Armor skills?

dekrass · Oct 12, 2017

The errata removes the skill requirement to get the benefits of high quality equipment. Without that what do the armor skills do?

raspberryfh · Oct 12, 2017

Nothing, which is kind of disappointing. My players and I came up with this house rule though:

Light armor: gain +1 SOAK per skill pool dice, gain +1 defense per 2 skill pool dice (rounded down)

Medium armor: gain +1 SOAK per skill pool dice, gain +1 bonus HP per skill pool dice (this is lost if armor is taken off), gain +1 defense per 2 skill pool dice (rounded down)

Heavy armor: gain +1 SOAK per skill pool dice, gain +1 bonus HP per skill POINT (this is lost if armor is taken off), gain +1 defense per 2 skill pool dice (rounded down)

Fortuitous · Oct 13, 2017

Is there a reason why they removed the armor skills or skills limiting the benefits of high quality gear? I rather liked that rule.

dekrass · Oct 13, 2017

raspberryfh said:
Nothing, which is kind of disappointing. My players and I came up with this house rule though:

Light armor: gain +1 SOAK per skill pool dice, gain +1 defense per 2 skill pool dice (rounded down)

Medium armor: gain +1 SOAK per skill pool dice, gain +1 bonus HP per skill pool dice (this is lost if armor is taken off), gain +1 defense per 2 skill pool dice (rounded down)

Heavy armor: gain +1 SOAK per skill pool dice, gain +1 bonus HP per skill POINT (this is lost if armor is taken off), gain +1 defense per 2 skill pool dice (rounded down)

You might on to something there. I like the idea of bonuses like that, but I think I would want to keep bonuses even between the three skills.

My primary concern with this approach is the possibility of SOAK getting high enough to be problematic. Have you tried it in play?

Morrus · Oct 13, 2017

We're prepping v1.2 (the errated document) right now. It's in layout. This change was in the errata, and was one which addressed a concern many players (some on this forum) brought up, that equipment has no/little effect because if you have a a skill capable of using it, you'r probably at your max dice pool already, and so don't get to add it.

There's still time to affect this, though, before v1.2. finishes layout, so comments are welcome. My current instinct is to split the difference and use Cinematic Mode as the differentiator.

dekrass · Oct 13, 2017

Fortuitous said:
Is there a reason why they removed the armor skills or skills limiting the benefits of high quality gear? I rather liked that rule.

I don't know the official reason for the change, but IME equipment quality almost never came up. Characters often have high enough attribute and skill ranks in the things they focus on that they don't need it. The ones who dabble in a skill often just have one rank. They can benefit from high quality, but no more than that. Then everyone else has no ranks and no benefit from the quality.

Edit: Now I know the official reason.

dekrass · Oct 13, 2017

I like the idea of the untrained character benefiting from high quality gear. Sensors so advanced they practically run themselves, for example. I also favor cinematic campaigns. So I'd be happy with cinematic mode turning off the skill requirements.
I'd still like the armor skills to be useful, though. I might try giving PCs +1 SOAK per skill die, or something.

Morrus · Oct 13, 2017

The really important thing to remember if quality is not limited by skills is that you *cannot* let PCs just purchase high quality gear. Otherwise all PCs will roll their max dice pool for everything all the time. You have to save high quality stuff for specially placed loot.

raspberryfh · Oct 13, 2017

My experience (in a single campaign using the Gearmaster optional rules) was that having the skill limitation as a requirement seemed unnecessary. Players were mostly buying higher quality gear (and I capped it at exceptional quality for now) to augment skills they were already pretty good at, exceeding their MDP to perform more heroic feats or overcome tougher obstacles. The rule change is fine, I think. This idea from dekrass's post above sums it up well:

I like the idea of the untrained character benefiting from high quality gear. Sensors so advanced they practically run themselves, for example.

As for why I adjusted the rules from one armor class to the other... This game is heavily skewed against heavy armor. SOAK pen is easy to obtain and heavy armor is excessively expensive for the SOAK it provides. I wanted to actually reward a person for investing in armor that the core rules doesn't seem to value.

As an example using only the basic armor provided in the core book and ignoring the EONS post of extra armor (which doesn't help the situation), let's compare two suits of armor.

1) A standard battlesuit costs 2000cr and provides 8 soak with a vulnerability to electric damage. You take a -4 hit to your defense penalty.
2) A standard leather armor costs 35cr and provides 4 soak without any vulnerability. You do not take any defense penalties.

Paying 1965 extra credits for 4 soak that can be ignored by certain attacks and makes you more likely to be hit by any attack seems silly. Especially when an AP round from the standard ruleset will ignore 60% of your SOAK anyways.

It gets sillier when you consider item quality.

Keeping the comparison with a standard quality battlesuit... Player A has gotten this for 2000cr and is feeling beefy.

Player B decides to indulge in a mastercraft suit of leather armor. The mastercraft multiplier is x10 then +500 (base cost = 35cr -> 850cr) and gives +6 SOAK. So for 850 credits, he now has a piece of armor that provides 4+6=10 SOAK without any vulnerabilities or defense penalties. If you cap this at exceptional, it is still 5*35+250=425cr for 8 SOAK.

And given the multiplicative cost of improving quality, a HQ battlesuit is even more expensive for marginal gains in SOAK.

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As a side note: I'm experimenting now with straight-up doubling all heavy armor SOAK values as provided in the manual. It does present situations where characters can have SOAK in the high teens or low 20s, but I think that's a reasonable tradeoff.

Additionally, if you suggest being stricter with higher quality items, only providing them in uncommon circumstances, I'd counter with this question: if not better items, what exactly are players earning credits for? How are they incrementally improving themselves?

Morrus · Oct 13, 2017

raspberryfh said:
Additionally, if you suggest being stricter with higher quality items, only providing them in uncommon circumstances, I'd counter with this question: if not better items, what exactly are players earning credits for? How are they incrementally improving themselves?

Conversely if you can just spend some cash to get up to +5d6 on your dice pool, why bother spending XP on skills? Neither extreme works - it needs a middle position. And that’s making the gear less acquirable.

But this isn't a rules discussion as such - that's a GMing style. Its totally up to a GM how available gear is in their setting; all I can do is offer my opinion and tell you how I do it. But that's not a thing in the book. It's kinda like - IMO, at least - letting a D&D character buy expensive artifacts from magic shops.