In the core book, it states that armor stacks as long as it isn't from the same source.

Their example is something like heavy armor not stacking with heavy armor.

so I am asking is a combo like heavy clothing and padded armor a perfectly good choice to stack under the RAW?

Ashe

No, their example should be armor not stacking with armor. When they say multiple sources of soak do stack they do refer to subdermal plating which is a cybernetic implant. What they are saying is you get some soak from 'A' set of armor, you can have more from subdermal plating (cybernetics), you could add some with Superior customization of armor, you could add more with talents like Armor Master or Enduring. That's what they mean when they say multiple sources stack. Armor is a single source of soak, therefore you get one selection for that source.

There have been a number of threads asking this very same question.

Ask some: yes. Ask others: no. I interpret the wording of the rules literally- the soak and/or defensive values of armor , no matter the types, cannot be stacked. This raises a question about personal deflector fields- namely are they considered personal armor?

You can't wear multiple armors at once. Period.

Soak can derive from armor + talents + cybernetic enhancements + armor upgrades + possible species bonus (i.e. a Hutt or Barabel with species bonuses to Soak).

I killed my forty Stormtroopers with my bare hands, and I demand to wear all of 'em for +80 soak!

Give me your best shot, Death Star!

And I think I should be able to wield all forty blaster rifles. That's only 20 in each hand.

I killed my forty Stormtroopers with my bare hands, and I demand to wear all of 'em for +80 soak!

Give me your best shot, Death Star!

And I think I should be able to wield all forty blaster rifles. That's only 20 in each hand.

Ummmm..........................no. In other news..................

I killed my forty Stormtroopers with my bare hands, and I demand to wear all of 'em for +80 soak!

Give me your best shot, Death Star!

And I think I should be able to wield all forty blaster rifles. That's only 20 in each hand.

I actually once had a player that tried to make an argument not far from that...

There have been a number of threads asking this very same question.

Ask some: yes. Ask others: no. I interpret the wording of the rules literally- the soak and/or defensive values of armor , no matter the types, cannot be stacked. This raises a question about personal deflector fields- namely are they considered personal armor?

A literal interpretation of the rules is that the rules for soak and defense read very different when it comes to stacking (see CRB p.207). You are correct in that there is some disagreement regarding what kinds of soak can stack.

I'd say that you can't wear multiple sets of armor, and as such the Soak Value's wouldn't stack, unless there's a clearly noted exception in the rules for that piece of armor that says it can be combined with other sets of armor.

Implant Armor isn't in the category of Armor the way that padded armor or heavy clothing or laminate armor is, but instead is in the Cybernetics category, making it a different source of Soak Value, one that specifies that Implant Armor is "+1 to Soak Value" as opposed to armor which just provides a flat Soak Value. Going by the rationale on Defense that Sam and Jay gave, if the text doesn't say 'adds' or has a plus value in front of the number, then it's not an additive effect, and you simply take the best value.

On the personal deflector shield, that doesn't have a Soak Value, and from the description sounds a lot like the energy shields the Gungans were using in Episode 1, with the Gungans themselves likely wearing padded armor. If wearing armored clothing or heavy battle armor and using a personal deflector shield, the wearer would only get the defense bonus from the shield, since neither defense rating has a plus sign in front of it on Table 5-7 (page 170).

So short answer is to "how does personal armor stack?" is that it doesn't.

I killed my forty Stormtroopers with my bare hands, and I demand to wear all of 'em for +80 soak!

Give me your best shot, Death Star!

And I think I should be able to wield all forty blaster rifles. That's only 20 in each hand.

40 may be pushing it, but...

(from Undead )

Well I hate to be a debbie downer but to end this conversation once and for all....

I leave near Fantasy Flight so I went in and talked directly to one of the game developers about this very questions. He told me specifically No you can not stack armor. You can wear only one armor type. But you are right you can increase a soak of an armor through modifications, cybernetic implants, or talents.

But if you want to stack armor. Go ahead and house rule away.

Well I hate to be a debbie downer but to end this conversation once and for all....

I leave near Fantasy Flight so I went in and talked directly to one of the game developers about this very questions. He told me specifically No you can not stack armor. You can wear only one armor type. But you are right you can increase a soak of an armor through modifications, cybernetic implants, or talents.

But if you want to stack armor. Go ahead and house rule away.

I'll take your word for it!

Well I hate to be a debbie downer but to end this conversation once and for all....

I leave near Fantasy Flight so I went in and talked directly to one of the game developers about this very questions. He told me specifically No you can not stack armor. You can wear only one armor type. But you are right you can increase a soak of an armor through modifications, cybernetic implants, or talents.

But if you want to stack armor. Go ahead and house rule away.

I'll take your word for it!

Sadly, there will probably be folks that will call Nico a liar or demand actual proof that the conversation took place

I've had that happen with e-mail responses I've gotten from Sam on a rules question, particularly when the person didn't like the answer given.

The really unfortunate thing is that this still leaves the whole personal deflector shield predicament hanging. Does this really mean you can't have a PDS and wear any other kind of "physical" armor? And does that really make any logical sense? And what about the tracker utility vest? Wearing one means you can't wear any actual armor? That's even harder to rationalize than the PDS.

The really unfortunate thing is that this still leaves the whole personal deflector shield predicament hanging. Does this really mean you can't have a PDS and wear any other kind of "physical" armor? And does that really make any logical sense? And what about the tracker utility vest? Wearing one means you can't wear any actual armor? That's even harder to rationalize than the PDS.

With the Tracker Vest, you're probably better off just buying another utility belt and re skinning it as a bandolier much like the one Chewbacca wears.

Since the PDS isn't really worn (the description notes is a shield, making it sound a lot more like the Gungan Energy Shields from Episode 1 than the shields used in the KOTOR games), I wouldn't see it as being a problem to use regular worn armor in conjunction with the PDS.

Oh

Well I hate to be a debbie downer but to end this conversation once and for all....

I leave near Fantasy Flight so I went in and talked directly to one of the game developers about this very questions. He told me specifically No you can not stack armor. You can wear only one armor type. But you are right you can increase a soak of an armor through modifications, cybernetic implants, or talents.

But if you want to stack armor. Go ahead and house rule away.

I'll take your word for it!

Sadly, there will probably be folks that will call Nico a liar or demand actual proof that the conversation took place

I've had that happen with e-mail responses I've gotten from Sam on a rules question, particularly when the person didn't like the answer given.

Oh believe me I wish it would stack. The reason I originally asked was that the tracker utility vest did not really provide an armor bonus so I wanted to wear it over armor. But like I said he did mention house rule away. In the end the game is about having fun. If a GM wants to allow the stacking of armor, go for it. If you believe me or not makes no difference. All I know is what I was told by one of the developers. So I go by that rule.

Only in crates?

With the Tracker Vest, you're probably better off just buying another utility belt and re skinning it as a bandolier much like the one Chewbacca wears.

Since the PDS isn't really worn (the description notes is a shield, making it sound a lot more like the Gungan Energy Shields from Episode 1 than the shields used in the KOTOR games), I wouldn't see it as being a problem to use regular worn armor in conjunction with the PDS.

I appreciate the desire to rule at the table with common sense and a judicious application of logic and fairness.

However, by RAW (and worse, it would seem RAI at this point), neither of those 2 things are doable outside of houserules.

Fact is, the vest is a piece of armor from the armor section. And so it is not wearable with any other forms of armor. Same said for the PDS. Its in the armor section right along all the other armors. No distinctions. Had the intention been to separate or allow combining in certain instances or exceptions, maybe they would/should have provided a subsection, a stackability note, or something. But as it is, they are still armor. That is very plainly apparant from the rules.

Oh believe me I wish it would stack. The reason I originally asked was that the tracker utility vest did not really provide an armor bonus so I wanted to wear it over armor. But like I said he did mention house rule away. In the end the game is about having fun. If a GM wants to allow the stacking of armor, go for it. If you believe me or not makes no difference. All I know is what I was told by one of the developers. So I go by that rule.

So rule that wearing multiple types of armour grants a character only the best Soak bonus, and the Defence value of the outermost layer.

Once a chap buys a game he or she can do whatever they want with it.

Logically it would be possible to wear something like a Nomad Greatcoat over heavy/armored clothing...

Considering that a jumpsuit is one type of heavy clothing and a heavy cloak is another form of heavy clothing, that logic allows multiple sets of heavy clothing to be worn together. Just one reason that stacking armor is problematic if allowed.

So rule that wearing multiple types of armour grants a character only the best Soak bonus and the Defence value of the outermost layer. Once a chap buys a game he or she can do whatever they want with it.

I won't ever allow stacking of armor, but for those who must I would go with this. I would also go with GM judgement on what can actually be worn together so you don't have impossible combinations.

The tracker vest is armour in that it has a hardpoint and can be upgraded. You can add the Superior Armour Customization to it giving it a point of soak or other one-point attachments. Combined with Tinkerer you get another hardpoint and can have a two-point attachment or two one-point attachments. The upcoming AoR (for those that didn't get the beta) has the load-bearing gear (combat webbing) which can be worn over armour as it is equipment and not armour. It is slightly better too as it gives an additional point of encumbrance.

Honestly if you want to houserule the tracker vest, all I would do is drop the hardpoint and make it a piece of equipment rather than armour, rather than try to create armour stacking rules. Less likelihood of someone trying to munchkinize or power-game with it, if that is a concern.

I think some people are forgetting a few of things about armor in EotE. The first being that the values attributed to armor are abstracts that should not be thought about in too much detail, they're meant to be simple not a simulation. So it's not always going to make sense especially when trying to bring real world analogies into the mix.

The second thing is the Scale and Granularity of the system. Each Difflculty die and each Soak value represents a significant step in protection for most PCs & NPCs. So a type of armor may have a value greater or lesser than makes sense simply because it fits within the relatively broad range of a Difficulty die or Soak point, and adding two such items may not actually be significant enough to add up to the next level of protection at this scale.

Third is that, like now, weapons are more effective than armor, ask any Stormtrooper... So if you raise the average armor values worn you'll have to raise the base damage values to keep up. If you don't you'll seriously unbalance combat.

The most important thing though is the source material. EotE and AoR are based on the original three films and in those films none of the heroes wear any armor. The system is designed so that you can play a hero like you see in those films and not be seriously out classed by armored opponents or PCs that do wear it. This is also one of the reasons why armor and cover don't stack. They compromised by giving a defensive value to the clothing and uniforms you see in the film by calling it Heavy Clothing or Padded Armor, that way nearly everyone can have some kind of extra protection while still keeping within the feel of the films. EotE isn't SWTOR or the Clone Wars where everyone is running around in battle armor, if it was more attention and granularity would have been devoted to armor and weapons.

FuriousGreg,

Yes, but... (hehe. brilliant mantra for this system...)

I agree all around with what you say. And I love that heroes can run around with, in effect, nothing more than heavy leather jacket, call it "armor", and still be viable and just fine.

However, right out of the gate, the game also gave the PCs heavy battle armor, force fields and tons of armor upgrades as options on the equipment list. The second they decided to do that, PCs were going to grab them up. That's just gaming. There's no way around that.

Yea I get that but that's why it's important not to exasperate it by House Rules that allow things like layering Armor, stacking Armor and Cover, and ignoring or hand waving Encumbrance.