For the spell, see Armor (spell).
Armor is a mechanic in Shadowrun.
Overview[ | ]
- The maximum amount of armor without spells is 10. This also seems to be the maximum that is possible as permanent value, so when you start combat your armor will never be higher than 10, though you can increase it temporarily during combat with spells.
- The armor value sometimes doesn't update correctly. You need to start and finish a fight, or start a new mission, to show the correct value in the character sheet.
- Outfits are the primary means of obtaining better armor. There are Spells that can increase armor or reduce it by a fixed amount (Leylines only increase duration). Cyberware can also increase armor.
- It does not affect some spells like Manabolt. If the spell item has the flag isMagic: true, resistance against these spells comes only from Willpower, physical cover and magic cover spells.
- In Shadowrun Returns it makes characters harder to hit, but does not reduce damage.
- From Shadowrun: Dragonfall to Shadowrun: Hong Kong it reduces damage taken by a character at a rate of 1 per unit of armor.
- Armor can be countered by the offensive item's forceRating. However, forceRating does not stack with the core specialization damage bonus in the trilogy. That means the game engine will not consider the specialization bonus for criticals if the item has got a forceRating > 0. In Shadowrun Returns it is recommendable to use a greater than zero attackRatingMod in the ability sheet to counter armor, because it affects to-hit chance and it stacks with specialization bonus. However, items with forceRating > 0 could be a good choice for low-level characters that have specialization < item.forceRating.
- In Shadowrun: Dragonfall and Shadowrun: Hong Kong the ability sheet can include rpReduce: x to strip x armor and rpPenetrate: x to bypass armor by x units.