[For bigtino] Thread about heavy armor

bigtino · Oct 13, 2017

That's just an example, and the same could be made of any heavy armor. A Mastercraft Battlesuit costs 20,500 and has a soak of 14, compared to the DE91 Shogunite Molecule Mail, which is light armor that has a soak of 13 and costs 19,000 credits. They're closer, but that -4 defense penalty still means the light armor is better. So I think my issue can be broken down into a few parts.

1. Outside of the very, very expensive heavy armor in the Specialist Armor splat, I can't find any heavy armor that is worth getting over a suit of light armor of a higher quality. (Mastercraft Leather for 850 vs regular Power Armor for 10,000, for example).
2. I'm not sure what to make of the rarity classifications for item quality. If equipment power was balanced by credit cost (a suit of light armor, medium armor, and heavy armor at roughly the same cost were all viable for different builds), it wouldn't be an issue - player wealth would balance itself out. But if I can buy a suit of leather armor that's as good as power armor for a fraction of the cost, it becomes important to define pretty clearly what "very rare" specifically means.
3. The price of a quality item depends on a multiplication of that item's base cost, but the scaling of benefits is flat. So it's cheaper to make a cheap suit of armor really good than it is to buy a good base-line item.

Thinking about it, I can think of a few ways to go about balancing it. One might be to make the soak bonus scale differently for different types of armor. So light armor would get +1 soak per quality, medium would get +2, and heavy +3. But even then, that mastercraft suit of leather armor would have a soak of 7 for 850 credits, which makes it better than base riot armor, which costs 1000 credits. But that might be the best light armor can go before you get into the very expensive Artisanal quality, while medium armor can progress beyond that soak point more cheaply. Another might be to add caps to quality bonuses. Or rarity could have a defined in-game effect - maybe the player has to make a roll of some kind to locate an item of that quality, and there is an additional cost based on the rarity to pay if the player can't succeed at that roll.

But I think the big fix for me will be to just homebrew a bunch of equipment to give more options. Rarity should be a choke point for players trying to take cheap armor and make it really good, but if that becomes the case, another option should be available, whether that be more base-line pieces of equipment, more upgrade options for armor, or a mix of the two.

Morrus · Oct 13, 2017

bigtino, with all due respect, I'm honestly not parsing what you're saying. It might just be that it's late here. What, exactly, is the issue? I mean, I thought it was that you felt the heavy armor was too expensive. Is that not the case?

I'm going to split these posts off, like I said, as I do need input on the original issue. So this will be a separate thread (depending when you see it!)

[Edit - there we go! That should be easier!]

bigtino · Oct 14, 2017

It's not just that it's too expensive (it is, though that's an easy fix), it's also that it's just not very good when compared to other armors. And I think that could be remedied with a further explanation of rarity in relation to item quality, rather than just lowering the price of heavy armor - in other words, I can get Mastercraft Leather Armor that is both better and cheaper than any heavy armor, so what is stopping me? What does it mean that Mastercraft is "very rare", in game terms? The loot rules in the game mastering section outline loot purely in terms of credits, not rarity, so how do I determine when the players are "ready" to access higher rarity equipment? And, when they do get access to "very rare" items, what balance is there to stop everyone from getting a Mastercraft suit of Leather Armor when it's very clearly better than any other armor on the list?

To illustrate more of what I'm talking about, here's an armor value breakdown, from my perspective.

Mastercraft Leather Armor - SOAK 10, Defense -0, Cost 850, Ineffective: None
Basic Battlesuit - SOAK 8, Defense -4, Cost 2000, Ineffective: Electricity
Navy Battlesuit - SOAK 9, Defense -4, Cost 3000, Ineffective: Electricity
Powered Combat Armor - SOAK 10, Defense -2, Cost 10000, Ineffective: Electricity, Ion

Morrus · Oct 14, 2017

The rarity is pretty much an advisory to the GM, but it's up to you. As I said above, I don't let my players just whack cash down on exceptional quality stuff; they find it or they make an effort to find where to get it. There's a sidebar which describes rarity in terms of 20th century cars for context.

My current campaign has been running for about 8 months. They're all grade 9-10 now. I don't think any of them have bought anything better than high quality, and they only just got some exceptional stuff (some antique Eastern melee weapons they liberated from a gangster's private collection) this week.

I mean, yeah, mastercraft leather armor is better than standard power armor. That's not in dispute. Which is why I thought your issue was with the cost of the latter.

bigtino · Oct 14, 2017

I did read the sidebar, and my confusion there is that the rarity is directly represented by its price. If I had $200,000 I was looking to spend on a Mastercraft sports car, I would find plenty of cars to choose from. I'd shop around to choose the one I want, sure, but there wouldn't be much hassle in actually finding one to buy. At that price, the seller would probably do everything they could to make my buying experience as convenient as possible. But in that example, the barrier to a person's buying that car is its price, not its rarity. The example of an Artisanal car as a Bughatti Veyron makes sense, because there are only so many of those out there, and things of Artisanal quality should be considered unique. Even then, though, the rarity is seen in the price tag.

But the same doesn't apply to that Mastercraft Leather Armor. If it's exceptionally hard to find, and there exists a leather that makes an armor as tough as power armor, shouldn't the price represent that? It seems like either every military in the world would outfit their soldiers in that armor or the price would reflect the rarity and effectiveness. I suppose I'm just having a hard time understanding what rarity means when the price is so cheap.

As for your players now, I'm still wondering what they spend their money on if not gear quality. Even by Grade 7, a player who saved pretty much all of their money would only have around 10,000 credits, right? So on the one hand, they can buy whatever weapon and armor they want to on the list (unless it's Power Armor). On the other hand, outside of quality, what else do they buy? Vehicles and cybernetics are both prohibitively expensive. Quality seems like how a player is supposed to spend money to improve and customize their equipment, so without homebrewing a big new list of equipment, I'm not sure what a player's money is actually for.

Morrus · Oct 14, 2017

I dunno. I’m just not seeing the issues in my campaign that you are in yours. Most of the PCs have a couple of thousand in cash and have spent the rest. They like buying upgrades for their weapons and armour. One refuses to spend unless he can’t avoid it and has about 30K saved. They have a ship. It all works out pretty well.

Morrus · Oct 14, 2017

(Incidentally, I really do appreciate the discussion -- don't feel I'm trying to contradict you; I'm just trying to get my head around what you're saying).

Fortuitous · Oct 14, 2017

To add another voice to the confusion, I think his problem is that mechanically, heavy armor isn't very good as an option to players.

What we want as GMs is to allow players to make choices based on concept and character and not feel punished for doing so.

The concern is that heavy armor isn't very good when compared to other options. The fact it is substantially and sometimes many many times more expensive only adds to the issue of course, but that isn't the core of the issue.

Heavy armor may have high soak, but there are quite a few ways to decrease soak that are easily accessible. The decrease to defense means that those methods to decrease soak are more effective than they otherwise would be. Plus many heavy armors come with additional drawbacks.

So as a player, do I pick the option that gives me flat bonuses with no drawbacks for a cheap price, or the one that gives me flat bonuses, notable penalties and further drawbacks, but at a substantially increased cost? Even removing the factor of cost and making all armor cost an even amount, he feels the benefits don't outweigh the drawbacks of heavy armor. This can mean that a player who decides to play a heavy armor, tank character may end up feeling punished when he's walking away beaten and bloody, but the guy who is spending nothing on his light armor is effectively tankier.

Morrus · Oct 14, 2017

Fortuitous said:
The concern is that heavy armor isn't very good when compared to other options.

Well, yeah - I gathered the proposition. It was the reasoning I was struggling to understand, but a lot of that was just parsing some of the text.

One of the early playtest versions had skill in armor types directly reducing the DEFENSE penalty for it.

raspberryfh · Oct 14, 2017

Fortuitous said:
To add another voice to the confusion, I think his problem is that mechanically, heavy armor isn't very good as an option to players.

This is my understanding of bigtino's point and my issue with heavy armor as well. From a purely mathematical point, heavy armor is bad. It doesn't increase survivability, and in many cases will actually make the wearer easier to kill. (This is a tangential point to what I was talking about here, regarding AP ammo.)

Because the math doesn't work out, the flavor/atmosphere/story also begins to fail. Picture the opening scene of Star Wars: A New Hope. Now picture it with NEW's current armor rules. The heavily armored stormtroopers would probably lose.

Charging through the breach, they won't have cover, and their heavy armor is the equivalent of the Rebels having a better-than-average extra attack die. Meanwhile, their armor (a battlesuit) only blocks an extra 3 points of damage (a worse-than-average damage die) compared to the light armor of the Rebels (a kevlar jacket). Given equal probabilities in attack rolls, the Rebels will be landing hits more consistently with limited reduction in their damage. They could also trade attack dice for damage dice and still hit their targets more reliably.