So I am about to run a Shadowrun for the first time in a while and am simplifying a few things for a new player (and to speed the game along). One of the most basic rules that I've discussed is to disallow armor stacking for simplicity sake. You count the heaviest form of armor you have on, period. At best, players could use FFBA to gain a +1/+1 or some such. This deals well with power creep, massive dice pool problems that SR4 is prone to, and also reduces the major SR4 problem of not being able to cause physical damage to heavily armored targets without totally murdering them. (For example, having to deal 14p damage to a target with 13 ballistic armor in order to bypass the armor - a generally lethal dose of lead poisoning.)

The implications seem pretty straight forward: bone lacing, dermal armor and any other additives to damage resistance pools are much stronger. I like that.

Worth noting, the game will be focusing on the SR4A gearset, so options to both deal and mitigate damage are relatively limited.

Try it and see what happens.
Also, make sure to extend this rule to NPC's too.

Just because someone has a lot of armor (13 in your example) does not mean that you need to deal 14 points to cause damage. If that Individual with 13 Armor, and the 6 Body to go along with it, took 10p damage, he is only likely to soak 6 points of it (19 Dice), causing the remaining damage to convert to stun (Armor was greater than the DV of the attack) and he takes 4 Stun. It is an often true statement that Stun is much worse to take in a combat environment (in Shadowrun) than Physical is. It is easier to take some one down with stun damage, generally (smaller Health Track for Stun, generally).

The only difference in taking 14p dmage (vs the 10 that I used) is that the target will likely take 8 PHYSICAL boxes of damage, instead of 4 Stun. He still takes damage whether the DV was 10 or 14, however.

Using only SR4A, you will not have many issues with taking targets down, generally, whether they stack armor or not (Not a lot of stacking availability without Arsenal and Attitude.

Was going to point out that damage converting to Stun != inflicting no damage, but TJ ninja'd me. So yeah, what TJ said.

As has been observed, you don't have to deal 14P to someone with 13 armor, just to do "any" damage. That's because there's a lot mroe going on than just a 1:1 comparison.

First of all, there's Armor Penetration. Most weapons have 1 or 2 points of this; some have more. A couple have a LOT more. And ammunition - chiefly Ex-Ex ("Enhanced Explosive"), APDS, AV, and the semi-infamous Stick-and-shock - can add still more to that. Now, most heavy pistols - like the signature "Ares Predator IV" - have an AP of -1. Ex-Ex adds another -1 to that, so you'd have a total of -2. Which means that 13 armor just became 11 armor.

Second, to get Stun damage through, your final DV has to be only 1 more than their expected successes on the Damage Resistance test. Let's keep on with that 13 armor. It's been reduced to 11 by our pistol and the bullets it's firing; let's assume it was being worn over a Body of 5 (and not consider Encumbrance just yet). That means the target of this attack is going to roll 16 dice to resist the damage. Of those, about 1/3, or 5.334, will be successes. Thus, a mere 6 points of damage is probably going to cause at least some stun damage.

And, guess what? Our Ares Predator firing Ex-Ex starts with a DV of 6 ... plus one for every net success in favor of the attacker. With only 2 or 3 net successes, this shot is still likely to inflict somewhere between 2 and 4 boxes of stun damage. In one single shot. From a gun that can be fired twice in a single Initiative Pass.


.... BTW, even with the same gun, and normal no-frills ammo? 5P/-1 versus 13 armor and 5 body, with2 or 3 net hits after the Dodge test? Armor becomes 12, damage resistance pool is 17 dice, for 5.667 expected successes, against a DV of 7 or 8. So each such shot would still inflict 1 to 3 stun ... from a pistol that is, for ShadowRun, about as "ordinary and non-exceptional" as they get.

Please, let's not let this turn into a teachable moment about stun vs physical. While 'no damage' is not exactly what happens, you can not cause lethal (ie physical) damage to a PC who stacks armor without also causing enough damage to generally murmaider their face.

re: NPCs using the rule. But of course.

Oh, and the other side effect is, as people have pointed out, that -AP bonuses are way, way more important.

Sure you can.

Pump someone with enough Stun, and eventually it overflows into Physical.

...

You just can't do lethal damage to them all at once, without being able to hamburger anyone less-well-protected.

So, your house rule is to use the armor stacking rule from RAW?

Pg 161 SR4a
Armor and encumbrance
If a character is wearing more than one piece of armor at a time, only the highest value (for either Ballistic or Impact) applies. Note that some armor items, like helmets and shields, provide a modifier to the worn armor rating and so do not count as stacked armor.

No. He's specifically eliminating bonus armor values from things like helmets and shields, to a maximum of +1/+1 over the primary armor piece being worn.

Ah, missed him mentioning helmets and the Securetech gear

Other implications that I can think of are that armor with high base ratings would be more valuable, there is less incentive to buy Body above certain levels (lower Body ratings than if the house rule not be in place, since armor is capped at a lower limit). This house rule may also well shift focus to magical damage resistance dice adders.

Wouldn't it almost be slightly beneficial to have just enough armor so that about half the hits on you are stun, and half physical? Doesn't matter for NPCs(as most only have one damage track), but it may make you last longer.

Anyways, I don't like armor stacking at all(personally I think helmet stats should be included in the armor), but with FFBA and PPP you can pretty much always gain 2xbody armor unless you're a troll with little effort.

Consider using BOD+STR instead of 2*BOD as well. Makes less people skimp on STR entirely.

I also think that armor rules could be simplified greatly. You could just say that there are basic types of armor available with protection values x/x for x in 1..12, costing more as x goes up. So you can get a 8/8 armor for your Body 5, Strength 3 character (or for a Body 4 character with the 2*BOD rule) without any encumbrance.
Then, there are ways to fortify those armors against one type of damage, but at the same time make them weaker against the other type. This does not change price or encumbrance. The range could be 2, so you could mod your armor to be better against ballistic weapons ("bullet proof"), in the case of our 8/8 armor above, you could change it to be 10/6 instead. Or, if you are more afraid of getting hit by a giant's fist, make it 6/10 instead. 7/9 or 9/7 would also be possible.

The reason for this is that as it is RAW, basically everyone just uses FFBA an Securetech and thus circumvents the usual rules anyway. Everyone. I know that some tables even ban those items.
So it really seems much smarter to just have a streamlined system for creating armor that applies universally rather than having everyone find out for themselves again that you can actually have 13/11 armor on a Body 5 character yet again.

We banned the super add on armours from Arsenal and also use the "no converting physical to stun damage" optional rule ("more deadly gameplay" or whatever rule from SR4A). Of course applies to NPCs too. Works really well and because more physical damage floating around PCs think a little harder before going guns blazing. It's cool.

Also you dont get the stupid, oh no, I want to roll crap to do more stun damage to this guy on 9 boxes of stun, rather than roll well and cause him physical damage, meaning he's still in the fight instead of unconscious.

I'm playing around with a houserule idea whereby a character with a full stun track can try to remain conscious. There was a rule for this in 3rd ed but I forget how it went. I'm thinking something like a Willpower test with threshold of current physical damage wound modifiers (retest when more damage incurred) and disorientation penalty applied to all actions.

My solution was that for each successful hit by a weapon that starts with P damage results in both the impact and ballistic armor being reduced by 1. In reality though if you take enough stun you'll be not dodging effectively, which means you'll be hit easier, which means you're more likely to take physical damage.


Also a wide burst, then narrow burst is the best way to get leathal. The first burst will probably hit, but not do physical anyway (theres a chance since the DP modifier from the burst reduces the targets chance to dodge--rather than add damage that doesn't count toward the armor comparison). Then the second hits the wounded character, and either knocks him unconcoius or outright kills him if physical.

My big complaint regarding armor is the fact that a person can wear as much armor as an APC. Granted the vehicle armor rules work differently (they are even more of a do nothing or cause massive damage situation).

It makes Body have diminishing returns very fast, and creates a short list of useful armors (anything with Impact and Ballistic not very close or at even base values is the sux). I think you end up with body points past 4 being increasingly crap. 5 and 6 only give you the ability to wear Restricted armors, 7+ doesn't give you more armor at all.

This is assuming you are also banning armor weaves from Attitude.

Also, how does this work with bioware and cyberware that give more armor, or with troll dermal deposits?

I like this. A lot. Consider it yoinked.

Pax, I've mentioned it many times before now and you just now saw it? Sheesh.

Intuition was my dump stat, and I have only 1 rank in perception.

Clever.

But yeah, I really like the Str + Bod for encumbrance. Makes more sense and makes Str not as much of a dumpstat.

Indeed. Now we just need to find a way to make Logic more useful

Wouldn't it be great? A world in which low stats are actually...a bad thing?

Maybe it's just my playstyle, but the thought of having low Int and almost no Perception scares me. I usually roll pointmen, sneaky gits and/or private dicks, so I always have a nice perception pool just to avoid getting ambushed and spot important things.

.... sadly, I suspect I'm not even a PC for this game. I might not even be a full-fledged NPC. I think I'm a dependent.

The optional rule to limit hits by Attribute, when Hacking, would seem to do that nicely enough.

Simple... Make Logic a part of your Hacking Pool, and remove programs. There are two Optional Rules in Unwired that talk about that very thing. And several Topics here on Dumpshock that discuss them in exquisite detail.

I thought it was Log + Hack (limited by program)?

Yes, there's essentially an optional rule for each way round - program limiting the other two or Logic limiting the other two.

This is the rule at my table. It makes super-high-end programs less desirable, but I'm fine with that. My technomancer player bought all his CFs at rating 4, and has never once used threading.

Yeah, when it comes to hackers logic is important already because i use the Logic+Skill rule for them.
But it would be nice for other characters to suffer when they have a low LOG in same way, too. Apart from that REDUCE LOGIC negative health spell ofc