Improvised armor
Improvised armor posted in Equipment, Cybertech and Weapons forum comment posted by Orc Hi all and Derek in particular,
Just a rule of thumb or two that I would consider:
Improvised armor should never work better than purpose made stuff or it should perform better in against one class of damage or attack while offering reduced protection against others.
Example: Recently read a PDF of a game manual from the pre-Ancient period of computer games, the 80s when text adventures were more common. The game has human-sized insect-like enemies that shed their exo-skeletons periodically. The player can adapt these discarded exo-skeletons to be armor. They are good against physical attacks like maces and swords, and even arrows and crossbow bolts, but inferior against bullets and energy weapons. The improvised armor is also cumbersome making the player's movement rate lower.
Improvised armor should have limited durability, and will need replacing sooner than purpose made stuff. It should also be more difficult or time-consuming to repair. This might tempt players into just picking up more improvised armor.
Improvised armor might be particularly vulnerable to a particular type of attack or to a particular enemy. Example: somewhere in (probably) the 80s/90s a PnP post-apoc RPG offered PCs car-tire armor, literally armor fashioned from several still-viable car tires, stitched together with steel cable. Great against melee attacks, even proof against smaller caliber firearms BUT extremely vulnerable to fire. It does admittedly take a little work to get tires burning, but if this type armor is subjected to enough heat the wearer is going to burnt to death in his armor. Because of the cumbersome nature of the armor it is impossible to take it off in a hurry, and if your armor is burning your mates are not going to want to help.
If the armor is made from the skin or shell of some mighty armored creature it should share the same vulnerabilities that the creature does. Example: Armor made from Smaug's skin will be vulnerable to a singular arrow head. Armor fashioned from a destroyed golem will provide no protection against a purpose-built anti-golem weapon.
I'm not sure how any of this would actually be applied in Alternity. Shifting the dice used to determine how much damage armor absorbs probably covers most of it. Adding a 1-step penalty to movement, and or Agility-type checks would make the armor more cumbersome.
Anyway, Orc babbling,
Take care,
Regards
Orc
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