[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

...Problem is, that is how it works in the real world and that's why people wore armor through history, thus, it's making sense and feels natural and it's intuitive...

Well, aside from the very earliest days of firearms, armor hasn't BEEN bulletproof.  "Bullet proof vest", in the real world, is an oxymoron.  Do they help? sure.  can you die anyway, despite the help? of course.  Flak vests don't even pretend to stop bullets... they're solely for protection from much lower velocity projectiles (shrapnel).

And while some 21st century body armor has made dramatic strides in protection, you still don't get shot and in game terms come away with no damage, even if the projectile strikes a ceramic plate instead of you.

Shadowrun used to be a game where you can get shot and expect to suffer no damage whatsoever.  Some people liked that.  Some didn't.  Shadowrun is now (in 6we anyway) a game where it's no longer probable to come away with no damage whatsoever if you get shot.  Some people like that.  Some don't.  This inability to go full on Arnold walking through a hail of bullets that plink off you with no more consequence than raindrops is, in my opinion, a good thing.

[PMárk]

...Problem is, that is how it works in the real world and that's why people wore armor through history, thus, it's making sense and feels natural and it's intuitive...

Well, aside from the very earliest days of firearms, armor hasn't BEEN bulletproof.  "Bullet proof vest", in the real world, is an oxymoron.  Do they help? sure.  can you die anyway, despite the help? of course.  Flak vests don't even pretend to stop bullets... they're solely for protection from much lower velocity projectiles (shrapnel).

And while some 21st century body armor has made dramatic strides in protection, you still don't get shot and in game terms come away with no damage, even if the projectile strikes a ceramic plate instead of you.

Shadowrun used to be a game where you can get shot and suffer no damage whatsoever.  Some people liked that.  Some didn't.  Shadowrun is now (in 6we anyway) a game where it's no longer probable to come away with no damage whatsoever if you get shot.  Some people like that.  Some don't.  This inability to go full on Arnold walking through a hail of bullets that plink off you with no more consequence than raindrops is, in my opinion, a good thing.

Then make armor to convert L damage to S up to armor rating, or as I wrote earlier, adding to the defense test, whatever.

Yes, armor is not as effective against bullets than historical armor was, against the weapons of the time, but still, soldiers woudn't wear it if it would do as little as in 6e.

I could agree with the intention of making impervious tanks not a think, but I think the current handling of armor went too far away in the other direction.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

Yes, armor is not as effective against bullets than historical armor was, against the weapons of the time, but still, soldiers woudn't wear it if it would do as little as in 6e.

Well, if putting on an armored jacket meant I was 66% percent more likely to take no damage from being shot in the chest, I sure as hell would wear it.  And that's exactly what happens when the armor DR prevents 1 edge from going to the attacker (when the attacker's attack test resulted in 1 less hit than your dodge test)

Armor has a "good" impact, but only in that central area on a distribution bell curve.  At one end, you have the feeble attack on a robust target that didn't need any armor in the first place.  At the other, you have attacks that can bypass any amount of armor.  In the middle, and that's both the biggest part AND top of the bell curve btw, armor has the opportunity to prevent a miss from being turned into a hit, or at least take 1/DV off the DV of an attack.   I don't mind when you get out into 2nd and 3rd standard deviations, that armor's contribution becomes functionally meaningless.  MOST of the time it matters, and most of the time is good enough for me, when it comes to how the big picture all falls into place.

[skalchemist]

It's just not how it works. As long as the assumption is that the material the armor was made of is more durable than even the flesh and skin of the troll, it makes sense to them to wear it.

I'm not saying you are wrong to feel that way.  I'm just saying that's not the only way to look at it.  You say it doesn't make any sense that a bad ass troll gets no benefit from armor, I say it makes sense to me; we'll get nowhere that way, which is where this whole thread has been going for 2 or 3 pages. You and I don't agree on the basic premise, I think, of your argument; that somehow armor and cyber and magic and whatever all have to scale up in the same way and all be additive in some fashion without diminishing returns.  I don't think that is necessary mechanically, nor do I think it is necessary fictionally.  Maybe in some kind of "real world" it might be true, but I don't actually want much real-world in my Shadowrun; that is often as much distraction as it is useful. 

Also, this discussion of whether and how armor should matter seems to be missing the elephant in the room.  To my mind, almost everything that the AR/DR system achieves practically in the game could have been achieved with a simple trait comparison system and almost no math at all.  I mean, in the end, there are a heck of a lot of numbers in the rulebook that you do some math on (man I dislike that -4 difference) to hand out a single point of Edge.  This stands out in comparison to the other two potential sources of Edge which are almost entirely decided by GM Fiat.  Why is this one bit so complicated compared to the others?  If the goal was to be simple, it fails; there are still all kinds of one off modifiers throughout the book that you have to keep track of.  If the goal was to be easy to implement at the table, it fails; there are too many cases where you'll have to remember some situational change which might make the difference between Edge or not.  If the goal was to still allow for discriminating between all the different weapons and armor, it fails; it just ends up handing out the same point of Edge.  So what was the goal of it?

If you want something that makes no sense to me, there you have it. 

But even that, hey, that's just my aesthetic preference, really.  I like games that have streamlined, concise, and elegant mechanics; SR 6E is not that and it won't be.  But it IS Shadowrun, which I need very badly in my life right now, so I'm going to play it, make do, and enjoy it where I can, which I suspect will be a lot after two sessions so far.

[PMárk]

Yes, armor is not as effective against bullets than historical armor was, against the weapons of the time, but still, soldiers woudn't wear it if it would do as little as in 6e.

Well, if putting on an armored jacket meant I was 66% percent more likely to take no damage from being shot in the chest, I sure as hell would wear it.  And that's exactly what happens when the armor DR prevents 1 edge from going to the attacker (when the attacker's attack test resulted in 1 less hit than your dodge test)

Armor has a "good" impact, but only in that central area on a distribution bell curve.  At one end, you have the feeble attack on a robust target that didn't need any armor in the first place.  At the other, you have attacks that can bypass any amount of armor.  In the middle, and that's both the biggest part AND top of the bell curve btw, armor has the opportunity to prevent a miss from being turned into a hit, or at least take 1/DV off the DV of an attack.   I don't mind when you get out into 2nd and 3rd standard deviations, that armor's contribution becomes functionally meaningless.  MOST of the time it matters, and most of the time is good enough for me, when it comes to how the big picture all falls into place.

Sorry, for me, it's too niche. It depends on the attacker being succesfull to depend on that one reroll and it assumes you have enough edge besides the one you're gaining from the armor. If not, it takes away only 1 DV, with no scaling in regards of the weapons and armor in question.

In short: too little constant effect and the really impactfull effect depends on too many variables.

[Banshee]

Yes, armor is not as effective against bullets than historical armor was, against the weapons of the time, but still, soldiers woudn't wear it if it would do as little as in 6e.

Well, if putting on an armored jacket meant I was 66% percent more likely to take no damage from being shot in the chest, I sure as hell would wear it.  And that's exactly what happens when the armor DR prevents 1 edge from going to the attacker (when the attacker's attack test resulted in 1 less hit than your dodge test)

Armor has a "good" impact, but only in that central area on a distribution bell curve.  At one end, you have the feeble attack on a robust target that didn't need any armor in the first place.  At the other, you have attacks that can bypass any amount of armor.  In the middle, and that's both the biggest part AND top of the bell curve btw, armor has the opportunity to prevent a miss from being turned into a hit, or at least take 1/DV off the DV of an attack.   I don't mind when you get out into 2nd and 3rd standard deviations, that armor's contribution becomes functionally meaningless.  MOST of the time it matters, and most of the time is good enough for me, when it comes to how the big picture all falls into place.

Sorry, for me, it's too niche. It depends on the attacker being succesfull to depend on that one reroll and it assumes you have enough edge besides the one you're gaining from the armor. If not, it takes away only 1 DV, with no scaling in regards of the weapons and armor in question.

In short: too little constant effect and the really impactfull effect depends on too many variables.

Well except there is a very real and very strong constant effect that so so many people keep over looking even after I've pointed it out.

ALL damage codes have been reduced to compensate for armor not adding to the soak roll. That means in a round about way damage reduction due to armor is already baked into the weapons themselves.

I understand that means not wearing armor still means you gain this side effect mechanic of it but it is still the case and actually supports the case that armor does almost nothing.

[PMárk]

It's just not how it works. As long as the assumption is that the material the armor was made of is more durable than even the flesh and skin of the troll, it makes sense to them to wear it.

I'm not saying you are wrong to feel that way.  I'm just saying that's not the only way to look at it.  You say it doesn't make any sense that a bad ass troll gets no benefit from armor, I say it makes sense to me; we'll get nowhere that way, which is where this whole thread has been going for 2 or 3 pages. You and I don't agree on the basic premise, I think, of your argument; that somehow armor and cyber and magic and whatever all have to scale up in the same way and all be additive in some fashion without diminishing returns.  I don't think that is necessary mechanically, nor do I think it is necessary fictionally.  Maybe in some kind of "real world" it might be true, but I don't actually want much real-world in my Shadowrun; that is often as much distraction as it is useful.

I like my games to at least feel "realistic" on the surface, meaning they have to make sense from a common sense perspective at a cursory glance. If not, that's breakig my suspension of disbelief and immersion into the game world. I'm not into systems, which are going for "rule of cool" and "genre emulation" over at least a baseline attempt on a cohesive realism. IRL, people put as much armor on themselves, or vehicles and such as they could get away with, in the appropriate context and goal.

Moreover, I don't see SR characters that extremely. That is much more anime/comics level. Sure Superman doesn't need armor, because he's already invulnerable (except, when he's going against a foe knowingly using cryptonite, in which case, he 'does' put on armor...). SR characters aren't Superman, even trolls. For them, putting on as much armor as they could in a given situation is the sensible approach.

Also, this discussion of whether and how armor should matter seems to be missing the elephant in the room.  To my mind, almost everything that the AR/DR system achieves practically in the game could have been achieved with a simple trait comparison system and almost no math at all.  I mean, in the end, there are a heck of a lot of numbers in the rulebook that you do some math on (man I dislike that -4 difference) to hand out a single point of Edge.  This stands out in comparison to the other two potential sources of Edge which are almost entirely decided by GM Fiat.  Why is this one bit so complicated compared to the others?  If the goal was to be simple, it fails; there are still all kinds of one off modifiers throughout the book that you have to keep track of.  If the goal was to be easy to implement at the table, it fails; there are too many cases where you'll have to remember some situational change which might make the difference between Edge or not.  If the goal was to still allow for discriminating between all the different weapons and armor, it fails; it just ends up handing out the same point of Edge.

 

Agree with that.

So what was the goal of it?

Having to do less math on the fly, I guess. I'd agree, the edge system is not particularly good at being really easy to use and learn, not like adv/disadv in D&D 5e. In some respects, it's actually harder, with more rules to keep in mind and more potential analysis paralisis. On the other hand, it's more interactive and maybe more "fun" than calculating modifiers. I can imagine a version, where I'd like it, but as it is now, I'm not quite sold on the whole.

If you want something that makes no sense to me, there you have it. 

But even that, hey, that's just my aesthetic preference, really.  I like games that have streamlined, concise, and elegant mechanics; SR 6E is not that and it won't be.  But it IS Shadowrun, which I need very badly in my life right now, so I'm going to play it, make do, and enjoy it where I can, which I suspect will be a lot after two sessions so far.

Have fun! I think I'd wait for a few supplements and see how it shakes out. Right now, our group is deep in a D&D 3.5 campaign and we have an ongoing SR campaign at rest which started with 3e and switched to 5e.

[PMárk]

Yes, armor is not as effective against bullets than historical armor was, against the weapons of the time, but still, soldiers woudn't wear it if it would do as little as in 6e.

Well, if putting on an armored jacket meant I was 66% percent more likely to take no damage from being shot in the chest, I sure as hell would wear it.  And that's exactly what happens when the armor DR prevents 1 edge from going to the attacker (when the attacker's attack test resulted in 1 less hit than your dodge test)

Armor has a "good" impact, but only in that central area on a distribution bell curve.  At one end, you have the feeble attack on a robust target that didn't need any armor in the first place.  At the other, you have attacks that can bypass any amount of armor.  In the middle, and that's both the biggest part AND top of the bell curve btw, armor has the opportunity to prevent a miss from being turned into a hit, or at least take 1/DV off the DV of an attack.   I don't mind when you get out into 2nd and 3rd standard deviations, that armor's contribution becomes functionally meaningless.  MOST of the time it matters, and most of the time is good enough for me, when it comes to how the big picture all falls into place.

Sorry, for me, it's too niche. It depends on the attacker being succesfull to depend on that one reroll and it assumes you have enough edge besides the one you're gaining from the armor. If not, it takes away only 1 DV, with no scaling in regards of the weapons and armor in question.

In short: too little constant effect and the really impactfull effect depends on too many variables.

Well except there is a very real and very strong constant effect that so so many people keep over looking even after I've pointed it out.

ALL damage codes have been reduced to compensate for armor not adding to the soak roll. That means in a round about way damage reduction due to armor is already baked into the weapons themselves.

I understand that means not wearing armor still means you gain this side effect mechanic of it but it is still the case and actually supports the case that armor does almost nothing.

Yes and it's... not really good, IMO.

Honestly, I don't get why devs today feel the need to reinvent the wheel and coming up with rules for things like armor that are just worse than the varsions we've had for long and worked just well. First, Vampire 5e came out and in that, they made armor to degrade lethal damage to bashing/superficial, but doing nothing against bashing in the first place. Which meant that vampires, who already get only bashing damage from normal, mundane sources finding themselves in the situation where suddenly, armor just doesn not work any more for them. The reasoning was actually something similar, like "they are already supernaturally hardy", which, IMO, misses the point. If a walking, supernaturally resistant corpse puts on a body armor, it won't became suddenly made out of printed paper. No, you will get a supernaturally resistant walking corpse THAT IS EVEN HARDER TO DAMAGE. Also, it means that even mundanes won't get any benefit from armor when taking bashing damage. Which means you punch someone in the solar plexus in armor and he's taking the same damage as naked. It's just a mess and a bad rule and I don't get why they thought it's a good idea instead of simple damage resistance, which would be even a bit simpler to use.

Same here. We've had multiple versions of armor in this game and in many other games too, which are worked fine and made sense. I don't get why they felt the need to come up with one that doesn't and which needs roundabout justifications.

[Banshee]

I understand stand that as well, and I have been public about the fact that I did NOT support this version during development. I just wanted to pint out that there is a constant benefit to having armor in the game ... just not exactly by wearing it ... which is weird I know

[Reaver]

I understand stand that as well, and I have been public about the fact that I did NOT support this version during development. I just wanted to pint out that there is a constant benefit to having armor in the game ... just not exactly by wearing it ... which is weird I know

That doesn't really make sense...

"Armor has had the effect of REDUCING weapon damage codes."

SO, now I get the benefit of armor, without wearing armor, and IF I want to wear armor, it does.... Nothing??!

Ok.. what?!?!!?

Listen, I don't have the game yet... and if we switch to 6e is up to the GM.. He has the book... and so far... well.....

I think the words he used was "I rank it right up there with Twilight"
...

THAT is not an encouraging remark from a guy that has played SR since the very beginning, has bought every single book, PDF, box set, and magazine article that contained anything Shadowrun....
And it makes me really worried.

[Michael Chandra]

Armour impacts AR vs DR and the resulting Edge flow, and the capacity is really important due to several mods being exhausted on usage. That is not nothing. Whether that suffices for you is up to you, but it's not nothing. If we want any kind of debate on the matter, that claim needs to be taken off the table first.

Btw my brother actually read Twilight to know its flaws and he actually likes SR6.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

Armour impacts AR vs DR and the resulting Edge flow, and the capacity is really important due to several mods being exhausted on usage. That is not nothing. Whether that suffices for you is up to you, but it's not nothing. If we want any kind of debate on the matter, that claim needs to be taken off the table first.

Indeed.  Opinions don't have to align, but my involvement for the last pages has been to combat the claim that "armor does nothing".  No, it only does a lot less than it did in 5e.

I made a point about it because when some people engage in hyperbole like "armor does nothing", other people who don't know any better might actually believe it.

[Lormyr]

That claim can't be taken off the table while it remains situationally true, though. Likes, dislikes, and preferences are an aside to that fact. In SR6, armor sometimes does nothing. It is fact.

I challenge SSDR or MC to tell me how armor would affect either of the very simple DR builds I listed above when being shot or stabbed by any printed traditional ballistic gun or non-energy melee weapon (beyond what I outlined - strength 9+ and katana or similar for the human, impossible for the troll). Likewise, I appreciate Banshee for acknowledging that armor sometimes does nothing. If I can just make these two see and admit it my work here is done. :p

The factual statement about armor is it may help you, or it may not. It depends on your DR with and without it vs. the attackers AR.

[Banshee]

That claim can't be taken off the table while it remains situationally true, though. Likes, dislikes, and preferences are an aside to that fact. In SR6, armor sometimes does nothing. It is fact.

I challenge SSDR or MC to tell me how armor would affect either of the very simple DR builds I listed above when being shot or stabbed by any printed traditional ballistic gun or non-energy melee weapon (beyond what I outlined - strength 9+ and katana or similar for the human, impossible for the troll). Likewise, I appreciate Banshee for acknowledging that armor sometimes does nothing. If I can just make these two see and admit it my work here is done. :p

The factual statement about armor is it may help you, or it may not. It depends on your DR with and without it vs. the attackers AR.

Well I didn't exactly say it does nothing ...just that it feels like it does nothing because it hidden in the mechanicsof other things. It's a minor point but still an important to make.

[Lormyr]

I understand your distinction. But in fairness, I also didn't say, or say that you said, armor does nothing. I said there are situations where armor does nothing, and that you acknowledged that.