Does Impact armor stack? Are there rules?
Thanks for the help!
Full Version: Armor Layering
Yes, it does, and in the same way as ballistic armour. However, you don't incur a quickness penalty if your total impact armour goes over your quickness.
Yes you would. It applies any time your total armor ratings are greater than Quickness unless the specific armor doesn't apply (such as Form Fitting Body Armor).
Edit: Ack! I just read over the rules for it to make sure, and I'm mistaking. What the hell? So you can wear all the heavy, bulky padding you want without affecting Quickness, but two kevlar-esque woven items have a good chance of screwing you over? What the hell?
Edit: Ack! I just read over the rules for it to make sure, and I'm mistaking. What the hell? So you can wear all the heavy, bulky padding you want without affecting Quickness, but two kevlar-esque woven items have a good chance of screwing you over? What the hell?
| QUOTE (A Clockwork Lime) |
| Yes you would. It applies any time your total armor ratings are greater than Quickness unless the specific armor doesn't apply (such as Form Fitting Body Armor). Edit: Ack! I just read over the rules for it to make sure, and I'm mistaking. What the hell? So you can wear all the heavy, bulky padding you want without affecting Quickness, but two kevlar-esque woven items have a good chance of screwing you over? What the hell? |
Yeah dude. that's why I wanted someone else's take on it. It just didn't seem right and I was thinking I was missing something.
But you still lose combat pool.
A (semi-)related question: Say a character is wearing an Armor Vest (2/1) that has 2 points of the Nonconductive armor modification. The character is also wearing a Lined Coat (4/2) with 4 points of Nonconductive. Is his effective Nonconductive rating 5 or 6? Do armor mods stack?
There isn't any comment in the armor mods section. It's not in the errata. Thus, it's GM preference. I see no problem with letting most armor mods fully stack (4+4=8 instead of 4+4=6), but I don't doubt that a player may make a combo that causes me to reconsider.
I've always treated them like armor; max value for the highest rated one, then half of all others. I don't apply any other layering penalties at all though. But as Herald said, it's GM preference as there is nothing official.
Armor modifications are described on pages 52-53 of CC. The wording there seems to suggest that modifications like fire resistance and chemical seal are cumulative:
| QUOTE |
| Each point of fire resistance reduces by 1 the Power of fire-based attacks. |
Since nowhere are the armor stacking rules brought up in the modifications section, personally I don't see the problem in them just stacking fully. But YMMV.
| QUOTE |
| Edit: Ack! I just read over the rules for it to make sure, and I'm mistaking. What the hell? So you can wear all the heavy, bulky padding you want without affecting Quickness, but two kevlar-esque woven items have a good chance of screwing you over? What the hell? |
That's because bulky padding is more typically plating of some kind, which won't be attached where it can interfere with range of motion and suchlike, while kevlar and other ballistic armor layers -are- in the way of movement and slightly restrictive.
Though I don't have too much experience with modern armors, I can give an example with midieval gear; a man in full plate armor doesn't have a lot of trouble doing cartwheels and suchlike, but a man in chainmail will laugh at you if you ask him to try.
| QUOTE |
| Though I don't have too much experience with modern armors, I can give an example with midieval gear; a man in full plate armor doesn't have a lot of trouble doing cartwheels and suchlike, but a man in chainmail will laugh at you if you ask him to try. |
Does chainmail tickle or something?
| QUOTE (Tziluthi) | ||
Does chainmail tickle or something? |
You ever get your face caught in a bike chain, it's sortove like that.
Umm, as someone that has worn a chain mail shirt (16 gauge, approximate to traditional without the pants)
After a few minutes of warm ups and what not, I could easily have done cartwheels (if I used a belt to hold the shirt in place), but then again, at that time in my life I was a nimble and flexible person, not so much anymore...
After a few minutes of warm ups and what not, I could easily have done cartwheels (if I used a belt to hold the shirt in place), but then again, at that time in my life I was a nimble and flexible person, not so much anymore...
| QUOTE (Niallan Zheng) |
| Though I don't have too much experience with modern armors, I can give an example with midieval gear; a man in full plate armor doesn't have a lot of trouble doing cartwheels and suchlike, but a man in chainmail will laugh at you if you ask him to try. |
As someone who's put in days of combat time in both (and am only up at this ungodly hour because I'm getting ready to go put in another couple hours in my mail), I just have to say: Bull.
Plate allows a lot more freedom of movement than commonly believed, but there are certain degrees of motion that you don't really ever need in combat that it simply doesn't allow, because doing so would compromise protection that you do need in combat. I could do cartwheels in my plate without difficulty, at least once I got used to compensating for weighing an extra 40 pounds, but somersaults were out of the question... I couldn't bend my torso very far anywhere but at the hips, and I couldn't tuck my head far enough with my gorget (neck armor) on.
My mail hauberk, on the other hand, is just like a really heavy shirt (or dress... it comes down to my knees). It doesn't restrict my movement at all, and my agility is restricted only in that I have an extra 50 pounds to deal with. I can and have done cartwheels, somersaults, and other such gymnastics in it. I even did a somersault in combat once... I tripped on a pothole, fell on my butt in front of an advancing enemy, and, without even thinking, rolled into a backwards somersault and came up on my feet facing him (I was young, stupid, and agile then... last time I tried that, without armor, I got over, but ended up falling on my butt again instead of regaining my feet).
So, what do you do?
Go with Impact OR Ballistic being over? It's rare for Impact to surpass Ballistic, but it does happen.
No. I meant what does JC do.
i'd do it the opposite of the way the book does it. ballistic shouldn't affect your qui-related skills; impact should.
to be honest, though, the amount of armor you can wear before taking penalties shouldn't be based on quickness; it should be based on either body or strength. the hardest thing to deal with, when wearing armor, isn't how clumsy it makes you--it's lugging around that extra weight. you might not notice it at first, but spend a few hours practicing sword drills in full plate, or at the rifle range in a flak vest. that stuff will wear you out.
to be honest, though, the amount of armor you can wear before taking penalties shouldn't be based on quickness; it should be based on either body or strength. the hardest thing to deal with, when wearing armor, isn't how clumsy it makes you--it's lugging around that extra weight. you might not notice it at first, but spend a few hours practicing sword drills in full plate, or at the rifle range in a flak vest. that stuff will wear you out.
Well, see, that's where you need to severely enforce encumberance, and make armor heavier than it already is. To compensate you have to make just about everything else lighter, 'cause as far as I'm concerned other than armor the game designers wrote down everything's weight in pounds and labeled it as kilograms by mistake. There's no way five full clips of ammunition should weigh more than a naked Str 2 person can handle.
SCA heavy combat. I'm the one in the brownish hauberk, fighting two-sword in the first few, with the big kite with the star on it in the last couple.
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