Armor Stacking, I need to find the definitive FAQ Options

[Yerameyahu]

Everyone gets so worked up on these boards as if a GM saying "Sorry man, that isn't the kind of game I'm trying to run here" is some sort of horrific taboo.

No, it's just not the ideal solution. Better balance in the rules themselves is better than the GM fixing everything. You might as well say, 'everyone gets so worked up about fixing the rules, as if house rules are some taboo'. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Fixing the rules is more fun, too; 'play nice' and 'not in this game' are kind of conversation-stoppers, while good rules are a puzzle.

[FriendoftheDork]

For starters it is an entire genre, including comic books, animation, etc. Blade Runner ruthlessly beat the 80s over the head, in case you don't remember.

Lets just focus on what you've given me. Mutual ground. Robocop. Perfect. Motoko from GITS is good too.

In both of these situations we have a cyber ubermench who is exactly indestructible. Motoko for different reasons, which are outside of the reach of Shadowrun (although perhaps replicated well enough through an AI with an Otomo drone). So lets focus on Robocop.

Robocop is indestructible. He is exactly that well armored and even seems to lack the agility due to relevant capacity, perfect example! Eventually Robocop gets a hole blown in him... how?

Through GM-fiat bullshit rifles of doom. That's how.

That's exactly how you ought to deal with characters, not just in good fiction but in good storytelling and TTRPGs. Let them have their strengths, then throw them in occasional situations where their strengths are null and void. The same way you deal with a team which has a ridiculous Face, you seperate the team and put someone else in a situation where social skills suddenly matter.

You also hand-waved magic resistance. The Magic rolls are heavily weighted against the defender and while a couple more dice can help it is just offsetting the disadvantage, espescially considering that the GM has access to the most deadly combination in magic: Overcasting and Mages who aren't an essential part of the storyline. This isn't exactly hard to figure out. Too much counterspelling helping Robocop? So long as they aren't some bizzare shadowrunning Matryoshka doll then you don't have a problem there either. Unless you're complaining that Mook Magicians can't harm Robocop, in which case Mook anything is hardly a threat to anyone and that is why they're damned Mooks.


Really though I'd take a Robocop over a Motoko any day of the week as a GM. You only have to kill Robocop once. Motoko just gets another body and comes back.

I hate to butt into the discussion like this, but that Robocop stuff is BS. In the scene his HAND is first shot off by a heavy machinegun (probably with APDS ammo), then he is shot with the equivalent of Stick and Shock (lol). After this he is hoisted into the air with an electromagnet, put on a table, and then smashed to peices with a effing sledgehammer... used by a fairly normal strong NPC. All of this would easily be shrugged off by Mr. 32 armor Tank in SR.

Robocop is not indestructible, he just seems to to normal thugs using light pistols, shotguns and SMGs.

[JonathanC]

For starters it is an entire genre, including comic books, animation, etc. Blade Runner ruthlessly beat the 80s over the head, in case you don't remember.

Lets just focus on what you've given me. Mutual ground. Robocop. Perfect. Motoko from GITS is good too.

In both of these situations we have a cyber ubermench who is exactly indestructible. Motoko for different reasons, which are outside of the reach of Shadowrun (although perhaps replicated well enough through an AI with an Otomo drone). So lets focus on Robocop.

Robocop is indestructible. He is exactly that well armored and even seems to lack the agility due to relevant capacity, perfect example! Eventually Robocop gets a hole blown in him... how?

Through GM-fiat bullshit rifles of doom. That's how.

If you're going to claim that something is appropriate within a genre, you're responsible for giving an example of why. Period.

Motoko is not indestructible. Bullets rarely even hit her in the first place. Robocop spends most of his time being shot at with handguns and crappy sub-machineguns. When larger guns are used against him, it clearly has greater effect. Also, he is obviously wearing hardened armor. It is also worth pointing out that a person with armored cyberlimbs would not necessarily be deficient in agility, and could, through other bonuses (smartlink, tacnet, etc.) get their pool up to something respectable.

That's exactly how you ought to deal with characters, not just in good fiction but in good storytelling and TTRPGs. Let them have their strengths, then throw them in occasional situations where their strengths are null and void. The same way you deal with a team which has a ridiculous Face, you seperate the team and put someone else in a situation where social skills suddenly matter.

Yes, why put the person who obviously *enjoys* social interaction into situations that require social interaction? Force the guy who said he wanted to play a gunbunny into that position instead!

I'm sorry, but this isn't good writing OR good gaming. Mixing it up on occasion is fun, but when you're relying on that technique as your only method of challenging the players because their characters are mechanically broken, nobody is going to be having much fun. If I'm throwing the gunbunny into a tense negotiation, I want it to be because the guy on the other end of the table is so important to his backstory (or current story) that he *insists* on talking to the guy on his own, rather than shoehorning him into a position that he doesn't find interesting just because it's the only way to create the possibility of failure.

You also hand-waved magic resistance. The Magic rolls are heavily weighted against the defender and while a couple more dice can help it is just offsetting the disadvantage, espescially considering that the GM has access to the most deadly combination in magic: Overcasting and Mages who aren't an essential part of the storyline. This isn't exactly hard to figure out. Too much counterspelling helping Robocop? So long as they aren't some bizzare shadowrunning Matryoshka doll then you don't have a problem there either? Unless you're complaining that Mook Magicians can't harm Robocop, in which case Mook anything is hardly a threat to anyone and that is why they're damned Mooks.

The problem with countering cheese with more cheese is that players with sensibly-built characters get hurt in the process. If the only way to challenge our Tanky Dwarf friend is to toss F10 Manaballs at him, what happens to those poor saps standing next to him? Why do they all have to suffer?

Really though I'd take a Robocop over a Motoko any day of the week as a GM. You only have to kill Robocop once. Motoko just gets another body and comes back.

Motoko isn't really viable in Shadowrun. Full-body cyborgs in Shadowrun are mostly just disturbed children in mechanical bodies. The fluff makes the existence of a fully-functional personality (Motoko comes off as far more human in the manga, IMO) in a full 'borg unlikely.

[Chainsaw Samurai]

I hate to butt into the discussion like this, but that Robocop stuff is BS. In the scene his HAND is first shot off by a heavy machinegun (probably with APDS ammo), then he is shot with the equivalent of Stick and Shock (lol). After this he is hoisted into the air with an electromagnet, put on a table, and then smashed to peices with a effing sledgehammer... used by a fairly normal strong NPC. All of this would easily be shrugged off by Mr. 32 armor Tank in SR.

Robocop is not indestructible, he just seems to to normal thugs using light pistols, shotguns and SMGs.

Again, you guys are throwing around "shrugged off" as if this is all consequence-free.

Damage in 4e is automatic. Start with a hefty chunk and add to it. Defense is start with 0 add to it.

Who. Cares. If. He. Stages. It. Down. To. Stun. Damage.

It doesn't matter. He has put himself in a position where staging it down to stun is the preferable scenario because he has a half dozen more boxes on his physical damage track.

So 30 something armor. Can expect to soak 10 from that assuming he has all of his Armor dice. Couple more soaked from Body (we never got in to specifics, and due to capacity it's easier to say "couple more" than worry about specifics because how much body is crammed in tweaks with how effective the character will be with str and agi).

So if you're a GM who is letting someone run around with a gigantic monstrosity and can't think of a way to reliably throw 10-16 damage at him to nickle and dime his stun track down, then you have officially bitten off more than you can chew (also you're not being very creative. The combinations of crap that can do damage in that range is mind boggling).

I talk about table balance a lot. It is much more an affront to the game that this 30 armor monstrosity is running around with Bod 2 Armor 4 teammates than it is for him to exist in the first place.

No, it's just not the ideal solution. Better balance in the rules themselves is better than the GM fixing everything. You might as well say, 'everyone gets so worked up about fixing the rules, as if house rules are some taboo'. Fixing the rules is more fun, too; 'play nice' and 'not in this game' are kind of conversation-stoppers, while good rules are a puzzle.

Eh, I just think it is futile.

The rules weren't written well. You can't go 10 pages without stumbling in to something odd or vague or contradictory. There's nothing we can do to change that. Tables will make the changes that suit their game and I have always thought it silly that a bunch of us internet nerds getting high and mighty about rules interpretations were anywhere near important enough to override the RAW (as ridiculous as it may be) or to attempt to force our collective psyche on to some
table of gamers we have nothing to do with.

Motoko isn't really viable in Shadowrun. Full-body cyborgs in Shadowrun are mostly just disturbed children in mechanical bodies. The fluff makes the existence of a fully-functional personality (Motoko comes off as far more human in the manga, IMO) in a full 'borg unlikely.

Yeah I'd sort of hinted at that earlier in the post. Full Cyborg doesn't fit for her and an AI I think is the best way to ape her character, if you were to attempt it at all.

[JonathanC]

You are entertaining. I can give you that.

As for the Throwing Master. Why is he ineffective? So his Impact equals Ballistic. So what. I have seen a Throwing Adept that can routinely deal Damage in the 16P Range, with a bit of AP (from 0 to -6) going on. Even your 24 Armor/6 Body Tank is going to have issues with that after 1 Hit, let alone two. CAN it all be soaked? Sure, with some resource expenditure (Edge). Can it be soaked routinely? Absolutely not. Average is going to be 10 total Soak (with NO AP, and 8 soak with -6 AP), with Bought Soak at 7.5 (and 6 respectively). Looks like a far cry from the 16p being dealt. Besides, I have seen characters throw 30 Dice (with Edge expenditure, even; Both before and after) and still net only a single success. Dice are capricious.

Elemental Strike (Sound) is very good for chewing up that Tank Character, as well. The fact that the tank is so easily counterable makes it not that bad, really.

Both characters (Tank and Throwing Adept) are, to be sure, Edge Cases. Game Reality will fall somewhere a bit lower, of course.

You talk as though the Tank is just going to sit there waiting for this dude to chuck magic cards at him. Throwing Adept Guy isn't bulletproof. Who's going to last longer when trading damage? My money is on the guy with 24 armor. Even if the tank is armed with normal guns and no exotic ammo, an Ares Alpha could easily get up to a base of...what? 9P or so? just using Burst. I have a player in my game right now you can just snap off full-auto fire on a whim, so that'd get us up to about 15P base without any special ammo.

Elemental Strike (Sound) is ridiculous cheese; countering cheese with cheese just leads to more problems long-term. You end up in an arms race where the only viable combat characters are hyper-specialists, and that's just silly.

[Chainsaw Samurai]

Yes, why put the person who obviously *enjoys* social interaction into situations that require social interaction? Force the guy who said he wanted to play a gunbunny into that position instead!

I'm sorry, but this isn't good writing OR good gaming. Mixing it up on occasion is fun, but when you're relying on that technique as your only method of challenging the players because their characters are mechanically broken, nobody is going to be having much fun. If I'm throwing the gunbunny into a tense negotiation, I want it to be because the guy on the other end of the table is so important to his backstory (or current story) that he *insists* on talking to the guy on his own, rather than shoehorning him into a position that he doesn't find interesting just because it's the only way to create the possibility of failure.

Why would you take this, specifically, out of what I said?

I sense some reading comprehension problems. Was this not clear that it was a "mix-it-up occasionally" thing?

That's exactly how you ought to deal with characters, not just in good fiction but in good storytelling and TTRPGs. Let them have their strengths, then throw them in occasional situations where their strengths are null and void. The same way you deal with a team which has a ridiculous Face, you seperate the team and put someone else in a situation where social skills suddenly matter.

So I think we've come to why you have issues with RAW. It's a comprehension thing.

Elemental Strike (Sound) is ridiculous cheese; countering cheese with cheese just leads to more problems long-term. You end up in an arms race where the only viable combat characters are hyper-specialists, and that's just silly.

Where are you in this conversation? A character with 30 Armor is at the table and you're talking about Escalating Force? Force IS Escalated. The characters ARE hyper specialized. The Player and GM both agreed on the baseline of all of this when the character was created and then allowed. This game starts at weird and only gets weirder.

[JonathanC]

Again, you guys are throwing around "shrugged off" as if this is all consequence-free.

Damage in 4e is automatic. Start with a hefty chunk and add to it. Defense is start with 0 add to it.

Who. Cares. If. He. Stages. It. Down. To. Stun. Damage.

It doesn't matter. He has put himself in a position where staging it down to stun is the preferable scenario because he has a half dozen more boxes on his physical damage track.

So 30 something armor. Can expect to soak 10 from that assuming he has all of his Armor dice. Couple more soaked from Body (we never got in to specifics, and due to capacity it's easier to say "couple more" than worry about specifics because how much body is crammed in tweaks with how effective the character will be with str and agi).

So if you're a GM who is letting someone run around with a gigantic monstrosity and can't think of a way to reliably throw 10-16 damage at him to nickle and dime his stun track down, then you have officially bitten off more than you can chew (also you're not being very creative. The combinations of crap that can do damage in that range is mind boggling).

You act as though he won't have ANY defense roll at all. Cover bonus, reaction roll, firing from inside a vehicle (you lose -2 dice in exchange for adding all of the vehicle's armor to your's)....there are a ton of ways to jack those dice up. They're there because the game designers thought the average character would have an armor of like 8-10.

Also, what's this about a gigantic monstrosity? We aren't adding Body to this guy, we're adding Armor. Armored cyberlimbs aren't bigger than regular ones; Capacity is used by things that go *inside* the limb.

Yeah I'd sort of hinted at that earlier in the post. Full Cyborg doesn't fit for her and an AI I think is the best way to ape her character, if you were to attempt it at all.

AIs are even worse; they can't jump into a drone unless you pay for the Quality that says you started out as a Pilot program that gained sentience, which doesn't jive with Motoko at all, fluff-wise. GITS is really more of a Transhumanist story than a Cyberpunk one, if you think about it.

[FriendoftheDork]

Again, you guys are throwing around "shrugged off" as if this is all consequence-free.

Damage in 4e is automatic. Start with a hefty chunk and add to it. Defense is start with 0 add to it.

Who. Cares. If. He. Stages. It. Down. To. Stun. Damage.

It doesn't matter. He has put himself in a position where staging it down to stun is the preferable scenario because he has a half dozen more boxes on his physical damage track.

So 30 something armor. Can expect to soak 10 from that assuming he has all of his Armor dice. Couple more soaked from Body (we never got in to specifics, and due to capacity it's easier to say "couple more" than worry about specifics because how much body is crammed in tweaks with how effective the character will be with str and agi).

So if you're a GM who is letting someone run around with a gigantic monstrosity and can't think of a way to reliably throw 10-16 damage at him to nickle and dime his stun track down, then you have officially bitten off more than you can chew (also you're not being very creative. The combinations of crap that can do damage in that range is mind boggling).

I talk about table balance a lot. It is much more an affront to the game that this 30 armor monstrosity is running around with Bod 2 Armor 4 teammates than it is for him to exist in the first place.

Soaking 10 or more damage automatically IS essentially immunity to normal weapons. I'm sure he can soak twice that on a lucky roll, with good (Troll) body, or using Edge. Normal enemies can't reliably dish out more than that, heck even starting runners might be hard pressed to, unless well optimized. Now 16 damage? Reliably? I think we are playing different games. In order to get this you need stuff like heavy machineguns, sniper rifles with APDS, assault cannons and similar high-duty stuff. And even this can be soaked potentially. AP rockets? Nah, can't hit him anyway, and soaking 16P with -2 AP is not hard for this guy. When missiles meant for use against vehicles can hardly hurt (never mind kill) a character like that, something is WRONG.


I must admit in my game and my groups we use a house rule that allow halving the stun damage from attacks that fails to penetrate (after soak, round up). This makes having insane levels of armor even more unbalanced.

Personal armor could be capped at 20 easily - including milspec, cyberware, cyberlimbs and magic. That still an awesome tank, especially coupled with 7-11 Body, dermal sheath or lacing, and the one that auto-soaks 1 damage.

[Yerameyahu]

But… there is something we can do about the bad rules. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) We can have house rules discussions. I didn't realize we were talking about 'overriding the RAW' or being 'high and mighty' or 'trying to force people' to do anything. I thought we were discussion various house rules, their pros and cons, sharing best practices, etc. That's what I was doing, anyway. (Personal, I ignore the RAW whenever it's bad, so maybe that's 'overriding'?)

[JonathanC]

Why would you take this, specifically, out of what I said?

I sense some reading comprehension problems. Was this not clear that it was a "mix-it-up occasionally" thing?

If they're so good at "what they're good at" that the only way for you to challenge them is to make them do something else, then what is the point of them being good at X? You've given up on trying to challenge them in their chosen specialty, so any time the ONE THING they've made it clear they LIKE DOING comes up, they get to sleepwalk through the scenario. I'm all for letting players be "good" at what they're good at; that isn't the same as letting them be effectively invincible at what they're good at.

Where are you in this conversation? A character with 30 Armor is at the table and you're talking about Escalating Force? Force IS Escalated. The characters ARE hyper specialized. The Player and GM both agreed on the baseline of all of this when the character was created and then allowed. This game starts at weird and only gets weirder.

...wait, what? We're talking about two approaches to this problem: One is to just say "to hell with it, I'll throw some bullshit at them occasionally" and let them do this ridiculous armor stacking. I'm suggesting that you prevent this from happening in the first place by making some common-sense clarifications to a part of the rules that don't seem to have been written very clearly. And now you're assuming that it's all good because the character was cleared by the GM? When did this happen, in our scenario where I'm advocating for a ruling that prevents this from happening in the first place?

[Chainsaw Samurai]

...wait, what? We're talking about two approaches to this problem: One is to just say "to hell with it, I'll throw some bullshit at them occasionally" and let them do this ridiculous armor stacking. I'm suggesting that you prevent this from happening in the first place by making some common-sense clarifications to a part of the rules that don't seem to have been written very clearly. And now you're assuming that it's all good because the character was cleared by the GM? When did this happen, in our scenario where I'm advocating for a ruling that prevents this from happening in the first place?

No, you're advocating a ruleset that disallows a character from taking two Cyberarms and armoring one up as a "shield arm" and tossing sensors and weapons into the other as a "sword arm" while retaining the 4 armor from the armored limb.

How about a character who armors up only the left limbs and torso, as this is the side he leads with in his fighting stance.


See, my rules say this stuff is OK. They can have their Armor and their fancy character Fluff. Everyone is happy.

Your rules say "no, average it you dick!" Fortunately your ruling is dumb doesn't need to exist anywhere but your table, if that's what gets you off.

There isn't any need for the rule, or any fiddling with RAW, because it is solely concerned with preventing edge-cases while screwing over Joe AverageRunner and characters who want a reasonable amount of armor for fluffy reasons.

What I was really saying, is that RAW allows it. That's step 1. Step 2 is a GM allowing it. If conditions 1 and 2 are met then who are you to care? It doesn't need any more rules than currently exist.



For the record, I am definitely more likely to allow a character to throw on a bunch of Cyber Armor (armor with consequence in the form of Essence and Capacity costs) than I am to let FFBA slide (armor which gives double its encumbrance worth in consequence free armor while also allowing extra capacity for armor modifications, eg. nonconductivity).

[Chainsaw Samurai]

But… there is something we can do about the bad rules. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) We can have house rules discussions. I didn't realize we were talking about 'overriding the RAW' or being 'high and mighty' or 'trying to force people' to do anything. I thought we were discussion various house rules, their pros and cons, sharing best practices, etc. That's what I was doing, anyway. (Personal, I ignore the RAW whenever it's bad, so maybe that's 'overriding'?)

As far as I know this whole thing started with him interpreting RAW incorrectly. I told him it was stupid and it got us here eventually.

I don't have any problems with RAW, I don't have any problem with House Rules... so long as they can be printed on a single page. A single page is something that everyone can have distributed to them easily and it isn't too much to bog down gameplay.

Now what I do have issue with is RANW (rules as not-written), these are gaping holes in the rules where the entire system sort of falls on its ass. There are a lot in this system in particular.

[JonathanC]

No, you're advocating a ruleset that disallows a character from taking two Cyberarms and armoring one up as a "shield arm" and tossing sensors and weapons into the other as a "sword arm" while retaining the 4 armor from the armored limb.

No, I'm not; I guess you missed that post. The precise wording that I used was to average the cyberlimb ARMOR of each limb. If a limb doesn't have the armor enhancement, then it wouldn't be part of the equation. So you could have your shield arm and your sensor/weapon arm.

How about a character who armors up only the left limbs and torso, as this is the side he leads with in his fighting stance.

Assuming that his limbs with armor have the same amount of armor, he's in the clear.

See, my rules say this stuff is OK. They can have their Armor and their fancy character Fluff. Everyone is happy.

Your rules also say that any combat character who isn't rocking at least one limb is a fucking moron. Hell, even two limbs, at a measly 1.6 essence (compare to the cost of, say, dermal sheathe) is good for 4/4 at chargen, and 8/8 with upgrades. Your rules create a ridiculous arms race where conventional weapons might as well not exist, because nobody you're firing them at would be affected by them. The only people worth putting in combat with "your rules" are other, equally ridiculous hyper-specialists.

Your rules also say that a buck-naked cyborg running around slapping Lone Star cops with his junk is more difficult to injure with bullets than, say, the fully-clothed, armored policemen that he is turkey-slapping.

For the record, I am definitely more likely to allow a character to throw on a bunch of Cyber Armor (armor with consequence in the form of Essence and Capacity costs) than I am to let FFBA slide (armor which gives double its encumbrance worth in consequence free armor while also allowing extra capacity for armor modifications, eg. nonconductivity).

Oh dear, not capacity loss! I mean, you could use that precious capacity for...what, exactly, that is as good as 8/8 armor for 1.6 essence (assuming Alphaware; with Betaware it's even less).

Also, allowing armor mods on FFBA is beyond retarded; it counts for half encumbrance because it's very thin and flexible. Once you start throwing fire-retardant materials and whatever else on there, you've defeated the purpose. Besides, who would bother doing that when you can just put that shit on the outer armor you're wearing?

[Chainsaw Samurai]

No, I'm not; I guess you missed that post. The precise wording that I used was to average the cyberlimb ARMOR of each limb. If a limb doesn't have the armor enhancement, then it wouldn't be part of the equation. So you could have your shield arm and your sensor/weapon arm.

Oh, ok. So if it is 4 and 0 he keeps 4 armor. If it is 4 and 1 (leftover space) then he has... wait a minute...

Who's rules are stupid?

Your rules also say that any combat character who isn't rocking at least one limb is a fucking moron. Hell, even two limbs, at a measly 1.6 essence (compare to the cost of, say, dermal sheathe) is good for 4/4 at chargen, and 8/8 with upgrades. Your rules create a ridiculous arms race where conventional weapons might as well not exist, because nobody you're firing them at would be affected by them. The only people worth putting in combat with "your rules" are other, equally ridiculous hyper-specialists.

Your rules also say that a buck-naked cyborg running around slapping Lone Star cops with his junk is more difficult to injure with bullets than, say, the fully-clothed, armored policemen that he is turkey-slapping.

NEWSFLASH: All rules lead to min-maxing. Period. Same with yours, just because your rules don't lead to as high of an extreme doesn't make them any less stupid.

Table culture leads to escalation. The Rules themselves don't. Why does it bother you so much that super cyborgs could exist at some table somewhere when they don't exist in your game.

The rules as written are fine. People are big boys and can play the game any way they see fit. Individual GMs do have the power to police their own tables, and they do.

[JonathanC]

Oh, ok. So if it is 4 and 0 he keeps 4 armor. If it is 4 and 1 (leftover space) then he has... wait a minute...

Who's rules are stupid?

Your's, because they're fucking unplayable. The chances of someone having a really good reason to have 4 on one limb and 1 on another (besides trying to break the 4/4 limit that the rule enforces) are exceedingly low. If anything, my rule simply saves them the money they would have spent armoring another limb. If all you want is armor on your left side, put 4 armor on an arm and you're done.

The only solution to the problems posed by your interpretation of the rules is to either beg your player not to buy so much armor, or be a total asshole and force the entire team to fight F10 Spirits every game because you're too fucking stupid to be sensible about the rules.

If this was about what "makes sense" in the context of the game, then why is Cyberlimb Joe running around with his balls flapping in the air better armored than the fully-armored cops chasing him? The vast majority of his body is completely uncovered by armor. But beccause he put some really thick plates on his arms and legs, you can empty a fucking full clip into him and he laughs it off. What sense does it make that the rules assume that ALL of your bullets automatically go to the HARDEST PART OF HIM TO HIT (his extremities)?

NEWSFLASH: All rules lead to min-maxing. Period. Same with yours, just because your rules don't lead to as high of an extreme doesn't make them any less stupid.

Min-maxing in and of itself is not a problem. Excessive min-maxing is the problem, and it can easily be avoided with sensible rules.

Table culture leads to escalation. The Rules themselves don't. Why does it bother you so much that super cyborgs could exist at some table somewhere when they don't exist in your game.

Why does it bother YOU so much that I'm less retarded than you are about cyberlimb armor rules? You're not in my game, so my ruling doesn't directly affect you, yet here you are still whining about it.

[Chainsaw Samurai]

Your's, because they're fucking unplayable. The chances of someone having a really good reason to have 4 on one limb and 1 on another (besides trying to break the 4/4 limit that the rule enforces) are exceedingly low. If anything, my rule simply saves them the money they would have spent armoring another limb. If all you want is armor on your left side, put 4 armor on an arm and you're done.

Human

Obvious Left Cyberarm (the shield arm) 15 capacity (4 remaining)
Customized Agility 6
Customized Body 6
Customized Strength 6
Enhanced Body 3
Armor 4
(4 capacity remaining)

Obvious Right Cyberarm (weapon arm) 15 capacity
Customized Agility 6
Customized Body 6
Customized Strength 6
Enhanced Body 3
Enhanced Agility 3
Enhanced Strength 3
Spur
(3 capacity remaining) Hmm... room for 1 armor.

Why does it bother YOU so much that I'm less retarded than you are about cyberlimb armor rules? You're not in my game, so my ruling doesn't directly affect you, yet here you are still whining about it.

Because YOUR "house rules" (initially pointed out as the "clear intention of RAW") impose on perfectly reasonable characters to shut down monstrosities.

MY lack-of-house-rules let perfectly reasonable characters be reasonable, and the GM does the imposing.

If you want "sensible rules," you're playing the wrong system. SR4 got off to a rocky start and every supplement since then has progressively made the rules anything but sensible.

You talk about this min-max arms race but it is entirely unavoidable. Trust me, I played a lot of DnD 3.5. See every rule book that came out would introduce a couple new things and that was it, that was THE way to build a Fighter (for example). Next set of rules or errata fixed it, changed things, added more. Now this is THE way to build a Fighter.

The ONLY way to avoid it is to build perfectly balanced characters, include them in the book and remove character creation entirely. Guess what? Even that is impossible and only half of them would end up being played since that is "the ideal shadowrunning team."

Would you expect your country to completely outlaw dogs because a single dog attacked someone? Why would you screw with perfectly clear rules which are sensible as long as the table in question is sensible.

In fact if there is anything I could say about Shadowrun is that its rules could very well be written so vaguely on purpose. They know damn well that people play Pink Mohawk, they know damn well people play Mirror Shades, and they know damn well that people play so many variations in between that they couldn't possibly cater to it all.

[KarmaInferno]

Yeah, I will say that as much as we debate about the "rightness" of this or that rule, in actual play many of these edge cases just aren't a huge problem because that is what we have GMs for. To adjust and adapt.

Even in the many Missions games I've been in, which are a lot more RAW than most home games, I've never seen it become a huge problem.

That doesn't mean we can't reasonably debate improving the rules, though.



-k

[JonathanC]

Human

Obvious Left Cyberarm (the shield arm) 15 capacity (4 remaining)
Customized Agility 6
Customized Body 6
Customized Strength 6
Enhanced Body 3
Armor 4
(4 capacity remaining)

Obvious Right Cyberarm (weapon arm) 15 capacity
Customized Agility 6
Customized Body 6
Customized Strength 6
Enhanced Body 3
Enhanced Agility 3
Enhanced Strength 3
Spur
(3 capacity remaining) Hmm... room for 1 armor.

So? Just because you have room for something doesn't mean you have to buy it, and there are other things you can buy to take that last 3 capacity. Are you really losing your shit over 1 armor?

Because YOUR "house rules" (initially pointed out as the "clear intention of RAW") impose on perfectly reasonable characters to shut down monstrosities.

It'd be nice if you could provide some proof....or did you think that the half-example you listed above was sufficient? How is the loss of 1 armor "imposing"? It's hardly shutting down the character concept.

MY lack-of-house-rules let perfectly reasonable characters be reasonable, and the GM does the imposing.

It's not a lack of house rules if the GM shuts down a perfectly "rules viable" concept. If it's rules-legal, and by your estimation it is, then it has the right to be played. As soon as the GM intervenes, we're dealing with House Rules. So you're really just arguing between my ruling, which is based on an objective standard, and your ruling, which is basically "if you buy me a sammich and/or blow me, maybe I'll let you have 16/16 armor butt naked"

You're a moron, your argument is entirely without merit, and you don't even have an internally consistent use of language in your post (that is, you claim to be advocating no house rules, when in fact you're advocating pure house rules).

[JonathanC]

Yeah, I will say that as much as we debate about the "rightness" of this or that rule, in actual play many of these edge cases just aren't a huge problem because that is what we have GMs for. To adjust and adapt.

Even in the many Missions games I've been in, which are a lot more RAW than most home games, I've never seen it become a huge problem.

That doesn't mean we can't reasonably debate improving the rules, though.



-k

What right would someone have in an officially-recorded Missions game to tell you that you can't have 16/16 armor in the nude, if the rulebook says that you can? Without a framework to keep things within sensible boundaries, you're just begging for people to abuse the rules, and if you just want to lean on GM fiat to solve all of your problems, then why the hell are you playing with a rule system anyway? You might as well be LARPing or doing some shitty diceless game.

[KarmaInferno]

Er, no, you see high armor folks in Missions all the time.

So far the GMs I have run across adapt to that. They adjust the game to compensate. Whether it be by throwing "different" challenges to the high-armor folks besides merely shooting more, or just ensuring that the lower DP folks don't feel left out. Varies by table.

Which is my point. Having a living breathing GM to adjust the situation is probably the single biggest help to problem rules.




-k

[Chainsaw Samurai]

JohnC, you're the only person I've discussed anything with on Dumpshock that had to resort to a fairly constant use of ad hominem.

The rules are fine. It has nothing to do with GM Fiat. It has to do with a group of people coming together, deciding on a relative power-level the game should take place at, and then running said game to maximum enjoyment of all parties involved. You know, like adults.

You suggest that if there is any flex in the rules that there could be enough immorality among a group of players where sexual favors are exchanged for power. If sexual favors are being thrown around for power in a table top roleplaying game, I think we're pretty much past what the rules say and in to the territory of "He can shoot armor ignoring laser beams from his eyes because he doesn't use teeth" so what does it matter?

I've never been for or against house rules, merely mentioned that what started as your interpretation of RAW was wrong, and that your house rule is unnecessary because there are plenty of ways to control the power level of your own players without worrying about a hose rule here. On the contrary I mentioned, a few times, where house rules are necessary and even mentioned a few I use.

Finally you're not even educated enough about the rules or your own little crusade against them to realize that it would be 22/22 armor, not 16/16.

But this all goes back to the fact that you're way too worked up to bother reading either what the rules say or the entirety of what anyone in this thread has said. So I'm pretty well done with you.

You can either stop this little tirade, or continue ranting into the night waiting on someone to come along and finally agree with you.

I'm sure that anyone who has spent more time playing Shadowrun than complaining about it in internet rage-fests would agree that it isn't an issue.

[JonathanC]

JohnC, you're the only person I've discussed anything with on Dumpshock that had to resort to a fairly constant use of ad hominem.

Do you not read your own posts very often? Also, moron, John isn't actually short for Jonathan, it's a completely different name.

The rules are fine. It has nothing to do with GM Fiat. It has to do with a group of people coming together, deciding on a relative power-level the game should take place at, and then running said game to maximum enjoyment of all parties involved. You know, like adults.

Your suggestion was that GMs should merely disallow any character with excessively high armor, without actually using any sort of consistent rule in doing so. While this isn't a *good* house rule, it certainly counts as a house rule.

You suggest that if there is any flex in the rules that there could be enough immorality among a group of players where sexual favors are exchanged for power. If sexual favors are being thrown around for power in a table top roleplaying game, I think we're pretty much past what the rules say and in to the territory of "He can shoot armor ignoring laser beams from his eyes because he doesn't use teeth" so what does it matter?

It was an exaggeration for effect; I also implied that you'd allow players to bribe you with food, but I notice that you take no issue with that...

I've never been for or against house rules

Then why have you spent half a day whining about how nobody should be using house rules with regards to armor stacking?

merely mentioned that what started as your interpretation of RAW was wrong

When did you provide evidence of this? The rules are very murky on how cyberlimb armor works, and whether it stacks with itself. In all other cases (stacking the bonuses from dermal plating with the bonuses from worn armor, for example) the armor is layered on top of other armor; in this case, you're suggesting (without rules to clearly back your argument) that putting some armor on your extremities (the most difficult areas to hit on a moving target) make it harder to hit the target.

and that your house rule is unnecessary because there are plenty of ways to control the power level of your own players without worrying about a hose rule here.

Actually, most of the suggestions in this thread sucked. I'm the one who pointed out that Sound spells and Elemental Strike: Sound make the build useless. But then, Sound attacks make all armor useless; I don't know why sonic weapons are more common in the game.

Finally you're not even educated enough about the rules or your own little crusade against them to realize that it would be 22/22 armor, not 16/16.

4 limbs with 4 armor each, stacking in the way that you suggest, would be 16/16. Nice try, though.

I'm sure that anyone who has spent more time playing Shadowrun than complaining about it in internet rage-fests would agree that it isn't an issue.

I'm not the only person in this thread who has stated that you're full of shit; I'm just not as nice about saying it.

[KarmaInferno]

As far as the 22/22, I think Chainsaw is probably counting a cybertorso and cyberskull.

Can we please cut out the personal attacks on either side?





-k

[Midas]

@JohnathanC
TJ had a very valid point about obvious cyberlimbs being, well, obvious. You shrugged it off by saying such a character could wrap up and hide their cyberarms of doom under armour. If that's the way you want to play it, that's fine, but please remember this is you complaining about how bad armoured cyberarms are and then allowing them to be hidden away with ease, not anybody else.

The character will face difficulties and prejudice anywhere there is a cyberware scanner, or an assensing mage who won't require many hits to see the essence holes in both arms. They will have to wear fairly thick full-length armour and heavy duty gloves at all times to disguise their obvious cyberarms (so no hob-nobbing at social occasions if the GM wants to throw that scenario at you, in fact you'd be screwed anywhere where fairly heavy armour was not de rigeur), and might from a roleplaying perspective feel a bit of a freak. Police and CorpSec would be treating him as suspicious pretty much wherever he went (for the heavy armour and gloves if nothing else). On top of that, there won't be too many people wandering around town with double arm replacements, so your guy would be fairly easy to find by someone who had a mind to look for him.

As stated by others, Availability is this double-armed cyberarmour junkie's enemy at CharGen, and especially if he goes alphaware (for your 1.6 total essence figure), it will take him quite a time in-game to gain the money to upgrade armour to 4 in each arm. Restricted Gear (1/arm) would cost him 10BP of his 35 possible for +ve Qualities if he did it that way.

Finally, as others have said, there is what you can do with RAW in CharGen, and there is what your GM will allow at your table. If you as the GM don't want to have to roll out the big guns all the time to challenge Cyber-armoured Tank'o'Doom, tell your player that you'd prefer him to make a more low-key character. Problem solved.

[JonathanC]

As far as the 22/22, I think Chainsaw is probably counting a cybertorso and cyberskull.

Can we please cut out the personal attacks on either side?





-k

If he's counting the torso and skull, then he's a goddamned idiot because I was pretty clear that I was only referring to someone with four limbs. The whole point is that you don't even have to try that hard to wind up with a ridiculous amount of armor using cyberlimbs. Even two Alphaware limbs can net you 8/8 while you're butt naked (which, again, I pointed out earlier).


So Karma, perhaps you can explain how "cyberpunk" it is for some naked homeless guy with two cyberarms to be better armored than the police officers dispatched to get him to stop rubbing his junk on people (again, just an example scenario)?