What happens when armor exceeds weapsons rating Options

[U_Fester]

A mage is wearing an armor of 4/3. He casts an armor spell of force 6 and succeeds. He new armor rating is now a 10/9.

First what if he is hit with attacks that does 6L, 10L and 12L. Does he shrug off the 6 and 10 and his target number to soak 12 is a 2.

Second someone shoots him with APDS with a power 8M. Is all of the ballistic halved giving him a 5 (half of 10) or only the physical is halved and the magic is fine giving him an 8 (2 half of 4 and plus 6).

[hyzmarca]

Unless he has milspec hardened armor or Immunity to Normal weapons his TN to soak for all three is 2.

[Kagetenshi]

Also, all of the armor is halved including the magical stuff.

~J

[Cain]

To clarify point 1: Let's say that your mage has a body of 1, and doesn't have any combat pool left. In all three cases, he takes a Light wound, since he can't stage it down enough. If he has enough dice, he'll be rolling against a TN of 2.

Thus, even with absurd armor ratings, a character is still vulnerable to high-damage-level attacks.

[Luke Hardison]

[Cain]

Vulnerable, yes; but not nearly as much as against a 1D attack.

[lorthazar]

Thus the possibility of dying from a .22LR round that hits your leather jacket, backed by armor clothes and form fitting body armor. Don't you love when they misconstrue realism. It would be much more logical to reduce damage to a stun when it power hits 0 or less. Then again logic has nothing to do with it.

[Bigity]

Not necessarily. Some people die from shock when grazed with a bullet. (Or, a 2D attack?)

[Fortune]

Why? The combat system in Shadowrun is abstract. A highly successful shot might mean the shooter hit you in the head.

[lorthazar]

True, but if he doesn't call an extremity shot I assume he is aiming for chest and the vital organs. (not that the brain isn't vital it's just damn hard to hit on a moving target)


It's just a matter of very poor wording and thinking. Much like the Hand of God shotguns. A little more thinking would avoid situations like this.

Me I prefer to rule that unless you roll all 1's when struck by a round that your armor reduces the power to 0 or less, you take no real damage. It might be a nick, scrap or powder burn. This balances since head shots ignore armor anyway unless you have a hemet.

[Kagetenshi]

So you aren't using the Shadowrun combat system. Fair enough.

~J

[Austere Emancipa...]

[GrinderTheTroll]

[lorthazar]

Hey Kagetenshi,

I'm just wondering if you are the same slot who makes the GM's life hell every week by being the quintessential rules lawyer? If not then I appologize for asking.

As for your comment, Yes, I do use the shadowrun system, as my ruling has never come up. Most of my players either where light enough armor that a holdout has at least 1 power, or hardened military armor.

Yes according to rules the shot is never determined, but in quite a few cases the only place a round can hit is a heavily armored area. Now according to rules the successes still stage up the damage in that case, which I follow faithfully. I have had trolls die from shock because a 9mm APDS pierced their hand. I have had mages live through a 12 gauge to the head. It is fine to have an abstract rule and I play with that rule. But the day that rule makes the game unfun for the whole group, I will make revisions. That is what make me a good GM.

[Kagetenshi]

[JaronK]

I very much prefer when a GM for the most part follows the rules as written, unless they give warning that they're going to do otherwise. I've seen too many GMs decide something weird is "reasonable" or "more realistic" and it stinks.

JaronK

[Ol' Scratch]

[lorthazar]

I have a new definition of irony

Infinite Precision of Knowledge in a Flawed Subject :rotfl:


No offense meant it just struck me as to funny not to share.



Here's the deal as I see it. Their are two factors to the game: Rules and Players. Without players there would be no use for the rules. So if your group (as a group mind you) think something should work one way, and the rules seem a little buggy on that, then the rule changes. New handouts can be made. The house rule can be explained.

Does this make the game any less ShadowRun? No, in fact it may make the game more shadowrun.

Does this make me right and you wrong? No, but it also doesn't make me wrong and you right

Does this make my rules inconsistent? No. once I go by a ruling and it has been used once I stick with it, unless FanPro were to come down with an Errata that made more sense.

[lorthazar]

[Voran]

Also, just because your character is wearing a full suit of armor, doesn't always mean their entire body is covered in the same amount of armor. Armor ratings, especially when you having stacking of armor, represents the overall, otherwise, you'd have to have individual part armor ratings. Chest/Torso would be as listed, every other part a fraction of that. Which is why basic armor doesn't bounce ammo rounds unless its hardened.

By the game rules, just running around bareassed with nothing on except a plated armor vest gives you decent armor protection. About the same armor protection, if not a little more, than wearing a full suit of 90% covering FFBA.

So wearing an armor jacket still means my character can take a round in the arm, as I'm sure not the entire jacket is plated and protected. Made of bullet resistant cloth, sure, but not plated.

[algcs]

So we should assume the armor spell doesn't cover the entire body? In the first post the mage has a force 6 Armor spell up and gets hit by a DL 6 attack. Just using the armor spell the DL is a zero. Ok so it isn't real armor and it is magic and works differently than regular armor. That is fine and dandy but then why the heck does ADPS 1/2 the armor spell?

[JaronK]

Well, here's one way to look at it. A character is wearing a SecureTech ultra vest over form fitting body armour, with an Armoured Jacket with Dikoted plates over the top (Balistic Rating 9). He's quite well armoured. If he's a troll, and someone shoots a 9M heavy pistol shot at him, the armour will take the vast majority of the damage, causing him to grunt a bit from the hit, but otherwise be fine. If, however, he's a little weakling, the shot may knock the wind out of him and knock him down, causing him to hit his head or maybe just be so scared by the whole thing that he goes into shock.

JaronK

[Jonah]

location is not stated, so a leather jacket will not save your life if I shoot you in the eye with a .22. Remember the better you are at shooting a gun, the more successes you get = bigger damage code.
A noob with a panther cannon will hit everything but the target, an olympic shooter will put one in each eye socket at 500m with a match grade .22 pistol.
This doesn't need a called shot, it is reflected by the characters skill. Accuaracy is far deadlier than the perverbial BIG GUN.

Called shots however let you bypass armour (mmm that military spec guy just took of his helmet, or worse still DON"T get caught with your amoured pants down)

[Kagetenshi]

Accuracy won't let you do 20D(AV).

~J

[hyzmarca]

Accuracy will let you bypass vehicle armor altogether, which is almost as good.