OK, I know many spell type effects stack onto the armor values, but I am running the game only with the core 4E rules, so does normal armor stack on armor? Or is only the highest value of B and I considered out of all the pieces worn? Other than helmets and shields, of course.

To the best of my knowledge, yes. The armor spell stacks with worn armor. The books are very good at letting you know if something like a spell or quality that grants an armor bonus is not compatible with worn armor.

My question is about normal armor. I have a player who thinks all his pieces of normal armor stack with each other. It seems to me that only the highest B and I values of the stacked armor is to be used, not added. Right now his Troll has a 14 armor value, without his one from being a Troll. Seems a bit rediculous to me, especially if he ever gets hardened armor.

I just looked this up and am surprised: there is no stacking according to the BBB:

The armor spell on BBB, p202 specifically says it stacks with worn armor.

Yeah, I know magical armor stacks. Its just normal pieces with normal pieces. Like your quote says, I think only the highest value is considered, no actual stacking is allowed. Other then magical effects, such as spells, or the Physical Adept power.

Going only by RAW, armor does not stack, so your friend is wrong. Until you get Arsenal and everybody and their hamster starts wearing FFBA, but that's a different story, to be told at a different campfire.

Correct. Normaly, Armor doesn't stack. There is an exception in the Arsenal sourcebook, but if you're only playing with the basic rules, armor (in form of clothing) doesn't stack.

The only armor that DOES stack with others is the Form-Fitting Body Armor, from the book "Arsenal." It specifically states that it was designed to be worn under other clothing and armor, and therefore stacks with them. At 900¥ for a piece of gear that adds 4 Ballistic / 1 Impact to your armor, it's insane to not buy it.

The Form-Fitting Body Armor, commonly known as FFBA here, comes in various types; the most common of which is the Half-Body Suit, which is the example given above. There is also a full-body suit that gives more protection, but loses some of the concealability factor.

Hope this helps...

-- Thal'aen out

Edit: Apparently, me, Naysayer, and Steampunk decided to do a little bit of hivemind action there. Sorry for the redundancy.

There's also the PPP system. They add an armor modifier, similar to shields and helmets. Real nice for going under your armored business suit and still looking tidy for your meet with the Johnson.

PPP?

Thank you. I haven't bought Arsenal yet, but I think the player has it, PDF only if you get my meaning, and since this is my first time even getting to run Shadowrun since about 1999, I haven't invested in any additional books other then getting the 4E book. I do have a lot of the additional books from previous editions, but with so many fundamental rules changes in 4E I think I'll just start buying the 4E books if this game lasts a while.

Arsenal is made out of pure gold. Its Rigger 3, Cybertechnology and Man and Machine all wrapped up with new bits too.

Actually, it's not. I mean, it is shiny. Very shiny, and also heavy. Shiny and heavy. Like... yeah, gold. So that part's tight.
But not the Cybertechnology / M&M part. That stuff is in Augmentation. Which is also very, very shiny, for the cyberlimb rules alone. And the fluffy bits. And stuff.

But them's different books, them is!

Yeah, for sure there is no armor stacking per the core book rules. There are the "extras" though that modify your armor like the various shields and helmets. Also, if you have any kind of cyber/bioware that adds armor ratings, those stack with worn armor too (because they now are considered a part of your person much like the troll's inherent +1 for bone deposits). In the cyberlimb section you can outfit your arms with armor as well. I forget the max rating of armor that you can put in a limb, but anything you add with that stuff can be considered part of your person and stacks with normal armor as well.

Ok, Naysayer gets a gold star.

So does the PPP system add to your over all armor, or just those specific locations and are good only against called shots?

I mean, are you still supposed to only count the highest B or I value among all the armor pieces? Or does it add to the total like the Shields and Helmets?

PPP adds it's rating to the total like shields and helmets do. There are no rules for targeting specific body parts, unless you consider the called shot to avoid armour to fit that definition.

Which pieces can be worn with which armour is totally left up to the GM as the RAW seems to say that you can wear that stuff in addition to MilSpec which I think is silly. YMMV.

Nah, mil-spec armor specifically states that it cannot be used with other armor.

Didn't the blurb on MilSpec armor also mention that it basically comes with FFBA already included?
Or am I misremembering.

But yeah, trying to stack anything that isn't a helmet on a heavy armor should entail fierce bitch-slapping.
...Yes, that goes for longcoats, too. Especially for longcoats.
Sorry, GM flashback

This is a common question amongst beginning players to SR4. I know when I started playing we had several players have many questions similar to this. Since all of those armor points add up, it represents a general armor value, not just to areas where you'd call that shot. The values are abstracted to represent the levels of protection, either in armor quality or area coverage. Lets look at the core book full body armor. It's got a B/I rating of 10/8. With that helmet added, it's now got a rating of 12/10. When someone calls a shot to the head, you have to find out what it is that they are actually trying to do.

According to the rules on called shots, there are various different things that can be done. If the player is just trying to target a more vital area (the head is pretty vital), then you'd increase the damage they do on their shot by the number of dice they take away from their pool (up to 4). If they are aiming at the head to bypass body armor and try to just get helmet resistance, well, they have to suffer a dice pool modifier equal to the armor they are trying to bypass (and don't get any kind of damage increase for it like the earlier situation). Some GMs will rule that since the helmet is cohesive with the armor and part of the set, a player couldn't seek to just bypass the body armor and have the target resist with only his helmet, but rather the entire armor and helmet combo as a full unit. It's really up to GM discretion.

I can see it being fair if he just wants to bypass the suit but have the target resist with his helmet. I wouldn't allow for taking away partial armor values though, like if he only wanted to bypass 5 points of the full body armor's (suit) ballistic of 12. Depending on what he decides to do, have him roll accordingly and keep in mind that you have to translate the dice rolls for the players. If he bypasses the suit but has his target keep his helmet to resist, the shot hits him in the head somewhere. To bypass everything means the player was good enough to target through some flaw in the armor (like at a joint or some unprotected spot). Most of the time, full body suits of armor will reduce dice pools to almost nothing and players would like to settle with an increase of damage over decreasing their chances for hits on their test.

If you have a really good character who has tons of dice and you want to avoid him shooting to bypass armor all the time, you could make him roll an appropriate knowledge skill or armorer to see if he'd even know where to find a weak point or flaw in armor to bypass and if he fails his test tell him "no" he can't bypass the armor because he doesn't know enough about it. As GM you could also allow him make a perception test to observe in detail (simple action) to try and spot a flaw to bypass a full body suit. Keep in mind a metahuman is threshold 2 to spot, 3 is somthing very small, and a micro flaw would be threshold 4.

These are some things you could keep in mind to keep things fair and keep awesome combat characters from walking all over a fully armored corp response team by bypassing their armor (seen it happen, makes GMs angry).

Apparently I need to reread that section.


Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that the rules have no provision at all for targeting specific body parts. Also, once a helmet is added, RAW says it's still just one piece of armor and by extension should be treated as such for the bypass armour called shot rule.

As you said at the end, liberal interperitation of the called shot rules results in fights that are nothing but a long string of: BOOM Headshot! which aren't fun for anyone but the gunbunnies and even they'll get bored of it. It also makes it so that the GM can't challenge the players with well equipped mooks and has to start throwing heavy weapons and prime runners at them. That's not fun for the non-combat members.

But FFBA is so comfy and protective...

But yeah, other than that, he's right. No stacking.

Though, helmets and stuff are exceptable in our group.

Also, do they still have forearm pads and shit guards and all that crap?

forearm guards are now called "Securetech PPP" and available for the head, forearms, legs, arms, vitals, etc.

I know that they probably have the ''no stacking except for PPP/FFBA'' for game balance purposes, but I mean...I never did understand why Armor Clothing didn't stack with an armor jacket. Hell, the PPP/FFBA is a lot BETTER than the Armor Clothing, anyhow. I think I houseruled in RAW that at least Armor Clothing could stack. It wasn't *that* much better(and of course, it counted against Body, and the like, so even halving it you needed a body of 5 to wear that with an armor jacket, and 4 to wear it with a vest.)

No, by the RAW, there is nothing to target specific body parts. I was just using the head as an example of what a player might want to target and how a GM would handle that according to the rules. I tell my players that they can't target body parts, but how they call their shot (for more damage or to bypass armor) usually affects where their character would aim and hit their target.

Yeah, I wholly agree with you about the armor adding to the suit and being cohesive. By "some GMs" I meant I can't vouch for others. I like to stick to the RAW to avoid rules arguments with players. I wouldn't allow them to use the bypass the suit and just resist with the helmet example I posted, but left it an option or suggestion for anyone interested.

The games I'm involved with tend to try and add more reality into the SR world, so if someone calls a shot to bypass armor by aiming for the head, we only allow the defender to resist with body+helmet armor. Your heavy security armor covering the rest of your body does you no good when the bullet hits your brainpan. May not be fully RAW, but it makes more sense, and keeps a headshot lethal like it should be.

so what is the shooters die mod like? Don't you have a negative modifier equal to the armor you are bypassing?

That's what players in my group tried to justify when we were playing. You have to understand that taking a negative equal to the armor you are shooting around accounts for the smaller target area. It is pretty synonymous with, "I'm shooting them in the head." Not everyone just gets head shots when they shoot. Just the act of firing the gun can come from anywhere, like firing from the hip. The action of "take aim" actually means that your character is sighting up the gun with the target, and taking the negative for bypassing the armor means they're aiming for an unprotected area.

You DO understand, that a helmet on it's own doesn't have an armor rating of 1/2, but more likely something like 10/12? A helmet doesn't consist out of thin clothing It just ADDS +1/+2 (or something like that) to your overall armor, that doesn't mean, that it would have 1/2 for itself... The basic idea is, that armor counts for the whole body, so a helmet doesn't add that much, because the head is only a small part of the whole body.

If you put a pixie inside a helmet mounted on a pole - do you really thing it would only be protected by 1/2 when shooting at it?

The main problem that people face with the rules here is, that they want to decide which PART of the body the want to shoot. But this CANNOT be done with the rules. The combat rules are abstract - and the result is only known AFTER you roll.

The thing with helmets is that I think that +1/+2 as the sole armor would be something like a normal bike helmet, not a helmet designed to protect from bullets or explosions. So adding only that +1 to body when a person is wearing a real helmet is bit off in my books. I'd call it like in good ol'e CP2020 that a normal helmet equals a bullet proof vest on armor and a military helmet would equal a good armored jacket. In SR terms that would be that the "normal" helmet is 6/4 and milspec 8/6 or 10/8 if targeted alone.

edit: typed too slow it appears...

I agree completely.

Not knowing for sure how much a helmet is worth for its armor values is a good reason why I don't allow it to be withstood alone. If you try to bypass the armor, you bypass all of it.

This is of course, save for a trolls natural armor. They's just gots bony skins.

It's a really bad idea to start mixing "realism" and "abstract" in the same mechanic. The armour rules are entirely abstracted, and you need to get to grips with the abstract rules about bypassing it or doing more damage in spite of it. "Where" you hit is purely flavour/SfX/storytelling, made up after you see the results of the shot. If you're just firing normally and your target rolls no soak succeesses, then it's a hit to an unarmoured location. Simple as. Extrapolate from there to see how the "bypass armour" and "vital location" rules work.

Bad:

Player: "I try to shot the head"

Good:

Player: "I try to bypass his armor." *rolls*
... a little bit of dice rolling later...
GM: "You manage to put a bullet into the slit between his helmet and collar."

exactly.

The thing to remember with any called shot rules is that whatever the player characters can do, the NPC rules can do as well. If the players try to argue for some horribly broken called shot mechanic, then the NPC's they get in a firefight with should be trying to do the same thing, and hopefully scaring the pants off the players and disabusing them of any notion of using said called shot rules.

And I agree, headshots with helmets shouldn't be done against the armor value listed for the helmet. The armor values given are kind of an "average protection", not the protection in any given area. Similarly, the armor values for helmets are the values that the helmet gives to the "average protection" of the armor, not the specific protection to the head.

Generally, I just rule that all Armor Stacks, using the total modified rating for encumbrance (which I do realize can be easily abused for troll tanks, but the issue has never come up as my players seem to prefer human, human, human, and human, as well as the odd elf). FFBA counts for encumbrance as normal.