If you have an Anthroform drone. One that is metatype shaped and sized. Would it be possible to put standard clothing, armoured clothing, security armour, etc on it?

Why would you ask?

The basic answer is yes, of course. Bleh.

Yeah.

And you will want it, since it is easier to to heal a person than repair a drone.

Figured this was the case, but the rules say nothing as far as I can see. Just trying to outfit an AI using an anthroform drone as it's home. Basically an Android.

The rules seem to get a little messy, though. Vehicles can't 'wear' (benefit from) personal armor; you can't duct tape a flak jacket to any vehicle, drone, whatever, and have it *do* anything. There's no real reason to expect the personal armor that your anthroform totally *can* wear to provide any *protection*.

So, the answer to your question was 'yes', but you asked the wrong question.

Because of the layered armor rules sure, I can hang with that. What if you don't have any vehicle armor on the anthroform?

It's still a vehicle, so it has to use vehicle rules. *shrug*

I'm not saying this is the best way to deal with the vehicle/person crossover; I'm saying that the rules *don't* effectively deal with that issue. A proper house rule would explicitly address it, while somehow dealing with balance. Eclipse Phase, for example, has something attempting (attempting) to address this problem.

Where do you find the layered armor rules?

Page 161 4A. Armor and Encumbrance.

Not that they apply to vehicles or vehicle armor.

That says only the highest value applies. If you use vehicle rules for armor encumbrance. Armor above the body decreases acceleration and speed by 20%.
So having any kind of armor on a Manservant over 3 would decrease the acceleration and speed by 20% or from a 5/15 to a 4/12.

How the heck would you work in cyberlimb armor?

Cyber armor directly stacks (with personal armor), and counts for total encumbrance.

Cyberlimb armor on a vehicle is never-intended insanity.

Mechanical arm does say:


So although it's GM says yes/no, it is still implied as being possible if the GM says yes.

Still trying to figure out how much armor to put on a manservant. 3 or more.

Is there anyway to increase the body of a drone?

If you do allow limb armor, it's still encumbering the drone. Take the hit for each point.

No.

There was a post about a structural integrity upgrade that allowed body upgrades. It's not official though. Pretty much you are stuck with whatever body you start with. Perhaps cyberlimb body upgrades would help, but not for more vehicle upgrade slots. If you are going with a motorcycle go-bot thing, you can always add a sidecar

The Otomo states that it can wear and use most equipment made for normal folk. If you are "modding" a manservant or something else into something similar, I see this a good reinforcement to the idea that man like robots can use armor.

Me, I would go with vehicle armor. If it were an Otomo I would stop at 6, anything past that lowers its speed to "Robo-Cop" levels. It will make most low level threats less likely to ding you up, but not become overpowering and piss off the GM. I wouldn't stack it with cyber-limb armor, my view is that cyberlimb upgrades can be used, but if it is in the vehicle rules you should go that route first.

I've weirdly been statting out a AI that runs around in an Otomo lately, and it does take a lot of research to find the right ways to roll for tests. Good luck.

What you should be asking is "how many hits on Disguise do i need?"

Nope. Cyberlimb armor directly stacks and does not count for encumbrance because it is not worn armor. Encumbrance only applies to worn armor.

Nope. Because that's awful, and the rules don't actually say it anyway. Given an ambiguity (what FAQ?), I'll take the less broken version.

Even though the FAQ seems to be right on this particular rule for a change I was not talking about it. P. 161 of SR4A only talks about worn armor. Cyberlimb Armor is not worn, as you cannot don and doff it. It is installed into the limb. So unless you show me a rule saying cyberlimb armor does count for encumbrance by RAW it doe not. It also stacks for the same reason.

I don't see why that particular line applies only to worn armor. The first paragraph does, the second might not. Again: if ambiguous, choose the option that's not stupid.

What's stupid about a limb that is designed to carry that much armor not encumbering the user? Using cyberlimb mods on a drones full mechanical arms however is only at the GMs pleasure anyways so there you can do whatever you want without creating houserules.

Even going with the weird idea that sentence one applies only to worn armor, sentence two doesn't and the last sentence again is restricted to worn armor only. How do you calculate the encumbrance for the ensemble of cyberlimb and worn armor? Cyberlimb armor is an armor item but not worn. So you do not add it to any worn armor items by RAW.

BTW this ruling would also mean that Mystic Armor (Adept Power) and the Armor Spell encumber the recipient as well. Is that the intention?

No, the magic ones are specific exceptions; they're not physical.

I'm willing to say that you're wearing a limb, so that's not a problem. 'Worn armor' is not my distinction in the first place. I'm not saying the rules for various armor are good, but I didn't write them, and I'd rather avoid a problem than "what does 'is' mean"-lawyer the RAW. As long as we're stuck with crazy cyber armor, we have to deal with its awfulness.

Yes, if we assume the GM will never say 'ok', then this vehicle-arm problem doesn't exist. I think we know we can't assume that.

May every group/GM rule that as they/She/he sees fit.
Personally, I'd rather say that an athromorphic drone cannot wear armour on top of maxed vehicle armor... not from my view of the rules, but rather from a point of game balance. You could also apply that "A drone may carry three times its body as armor" to worn armor as well.

But I think we can assume that any GM allowing cyberlimb armor in vehicles will know about the "problem" and will adjust accordingly. BTW it is only a maximum of 8 Armor. and there are other things that might be more interesting to put in a cyberlimb on a vehicle.

Did they really write "carry"? Woohoo, the truck from Arsenal cannot even transport 4 sets of Heavy Milspec Armor SCNR *hides

The problem is that it's just dumb. Start with a tank, add a cyberlimb with armor: now your tank is tankier? Ugh. Rinse and repeat with more limbs. Even ignoring balance, it's just bad.

Arsenal pg 133


Arsenal errata


So a Manservant-3 can have 9 points of concealed armor or 9 points of standard armor and 9 points of smart armor. With either configuration the movement would be 4/12.
Of course the 9+9 armor configuration is very obvious in appearance.

Aha, that solves the problem of 'other' vehicle armor nicely: "A vehicle can either have normal armor or concealed armor." Therefore, it cannot have cyber, magical, clothing/personal, etc. types of armor. (No, English doesn't quite work that way, alas.)

oops, posted in the wrong place. dang it.

double post

If you put an armor jacket on this drone (since it can use most gear designed for a metahuman), would the armor stack with any armor modded to the drone (akin to regular armor over armored cyberlimbs)? Could the armor jacket act like a barrier?

That's what we're talking about. I say no, for various reasons:

• balance, and basic anti-foolery
• vehicles/vehicle armor aren't people/don't have people armor, and the rules don't exist to integrate them
• armor items are not barriers (this comes up with the Reinforce spell as well)
• "A vehicle can either have normal armor or concealed armor."
• vehicles have separate 'encumbrance' and strict armor cap rules, so it probably wouldn't matter. (These rules are arguably for vehicle armor, but vehicles arguably can't have any other kind, so it balances out. )

In terms of 'use metahuman gear'… they can. They can wear the armor/clothing, and they can wield weapons. It doesn't imply that they can benefit from the armor's Damage Resolution effects.

It is my belief that the designers intended the Otomo to wear armor and receive the benefits of that armor. Especially since the base model starts at 0 armor. There isn't really anything that states otherwise plainly.

The issue is does that normal armor stack with the vehicle armor, and I have always thought that it would. I have nothing to support this, just my opinion. So an Otomo with a lined coat 6/4 plus 6 vehicle armor would have 12/10 armor, but only 6 will work as vehicle armor.

Pretty much you just need to come to a consensus at your table.

It is my belief that they failed whatever their intention was regarding the vehicle/person integration, whether for armor, skills, whatever. There *should* be good rules for it, if they want anthroform machines in the setting.

Off the cuff, I'd prefer anthroform machines to be a third (sub)category of vehicle, and their available vehicle mods should be explicitly laid out. For example, they'd be barred from vehicle armor entirely, but they can have cyber and personal armor; we'd also need to know how it works (vehicle armor has an explicit 'hardened' effect), but I'd be fine with simply saying 'they ignore stun'. Another option is that they can be like Warforged (heh): either cyber/personal armor, or vehicle armor.

Anything else requires rules for duct-taping flak jackets to cars.

Hmmm. Can you have a posession based mage summon a spirit to posess said android if it's a prepared vessel? Or perhaps even put a familiar into it? (I say a golem is cooler than an android!) Then add the armour!

Where are the rules for vehicle armor and the hardened effect? what page and book?

Vehicle armor does not have a hardened effect per se. Vehicles can merely ignore Stun Damage. Physical Damage not exceeding the modified armor value of any type is downgraded to Stun Damage. Vehicles can then ignore it. So de facto it has the same result.

The rules specifically state that any modified DV (Base + Net Hits) that does not exceed the vehicle's armor has no effect on the vehicle.

The rules ALSO state separately that vehicles are immune to stun.

The two rules are not intrinsically linked by the text of the books.



-k

Where is that point?

Discarding logic you're right.


Page 167, SR4A, last sentence of Vehicle Armor.

This is only a new rule, as opposed to just a reminder of a previous rule, if you ignore the first sentence of the same paragraph
If it functions like character armor, the damage is downgraded to stun if it does not exceed the armor value. Since it has already been established that vehicles do not suffer stun damage, it is ignored.

We don't disagree - that was my point. I was simply providing the attribution you were looking for.

While I quoted you it was actually meant as a rebuttal to KarmaInferno's stand point.

Ultimately they function the same for most purposes, but if something is immune to stun, A) why bother also mentioning that modified DV below the armor rating has no effect and B) why not state "because of A, you have B" instead of "You have A. You have B."



-k

Please an 18 armed spider-blimp with guns akimbo is way more fun.

Hm. Thinking about how cyberlimb armor would be used in defense, I propose this house rule:

You can have as much cyberarm armor as you want. Only one limb's armor can be added to the defense roll against any given attack.

What do ya'll think?



-k

Interesting, but I prefer the "average all the limbs to find the average amount" rules extension personally. It only requires you to broaden an existing rule as opposed to making a new one alltogether.

I was thinking he said that because you stick one arm up to block whatever attack. So someone swings that sword at you, you puts your giant Hellboy like arm in the way to take the hit while your slimmer more agile opposite arm slides the ceramic knife between a couple of ribs.