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Shadowrun 6e: Suggestion for Armor

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« on: <03-01-20/0620:05> »
I was somewhat disappointed at the use that armor was reduced to in 6e.  My suggestion is this:  Keep the current Defense Rating Edge rule for armor and add the following: Armor converts physical damage to stun damage based on the armor's rating.  When the target does not have any stun boxes remaining, then the remaining damage remains physical, reflecting that the target is now taking internal damage.

Trigger Lynx

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« Reply #1 on: <03-01-20/1335:45> »
Welcome to the forums!  Here are two similar house rules that I've toyed around with concerning armor:

1) If DR>AR, convert Physical damage to Stun damage.

2) If DR>AR, net hits from the attack do not add to base damage.

Either one seems to work well enough to give armor some substance, but using both has the potential to unbalance the already shakey combat mechanics.

Just as an anecdote, when I saw this post I silently mused to myself, "It begins again."  There was a pages-long flame skirmish about how skewed/unrealistic the armor rules are that JUST settled down =]

Stainless Steel Devil Rat

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« Reply #2 on: <03-01-20/1341:59> »
Indeed, welcome and I hope you're enjoying the forum.

While I generally feel the armor dynamic is more or less "ok" as is, I certainly wouldn't say you can't use house rules so that it feels more "ok" to you.  But some things, from my perspective, that you might want to weigh regarding those ideas given upthread:

1) DR > AR, damage is converted to stun:  Note that this is a meaningless rule on most NPCs.  Unless they're a major character, NPCS don't have separate Physical/Stun condition monitors.

2) DR > AR, damage doesn't stage up: remember that with the granularity the way it is with weapon DVs, a large amount of the the pain has to come from net hits.  And damage that does accrue goes away fairly easily, at least compared to the 5e rules.  So this rule would have real a "Hero Mode" impact via 2nd order effects. 

Again, not that there's anything wrong with these as house rules... just pointing out what may have gone unforseen implementing them.
RPG mechanics exist to give structure and consistency to the game world, true, but at the end of the day, you’re fighting dragons with algebra and random number generators.

Trigger Lynx

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« Reply #3 on: <03-01-20/1356:25> »
Indeed. Both valid points, considering my test rolls for each combat scenario were 4v4 deathmatches against Prime Runners that took the better part of an hour =]