[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

per the demo play rerolling one die for having armor far superior to the attacking weapon is effectively so small as to be no benefit.

nothing else regarding the effects of armor has been publicly shown afaik.

rerolling one die when you wearing an armor jacket, helmet etc against a pistol is weak sauce indeed.

some would say it's functionally irrelevant.

And that's a much more fair assessment than some of the dark places this thread has gone

I've got my concerns about armor as well.  But I'm largely ok with armor not actually performing like in 5e.



In 5e, for game balance purposes, you're just not allowed to aim for the unarmored portions of the body.  The way I see it in 6e, if the guy's wearing a bullet proof vest it's already assumed you're just aiming for the face. or whatever   The better the armor, the more careful you have to be about where you shoot, and in turn that gives advantage to the target.  One rationale of many that needn't necessarily be explicitly spelled out to emerge from the veil of abstraction.

My concerns about armor?

1) Since you can only gain edge so often, armor quickly DOES get marginalized if you're getting ganged up on. 
2) Soak pools seem decently balanced against DVs in the CRB.  But SR6 will have a corpus of more than just the CRB before very long at all. They'll have to do a much better job of resisting the urge to give in to power creep than they did in 5e expansion books.

I do have my hopes about each of these.  1: If you're getting outnumbered 2 or 3 to one, you SHOULD be in a world of trouble... so I'm provisionally ok with this still. And besides, even though you can only GAIN edge so often, you can DENY edge indefinitely!  and 2: we'll just have to see.

[Michael Chandra]

To be fair: if those mooks group-attack, it will hurt but you won't die. And if your defense pool is good, chances are you won't need the edge yet. Especially if you use a defence action.

A small asides to people: please do not ask if people are getting stuff from the actual rules. Those under NDA are doing their best to participate in debates without violating the NDA, and suggesting they're talking about things that are still under NDA can get people in trouble. Everyone, even Banshee, but also the errata team and demo team, are still strictly bound.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

To be fair: if those mooks group-attack, it will hurt but you won't die. And if your defense pool is good, chances are you won't need the edge yet. Especially if you use a defence action.

A small asides to people: please do not ask if people are getting stuff from the actual rules. Those under NDA are doing their best to participate in debates without violating the NDA, and suggesting they're talking about things that are still under NDA can get people in trouble. Everyone, even Banshee, but also the errata team and demo team, are still strictly bound.

Very true.

But also, with regards to armor and group attacks: when groups are boiled down into 1 swarm attack, the armor only has to help once.  That's a big factor as well.

[Marcus]

So I’m perfectly willing to say as armor has been described to date armor is meaningless. Adding to this no on in the pro 6 side has said anything to address the over reaction argument. When pools go from 20+ to probably below 5 how can it not be an over reaction?

[Michael Chandra]

So please as a public service to those who haven't obsessed over SR6 as much as some of us vocal participants, do please stop saying Armor does nothing. If you don't like the change, please be accurate in your criticism and complain that you feel the benefit it does give is too abstract.  Or not strong enough.  Or unreasonably fungible. Or whatever.  At the very least, if you have a hope that CGL will listen to your feedback and act upon it, you'll have to at least be accurate in your critiques.

Thank you for this. We don't even know yet what ware and magic will do, so we can't make any 100% statements yet.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

So I’m perfectly willing to say as armor has been described to date armor is meaningless. Adding to this no on in the pro 6 side has said anything to address the over reaction argument. When pools go from 20+ to probably below 5 how can it not be an over reaction?

I did.  But since it was a good bit earlier, I'll reiterate:

It's not so much a matter of the size of the soak pool as the net effect that's important.

In 5e: a hit ends up being negligible or devastating.  if your armor rating is high enough to turn it to stun, the DV is also usually small enough in comparison to the soak pool that either there's no stun at all or so little stun that a Stim patch removes it.  If the DV is high enough to be Physical damage instead, it's also probably so high in proportion to the soak pool that you're a goner.

In 6e: Soak pools are TINY in comparison, but DVs are also somewhat lower... just not AS reduced from 5e as soak pools were.

So huge difference in soak pools, coupled with some other 2nd order effects, ends up meaning in 6e you can expect to take some moderate damage if you're shot, as opposed to in 5e where you expect to take nothing at all or dying with little plausible occurrence of anything in between.

And as mentioned previously, another 2nd order change of this is 6e is slightly more healing friendly... damage in 6e goes away easier than in 5e so that somewhat mitigates the expectation that you'll take SOME damage if you get shot.

[Ghost Rigger]

Crazy opinion: you should be able to make yourself immune to small arms fire with enough armor. Maybe it shouldn't easy to do, maybe it shouldn't be something you can do right out of character generation, but it should be doable. If someone in milspec armor can still be hurt by a well-placed shot from a peashooter then there's really no point to having armor.

Just as irl our team has a set of armored street clothes, a set of armored high-fashion clothes and a set of ballistic entrance armor for high-threat situations.

With option 1 or 2 most of them can be threatened with a pistol.

With option 3 most of them cannot.

This is good game design as it reinforces the core conceit of Shadowrun; the appropriate archetype / gear / ware/ tool for the job.

Security rating of the area they are operating in becomes an absolutely essential component of running a black trench (or just non-pink mohawk) game.

With the rules changes shadowrun is now full-on pink mohawk with no room for realistic feeling reactions to player's actions as it's now literally codified into the system.

thanks but i'd rather play with a bag of rocks.

This isn't even about BT vs PM anymore. Pink Mohawk players know they're going to be shot at, and load up on armor so that they can survive their rampages of destruction.

[Shinobi Killfist]

The lack of armor adding to soak imo has 2 negatives. On the one side it makes armor close to pointless and breaks verisimilitude.  Which has been discussed already.


 On the other side when you balance guns, knives etc to people not having a decent soak the attacks seem awfully weak and players effectively become incapable of taking out a unarmored Target in a single attack. Combat knifes are DV 1. You’d need 10 net hits to comfortably kill someone who isn’t wearing armor. I’m taking random wage slave who is unaware. Assume it’s a sap for non lethal attacks. You need a 30 die pool to kill a unresisting rando with a knife. You won’t use spurs, knives etc if the base damage is 2 you will jump up to whatever is big enough damage to seem effective.

I think players are okay not one shoting armored security. They can rationalize that. But being incapable of taking out the ganger in leather or instantly subdue the wage slave you are extracting makes you seem pathetic not a cybered up combat monster or magically powered martial artist.

Most weapons should be in the 3-4 net hits to deadly damage range. Weak weapons maybe 5-6 big guns 2-3. With a TN of 5 that’s already a pretty substantial pool to pull it off routinely. Bumping it to 7 for a heavy pistol is just crazy. Especially when ordinary dude on average knocks 2 hits off your successes.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

Well, a synthesis I've formulated is another apparent design intent is that combats are supposed to be more than rocket tag.  You're not SUPPOSED to be killed by one shot, which of course tends to carry over to you not killing NPCs with every blow either (barring of course a 6e version of 5e's "Mowing them Down" rule).  Combat looks more back and forth by design than "who gets the first shot off".

Now this doesn't help the Pink Mohawk playstyle perhaps... but even that DV3 pistol can still one shot the NPC if you just sneak up on him and cap him before he knows you're there.  No dodge + tiny soak pool = devastating, even at low DVs.

[Shinobi Killfist]

Even without a dodge you need a 24 dice pool to do it on average. Maybe less with a called shot. Again you could have had the same soak end result with armor.

Something simple based on coverage of the armor. 1 auto soak for vests. 2 auto soak for coats. 3 auto soak for full clothing. 1 bonus auto soak for head coverage. Bump damage accordingly. End result for people in armor  is the prett much the same as 6eis displaying. But your gun actually has a chance of taking out someone who isn’t armored in one shot. So no rocket tag but your armor does something and your attacks don’t seem pathetic without a massive pool.

[Michael Chandra]

Now this doesn't help the Pink Mohawk playstyle perhaps... but even that DV3 pistol can still one shot the NPC if you just sneak up on him and cap him before he knows you're there.  No dodge + tiny soak pool = devastating, even at low DVs.

Honestly that's at the point I think cinematic gameplay may apply instead. Rule of cool and all.

[Marcus]

Even without a dodge you need a 24 dice pool to do it on average. Maybe less with a called shot. Again you could have had the same soak end result with armor.

Something simple based on coverage of the armor. 1 auto soak for vests. 2 auto soak for coats. 3 auto soak for full clothing. 1 bonus auto soak for head coverage. Bump damage accordingly. End result for people in armor  is the prett much the same as 6eis displaying. But your gun actually has a chance of taking out someone who isn’t armored in one shot. So no rocket tag but your armor does something and your attacks don’t seem pathetic without a massive pool.

It’s a nice constructive suggestion. I think this has been argued in circles for awhile. It’s nice to something purposed to address the issue.

[Ghost Rigger]

You're not SUPPOSED to be killed by one shot, which of course tends to carry over to you not killing NPCs with every blow either

That's a bad thing. There is supposed to be a distinct asymmetry between you and whatever poor son of a bitch you're shooting at. Part of that is you planning, being better prepared and using better tactics, but part of that is also that you're more skilled, fit and have better equipment. The wageslave #98567856875 dies after 1 burst, while the street sam survives 3 bursts.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

Even without a dodge you need a 24 dice pool to do it on average. Maybe less with a called shot. Again you could have had the same soak end result with armor.

Well, if you're not going to spend edge on one shotting a sentry you have the drop on, then yeah he'll probably come out of it with a not quite filled CM.  But if you've successfully snuck up on him, surely you not only HAVE tactical advantage when you make the attack, you've probably also earned some during the course of sneaking up on him.  Edge is meant to be easy come, easy spend.  Probably should spend some if you want to one shot someone.

Something simple based on coverage of the armor. 1 auto soak for vests. 2 auto soak for coats. 3 auto soak for full clothing. 1 bonus auto soak for head coverage. Bump damage accordingly. End result for people in armor  is the prett much the same as 6eis displaying. But your gun actually has a chance of taking out someone who isn’t armored in one shot. So no rocket tag but your armor does something and your attacks don’t seem pathetic without a massive pool.

It’s a nice constructive suggestion. I think this has been argued in circles for awhile. It’s nice to something purposed to address the issue.

I agree it's a neat idea, and who knows, maybe some armors or alternate "hero mode" combat rules may come in future books to implement it.  Of course, getting more soak hits will serve to exacerbate the issue of how hard it is to one-shot a sentry.

[Shinobi Killfist]

Even without a dodge you need a 24 dice pool to do it on average. Maybe less with a called shot. Again you could have had the same soak end result with armor.

Well, if you're not going to spend edge on one shotting a sentry you have the drop on, then yeah he'll probably come out of it with a not quite filled CM.  But if you've successfully snuck up on him, surely you not only HAVE tactical advantage when you make the attack, you've probably also earned some during the course of sneaking up on him.  Edge is meant to be easy come, easy spend.  Probably should spend some if you want to one shot someone.

Something simple based on coverage of the armor. 1 auto soak for vests. 2 auto soak for coats. 3 auto soak for full clothing. 1 bonus auto soak for head coverage. Bump damage accordingly. End result for people in armor  is the prett much the same as 6eis displaying. But your gun actually has a chance of taking out someone who isn’t armored in one shot. So no rocket tag but your armor does something and your attacks don’t seem pathetic without a massive pool.

It’s a nice constructive suggestion. I think this has been argued in circles for awhile. It’s nice to something purposed to address the issue.

I agree it's a neat idea, and who knows, maybe some armors or alternate "hero mode" combat rules may come in future books to implement it.  Of course, getting more soak hits will serve to exacerbate the issue of how hard it is to one-shot a sentry.

In theory you’d increase the damage a like amount. Like heavy pistols would have a base 6 damage. So the net is the same for armored opposition like guards but trivial opposition would get taken out easily. Having to still work to drop real security even from ambush is less troubling than being able to drop a wage slave.

This is where I think the staging system worked better. Weapons could have a base damage of moderate or 3 boxes and get bumped to deadly relatively easily(4 net hits) if they had dropped the TN to 4 which I always felt they should have anyways 6-7 net hits is a bit more doable. But at TN 5 without staging you need a massive pool to increase damage to deadly. Or just use huge guns. TN 4 is less swingy and it does a better job of reflecting differences in skill at a smaller scale. At the extreme of things like knives it would still be absurd pools needed but even the. 18-20 pool vs 30 is a big gain.