An armor jacket is nothing like a suit jacket though.

i´m sorry, english isn´t my native language,but what does "may not be worn together" mean if not "may not be worn together"?

It means they may not be worn together and still count as a single piece of armor. If worn together, they count as layered armor as per the standard rules unless an exception is made in the text -- such as the exception in the Actioneer's text about the coat not applying any layering penalties when worn with the suit (but is still halved as if it were layered because of the asterick).

that would mean that i could wear Dallas Line for Men ensemble and wear both a double breasted jacket and a short jacket together with the rest but i had to add only 1/2 of one of the jackets armor value? so i could basically wear 2 jackets at the same time? that sounds a bit weird.

Hence the potential layering penalties and funny looks you'll receive by doing so. But in a pinch, yes, you can.

Everybody sit down.

Put your hot drinks or sharp objects down.

Okay?

I agree with Doc Funk



Looking at it from the sheerly practical point of view of someone who actually owns RL equivalents to all these things:

If I put on my one and only suit (owned for the purposes of costume; I'm a part-time actor) I can easily put my overcoat on over the top. For the record, it has a wool lining which I can easily imagine to be around the thickness of advanced armour materials in 2064.

If, on the other hand, I put on my leather motorcycle jacket (the one with the plastic inserts to help protect you when, as I did a few weeks ago, you come off your bike and skid down the road at 40mph, and which I therefore equate to an Armor Jacket) there is no way in HELL you're getting the overcoat on over the top. Nuh-uh, no way.

So I would rule that the standard armour jacket couldn't be worn with a long coat over the top. The Vashon Island etc lines, on the other hand, are carefully tailored fashion, and should be able to stack.

You can all pick your jaws back up off the floor now

bleh, i looked the topic up in the german cc (arsenal 2060) and it states that the parts of the ensemble marked with an asterisk "können nicht gleichzeitig getragen werden" which literally translates to "can´t be worn at the same time"...so the german rules are a little more clear here.

well, no...but there isn´t a magical force keeping me from wearing a coat over a vest that has gel packs on it either...the rules prohibit it that´s all.

Are we forgetting on thing. if you truly want to wear it you can buy a slightly larger size or or have it custom tailored to do so. However there is a limit to what would fashionably go together. i mean no one is going to wear leather to a Novatech board meeting unless his name is Villiers.

This is one of the things that is far to complicated in this game. I usually use my special Game Master Cheat™ ability to tweak the penalties for layering armor when it gets stupid, and to pull armor values out of my ass when the players are counting on their fingers with their forheads wrinkled. All my players want are to look cool and have decent protection. All this counting and tweaking back and forth does nobody no good.

Amen mintcar!

the german rules prevent you from wearing both at the same time, it is as simple as that.

EDIT: i am referring to the stuff with asterisks (i.e. actioneer coat and jacket) here

No, your interpretation of the German rules prevent that. HUGE difference between the two, especially since you insist on reading the rules out of context. You can't wear them together and have the outfit function as a single unit of armor (ie, no division of Armor Ratings). If you do wear them together, they function as layered armor in all ways unless specifically mentioned in the individual entry -- and the Actioneer line has just such a cavaet.

well, open the book on page 151 arsenal 2060:
Designerpanzerkleidung - Komponenten, die nicht gleichzeitig getragen werden können, sind mit einem kleinen doppelkreuz (#) versehen.

that simply doesn´t leave any room for interpretation.

I would say that has to be the most controlling and completely erroneous piece of reasoning I have ever seen, short of the "guns kill people" train of nonthought. If you read in the german rules that the 6th world was flat would you go with that?

Dude, there's a skill known at least in english as "reading between the lines".

It involves looking at what is written and then deciding what it actually means.

No rule is going to do something silly like make it impossible for your character to physically pick up a coat and put it on.

The rules will make it so putting that coat on does not help you.

This is why we have human beings interpret the rules, and not a machine.


-karma

sure you can put it one but you would receive no benefit at all, not even the normal layering. and please keep in mind that we don´t want to make up our own rules here, if we wanted to the whole discussion would be a complete waste of time (which it already might be).

EDIT: and i don´t see how pointing out the rules as written
unreasonable in a rules discussion (omfg).

Actually if all you had was the complete suit (which counts as 1 layer of armor) and the extra coat I see no reason it could not be layed as normal. Of course it's gonna be awfully hot.

Why would you not get the normal layering?

If you wore a normal Armor Vest and then wore the Actioneer Long Coat over it, you'd be able to get half the armor value from the Long Coat. Why not elsewhere?

Here's a tip: Some things are not explicitly covered by the rules

This again is why we have human beings interpreting the rules, so when you run into grey areas you can make a new ruling and avoid silly situations that make no sense.

Here's another revelation: Sometimes rules are written badly.

You will occasionally run into rules where it's written strangely, but it is clear what the author actually meant. This may be one of thise times.


-karma

"Some things are not explicitly covered by the rules"

But this is covered by the rules! it is explicitely covered by the rules but ok, i you don´t want to get that...

Dude, seriously, the rule is saying that you can't wear them together and have them function as a single piece of armor. That's all. It's not saying they can never be worn together, ever. That's YOU reading it out of context.

So this is a case where the text is worded badly.

Think about this. A rule that physically prevents a character from reaching out, grabbing his coat, and putting it on is patently silly.

It is more reasonable that the rule is meant to apply to the game mechanics, not the actual physical act of putting on the coat.


-karma

"Designerpanzerkleidung - Komponenten, die nicht gleichzeitig getragen werden können, sind mit einem kleinen doppelkreuz (#) versehen."

which part of "components marked with # cannot be worn together at the same time" didn´t you understand?

What part of "you are interpreting the rules FAR too narrowly" do you not understand?

It's okay. If you're the GM, you can go ahead and use the brain you were given to decide if something seems silly and make your own determination. There is no role-playing police that will haul you off to jail.


-karma

Cymophane: Once again, you're reading them out of context. You're reading a single line of text and ignoring what the rest of the section is talking about. Read the entirity of it. It's telling you that you can put all of the components together to form a single suit of armor, but those items marked with an asterick *can't* be worn together in that way. They are instead treated as seperate pieces of armor.

hey buddy, i already said that it is quite clear that you may wear whatever layers you like, but this rules mechanically prevents the abuse of certain armor combinations which the developers deemed to powerful by saying that it´s effects don´t stack. it´s the same with hardened armor (like a suit w/gelpacks) and normal armor.

No, what you're actually saying (in effect if not intent) is that you can wear the Actioneer's long coat with any other type of armor *EXCEPT* the one type of armor it was *DESIGNED* to be worn with. That's not only blatantly wrong, it's also blatantly illogical and flat-out stupid.

Fails to see the abuse in the above combo. Besides if they wanted it not to stack they would have said "cannot be stacked" not "cannot be worn". But then again I do tend to try logic before knee jerk rules lawyerism.

no doc, as i said long ago i think it can´t be used in conjunction with jackets like even the layering rules in the BBB say.

and i am trying to keep this conversation nice and clean and don´t imply that you or other people using this board are stupid. we may disagree but that´s not a reason to get personal, ok?

Beating dead horse.

If I have the full actioneer line (with overcoat) I get 5/3 but it counts as 4/2 for layering. Does that 5/3 now count as 1 piece of armor. Thus I could stack/layer it with FFBA?

Example:

Actioneer w/ Overcoat = 5/3
FFBA3 = 4/1 = +2/0
FA Gaurds = 0/+1

Total 7/4 Armor Rating , but only 4/2 for Layering rules????

If thats the case then what's the best armor combination a character can get at chargen if he/she has a quickness 9 and doesn't want to suffer any penalties and still look cool???

No, it counts as two pieces of armor. But like FFBA, it doesn't count for purposes of determining your layering penalty. Also, despite Toturi's desire for a literal reading of the rules, there's nothing stopping you from wearing more than two pieces of armor as long as it's reasonable (GM and player call).

Is it just me, or are the last three pages of this thread the exact same things being stated over and over with no real end in sight?

It pretty much is.

And to think I kept checking all day long to see if it would go anywhere.

And, once again, it's not necessarily a house rule. It's strict reading vs. reading intent. There is no right or wrong in this particular regard, but I'm going to side with common sense. Convince yourself that's what the intent is all you like and run with it in your games if you like... you'll just be the one gaming with a retarded rule that let's you wear an an Armored Vest (2/1) and Form-Fitting Body Armor Shirt (2/0) just fine, but the moment you throw on an overcoat (2/2) the Form-Fitting Body Armor mysteriously loses its ability to protect you in any way whatsoever, but doesn't seem to have any problem hampering your ability to move.

Hell, using that sort of asinine logic, someone only has to shoot threw two walls to kill anyone in a building no matter how deep inside a building they are. For some strange and mysterious reason, all those other walls magically lose their ability to protect him.

quote doc: "Someone only has to shoot threw two walls to kill anyone in a building no matter how deep inside a building they are. For some strange and mysterious reason, all those other walls magically lose their ability to protect him. "

That´s the way we handle it, it´s fun because on wetwork-runs the sniper only has to penetrate the first two walls and if he shoots through a window in the first wall and a open door in the second we choose not to apply the blind fire modificator to hit the unseen target because it only does apply for the first two walls. The only problem is that the weapon´s powerlevel only applies to the first two walls too, so the target is hit with powerlevel 0 but as long as it doesn´t wear hardened armor it still has got to roll its body against TN 2, so with enough successes it will still be dead.

I don't see "...and in no way, shape, or form does any other armor count" as part of that rule. That's your assumption. Hence no right or wrong interpretation of it.

If armour>1,

armour = highest armour + 1/2 next highest armour

I am not assuming anything, the assumption is yours.

Once again, show me where it says it stops there and that no other armor applies. You can't, because there's no such rule. Hence assumption. Argue it all you like.