Like for example?

The case TJ is pointing out is the fact that the game allows for this typ of shenanigans, but at starting BP all you character can do is eat bullets. Not spells nor other means of be caused harm. It is really a non-issue from a game perspective because the only time it will come up realistically is as the NPC of DOOM or a PC that should probably be retired....AFB but from what I recall the availability of cyber armor is (RatingX4)F or R. Roleplaying wise this means that in game it is hard to get.

You've never heard of the Amazonia/Aztlan war? Seriously? It's been mentioned in practically every book released in the past year or so. What game are you playing? There are also a bunch of hotspots in Africa, the Middle East (home of the Desert Wars, which I assume is what you were thinking of with the Discovery Channel "weapon porn" analogy), and inland China, which IIRC is full of random warlords now.

Show me in the book where our cybered friend is unable to purchase an internal air tank, a high willpower, and the Magic Resistant quality. I'll wait.

It is an abstraction. It is not a simulation. if you prefer a simulation (which Shadowrun is not) you might try Twilight 2000 instead.



The CyberPunk Genre cover a huge amount of territory, from novels, to TV, to Comics, to Movies. The fact that you believe that a measly 8 Armor is capable of bouncing Tank Rounds is the problem here. Even the +24/+24 Cyber Monster will not be bouncing tank Rounds. So just get that image out of your head. What will happen is taht he will likely bounce anything that the typical police have access to on an encounter. Taking down something like taht will take preperation. it will not happen by happenstance. Take a look at C yberpunk 2020. Full Conversion Cyborgs routinely need an HTR team to be taken down. Anything less is laughable. As it should be. Unless, of course, you are going to claim that the seminal game for CyberPunk is not really Cyberpunk.



And again, you completely ignore that there are OTHER ways to handle that situation. You instead come up with inane comments that are designed to try to make you look like the only reasonable source of game world information, while making everyone else look like they are complete idiots. Hyperbole does not become you, sir.

The truth is that your scenario (Hobo Joe, war veteran, with 2 Cyberarms) really is just an Edge Case. You cited the number of Amputees (no numbers I noticed) in the last 2 wars we have fought in Afganistan and Iraq. And yet, if you take those numbers, and then compare against the Entire country's population, it is completely insignificant. Not to say that those veterans are insignificant, because they are not, just to put that out there. I have nothing but respect and admiration for my brother/sisters in the military. I live near a major military base, and yet I have YET to see such an individual (Single Amputee, let alone a double amputee) in casual encounters. So your example is not what you are going to see. They are the exception, and a very rare one at that, and not the rule.

Not all drugs require an Inhalation Vecotr, and in fact, most do not.

Maybe you should have read more than the cover text. The "war" the books describe takes place in a ~100 km wide strip along the border, and even there runners can freely move around and the worst they can run into is the occasional patrol or guerrilla group. The Azzies still have their HQ in Bogota, a place which is right at the bloody "frontline", and recently scored victory which brought Amazonia to the brink of defeat by taking a HUGE number of POWs...2000.


Again, maybe claimed by the cover text of Bogota! but not really


Turf wars between warlords in a place where most people couldn't afford a datajack mean there are more cybered amputees in Seattle?

Doesn't defend against nanites that eat armor......nor DMSO (the most you can get there is 6 dice).

Lets take my example though:

Assume Will of 4, Bod of 15, Armor 30/30 (as I calculated earlier this is achievable). Against a laser, the PC is rolling 30 dice (averaging 10 hits on a soak). The damage needed to bypass is 11. Against standard ammo, yeah it wont efffect him unless it is more than 15 points of damage--with a heavy pistol that means needing 11net hits to do 1 point of stun damage. Not impossible with edge use.

Also, your tank (if designed as you say it is) is still suceptible to spells (just more esistant to it), and an internal air tank and toxin extractor can reduce his other vulnerabilities. The problem is that other than combat, where he is just a damage soak what else will he be good at? He wont have as much BP for his combat skills and other attributes, let alone being able to do anything out of combat.

You got it backwards. Hit locations as a game concept only exist in the mechanics if you introduce them. RAW shadowrun does not have them. And yes I have read the rules and removing an item from a target's grasp does not need to target the hand. The rules even imply that it does not since the item can onbly be damaged by GM Fiat and as far as I can tell the target is not damaged.

No, the rules for called shots allow the players to execute actions that would IRL require to hit specific locations. The game itself does not have the mechanics of hit locations.

I do understand that concept. I agree that the armor value reflects both coverage and protective quality. I am just saying that regardless of coverage armors with the same value should be treated in the same way all the time. If you agree, we are on the same page.

As I said before, if you have a problem with how much cyberarmor a character can have, why not just restrict it directly?

A flat maximum of, say, 4 points of cyberarmor is a lot simpler to implement than having to average varying limbs, and dosn't cause weird math effects like adding an armored limb and having the armor rating get worse.

It overcomplicates what should be a simple fix.



-k

That is all very true, but the rules have to be consistent when viewed from the character's point of view. If weird situations like armor becoming less efficient if you add more armor can arise, it's not enough to say 'well, players would be stupid build their character's that way, so it's not a problem'.

What about the character with one armored cyberlimb who loses an arm and has no way of getting a new or cloned replacement. The only 2nd hand one he can get has less armor than his - why should he be less protected when adding that arm than he would be if he ran with only one arm?

Armor giving protection across the entire body creates some weird situations from our point of view, but the system is abstract and doesn't care about hit locations, and that's the consequence of such an abstract system. From an in-game perspective, nothing is wrong here though. You can aim to avoid armor, and you can choose not to. In-game, adding armor provides protection. Layering doesn't, except in some cases. It's fine because character's in-game don't view anything weird - it always works the same.

Averaging cyberarmor between cyberlimbs won't change that - it'll only create stupid situations like the one above. Your scenario of every bullet 'migrating to the arms' is the same for someone with an armored vest - no shots ever would hit the head, not even if the rest of his body is in cover.

Now, averaging the armor of all limbs doesn't create that problem, and still lessens the impact of huge amounts of cyberarmor. You'd add whatever other non-worn armor of all limbs into the equatrion (orthoskin and bone lacing providing it's rating to all non-cyber limbs), and you'd probably have to increase the armor rating of dermal plating since that's only on the torso (if you count the torso for averaging, that is).

That's the way to go if you want to lessen the effect of armored limbs and still have things consistent in-game.

Or, increase the capacity cost for cyberlimb armor. Rating x Rating maybe?

Does the Ballistic Mask from WAR stack with a normal Helmet? RAW does not say, but logically you'd think so since the definition of "helmet" is undefined.

How much capacity for eye/ear mods do either of these have?

ImO it depends upon what Kind of Helmet You wear. if its a Small Helmet with open Face (like some oldfashioned Military Helmets f.E. from the DDR/GDR ) You might add the ballistic mask.
If ist a Full Visor Helmet (f.E Mil-Spec) You can't add the Mask
Capacity ?
I'd give it a rating of Level 1-4 with 25¥ per Rating
but thats a Houserule that I just made up

with a made-up Dance
Medicineman

1) Yes, within reason (as Medicine Man noted).

2) I would say none for facemask (you're pulling a cloth over your eyes and trying to get a benefit?), and the helmet is answered partially in Arsenal, page 44, Armor Suit Capacity. It'd be a House-Rule for a definitive answer, but I'd say 6 Capacity for the Helmet from Corebook, less for other helmets. The Sidebar on said page has capacity slot costs for visual/audio enhancements.

From WAR pg. 160

...Ballistic masks can take vision enhancements as well as any modification a helmet can take, ...

It's not just a cloth you pull over your face -- I see it more like a hockey mask, or like Darth Vader's face cover.

Pretty much this.





-k

That just seems wrong...

Personally, I would allow visual enhancements and maybe some respirator types for ballistic mask. No audio, as it does not actually cover your ears

If the speakers are strong enough, who cares wether or not they are over your ears?
Also, doesn't SR have the bone-used-as-speaker-technology somewhere?

Just saying how I would rule it, given shadowrun audio enhancements. Spatial recognizer and sound filter would be both quite moot when suffering from background noise because speakers does not cover your ears.

Not sure on the fly, but it would probably use the mastoid bone, which is located behind the ear, further from the mask. When you look at some "spy movies" they have their audio glued just behind ear on mastoid process.

Here's a little question in regards to natural armor or changeling abilities.

The 'Rhino Hide' changeling ability gives you 3/3 in armor but does not stack with other armours and count as hardened.

So how should one handle that if said character has rhino hide and is wearing a Chameleon Suit? I mean, you can hardly forbid the person to wear clothes as long as they fit him.

Ok, so they dont stack, but what about individual layers?

1: bullet hits Chameleon suit.
2: Roll chameleon suit dice VS damage
3: bullet goes through chameleon suit with reduced power due to successes of armor roll
4: If final damage is equal or less than the hardened armor then the hit is ignored.

I mean, the armor is THERE, in the way of incoming fire so one can hardly ignore it and the worn armor is there too.

I would house rule it away - I personally think this is stupid, that the character is supposed to not be able to wear armor at all with this quality. Trolls get +1 natural armor but can still wear armor. 3/3 (Granite Shell) is crap, so is 2/5 (Rhino Hide). No way these are useful if the char has to give up any worn armor. In addition, the Bark Skin quality gives 0/2, but IS compatible with worn armor.

It's just a dumb rule, ignore it.

Well, if it's hardened Armor, in SR3 hardened Armor meant Stun Damage was ignored completely . .
So if the power of the attack is less than your worn armor, you take stun and because of your hardened armor take none at all . .
If the power of the attack is bigger than your armor, worn and body own armor together, you take physical damage as normal . .

Considering also that these 'armors' are highly visible and makes the character stand out they should be more efficient.

The MOST useless kind of Armor is the Drake-Armor anyhow . .
you can't wear anything while in Drake Form and even a STR3 Human punches a kife hard enough to get more damage than the armor can soak into stun . .

These cases all point even more fingers at the overall stupidity of the armor stacking rule. The armor stacking doesn't make sense, at all. It takes a huge suspension of disbelief from the players. It opens up tons of weird edge cases like FFBA vs the skintight armor (no difference practically, but FFBA can be layered), clothing-Barbie-accessorizing (my troll looks great in his scarf and fairy wings), and military armor oddities (is it "worn" armor for a helmet? Sheesh).

And it seems that "normal" rules like Encumbrance make the idea of stacking tons of armor an unrealistic idea anyway.