Obviously characters can't be wearing two sets of laminate armor, but can pcs wear a vest over another non-vest armor and combine their abilities and soak at the loss of encumbrance reduction?

You can wear two things but only gain soak from one

Where are you citing this from? I thought I had rembered hearing that, but I couldn't find it in the AoR CRB.

I don't recall the source but I will confirm what the shard is saying to be the official ruling. I think you can find it somewhere in the developer answered questions thread.

All three cores say you can't get the benefits from multiple identical sources of soak, so armor coats over armor suits don't pile on soak. Nothing saying that the coat can't still provide warmth.

Of course GM has to decide what makes sense as far as what can actually be worn together.

Stacking Armor

Question asked by Darth Poopdeck :

Does soak stack if you wear 2 different armors at the same time? Like a Catch Vest and a Nomad Greatcoat.

Answered by Sam Stewart:

Nope, you only get the mechanical benefit of one. However, if you really like the effect of the vest and the looks of a greatcoat, you can certainly get the thematic benefits of wearing a greatcoat over your vest, which presumably involves all of your PC’s friends saying how cool your PC looks.

I’m wearing a nomad long coat over my armour - mainly so I don’t stand out as much - no stacking means I don’t get any soak benefit but it does mean I don’t look quite as heavily armoured

2 hours ago, Random Bystander said:

I’m wearing a nomad long coat over my armour - mainly so I don’t stand out as much - no stacking means I don’t get any soak benefit but it does mean I don’t look quite as heavily armoured

I dunno, coat over armor still looks like you're either Dwayne Johnson, or are wearing something really bulky under your coat. You might not look obviously armored, but you still stand out.

21 minutes ago, Stan Fresh said:

I dunno, coat over armor still looks like you're either Dwayne Johnson, or are wearing something really bulky under your coat. You might not look obviously armored, but you still stand out.

Oh trust me I stand out! But it’s at least politer ?

So as a house rule would be op?

10 minutes ago, Felswrath said:

So as a house rule would be op?

Allowing people to add extra soak that way would throw balance a bit out of whack. My GM finds it annoying enough that my character has 6 brawn and gets to 8 soak with crap armour that I craft in the garbage pile known as our ship. And to be fair, he shrugs off hits from hold out blasters with his mighty pectorals and does so better than a stormtrooper, so I can see where he comes from.

Anyway, the point I was making my rambling way to is that soak is something you get from armour or invested xp. Allowing armour soak to be stacked throws the balance out of whack and will quickly lead to a escalation of required high damage weapons.

1 hour ago, Felswrath said:

So as a house rule would be op?

Yes.

To paint the picture: clothing 1 soak + Armor 2 soak + vest 1 soak + overcoat 1 soak + 2 brawn = an "average" Character with Soak 7. Easily able to shrug off attacks from a blaster pistol.

I have generally allowed it if it made sense - if a player has subdermal armor and a catch vest, that's probably okay. If they're trying to minmax the way @Ghostofman suggests, I might let it fly for a little bit until such time as it's appropriate to have a little fun with it. These things all have Encumbrance when worn still and I can think of a number of entertaining ways to work with that.

I use the rule that stacked armor's stats don't stack (you use the best of each), except for Encumbrance which IS added together. So wearing Armored Clothing (1 Def 1 Soak, Enc 3) while holding a Personal Deflector Shield (2 Def 0 Soak Enc 3) gives you 2 Defense, 1 Soak, but 6 Encumbrance. Net effect for picking up the shield is adding 1 Defense for 3 more Encumbrance. I also rule out wearing stuff together if it doesn't make sense. As in I don't allow Heavy Battle Armor with Laminate Armor. Not possible.

8 hours ago, Sturn said:

So wearing Armored Clothing (1 Def 1 Soak, Enc 3) while holding a Personal Deflector Shield (2 Def 0 Soak Enc 3) gives you 2 Defense, 1 Soak, but 6 Encumbrance.

I think perhaps you've overlooked that armor's Encumbrance is reduced by 3 points when worn, per FaD pg. 178, although in this instance it follows that an Encumbrance penalty would be a great way of dealing with people stacking armor.

Or just consider adding another layer of armor just increase soak by 1 regardless or original value. Limit this if it is really accurate to be real

15 hours ago, themensch said:

I think perhaps you've overlooked that armor's Encumbrance is reduced by 3 points when worn, per FaD pg. 178, although in this instance it follows that an Encumbrance penalty would be a great way of dealing with people stacking armor.

I'm aware. I reduce the total encumbrance of the combined armor by 3 points, not each . So, if someone is wearing two sets of armor each with 3 encumbrance (total of 6), there is a net 3 encumbrance (instead of 0).

6 hours ago, Sturn said:

I'm aware. I reduce the total encumbrance of the combined armor by 3 points, not each . So, if someone is wearing two sets of armor each with 3 encumbrance (total of 6), there is a net 3 encumbrance (instead of 0).

That's a reasonable house rule, tempered as previously described.

On 12/28/2017 at 6:25 AM, Sturn said:

I'm aware. I reduce the total encumbrance of the combined armor by 3 points, not each . So, if someone is wearing two sets of armor each with 3 encumbrance (total of 6), there is a net 3 encumbrance (instead of 0).

On 12/28/2017 at 0:54 PM, themensch said:

That's a reasonable house rule, tempered as previously described.

I think it's RAW not a house rule, it was my understanding and what I used in my game when a pc wore second skin armor (desperate allies) under his clothes (for the defense die, and 2 encumbrance ) and a kamperdine custom tailored armored jacket (far horizons) over them (for 2 soak and 1 encumbrance)

11 minutes ago, EliasWindrider said:

I think it's RAW not a house rule, it was my understanding and what I used in my game when a pc wore second skin armor (desperate allies) under his clothes (for the defense die, and 2 encumbrance ) and a kamperdine custom tailored armored jacket (far horizons) over them (for 2 soak and 1 encumbrance)

The part where the Encumbrance is reduced by three when worn is RAW, factoring them together is not to my knowledge. Sam is on record saying that it can be done, just that the only mechanical benefit is "looking cool."

2 hours ago, themensch said:

The part where the Encumbrance is reduced by three when worn is RAW, factoring them together is not to my knowledge. Sam is on record saying that it can be done, just that the only mechanical benefit is "looking cool."

I think the RAW part is add up all the encumbrance of armor worn and subtract 3 from the total for wearingit instead of carrying it. Multiple armors do NOT stack whether they overlap (take the highest soak and highest defense) is a common but somewhat dubious interpretation of RAW. Sam Stewart was hesitant to allow the difficulty being spotted benefits of banal apparel (effectively a free rank of the indistinguishable talent, his interpretation not mine) second skin armor (hard to tell you're wearing it under clothes) to stack at the same time.... e.g. if someone was looking for someone in a crowd wearing armor you don't upgraded and apply the black dice to a single perception check but he also said it just didn't work that way, that they would have to identify you/pick you out of a crowd before trying to figure out if you were secretly wearing armor