So I'm GMing an RT game and a question arose.

"Does increasing the quality of Subskin Armour have the same effects as increasing regular Armour?"

I'm torn... I want to say yes personally but also want to see the general community thinks before I make a final decision.

As I read the RAW I would say yes it does.

But that is just an interpretation as you could also say it does not count as armor but as a bionic implant instead.

Of course then you would be free to make up the good and best quality effects of subskin armor (which could just happen to be identical to the bonuses provided by good and best quality armor).

I can think of no reason while a wealthy person could not fork out more dosh to get better quality subskin armour and why better armour would not be better in game mechanics.

So yeah, i'd definately allow it.

It's just flak armour under the skin, so yeah.

I definitely say yes. If there are varying qualities of armor that can be worn over the skin, it stands to reason that the same can be said for armor under the skin.

Alternately, improving the quality of the armour could make it harder to spot, which could be important going by the picture.

Ooooh, good idea. Maybe keep the armour the same but allow it to be far less noticeable.

I like that.

Well look at what Best quality does to normal armour: Better defensive properties, dramatically less weight and bulk, and makes it "fit like a second skin". Applying this to subskin would do the same, IMO, only it would literally be a second skin, detectable only by an incredibly specific auspex scan (could be bone-lacing, could be various replacement organs, hell could even be that he's taken a few shotgun blasts) or by taking damage and having the slice reveal an artificial layer. So, I'd say hell yeah, if he wants to put in the coin give him some excellent benefits!

A question for the topic...

If subskin is a flak under the skin, then has it the same rule as other armors, and cant be combined with other armors? or can it stack?

This implant adds +2 Armour to the Arms, Body, and Legs locations. The armour bonus is added to any other armour for those locations.

If you check the Armoury section of the CRB, you'll see that good and best quality bionics are smaller, lighter, and less obtrusive. Subskin's a bionic, so rules as written good quality should be harder to spot.

Incidentally, my players love subskin armour - I think they all have it by now. Even though none of them have power armour, just carapace, they're all running around with armour values in the 10-11 range. It's so entertaining to see a "squishy" character, like the group's astropath, shrug off bolter fire.

Cheers,

- V.

I would say by strict RAW, it does not (but I see no reason why it shouldn't get a benefit).

In RAW, the effects of quality upon an implant are stated within the description of the implant.

Subskin armour is an implant, not "armour" (it exists separately, on a different table).

Subskin armour has no description of the effects of item quality on its performance, so technically, it has no benefit.

As others have said though, the benefits should reasonably be able to apply. What would be annoying is handling the Good quality condition for both subskin and normal armour at the same time. Also, due to the quality, it probably should be near-unnoticeable.

Well it's not armor so no it doesn't gain such a benefit. It's a bionic and good or best quality bionics tend to just look better. In the case of subskin armor I'd likely just say that it is harder to spot (as others have suggested). It is after all very powerful even with just +1 because that stacks with normal armor.

In the end it's up to you really, I'd say see if you're having issues damaging your players, if they're to squishy and this would really help then by all means make it +2 however if they're all tanky powerhouses (I don't like my players feeling "too" safe really as it kind of kills any sort of drama when someone can skip through gunfire with little concern) then no.

KommissarK said:

In RAW it also says it's up to the GM what the effects of quality are if not stated. This is specifically pointed out for the case of Best Q implants.