I couldnt find anything in the book about this one way or another, nor did a forum search throw anything up.

But during character creation, it came up... can you stack armour?

Clearly, I would rule out wearing things like Heavy Clothing AND Laminate,

But what about a Catch Vest and a Nomad Coat?

I see no issue from a narrative, but mechanically, would this work?

Defense, page 207, last paragraph in the section:

"Multiple sources of defense do not stack." So, no, mechanically this would not work, unless you've got some gear or talent that specifically allows for it. You just use the better of the two (if you're wearing both) to determine your defense.

RAW, as mentioned above, no.

In my group, sure... but... You have to make a good argument for it and convince the GM that wearing both would be realistic. Some of the armors are basic pieces of clothing, such as vests and jackets. Those can easily be worn over other pieces of armor. No one in our group has done it yet, but in our discussions we rulled that you would only take the best value, it wouldn't stack.

For example, our explosives guy had a blast vest. Then, after we killed some storm troopers, we got our hands on some laminate armor. He asked if he could wear both, to get the extra protection against blasts. We ruled that the armor and effects don't stack. The blast armor is normally 1 soak, 2 against blasts. Laminate is 2. So, there was no point for him to wear both. We didn't allow him to add the +1 against blasts to the Laminate soak 2, for a total of 3.

Although we didn't discuss what the encumberance would be. Do you take the -3 encumberance from the second suit of armor? That'll be a topic for another day for my group.

This game leaves a lot up to the GM. If you think something might work one way, negotiate with the GM and see if they'll allow it.

OK, we only did character creation 2 nights ago, and have not started playing, but I have two players currently wearing catch vests with a Nomad Great coat, and the other with Padded armour

So far thsi has nothing with their defence, as neither give a Def score, but they are currently expecting to get 3 soak each. I did mention that I would rule on a case by case basis, this one seemed fairly reasonable, but I am picturing a Catch vest as a typical equipment harness.. which may be wrong.

Suggestions?

It's one of those "use common sense" issues. Obviously, laminate armor can't stack with heavy battle armor. In fact, the only items from the CRB which I could possibly see as making sense in stacking would be the deflector shield with some other piece of very light armor (heavy clothing, or possibly armored clothing). Even then, the CRB goes out of its way to say that the shield is bulky and difficult to use, so I don't even allow this in my campaign.

To me, wearing the crash vest over heavy clothing (or possibly armored clothing) would make sense, especially since it's not so much armor, as it is a wearable backpack The nomad coat says that it's an "overcoat", so I'd say that it can also stack with very light armor as well, but again, it's up to the GM.

As for protection, stacked armor would combine the soak value only. As away said, Defense does not stack: if you have multiple sources of Defense, you use the highest value only. This is true for anything, including cover. If something gives you a Defense rating, you use the highest rating from all available sources. The description would have to explicitly say that something "adds" or "increases" your Defense in order to have it added to the rating.

RAW, no. If you wish to do things your own way that's fine, your table your rules. In your case I'd stack encumbrance

I don't believe that the CRB explicitly says that you can't stack armor, but I could be wrong. Do you have a page number, or an answer from a dev question?

Without my Space Texas rulebook handy I don't want to comment too directly on the items in question, but I generally say if you wear multiple soak-providing items they don't stack. Pick one and that's what you get. You can still "wear" your favorite pieces of each, but you don't get all of em together.

In ANH Han and Luke appear to wear stormtrooper armor over their clothes (I'm going with catch vest and heavy clothing respectively), but we don't see any reason to believe they got any real benefit from doing so beyond the narrative of being in disguise.

If anything the argument you suffer a penalty of some kind would seem to appear as after the trash compactor they ditch the armor in favor of their regular outfits...

I don't believe that the CRB explicitly says that you can't stack armor, but I could be wrong. Do you have a page number, or an answer from a dev question?

P. 207.

"Different sources of of soak stack, such as heavy assault armor and subdermal plating. Multiple applications of the same source do not stack-a character cannot wear three suits of heavy assault armor and stack the soak bonuses from each."

So soak only from each source. Armor is a source. Cybernetics is a source. Talents are a source (Enduring).

So again, RAW no, but if you wanted to do something like a charge suit with a flak vest over it, common sense would say that's no big deal. I still would add the encumbrance together and only apply the -3 reduction to the total once.

Although it's not exceptionally clear, page 31 says "Additional soak value bonuses are most often gained by wearing armor." That tells me that armor provides a bonus, or an add, to soak (e.g., "+2 soak"), rather than a hard number ("Soak 2"). This also makes sense in light of the fact that soak from armor or other sources is added to your Brawn to get your final soak value. So it would follow that, if armor can be stacked, so can the soak.

That is listed in the derived attributes section for calculating base soak with the Brawn attribute, which Brawn is another source of soak, at least at chargen.

I don't believe that the CRB explicitly says that you can't stack armor, but I could be wrong. Do you have a page number, or an answer from a dev question?

P. 207.

"Different sources of of soak stack, such as heavy assault armor and subdermal plating. Multiple applications of the same source do not stack-a character cannot wear three suits of heavy assault armor and stack the soak bonuses from each."

So soak only from each source. Armor is a source. Cybernetics is a source. Talents are a source (Enduring).

So again, RAW no, but if you wanted to do something like a charge suit with a flak vest over it, common sense would say that's no big deal. I still would add the encumbrance together and only apply the -3 reduction to the total once.

From the wording of this example, a "source" sounds like the same type of armor (heavy assault armor, in the example they gave), rather than all armor in general, just as different talents, or types of cybernetics, would all be different "sources". If not, and talents are their own "source", then you also couldn't stack different talents that give you additional soak, which doesn't make sense. Likewise, if two pieces of cybernetics each gave you +1 soak (such as implant armor and some other type of implant they haven't defined yet), then they couldn't be stacked either, even if they were totally different pieces that made sense to be used together.

Of course, they also make it unclear because of the first examples (heavy assault armor and subdermal plating, which I'm assuming is "implant armor") where one is armor and the other is a type of cybernetics. So there's still nothing definitive in the CRB. This sounds like a good developer question, if you ask me...

I think the big thing with when it stacks and when it does not is how it is worded.

If the piece of gear says: "Soak: 2" Then it has 2 soak.

If the piece of gear says: "Soak: +2" Then it provides an additional two soak over whatever is already worn.

I do not have my books in front of me, but if you pay attention to how the Talents are written, versus how the gear is written, and how cybernetics are written, it may expose some more light here.

I think they are pretty clear. Armor doesn't stack with other armor. You can parse it in your game however you want.

I think letting armor stack is not a good idea. Soak in the party can have some fairly high swing. That is to say the Marauder's soak is likely several points higher than the Politico's. Having high soak variance isn't helpful to game play. It makes it harder on the GM as stuff that hurts the marauder takes the politico out of the fight. The marauder likely has the higher Brawn and can wear more armor and you want this?

From a narrative standpoint, anything that blasts through your laminate isn't going to notice your leather vest much. So there's no narrative affect to wearing both. I think the leather vest adds soak because it lets you fling yourself to the ground without worrying about pointy rocks, not because it will absorb a blaster bolt. If your players want to wear both for ease of wardrobe changes that's good clean fun. If they want to do it so that blaster bolts bounce off them then you need to have a talk about expectations.

I don't believe that the CRB explicitly says that you can't stack armor, but I could be wrong. Do you have a page number, or an answer from a dev question?

P. 207.

"Different sources of of soak stack, such as heavy assault armor and subdermal plating. Multiple applications of the same source do not stack-a character cannot wear three suits of heavy assault armor and stack the soak bonuses from each."

So soak only from each source. Armor is a source. Cybernetics is a source. Talents are a source (Enduring).

So again, RAW no, but if you wanted to do something like a charge suit with a flak vest over it, common sense would say that's no big deal. I still would add the encumbrance together and only apply the -3 reduction to the total once.

From the wording of this example, a "source" sounds like the same type of armor (heavy assault armor, in the example they gave), rather than all armor in general, just as different talents, or types of cybernetics, would all be different "sources". If not, and talents are their own "source", then you also couldn't stack different talents that give you additional soak, which doesn't make sense. Likewise, if two pieces of cybernetics each gave you +1 soak (such as implant armor and some other type of implant they haven't defined yet), then they couldn't be stacked either, even if they were totally different pieces that made sense to be used together.

Of course, they also make it unclear because of the first examples (heavy assault armor and subdermal plating, which I'm assuming is "implant armor") where one is armor and the other is a type of cybernetics. So there's still nothing definitive in the CRB. This sounds like a good developer question, if you ask me...

The wording in the book refers to different sources of soak stacking as ok and then gives two specific examples of sources of soak, one of armor, the other of cybernetics. Feel free to submit it as a rules question, but in my mind it is quite obvious, armor, all armor, counts as one source of soak.

I think that the general rule is that armours of the same source do not stack. But I think that the developers also expect that GMs can make informed decisions for their table. So if you think some should stack then let them. We don't all play at official tables. Unless you want to play with strict adherence to the rules, there is some wiggle room without the world collapsing.

If you do allow for stacking, remember that Heavy Clothing is a rather broad category. It can be an overcoat, a set of coveralls, heavy robes, or pretty much anything. I mention this because of the posts that think that a Nomad Coat + another suit of armor is OK while Heavy Clothing + another suit of armor is not. Laminate Armor with Heavy Clothing over it isn't any less reasonable than Laminate Armor with a Nomad Coat over it.

If you do allow for stacking, remember that Heavy Clothing is a rather broad category. It can be an overcoat, a set of coveralls, heavy robes, or pretty much anything. I mention this because of the posts that think that a Nomad Coat + another suit of armor is OK while Heavy Clothing + another suit of armor is not. Laminate Armor with Heavy Clothing over it isn't any less reasonable than Laminate Armor with a Nomad Coat over it.

Actually Happy that is exactly what I was thinking EXCEPT Lam. Armor w/ HC I don't think it would work because realistically it would be too bulky. Aesthetics has to play some part in this game. But I am hoping for my guy to wear HC w/ an Nomad coat over it. I don't think that is too overboard.

If you do allow for stacking, remember that Heavy Clothing is a rather broad category. It can be an overcoat, a set of coveralls, heavy robes, or pretty much anything. I mention this because of the posts that think that a Nomad Coat + another suit of armor is OK while Heavy Clothing + another suit of armor is not. Laminate Armor with Heavy Clothing over it isn't any less reasonable than Laminate Armor with a Nomad Coat over it.

Actually Happy that is exactly what I was thinking EXCEPT Lam. Armor w/ HC I don't think it would work because realistically it would be too bulky. Aesthetics has to play some part in this game. But I am hoping for my guy to wear HC w/ an Nomad coat over it. I don't think that is too overboard.

Didn't some Jedi during the Clone Wars use a combination of robes with laminate armor? Sure, it might just end up being its own unique form of hybrid armor, but it could just be fashionable layering.

Didn't some Jedi during the Clone Wars use a combination of robes with laminate armor? Sure, it might just end up being its own unique form of hybrid armor, but it could just be fashionable layering.

You mean, like Obi-Wan Kenobi?

Didn't some Jedi during the Clone Wars use a combination of robes with laminate armor? Sure, it might just end up being its own unique form of hybrid armor, but it could just be fashionable layering.

This is how I see it. If you combine parts of two different armors you're not stacking, you are making a new armor type. Like in Fallout 3.

I would argue for allowing soak to stack, but not defense, and restricting the layering to within reason, i.e. 2 items tops.

The Nomad Greatcoat seems to stack well over anything that isn't operating in space or classified as heavy machinery, and it makes the less dodgy characters a bit more survivable, since with only heavy clothing I was down to a whopping 2 HP after one hit from an enemy E-Web.

Armor, in real life btw, causes bullets to actually splay out before hitting the skin, turning what would have been a small entry wound into a large one, hence why no one wore any for the couple of centuries it took humans to rediscover ballistic resistant laminates, mass produce steel, and incorporate angular deflection (for helmets). Thick armor could be effective, but it would be at weights few could bear for long. For the game, allowing ballistic weapons to create grievous injury if they pierce metal armor might be a bit too much for the common audience.

Actually, the reason people stopped wearing armor was 2 fold. neither of which had anything to do with the wound getting bigger.

The first reason was because armor ceased to effective against firearms rather quickly, and the second was because as armies became professional organizations and nations began to have large standing armies it would have been prohibitively expensive to give everyone armor capable of stopping lead shot.

Armor the way it had always been made became ineffective against firearms. The materials needed to produce an effective bullet resistant piece of armor existed for centuries before the idea of layering soft materials and spreading the force was dreamed up.

Armor has always been about spreading the force of an impact out, thats why all armor works. Its just that bullets had a greater amount of force than what had been available previously(and only after a few centuries) and so a point of effectiveness vs cost was reached.

The principles of armor design are no different than they were thousands of years ago. its always been about deflection and/or absorption.

Its just that weapon technology outstripped practical application of armor till just recently.