Scum and Villainy: Heavy Armor
Heavy armor exists on the character sheet and is briefly mentioned on page 57 (PDF version) but otherwise I can’t seem to find it explained anywhere else.
At a guess it seems like the game is expecting me and mine to fictionally decide if one of the PCs has heavy armor or not.I am totally cool with that but just want to make sure that I’m not missing something.
So, my actual question is: How does heavy armor work and, if it’s mostly a fictional idea, how do you apply it at your table?
One of the Cerberus upgrades is, “when you wear armour, it is treated as heavy armour,” or words to that effect.
Counts as having two armors.
To my understanding heavy armour is something the crew can get from a Cerberus special ability (Loaded for bear, p132) that allows them to mark armour twice before needing to restore it. It’s apparently supposed to be pretty nifty in-fiction as well.
I’d assume it works like in Blades. Armor boxes aren’t automatic. To mark an armor box, you must have a source of armor on your character. This costs 2 load, to grant access to the first armor box. Heavy armor is 3 load additional (total 5), and grants access to the second armor box.
And you are deciding how much armor you potentially have when you choose your load. Light means you’re faster and inconspicuous, because you can only ever access 1 armor, and not much else besides that (at least, not without a flashback or something). Heavy is the only load that works if you want access to both heavy armor and weapons- this carries with it a totally different fictional position.
This handles most of the fiction. And i handle how the armor is being depleted through descriptions of close calls resulting in the degradation of the protection.
Mark Cleveland Massengale The armor entry on the Scum and Villainy sheet only has two slots for marking off load.
Ok I have a sheet up. Armor has two connected boxes for load, so that is working like it does in core. Mark both of those to have armor on you, and gain access to your first armor box (found on left side of sheet). Mark that armor box to reduce or avoid incoming harm.
And best guess is that the second armor box comes from having the space suit (costs another two load, total 4)
Mark Cleveland Massengale
No. Armour takes two load. You can then mark the box to avoid/reduce harm.
If you have the Loaded for Bear special ability for the Cerberus ship, then you can use the heavy armour box to avoid/reduce harm a second time. The armour still requires two load.
If your ship doesn’t have Loaded for Bear, then you can’t have heavy armour.