So I have this ork houngan, Remy Coeur de Lion. Old character that I was bringing up to date (how old? Well, let's just say that he was originally created using the New Orleans features from the old White Wolf magazine :/ ).

He was always immaculately turned out, which at the time included a full set of Vashon Island Houndstooth. Looking at the CC (p.48), I see that they've updated their line with the Actioneer. Fair enough, I've got cash lying around. Oh, and they come with their own long coat now - an alternative to that Mortimer Greatcoat he always wore.

Then I think to look at the stacked armour bonuses. And I quote, "The long coat... does not count as a separate item for layering armour."

Waaaait a minute. Are they saying it adds straight on to the rest of it? Because:

Suit jacket (1.5/1)
Slacks (1/0.5)
Hi-Collar Shirt (1.5/0.5)
Long Coat (2/2)

adds up to 6/4!

Add a suit of FFBA.3 (er... full body suit these days, I mean), which doesn't reduce your Quickness for layering, you're looking at a whopping 8/4 armour rating - and you look good too!

Is this right? Or did I miss something important?

yeah, you´re missing that the suit jacket and the coat aren´t compatible. but you´re right that actioneer long coat kicks ass! my personal favourite is the following:

armor vest w/ plates (dikote)___4/3 (+1/+1)
actioneer long coat__________+2/+2
real leather_________________0/+1
FFBA shirt__________________+1/0
forearm guards______________0/+1
-----------------------------------------------------
___________________________8/8

and the best thing is that you only need a quickness of 6+ to avoid that nasty combat pool loss.

Ahh, cheers mate Because you (IRL) wear a long/great coat over a suit jacket, I'd assumed they stacked. Do you have a page ref for that?

And yeah, that's a neat combo you've got going there

You'll look stupid with the FFBA hood over your head but that's a matter of style.

sure, page 121 cc

Vashon Island, Actioneer Line entry:
notice the asterics at suit jacket* and long coat* these mean that those items can´t be worn together.

have fun with the actioneer long coat and laugh as the bullets bounce off your armor

Ta Cy

Toturi:

I'd assumed the hood could be left down until needed - possibly that it was even detachable, as some raincoat hoods are today. Tuck it back under the coat, pull it up when actually needed.

Hey, that raises a question - is this hood faceless or full face? Enquiring minds want to know If it's the Spiderman-style pull-on mask, it would be easy enough to tuck it in a pocket until you need it. Hell, it works for Spidey

i´ve always thought of FFBA 3 as some kind of ninja suit and my characters always had full face masks (like the suit in "the saint"). i like to combine them with ruthenium polymeres and thermal dampening. you can get by far better protection than just wearing a FFBA, but it´s very stylish for sneaky chars.

sorry, but thou art wrong (i already factored those things in):


Armor Vest 4/3 (5/4 w/ Dikote)
- Actioneer long coat +1/+1 -> no it explicitely says "it does not count as layering armor" --> +2/+2
- real leather clothes (0/0 ) (0/+1 rounded down to 0/0) -> no it´s 0/2 halved 0/1
- FFBA shirt +0/+0 (+1/+0 rounded down) -> no it´s 0/2 halved 0/1
+ forearm guard +0/+1

===> 8/8 is correct

EDIT: i know that the shirt doesn´t have a hood, but i was talking about FFBA 3 when mentionong the ninja stuff

Seems thou have a point here, Sir Cymo, please let me apologize...(I didn't have my books at hand, being currently at my workplace )

8/8 ...that's a lot !!! very difficult to beat such a character in hand to hand combat...

Just an afterthought, though...don't you guys think "leather" means fully dressed in leather with pants and jacket? If that so, you shouldn't be able to wear them under an Armor Vest and a longcoat...
It's still 8/7 anyway...

Mistake #1: You can wear the jacket and coat together, it's just that when doing so the coat's bonus is halved but basically functions like FFBA... but only when worn with the rest of the outfit. Otherwise the coat (or any other piece) functions just like normal armor.

Mistake #2: Form-Fitting Full Body Armor includes a hood and gloves if you choose to wear them, but the armor bonus still applies without them. They're an accessory, not a requirement.

Mistake #3: Using the combo in this thread, your armor rating is Ballistic 6/Impact 7 for purposes of determing your penalties to Quickness and Combat Pool.

Mistake #4: You're going to look like a tool wearing mix-matched clothing like that. You're essentially wearing a bullet-proof police vest, leather clothes, and a lightweight overcoat worn by upper executives -- or a combination between a SWAT team member, a flaming homosexual at a gay biker bar, and a CEO. It's a much better idea to wear the entire Actioneer ensemble (5/3 with the Long Coat), Form-Fitting Full Body Armor (+2/+0), and Forearm Guards (+0/+1). This "only" gives you an armor rating of 7/4, but can be worn by someone with a Quickness of 4 without any penalties whatsoever -- and it doesn't make you look like a complete idiot, assuming you wear it where appropriate.

So according to Toturi, you can only stack two layers of armor? That's the way we've been playing...that's why I reacted to those unbelievable numbers....
My players usually go for FFBA and something on top like a 5/3 jacket or a 4/2 long coat, which gives armor ratings around 7/3 at best (+0/+1 with forearm guards)

You're right Doc, I can't imagine someone wearing both a coat and a jacket...looks stupid and must be horribly uncomfortable...

apology accepted humble sir ombre.
yeah, but the best thing about that combination is that its wearer still looks quite sociable and not like a walking punchingbag. you retain a lot of flexibility, your weapons are easier concealed and most characters don´t lose combat pool dice...it gives those guards donning sec-armor a run for their money. and some pervert mages stack it with armor spells...

Check your Armour Layering Rules, gentlemen.

1. you are wrong doc, page 46 cc reads "components with asteriks can´t be worn together", e.g. no jacket and coat.

2. armor rating is Ballistic 6/Impact 7 for purposes of determing your penalties to Quickness and Combat Pool and thus can be worn without penalty by a quickness 6 character because a) the ballistic rating isn´t higher than 6 b) the highest rating is less than two points higher than his quickness

3. i imagine the outfit like blade´s in blade --> leather clothes with an armored vest + coat (why not a vashon island actioneer line leather cloak?) --> to me this sounds pretty cool

EDIT: edited for extra reading pleasure

no doc, you can´t wear ANY components together -> BBB page 285 "Generally only a jacket OR (emphasis mine) a coat can be layered over clothing style armor."

well, as long as there´s no picture of the coat it´s left to the player´s imagination if it looks good or not, so i think we don´t need to discuss that any further. Btw. it isn´t a fancy little designer coat, it says it´s no frills style so i guess it´s pretty plain...

Good god. Live in ignorance. I couldn't care less.

what a weak argument, shame on you!

Also, the overcoat doesn't stack like normal when worn with the actioneer line, you wear it with anything else and it's applied as normal.

yeah, ok. but if this guy would wear a jacket and not a vest he´d look like this michelin tire guy

where does it say that the long coat only stacks with the actioneer line? at the beginning of the chapter it says that components of the same line do not count as different components when worn together but they do count when worn with other armor. so it is needless to repeat that it does not count towards layering when it comes to the actioneer long coat... but they do so and i think they want to tell us that this is an exeption to the above mentioned rule, i.e. it stacks with normal armor.

I didn't say it only stacks with the Actioneer Line. The Actioneer's overcoat stacks just fine with any type of armor. HOWEVER, the layering PENALTY is only negated as part of the ensemble because it was designed to be worn with the rest of the outfit (albeit with the same armor benefits as any other coat). With any other armor, it works just like any other overcoat in that chaper (2/2 with layering penalties).

If you want to think about it in different terms, imagine the little table doesn't have any astericks and the coat provides 1/1 armor. Then the text says "the coat can be worn with other armor normally, but doing so provides an armor rating of 2/2 when not part of the rest of the Actioneer ensemble. Layering penalties are applied as normal in these cases."

General: Captain, why are all of your powered armor troopers wearing stylish trech coats?

Captain: Sir, in addition to being stylish, they provide an additions +2/2 to the already impressive power armor. Sir!

i don´t want to be nitpicking here, but i think this power armor is hardened and no armor stacks with hardened armor, so these troopers won´t wear the actioneer long coat...

EDIT:
@doc: so why do they repeat themselves saying that it doesn´t count a a seperate item for layering armor? it has already been said before, so this has to be something special, an exeption from the general rule.

just to get you right: so you think the coat gives an additional armor of only 1/1 (instead of 2/2) even when worn with the outfit?

I know it does. It provides 1/1 armor with anything you wear unless the other armor has a rating lower than 2/2, in which case it would be the dominant piece of armor. The layering penalty is only negated as part of the Actioneer ensemble, however.

but when the layering penalty (with the actioneer ensemble) of a 2/2 armor is negated it´s 2/2 not 1/1 right?

What they should have doen is described it as two different armors, one with long coat, one with the suit jacket and left it at that. No components, no negotiation.

it doesn´t say no layering penalties apply, it says the coat doesn´t count as a seperate piece of armor, that implies that the full 2/2 is added to the armor rating.

so: the coat doesn´t work with the jacket --> proof: asterik in cc, BBB page 285
and: the full armor value is always added, even to armor pieces that don´t belong to the actioneer ensemble.

That should be:

Actioneer Line w/ Jacket but w/o Coat: 4/2 (single ensemble; no layering penalties applied).
Actioneer Line w/o Jacket but w/ Coat: 4/3 (single ensemble; no layering penalties applied).
Entire Actioneer Line: No can do, Jacket and Coat may not be worn together.
Actioneer Coat w/o Actioneer Line: 2/2 (layering penalties apply)

Sorry, I was going off of memory for the numbers.

Layering penalties don't apply when that's the only thing you wear because it's a single outfit. In essence, the entire Vashon Island Actioneer Line suit is just like an Armored Jacket; it provides 5/3 armor and is a single piece of armor -- with the added benefit of counting as 4/2 for purposes of layering and has a 50% Concealability bonus (and a heft pricetag compared to a Jacket).

If you wear any single component from it with other armor, it, too, is a single piece of armor and suffers all the normal penalties.

but what are those layering penalties when they aren´t applied in example 3:
Entire Actioneer Line: 4/2 + 1/1 (halved) = 5/3 (single ensemble; no layering penalties applied)
where the armor rating drops???
and why do you still ignore the rule that jackets and cloak can´t be worn together (BBB page 285) remember, if they could be worn together that would mean a character could wear a long coat and an armor jacket and that just seems wrong...

so you say the writer put the asterisk (that means the jacket and cloak can´t be worn together) there just for fun?

EDIT: to elaborate:

to me a "Any component marked with asterisks may not be worn together" is pretty clear put