Hardened Armor now provides automatic damage reduction hits equal to half its rating. For example, a Force 4 spirit when materialized would have (through Immunity against normal weapons) a Hardened Armor of 8, therefor scoring 4 hits on damage reduction automatically, plus whatever it rolls.

My question: Are the automatically scored hits calculated BEFORE the Armor Piercing value of the attack gets factored in, or AFTER?

Example: If I shoot the spirit with APDS ammo, does he receive 4 automatic hits, or only 2?

AP is specifically noted in the rules.

You modify for AP first before determining the automatic hits.

I think my brain is trying to fragg with me, it chose to totally ignore the third part in parentheses... thanks, chummer!

Shadowrun is a really complicated system, it's easy to overlook things

True, but after 15 years I thought I would have at least mastered my "Reading" skill
Unless my GM is really on the frugal side with Karma

Now the only question is how AP interacts with a spirit that had the Armor spell cast on it.

Hmm. Well, that seems fairly clear cut. It says it is cumulative but it doesn't provide hardened armor. So lets say you have Hardened Armor 8 and five hits on Armor.

You use the base Hardened Armor rating (modified by AP) to determine if the attack does damage at all. That seems clear. The five hits from Armor don't matter here at all.

To determine the automatic hits use half Hardened Armor rating (modified by AP).

Then for the Damage Resistance Test you roll Hardened Armor + Armor hits + automatic hits.

At least, that's my read of it.

Mine, too, Ken. And since I wrote that power...well, sure that has to count for something. (If someone hasn't already done it, I'll get this posted to the working FAQ document we're assembling.)

This is the line that I think is wrong.

First:
- You're not rolling automatic hits. Those are added after.
Second:
- Does AP play into this calculation at all?

Wow, that's crufty. If the automatic hits are equal to the spirit's Force, why is the numerical value of the Hardened Armor twice the Force? Poor editing, ho!

For the Hardened Armor + Armor spell example: What is the reasoning of reducing the Hardened Armor (for determining autmatic hits) when the bullet would logically have to penetrate the armor spell first?
(The same could be said for the purpose of determining if it beats the Hardened Armor at all, but since armor doesn't acutally reduce the DV i guess the result would be the same rules-wise.)

What's poor about the editing? Not trolling, I'm genuinely curious. Have you actually read the powers in question (Hardened Armor and Immunity)?

(Just spotted a minor errata in that the text doesn't say what happens if the DV exactly equals the Hardened Armor rating - it should say greater than or equal to the Hardened Armor rating (modified by AP)).

Ah, I can see how that was misinterpreted. Ok here's a clearer example that goes over everything (I think):

Question: How does Hardened Armor (p. 397) and the Armor spell (p. 292) or standard armor (pp. 436-437) stack?
Some notes to remember:
1. Remember that critters with Immunity to Normal Weapons (p. 398) have 2x their Essence in Hardened Armor. This armor applies to all attacks made with mundane weapons!
2. The Armor from Hardened Armor does not stack with worn armor (see Armor and Encumbrance, p. 169). At the GMs discretion, the automatic hits and damage nullification may still function even if heavier Armor is worn (use the base Hardened Armor values and modify for AP as normal to determine these).
3. The Armor spell (p. 292) does stack with Hardened Armor or worn armor.
4. The automatic hits for the Defense Test are in addition to the Armor provided by Hardened Armor. These automatic hits do not apply if the armor is completely penetrated (modified Armor reduced to 0 or less; see Step 3: Defend, p. 173).

Detailed Steps

• Use the Hardened Armor rating (modified by AP) to determine if the attack does damage at all. Hits from the Armor spell and any worn armor are not included in this calculation.
  
• To determine automatic hits from Hardened Armor, use half of the Hardened Armor rating (modified by AP) as normal. Again, hits from the Armor spell or worn armor are not included.
  
• For determining if the damage is Stun or Physical (p. 173) the modified Armor is equal to [(Hardened Armor + Armor spell hits) - AP].
  
• Then, for the Damage Resistance Test, you roll Body + modified Armor, and, finally, add the automatic hits.

For example, a Force 6 spirit (pp. 303-304) of air materializes and is shot at by some pesky security guards. The elemental has Essence equal to Force (6), and the Materialization power (p. 398) provides Immunity to Normal Weapons while in the physical world. So in this case the elemental has Hardened Armor 12. The summoner had previously cast Armor on the spirit and got five hits, for +5 Armor. The security guards are armed with Colt M23 assault rifles, with AP -2.

The spirit is completely immune to any attacks by the guards that have a modified DV of less than (12-2) 10. The base DV of the M23 is 9, so this will likely not be an issue on a successful attack. However, it does get (12 -2)/2 = 5 automatic hits on the Damage Resistance Test. For the Damage Resistance Test you add the Hardened Armor rating (12) + the number of hits from the Armor spell (5), then subtract the AP of the attack (-2). In the case of ranged attacks you also roll Body, which depends on the spirit type (a Spirit of Air is Force-2).

The modified Armor of the spirit is 15, so any damage done by the guards will be Stun unless they can get 6 net hits on their attack

So, for the Damage Resistance Test against Stun damage by the M23's: the spirit of air is rolling Body (4) + modified Armor (15), and then adding the five automatic hits from the Hardened Armor. 19 dice will average at least 6 hits, for a total of 11 hits.

If the guards exceed the modified Armor, the spirit just rolls Body (4) and does not benefit from the Hardened Armor or Armor.

Question:

Spirit Force 1
Armor spell Force 6
Gets hit with an attack of 5 DV
Gets 2 hits on the resistance roll + 1 autohit.
Is the remaining 2 boxes of damage stun...or physical?

Assuming AP 0 it would of course be stun: 5 DV < Armor (6+2) (I'm also assuming you meant 6 hits on the armor spell, right?)

(Just to clarify: stun or physical is determined before rolling for resistance (but after rolling for dodge).)


On a side note: is it just me or didn't hardened armor / ITNW get scaled to the new damage-values? I mean a high power spirit (force 6) being threatened by low-powered (9P) assault rifles with regular ammo. Ok, they get an increased defense pool (+INT), but i dont think it's really on par with the higher damage.

Ok I think I addressed the Stun/Physical thing in my edit. If you exceed the modified Armor, the automatic hits from Hardened Armor don't apply to the Body test from my reading.

So when do you think the auto-hits will come to bear? When the DV is less than the hardened armor? No damage at all, no need to roll.

No, they're autohits....on the Damage Resistance test which is last.



This would have to be wrong. I don't see why it would get the full rating of the Hardened Armor AND the auto-hits. Unless you mean the hits on the spellcasting test for the Armor spell, in which case, you should just note it as "Armor Rating" because that's what it is.

I really need to find my juggernaut example that I used to describe this when I first wrote it up. Surely I kept that...it was funny....

You get both. Hardened Armor counts as Armor in addition to the other benefits. At least, that's what it says in the first paragraph.

A Juggernaut walked into a Bar one day....


and bent it.

That's not what I said. I said the rating of the Hardened Armor and the automatic hits it generates.

So yes: full armor plus auto-hits.


And you wouldn't have to roll for damage resistance if the DV was less than the (modified) hardened armor (because it just bounces off).

Edit: Rereading tghe previous posts i see where it might have gotten confused.

I'll try to reiterate and keep it precise:
After attacking a critter with hardened armor you get (if you hit at all) a DV equal to weapon-DV + net hits.
If this resulting DV is lower than the (modified) hardened armor rating it does nothing.
If it is equal or higher the critter then rolls a number of dice equal to body + hardened armor rating (counts as armor) + additional armor (if any) - AP
The DV is reduced by the hits on those rolls and additionally gets reduced by half the modified hardened armor rating (rounded up).

What test?

Since the wording was not always clear, i tried to summarize the process above and except for splitting the damage-resistance roll from the auto-hits i think this is as it should work.

For the stun or physical-damage part: A critter with hardenend armor can only receive stun damage from a physical attack, if it has some additional armor (e.g. clothing or magic) and the attack-DV exceeds the (modified) hardened armor rating, but doesn't beat the combined (modified) armor-rating.

More additions to the example. Does it look right, Patrick?