Okay, so I came across something rather....interesting in Arsenal. With the Gel Pack modification, one gains +1/+1 armor. Does this also apply to the SecureTech PPP system? If so, for the price of -1 Body for Knockdown tests, a Body 4 character could have:
FFBA Half-Suit: 4/1
Bike Racing Armor: 4/7
+helmet +1/+2
PPP Forearm guard*s: +1/+2
PPP Helmet*: +1/+3
PPP Leg and Arm casings*: +2/+2
PPP Shin guards*: +1/+2
PPP Vitals Protector*: +2/+2
*PPP equipped with Gel Packs

for a grand total of 16/21 ARMOR. With 0 (zero) encumbrance penalty for a 4 body character. Is there anything RAW that would prevent a character from doing this?

Well yes. the PPP is not an armor. It is just a armor-enhancing modular system. It can not take any modifications.

Tsetse... things people try nowadays *g*.

EDIT: Ah let me edit this... this was the GM in me talking: Nobody would ever allow that. But raw the PPP system of course have no mention of disallowing mods, and yes the phrasing for it is ARMOR. So if you have a weird GM: Yes i think you COULD do it.

As a GM I'd allow it. Then again, should the enemy need him D-E-D dead, they'll find a mage. Or drop a cyborg on him. Preferably from orbit. Plus, walking down the street looking like Darth Vader SHOULD draw some attention. Unless you're riding a motorcycle (or in a van) on the way to a run, there WILL be consequences for using this combo.

A weird GM that plays by the rules and is open to debate involving his favourite sweets on one side and a heavy book on the other hand?

And said character would actually be encumbered (at least according to how I read Arsenal), and honestly, how do you wear two helmets at once and stay functional?

Either option 1 or 2 could apply here, with a thin helmet between the motorcycle helmet and the head, or as a strapped-on addition to the motorcycle helmet.


I'm afraid I didn't quite understand this.....could you please explain?

If I were to allow it, it would only be for the "obvious strapped addition to other visible armor" style.

As far as I know, only the FFBA provides reduced encumberance for itself. The way I read Arsenal, the PPP modifies the worn armor to form a new total protection (just like helmets and shields do), and is not counted as separate pieces of armor. The gel packs work similar, I believe; adding their protection to the total armor and not each component separately.

Even if one would allow to apply gel packs to every single component of the armor, they would still get factored into the total encumberance. So, if I'm mistaken, a 4 body character would suffer a -6 penalty for wearing such a suit.

I would agree. You are modifying the Bike Racing armor to make the total armor of that item 12/20 which is 12 points over the B*2 of 8, so yes a -6 would occur.



this does not say anything about with or without mods so I would have to go with the with mods total armor score of the armor modified.

Ah. For some reason, I thought helmets+shields didn't count towards encumbrance. So now someone who wants to use chemical seal'd full body armor would need 6 body, and in order to not be slowed down by your armor on a motorcycle, you either go without your armor or have 5 body. Suddenly corpsec and combat bikers are a LOT more hardcore.

Obvious example that the arsenal armor rules are broken. No FFBA in my game. No matter how many layers and modules and upgrades, there should be no armor better than the best milspec armor.

It's like putting on an extra quilted shirt under the Full Plate armor to get super armor (Full plate already includes padding).

@AKW: Or you use the optional rules from Arsenal that allows one to wear one suit of armor without encumbrance. Corpsec with body 4 should be able to handle the lightweight full body armor in the core book. It is desgned to be obvious but light and flexible.

Actually, with the optional rule it says "a single armor item" so if you're wearing a helmet with it, no dice.

My interpretation and ruling as GM: FFBA can't accept gel packs or any mods that would change its structure or it would no longer be form fitting. Gel packs with PPP don't stack because they are on seperate points of the body. While the normal armor bonus from the parts stack because of improved coverage, only one gel pack can activate from a single gunshot wound so you only get the benefit once.

Umg… Gel Packs are pretty much the most form-fitting element of any armor you are going to find.

The issue with them is being obvious.

And they are bulky...it might be flexible but its no longer like a second skin. Its not gonna fit with other armor to well.

Yes, it also says it doesn't apply if you're using ALOT of armor accessories, such a helmets etc. One suit of full body armor with it's accompanying helmet is hardly that. Start adding on modulated armor, FFBA etc. then you're talking "no dice".

I suppose the problem isn't the layering of the high-tensile ballistic webbing under the tempered alloy ballistic plate armor. The real issue is that the latter is also custom fitted, so if you had it fitted with the FFBA on, you would always have to be wearing the FFBA or else it might be too loose.

But I do see your point that any armor designed to be the best, most efficient full body armor possible would already feature ballistic webbing in spades, but that's an assumption which isn't really supported by a lot of the other gear in the book. For example, it seems like any high-end, new tech weapon should come with an old tech like the smartgun system as, if not standard, as a standard option. So, a 2000¥ handgun like the Yamaha Sakura Fubuki or the 8000¥ AA-16 shotgun needing to pay double for an internal smartgun system, how is that not just as asinine as Milspec armor lacking FFBA tech?

Well a smartlink is an optional enhancement, not something that everyone would want. The price is a bit weird, but I suppose you'll have to replace alot of gun parts and thus more expensive guns costs more if you want a smartlink in it (unless it's factory built). For comparison, even the best milspec armor would still require extra cost to add Nonconducting. But heavy Milspec armor should simply be the best armor there is, and no additional armor or layers should be necessary or useful. Armor enhancements are something else as people have different needs.

Just remember the golden rule as a GM.

"Players, if you can do it. The NPCs can do it too. And there are a *lot* smarter NPCs out there than you guys."

So let them do it.

Just means everyone else in the game will be running around with 16/21 armor too. For a few extra hundred ¥ why not?

Who wouldn't deck out their commandos in tons of extra non encumbranced armor for 500¥ - 1000¥ apiece?

Just makes guns less deadly, combat last longer, and more time for the bad guys support to show up.

Once you tell them that.. I am sure they will go like.. Umm.. no lets house rule it that its a no go.

No one wants a street samurai opponent facing them with 30/30 armor because of a loophole rule.

Trust me, you start using what they do against them, and they will quickly be stopping it or making deals with you to have you stop.

The AA-16 is a SotA purpose-built military full-auto shotgun. Not including a standard smartgun system on it in the 2070s is like not including power steering on a high end sports car in the 1970s.

But nonsense doesn't excuse further nonsense. It only confirms it.

Perhaps. Player characters can do it, then so can NPCs if there are smart enough but what if they aren't? For example if the PC that thought this out had Logic 5+ with Armorer 4+. How many NPCs are that good? Sure, if said PC had Logic 1 and no Armorer, you could say that there's a lot of smarter NPCs out there, but if the guy has Superior human Logic and very good at what he does, I would allow it without mirroring.

And the Golden Rule as a GM isn't "if you do it, so can I", it is "Let's have fun".

Personally, i like the "if you can do it, so can i" rule.
Because i do the same if the GM starts something.

This seems to assume the opposition does their own technical work. That's probably true if you're fighting a gang, but corpsec has people to do that for them, and it's a fairly safe bet that those technicians are of at least average mental capacity (Logic 3+) and trained to a professional standard (Armorer 4+).

It could well be argued that high Logic might prevent someone from thinking that adding gel pads to shin guards is going to provide equivalent benefit to installing the same thing over a much larger, more vital area.... Maybe it's like in cartoons where the character only falls when they look down and see that they're no longer standing on anything.

"Sorry bruh, but your Armorer skill is high enough that you're fully aware of how asinine that is, so it won't work for you."

I do assume that the opposition does their own tech work, but that assumption is more along the lines of "AAAs do their own technical work".

Or that it could be "That's so cool! Your Armorer skill is high enough that you think it is a revolutionary idea and you are struck by how brilliant it is!"

Thank you for that transparently willful misapprehension of what I actually said.

Is that a gel pack in your vitals protector, or are you just happy to see me?

Only as much as you willfully misapprehended what I said about there not being as much people as capable of figuring out such an armor combination, even in the corps.

If the corps have people capable of and willing to do everything your runners are, then your games must suck as they consist of a bunch of runners sitting around waiting for calls that never happen because your world is chocked full of more qualified people.

Actually I wanted to say that even the corps do not have many people capable of and willing to do what your runners do, but it came out wrong.

If the Corps have the People, The Tools, the Will AND the Desire to take responsibility, then yes, the 'Runners will be bored out of their skull, as there would be no need for them at all...

However, in Shadowrun, the Corps do NOT want to take that responsibility (even if they can satisfy every other salient point otherwise)... they want plausible deniability, and you cannot get that using your own resources, which is why they hire out those particular jobs...

Keep the Faith

Not in my game. Most of the guns in the game does not come with smartguns. You don't need a smartgun for target shooting any more than you need a automatic shift for learning to drive a car. Not everyone wants smartlinks, and laser sights are still common.

For runners smartguns are mechanically so superior and thus almost given though.

You got it all backwards. Runners are used not because they are more qualified than corp strike teams, but because they are deniable assets - the corp's public image doesn't suffer if they fail and are caught.
If you think that a bunch of lesbian elf stripper ninjas, corp outcasts, and general losers can be better than a professionally trained spec ops team, you are gravely mistaken - and if you test it out in meatspace, "gravely" in literal meaning.
Besides, runners come cheaper than operators, if less reliable.

Fixed that.

Just how many charsheets have you seen in your time, toturi?
Runners are a bunch of cripples generally, from runaway backup clones to psychotics to paraplegics, not "ex-corp professionally trained spec ops".
The most likely places to meet your team would be Weird Allergy Support Groups.

Quite a few actually.

Runners that I have in my game tend to be ex-SEAL/ex-commando/ex-ranger/ex-Red Samurai/ex-Tir Ghost/ex-[insert some elite unit] that survived their unit being wiped out/suffered some catastrophe/a couple even were simply downsized because they were deemed more individualistic than others(the ex-Red Sams).

There was a time when nearly every other week there would be a new character sporting roughly the same ex-elite unit background posted on Dumpshock. And that's usually for the Sams/Adepts.

The mages... oh boy... I'd be lucky if the guy is just a graduate student from Charles University (whose thesis supervisor so happened to be Schwartzkopf). The Matrix guys? I got AIs in Bust-A-Moves or Matrix Adepts(meaning ex-elite unit again). Weird allergies don't picture in my games because they are restricted to allergies found within the books.

i pity you. doesn't that kinda get boring after a time?
also, what do you mean with allergy restricted to what's found in books?

Not really, no, if my players don't feel bored, neither do I. Afterall, there are a lot of elite units out there and there is enough variations to keep it interesting. Like an ex-Ghost hacker. Or a ex-SEAL rigger. Same-same but different.

Allergies are usually restricted to only the examples in the allergy table. Or if they can point to an official NPC with that allergy, they can have the same one.

So, no Allergy Dog-Hair or something like that? O.o

How about if they can point to it in a medical journal?

Is that medical journal an SR4 book?

I draw a line in the sand. That line says RAW. Within that RAW, I do not care if your character has 3 Allergies and 4 Incompetences as long as your background accounts for them.

How does one account for allergies?
You either have them, or you don't, right? o.O

Like you were once paid in gold and it was a pain in the ass. Or the aquarium (in a landlocked city) had to use real seawater for its exhibits and you had to steal a rare sea turtle from there.

Or you woke up pissed everyday, because the factories were just a mile away and you were allergic to the pollutants. Common allergies are pretty easy to account for actually.

So would you allow allergy common medium against dog hair and phobia common and light against dogs because of the allergy for example? O.o

There isn't "dog hair" under Allergies, do you have a canon SR4/SR4A example of a character with dog hair allergy? If not, no.

There are no "dog" phobia under Phobias either. So unless you can show me otherwise, no.

I see.

If it's true for your group, it's not universally true because of that. The books just provide too many possibilities for weirdness both within positive and negative qualities for most shadowrunner groups not to be called "troupes" more fittingly than "units". If you enforce your own policies, it's fine and your right as a GM, of course (while I'd for one wouldn't play in your group, since I find restrictions of that kind annoying) - just don't say it's normal when you have Netcat with a net cat in the books.

I can honestly say that I have never made, nor seen, such a character in all my years of Shadowrun... though I have heard of their fabled existence... sort of like Bigfoot... you hear about him but never actually see any definite proof of his existence... Though I am not quite as restrictive as Toturi on what I would allow...

Keep the Faith

There isn't "drinking water" in the equipment list either, so I guess that doesn't exist in SR either then. Everyone has to drink SoyBeer/generic alcoholic drink.

The examples listed under Allergies on the SR4 book are... examples. They are not limitations of what kinds of allergies you can take with the quality. They require GM's permission of course, but so does all the qualities. Now why don't you just ban the whole Allergy quality if you think every original allergy has to be broken somehow?

RAW specifies the quality with the values Common or Uncommon, Mild/Moderate/Severe. That's it.