How exactly did you come up with these figures? Doing some of my own calculations, I can see an armor of 36/37: Heavy Combat Armor (Robotic Enhancement, 16/16) Heavy Body Armor (13/13) Second Skin (1/3) Full Helmet (3/3) Riot Shield (3/2) Plus there are a few more random enhancements (Fireproofing, Ablative Plating) that add extra bonus points. So how you're getting 50/42 is impressive. However, one thing you may have missed is that, unless explicitly stated (as with Second Skin), wearing two or more different types of armor (which I take to mean in this case, as a Reaper, having the robotic enhancement and wearing body armor on top of that) incurs a -20 penalty to all character actions for every additional suit (i.e., wearing three different types of armor = -40). Now, these penalties do not occur when using armor accessories, such as riot shields, helmets, and possibly ablative armor). You can find this on pg. 194 of the book.

Imagine this if you will: The over-armoured monstrosity burst into the room, laughing with glee he sprayed the room with bullets. Corporate security dropped, blood spraying everywhere as bullets shredded armour and flesh with equal ease. As he strode through the room one of the guards, not quite dead pulls himself from the floor emptying a shredder clip into you - the rounds punch through the first few layers of armour which rapidly seal and with quiet ease you put a single round into his head silencing the guard for good. Invincible, I am invincible you think. No one can stop me, I shall rip the data from their servers and escape a rich man. Money, power, knowledge, all will be mine for I have the armour of the gods, I am aegis! You stride deeper into the complex, now ignoring the guards - killing them would just waste bullets, it isn't like they could hurt you anyway. One of them even runs up to you and briefly clogs your visor with goo. You snap his neck and walk on... that is until the armour's data display starts screaming at you. ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! High Temperatures detected! Armour integrity compromised! ALERT! ALERT! Within moments the substance chews through your helmet, and then the armour plating upon your head and then the rest of your body. As the super thermite turns you into so much slag and melts your stack you can't help but think that maybe it was your hubris that led to this... End story. I mock, and I mock openly this ridiculous notion of power gamers everywhere that they are invincible. Oh sure, if you get into a fire-fight with a few anarchists on the street your super-armour will deflect most of the damage, but once you start believing yourself to be 'The God Killer'/'An Unstoppable Force - MWAHAHAHA' that's when you need to stop and think to yourself - no, I need to take this game seriously. Just like in real life, arrogance will get you killed if it is employed in life-or-death situations. So maybe the average mug won't have access to super-thermite, but once you start showing off your near imperviousness to damage to everyone, people are eventually going to start thinking of ways to even the playing field and right out of the gate three things can do that. One: Super Thermite, destroys armour and people, cost Moderate. Two: Scrapper Gel, same as above only acidic - cost Low. Three: Any nano-bot swarm designed to act like the above substances, cost High. Lastly there are other options, critical hits will screw you, likewise environmental traps. If you get knocked off a ledge you might as well be out of the fight. Pushed out an airlock, crushed in a waste disposal chute, roasted by rocket engines all have the same effect. The NPCs of Eclipse Phase are very literally (by and large) 'Smarter Than Your Average Bear', and if you piss enough of them off by stomping through the world pissing off Anarchists, or Corporations, or Crime Syndicates, you will get pwned. That isn't to say that a clever player can't do these things and get away with it, but that repeated cocky 'last stands' in which you rely on your armour to save you will eventually screw you when your opponents who have a vested interest in evening the playing field, start bringing out the big guns to fuck you up.

Erm. I meant 'Liquid Thermite', but Super Thermite applies as well - just in a more... explosive way. As for swarms: Guardian Swarms damage other nano-swarms at a rate of 1d10/2 DV per round, Disassembler Swarms deal 1d10/2 DV per round (including to armour), all Swarms have Durability 50. Chances are by the time the Guardians disable the Disassemblers some pretty serious damage has been done already. As for Scrapper Gel and Liquid Thermite, even treating against these doesn't prevent certain other environmental factors from being a problem. Sure space isn't a problem (unless you're in a high radiation zone - near Jupiter, or near the Sun in which case heat is a serious problem even for a Reaper Morph), but not being on the ship any more and then getting left behind still means dead. Lets not forget that dropping walls on people is also not a bad idea, or using Freezers to stop you moving while people find a better (longer term) solution is also viable. Fact of the matter is that there is no 'build' of character that can't be destroyed or killed - and nor should any one want that to be the case. Most of the fun comes out of working toward a transcendent state (Stop! Singularity time!) but in the mean time enjoying the play of the game in which one's goals must be achieved through hardship and clever planning, rather than the 'I max out my armour and stomp on everything' road - which is just lazy roleplaying. The GM always wins if you force his hand, so as a player and as a GM you should tailor games toward story rather than statistics. Besides, if someone freezers your Reaper while paralysed someone can just wander up and jam a disabler (see Covert Op Equipment; and probably using a Covert Op Tool to cut through the armour) and shut you down so that you become so much scrap metal.

Kami-Kaze wrote:

The environmental stuff ... isn't such a problem for a Reaper

Not precisely accurate. In the most extreme environments (and environmental traps), such as intense levels of radiation or magnetic waves, and corrosive atmospheres, even a synthmorph such as a Reaper is susceptible

Karri wrote:

Although the rules doesn't actually say so, my group uses a rule of "armor mods don't layer." I do agree that armor rules, especially for synths, need to be dealt with by the designers at some point. I suspect there were rules for armor durability at some point, which probably made layered armor less useful.

I take this view also, that you can only add armor mods to the outer most layer of armor. Otherwise putting mods on smart skin, second skin, body armour, even your normal clothes? Starts getting into silly territory.

CodeBreaker wrote:

It gets more silly when you begin purchasing extra arms/limbs and attaching multiple Riot Shields too them. Oh Turtle-Bot, how long you lasted under barrages of fire.

Oh great! Now my octomorph with 5 extra cyberlimbs is that much more awesome! :D

I think most habitats are fairly accepting of armor. It's fairly reprehensible to punish people for wearing armor. However, I think it's quite fair to assume that the authorities might take extra interest in that person, and that people might shun him. Packing heat is a different matter. As are, of course, reaper morphs.

The thermite attack as an example, Energy armor protects against it -if only for a short time (the damage would fall into energy damage category) . The muchknin example has 36 reduction against it. Energy armor diffuse &, reflex energy or dissipates & transfers heat or ablates. (page 194) The rules for burning (fire, page 198), says that energy armor will protect against it, but that the armor may catch fire also & have its armor modified reduced -but not when & to what degree. Burning increase DV over time , so eventually it would overcome any armor, if left unhindered. Exposed to constant buring with energy armor 36 onset= 1d10/2 (max damage 5)-armor 36 = no damage 35 actions turn later =burning 3d10/2 +25 (max dv 40)-armor 36 =max 4 damage.... It seems that a 36 energy armor total would protect against burning for quite alot of action turns, However a action turn is 3 seconds, Thus its only 105 seconds (less than 2 minutes) for this "monster" of armor to cease being fireproof. That Fireproximity suits offer no protection against thermite may be understandble, but against regular fire its not. EP Fire-fighters must have it tough facing a burning hazard; if they despite fireproximity suits would burn up in 2 minutes. Thus I think the armor rules & burning could use some additions, or additional clarifications. The sample object & structure table page 203) seems somewhat suitable to apply when determining the durability & wound threshold of various armor. Applying that would give some guidance in determining when & what armor would: ignite, get torn & get armor value reduction.

I don't think the majority of security patrols are prepared to deal with some of the most sophisticated warbots out there, much less those tricked out with all kinds of armor and what have you, although certain common tools and weapons might prove useful. Regarding freezers, I think layered armor would actually protect somewhat better against added toxins or drugs, but I'm not sure about the primary effects, although it certainly seems like a creative solution. (Random: Another example of similar weapons could be a sort of "shrink wrap" guns. I remember such weapons from a cyberpunk novel I once read, though I can't recall the name of it.) I don't care much for the "rocks fall, everybody dies" solution. The GM is naturally free to do what he wants, and putting the PCs up against godlike enemies can be effective from time to time, but I'd think most groups wouldn't appreciate it being done frequently. Especially if the player knows his character is tougher than the strongest warbots the TITANs habitually used. It's somewhat of a different matter if the actions of the PC directly caused the event (ravaged a colony, had ship and crew taken out by a warship in return).

Note: I never said "the strongest warbots the TITANs used." I said "the strongest warbots the TITANs habitually used." I consider that to be a distinct difference. Either way the rules very much allow you to become tougher than that the warbot listed on page 383. While I'm not that happy about characters being tougher than monsters like that, I don't agree that this necessarily eliminates the horror element. Efficient doesn't necessarily mean strongest. During late WW2, Germany had the superior tank designs, but they couldn't come close to match the Soviet forces. In Aliens 2, the marines kill quite a few xenomorphs but despite that they're clearly the underdogs. The TITANs could afford to lose war machines, especially since they could just create new from their slain enemies right there on the battlefield. The adaptability is another key strength, as you mention. I don't think it reduces the horror if they drive a TITAN abomination away (it should have the sense to retreat), but then discover that their weapons are ineffective when it returns. I do expect there to be far greater weapons in the TITAN arsenal, but those are the even more rarely seen juggernauts or superweapons. My problem with the whole thing is that it's relatively easy to replicate the OP's example character (and it's a bit extreme for my tastes anyway). In this case the suggested freezer house rule wouldn't do much good, because there are no layering penalties. Armor over 30 and no penalties. Rules that I consider in need of the errata treatment. I don't disagree that a freezer should increase such penalties when there actually are some. My comment in my former post referred to the possibility of adding chemicals to the foam, since I don't think extra layers would make you any more vulnerable to that. How to deal with the issue probably ultimately depend on your players and the situation. I'd probably talk to the player before godmoding to get rid of his overpowered toy. Maybe he doesn't know any better, expects a different kind of game, or have some other reason for it. If it's an OOC misunderstanding, it's probably better to get it sorted out before removing his up-to-100-CP-for-base-morph toy. That's assuming the proposed solution was using an undefeatable, unescapable monster to destroy a PC's morph for no other reason than that the GM doesn't like that morph. I'm not entirely sure that's what was suggested, and I should avoid making such assumptions, especially since I'm drifting so far off topic.

I think about a quick and easy house rule: Your armor rating (kinetic) functions as a negative modifier for every attack. Even heavy armor (like a battle suit) is only a -18 modifier which is still moderate (compared to other games where armor is much more of a handicap in combat), but "powergamer armor" (30+) really is reducing your combat effectiveness. Some well crafted armor might reduce the negative modifier a bit. For example: an extraordinary hard suit might have a armor rating of 15 but only a -13 modifier.

I can't say I really like that rule. These settings tend to involve armor, which is simply so awesome wearing it tends to make you more effective in combat, if anything. It's really just layering that's a problem. That said, if layering IS a big problem for your game, such a rule is probably better than the alternative. A question: Does inherent armor incur a similar penalty or is this merely for worn armor? If it applies across the board, reapers and TITAN warbots aren't actually that efficient in combat. If not... boy did they ever just become more awesome.