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silva
Why dermal plating/sheating works as body bonus and not as damage reducer (ballistic/impact armor bonus) ?

Ive never seen the logic behind this.
Yerameyahu
To be distinct from the augmentations that DO.
sabs
see I always thought dermal sheathing/plating was the cyber version of orthoskin
Doc Chase
QUOTE (Yerameyahu @ Oct 29 2010, 06:29 PM) *
To be distinct from the augmentations that DO.


DAMN YOUR LOGIC.

Does B/I even qualify as a damage reducer anymore? It's just adding more dice to the cascade, not knocking down the power.
sabs
wait.. I'm confused

QUOTE
Dermal Plating: Dermal plating consists of hard plastic and
metal fiber plates bonded to the user’s skin. The plates are clearly visible
and can be stylized for surface texture and color. Dermal plating
confers a bonus to both Ballistic and Impact armor equal to its rating.
Dermal plating cannot be combined with orthoskin.


it does count as B/I and not body
Mäx
Whut, last time i checked(30s ago) both of those implants added a bonus to your impact and ballistic armors based on the rating of the ware.
Doc Chase
Whut
Yerameyahu
Max, I just interpreted the OP as having actually mentioned the Body-increasing augmentations. wink.gif Because that's clearly what he meant to ask.

There are armor augmentations, and there are Body augmentations. They do slightly different things and cost different amount of cash and Essence. *shrug* That's a market. Body's a lot harder to get, too: just bone mods, basically? :/
silva
Damn, I forgot to say its for 3rd edition.

Sorry guys.

Yerameyahu
Mwa ha, that means my answer was accidentally right. biggrin.gif

Basically, there's no reason for it; it *is* just to be a different option, with slightly different effects.
Critias
Nitpicky little quibble, but I'd say rather than Dermal Plating being "different," it hearkens back to the earlier editions. Dermal Plating has always just been a Body increase. It's the other, newer stuff, that's been "different" by counting as Armor instead.
Glyph
Part of the reason for the change is that armor works differently - rather than decreasing the power of an attack, it gives extra soak dice. The only difference between armor and a boosted Body is that armor can be affected by the AP rating of weapons, and it determines whether an attack does physical or stun damage. So it made more sense to simply use one armor mechanic in SR4, rather than continue having two separate kinds of armor. Part of the goal of the new rules was to streamline some of the mechanics, after all.
silva
What do you guys think about using it as a armor bonus (damage reducer) for 3rd edition ?

Woudl yhis unbalance the game somehow?
Doc Chase
I'd have to check my 3rd ed books again, but isn't that what bone lacing already does?
Glyph
QUOTE (silva @ Oct 29 2010, 02:55 PM) *
What do you guys think about using it as a armor bonus (damage reducer) for 3rd edition ?

Would this unbalance the game somehow?

I'm not sure how unbalancing it would be, but it would definitely make dermal augmentations more powerful. Getting a -3 TN to your resistance roll will usually be far more useful than just +3 dice.
Dikotana
It very much depends on your circumstances. If you don't have very many Body dice to roll to stage down damage, some extra dice can be critical. Consider a character with 3 Body. It doesn't matter how much armor he has, he's rolling three dice (ignoring combat pool), and that means he can stage damage down by a maximum of one step. That's no good. Add a rating 3 dermal sheath and the character is rolling a respectable 7 dice.

The more dice you're rolling to stage damage, the less difference more dice make. The more dice you have, the more effect each increase in armor has since it affects all those dice. Ideally, you want both.

But note that dermal sheaths do act as impact armor.
silva
QUOTE (Doc Chase @ Oct 29 2010, 07:58 PM) *
I'd have to check my 3rd ed books again, but isn't that what bone lacing already does?

Yup. But it doesnt make sense for me.

In my understanding of how such devices would plausibly work, it should be exactly the contrary - dermal plating reducing ballistic damage; bone lacing increasing body atribute and reducing impact damage.

Dont you agree?
Glyph
Dermal armor gives you overall toughness against attacks, either by increasing your Body dice (SR3), or increasing both your ballistic and dermal armor. Bone lacing generally tends to go from a Body boost, to impact armor, to (very minor) ballistic armor, as you upgrade to the heavier stuff.

Dermal armor is equally good against both kinds of attacks (except for dermal sheathing, which gives slightly more in impact armor), while bone lacing tends to be better in close combat. So if you take a closer look, it actually does work about how it logically should.
Mongoose
Increased body from cyberware can boost the length of your physical damage track, and the boxes of overflow you can survive. Thus, its a good fit for things that would actually stop your body from being ripped apart despite lethal damage (bone lacing, for example). Its also limited by augmented attribute maximums, while armor is not...
Lantzer
The old implanted armors granting body dice in 3rd Ed were a legacy effect. They were introduced back in 1st?/2nd? edition, when "armor" gave auto successes on the damage soak roll. Since every troll had dermal plating, they thought it was better to give them a small bonus of +1 body than a larger effective bonus of 1 auto success.
Then as editions changed, and armor changed, they kept the same old bonus - because people were used to it.
silva
QUOTE (Lantzer @ Oct 31 2010, 10:04 PM) *
The old implanted armors granting body dice in 3rd Ed were a legacy effect. They were introduced back in 1st?/2nd? edition, when "armor" gave auto successes on the damage soak roll. Since every troll had dermal plating, they thought it was better to give them a small bonus of +1 body than a larger effective bonus of 1 auto success.
Then as editions changed, and armor changed, they kept the same old bonus - because people were used to it.


Thanks for clarifying. It explains it all.

In my Shadowrun 3rd edition house-rules, dermal plating will reduce damage just like armor do, as Im convinced it is the more logical effect from a in-setting consistence/point-of-view.
The Shuhite
It's still weird that dermal plates and dermal sheath add body but orhoskin adds armour.
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