Perhaps I didn't search as thoroughly as I should have, but after not finding anything helpful with the forum search tool...
The question I've got is this: does mystic armor count as hardened if a creature (or player) already has hardened armor? Mystic Armor appears to grant +1/+1 to armor rating, but never specifies what, if any interactions it has with other rules. If not, in what way is Hardened Armor actually, well, useful?

Also, in cases in which multiple forms of armor are present, is there an order of operations for hardened armor? Is it applied before regular armor? Is it additive? Does regular armor count as hardened if you've got the hardened armor quality?

... is this power as useless as it looks?

There are no rules for interactions between hardened armor and ANY other sort of armor.

General consensus whenever this question has come up seems to be: "Compare the DV to just the Hardened Armor rating. If the modified DV does not exceed exceed the Hardened Armor rating, then the attack bounces. Otherwise proceed with the rest of the attack tests as normal using the full combined Armor ratings."




-k

The reasoning is that 'extending' any Hardened Armor effect (ITNW, Drake armor, etc.) is incredibly broken for an Awakened character, so it can't be possible. So yes, check Hardened Armor first, then as normal.

Drake armor *is* totally worthless (sorry), but ITNW is pretty great at higher Force.

Yes, these are persistent rules problems. :/

Mystic armor is good not because it stacks with the hardening of hardened armor, but because it stacks with armor, period. You compare the rating of your armor to the power of an attack to see if it does stun or physical damage, and there is a big difference in the healing times for the two.

Would not call it Worthless, just non-optimal... It is, after all, 4 points of additional armor that stacks with EVERYTHING (Assuming, of course, that you can get customized Armor for a Drake), including Mystic Armor.

I meant the Hardened aspect, of course. Extra normal armor is always nice.

Ahhh... Of Course...
Besides, there are a few attacks it would likely protect against. A Drake is completely protected from Squirrel Attacks, for instance.

And the attacks from unarmed strength 1 metahumans.

Whatever, have you *seen* the squirrels in 2070?

There's still a few normal ones around. It's the SURGE dire chipmunks you gotta watch out for.

I have a (natural) strength one human that deals 5P damage with an unarmed attack. No, he isn't awakened.

Martial Arts + Bone Lacing? I'm pretty sure with just those two you can bring it up to 6P.

Ah.
...
Anyone have any decent house rules that make hardened armor actually worth something without making Immunity to Normal Weapons stupidly broken?

One I saw a while ago was basically cut hardened armor values across the board in half, and make hardened armor guaranteed damage reduction successes, then apply the other half as standard armor. This house rule suggested removing hardened armor first with AP, but I think the two combined would make hardened armor useless (given it's not too hard to get 4-5 AP which is all you'd need to do to negate the vast majority of hardened armor in the game), and would instead have AP apply to standard armor first.


Basically the way it looks now (assuming average DR successes, not including body mitigation which would lower it a few points further):

Force 6 Spirit gets hit for 12 DV == 0 damage
Force 6 spirit gets hit for 13 DV == 9 damage
Dragon gets hit for 8 DV = 0 damage
Dragon gets hit for 9 DV = 3.667 damage

With the change:
Force 6 spirit gets hit for 12 DV == 4 damage
Force 6 spirit gets hit for 13 DV == 5 damage
Dragon gets hit for 8 DV = 0 damage
Dragon gets hit for 9 DV = 1 damage

It smooths out the damage curve a lot, still letting hardened armor fill the function of shrugging off smaller attacks, while making it so crossing a certain threshold doesn't take you from "Hey I damaged it!" to "Hey look it's dead!"

Muscle Augmentation and Bone Augmentation. No martial arts. If I could get martial arts, I could jack the DV up to 8P.

Yeah, Muscle Augmentation hardly counts as 'Strength 1 human'.

Hmm, are Drake hardened Armor and Stone Skin Surge Armor compatible?
A Stone Drake would have a bit more to show . .

I hope so
its better for my surged Fomori Drake


with a combined Dance
Medicineman

Like I said, I don't think any form of hardened armor can be extended. I've seen people say 'invincible stone drake' before, but I think they were joking. I guess there's nothing like being the literally rarest creature on the planet, though.

Yes, those two stack. Downside to your 7/7 hardened armor (or whatever it works out to) is that not only is it still borderline useless, but the only armor you can stack with it is magical (either the adept power or the spell).



We've tried this rule at our table once. But I think it got muddled and we ended up not using it (I think one of our characters ended up with 14 Hardened Armor: Military grade armor + spirit possession; I think we forgot to "halve everything")

Does it say they stack (as a Hardened 7/7)? I thought the point is that the rules don't tell us. They'd stack as normal armor, certainly.

If they don't stack it's a waste of BP (as 4/4 is useless and 3/3 is useless, 7/7 is at least marginally useful).

Yeah, using the hardened Armor Value to actually LOWER the Damage Taken before comparing it to the rest of Armor would be somewhat effective i think . .
If automatic weapons at least did less Damage, then you could still say that it protects against automatic/burst fire damage . .

I think the emphasis is that the rules don't say one way or the other.

So, really, it's up to your GM.




-k

Yes. And phrase it as "is a force 4 spirit dangerous?" If the answer is no, then "7 hardened armor is also not dangerous."

This seems workable. I'll give it a shot. Thanks!



I load my pistol with tungsten rounds and kill me some dragons?

Draco18s, it's *supposed* to be a waste of BP. It easier to believe that, than to believe that they intended all Drakes to have stone skin, and all stone skins to be drakes. That's the only way it's not a waste, after all.

It's easier to believe that they intended for Stone Skin to be a BP dump (i.e. absolutely in every possible way useless) than it is to believe that it stacks with the only other sources of hardened armor in the game?

Yes, that's what I said. The idea of it existing just for SURGED Drakes (already pretty crazy) is *more* unbelievable.

That is a red herring. I never implied that it was a quality only for Drakes, just that 3/3 hardened armor was a pointless waste of BP.

You mean 'straw man', but no. As you said: the *only* time it's not worthless is for SURGEd Drakes. There is no other option, right? What else could is there? Not ITNW. SURGEd paracritters? The only critter I even know that has Hardened Armor is Dragons.

It *is* a pointless waste.

Except that IMO, it's still worthless. EVEN if it stacks. 7/7 hardened armor will shrug off an attack or two under rare circumstances (most guns do 5P, so 2 net hits is all that's required in order to penetrate) and you spent a huge pool of BP getting both of them.

And yet, it is never actually useless, as you still get to use it to soak that damage that penetrated the Hardened Armor.

It is, however, not worth the points that it costs.

7/7 at the exclusion of the cheapest armor available? (Flak Vest, 8/6, $500)

No thanks.

True, but it still has its uses. 7/7 Hardened is MUCH better than 8/6 non-hardened afterall.

Besides, Those with SURGE do not actually get to choose what modifications they were graced/cursed with. It is a metagaming convenience that allows such things for Player Characters afterall.

So, I realized I (and everyone else?) forgot about the other possibility for the OP's question. *Mystic* Armor (the critter power) is astral-only, and *does* become Hardened if the critter also has the Hardened Armor power (according to the Mystic Armor critter power entry). This means that drakes have Hardened Armor 4/4 for physical attacks, and (Hardened) Mystic Armor 4 against astral attacks. No stacking involved. Same for Dragons, which are the only other critters I know that have Hardened Armor (and Mystic Armor).

I assume we've all been talking about the Mystic Armor *adept* power (way to write confusing rules, guys) is astral and physical. …But the rules about hardening Mystic Armor only refer to the *critter* power. We don't have an example (AFAIK) in the rules about what happens if the Hardened Armor and Mystic Armor ratings aren't equal, because Drakes and Dragons always have them equal. I'd assume that, as I originally stated, there's no 'extension' of the power. That is, a Drake adept with Hardened Armor 4, (critter) Mystic Armor 4, and adept Mystic Armor 5 still has hardened astral armor of 4, and *total* astral armor of 9. (He also has the same thing for physical, hard 4/total 9).