Hi all

On stronghold of resistence i found the Verpine Ultramesh armor; the user of this armor can push a button and "power up" the armor, this gaining +2 defense

a PC of my group asked if this is cumulative with other bonus, ie with defensive from a talent/weapon or specific talent

pag 220 of AoR core rulebook clearly states that "defense from different sources does not stack" and you will use only better one.

However, in the armor description it says " + 2 defense" (i mean, 2 more points) so i guess it does stack (ie: add to the better value)

is this right?

pag 220 of AoR core rulebook clearly states that "defense from different sources does not stack" and you will use only better one.

However, in the armor description it says " + 2 defense" (i mean, 2 more points) so i guess it does stack (ie: add to the better value)

I think what they mean by “don’t stack” is that something that gives you “1 Defense” and another something that gives you “2 Defense” will not stack on top of each other — you just take the best of what you’ve got that provides your baseline Defense.

Items that give “+2 Defense” would stack on top of whatever else you’ve got that provides your baseline Defense.

So, to be specific, Defense is not like Soak. If you have a natural 3 Soak, and you wear armor that is 2 Soak, the total you have when wearing that armor is 5 Soak — the 3 stacks with the 2.

But if you have armor that gives you 1 Defense, and a weapon that gives you 1 Defense, they DON’T stack to give you a total of 2 Defense. They WOULD stack, if one of them was just 1 Defense and the other was +1 Defense, but otherwise they don’t stack.

I can not deny nor confirm this possibility, we have contradicting developer posts to that and defense rules are subject to errata and change in the "near future". And with near I means in some years as we still have not heard anything on that.

In our group we decided to go along that all defense sources stack, up to the hard cap of 4, which is analog to the vehicle defense rules. Removes all the headaches of dozens of defense talents, lightsaber and shield defense boni, cover, armor, etc

in RAW not even defense from armor and cover would stack. You take the highest value and that's it. Which naturally is silly and makes some of the talents useless and feels bad imho, so silly that a developer himself disagreed when asked about it. (Another one still confirmed that you take only the highest value)

Currently four versions seem to be used mostly by players:

Value of defense from your armor + highest value of defensive / deflective + talent boni + cover

Value of defense from your armor + highest value of defensive / deflective + talent boni + cover but capped at 4

Highest defense value of any piece of gear + talents.

Highest defense value of any piece of gear or talent.

In each and every case that verpine fiber ultramesh armor counts still as a defense 2 armor when worn and powered up. Using the +2 to make the claim that this special case of armor and only this one stacks while every other piece of armor in the game seems not to be a good idea.

I think in this case, the + symbol specifically means it does allow Defense stacking, and I'd rule that way as a GM.

I think in this case, the + symbol specifically means it does allow Defense stacking, and I'd rule that way as a GM.

Defensive and reflective say the same "increase his melee defense by the weapon's Defensive rating.", which would be a much more clear case for stacking and still does not stack according to one developer.

If you go with this logic it does matter little as you wear already armor and open up to stack defense from weapons and shields and talents this way as well. Can't wear armor over armor anyway, the only small advantage is now that your base defense can come from cover and this comes at the price of a otherwise easy to deactivate AND lacks severely hardpoints.

But hey, if you like that reading more, go ahead and use it.

I think in this case, the + symbol specifically means it does allow Defense stacking, and I'd rule that way as a GM.

Defensive and reflective say the same "increase his melee defense by the weapon's Defensive rating.", which would be a much more clear case for stacking and still does not stack according to one developer.

If you go with this logic it does matter little as you wear already armor and open up to stack defense from weapons and shields and talents this way as well. Can't wear armor over armor anyway, the only small advantage is now that your base defense can come from cover and this comes at the price of a otherwise easy to deactivate AND lacks severely hardpoints.

But hey, if you like that reading more, go ahead and use it.

It's almost as if there's a trade off between the benefits and the detriments of using the technology!

If it said "2" instead of "+2" I'd keep it in line with RAW. I'm not aware of any other items that do this, but I agree that the wording does seem to confuse the issue. Overall I don't fully agree with the logic behind armor and Defense but I recognize why it is the way it is (tl;dr: devs didn't want giant dice pools.) For my table it's never been an issue and I'd relish the thought of narrating a scene where someone actually blasted someone behind stacked Defensive cover.