Form-fitting Body Armor, clarification of cannon Options

[hunter5150]

Somewhere, sometime I got it in my head that layering does not pertain to form-fitting armor. What a wonderful and glorious invention. However, my hopes were shattered when I checked M&M and according to cannon FFA only negates combat pool penalties. Anyone know where I may have picked up that incorrect info? Maybe errata or something?

[TinkerGnome]

Check the errata (www.shadowrunrpg.com). I do believe it removes the quickness penalties, as well.

[hunter5150]

But it does layer like normal armor right?

[A Clockwork Lime]

Yep, it's halved if you're wearing any armor with a Ballistic or Impact rating higher than its rating, otherwise it's at its full ratingl. Beyond that, it basically doesn't count as another layer of armor.

[Kakkaraun]

I can't seem to find the rule, and I know one of ya'll must know this off the top of yer head, so, in layering, do you round down or up?

[Connor]

The rule is to round down, but most of the time we house rule it to round up, as long as people aren't getting crazy with stacking. We see no reason a 3/1 form-fitting half suit shouldn't go ahead and give 2/1 on top of a jacket or long coat or something.

[Kakkaraun]

I'd say, round down, to a minimum of 1. So, a 3/1 half suit would be 1/1. Or a 4/1 full suit would be 2/1.

[mfb]

by the book, you round down with no minimum. minimum 1 is a fairly common houserule, though.

[Lantzer]

Yeah, I looked in the rules, and saw that it only affects combat pool penalties, as well. which is all fine and good, but it's the quickness penalties that are more restrictive when layering.

I'll have to look for the erratta. Even if the errata doesn't fix this, FFBA still has a role to play - FFBA 1 & 2 are still pretty concealable under normal clothing. Nobody ever wears FFBA 3 - cause how are you going to hide the hood, gloves and booties?

[A Clockwork Lime]

They come with those things, you don't have to wear them to gain the benefit of the armor. They're an extra incentive for someone who wants, say, Thermal Dampening or Ruthenium Polymers... or to hide their fingerprints and face on a run.

Note that the Half-Body Suit only covers the thighs, groin, and torso; the arms and lower legs are fully exposed. That's where the extra Ballistic +1 comes into play with the Full-Body Suit.

Unless you use house rules or aren't wearing any other armor, the Half-Body Suit doesn't provide any functional armor improvement over the Shirt; +1/+0 for both.

[Kagetenshi]

[A Clockwork Lime]

It's actually Concealability 12, I believe.

[Connor]

Yeah, but still. Hiding the hood and gloves isn't going to be practical in a walking around everyday type situation. Now, once you get down to business on the run, that's one thing, but meeting up with the Johnson or doing bodyguard work, etc, you're going to probably stick to the half-suit so you don't look like a complete idiot.

[Kagetenshi]

Conceal 12 sounds eminently practical. The only thing I can think of that would make it impractical is Summer.

~J

[A Clockwork Lime]

Again, the context is that the hood and gloves are extras. They're not required for the armor benefits. You would have to strip off the arm and lower leg portions to get to the equivalence of the half-body suit.

[Connor]

well, I'm not saying it would be easy to hide, but to hide a hood covering most of your head you'd have to wear a hood or something else covering most of your head. Which, in most situations isn't practical. Obviously the FFBA would be easily hidden, but the means to do so are obvious, at least with the hood. Gloves over the FFBA gloves are less conspicuous, but I still don't see gloves coming back into fashion or anything.

Just because it has a Conceal of 12 just means it's not hard to cover up, but at the same time covering up 95% of your body in most places, especially indoors just isn't practical or inconspicuous, imo. How often do you go out and about and see someone covered from head to toe except their face? Not very often.

I suppose you could use some sort of wig with long hair or something on the hood, but I still think wearing it out and about around town just isn't practical. Suit up with the full suit for the actual run, but wear the half-suit around town and for everday protection.

[Kagetenshi]

Tucking the hood into the back of your collar or whatever. Unless you're going to houserule the conceal to only apply under certain conditions, there is incontrovertibly some way to conceal it while wearing normal clothes (long pants, long-sleeved shirt).

~J

[Kakkaraun]

Step 1.) Wear jeans, wear shoes, wear long-sleeved shirt.
Step 2.) Remove hood, remove gloves.
Step 3.) Place hood and gloves in pocket.

[Connor]

But if you're not wearing the hood and gloves does it still give the full benefit of protection? Where do you draw the line between the half-suit and the full-suit?

If you take off the gloves and hood the only difference between the two at that point is that the full suit continues to cover the forearms and calves. Do you lower the protection rating of the full-suit without the hood and gloves? Do you just ignore it?

I'll admit it's something we ignored for a long time, and everyone just wore full FFBA suits all the time...

[A Clockwork Lime]

[FlakJacket]

[TheScamp]

[FlakJacket]

Hence the kinda. All of this is IMHO and YMMV of course. :)

[Eyeless Blond]

Well, also keep in mind that helmets typically provide Impact armor, so by that logic FFBA without the cowl would be 4/0 :P

[A Clockwork Lime]

And yet, oddly enough, the half-body suit, which doesn't have the optional accessories, provides 3/1. Go figure. :P