I have been reading the boards looking for good suggestions on house rules. I started to think about armor. Does anyone here track how much damage a players armor takes as a way of determining if it is still useful?

...I've been considering this.

I expect to get those rules out of my Arse, when they finally print it.*

Until then I've just been using glitches on defense rolls, or Elemental damage like Acid and Fire, to give me an opportunity to say, "Sorry chummer you're armor is all fraged up and you'll have to replace it."





*Ah, I've been waiting for a chance to use that in context...

If they take more points in damage (P) in one blow then they have armor, I usually say the armor is fragged. But if that happens they have bigger things to worry about then replacing their armor.

...I think there was an alternate rule in the old Cannon Companion for Armour degradation. I'll have to look into it when I get home.

I usually houserule that significant damage will degrade armor. If someone takes a hit, and the DV is higher than the armor by a significant amount, then yeah, we have armor degradation. In 3rd ed they had a rule for this, I'm pretty sure, but in 4th the problem is that if the DV is higher than the armor you have a smaller window to work with in terms of damaging the armor (because if the DV is that much higher than the ballistic rating, dead characters don't care if their armor isn't as effective as before). If someone's wearing an armored vest or better (6 or more ballistic) and the DV of the attack is high enough to do physical damage, then you could consider degradation. I'd say if the DV is 1.5 times higher than the armor rating, that's a good time to ding a point off the armor AFTER that resistance test. So if Joe Schmoe is wearing his armored vest, and someone takes a potshot at him and ends up with a DV of 9, then after poor Joe rolls to resist (body 3, plus ballistic 6) I'd tell him his armor is degraded a point. But that's really the least of his worries at that point, you know? He's been knocked on his ass and someone out there still has him in their sights.

If you felt that armor was treated as something that didn't degrade enough, you could simply keep a tally of the ranged attacks done on a character that cause physical damage, and every (armor rating) number of attacks, make a test to see if it's lost a point. If no successes are rolled, ding it a point. If a critical glitch occurs, ding it two points. This is more realistic (but a headache in the making because of the tally of attacks, etc) because as the armor starts losing points, the ability to resist losing more points decreases. And as the ballistic value is compromised, it should start being less effective.

So in Joe's case, if this is the sixth time he's been shot at and taken physical damage, the GM would roll 6 dice and check to see if the armored vest lost a point of ballistic protection. I might even suggest the threshold being the difference between the armor rating and the damage taken, but that might degrade armor too fast. You could also take the ammo's armor modification into effect, as APDS would technically compromise armor better than, say, gel rounds.

I usually don't worry about it, especially if someone in the group has the armorer skill. Tis too much book keeping, same way as checking if they cleaned the HMG after the last time they used it, or did they fire too many rounds thru it and now have barrel degredation, etc...

If they do get hit with a nasty acid or such spell, I may make them roll some dice to see if their armor made it or not, taking into consideration the modifications that the armor has.

Well one of the other reasons I ask is that it is possible that if/when a PC dies, the party will loot the body and sell off anything they had on them. Not to mention the NPC's armor.

Very creative idea Sterling.

It took me a while to break my group of their fantasy gaming addiction to looting corpses, but it happened. Not that they *never* did it. They just got a lot more cautious about when and where they did it, and learned not to bother with anything cumbersome that they weren't sure was worth something.

I hold it down to "if you take any damage through a chemsuit or chem-protected suit of heavy armor, you have a compromised chemical seal"

That alone keeps people on their toes. But then, I use poison gas now and again.

-Frank

I usually rule that the armor of survivors stand tough, because it stood. Also, many times I have ruled that somebody's armor was too mangled and full of blood and bits to be really useful to sell or wear.

In addition to this, armor breaches compromise chemical insulation -and that has taken place in my games.

I don't like book keeping very much -I already have a job that involves a lot of that, so I pretty much let the players keep their armor intact as long as they don't get shot too often.

And believe me, these runners do their most not to get shot too often, neh?

Cheers,

Max

p.s. I use poison gas now and then too, and pepper punch rocks!

It seems to me that pilaging players can be delt with in short order: RFID tags.

A smart security detail would have all their gear tagged. If the players pilage any gear the corp sec goons should be all over them. Even if the players are smart enough to carry a radio signal scanner they are looking at an extended test with a 15+ threshold which should give the corp sec goons plenty of time to triangulate on them...

well in my games, taking into account the uses of nanotechnology, i just rule it doesnt take damage, seeing as cyberlimbs are kept in good condition through it already, as stated in raw

Armor should be replaced regularly. Modern, and probably future as well because it works really well, body armor is made of a web of fibers that will stretch and otherwise distort when struck by attacks. This distortion will compromise the protection of the armor in question. Also, the plates used in heavier armors are a ceramet that breaks on impact to absorb energy so these will also degrade as the armor is struck. In fact, body armor manufacturers strongly suggest you immediately replace any body armor that has been used for its intended purpose.
I would just degrade it every time they get shot a few times and don't replace the armor, myself. PCs have no problems blowing 50 nuyen a bullet for APDS so it shouldn't be a big deal to replace their damaged armor.

Mark(psycho)Phipps( HAHAHA! )

Ah, but what about the players that have access to the spell "fix"? As long as all the parts are their, the item can be fully repaired.

That, and my players tend to spend a lot on their armor, getting all the armor upgrades. Hmm, that might have something to do with what I attack them with.

Just to chime in on the original question: Potential glitch effect.

I tend to damage armor as dramatically appropriate. No solid rules or anything, but if you get ripped into by a LMG, then you'll need to replace that stuff soon.

I agree with Moon-Hawk plus a little eidolon thrown in for spice.

I run a Gritty, Dangerous and ultimately lethal game. This is my house rule.

1. If armor is hit by a Damage Value Equal or greater than its Ballistic Rating from Firearms, Explosive, Elemental effects or Edged weapons (vrs Impact) then it takes one hit to its condition monitor. If the Damage Value is greater than 3 then the armor is Toast. Special effects like Fire and Acid cause two hits.
2. All armor has a condition monitor of its Ballistic Value +2
3. for each 2 levels of Damage to its Condition Monitor it loses 1 Ballistic and 1 Impact Value.
4. A glitch means your armors is toast as well.

This rule was built on the fact that a Police issue vest in current times is pretty much toast when hit with anything more than a Pistol, and even then its effectiveness drop.

There you go.

So for instance if Sammy gets hit by a DV 7 hit but is only wearing a Lined coat for 6 Ballistic his coat takes a hit. If it happens again now his Lined Coat is a 5/3 for Protection.

At the moment I was thinking about having the armor make a damage resist check with a threshold set at the DV of the hit / 3

Roll the number of dice equal to the Value of the armor.

If you fail it degrades by 1.

If you glitch it degrades by 1/2 (min 1)

Critical glitch would be destroyed.

But again I would only add this after running a few games. Already I am overwhelmed with rules by just learning a new system.

It's important to damage armor to make things more challenging on a logistical level for the PCs. It makes fixer contacts more important too.

I agree with you. Do not slow down combat -again-
Make armor rolls once at the end of each session/large combat. If you took a lot of damage, them roll dice, something like that...

Cheers,

Max