[JmOz01]

I am having trouble understqanding Softweave, especialy how and if it applies to "stacked armor"  specific pieces I am looking at are the Piecemeal armor (Shin guards, etc...), Form fitting, and " normal" say lined coat or urban jumpsuit

[UmaroVI]

It's pretty fubared.

RAW, here's how it works.

Step 1: You need to figure out how your armor accessories are applied. "Armor accessories" are things that give +x/+x. Helmets, shields, and PPP are examples. FFBA is not an accessory. The way they work is they modify the rating of some other armor you are wearing.

For example, if you have FFBA full, PPP full, and a lined coat, you can apply the PPP to the FFBA, which makes the FFBA is 8/8 and the lined coat is 6/4. Or you can apply it to the Line Coat, and so the FFBA is 6/2 and the lined coat is 8/10. Or you can apply the PPP helmet to FFBA and the rest of PPP to the coat, so the FFBA is 6/4 and the coat is 8/8. Technically, you also halve the armor of armor accessories applied to FFBA for encumbrance purposes, but very few GMs will let that fly.

Step 2: Look at all the ratings of the base armor pieces you have. If you are wearing any piece of softweave armor, you reduce that rating by your Strength for encumbrance purposes - even if the softweaved piece is not the same as the piece that has the highest rating. If you have a tie for highest rating, your universe crashes. It's also unclear what happens with FFBA - do you halve then subtract strength or vice versa?

Obviously not many GMs will actually run this as written. The most common houseruled version (which is likely RAI) is "of all the armor and armor accessories you are wearing with Softweave, locate the one with the highest single rating, ties broken by the decision of the character. Reduce that particular rating by Strength for encumbrance purrposes."

Strength is always 3 in these examples.

Example: You are wearing an Urban Explorer Jumpsuit with Softweave and nothing else. RAW, the universe crashes. Most people will let it count as either 3/6 or 6/3, your choice.

Example: You are wearing a non-Softweaved Lined Coat (6/4) and Softweaved Clothing (0/0). RAW, your lined coat counts as 3/4. Most people will rule that Softweave does nothing here.

Example: You are wearing a Softweaved Lined Coat, non-Softweaved Form Fitting Body Armor, and non-Softweaved PPP. The PPP is all applied to the Lined Coat. RAW, you have an 8/10 piece and a 6/2 piece, the highest single rating is 10, so it counts as 7 and your armor is considered 11/8 for encumbrance purposes. The most common interpretation here is going to be that the lined coat counts as 3/4, though, and thus your total is considered 8/11 instead.

Example: You are wearing a Lined Coat (non-softweave) and a Softweave Helmet. RAW, you are considered to be wearing a single 7/6 piece, so the 7 counts as a 4 for encumbrance and you are considered to have 4/6 armor for encumbrance. Most people will rule that the helmet counts as +1/+0 for encumbrance and so your overall armor counts as 7/4 for encumbrance.

Example: you are wearing a Softweaved Form-fitting Body Armor and Softweaved Lined Coat. RAW, there are two things with 6 ratings so the universe crashes. Most people will let you pick one or the other. It's also unclear how this works with FFBA and order of operations, so you could count as 6/5 or 7/5 (if you pick the FFBA, depending on ruling), or 9/3 (if you pick the lined coat).

[Exodus]

*BRAIN EXPLODES*
+1 just for bothering to explain all that Umaro, I personally, stopped paying attention to the whole armor business as a GM back with FFBA and PPP, those don't exist, neither does softweave.
I don't want to have to fit all my NPCs with APDS rounds just to annoy the PCs and vice versa.

[TheNarrator]

I operate under the principle that you only softweave your "main" armor. No SoftWeaveing FFBA, because it's already as "soft" as armor can get. No SoftWeaving accessories to zero or negative encumbrance. You can only reduce the encumbrance rating of the armor that is actually SoftWeave, for obvious reasons. Keeps things reasonably comprehensible and within at least spitting distance of some sort of logical sense.

[JmOz01]

I thank you for the description (+1), now I will read it for the 4th time to understand it.  Not a knock on you, just hard to grasp (and I have a teaching degree...)

[_Pax_]

Step 1: You need to figure out how your armor accessories are applied. "Armor accessories" are things that give +x/+x. Helmets, shields, and PPP are examples. FFBA is not an accessory. The way they work is they modify the rating of some other armor you are wearing.

Or there's Occam's Razor: they are ALL of them separate pieces, just like FFBA.  They stack fully with each other and aught else.  And FFBA aside, they encumber at 1:1.

For example, if you have FFBA full, PPP full, and a lined coat, you can apply the PPP to the FFBA, which makes the FFBA is 8/8 and the lined coat is 6/4. Or you can apply it to the Line Coat, and so the FFBA is 6/2 and the lined coat is 8/10. Or you can apply the PPP helmet to FFBA and the rest of PPP to the coat, so the FFBA is 6/4 and the coat is 8/8. Technically, you also halve the armor of armor accessories applied to FFBA for encumbrance purposes, but very few GMs will let that fly.

This is why I don't use the "accessory" stuff as modifiers to other gear.  No, feck that noise.

In your example?
FFBA3, +6/+4, encumbers as +3/+2

Securetech PPP, total of +2/+4, encumbers as +2/+4.

Lined Coat, 6/4, encumbers as 6/4.

Total ensemble, no matter which order you apply stuff in, comes to 14/12, and encumbers as if it were 11/10.

YNT Softweave can be applied to each piece, independently - note, the PPP ensemble is actually four pieces (even though it does NOT follow the "whole outfit" assembly rules, like say, the Berwick Line clothes).  On the Lined Coat or the FFBA, it will reduce the Ballistic Armor for the purposes of encumbrance.  (Personal decision: FFBA gets that reduction BEFORE halving, not after.)  The +0/+1 PPP elements get iton the Impact.  And to be nice, it's "players' choice" for the +1/+1 elements.

Step 2: Look at all the ratings of the base armor pieces you have. If you are wearing any piece of softweave armor, you reduce that rating by your Strength for encumbrance purposes - even if the softweaved piece is not the same as the piece that has the highest rating. If you have a tie for highest rating, your universe crashes. It's also unclear what happens with FFBA - do you halve then subtract strength or vice versa?

  No .... no way in the nine hells.  YNT applies it's modification to the element it is part of, and only that element.

  The description of YNT softweave simply assumes that each character wears ONE primary piece of armor.  Not three, not five, nit twenty.  One.

  Simple logic.

Obviously not many GMs will actually run this as written. The most common houseruled version (which is likely RAI) is "of all the armor and armor accessories you are wearing with Softweave, locate the one with the highest single rating, ties broken by the decision of the character. Reduce that particular rating by Strength for encumbrance purrposes."

  More like "Look at the armor.  IF that piece has Softweave, it benefits from softweave.  If it doesn't, your SOL."

Example: You are wearing a non-Softweaved Lined Coat (6/4) and Softweaved Clothing (0/0). RAW, your lined coat counts as 3/4. Most people will rule that Softweave does nothing here.

  Only "RAW" if the rules are read by a munchkin looking for loopholes and intentionally reading the rules in the most boneheaded way possible.

[JmOz01]

So, IF I understand PAX's interpretation, each piece you apply it to would have it's largest value reduced by your STR (assuming Str 3)?  So applying it to any of the +0/+1 would make them weightless, applying it to the FFBA would make it  +0/+1. and applying it to an Urban Jumpsuit would make it either a +.3/+6 or +6/+3 players prefrence?

Yikes, glad to see I am not a complete idiot for not understanding all of this one/...

[UmaroVI]

Wait, you're claiming I'm giving the munchkin reading, but you are saying you can apply Softweave to each piece separately and benefit on each piece separately?

[JmOz01]

Lets keep cool heads, I can see both interpretations being munchkiny depending on how many nuyen in game you have.  If you are poor, then the read that one piece gives benefit to all/most could be seen that way, if you have tons of nuyen then the other is equaly munchkiny.  Lets NOT make this a flame thread...

[Medicineman]

I KISS (Myself )
If there is a + (like in PPP) I add it to an Armor and calculate from the Final Score
F.E. Armor Jacket 8/6 with PPP   Bracers (+0/+1) is an Armor of Value 8/7
if I Softweave it (with STR4) it encumbers for 4/7
I NEVER (Never !Ever !) add PPP to Formfitting Armor because PPP is hard and unflexible and FFBA is the exact opposite so these two don't match (and so they don't encourage Powergaming by Bloating up the FormFitting Value)
So in this example If I would use FF1/2Body (4/1) with the Armor Jacket (8/7)
This combination would protect as  (4/1 & 8/7) 12/8 and ancumber as(FF1/2B (4/1) / 2 = 2/0 & 4/7) 6/7
I never use the Softweave mod for Partly Armor (those with a + ) I only apply it to the final Value

with a simple Dance
Medicineman

[_Pax_]

Wait, you're claiming I'm giving the munchkin reading, but you are saying you can apply Softweave to each piece separately and benefit on each piece separately?

Look at this logically for a moment.

Start with an 8/6 Armor Jacket.  And two guys, identical twins, wearing identical non-armor clothing BUT ... one of the clothing outfits has YNT Softweave.

Twin A puts the jacket on ... and, since he has Body 3 and Strength 2, is of course immediately encumbered.  So he takes it off and hands it to his twin.

Twin B puts the jacket on, and .... is not encumbered.

Strip them naked and do it all again: they'rr both encumbered.

It's the same jacket.  What logical reason does it have to behave differently just because Twin B's longjohns are ... I don't know ... "stretchier" ...?

Seriously.  How can YNT softweave affect something it is not a part of.  Does wearing asbestos underwear turn your normal denims fireproof?

...

"This is Chewbacca ...!"

[TheNarrator]

If the matter of contention is what I think it is, then I'm not quite sure how it's even a question: wearing Softweave armor cannot reduce the encumbrance of another piece of armor that is not Softweave just because they are worn together. Softweave does not have anti-gravity powers that can make another suit of armor worn over it magically lighter. It can only make itself lighter and more flexible. In other words, a Softweaved armor's encumbrance cannot be reduced to negative numbers.

(However, being right is no excuse for rudeness, name-calling and a confrontational attitude.)

The fact that War didn't think to include a few sentences that would prevent abuse of SoftWeave by combining multiple pieces (such as banning it from armors where its presence makes no sense, such as FFBA, accessories and chainmail) is irritating. (So is the fact that the writer didn't seem to even know how body armor works, since "extruding armor fibers and weaving them together" is already how modern ballistic vests are made.) But ultimately this is something that a reasonable GM can fix by applying a little common sense.

[Mäx]

Wait, you're claiming I'm giving the munchkin reading, but you are saying you can apply Softweave to each piece separately and benefit on each piece separately?

Look at this logically for a moment.

Start with an 8/6 Armor Jacket.  And two guys, identical twins, wearing identical non-armor clothing BUT ... one of the clothing outfits has YNT Softweave.

Twin A puts the jacket on ... and, since he has Body 3 and Strength 2, is of course immediately encumbered.  So he takes it off and hands it to his twin.

Twin B puts the jacket on, and .... is not encumbered.

Strip them naked and do it all again: they'rr both encumbered.

It's the same jacket.  What logical reason does it have to behave differently just because Twin B's longjohns are ... I don't know ... "stretchier" ...?

Seriously.  How can YNT softweave affect something it is not a part of.  Does wearing asbestos underwear turn your normal denims fireproof?

He's not in any point what so ever claiming that it makes sense, just that it's how it's work RAW.
Nobody in their right mind plays it RAW(obviously him included).

Also you still didn't answer his question, how in world can you say with a straight face that he's giving munchking reading when you claim that you can apply softweawe effect to every piece of armor a character wears separately.

[Tsuzua]

I believe the RAI of Softweave is to make it so that low Body people can wear heavier armors such as Armor Jackets.  That's fine, but in SR4 tradition, they really messed up the writing.  RAW, it does a search for the highest armor rating and reduces its encumbrance.  The line is "For purposes
of armor allowance (see Armor and Encumbrance, p. 161, SR4A), reduce the highest armor rating of worn armor by the wearer’s Strength (War! 161)."  Personally I've always made the highest armor piece the softweave piece, but that's because it's only a few hundred nuyen difference.

Really what it ought to be is "if every piece of armor worn is softweaved, increase your armor encumbrance by your Strength."  That way the Body 3 guy can wear his armor jacket.  The Body 7 Strength 5 armor stacking troll can run around with 22/20 armor instead of 22/15 armor and save the book searching to get his armor so unbalanced.  Most importantly, it'll be clear and simple, and the reader won't have to instantly houserule it to work.

[_Pax_]

Also you still didn't answer his question, how in world can you say with a straight face that he's giving munchking reading when you claim that you can apply softweawe effect to every piece of armor a character wears separately.

And who ever said I'd allow it to apply to everything and anything ...?  Primary elements only, thanks.  No softweave helmets, no softweave PPP Forearm guards.  Definitely no softweave shields (ugh).

My point is, the YNT mod affects what it's actually applied to.  BEcause whether he rules explicitly say so or not?  It's simple logic.