in a vehicle.

That aside, my issue is far less with the 4/4 protection of the drake, and far more with the protection of say... a tank. I don't know the exact stats of a tank, but lets pretend 24/24 armor and 20 body (Or something else with those sorts of stats, doesn't matter). Someone fires on the tank with a sniper rifle with AV ammo. The combined AP is -10, giving the tank only 14 armor. Now, lets compare 5 net hits (14 damage) to 6 net hits (15 damage). Now, the 14 damage shot simply bounces right off the tank's armor. It's luck if it scratched the paint. But if the sniper was just a touch better and got 6 net hits and thus did 15 damage, then the exact same bullet suddenly not only pierced the armor, but did (15-buying hits from 34 dice) 7 damage. So basically a tiny change takes the bullet from being harmless, to half taking out a tank. I for one don't like the way this works out; the old 'ping ping BANG' syndrom. Something is either utterly immune to it, or the fact that it is theoretically immune doesn't matter in the least. The fact is that 10 points of hardened armor isn't really much better than 10 points of regular armor, because as soon as someone bypasses it, it doesn't matter. The fact that the hardened armor is somehow better than the regular armor doesn't matter if the attack damage is high enough to get into physical damage.

The game limits you to 20 armor else almost nothing damages said vehicle that is man portable.

And that is why I suggested having hardened armor act as automatic successes to resist damage. In the sniper example with hardened armor subtracting successes the sniper does 15 base damage. Only 10 hardened armor counts and the damage is reduced to 5. Then the body of 20 comes in to resist damage. The player has penetrated the vehicle, but at most 1 point of damage. Tank turns and guns the sniper down in the window. His buddy has been lining up the Dragon ATGM. 18P with -6AP. Sensor rating is 6 and he fires. Lucky shot he gets 6 hits. The tank's armor stops 14 points and the body stops another 5. 5 points of damage to said tank. It appears it is going to be a long day for the infantry.

[Draco18s]

It appears it is going to be a long day for the infantry.

Seems appropriate to me.

[pbangarth]

Sure it has its uses. At the moment though it does not do much for dragons, juggernauts or a few other creatures the players may face. Last thing I need is Johnny with the Automatic rifle having a harder time killing a cybered troll more than a western dragon.

The dragon example is perhaps not the best, because it will have outschemed and nuked Johnny long before he got the dragon in his sights. The juggernaut has other defenses and talents as well. If you can get to the point where you can shoot at these things without having been crushed, then you deserve a break.

Damn, it's hard to type when a kitten is trying to bed down for the night on the keyboard!

[Zormal]

The alteration that I have been running with for some time now, & works quite well:

Hardened Armor provides "Automatic Hits" on Resistance Tests, but otherwise functions as normal armor (such as being affected by Armor Penetration).
Immunity provides Hardened Armor (or equivalent) equal to the Character / Critter's Magic attribute.

At first glance, this would seem to make low-level spirits a lot more vulnerable. How big would you say the change has been? Does it make a difference?

[Muspellsheimr]

At lower Force (up to 3), it makes little noticeable difference - especially when the group uses Armor Penetration.

At higher Force, the difference can become quite pronounced, but there are several advantages to it.

• Armor Penetration becomes twice as effective against spirits (rough approximation).
• Spirits become easier to damage due to smaller Armor values & removal of all-or-nothing.
• Spirits take less damage than Rules as Written, on average, if a weapon fails to completely overcome the Immunity (assuming the attack would damage the spirit at all, RAW)

This change does two things - it effectively makes Hardened Armor more powerful, & less powerful, simultaneously for different reasons. The result roughly balances to the same 'net' power level. More importantly, however, the rules alterations I suggested make Hardened Armor function within the system. Rules as Written, Hardened Armor stands out as something that does not fit within the rest of the game - it works, but doesn't mesh.



Please note that I also made another change to spirits, reducing their Physical & Mental attributes, and their Skills, to one-half their Force, round up (minimum 1, for those with attribute penalties). Spirits also do not possess an Edge attribute (excepting Free Spirits, of course), although the conjurer may spend their own Edge on any test a spirit they control makes.

In my game, spirits are quite a bit less powerful than RAW, but are still immensely useful both in and out of combat situations. Conjurers are still very powerful characters, and spirits can easily turn the tide in a battle, & often can perform the battle themselves.

I have run with the spirit changes as both a GM and a Player, and while doing so as a player has been somewhat frustrating at times, I still strongly suggest the changes.

[Draco18s]

Going to bring this question up again, as it wasn't directly answered:

Where's magical armor come in? (In the stacking order of natural/worn layers)

How do you deal with the AP -half of elemental (natural) weapons?

In any case I think I'll be suggesting these rules to my group (though, playing a drake there is some benefit to myself, and I am sure I am required to ask: did you alter their armor values?).