In the SR4 Book there is mention of a critter power of hardened armour. There are no critters that have this power in the book. If I wanted to create a critter with the power or apply it to a critter How would i determine what the rating of the Hardened Armour is. I was contemplating = to the critters Body...Does anyone know if there are rules for applying it.

Spirits have Immunity to Normal Weapons, which is treated as Hardened Armor equal to [Spirit's Force]*2.

I assume that Hardened Armor was included for reference.

The most common way Hardened Armor comes into play is through the Immunity Power. Many critters have Immunity. The classic is "Immunity to Normal Weapons" which all spirits have, from Materialization Power. Spirits are rather common in SR4 games.

see p. 288 SR4

are you sure that dragons don't have hardened armor?

and even if they don't, materialized spirits do.

as far as how to apply it, you just pick a rating you like and give it to the critter. you're the GM, you make whatever you want.

Oh, and Dragons have Hardened Armor.

But remember, Never Deal with Dragons.

My Players are not ready for Dragons...and yes I just found that all dragons have hardend armour at rating 8...Far less then any of thier bodies...

Great Dragons have Hardened Armor 12.
And 8 is already high enough that runners have to be damn good to hurt them. Remember, Agility + [Shooting] vs. Dragon's Reaction (8 dice). If they're getting 3 successes or more consistently then something's wrong.

And the dragon can toss up an armor spell too. 16 points of hardened armor on the guy you are shooting at sucks.

Though we still don't have a RAI indication of whether Armor (spell or adept power) + Natural Hardened Armor is in fact stacking like that.

It's either:

8 Hardened + 8 Normal (damage <8 -> nothing, damage >8 && <16 -> stun, damage >16 -> physical)

16 Hardened (damage <16 -> nothing, damage >16 ->physical)

But not everyone can agree on which.

Personally I think it's the second option, otherwise drakes having hardened armor 4 is like "lets screw them."

There's even a third possibility, which is that you resist in layers:
Spell
Worn
Adept Power
Natural
Body

At any point that the damage left is less than the armor value then you lower it's category appropriately.

Eg.

Great Dragon wearing a "body vest" granting 4/4 normal armor and keeping the Armor Spell active at Force 6.

16P ballistic damage incoming:
16 < 22 -> stun, 2 resist (armor spell 6) -> 14
14 > 16 -> stays stun, 3 resist (vest) -> 11
11 < 12 -> nothing (12 natural hardened)

23P ballistic damage incoming:
23 > 22 -> stays physical, 2 resist (spell F6) -> 21
21 > 16 -> stays physical, 3 resist (vest) -> 18
18 > 12 -> stays physical, 4 resist (scales) -> 14
14 -> physical, 8 resist (Body) -> 6 boxes of physical damage

21P ballistic damage incoming:
21 < 22 -> stun, 2 resist (spell F6) -> 19
19 > 16 -> stays stun, 3 resist (vest) -> 16
16 > 12 -> stays stun, 4 resist (scales) -> 12
12 -> stun, 8 resist (Body) -> 4 boxes of stun damage

This ends up being a very realistic method of how a projectile would get slowed down by various layers of armor (mundane, magical, and natural), though is a lot of paperwork.

Edit: math, lulz. Reduced the worn armor bonus to correctly relate to the charts, rather than having to fix all the math!

You can use that to figure out how it applies to a dragon with an Armor spell, especially since he said that the Armor spell combined in the same way as Mystic Armor.

I still think that the 4 hardened armor is worthless, even so. Find me a legitimate case of taking 4DV.

I.E. no strength 2 characters going into melee.

Incorrect. Great Dragons have *+* 12 Hardened Armor, for a total of 20.


Incorrect. Only the Hardened Armor is actually Hardened Armor - any additional armor is 'normal' armor.


Example: Dragon has 8 Hardened Armor + 4 Armor (spell):
Dragon uses 8 Hardened Armor to determine if the attack is negated entirely. If not, Dragon uses 12 Armor (total) to determine if the attack deals Stun damage, & for the Damage Resistance test.

You're right. My mistake.


So it's been noted. Like three times now.

Um, far be it from me to call Ancient on an error, but drakes get 4 ranks of mystic armor free.

Mystic Armor (Critter Power) =/= Mystic Armor (Adept Power)

The former grants an Astral armor rating. The latter grants a 'normal' armor rating.



Yet another example of shitty writing / consistency in Shadowrun 4.

Ok, that's really dumb.

I know its a little bit off-topic. but i just realized that a lot of critters miss the "immunity" power on elemental attacks. Specifically I miss it on the spirits. Killing a fire-elemental with a flamethrower doesn´t feel right i have to say. No "immunity to fire" anymore?

Don't firespirits get the control fire ability?
you really wanna do that, if they get it? O.o

No. No such power in the list.

Hardened Armor can also be applied to any critter with Natural armor to toughen it up. Running Wild will be your source for critters and powers. As I recall there used to be a 40 meter long armadillo that ravaged the countryside...

Yeah, that thing was Awesome!
The Behemoth ^^
Body and strength of 20 or 30 and the same in Armor.
Aside from Mana-Spells nigh unstoppable <.< . .
It would probably have shrugged off heavy ship artillery.
Maybe even a Thor-shot.
Even highly potent Drugs were rendered pretty much useless.

Fixed.

the giant armadillo was the juggernaut. ive had my teams fight a few of them.

Smart-Ass <.< ^^

know it all <.<
How'd they get rid of it? O.o

i didnt say it was easy or fast.

it took about two hours of constant combat. mine also had innate spell heal and immunity to normal weapons.

the behemoth is apparently an awakened alligator.

anyway, that session was fun for all and better yet we are keeping the giant preserved corpse in a warehouse.

One of my groups is doing that with the Corpse of a small feathered serpent.
I boxed with that one for two rounds before going down in the third.
And then someone decided to fire an Ares Great Dragon ATGM at it.