Can humanoid drones use human clothing tailored to them? I figure Mitsuhama Otomo (Cyborg Anthroform Walker Drone) is a given since they look identical to humans. But what about a Renraku Manservant-3? I could see them being fitted for a tux or maid outfit. It might not even need to be a custom job. Also what about Mitsuhama Akiyama (Cyborg Walker Assassination Drone), they are the size of a child. Could they be fitted to armored children's clothing, or normal armor?

Normally a drone of that size class can get 3 times it's body in built in armor. So-
(9/9) armor for Renraku Manservant-3.
(12/12) armor for Mitsuhama Akiyama
(18/18) armor for Mitsuhama Otomo

Also in a related topic. Could a Homunculus wear armor? Even a Homunculus made out of solid Plasteel does not get better armor than someone in riot armor with accessories.
Powers: As spirit, plus Armor (8/8)

Also for a full mechanical arm it has a default strength of the drone's body. At the gamemaster’s discretion, full arms can be tricked out
with accessories just like a full cyberlimb. Does that mean I could spend 25,000¥ for a pair of Raptor Cyberlegs, implant Cyberskates 650¥, and Hand Razors 900¥, and shove them onto a 2000¥ Renraku Manservant-3?

Given all the variety of metahuman (and all the other species) bodies, clothing for more or less humanoid drones sounds completely reasonable. Raptor legs in a manservant on the other hand...I doubt the pilot program is prepared for that, and a Targeting(Bladed weapons in Raptor legs) autosoft should also be hard to find

Honestly, I really dislike the idea of using cyberlimb mods on drone limbs, because it feels so last-minute and unbalanced. I want a real Rigger 4, but anyway…

I don't think Walker mode counts as Mechanical Arms, and therefore doesn't accept cyberlimb mods at all. Any RAW guidance on that?

Actually, Arsenal states that arms can be tricked out, but Walker Mode does not have any such text. I believe it can, but that is a house rule as opposed to RAW.

Other than that, what you want works.

Yeah, I thought so. Maybe it's just me, but I wouldn't counts Walker mode as 2-6 'free' cyberlimbs.

I have a question in a similar vein to the original one: how does worn armor stack with built-in vehicle armor on a drone like the Otomo (which states in the text that it can wear metahuman armor)? Sure, the Otomo doesn't come with armor off-the-rack, but it can certainly have armor added (and concealed armor shouldn't affect the ability of the drone to wear armor).

Personally I'd say that they're subject to the same combined total. That is, if there's only so much vehicular armor you can load on a drone, then it can't additionally wear personnel armor without being encumbered.

That makes sense; my main question (which I see that I didn't actually express in my other post) is this:

Say you have an Otomo with 10 concealed armor wearing an Armor Jacket (another 8, bringing the total to 18). Does the armor value for the Jacket combine with the *vehicular* armor installed in the drone (meaning that the modified DV of an attack has to exceed 18 in order to damage the Otomo)?

(I suppose that, barring an actual rule that I've overlooked, a house rule could be that the Otomo rolls a soak using *just* the worn armor then compares the DV to the vehicle armor)

Vehicular armor is not hardened armor. A vehicles simply lacks a stun track. So they stack just fine.

I'd check Vehicle Armor first, then apply full armor if it gets through that.

EDIT: For more realism, check gear seperately. You'd basically end up with a hail of fire through an area that destroys all the drones clothes, backpack, and gear, but the drone is unscathed.

I was looking for ways to have a physical human like body for characters that start with out a body like AI or Freespirit (they can posses drones if they overcome object resistance).

The Renraku Manservant-3's legs are specifically designed to not be able to move faster than a human and to not be able to kick. So I figured why not just rip them off an stick a pare of human cyberlegs on. It gets rid of a reason for them having a speed of 15 too. The end result would be a drone in the 100,000¥ range that would in some ways measure up to the more expensive humanoid drones but lack a CCU unit (125,000¥), and Mimic which has an unlisted cost but is probably expensive. And also the autosoft probably would be confused as heck but I was planing on not leaving to much to the drone anyway.

Maybe if it was Walker: Texas Ranger mode.

Now I want to develop a drone for my AI, 'Otto Maton.'

Anything like that is firmly house rule territory, Badmoodguy. In the rules, you get Walker mode, end of story. Good luck, though.

didn't they use to HAVE Walker: Texas Ranger mode?
but then that little unfortunate Archology incident made them have to gimp their humanoid drones?

what about Mitsuhama Otomo does it come with a CCU or just the ability to take one? If it does have an CCU already in it could I buy one with out it or sell off the CCU for ~41,250¥

I am just looking for a way to interact with people and not have a throw away body that it worth 2,000¥ and is a joke to anyone who sees it. But I want this to be as non house rules as I can.

Nothing comes with a CCU. They have the ability to *hold* a CCU.

Yeah, there are no options between bottom-of-the-line and super-assassin-droid. :/ While I'd want to play an AI by talking to people from whatever electronic was nearby (badass!), I can see your point. You're not interested in any of the non-humanoid options (with or without Walker mode)?

Personally, a LEBD-1 is awesome. You're almost Guilty Spark. Cheap, not illegal, mounts a taser, can *fly*…

i cant figure why they didnt simply add a dual entry for the manservant, listing one with the limiters installed, and one where said limiters where removed (with matching increase in price, availability threshold and a legality change to F perhaps).

still, with the mimic mod from the errata, you can technically grab anything with a body of 3 and kit it out with mimic, arms and walker mode to make it basically humanoid.

Agreed, hobgoblin, especially after they included the Modified Chariot. Did they not think anyone would need a humanoid drone between 2500¥ and 150000¥? We've got like 6 different trucks.

I think the fluff is supposed to be that HUmanoid Drones are severely limited, and Civilians don't use them.

They use the gimped one post Deus Ex Machina incident.
Non gimped ones are unpopular, and probably aren't needed outside of a security/military application.
Hence why the only other one is an assassin worth 1.5 mill.

I dig it. Thanks, sabs. Still, they also talk about *all* kinds of household helpers, and I need a humanoid for many kinds of help. I guess everything is wheel-bot accessible in the future.

But is there anything you need a humanoid droid for in an household that the gimped man servant /can't/ do?

No, especially if you don't mind them moving very slowly. I do understand your earlier comment. I'm just saying that you'd expect at least a premium and an ultra-premium model from competitors, especially in a world that has shadowrunners. Again, see the Modified Chariot. The Manservant-3 is like the NeMax heavy pistol: it's for when you're willing to sacrifice performance for security. Even post-Deus, that's not every consumer or every situation, and if capitalism has taught us anything…

Maybe the Dobermans fill the niche?

I agree that If there's a market for it.. someone is selling it.

I understand where you're coming from.
I can also explain away the discrepency within the fluff.
I think it could go either way.
I think it might be related to the concept that humanoid robots make people nervous.

It's easy enough to make one, give it a movement rate = to a metahuman, with the manservant 3 stats for everything else?

Humans cyberlimbs have a base stat of 3. Renraku Manservant-3 has a base strength of 3. I figured paying for and sticking on a new arm at alpha grade cyberarm rules was a good way of going about filling the gap between 2500¥ and 150,000¥.

I just checked out the errata.

“Mimic Modification (Rating 1-3) Slots: 2
Threshold: 15 Tool: Facility Cost: Rating x 5000¥
Availability: Rating x 3 Special Skill: Cybertechnology”

So cheap, I still think you need to be vaguely shaped like the thing you mimic.

“When either of the Armor totals exceeds the vehicle’s
Body, reduce the vehicle’s Acceleration and Speed by 20%
(round up).”

This makes drones in some ways more limited than humans when it comes to armor. Before it was like they had fitted armor and so were not encumbered if the armor was less than 3 times there body. This makes sense really because how more fitted can armor get than in your skin.

No problem with the arms. It's the *legs* that you absolutely require house rules for to do what you want here.

Now, 'house rule' is not a dirty word, and that's exactly what you should do here. Replace the (gimped) legs with cyberlegs to get a normal mobility level; replace the arms if you want to be able to punch/use cyberlimb upgrades. I guess there's no real reason to use alpha/higher (except for device rating, which wouldn't really get involved on a drone). If the end result is abusively *cheap*, the GM could require Alpha-grade, etc.

Ditto: I assume Mimic is mostly a superficial thing, and the easiest way to be a convincing humanoid is to be humanoid to start with.

The drone armor rules work fine… for normal body ratings of armored things. Little drones just aren't made to be heavily armored without (pretty minor, really) sacrifices of Accel/Speed. It makes sense: armor is heavy, their powertrain isn't meant for it. Which would you rather have penalized: move speed, or Agility/Reaction?

Course that bad boy is probably F if you're caught with it by a Lone Star Agent

For it to be F they would need to know how to classify it.

"It has modified cyberlimbs for dancing. It delights all the children at parties."

That or it would look like a very heavily cybered human. If a free spirit was using aura masking on it then they would need to use either a more skilled aura assessor or look inside the skull.

A good solution to this is to just slap full arm on a walker and say 'this represents leg capacity'

What? No. Armor does not stack in shadowrun 4. Only the best applies.

With many many exceptions. Like dermal plating, The PPP-SYSTEM, helmets and shields. And even if it did not stack it would be useful to make things more modular. Ruthenium polymer coating clothing and all the environmental mods that would be useful some of the time. Plus just as disguises make clothing useful.

"who is that 'guy' in the hoodie with the ski mask, tinted goggles, and gloves?"

I would assume that clothing-armor wouldn't count. There are no rules to tape Armor Jackets to cars in SR4, and it's essentially the same thing.

Again, a situation for a house rule. Try to go with something that's not abusive. Use normal encumbrance (Body*2), and vehicle armor (if there is any) counts. Use the 'vehicle encumbrance' rules for vehicle armor (again, if any). Don't allow cyberlimb armor at all.

if a full cyber limb character can armor their limbs up, and wear armor on top of it, then I see no reason a humanoid drone could not do the same. Funny thing is the drone would likely wind up with a lower armor rating despite being built out of more robust components.

I didn't say there wasn't a good reason for it. I said, in fact, that there *should* be a house rule; however, vehicles can't get clothing armor by RAW.

And, for their robust components, drones get Stun immunity.

Well, technically Form-Fitting armor stacks.

But an Armor Jacket would not.



-karma

Well, FFBA stacks with clothing armor.

Otomo, Aresenal PG 121.

The Otomo has no innate Armor and "are capable of wearing and using most gear designed for a metahuman of their model type."

Cars can't wear armor because no armor exists for them, however several types of armor may be used to reinforce the vehicle. With the exception of smart armor, almost all of the materials used to reinforce a vehicle's armor rating are simply scaled up versions of the stuff used to create personal armor. While you cannot "strap flak vests to your car," you can reinforce it with Kevlar and increase it's armor. I'm sure you could gather enough kevlar blankets and nail-gun them to the outside of your van, why wouldn't it increase the armor of the vehicle? Simply because the kevlar is haphazardly attatched to the outside rather than sleekly (more expensively) worked into the inside?

The Otomo's entry implies it not only wears, but benefits from armor. It has a body statistic which for cyborgs counts as it's strength. I don't see any reason why an Otomo couldn't wear full body armor and have it's limbs modded for cyber armor just like a Street Samurai. The only area I see for contention is whether you could add a drone modification for bonus armor while simultaneously adding armor through cyberlimbs, I think these should be exclusive like Dermal and Orthoskin.

You do realize that down this route lies such madness as strapping helmets to your car, to get a bonus to armor, right?


Christ. Next game, i swear, i'm making a bunch of Dobermen with helmets, goggles, big floopys ears(to represent ultrasound sensors), and a mechanical grapple for a riot shield.

If I do it right, i'm pretty sure I can airdrop the basset hounds of doom from a Kull.

Mr. Potato Drone!

Chainsaw Samurai, you're totally right. Except we're talking about the Manservant-3. That's a specific exception for the Otomo. And a good one, because it makes perfect sense. It's designed to *be* a metahuman. As for your kevlar question, the answer has always been 'because those aren't the rules'.

Well I don't see why a riot shield would not work by RAW.

As for the other thing it is ridiculous to put armored jackets on a car but if you screwed a dozen or to armored jackets to your Honda compact are you telling me it would NOT add some protection from bullets in real life? The reason you can't strap an armored vest to a car is that it is not fitted to the car. Just because most people don't does not mean it can't be done. Even if that way madness lies.
http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=PqyVgr9

Again, I'm not saying that at all, because we're not talking about real life (or logic). It's just RAW. I've repeatedly said, it's a good time for a house rule.

The standard stacking or lack thereof rule is that the best armor applies. So if someone nailed a bunch of armor jackets to there Ford Americar I'd give the car 8/6 armor which is probably better than what the Ameircar comes with.

Works for me. I could see that happening in a desperate street game with a little MacGuyver action.

I always view the kevlar lining of your vehicle to be the "Personal Armor" mod for vehicles.

Well, given that there's not hit locations in Shadowrun, I would give them 1/2 armor.
Unless you're covering the windows and front and back windshields with armor jackets?

Doesn't matter. Shooting a car in the window doesn't hurt it more. Are you talking about armor for the passengers?

I kind of assume the windows are a weak point for cars with decent armor ratings as well, and its not like the armor jacket covers your head and legs when its on a person. There would be a handling penalty of course. Heck I might have a ghetto vehicle armor job on the cheap being people stuffing armored clothing in between the paneling. You pay for the rating like normal.

*That's* what I'm talking about: however you add the armor, permanently adding armor to a vehicle *is* using the Vehicle Armor modification. Except for the Otomo, which can wear people armor.

Yeah but I have no problem with people A-Teaming it and slapping on a bunch of armor to the outside of there vehicle for a one off event. I'd probably treat it as ablative armor of some type having the armored coats being blown off when the car is hit. It is a house rule thing for sure, but it makes sense and its not like everything can ever be covered by any rule set.

Agreed, totally.

Aren't they? It doesn't mention what vehicle armor is made of, and goes out of the way to mention it is conspicuous unless specifically installing the concealed version.

This goes back to why I am such a fan of having grades for more things than just 'ware. Especially for drones and vehicles. Not all of us want to be high class runners in our pretty looking concealed armor 2068 SUVs, you know. Some of us want to be patrolling around Z-Zones in torn up Jeeps with haphazard machinegun mounts and welded on rusted armor.

Lets warp this another way then. Your players are in a hot pursuit chase, another vehicle pulls alongside and blows out the passenger window with a shotgun. The character grabs a spare vest from the back seat and stuffs it where his window used to be. Do you give him the armor value for the next round coming his way or no?

As far as the Manservant goes, it has a body of 3. This limits it's "vehicle armor" to 9. I'll have to check around through Augmentation some more, but in the long run I don't see any reason why a Manservant should be treated any differently from a cyborg, if I recall they can wear armor as well.

An 'off the shelf" vest should be able to wrap around the torso of the Manservant well enough. Honestly I find more harm in fixing the "flaw" in the manservant's movement than throwing a flak vest on one. This could be perhaps because I am viewing the situation differently, let me try to rephrase the problem.

I believe the issue isn't with throwing a flak vest on a drone that seems anthropomorphic enough to wear one. I think the real issue is how these silly things' base armor works. Work it like Dermal Plating? Work it like Cyberlimb armor? Work it like armor in of it's own right?

Clearly I believe that the Otomo and Manservant should be able to wear armor (Otomo espescially obviously, they seem to be going for a GITS cyborg body feeling there). What I think the devs should have done is throw in a couple simple sentences fleshing out how much armor one of these anthro'borgs can have on them and to what extent it does stack. To illustrate my point, I can throw 3x the car's body worth of armor into it and the wheels still spin, the car still moves. Same for a helicopter, there 3x it's body is perfectly conceivable to have the rotors keep spinning. However, how much armor can you stuff under the skin of a skinny Japanese love-bot-girl before her arms, legs, and waist are incapable of moving like a person? Same for the manservant who's funky limb positioning seems like it would be hindered by a lot of armor (as it's already hindered by design especially).

I think this is clearly a case of Developer oversight in not making different vehicle/bot/borg body-armor ratios for anthroforms of any type.

Another thing that may have been missed: While the Otomo can wear people armor, and is developed as such for it, it can still augment the body like cyberlimbs. No problem so far, problem comes to the fact that you can technically do all of that AND it still has 6 modslots available for someone to continue to add drone/vehicle mods. This is obviously a bit of an issue when your 4'10" blank staring Korean luv-doll is loaded with more armor than most tanks and a pair of cyberguns to match the caliber of those Dcups.

Stuff like this makes me wonder how much actual play testing has been done. Obviously there are several cases in these corebooks where RAW and what one would reasonably assume is RAI are pretty distant. Lots of holes.