See title.

its a no brainer so it depends on what you mean by balanced.

Lets assume a 4body, FF level 3, and armored jacket. You roll 18 dice vs bullets, and can knock down 6DV to 0 on average. If you want ordinary dudes with heavy pistols to be a threat, no its not balanced. If you are frequently unleashing 9+dv attacks on the party, then yeah I'd say its balanced.

The character in that example would have -2 to Agility and Reaction due to encumbrance, and someone firing a heavy pistol gets -1 AP. And will often get more than a single net hit. And "on average" means that if the dice don't like you that night, you'll be hurting. So the guy with the heavy pistol isn't something that can be ignored, and that's not even getting into opponents with heavier or burst-fire weapons.

I think FFBA and PPP were put in there as a very deliberate boost to armor, since both were literally made to stack with other armor.

I think they are both balanced - they make characters tougher, but not invincible. My character in Origins had FFBA, and she was still hurting plenty at the end of that run.

What's bad is the general rule that armor doesn't stack.

FFBA is not balanced. There is no reason not to wear it, every character of every build benefits from it. Quite clearly the problem is not that Armor does not stack, it's that FFBA stacks with no penalties whatsoever.

Absent that ridiculousness, FFBA could be useful for certain situations where armor must be very low profile and you couldn't wear that armor jacket.

PPP has the same problem, imo.

That's like saying smartlinks are not balanced, because every character with a gun will use one.

And it stacks with reduced penalties, not none. PPP stacks normally, similarly to how helmets and shields work.

Absent its ability to stack, FFBA wouldn't be that useful - an armor vest, at 6/4, would offer both better and more discrete protection.


I kind of agree with Rotbart, actually. It's like they tried to solve all of the previous issues they had with armor stacking by making it not work at all. And for some things (such as an armored jacket worn over an urban explorer jumpsuit), it doesn't make sense that you wouldn't get some kind of benefit from it.

Fixing a broken rule by introducing another broken rule is not a good way, even though catalyst is fond of it what's with their wierd "never directly change anything in the core book, change it all you want, but not as a general rule change, but by introducing some wierd 'exeptions' " way.
The general rule should be let armor stack with penalties, and reduce those penalties for FFBA, not make only FFBA stack in the first place. Game mechanically the current way is the exact same thing than generally allowing stacking (as every remotely experienced player will have found FFBA by now), but the authors steadfast refusal of changing a written rule sentence directly and instead 'amending' it by nixing it indirectly, bloats the rules needlessly and acts as a honeypit for inexperienced players who'll have literally half the armor than their comrades thanks to missing one single piece of equipment.

I don't understand where the 18 dice figure comes from (4 ffba, 8 jacket, 4body == 16 dice, and you need a body of 5 to wear that w/o penalty, 6 if you add a 2/2 helmet or PPP pads to get you to 18).

Also I suggest the OP read the description of the various FFBA's as well.
There's no good way to hide that you're wearing level 3 FFBA. It's a full body condom getup.
Level 2 and 1 are reasonably concealable.

I guess the baseline here would be... is 9/5 armor w/ a 4 body requirement for someone wearing FFBA2 and an armored vest. Or 9/7 total armor w/ the jumpsuit.

Just dump craploads of skill points into Dodge. Then you don't need to worry about armor

but you also don't get to act... I fail to see the net gain in this.

If you've got a Body of 3, and are wearing an armored vest, FFBA is not going to help you a whole lot. In fact, it'll hinder you.

Yeah, you're better off dumping craploads of power points into Combat Sense. It's still no cure-all, though, because wide bursts will still mess up your day.

I see your Dodge and raise you a Force 8 Stunball and a light pistol.

But in that case, you are deliberately gimping yourself with a sub-optimal armor choice (at least, protection-wise - the vest might be the optimal choice for a formal meet where obvious armor is a no-no). You could combine a Synergist business line long coat, PPP (discrete protection version) forearm guards and shin guards, and a FFBA half-body suit for total protection of 8/5, treated as 6/4 for encumbrance purposes.

FFBA is so good because it stacks with other armor and is treated as half of its rating for encumbrance purposes. There might be times where you feel like saying "The heck with all of this figuring and fussing, I'm just going to wear an armored jacket and that's that." But that doesn't change the fact that FFBA and PPP both offer a potential edge when it comes to armoring a character up.


I agree with Dragnar that it's annoying when, instead of changing a rule, they make a special piece of gear that acts as an exception to the rules. I would have liked either a change to the basic armor stacking rules, or a few more options than FFBA and PPP, both of which are "must-haves" in the same way that smartlinks are to most characters.


I don't think they are unbalancing, though. A few more points of armor give PCs some help, but don't make them invincible. My aforementioned character had Body: 4, a lined coat, and a half suit of FFBA, for a total soak dice of 14 before factoring in AP. It helped keep her alive, but she didn't walk away unscathed, either.

There's been a lot of argument on the forum about how PPP and form-fitting armor as well as other methods of jumping up your soak rolls are fundamentally broken. I've found two ways that fix this in my game, I believe that they're RAW but RAW around here seems to be at the conveniance of the poster, so I'll just say I made this shit up .

So there are two things, Form-fitting armor is a pretty discreet armor, PPP less so but still pertty discreet, now when you start putting on armored vest and the like you're putting on signifigantly flashier armor, if you work a bunch of that stuff in conjunction people are going to start wondering what your deal is and thusly call the cops or what have you.

Obviously the ostentatiousness of armor isn't usually enough to warrant police intervention in the same way a gauss rifle might be, so to that end I use the armor degredation rules and have it apply to all components of a shot party's armor at the same time. That will pretty much shred PPP system, and the time and cost of replacing armors is enough of a pain in the ass that players are more prone to go with armors that have a lump sum score, at least that's how it has been happening so far.

I realize this is purely anecdotal, I'm not giving a complex statistical analysis on the decision making heuristics of players when they probabilities of success and percieve hassle change as such. I don't think anyone else is going to give a similar mathmatically expressed statistical model. This worked great for my games, the big heavy soak rollers are still getting pwned on a semi-regularbasis and armor degredation is becoming enough of a pain in the ass wherein they'd rather be clever about combat than roll in guns blazing.

I have mixed feelings about this one - I think it should be balanced as written, but is not. I am inclined to agree that the problem is with the core armor stacking rules.

It "comes with" gloves, booties and a hood. You can easily wear clothing over it, or just style it so it looks like some sort of weird fashion statement. You don't have to wear the gloves; you can always just stick them in your pocket or something, and gloves aren't that uncommon; I doubt the FFBA gloves really stand out. You don't have to wear the hood, or perhaps you could roll it into the collar of the shirt or jacket you're wearing over it. It's *designed* to be hidden under clothing or other armor.

Outside of Bellevue etc, you'd have to flaunt your differences to really stand out.

I generally agree with most of the other posters - the problem isn't with FFBA per se, it's with the outright ban on armor stacking. If anyone has a good set of house rules to fix this, I'd love to hear them.

You could use the old SR3 rules - add the highest rating to one-half of the next-highest rating. Limit stacking to two items of armor (not counting piecemeal armor such as PPP), generally a coat or jacket over clothing/underwear armor. FFBA and PPP are still better, but they are, after all, designed to be used in conjunction with other armor. They would remain the optimal choice, but you would see things like a troll wearing an armored jacket over combat biker armor. It would actually raise the power level, especially for troll tanks, but it would bring some measure of consistency back to the rules. FFBA would still be better, but at least it wouldn't be breaking the rules of the game universe as much.

I wouldn't give the Armor's full rating if a character's chooses not to wear all the accessories.

Just let all armor tack, problem solved.

How would you handle Encumbrance? Keep it as-is?


Neither would I. I meant you could do that for situations in which full armor is not viable (I don't wear my helmet in public either, unless I'm in Redmond). It wouldn't take long to pull on the gloves and hood, and you could do it on the run.

Also, what about ruthenium polymer? Just an idea... If you have the polymer coating, set your gloves to mimic the look of your hands (and maybe your hood the back and sides of your head, and your lower face if it includes a bandanna). It won't fool up-close examinations or touch, but it might make wearing them more socially acceptable. Or you could just make the whole thing look more party-appropriate, or make it match the suit you're wearing over it for formal meets. And so on.

My 2 cents.

My solution to stacking armor is this:

To bypass armor, I don't use the armor rating, I use the actual coverage of the armor. So the armored trench coat has a higher penalty to bypass than the armored jacket does.

Ta da. Throw in more common called shots, and your set. "I think he's only wearing an armored vest Bob. Shoot him in the arm and check." It gives a bonus to characters stacking armor, without having to worry about upping dice pools.

I use the SR3 way of adding the highest value to half of the second-highest value, just like Glyph, but count each armor value as full for encumbrance purposes. That makes tank chars a bit more powerful in general situations, but heavy weapons still shred them, so it isn't game breaking in the least.

I find the FFBA to be a good addition, and actually prefer there be an 'exception' to the armor stacking rule, then say- nixing the rule altogether.

Reason being, Trolls with 12+ body can begin to wear obscene amounts of armor if you willy-nilly allow all to stack.

FFBA and PPP armor offers a small boost to your armor; and helps out the low body people who can get dropped by a semi-accurate hold out pistol round most, while still giving that giant troll added armor as well.

Sadly by RAW you can't apply RP upgrade to the FFBA. Or most kinds of armour for that matter, it's only a select few suit style sets you can fit it too. Ones which cover the entire body.

Edit - In regard to the thread topic, I don't personally find it broken from a GM point of view. But then I play with a house rule to allow characters to pay additional nuyen to have suits tailored to change the ratio for body to max armour before they take penalties if they're only wearing that one set of armour.

I think it's balanced just fine. Unless you use the custom armor(able to wear body x 3 before penalty) rule, someone would still need a body of 5 to wear an Armor Jacket and FFBA Level 2(total 12/7 armor, the high one counted as 10 for encumbrance purposes) with no penalty. To wear an armor jacket and FFBA 3(14/9, counted as 11 for encumbrance), you'd need a 6 Body to take no penalty. Easy enough for orks or trolls to hit, but not so much for anyone else(even Dwarves need to have a fair Body investment, since they only get +1.)

I don't see the problem with it. A heavy pistol loaded with Ex-Ex rounds has an AP of -2. I too can vouch that stacking an armor jacket and FFBA does not make you invincible, and most characters I find still end up hurting a bit by the end, if things go sour.

Again, if they're not wearing ALL the full body condom FFBA. I would only treat it as level 2 (w/ level 3 encumbrance penalties). And what are you going to do when a fight breaks out... first 2 IP's... run for cover and put on my gloves and hoody?

But overall, the biggest reason I don't have much of a problem w/ the FFBA is that it tends to benefit low body chars a lot more than high body chars. High body chars will be a pile of armor already... low body chars are a lot more limited. 6 points of armor isn't really a lot for even stopping a light pistol, and that's body 3 right there. 8 points is barely enough to reduce an AR to stun if you're lucky (and no fancy bang bang ammo is in play).

I'm not so much for stacking rules is that they'd benefit high body chars a lot more IMO, compared to the limited benefit of FFBA.

SR4 errata, page 3. EX ammo is +1 DV, -0 AP and EX-EX is +1 DV, -1 AP as of version 1.5 of the errata.

Um, yeah...? And heavy pistols are -1 AP, so combined are -2.

*facepalm*

Now attempting extraction of foot from mouth.

*laughs* Being able to admit when your wrong is a good trait.

Thank you. I'm nothing if not honest.

I can certainly see the point that anyone with the resources would be foolish not to invest in some form of FFBA, since it gives good armour for less encumberance, and without armour you're going to be hurting if anyone shoots at you. This does mean players who've not spotted them, or don't own Arsenal, are at a disadvantage, but being the nice GM I am, I'm happy to point out the rules to people. That doesn't mean I don't impose armour degradation rules!

PPP can be slightly more of a problem, but I simply don't allow them to stack with armour that conceivably already has those areas covered.

I can see some wisdom in allowing the more concealable armours to stack in the manner of FFBA, but then it comes down to a GM call as to whether a given armour is sufficiently light, flexible and thin enough to be worn under a larger coat.

My biggest gripe is with the urban explorer jumpsuit, which offers markedly better armour for less cost than many of the other armours - and combined with the Ruthernium Polymer coating is pretty much the same as the chameleon suit, for IIRC, less nuyen. The RP doesn't even need to arouse suspicion, since you can use it to display scrolling adverts, as described in the fluff. If it only provided impact armour, I'd be happier, since it says it's designed for free-running, and while some free-runners might get shot at by gangers - especially if they're dressed in neon spandex - the principal danger of urban exploring is probably banging into things. Personally I'm inclined to make the chameleon suit a little better, seeing as it is apparently designed for stealth, by allowing certain military armour grade accessories - although that will affect it's legality. I also consider that the description of the jumpsuit suggests the use of gel packs in it's functioning, so apply the same penalties suggested for those to wearers of the jumpsuit.

Thanks, 5/2 for nor wearing the hood does just fine, too. In fact, usually not wearing the hood allows it to be a full mask to be pulled over when the need arises - much more useful to runners.

And any runner (without genetic masking and dynamic fingerprints, at least) not wearing gloves is doing something very wrong, anyway. And wearing jika-tabi in addition to regular boots never hurts, either.

I just think soaking is a bad idea in general. Not to say that you shouldn't pile on as much armor as you can, but if your idea is to survive by eating bullets, you'll be in for a world of hurt. Each DV in SR4 requires 3 soak dice to be negated, statistically. And basic weapons in chargen can pump up to 16P on full auto narrow bursts before net successes. A person with the oh-so-mighty 18 soak dice we've been talking about would get sliced open by that attack. Maybe not killed, but are we going to say that it's broken for heavily armored people not to go splat instantly if they get shot? Armor is very useful for absorbing low DV attacks like pistols, but once things escalate, dodge is your only friend. To be sure, there's nothing preventing you from going with both dodge and high armor, but if anything can be considered broken, it's gymnastics twinkery. If nothing in the game has enough dice to hit you on full defense, then you truly are invincible. By comparison, it's not possible to get so much armor that nothing in the game can hurt you, at least not through mundane means. Since it's not even on the same scale as gymnastics twinking, I don't think we can truly call it broken.

another thing is that when you cant go above the armor, the damage do not simply go away (unless your wearing miilitary gear), it gets coverted to stun. and in SR4, its very likely that the stun track is shorter then the physical track.

and a knocked out runner is just as useless as a killed runner...

as for gymnastics, wide bursts and cover fire

If I have 25 full defense dice, and you wide-burst me, that leaves me with 16, which is still likely to be more dice than you're attacking me with. I'm probably overstating my case to say that gymnastics can make you invincible. But it's so much more powerful than mere soak dice that I always roll my eyes when people complain about how easy it is to add on armor. The heyday of the tank is over, welcome to the era of the dodge ninja

hmm, where did i put those explosives...

The trouble with gymnastics dodge is that it's purely defensive. Sure, the odds aren't good that they'll hit you, but in the meantime, the odds are zero that you'll be hitting them. Combat Sense is probably the best overall defense, since it is also "on" when you are using passive dodging (i.e. not full defense).

in other words, just keep firing while the backup cuts of the escape route...

or maybe blanket the area with freeze foam

Problem with Wide Burst (or even Narrow Burst) for the Security boys is just that, their Security. They are not some criminal that doesn't care about causing random damage. They are ether payed to protect the site or the people in an area. Shooting it up with crazy full auto fire is a good way to cause random damage to valuable property (or paying customers). Freeze Foam, Flash Bangs, Flash Pacs, Tear Gas, etc are far more in keeping with their role.

Now for some random gangers down in the sprawl, heh, spray the bouncy bouncy dodge ninja with so many different guns that by the laws of averages something will have to get through.

I think that depends on what type of security they are. Run of the mill security guard? They're probably using tasers, tear gas, flash bangs, and freeze foam. Corporate military security? They're probably using APDS, EX-Ex, white phos, doberman drones, etc.

I should also note that a wide burst with gel rounds is also feasible for regular security.

or a nearby runner? right now the only thing that have multiple target rules are explosives and shotguns firing shot rounds...

and unless one is caught inside a lab or other special room, or in the middle of the work day, the chance of hitting something that cant be replaced is rather small...

supposedly life is cheap in SR, and that will include guards going "spray and pray" rather then worrying about the peons in the line of fire. if they dont stop the runners, they loose the job, simple as that.

but yes, the doorman with his badge, uniform and basic training will probably just hit the alarm and head for cover (maybe try to slow the runners down if he is a ex-cop or something), metting the HTR/SWAT team(s) take the assault.

and those will probably have some kind of force escalation system, starting with stun weapons or similar unless the opponent is in some black lab or is waving guns around for all to see.

It also depends on whether the runners are hitting the corporation where there are pedestrians milling around. If they're hitting a downtown office, that's one thing, but if they're inside the outer wall of a corporate complex, there won't be anyone else in the line of fire except the runners.

True, but I have been in games were the Security forces just sprayed at the Runners when there were by-standers about.

and that can be done as there are no direct rules for hitting bystanders or similar, and never has...

And as we all know, that causes missing projectiles to harmlessly drop to the ground.

yep, didnt you know? all bullets in sr has built in hit-or-miss sensor that will harmlessly remove said bullet from existence if it do not hit its intended target

anyways, ones one open the door to bystander risks, this is things like "overpenetration". sucks standing behind someone and get shot because the round didnt bother to stop...

Most likely the PCs won't care about bystanders, and if the guards do, they'll be using non-lethal gel rounds. Regardless, if collateral damage is an issue, it's easiest handled by GM fiat. If the PCs have any morals the description of innocent bystanders being turned into so much mush as a consequence of the runners actions might encourage them to play things more low key. If they are the type to revel in that kind of thing, it would hardly be fair for the gm to deny them.