Armor Stacking, I need to find the definitive FAQ Options

[JonathanC]

@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.

There is nothing in the rules or the fluff to suggest that armored obvious cyberlimbs look any different from regular obvious cyberlimbs, and the description of obvious cyberlimbs does not state that they are enormous; they're simply "obviously artificial". So they're the size of regular arms, but made of metal. It's not that big of a deal. You're not going to be refused entry to a dive bar downtown because you've got obvious cyberlimbs.

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.

Cyberlimbs are pretty commonplace in Shadowrun; there are several ongoing wars around the world, so the influx of veterans with lost limbs is likely to be pretty high. I seriously doubt that people are going to faint at the sight of a dude with two cyberarms. Scanners will pick up the limbs, but with a license/fake license, you're not likely to get that much trouble over it. And who cares about assensing mages? If you're going someplace where they can afford to pay an honest-to-god mage to be a goddamn doorman, then yeah, bullet-proof McIronballs probably doesn't belong there. He's waiting in the van to pop out if the Face gets himself in trouble.

They will have to wear fairly thick full-length armour and heavy duty gloves at all times to disguise their obvious cyberarms

This is pretty common for combat-oriented characters, but it doesn't have to be. Am I really the only person who has read Arsenal? You can cover yourself pretty well in heaily-armored business attire, formal attire, and even Steampunk outfits. Fashion options aren't really an issue here. More than likely, our tanky friend has no business in that swanky nightclub because he's got an Etiquette pool in the single digits.

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.

Because if there's one thing Shadowrun has, it's a lot of locations where heavy armor is not commonplace. I mean, it's not like the most classic locations in canon are gang-infested Barrens, bug-infested feral cities, and underground free cities filled with orks. Oh, wait....

Police and CorpSec would be treating him as suspicious pretty much wherever he went (for the heavy armour and gloves if nothing else).

If I was corpsec, I'd be more worried about the guy who reads as magically active, or his buddy over there with the Wired Reflexes, but sure. Anyone with obvious cyber is going to be suspicious. But why is this guy trying to chill out in a corp lobby? If he's running across CorpSec or Police, he's probably already emptied a clip in their general direction.

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.

See the above note regarding military veterans (seriously, do you have any idea how many amputees there are after 10 years in Iraq/Afghanistan?). Also, in a world where having two cyberlimbs makes you effectively bulletproof, I imagine double arm replacements would be fairly popular. A society in which tearing out your eyeballs to replace them with cybernetic/bio-modded improvements is something you do during an afternoon at the mall, and plugging your BRAIN into a public computer network is mundane, chopping off your arms doesn't seem all that crazy.

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.

Depends on the average payout per run, really. But let's assume that he sticks with Availability 12, he's still leaving chargen with 4/4 armor for 1.6 essence, which is a helluva deal. And it only gets better once he gets some cash.

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.

This solution is no different from simply declaring a house rule. In fact, it IS a house rule. It's just an incredibly petty, subjective one.

[KarmaInferno]

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).

Again with the personal attacks. It is, in fact, possibe to hold a discussion without resorting to insults. Attack the subject, not the speaker. Please. If nothing else, it distracts from your actual arguments, making them weaker.

The problem is, yes, additive cyberarmor is a bit powerful, but averaging makes cyberarmor not worth the resources.

I probably would just houserule a maximum armor bonus that can be added to a character's primary armor, myself. It's a lot simpler than averaging a bunch of stuff.

Even if you have a 50+/50+ armor combat monster, however, there are plenty of ways to deal with it as a GM. The most obvious is to simply throw challenges at the character that don't always involve resisting damage. In a worse case scenario, simply talking to the player to see if he'll curb his behavior may work, if it's way out of line with the power level of the game you're running.

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)?

Well, if nothing else, 'ordinary' police officers are mostly treated as cannon fodder in many cyberpunk stories. Them getting outclasses by what sounds like a significant character in the story isn't particularly un-cyberpunk, at least.

A naked homeless guy with armored cyberarms isn't going to be just some random bum in this genre. He's likely going to have some backstory explaining the combat grade augmentation, and probably is going to have other skills and abilities to match. If not a primary character, at least a character of significance.

Also remember, a key trope of cyberpunk is that augmented folks are simply better.

Faster, stronger, smarter, able to shrug off damage that should have killed ordinary folks ten times over.

They pay for that physical superiority with a loss of humanity. And often a never-ending vicious cycle of further augmentation to keep up with their peers - which causes even further loss of humanity.

So a couple of cops get reports of some homeless dude sexually assaulting passerby in a park. When they get there, it turns out he's some cyber-psycho freak that shrugs off bullets from their handguns. They're outclassed. They're probably going to die. It's going to take a high threat response team to deal with the situation. And to stay true to cyberpunk themes, probably nobody is going home happy at the end of the incident, if they survive at all.




-k

[JonathanC]

Well, if nothing else, 'ordinary' police officers are mostly treated as cannon fodder in many cyberpunk stories.

Again, that's Robocop, not Cyberpunk in general.

A naked homeless guy with armored cyberarms isn't going to be just some random bum in this genre. He's likely going to have some backstory explaining the combat grade augmentation, and probably is going to have other skills and abilities to match. If not a primary character, at least a character of significance.

Crazed, invulnerable military veteran in ongoing feces rampage downtown. Film at 11. Police unable to bring him down.

Also remember, a key trope of cyberpunk is that augmented folks are simply better.

Better, yes. More durable than a car? Not so much.

Faster, stronger, smarter, able to shrug off damage that should have killed ordinary folks ten times over.

I'm beginning to think that most of you guys are using the old Cyberforce comic book series (and/or any comic featuring Cable) as your sole resource for what qualifies as "Cyberpunk". Seriously, what books are you reading?

They pay for that physical superiority with a loss of humanity. And often a never-ending vicious cycle of further augmentation to keep up with their peers - which causes even further loss of humanity.

There are no longer mechanics for an actual loss of humanity. Loss of essence, yes, but it doesn't actually affect your ability to relate to people from a game mechanics perspective. That ended with Third edition.

So a couple of cops get reports of some homeless dude sexually assaulting passerby in a park. When they get there, it turns out he's some cyber-psycho freak that shrugs off bullets from their handguns. They're outclassed. They're probably going to die. It's going to take a high threat response team to deal with the situation. And to stay true to cyberpunk themes, probably nobody is going home happy at the end of the incident, if they survive at all.

Well, I imagine the homeless guy is going home happy after he murders those cops and runs off into the night. It's not like there's a rule saying he has to sit still and wait for the big boys to arrive.

[KarmaInferno]

I'll just conclude with this:

Most cyberpunk books don't feature the cybered out psycho as the main character. Most of the time, the main characters are actually pretty lightly augmented, and even then it's usually communications or mental improvements.

When a cybered combat bunny shows up, the other characters in the story often treat them as monsters. And not without reason. Either they're unstoppable opposition or they're the scary dude/dudette secondary character that serves as the team muscle. Either way, they usually don't show a lot of empathy and get portrayed as walking weapons. When they get into full on fights, there tends to be a lot of property destruction. More than a few end up dying extremely violent deaths as the opposition's backup finally arrives with heavy weaponry.

Meanwhile the main characters are usually taking advantage of the commotion to get something else done, or sometimes as cover to flee.

Really, cyberware in the genre tends to show up either as kinda minor improvements to a character, or full on zero essence murder machines. Not a lot of in between, which fits it's story parallel as an addictive drug.

Heck, most cyberpunk stories don't feature a cyber monster at all. Seriously, even Molly Millions has mostly just reflex augments and hand spurs. Cyberfreaks with multiple replaced limbs are a rarity, except sometimes as background flavor.

But when they do show up, it's often going to be accompanied by property values decreasing.

The question is, can it be cyberpunk to have a modded out character with more implanted armor than a street cop, or even a car?

Sure. Depends on how it's written.

The cyberfreak combat monster is usually the unstoppable force. It takes either overwhelming opposition or some clever trick to defeat them. They really don't show up that often though.



-k

[The Jopp]

The cyberfreak combat monster is usually the unstoppable force. It takes either overwhelming opposition or some clever trick to defeat them. They really don't show up that often though.

-k

*grin*

Well, my example had the 'cybermonster' with attributes of 3 so a well placed shock glove, stunbolt or just have a troll wrestle him had stopped him.

[Sengir]

there are several ongoing wars around the world, so the influx of veterans with lost limbs is likely to be pretty high.

Wars have mostly gone out of fashion in favor of small-scale engagements between highly troops right out of Discovery Channel's newest gear porn. That means if your attire screams "military", you do stand out.

[Warlordtheft]

A quibble...
You can only max Cyberlimb armor at 4 Armor/Limb. So it would be +8 to your calculations, not +12...
(IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Fixed to 4 points for each arm and 4 points for the cyber torso.

I think you mean Capsule rounds. Gel rounds are just hard rubber, while capsule rounds are similar to paintballs.

Yes I did!-Fixed.

[Warlordtheft]

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

Don't forget the pornomancer seducing him, and then poisoning him either..... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cyber.gif)

In all honesty, at a certain point yes the rediculousness of the armor is outweighed by cost (nuyen and opportunnity), availability, and concealability. So barring the gm lets it happen, it probably won't.

[snowRaven]

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)?

Here's an idea - take a guy wearing nothing but an armored vest insteads of the cyberarm dude. Why should he be more armored than a guy in armored clothing and a helmet? Or how about a guy in a helmet, forearm guards and shin guards? If he's tied to a wall and your're punching him he'll withstand more damage than the guy in armor clothing.

It's an abstract system, and all armor applies to the entire body because of that. Only way to 'fix' that is to introduce hit locations and adjust armor accordingly. The 'problem' doesn't lie with cyberlimb armor (your version has the same problems, just lessened, and introduces new ones: I spend extra money on armor and my overall rating ... goes down: having a leg with 8 pts armor suddenly protect less because you added an arm with 4 pts makes even less sense than the current system: why is the naked homeless guy with one cyberarm(armor 8 ) better armored than the one with two of different armor ratings(8 and 2=5)?

[JonathanC]

Wars have mostly gone out of fashion in favor of small-scale engagements between highly troops right out of Discovery Channel's newest gear porn. That means if your attire screams "military", you do stand out.

What game are you playing? There are multiple hotspots around the world supporting a fairly ridiculous number of mercenary armies and corporate troops. Are you playing some *other* game that is also, coincidentally, called Shadowrun?

[JonathanC]

Here's an idea - take a guy wearing nothing but an armored vest insteads of the cyberarm dude. Why should he be more armored than a guy in armored clothing and a helmet? Or how about a guy in a helmet, forearm guards and shin guards? If he's tied to a wall and your're punching him he'll withstand more damage than the guy in armor clothing.

It's an abstract system, and all armor applies to the entire body because of that. Only way to 'fix' that is to introduce hit locations and adjust armor accordingly. The 'problem' doesn't lie with cyberlimb armor (your version has the same problems, just lessened, and introduces new ones: I spend extra money on armor and my overall rating ... goes down: having a leg with 8 pts armor suddenly protect less because you added an arm with 4 pts makes even less sense than the current system: why is the naked homeless guy with one cyberarm(armor 8 ) better armored than the one with two of different armor ratings(8 and 2=5)?

Why would anyone buy two different armor ratings if the ratings were averaged? The benefit is that you can put all of your armor in one limb and use the capacity of your other limbs for other things. Why is this so hard to understand? It's actually simpler and cheaper for the player, and hard-caps cyberlimb armor at 4/4. Not that big of a deal.

[Lantzer]

Why would anyone buy two different armor ratings if the ratings were averaged? The benefit is that you can put all of your armor in one limb and use the capacity of your other limbs for other things. Why is this so hard to understand? It's actually simpler and cheaper for the player, and hard-caps cyberlimb armor at 4/4. Not that big of a deal.

His point is that it's a natural response to a desire to aquire more armor to decide to armor more of the body. Doing so has no benefit when armor is averaged. Your rule is counter-intuitve.

[JonathanC]

His point is that it's a natural response to a desire to aquire more armor to decide to armor more of the body. Doing so has no benefit when armor is averaged. Your rule is counter-intuitve.

Actually, even if we don't average the armor, we're not adding more armor to the body. you can armor the parts of your body LEAST LIKELY to be hit with bullets and you're effectively as bulletproof (or more so) than a fully armored person.

The rules are already counter-intuitive; there's nothing to be done about that. I'm just suggesting that hey, maybe it'd be nice if the rules were at least balanced.

[Warlordtheft]

You also run into the I have 1 piece at four, but when I add another at 2 the value drops to 3 even though you technically added more armor.

[JonathanC]

You also run into the I have 1 piece at four, but when I add another at 2 the value drops to 3 even though you technically added more armor.

If you're going to be bothered by this, why not start bitching about the fact that wearing a Secure Jacket over your Armored clothing doesn't give you additional armor?

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

If you're going to be bothered by this, why not start bitching about the fact that wearing a Secure Jacket over your Armored clothing doesn't give you additional armor?

Because Adding more CyberArmor ADDS MORE ARMOR... Layering A Vest Under a jacket only gives you the better rating. THAT is what everyone is telling you. Your Option is highly counter-intuitive.

[JonathanC]

Because Adding more CyberArmor ADDS MORE ARMOR... Layering A Vest Under a jacket only gives you the better rating. THAT is what everyone is telling you. Your Option is highly counter-intuitive.

I wish I could make you understand how stupid that statement is. Your complaint, essentially, is that my suggested rule adjustment is different from the existing rule.

Adding more cyberlimb armor, with this rule, *does not* add more armor, just like laying a vest under a jacket does not add more armor. If my rule is counter-intuitive, then again: why aren't you crying into your cheerios over armor layering? Isn't that counter-intuitive too? I can just hear it now: "SOB! Why can't I have 50 armor from wearing all of the armor at once?! WHYYYYYYYYYYY"

If you'd prefer that the wording state that the player simply takes the highest cyberlimb armor value, fine; the effect is the same: putting more armor on a limb does nothing for you, so either way you're wasting money. I suggested averaging only because it was consistent with how other cyberlimb enhancements, such as Agility and Body, worked.

[Yerameyahu]

Except it's not consistent, because then you got mad when someone was confused about treating it exactly like cyberlimb attributes. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Averaging across just the cyberlimbs is a whole different (and weird) beast.

[snowRaven]

Why would anyone buy two different armor ratings if the ratings were averaged? The benefit is that you can put all of your armor in one limb and use the capacity of your other limbs for other things. Why is this so hard to understand? It's actually simpler and cheaper for the player, and hard-caps cyberlimb armor at 4/4. Not that big of a deal.

The thing is, that is metagaming. The homeless guy running around slapping police isn't thinking - "hey, I have to find a second-hand arm with the exact same armor on it, otherwise I can't soak a shot from an ares predator anymore!" He's thinking - "cool, more armor."

Regular armor only using the highest rating still 'makes sense' in-game, because for character's in the world it is consistent. If there are circumstances where the armor suddenly becomes less protective when you add more armor, that's not consistent, and very weird from an in-game point of view:
"Hey Klaus, look here! I was testing this new line of cyberware armor, and check what happens! When both Arms have Ares MoronicIV, a bullet can't penetrate. If only one arm as Ares MoronicIV, it still can't penetrate- but watch this - I put on Spinrad NoRadIII on the other arm, and suddenly the bullet goes through!"
"Klaus, you're a genius - I'll tell you what we'll do - we'll develop a gun that shoots a small armor plate that attaches to non-armored arms - that way we can suddenly make all those crazy one-armed homeless cyberfreaks not be bulletproof anymore!"
"LoneStar will sure win back the contract now!"

If you'd prefer that the wording state that the player simply takes the highest cyberlimb armor value, fine; the effect is the same: putting more armor on a limb does nothing for you, so either way you're wasting money. I suggested averaging only because it was consistent with how other cyberlimb enhancements, such as Agility and Body, worked.

I would definately prefer that only the highest counts, just as for 'regular' armor. That avoids the issue of how adding armor can result in a lower rating.

Either that, or revert back to the averaging rules from SR3 - add together the armor of all arms, all legs, torso and head, and average the result.

[snowRaven]

Adding more cyberlimb armor, with this rule, *does not* add more armor, just like laying a vest under a jacket does not add more armor. If my rule is counter-intuitive, then again: why aren't you crying into your cheerios over armor layering? Isn't that counter-intuitive too? I can just hear it now: "SOB! Why can't I have 50 armor from wearing all of the armor at once?! WHYYYYYYYYYYY"

In case it wasn't clear: Because your rule makes adding armor the same as removing armor. No existing rule does that.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

I wish I could make you understand how stupid that statement is. Your complaint, essentially, is that my suggested rule adjustment is different from the existing rule.

Adding more cyberlimb armor, with this rule, *does not* add more armor, just like laying a vest under a jacket does not add more armor. If my rule is counter-intuitive, then again: why aren't you crying into your cheerios over armor layering? Isn't that counter-intuitive too? I can just hear it now: "SOB! Why can't I have 50 armor from wearing all of the armor at once?! WHYYYYYYYYYYY"

If you'd prefer that the wording state that the player simply takes the highest cyberlimb armor value, fine; the effect is the same: putting more armor on a limb does nothing for you, so either way you're wasting money. I suggested averaging only because it was consistent with how other cyberlimb enhancements, such as Agility and Body, worked.

It is not stupid. The fact that you are arguing from an Edge case is the issue here, as others have stated, time and again. Why can't YOU understand that? I understand what you are trying to do here, but your methods are horrible in execution, as others have ALSO stated time and again.

See, the issue with your rant above is that many people do not have an issue with Armor layering. No One wants 50 Armor, and your arguments to the contrary just ring hollow. I have never, ever seen such a build, either at normal gaming tables, nor at conventions (when I choose to go). Can a Full-Borg Conversion Sport 22 points of Integral, stacking armor? Sure. Can he then put on other armor on top of that? Why do you have so many complaints agianst that. As some have indicated, it is a trope of the Cyberpunk Genre. Maybe not as a Protagonist, but it is there. This allows that to happen. Excessive Armor is not all that hard to deal with, as others have also mentioned.

Rather than throwing insults at others, why do you not consider what others have suggested and just cap the limits directly (through either Capacity Increases, Cost/Availability Increases, or the Further limiting of Armor (from 4 to 2, for example)), rather than implementing a wonky "Averaging" mechanic? Instead of debating the actual merits of the ideas generated, all you can do is throw insults at others for daring to debate with you. Do you not wonder why so many others have issues with you?

[JonathanC]

The thing is, that is metagaming. The homeless guy running around slapping police isn't thinking - "hey, I have to find a second-hand arm with the exact same armor on it, otherwise I can't soak a shot from an ares predator anymore!" He's thinking - "cool, more armor."

Build decisions are made by players, not characters. If we're going by the character, then the homeless naked cyborg has no idea what his armor value is in the first place, so he'd have no way of knowing if he had more armor or not. Hell, he'd probably be confused in the first place about why every fucking bullet ever fired at him is magically attracted to his arms.

[Yerameyahu]

Metagaming or not, it just doesn't make sense to average armor across just cyberlimbs. There's no-averaging, and there's all-limbs-averaging. Averaging just cyberlimbs is based on… what? Why does adding another limb to someone with one armored limb lower the overall armor?

[JonathanC]

It is not stupid. The fact that you are arguing from an Edge case is the issue here, as others have stated, time and again. Why can't YOU understand that? I understand what you are trying to do here, but your methods are horrible in execution, as others have ALSO stated time and again.

I'm not arguing an edge case here - I've set aside Mr. Tank, the 24+/24+ armored cyber dwarf. Now we're talking about Ballsack Joe, the naked guy who spent a measley 1.6 essence to get two armored cyberarms and is now running around with 8/8 armor at all times.

Please, please explain to my why it is "intuitive and sensible" that every bullet fired at this asshole goes directly to his arms (which would, realistically, be one of the less likely locations)?

As some have indicated, it is a trope of the Cyberpunk Genre.

This isn't TV Tropes; you can tell, because I'm not a drooling retard who compares everything to Naruto episodes. If you want to call something a trope, you need to give examples. Nobody has given an example, Protagonist or otherwise, of a guy who looks fairly normal (just some metal arms and legs, but normal-sized) who bounces tank rounds like it's no big deal. Unless you're going to start claiming that Cyborg from Teen Titans counts as a seminal figure of the Cyberpunk genre, you're full of crap, here.

Maybe not as a Protagonist, but it is there. This allows that to happen. Excessive Armor is not all that hard to deal with, as others have also mentioned.

Ah, yes. We'll just remove bullets from the game and have every enemy load up on adepts with Elemental Strike (Sound). What's more fucking cyberpunk than that? I'm sure the rest of the players won't mind the sudden change in tone. If players buy too much armor, making armor COMPLETELY useless is obviously the right call to make. How silly of me. Imposing sensible limits instead of going batshit crazy with nerfing is what Commies do, right?

[Yerameyahu]

Hit locations is simply a separate issue. If covering a whole limb isn't good enough fluff for you, you'll just need to deal with it… or add a whole system of hit locations/probability.