alternative rules for armour (inoffical)

[Darios]

Hello my dear 'clavers
i have by now played a lot of INqui games so far since i started it when it was first released and i really like the rules... except for the "armour" rules... the drop dead maths there (just subtracting the given value) ends us with having weapons that more or less just don't care about armour (boltguns of all sorts...) and the most of the standart weapons beiing next to useless when there is some heavy armour rolling in... (inquisitors in servo armour, spacies....)
so i came up with an alternate system for armour which helps in both cases...

give armour as usual... then double the values. when the target location is hit and takes damage just take as much d6 as you have armour on the location (after having doubled!) and roll 'em.
each 4+ is one sucessfully saved damage point.

so armour can now give more protection and guns can possibly do more harm through the same rule...
with my new group we tried this several times... and it worked out just fine...

so now up to you:
what do you think of this idea?

[Dosdamt]

seems like a large mechanical overhead on game time

so

if i have carapace armour (6? I think) and I take 12 damage, I roll 12 x D6, 4+ I save the damage - so that's an awful lot of counting dice throwing and messing about. Not too sure I'd be keen on doing that. Flat absorb of damage is a lot quicker.

But hey, if it works for you guys - knock yourselves out.

-Ben

[Darios]

well you're right on this one... its more dice throwing... but its not that much time... and it varies the damage gap a bit more without having to dig too deep into the game rules...

[Inquisitor Cade]

It's a good idea, the armour system is less than perfect and needs changing. I always thought that it shoud work something like:
Armour reduces damage by 1/2 the Av (rounding down) then stops every other damage point up to it's maximum value.

Obviously this is complex and in need of clarification and some tuning, but the premise is that some damage will always be taken. I think your system of average armour values is much easier. I'd suggest that instead of a 4+ for each point of armour though you just reclassify the Av of amour to:
Robes D3
Flack armour D6
Heavy flack 2D3
Light carapace D10
carapace 2D6
power armour 3D6 or 2D10 (I think the former)
Tactical dreadnaught armour 3D10

If anything force fields should have the constant armor values as they are uniform shields of power rather than overlapping layers of varying thickness.

[MarcoSkoll]

I was musing over something like this a while back.

Very simply, cut back armour values by 2 or 3 points each, but add D6. (I know it brings up average values, but that's part of the point, armour isn't effective enough.)
This meant that flak armour could stop some less vicious shots (as opposed to being next to useless), but power armour could be potentially harmed by less powerful weapons.

Still more dice to roll though. I've not done much play testing on the idea, but it seems to have some merit.

If anything force fields should have the constant armor values as they are uniform shields of power rather than overlapping layers of varying thickness.

To make a reference to Raiders of the Lost Ark: "Force fields are not an exact science".

My favourite explanation is Robey's from the last forum:

In case anyone wanted me to expand on "phased miasma", the radiation of a force field generator is slightly out of phase with normal matter (hence, "phased"). Nothing to do with the Warp - this is strictly higher-level physics stuff. I don't pretend to understand what I'm describing but the miasma (the cloud of radiation) decays rapidly, resolving itself either phasing back into normal matter (harmlessly) or simply vanishing into the higher dimensions, energy dispersing itself ineffectually. Hence, it is perpetually being renewed as the wearer moves. Because it's out of phase with normal matter, it isn't affected by motion, gravity, or any of the other strong or weak universal forces.

It is, however, affected by energy, be it kinetic, heat, chemical or whatever. Passage of energy through the miasma causes it to coalesce - the more the energy, the more rapidly and intensely it coalesces - and resolve its effect.

The effect depends upon the nature of the radiation (it's all quantum) and dictates the type of field in question.

Void shields on titans and space vessels are based on a different application of the same technology in which the miasma is in a perpetual state of activation, so that it actually serves to create a solid energy shield around the source. The size of void shields are only possible because of the sheer scale of energy output from the plasma generators of a titan or warship.

In theory, a whole planet could be encased in a void shield if it possessed a molten core of sufficient energy that could be tapped. Rumours suggest that both Earth and Mars have such planetary shield generators, although it is said that they have never been activated.

Personal forcefield generators aren't uniform shields of power. There's not enough power available for that - the shields constantly fade and have to be constantly replenished and maintained by the circuitry of the generators.
Putting something solid in the way of a bullet is going to be more reliable on a man portable scale.

[precinctomega]

Hm...  Some interesting ideas, here.  One thing that's always bothered me is the ability to armour to reduce damage, when real body armour tends to either stop it completely or reduce it not at all.

Having just run a few simple playtests, I'm wondering about something like this:

AV is given as a value plus D6 (roughly as proposed by the ever-illuminating Marco).  Then, if the armour absorbs the inflicted damage, the damage is ignored (as currently); but if the armour fails to absorb all the damage, it absorbs only an amount equal to the AV (not the D6) [or, alternatively, for a particularly deadly game, absorbs no damage at all].

This gives characters more of a chance of weathering a hail of even the deadliest small arms fire (whilst flak armour still won't have much effect against a lascannon).

Example:

Major Injree is hit on the chest by a round from Brother Kil's bolter, which does 11 damage.  Injree is wearing carapace armour with an AV of 6 and rolls a D6.  If he rolls a 5 or 6, he has saved himself from the damage.  If he rolls a 1, 2, 3 or 4, then he takes 5 damage from the hit [or 11 damage if you play the "sudden death" rules].

I'm still toying with variations to lower the AV of armour as Marco suggests.

R>

[Darios]

an interesting idea i have to say... i think for the time beeing i'll stick with my version (and i don't like to change rules in ongoing campaignes  ) but the idea of precinctomega gives me some hints to think... i'm now toying with the idea of something similar to the AP value in 40k...

[MarcoSkoll]

I like that suggestion Robey - and I wish I'd managed come up with it myself!

It's a perhaps a bit "Make your armour save", but it's a very workable solution that makes armour able to be effective against more powerful weapons (rifles & shotguns, at least if you're going with my 3D6 theory) without making it impenetrable to less powerful weapons like pistols.
.... and as you said, it stops weak armour overstepping itself against weapons that should treat it like soft butter.

A seriously inspired idea which I think I'll be taking up. I've known that armour really needed something of an adjustment for a while (I think we've all known really), and that seems like what it needed.

Personally, I don't think I'd go with "Sudden death", because putting armour in the way of a bullet will still rob it of some energy, and that basic subtraction represents that nicely.
I think with the "D6 doesn't count towards reduction" idea I'd personally also simply keep the basic AVs the same.

Not entirely sure how/when I managed to become "illuminating" though...

@Darios: I considered ideas around an "AP value" at the same time - but it's a heap more work to integrate it.
I don't much like the idea for that reason.

[Inquisitor Cade]

But iven is the armour isn't compremised the impact is still enough to injure. Major Injree's ribs would not be in a good way iven though his carapace held.

Another raw idea would be that flack armour stops every other point of damage up to a total of the Av, carapace stops 2 out of 3 three and power armour stops 3 out of 4 points up to a maximum of 10.

So Major Injree's armour would stop 6 of the 11 bolt round damage, but would only stop 3 of 4 lasbolt damage.
A flack jacket would stop the first point of damage, the third and the fifth. If there were any more then all the rest would inflict damage. Reinforced fack (Av 4) would also stop the seventh point of dsamage.

[Kaled]

But if you do that, a hit from a lasgun will penetrate power armour causing an injury level if it does just 4 points of damage - it makes armour considerably less effective.

Personally I've never had much problem with the armour rules - I always assumed the chance that armour might stop damage completely is abstracted away into the weapon's damage roll.  So under the current rules carapace armour has little chance of stopping a bolt round - but when it does that covers all sorts of occurences such as the round being a dud, it being a glancing hit, or the armour stopping the round.

That all said, I think the idea could certainly work with a little tweaking.  Adding an extra D6 to the AV to see whether a hit is completely stopped by armour would make it somewhat more difficult to penetrate power armour with lower end weapons, so I think it might be worth lowering AVs slightly.

[Inquisitor Cade]

But if you do that, a hit from a lasgun will penetrate power armour causing an injury level if it does just 4 points of damage - it makes armour considerably less effective.

Oh yeah. I run a house rule that the damage done has to reach the base injury value to increace the injure level, and if it doesn't then the secondary effects of the current injury level are repeated instead, thus nullifying the 4 slaps = death problem.

That is a very good point about the damage roll.

[Kaled]

I run a house rule that the damage done has to reach the base injury value to increace the injure level, and if it doesn't then the secondary effects of the current injury level are repeated instead, thus nullifying the 4 slaps = death problem.

Ah, I wondered if that might be the case...

EDIT: I've never seen the four-slaps thing as a problem.  The chances of a character taking 4/5 low damage hits to the same location are very small, and it does at least give characters incapable of inflicting a lot of damage in one go a chance of taking down a very tough/well-armoured foe.

[MarcoSkoll]

Adding an extra D6 to the AV to see whether a hit is completely stopped by armour would make it somewhat more difficult to penetrate power armour with lower end weapons, so I think it might be worth lowering AVs slightly.

I can see some reason to justify lowering power armour's values, perhaps making it 8, but I'd probably leave the other armours closer to where they are (perhaps no change, or maybe losing a single point).

For an idea, I'd make it so where Reflec and Ceramite armour are involved, the +D6 is the same roll as the "Armour save" (for lack of a simpler name), but in this case counts towards reductions if the weapon is of the appropriate type.

But even if the armour isn't compromised the impact is still enough to injure.

Not necessarily. Truth be told, many people in combat situations can fail to even notice hits that have been stopped by their armour - they simply find bullets lodged in it later on.

It might result in minor bruising, etc - but it's not going to prove enough to qualify as an injury level.

[Inquisitor Cade]

Okay, I stand corrected. In that case I'm with Kaled in that it all comes down to the damage rolled covering the variability in armour protection.

[Kaled]

I can see some reason to justify lowering power armour's values, perhaps making it 8, but I'd probably leave the other armours closer to where they are (perhaps no change, or maybe losing a single point).

Lowering them by one point would be enough I think - injury is less likely, but slightly more damage is done..  However, I'm still not convinced adding an extra roll is necessary for the reason I gave above.  Inq2.0 streamlines shooting (and possibly combat) so the overhead is minimal, but if the idea is to streamline things, I wouldn't add in the extra roll here.