Armor - Clarification?

[Lirielle]

My group and I have been going back and forth about armor. The book doesn't seem very clear on armor from what I can see; there's only one paragraph on it, but it seems rather powerful.

Let's see if I have the gist of it correct -

The weapon rating must be greater than the armor rating in order for any stress to be dealt - as long as the armor type is adequate to protect against the attack. (Which means if you end up with Armor:3, it takes a heavy duty gun or a weapon rating of at least 4 to actually do any damage; most pistols will not be able to pass this rating.

Does this mean that even if they roll exceptionally well, they still cannot do any damage?

Now, I have a few issues with this, if that is the correct assumption.

1. Even archers could get around full plate, provided they were skilled enough. So in game terms, they could 'ignore' armor to find the weak spots in armor. They can also aim for spots that aren't covered by armor. (This could almost be accomplished by tagging an aspect but this is only usable the once without spending fate points, or means finding a new weak spot on each attack.)

2. My wizards are certainly powerful enough to always put up an Armor:5 "shield" before they get hit in a combat situation, or immediately into it. So it then means that I simply cannot attack them with anything other than a practitioner. I know that practitioners are the best opponents for wizards, but that will get rather boring rather quickly - not to mention, hordes of vampires should be threats, not laughable. I'm aware that the armor does not block against every type of damage, but my min-maxers will know perfectly well to state that their shields are set up to protect against claws if they're against creatures with claws, and so on. This means I have to create creatures with weapon ratings that always surpass theirs, and that could one-shot one of them easily. The group isn't very balanced in terms of damage/survivability, so I have to be careful that I don't completely overshoot a stress track for one that will barely make another take notice.

3. What, then, does that mean for any armor that a creature has? I.E., a creature with Inhuman Toughness and thus Armor:1. If they get hit with a spell with 8 shifts for weapon rating, do they roll their athletics and appropriate abilities to dodge, and then take off that armor rating - or does it simply surpass the armor and thus ignores that 1 point? Or do they completely ignore all of that damage unless it satisfies their catch? (From my understanding, the armor just takes effect UNLESS their catch is met.)

I hope this isn't too confusing. We're going back and forth about how we want to handle armor, so I'd like some input from others.

[Becq]

I think you're mis-interpretting the armor rules.  The key word in the sentence you're referring to is 'intended'.  Basically they are just setting up guidelines to help determine what the armor rating for various things are and vice versa.  So if a pistol is w:2, and you want to wear body armor capable of stopping a pistol bullet dead (as opposed to just slowing it down), then that's probably a:2 -- and armor that's a:2 would be more than normal 'bulletproof' vests, it would have to be reinforced kevlar body armor.

Note, however, that the rules don't mean that such armor actually completely blocks that attack from damaging the target, instead it merely provides enough protection to counter the bonus from the weapon.  So against someone wearing the right protection, a weapon would be no more deadly than a punch.  In addition, you would probably take this into account when considering consequences: instead of punching holes in someone, a bullet that hits a kevlar vest is going to leave bruises or break ribs.

Bottom line:
1) Compare rolls; if the roll misses stop here.  Otherwise:
2) Excess successes on the attack roll is base damage (might be zero for an attack that barely hits).
3) Add weapon strength to the base damage.
4) Subtract armor from the total damage.  If the result is zero or less, then the attack inflicts no damage.
5) If the result is positive, inflict that much stress on the target.

Regarding your questions:
1) Yes, any highly skilled attacker will have a good chance of damaging even a well-armored defender.
2) No, the wizard is not immune to mundane weapons.  That said, an armor 5 is a pretty buff spell.  You are aware that you get 1 armor per two shifts of the spell, right (so that would be a 10 shift evocation)?
3) Armor subtracts from damage, even from very powerful attacks.  It doesn't matter how weak the armor is, though obviously weak armor will tend to leave a lot of leftover damage from big attacks.

[Sanctaphrax]

Armour is very simple in my understanding. It simply simply subtracts its rating from any stress you take. So a rating two weapon with four shifts of success to hit will inflict three stress against armour rating three. A rating eight weapon with three shifts of success to hit will inflict ten stress against armour rating one.

If you are having problems with spellcasting armour, remember these things:

1. It takes an action to cast a spell.

2. Evocations only last one turn unless the caster sacrifices some power in exchange for duration.

3. Most bad guys aren't stupid. If claws aren't working they can pull a knife. If knives don't work they can use a gun. If guns don't work they can use maneuvers and teamwork to turn multiple useless attacks into one effective one.

[Haru]

As far as I understood, armor simply reduces the stress taken by any hit the armor applies to. So you would effectively have your dodge roll + armor against any attack.

1.
The best way to do this would indeed be aspects. you could roll guns to apply a "steady aim" aspect on yourself or discipline to apply "calm as the ocean" which you can tag to make the shot. To bypass armor altogether with an aspect though, I think you would have to spend a FATE point once you made an assessment on your opponent.

2.
Like I said before, the armor reduces the attack roll by its rating, nothing more, nothing less. So a wizard with armor:5 can still be hit by a weapon:2 pistol, if the shooter rolls an attack of 4 or better, resulting in an attack of 6. Granted, without dodging he would still only end up with 1 stress, but they can accumulate rather nicely if there are enough of them.

Plus: an armor:5 spell would be at least 10 shifts, which would mean the wizard would have to have a power of 10 on that element to only get 1 stress for casting it, more if his conviction + bonuses are less (for example: conviction+specialisation and foci at 8 would result in 3 mental stress. Any caster would think twice about using a spell like that too often.). Even then, he would have to cast it beforehand, not as a defense action, and even then it would only last 1 round, if he didn't spend more power to fuel it up after that. He would also have to match his control roll (a discipline roll for 10 shifts), and a character would have to be pretty darn powerfull to be able to pull this of without ever having to resort to backlash or fallout.

There is a difference between blocks and armor. First of all, to create an armor spell, the spellpower is divided by 2, while blocks always get the amount of power that is put into them. The key difference between block and armor though is the fact that a block is destroyed once it is surpassed while armor holds as long as it is powered up. In any case, you can simply tire your wizards out if they try to have the shield on at all times.

Look at Harry and the Flamethrower in DB. Harry was well known for his shield, so Mavra has her goons shoot burning napalm at him, and while he is able to hold back the physical component of the attack, the heat still burns his hand to a useless clump. They will not be able to shield themselves from anything someone can throw at them. You could work them from a completely different angle like trapping them instead of hurting them or blinding them temporarily, actions like that could not care less about a physical block.

3.
The armor subtracts stress from the attack by its powerlevel, just like any other armor. If the creature is hit with something that satisfies the catch, the armor doesn't count.

[Lirielle]

Ah, then I misunderstood. I was under the impression that it ignored the damage entirely unless it met the weapon rating. I'm glad to see I misinterpreted it.

[Wol Ulchabhan]

You could always bring into play the scale of the weapon being used vs. that of the armour value and the stamina/endurance/might aspects of the target. This has been brought up in earlier discussions of Fudge and Fate 2.0

The idea is this: (Extreme example) Even if you have an armour value of, let's say 10, then a weapon:6 would not stand a chance to penetrate and do any damage if you were just using a straight game mechanic (Assuming a Great (+4) hit result. so max damage would be Legendary + 2= 10). However, throw in the fact that a w:6 has a lot of "ooommmph" going for it, the force is still gonna knock your butt on the ground. Kinetic/concussive force is still force. That kind of result would at least give out some free tags to the baddies for maneuvers or something.

Though hypothetical (at least as far as I know . . .) this could apply to the magic realm as well.
Your intrepid wizard might be able to evoke a Superb (+5) level shield to entirely block a w:4 attack that got rolled at a "zero" for effect, you could still reasonably say that that the force of the attack was strong enough to do something. What that would be would depend on the defenders might or some other physical attribute.

It all really depends on how "crunchy" you want to get. The golden rule is the play is more important than the mechanic.

[noclue]

And if we're talking about using evocation to cast a block with an armor value rating, Armor Value 5 requires enough mojo to create a 10 strength block.

[Drashna]

the force is still gonna knock your butt on the ground. Kinetic/concussive force is still force. That kind of result would at least give out some free tags to the baddies for maneuvers or something.

Feel free to correct me, but theoretically wouldn't you have to perform a maneuver to accomplish that sort of "tag".  Heck, wouldn't you be better to just perform a maneuver to off balance the guy, tag that aspect to grapple him?  Armor doesn't do anything when you're on the ground pinned/tied up, and even less after it's been stripped from you!