Hey everyone,

So I'm just curious about the general consensus on form fitting body armor. To me and the people I've played with, it's too cheesy/munchkinny, and we don't allow it. My line of thinking is, it is so good, and so cheap and available, there isn't a reason that everyone in the world of shadowrun wouldn't use it. What's the point of an item like that? It's similar to the Ingram smartgun in 3rd edition; it was just so much better than the rest of the SMGs, everyone down the line used one. That said, I've never seen a grunt or a bad guy wearing FFBA, so it's just something for the players to be that much more uber over the competition. Honestly, I guess from a game perspective it could be argued as being reasonable, but do you need those extra 3-6 armor dice for free? FFBA is just one example, I think almost anything out of Augmentation has to get GM approval before it gets into one of my local games.

/end rant, I'm curious what other people think.

-Dr Zaius

FFBA has it's place, but not as another armor layer, at least by my preference as a GM. I let ppl use it for going out to night clubs in 'club clothes' without having to wear their full outer suit. It makes for more peaceful meetings if it doesn't look like Robocop's at the bar next to the dance floor.

I tend to stick mostly to the Core rulebook (you said it was in Aug I believe). Not necessarily because I think there are broken rules/equipment but because it's just easier to keep track of one book.
What are the stats for FFBA as compared to say, an armor jacket. And can it be used in conjunction with other armor or is it like Wandering One said and just used separately under your street clothes?

There is no consensus on Dumpshock.

As a GM, I allow all armor to stack, at the normal penalties. FFBA thus is just a bit easier to wear… like any customfitted armor.

It does add alot for cheap, rule wise. But you got to look at it from a RP way. While its legality is questionable (Should be illegal in my mind, like vests are irl) it would add alot of social stigma to most situations. How fashionable would it be to wear the full form variant all the time? it would be like wearing a wet suit under your business suit/uniform. You would look like a freak (even for the SR world) and that chance at a promotion would go poof, plus, any shadowrunner trying to stay under the radar with the outfit would fail like a brick trying to swim. The weaker variants are more understandable, and even concealable with certain outfits, but even then, more and likely uncomfortable and hot for the wearer, and noticable to anyone trained to notice (guards, secretaries etc).

I do the same thing with FFBA that I do the full armour suits and other items. THey are great for the situations where you dont have to be seen, or dont care about it. Otherwise alarms bells go off inside people heads unless rped in a way that there is a chance that it would pass (Having expensive tailored cloths to hide the FFBA, uniforms/armour that would fit in with the crowd or are part of a disguise, a good damn excuse with documentation to pass etc.) And for the bonuses, I treat it like any other stacking, just without normal encumberance (imagine wearing those bodyarmour outfits under everything, not heavy or encumbering at all, but damn it can heat up fast, or just isnt as comfortable as wearing just underwear and cloths depending on the brand and quality)

I generally share Drake's take on it. Considering that it's highly noticeable and likely uncomfortable, I don't think it's unreasonably powerful.

And as far as reasons not to use it, there's always RP reasons. Our gunbunny is a devout Muslim and avoids form-fitting clothing entirely.

This is the only thing we allow it for.

Huh?

FFBA is about the least noticable armor in the setting, given that it is shaped to the body – even the full body version if you stow the hood, maybe the gloves. And of course, even it's description talks about how it breathes and stretches… most likely better than off-the-rack vest. And, those are also legal in the Sixth World.

Sure, armor is less comfortable than fine clothing, even in the 6th age. Just… getting shot is even less comfortable when wearing the latter. Or having your lower armes carved up when defending against a knive because a body-only protection will do just fine, right?

i realise you had a bunch of other stuff, but i'm pretty much ok leaving that stuff as is. on the other hand, i have to disagree with this. as written, there are substantial portions of the sprawl where getting shot is much more likely than even the worst parts of most modern cities. you really do have to be constantly worried that somebody is going to gun down your prize employees just to make sure you lose an asset in shadowrun. as such, i don't think armor (within limits) should be illegal. certainly, it's not likely to be considered fashionable, and if you go to work in an armored jumpsuit, you'll get funny looks... but if you wear a long armored jacket to work, and hang it up, people probably would think nothing of it, and likewise if you wear an armored vest. now, armor is quite uncomfortable, so if they're in a reasonably safe environment, i doubt they'd wear it. but out on the streets, there really is a legitimate reason for anyone to want to wear armor. and since said armor is not going to significantly increase your ability to harm others (barring the use of shock frills or something like that, which i will allow is cause for concern) i don't see why it would be illegal.

My players tend to get that the opposition will be scaled to them. Unless they are trying to cross a Zero Zone, they aren't going to need to go to extremes on armor. If they do I'll scale up the opposition accordingly (the gangers just got some corp backing!) and you better hope that everyone conferred with each other about what you were wearing today. Players should be aware of their teammates, leaders should be able to tell the troll when he's being a dumb ass wearing his milspec Downtown.

Yes, and so does most body armour. Try wearing that over your regular underwear, and under your regular cloths and see how it feels after a few hours, even if your not doing manual labour, it sucks. Now imagine wearing that in a muggy, smoggy place, with heavy, metal plate filled armour over-top of those close, with a heavy metal filled jacket on top of it all. It may be breathable, but damn, there is a limit.

And ya, it is concealable when you take the hood off and the gloves, which is the next level down I am pretty sure, and even then, you would have to tuck your pants into your shoes/boots, and wear long sleeved turtlenecks everywhere for it to be as unnoticable as nothing underneath. Its not like you could wear a t-shirt with it (well maybe the first type).

So if they walk around naked, the opposition will do so, too?

Even the clothing in this setting is armored, including the cocktail dresses and all that. Whether FFBA is abuse or not really depends on your game, I guess. Raise the price and/or availability, perhaps; I'm not sure it's military gear, however, given the prevalence of armor in the setting.

It sounds like there's some negative emotions involved, and being projected onto the fluff. FFBA is specifically described as designed to be concealable, comfortable, and stacking, isn't it?

I guess the part that sticks in my craw is the description of the 'armor vest' in the BBB:
"Armor Vest: Modern flexible-wrap vests are designed to be worn under regular clothing without displaying any bulk."

So, the core book already has armor that is hard to detect just by looking at a person wearing normal clothes. Meaning the only place for FFBA is to stack your armor and get higher dice pools. Just my opinion I suppose, but that's how it feels to me.

-DrZaius

Given how deadly combat is in SR, I don't see any reason not to allow players to have some more armor. 6/2 stackable armor isn't game breaking.

I want my characters to survive longer than the mooks they're shooting at.

FFBA is just a sign of someone who is going into a situation prepared for chop. That's one of the benefits of being the rogue element. I mean, GE Vigilant Light autocannons are cheap enough that every mega should have one slapped on each large drone, and a Slab+DMSO cocktail is so effective that they should just pump that stuff through the fire-control systems in the case of an alarm.

Point is Joe Secguard doesn't know that he's going to be eating lead today. Joe Runner, however, is mighty suspicious of the fact, so he comes decked to the gills.

"Where you attack, you are strong. Everywhere else, you are weak."

I think he means that if players all use FFBA and PPP so will the opposition. If the players run around naked, and so do the oppositions, somethings a bit off with their group as a whole.....

And for the FFBA and armoured vest being designed to be concealable, just because it is designed to be concealable doesnt mean that it will be, but that its design has it in mind. If you want to run a game where grunts and opp dont notice it because it is fully concealable, thats in the gms rights. If they want to make it so that it is just more concealable than the other options, ditto. I just put in my personal preferences and a bit of experience with something of a similiar design sans armour.

And I think the difference between the FFBA and the vest is that the FFBA covers the whole body, not just the chest, and can be worn with different cloths than a vest.



But Joe runner wont be wearing his FFBA to everything he does, just when he is going to do certain biz I would assume. I dont think that a runner is expecting to get shot 25/8, unless they are extremely paranoid or pissed off a dragon or two.

Especially with called shots.

Depends on where they go. If they enter a mall with no guns or armor, they can expect to encounter issues that meet they're current level of readiness. If they start hassling the mall cops, they'll wish they brought a weapon.

So far I have yet to deal with a naked runner. Well, there was that one player that spent the big score on a swimming pool full of Sloppy Soy™, but that was years ago and no one really checked.

That's why people wear special underwear under armor that drains sweat, even today. Add 60 years of technology to increase efficiency, and integration into armor… armored underwear. Let's call that… form fitted body armor.

You are still thinking 5th age terms.
Even off-the-rack armor in the main book is pretty hightech.

Neither rules-wise, as the rules don't specify how to wear armor – your armored coat or jacked protects you just fine if it's open.
Nor RP wise, as the half-body level does not protect you lower limbs… you know, your shins, knees and elbows. The things one hurts even in daily life.

You don't wear socks?

And picking the right armor for wearing a bikini is even harder, sure.

My point is that the former is also a bit off.

Grunts don't scale to group level in Shadowrun 4 anymore.

The half suit covers upper arm and thigh only. The gloves and hood for full FFBA are pretty much there only for full chemseal and the added bonus of anonymity.

You do got a point Rot, I am going by 5th age knowledge and materials, but thats also because I dont like thinking all things are possible because technology has made it so (Im not saying that is what you are saying, just an opinion). Sure, armour may be more advanced, lighter and flexible, but in my mind it will be cumbersome up untill the point we can make a uber-metal at the same consistency and texture as cotton.

And for the muggyness, even a shirt can make you feel stifled and sweaty, I doubt any advanced armour will do better. Also, I know the stacking rules are different, but I still see several layers of semi-stiff, solid plates as being bulky, no matter their flexibility or size.


I dont have my books on me atm, I just assumed it was shirt and rugby short coverage for the first level, from ankle to wrist of the second and everything for the third, my mistake there.

That is generally how I look at it. It is very, very easy to make the characters resist 10+DVs frequently without even pulling out the big guns or prime runners. And even though it stacks you still need a decent body to wear it, its not encumbrance free just 1/2d. So lets say you have a 4 body without penalties you could have a lined coat and level 2 FF body armor for a total of 14 dice of damage resistance. You take a short narrow burst with a single net success and you are still taking damage on average. If that was a long burst you are hurt pretty bad with that 1 net success. Do you really need the players to be taking 1-2 boxes more an average in your games? The answer may be yes, maybe your opposition rarely has automatic weapons so total DVs are usually like 5 or 6 and you don't want every orc and troll to bounce everything.

It's worth noting that the armor vest is also listed as being a flexible wrap that is intended to be worn under other clothing. FFBA isn't the only game in town if you runners heading out to the club wish to be discrete.




Exactly. The opposition I put before you isn't really based much on how the players are geared. If in the course of the run the players bully a few low rent gangers, then they bully low rent gangers, and those guys probably won't have much more than 1k (armor jacket territory) spent on personal armor. On the other hand, if said runners pick a fight with Green Lucifer and his best buddies they better expect some real firepower and some FFBA. I like to disabuse my players of the notion that the opposition will always be just within their power level no matter what they do rather early.

Personally, I want the enemy troll with the mounted minigun to be the 'omgwtfbbq' moment, not par for the course.

Yeah, the shirt option says it covers the torso only. It's basically a vest, but I like to imagine it as an undershirt/wifebeater.

Monofilament and spiderweave fabrics, metal-ceramic composites and armor gel to round it off, right on p. 326 of the main book. As standard-issue.

Shadowrun has nanotechnology for quite some time now.

In 60 years? Only the cheapest ones possible.
Functional clothing exists today.

The thing is they have rules for that x2 body in either ballistic or impact armor and it starts getting to be a pain in the butt. FFBA you 1/2 the values before factoring the total. Why add an extra layer of its uncomfortable when they have a rule for when it becomes uncomfortable.

Considering a long burst from a SMG with 1 net success jacks most people up pretty damn hard in my example with FFBA, I think that moment is still a omgwtfbbq moment. Now if you want it to be instant death maybe FFBA changes that(by 2 boxes of damage mind you). But I generally don't want things to be instant death for the players.

Personally I dont see monofilament metal being used in cheap armour. I know it is stated, I personally just dont think it is viable, otherwise everything would have mono-edged or be made of monofilaments to reduce size. I still see monofilaments as too expensive to do that. Spider weave is a different matter and you got me there, and Nanotech is damn expensive last I checked, too expensive to make a nanotech shirt or armour IMO. The gels still have to be in a gel pack, which may not be bulky, but once it is used, it is used up, unless there are tons of smaller packs, which I would assume would be bulky. The metal ceramics, while more light than base metal composites, I see as being just as stiff and inflexable, if not more so.



I use that for the weight's effects and dice modifiers. For other effects though, I bring in those other uncomfortable factors (water logged cloths, sweating, chafing). I dont always use them, but if I think it is warranted, I do.

Monofilament weave should be better described as 'nanoweave'; armor created by nanotech with high-tensile materials to keep high-velocity rounds from penetrating the armor. The tighter the weave, the less chance the round has to penetrate.

I do believe there are rules for nanolathes out there. Nanobots kept cyberware functioning back in 2nd and 3rd editions, they just were behind the curve on weaponization until relatively recently in the timeline.

Most things are, see microwire.

Sure, monofilament wire is expensive… just microwire, it's bigger brother, isn't. And of course, people don't want to cut their own head off when they pull a strand of their shirt.
Nanotech armor is indeed expensive, see AltSkin – however, production lines including nanotech allow for very advanced materials, as described in the main book.

Gel packs for impact protection only stiffen by the shock, even today, and are usually reusable. So are the additional gel packs in Arsenal.

And of course if you add chemical protection to armor, it becomes pretty water-repellent.

He was referring to the use of nanotech in manufacturing, which is standard on most production lines in SR, AFAIK, and can produce light yet dense metals.

I'll buy it, but it still made me giggle...

"Jane! Get me a soy-puccino, a berry blitz turbo muffin, and before I dictate this letter, I want you to scan everyone in the boardroom using your secretary training and report on who's wearing form fitting body armor."

Mesh

What's he gonna do, start shooting them?

So, where would you all put FFBO without the gloves, booties, and hood?

Level 3 is 6/2 with the accessories.

5/2 or 4/2 depending on how mean I feel.

I put it at level 2. I assume the gloves and booties are knee and elbow length. But hey everyone is different.

It is still cheesy. To me FFBA is the armor paranoid people use when sleeping and hanging out in her own house.
Stacking a FFBA with a Cameleon Coating gives you almost the same of a Red Samurai Armor for half the price.

FFBA's the stuff people wear when they go out clubbing.

I guess part of why I don't think it's broken is, it may stop bullets better, but it doesn't do shit against a good Stunbolt.

Not much does, omae.

I don't club (except if by clubbing you mean hit someone with a stick) in this case, i prefer to use blades
So, FFBA is the armor I wear when I go to sleep craddling a HK-urban fighter in my hands.

Breaking it down by surface area:
FFBA shirts cover roughly 25% of a person's body (the most vulnerable 26%) and provide 3/0 for protection.
FFBA half suits cover 55% of a grown person's body and provide 4/1 for protection. Again, those parts protected are more vulnerable than the parts left unprotected.

Whole suits cover 99% with all accessories and 87% of the body without gloves or hood (who can't hide boots..)

So, the increased area of protection for the 1/1 difference between shirt and half is roughly 30%.
The increased area of protection between half and full is either 32% or 44% for that additional 1/1 protection.

Admittedly, the areas covered by full over half aren't really all that critical from an "Oh god I'm dying" standpoint, but the same can be said about those areas covered by the gloves and boots (boots covering roughly 6% of a body's surface area.)
...well, the hood, of course, is covering a sensitive area, but catching a bullet to the skull is going to severely concuss or kill you regardless of penetration. Hematomas all pushing down on your Gray Matter. Ugly.

But, I suppose you could attribute the +1/+1 benefit of full FFBA to that hood. The 8% it covers is the most critical area not covered by the half suit.
Those areas covered by the half suit being the lower abdomen, genitals and the thickest parts of the appendicular veins/arteries.

Paranoia isn't a bad thing for a runner to have.

My main character wears his Underwear That's Fun To Wear anytime he's not naked. Day-to-day, he wears it under either an Armani suit or an outfit specifically designed to look completely generic and forgettable - depends on what he's doing.




-karma

I would say it would be like it is in my state N.M. you can walk down the street wearing a pistol perfectly legal under the law. But within a few minutes P.D. is going to turn up asking who you intend to shoot. If you go walking around in armor at least some people will notice and depending on the area excuse me sir where is the war ? Oh and say hello to the fast response team. No armor ever made is totally undetectable no matter what its made out of it will change your movements if nothing else. Otherwise you get the rifked slug bit I saw a few years ago. The mans vest stopped the rifled slug alright but it still looked like someone ran over it with something red and squishy inside. FFBA is designed to cut down on noticeability versus hvy armor which attracts attention. However no matter what they make it of it is never going to be 0 mass Neh.

My runner would respond with "In Redmond" or "on the 405." And after saying that, the officer would pretty much have to let him go or start bending the rules because body armor is unrestricted in the world of SR4.

That's because things are not like New Mexico in 2072. The Redmond Barrens is bigger than modern day Albuquerque and has roughly the same population. In Redmond, there's literally a community of escaped convicts called Zoners who follow a guy named King Mungo, who apparently murdered his way to his current position. The Shadowrun setting is just a place that accepts the idea that many, many people will be wearing a fair amount of armored clothing at face value. You can buy armored business suits from fashion houses like Vashon Island that have concealed holsters included standard, and they're completely unrestricted legally and are described by the fluff as being de rigueur while Ares industrial coveralls provide 4/2 Armor and are even more common. It's just a different world. So wearing an armor jacket might get you profiled in a place like Bellevue, granted, but in that case what you're really getting pulled over for is Looking Poor On A Saturday Night, not wearing armor. Get yourself a glitzier pair of armored duds, a Eurocar, a high rating Fake SIN and suddenly things are awful polite.

If you're going down the road of estimating armor rating based on the percentage of your body it covers, I suggest you stop it and cook up a hit location system instead. Shadowrun's avoidance of a hit location system in favor of keeping things abstract has only led to a bunch of rules that are actually more counter-intuitive than hit locations (and to thousand of nonsensical arguments about called shots!).

The armor system is abstract, but it is an abstract based on sensible reasoning. Limited amounts of protection over large areas, such as with a lined coat, are equivalent to solid protection only over the most vital areas, such as with a standard armor vest.