That's actually one of the new gear pieces I like, because it finally allows the average player to carry a ballistic vest + helmet without encumberance. Sure, it also allows some already uber-exploitative munchkin builds to gain some more soak die, but...well, so a totally broken character becomes some more broken...


And I'm not really a fan of the nano-manufacture magic in general. Additionally, in this case the logic of manufacturing your gear in the field kinda escapes me. If you can ship the nanofax machine + raw material, why not just ship a bunch of rifles + ammo for less weight?

because it finally allows the average player to carry a ballistic vest + helmet without encumberance
Hmmmm ?
Vest 6/4 get a Helmet of +0/+2 = total 6/6 = Ok wit BOD 3
no need for Weave Armor just a bit of flexibility

with a flexiblke dance
Medicineman

The standard helmet is the one found in the "Helmets and Shields" table and grants 1/2 armour. The other helmets are addons to various armour suits, as indicated by the "+" in front of the price

Average healthy human has a body of 3, right? If you put the average healthy human in a ballistic vest and pop a combat helmet on their head they will not be as agile as they would be normally. I'm sure some people could pull it off, but I assume those are people with higher body. I never really saw the problem when I thought about it logically. Does it suck as far as keeping bullets out of your character's skin? Well, yeah, but that's not physics problem.

So, you are complaining that someone with the average build cannot be as agile when using a combat vest and helmet? Well, I guess most people would be less agile in one of those? So what's the problem? If you are complaining that your BOD 1 / STR 1 hacker can not wear proper armor without felling burdened down, whose fault is it?

We are not talking about a full combat vest with ballistic plates, but about "flexible-wrap vests [which] are designed to be worn under regular clothing without displaying any bulk". In other words, a soft vest as commonly worn by police under the uniform. Only with more nanofiber magic, which should make it even less restricting for the wearer.

I'm sure the vests of the 2070s are less encumbering than today's, but I'm equally sure the weapons are going to be more powerful and facilitate a need for more armor. From a game balance\common sense perspective I have to agree with the RAW that protection on that level is going to encumber a baseline human. And really the disadvantage isn't that bad and can be compensated for pretty easily. I've never had to worry about those modifiers in game, but by the same token my characters have never owned an armored vest. From an NPC perspective it's a hindrance I'm sure a lot of smaller security forces work with in game, but I have a friend in the army right now that is dealing with a similar issue.

From the average character's point of view, John Q. Wageslave is quite happy with his armored clothing, which sells like hotcakes!

I'm quite shure that you can combine any Helmet with any Armor(if its not a chemically sealed MilSpec Helmet)
I'm also quite shure that there are a lot of different Helmets with a lot of Protection Values ranging from +0--+2/+0--+2
And I didn'te read any rule that forbids wearing a Helmet similar to the Urban Explorer Helmet(+0/+2) with an armored Vest

with a flexible Dance
Medicineman

Sure you can. But the fact remains that a standard helmet + soft vest (or a jacket alone) are a sufficient hinderance to the average person that it needs to be expressed in a modifier.

No, the average is between 1 and 6, with 3-4 being a statistical average, not necessarily a reflection of most people's actual attributes. (ie, if half the people on the planet had a Body of 1 and the other half had a Body of 5, the 'average person' would have a Body of 3 even though not a single person on the face of the planet actually had a Body of 3). It's better to say that maybe half the population would be hindered to one degree or another while wearing that armor.

Sorry, just a pet peeve of mine.

Well, the average of distribution would be 3, and the variance is another matter altogether :ь

I've been using 3 as the average in SR since there's been an SR. Wasn't there some "Average Guy" contact back in the day that had a 3 in every stat?

No, the average is 3.5. An average is, by definition, not a range of 1-6.

Now, that said, you're right. It's possible that "the average person" doesn't exist, but that doesn't mean "the average person" doesn't have defined stats.

3-4 = 3.5 when 3.5 isn't at all possible. I also don't give a flying flip about the exact terminology statisticians use. My point remains. There is no "average person," especially when discussing the exact outcome of using specific gear. Saying that about half the population will have difficulty wearing the gear is fine. Saying that the average person (which implies the majority of people) will is blatantly wrong.

I was referring to this bit:





The standard deviation would like a word with you.

Yes, there are more people in the 3-4 range than there are people with a 1 or 6 in Body. So what? That doesn't mean that someone with an attribute of 3 is the majority. There's just as many people with an attribute of 4. So if your argument relies on 3 being an issue but 4 being okay, that's not the majority of people you're talking about, which is what "average person" directly implies in plain, everyday English.

It's kind of moot, really, if you look over some of the contacts in the game. I think the last time I did, there was a shocking number of them that only had a Body of 2. It just bothers me when people do the above. Pet peeves are called that for a reason.

The 1-6+1 baseline is carried through a lot of things in Shadowrun. You can buy 1-6, and you can buy a quality to get to 7. The model exists for stats and skills, two of the primary building blocks of a character and even extends itself to things like gear ratings and software to an extent. I'm not sure the 1-6 rating is meant to be a bell curve of average human ratings, so much as it's a reflection of ability. I really can't see that many folks having a 4 body unless they work on it, so it doesn't make sense as an average.

In the skills section of the main book there is a description of the skill ratings from 1-7 and what they approximate.





Right there a rating 3 is called the average, and a rating 4 is something that I assume requires more work to attain.