I've got a biker with body 4. What's the best armor package he can wear?
Is it worth going to body 5 or 6?
What's the best armor combo for that?

I noticed milspec and mobility modifications - is there any way to get your body rating above 6 for the purposes of wearing armor?

I've been told you need to keep your body at odd numbers, because it rounds up when making calculations for things like armor.

It rounds up for damage track, same for Willpower. With Armor though, going up to the next point will still get you 2 more points for encumbrance. (Not enough incentive to stick with an even number though)

With 5 body, you can have 13/11 armor with From-Fitting Body Armor (and an armor jacket + PPP to match) or 15/15 with the Red Samurai Armor + Kabuto Helmet milspec stuff. With 6 body, you can get 15/13 armor, or 18/16 with milspec stuff.
I suggest sticking with body 5 for the extra box on damage track. IMO, the expenditure on even amounts is too high for the benefit offered.

At 4 body, I recommend going to 5. If you stick at 4, the best armor will be something like an Aces High jacket (or similar 3/3 armor piece) + Form-Fitting Body Armor Full-Body Suit + Securetech PPP everything except helmet, for a total of 11/9 armor. You can also use a light military armor for 12/10, but the gain is quite low for the cost (in nuyen, availability and how obvious it is)

You can't layer anything with military armors (page 51 Arsenal).

I never suggested he did. I listed the non-milspec options separately from the milspec ones.

What about 4 body?
The best I can come up with is a biker suit (5/9) and a half form for suit (4/1).
It should come out to 9/10 actual with an encumbrance of 7/9 - I think.

*Note I think I can pull off an urban explorer w/ helmet and full form fit suit for 12/10.

I edited my original reply with body 4 options. Basically, put a suit including FFBA together to hit 11/9 armor.

Well, you could wear the Light Military Armor (without the helmet) with that.

For the absolutely most armor at any given body, you'd have to crack open War! and add Softweave to stuff. I generally advise not opening War! to avoid the brain aneurysm from sheer stupidity.

Just ignore the "fluffy" sections. That's where ALL of the truly serious problems are.

Open up both that and Attitude and put Delta Amyloid and SoftWeave on every piece of a Zoe suit

Pssst, Cyberlimb armor gives it full value to everything and more damage boxes to boot.

Pssst, I don't use cyber limbs (at least not so far).

I disagree that all the problems are in the fluff. I find that there is a fair amount of stupid in the crunch of War! as well, but let us avoid that discussion in this thread.

I also disagree on the idea of stacking armor modifications on separate components and adding it all up, though this is more from a balance point of view, rather than the RAW (which I, sadly, think allows the stacking)

On the first point, I'll just end it with that as both player and GM I love everything in War!, partially because I realize that the stuff that's really powerful is not available in creation at all (even with Restricted Gear quality), and even then are a PITA to get hold of as very few groups, none I've seen, have a Face anywhere near this "pornomancer" thing--a fact that most of the book's detractors don't consider.

On the second, oh well. It's just better survivability, and that's a good thing. I like it, again, both as player and GM.

There is one piece of bioware which raises all your physical stats by 1 but increases your lifestyle costs. Suprathyroid, 0.7 essence, 45k, 20F availability.

That's about the only augmentation which directly augments body IIRC.

There's various ways to raise your body maximum... such as geneware. Then buy it up normally. But since you're not up there yet that doesn't work.

Your other option is to get customized full cyberlimbs... max that out.. then get body augmentations in them as well.. to raise your average full body score.


But that's how you increase your body to increase your armor capacity... which I believe was the OP's question... not how much armor can he slap on.



Overall I don't have a problem with softweave because it's a far bigger help to lower body characters than high body character. But yeah it's not going to be mixed with attitude at all. You only get one fabric.. whether that be softweave or any of the others. And softweave + armor vest is very nice for a 4/4 encumbrance option at 6/4 protection you can wear under pretty much anything even for body 2 types.



But overall... softweave on normal armor (war0), FFBA (level 2 is about all you can get to unless you're wearing the full body condom). plus PPP/helmet is about all you're going to get...

But you should be able to get 10 ballistic... 7 impact (9 with helmet) fairly easily.

(6/6 encumbrance softweave armor jacket... 2/0 encumbrance FFBA level 2.... for 10/7 then a +0/+2 helmet.