Body Armor Damage and Degredation

[LiminalMask]

It occurred to me the other night as I sat down to Ref our Mongoose Traveller campaign that the PCs have been in a dozen or so firefights over the past months, and yet many of them are wearing the same armor they bought right out of CharGen. I thought it would only make sense that as armor takes hits its effectiveness lessens over time--barring repairs, of course.

I looked through the Mongoose Traveller main rulebook but found nothing about how Armor takes damage and degrades (except for Ablat, of course). Is there some provision out there in another supplement for this?

I thought up a house rule which we're going to try out:
Every time a player takes enough damage that the armor is penetrated, the player makes a tickmark next to the armor on their sheet. When the number of tickmarks is equal to the Armor Value of the armor, the armor permanently loses 1 point of Armor.

For example: A suit of Flak provides Armor 6. When that suit takes 6 penetrating hits, it degrades to Armor 5. (Which means it can take 5 penetrating hits before degrading further to Armor 4. And so on.) Repairs are possible with appropriate Trade skill and materials, but this only removes the tickmarks. Once armor degrades a level, it cannot be repaired back to its full effectiveness.

What do you think of this idea? How do you handle this in your campaign? (Or do you?)

 

[far-trader]

It occurred to me the other night as I sat down to Ref our Mongoose Traveller campaign that the PCs have been in a dozen or so firefights over the past months, and yet many of them are wearing the same armor they bought right out of CharGen...

And I'll bet they've been wearing it 24/7 too

There's house rules aplenty for it. I do like yours. Simple, easy to track, reasonable. All imo of course.

What about repair costs to fill out the mechanics of it?

 

[Sturn]

Your house rule seems simple and elegant. It's great for game purposes. It is simple to keep track of and includes degradation, not just complete destruction all at once.

For realism, it may make the armor TOO durable. Your example can take 21 hits before it's completely useless. It is degraded from 6 to 5 (just a fraction) only after 6 penetrating hits. Other hits don't count, so your armor may have taken 5 penetrating hits and 15 non-penetrating hits and still be in top shape.

Compare this to the practice of wearing police body armor. Even one non-penetrating hit (from a firearm) shelves the armor. Of course this is a rarity backed by a city budget compared to the frequent firefights of a Traveller trader on a limited income.

Even so, I would say stay with your house rule. It's simple and is still somewhat realistic. Trying to duplicate exact realism would go too far - "Wait I have 3 small calibre holes in my armor, I got hit again, did the round go through one of those holes or hit another non-damaged area?" Too complicated for a game.

EDIT ADDITIONAL-

If your PCs are constantly wearing their armor, you could throw some stuff at them if you wish. Perhaps give them a -1DM on all tasks for being cramped up in that heavy combat armor for too long. Wearing something lighter? Give them another tick from time to time using your house rule due to the armor wearing out quicker. For a real world example, police body "cloth" armor needs to be taken off and pressed from time to time to get the wrinkles and furrows out (bullet catching "valleys" are bad). Getting it wet (even from sweating) can also be bad for it's service life.

 

[jappel]

Consider this idea stolen.

 

[BytePro]

My cude, but really simple house rules:

After any combat, when armour was penetrated, subtract 1 point (i.e. - regardless of number of times, how much or non-penetrating).

Repair is 10% per point lost.​

 

[LiminalMask]

And I'll bet they've been wearing it 24/7 too

What about repair costs to fill out the mechanics of it?

Don't get me started on the guy who wanted to wear his Vacc Suit all the time.

As for repair costs, I'm running at 10% Total Value per tick mark removed for spare parts, though reducing the number of parts required for a repair based on the result of an Average skill check. (Same table as Task Chains: Success by +1 to +5, reduce required parts by 1, Success by +6, by two, minimum of 1 part required.) You can also use up old armor for repair parts equal to half the armor's current value.

After any combat, when armour was penetrated, subtract 1 point (i.e. - regardless of number of times, how much or non-penetrating).

I thought of something like this as well, but considering how a lot of my adventures are "back-loaded" with progressively harder enemies as you get closer to the goal, I was afraid that this would degrade their armor so quickly by the time they got to the encounter they really needed Armor for, the Armor would be in tatters. Do you find your system runs through armor quickly?

 

[hiro]

I thought of something like this as well, but considering how a lot of my adventures are "back-loaded" with progressively harder enemies as you get closer to the goal, I was afraid that this would degrade their armor so quickly by the time they got to the encounter they really needed Armor for, the Armor would be in tatters. Do you find your system runs through armor quickly?

Maybe that will vary with how cinematic you want your game to be? The more advanced sealed armours have the ability to seal minor damage but I cant see field repairs being possible on such a heavily manufactured piece of kit like combat armour.

I dont think (I have no real world experience to base this on) plates used currently are designed to be repaired after taking a rifle hit, they may take multiple strikes but speaking personally I'd want a whole new plate if I got shot!

Some data pertaining to current armour can be found here:
http://www.m4carbine.net/showthread.php?t=19910
http://www.m4carbine.net/showthread.php?t=32839
http://www.m4carbine.net/showthread.php?t=19912

 

[BytePro]

... Do you find your system runs through armor quickly?

Ack! NO! o:

My games don't involve bunches of successive fire-fights nor 'levels' of progressively better combatants ... 2-3 per session is about the max PCs would encounter in my games. I allow Level-3 characters to repair their own armor during Jump or extended ground stays, etc. - so often the armor damage is just RP color.

However, more advanced armor can fail in other ways (esp. during combat). I do this totally adhoc (somewhat roll result based) - its part of the RP. The impact on combat can be none all the way up to incapacitating. Armor points don't change, but things like motion impaired power armor can result in hit penalties, etc.

 

[Sturn]

I would limit the repairs using your tick house rule system. I can't see any armor being repaired to like-new condition without replacement parts.

Perhaps repairs only remove ticks of damage, but can never bring the armor back up to the next higher rating. For example, you are wearing armor that originally had a rating of 6. It has taken 8 ticks of damage. This exceeds 6 so it's rating is now 5 with 2 ticks of damage left over. You can repair and remove the 2 ticks of damage, but never the next 6 - the armor is stuck at 5. As suggested I can imagine a player purchasing repair kits with each tick of repair in the kit costing 10% of the original cost of the armor?

I would allow replacement parts. This would be something much different then repairs and cost lots more or requiring parting out other damaged armor. For example, replacing an entire damaged shoulder guard on a set of combat armor or removing a soft insert section from cloth armor and replacing it. Parts replacement could cost 25% of the cost of the armor per rating returned, removing any tick damage in the process. In the same example above, I wait until I return to a world where I can buy replacement parts for my armor. For 25% of the original cost, I replace the damaged parts and return the armor from 5 to 6 and it's now like new.

If your armor is nearly completely damaged, it would of course be more feasible to completely replace it then try to repair or replace damaged parts. Of course if you are marooned some place you might not have such an option but to use up repair kits or grab repair parts from other suits of similar armor.

 

[Jacqual]

I use the rule from cyberpunk 2020 all penetrating damage lowers armor value by 1, and it is applied on the spot. For repairs I figure the maximum total value the armor can protect and use that as a divisor i.e. yes the percentage of damage 1 point for battledress is a lot more then 1 point for a flak jacket, but the total cost of the armor will affect the cost of the repair. I also use a rule that if the armor takes over 50% of its total protection value in damage before repairs can be implemented all repairs cost 25% more. this leads to players figuring yes the armor is hashed time to buy new.