House Rules, Homebrews, and Rules Clarifications

[pringerbeam]

Multiple Layers of Armor
     Characters wearing more than one piece of armor gain an armor bonus equal to half of the rating of all outer layers beyond their base layer of armor (round up) but counts as its full armor value for the purposes of calculating total bonus armor.  This will incur a penalty to AGI and REA as normal (-1 penalty for every 2 bonus armor higher than STR).  Custom Fit armor (See Run and Gun p59) can't be worn as anything other than a bottom layer unless it and every layer below it has the Custom Fit (Stack) quality.  Pieces of armor designed specifically to be worn under your base layer such as Second Skin behave normally.
     Special armor upgrades apply only to layers below them.  So the Fire Resistance on a lined coat does not apply to an armored vest worn over it but will apply to the wearer and anything worn beneath it.
     In most cases wearing multiple layers of armor will be visibly bulky and obvious to the casual observer and may incur additional in-game hassles (It's hard to hide stuff under a Lined Coat if you're also wearing an armored vest under there already).

Example1: Sammy is wearing and Urban Explorer Jumpsuit (Armor 9) and has a set of Armored Clothes (Armor +3, counts as +6) over it.  He has a total armor pool from these items of 12 and he has a STR of 4 so he takes a -1 penalty to AGI and REA (total armor bonus of +6 - STR 4 = 2).

Example 2: Trog is wearing an Armored Jacket (Armor 12) but decides to add an Armored Vest (Armor +5, counts as +9) over it.  He has a total armor pool of 17 and he has a STR of 8 so he takes no penalty to his AGI or REA (total armor bonus of +9 - STR 8 = 1, only full multiples of 2 apply encumbrance).