Skinweave ...

[Axel9fr]

Skinweave ...

I ask me about skinweave. I know that this one give some AP like armor, but how work she exactly (with Roleplay) ?

Skinweave is a soft armor like an armored wear, but natural skin are elastic. So if skinweave is like natural skin, she is elastic too. But if I shoot with an gun, althrough the bullet will be stop, the cynetic power can deform the skin and break bones or internal organs. And I don't speak about pain...

If we say that skinweave is more resistante like leather, more solid and rigid that a natural skin, Ok. Minor déformation by the bullet and less impact to the health. But, with this way the touch sense will be affected. A thicker skin is not good for that and I don't speak about fondlings during love. No good sensation.

If we say that the skinweave is not elastic and don't affect the sensitives like a normal skin, a bullet will be stop, but the victim will have lot of pain.

1) So what is the Mike Pondsmith's vision about the skinweave ?

2) What is your vision about that ?

3) It will be more realistic in a futur Cyberpunk, that the skinweave affect the BTM instead of AP (because BTM cannot be reduce damages under 1) ?

 

[Suhiira]

Skinweave is basically the same as Kevlar, which is also flexible (why some folks wear rigid trauma plates as well).
It spreads the impact of a bullet over a large area, and yes you get a HUGE painful bruise and may well break a bone or two. But that's far, far better then having high velocity holes punched in your body.

1) Mike invented (or at least included) Skinweave in CP2020 so he's obviously just fine with the concept.
2) If you assume nanotech there's absolutely nothing technically "wrong" with the concept of Skinweave.
3) There's nothing inherently unrealistic about it. And given the playability limitations imposed by a PnP game I understand perfectly well why AP can reduce damage to 0 whereas BTM always allows 1 thru. Perhaps they'll use a more complex, and realistic, system with CP2077 and soft armor will also only reduce damage to a minimum of 1 as well (unless the AP exceeds the Dam by say 50%, in which case 0 would be reasonable).

 

[Sardukhar]

http://theweek.com/article/index/218433/military-breakthrough-bulletproof-skin-made-from-spider-silk

" "Imagine a spider silk vest, capable of catching bullets, the modern-day equivalent of Genghis Khan's arrows," says inventor Jalila Essaidi, as quoted in the Daily Mail. "Now, let's take this one step further: Imagine replacing keratin, the protein responsible for the toughness of human skin, with this spider silk protein. Science fiction? Maybe...""

 

[guidokpd]

I tend to think that getting shot always hurts. Weather actual damage gets through or not. I roleplay it that way as well.

Higher levels of Skinweave are more obvious and reduce attractiveness.

You can change things in your game as you like. Just be sure to think things through and be consistent.

 

[Nomad_Xenon]

I never felt comfortable with the level of lethality of the game, so I think that Skinweave™ is a way to even the odds.

Anyway in my game if Skinweave™ SP stops the bullet it's going to hurt you…. a lot!

 

[jacqsynn]

Me I just do not allow skinweave in my games as I am a mean GM, I will make you fear the 9mm Hollow point. I do allow the subdermal armor in the torso though, at the sp 18 given in the main rulebook the upgrade in the chrome book isn't allowed (or needed). But then I also do not allow PC full body conversions either, see I am mean.

 

[cycoholic]

Skinweave is soft armour, and yes will protect you from being shot, but doesn't stop all damage. Even if have say a Skinweave of 12 and an armor t-short for 10, and you get hit for 18 points of damage, you will still at least take 1 point of blunt trauma. If you get hit by all around of a 3 round burst, and none of them actually do enough damage to penetrate your overall armour stopping power, you'll still take 3 points of blunt trauma. So you'll still find yourself having to make Stun saves as this damage starts to accumulate. Sure, you might not have had your armour pierced, but you've still been hit by 10 bullets. That's still going to seriously screw up your day. You'll start taking penalties to your actions, and may just fail your save, and embarisingly collapse onto the street in front of your team mates, worse, in front of your enemies.

And don't forget that your armour looses 1 point of SP for every time you do take actual damage.

And yes, things like Skinweave take damage as well. To repair it you get to drink a nice silica based drink, think it was Chrome 4?

 

[Sardukhar]

Skinweave is soft armour, and yes will protect you from being shot, but doesn't stop all damage. Even if have say a Skinweave of 12 and an armor t-short for 10, and you get hit for 18 points of damage, you will still at least take 1 point of blunt trauma. If you get hit by all around of a 3 round burst, and none of them actually do enough damage to penetrate your overall armour stopping power, you'll still take 3 points of blunt trauma.

Nope! See,if it worked that way, you could ping someone to death with a bb gun. And you can't.

You only take 1 point of damage IF your Body Type Modifier would have reduced it to nothing or less. Armour, including soft armour, can stop damage cold.

So if the round does -not- exceed the SP of the armour, no damage to the armour or the wearer. If it -does- pen, then, yes, at least one point of damage. This includes all armours and cover, (which is just treated as stationary armour).

It's an important difference for those of us playing with GMs that know all the rules and inflict them mercilessly on us. And for those of you playing under me, because I kind of want you dead. Ish. Deadish. Tee.

 

[atomowyturysta]

I trashed skinwaeve along with some other things from my games (mostly limitating things)
First its too cheap. Almost everyone shoud be able to have it installed and it would render 9-10mm small arms obsolete and useless, yet the most popular calibre in CP2020 is 10mm.
Second. It casus arms race between players and GMs. "Why all your NPCs always carry 12mm handgun?". "Because you got skinweave"
Third. Even if soft and elastic material could stop a bullet moving at 300-350 m/s it won't stop blunt trauma. The energy needs space to get dispersed and such a thin material will fail to do that. So it would stop the bullet from penetrating skinweave but the energy would cause damage to the body tissues. Sure. it's better than nothing but with the level of tech presented in CP2020 it's inconsistent. In that case regular body armor should equivalent of IFV armor or something.
Four. It makes players do stupid things. I got skinweave! I'll storm Arasaka Tower myself!

But if anybody want to use it in his/her game why stop them.

 

[blank_redge]

Second. It casus arms race between players and GMs. "Why all your NPCs always carry 12mm handgun?". "Because you got skinweave"

As a Ref, I *always* have a way to stop / deter my players, that doesn't involve bullets.

I've drugged two player characters into unconsciousness (one, slipped into a drink, the other, via dermal contact via DMSO delivery.) I allow Skinweave, because as the Ref, I *always* have something bigger and badder to deal with players that are feeling like they're on top of the world.

Military grade, full conversion Russian 'borg, anyone? ;-)

 

[Sardukhar]

Military grade, full conversion Russian 'borg, anyone? ;-)

10 Thai Kick Boxing, Ref 14, Body 16, MA 14 Thickened Myomar, EMP/MW Shielded, Orbital Crystal Cyberlegs with Spike Heel Foot and Grip Foot, Leg Boostered and one MM launcher loaded with HEP MM, Thickened Myomar, Shielded Orbital Crystal Cyberarms with mix of gren launcher (loaded with EMP), BigRipp, GrappleHand amongst both arms. Covered with Realskinn, too, so he even looks human!

So you have a hyper-fast, EMP-proof, EMP-firing, HEP-armed, grapple-equipped combatant who can leap 24 m at a 45 km/h run, grapplefist up to 30m away and do truly whacky damage with Martial Arts. All while still being able to walk up to Russkie borg looking like a 5'10" accountant.

 

[blank_redge]

10 Thai Kick Boxing, Ref 14, Body 16, MA 14 Thickened Myomar, EMP/MW Shielded, Orbital Crystal Cyberlegs with Spike Heel Foot and Grip Foot, Leg Boostered and one MM launcher loaded with HEP MM, Thickened Myomar, Shielded Orbital Crystal Cyberarms with mix of gren launcher (loaded with EMP), BigRipp, GrappleHand amongst both arms. Covered with Realskinn, too, so he even looks human!

Ha. NONE of my players have the eb / IP to build out a character like this yet. They likely won't, for a while.

Gotta keep 'em hungry and motivated, after all.

 

[Sardukhar]

Ha. NONE of my players have the eb / IP to build out a character like this yet. They likely won't, for a while.

Gotta keep 'em hungry and motivated, after all.

Hmmm. Don't you have 4 players? The smartest should already be selling the other 3 to the Zone Ripperdocs. I presume at least one of them Sold Out, right? Them's good parts!

Any Solo should start with a MA of 8 at least. Because ass kicking is always cool.

 

[blank_redge]

Hmmm. Don't you have 4 players? The smartest should already be selling the other 3 to the Zone Ripperdocs. I presume at least one of them Sold Out, right? Them's good parts!

Any Solo should start with a MA of 8 at least. Because ass kicking is always cool.

It's an interesting group; none of them have chosen the Selling Out option (though, there's some characters beholden to various factions,) and the players, amongst themselves, agreed on no Solos.

 

[Suhiira]

Can't say as I've ever had much trouble keeping my players in-line.
Players know if they get too far outta line the forces of corporate/government self-interest will land on them with both feet.
Sure they can probably beat the local SWAT team but not the National Guard.

 

[Sardukhar]

It's an interesting group; none of them have chosen the Selling Out option (though, there's some characters beholden to various factions,) and the players, amongst themselves, agreed on no Solos.

This is BLASPHEMY. I don't even...I can't...

Can't say as I've ever had much trouble keeping my players in-line.
Players know if they get too far outta line the forces of corporate/government self-interest will land on them with both feet.
Sure they can probably beat the local SWAT team but not the National Guard.

Ah, I never predetermine these results. Especially given how creative my players can be. I try to work from a results-based method, as opposed to setting boundaries. If you and your Team can figure out a way to cure cancer, nuke New York or take over Arasaka and manage to do it, we'll go from there.

That said, I also go with the full rules set, plus a couple mods, so death is easy. Skinweave or not -as I said somewhere else, skinweave is pretty common in my games, ( and I don't use any "makes touch worse" rules unless you have the higher grades of SKW from Chrome), since people are, you know, trying to kill you.

 

[blank_redge]

This is BLASPHEMY. I don't even...I can't...

...woohoo! I broke Sard!

I feel like that should be an accomplishment trophy.

 

[atomowyturysta]

And that's an armsrace. If you disallow skinweave they WON'T feel like at the top of the world. Of course skinwave as some experimental, hitech, ultraexpensive nanobiowhateverskingraft is ok. For some GM charcters whose corp can afford a million range cost a piece.

 

[Sardukhar]

Skinweave is ONLY 12 SP! You can get a T-Shirt that does that! A T-Shirt! Or a bandanna with 10 SP! I'm serious, by the way. 10 SP. On a bandanna.

You can get a Tanaka topcoat with 16 SP - and look GOOD.

You can buy jeans - jeans - with 16 SP.

This is Cyberpunk, not Weeflerunnerpunk - there be mean weapons out there. Skinweave just isn't the be-all and end-all. Not even close.

 

[blank_redge]

And that's an armsrace.

You say "arms race" like it's a bad thing. =p

The (regular) group of players I have now, three out of the four had never played CP before. They found out REAL quick (as in, first game) how quickly your character can be killed, if you try to cowboy up.

I like having that tension present in the game; sword of Damocles hanging over their heads, and all.

I allow my players to get whatever they can afford (which isn't much,) steal (which usually isn't much,) or otherwise get their hands on, with the understanding that I do my part to keep them on edge.