what are the official rules for hardened armor? im under the idea that if the base dv does not eceed the armor value it does nothing.

As far as I can tell the only rules for hardened armor is the "hardened armor' critter power in core.

If DV does not exceed armor value the attack only does stun damage against a living target. Against a vehicle it does nothing (no stun track on vehicle). Critter hardened armor works like the vehicle armor in the respect that if DV does not exceed the AV then no damage is done.

If the modified Damage Value does not exceedd the modified Armor Rating, then no attack roll is required.

Certain critters have Hardened Armor, and Vehicle armor is treated as hardened armor.

IE: If you have Hardened Armor 10 and get shot with a tazer with 1 net success, you need to resist the damage as normal (7S modified damage, 5 modified Hardened armor).

However, if you were instead shot by a holdout pistol with 4 net successes, then no damage resistance roll would be required (8P modified damage, 10 Hardened Armor).

*Cough*
I think you mean defense roll. The attack roll modifies the damage value.

Now the question is...

How does normal armor and hardened armor stack?

I.e. 6/6 Hardened + 6/6 normal?

AFAIK, that's never explicitly stated anywhere in the rulebook, so make of it what you will. I'd advise to compare the modified DV with the amount of hardened armor only first and have the armor stop the attack completely if the DV is lower, then compare it to the combined armor values of both to see if it's lowered to stun.
Every other way leads to wierd situations, IMHO.

The following is a quote from a message Ancient History sent me a couple of weeks ago when I was talking to him about this very thing. In this case I was talking about Drake adepts using the Mystic Armor power.



Based on that, hardened armor is added to normal armor. If the DV exceeds the hardened armor you roll it all. If the DV doesn't exceed the hardened armor, its auto-soaked.

The one thing I didn't ask about, since it didn't relate to my questions, would be how armor and hardened armor combine regarding the armor encumbrance rules. Even without a ruling from AH I'd say this this is pretty straight forward anyway. If the armor is natural or magical (critter hardened armor, spell, adept power, cyber/bio, etc) then just like normal armor they wouldn't count towards your armor limits. If you were wearing different armors you'd wind up with the normal armor stacking and encumbrance rules.

This means that if a Renraku Manservant-3, modified to have 3 points of armor, has an Armored Vest on it would have a total armor of 9/7, but any attack with a DV of 3 or less (laughable I know) would bounce right off. Also, per AH, negative armor modifiers from attacks affect the normal armor before the hardened armor.

Hope that helps.

For real fun, have something with hardened armor get an armor spell. We ruled it was also hardened. Trying to hurt something with 16 points of hardened armor kind of sucks.

I believe this is the correct way to deal with combined hardened and normal armor. At least, this is how it was handled in 3E.

Good luck finding anything that'll be hitting for 4DV or less against a drake in dracoform. There's all of one gun in the entire book that does that little (plus melee attacks from anyone not qualified* to be in melee combat).

*By which I mean either: a strength under 8 using bare fists or someone weilding any melee weapon with a strength under 3.



IMO I'd do it the same way. It makes drake adepts actually competent in dracoform when getting shot. 4/4 + 4 Mystic Armor is 8 hardened, which is actually Not Bad ™.

The following is from the same message from Ancient History. I just didn't think to include it the first time:



If Mystic Armor doesn't count as hardened (when it functions just like the Armor spell, but you have to buy it at a much higher cost) then in my games I'd rule that the armor spell worked just like other armor.

And a F6 free spirit has hardened armor 12, but is OK?

Hardened armour has always been in a wierd spot between kinda useless and totally overpowered, thanks to it doing nothing as long as the DV beats it being an automatic success otherwise. Whichever way you try to balance the amount of hardened armour available, it'll either feel pointless or hugely powerful.
The only real way to fix that problem would be a less binary mechanical implementation.

YES.

It is not binary, and it is not useless if the DV beats it.



The only difference between hardened armor and regular armor is that with regular armor if the damage doesn't beat the armor rating you convert it to stun, but with hardened armor you simply don't get hurt.

So, in other words. It's bonus over normal armor is binary.

Draco18s hit it square on the head.
Sure, being clad in hardened armour is better than being naked. That much is kinda clear.
As long as the DV beats the Armour value, it's no different (and certainly no better) than regular armour, though, which is precisely what I hinted at.

could do something like if the DV is less the the AV attack bounces off
if (AV + some percent of AV) > DV >= AV damage is stun
if (AV + some percent of AV) < DV damage is physical

Or some such

I think that only exacerbates the problem at numbers of AV = 20 and even a low value such as %AV = 25% (the minimum required to get Drakes to have a bonus from their measly 4 hardened armor).

That's 20 armor that negates and a bonus 5 that reduces damage to stun.

(Say, a Force 10 spirit)

The big difference between the two is that there are attacks that completely negate Immunity to Normal Weapons. Against an adept with a weapon focus or killing hands, that same free spirit would have no armor whatsoever.

I just figure hardened armor should be scary, and you can always beat most things to death with stun. As for vehicles, that's what rail guns are for, those and AV lasers will deal with 20 hardened armor on a vehicle nicely.

I don't recall exactly what the rules are in SR4, but in SR3 with hardened armor, if you were being shot at with AP ammo, you still used the full value of your armor to resist, whereas if you were just wearing normal armor, you only used half of your armor value.

The AP ammo still negated the DV < Armor value = no damage bonus of hardened armor, but it was easier to resist AP ammo with hardened armor than normal.

Hrmm, that makes for an interesting houserule. Hardened armor reduces AP of attacks by 1/2 (rounded up)? But then it kind of nerfs APDS, doesn't it?

Does anyone know if it's possible to order a Paladin sprite to use it's hardening power, then castle and still take advantage of the hardened armor complex form? If so, does it require you to use two tasks? Does castling have to be a delayed action in order to work?

actually, vehicles don't have hardened armor. you would treat that like normal armor stacking (imo, armor vests wouldn't stack with most vehicle armor, the exception being those vehicles that state otherwise).

so in this case, the manservant would either have armor of 6/4 or 9/7, depending on whether you allow stacking or not, and if the damage is not enough to deal physical damage, it wouldn't have any effect. vehicle(or really, object) armor functions a lot like hardened armor because anything that doesn't deal physical simply does nothing, but it isn't actually the same thing. it just works the same in many situations.

Vehicles don't have hardened armor. The only reason people say they do is because vehicles are immune to stun, so the P->S downgrade for not overcoming armor makes it look like it.

In the case of the drone. The drone has special body rules remember... drones large or smaller get a 3x body armor allotment. So how you'd handle armor encumbrance is another issue altogether.

But Jaid has the right of it... Putting the armor vest on top of the vehicles inbuilt armor wouldn't stack IMO. You'd have a 6/4 armored drone by RAW. And all of it would effectively function as hardened as the drone is immune to stun damage.

Also, if you want that amount of armor the game already provides a good way to get it. Vehicle modification for more armor.