Modern Body Armor

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Icelander

What do you think, what should be the true story of a fictionalized Afsaneh Rabiei in my campaign?

I found a more complete bio for her here. Looks like she was in Tehran until 1994 (working in industry after getting her Bachelor's), which was when she moved to Japan for her PhD. She was in Massachusetts from 1997 to 2003 (and was in Boston, where IIRC you had some rather spooky things occur in a previous campaign, in 2002), then went to the University of North Carolina.

With that in mind, her experiencing the supernatural in Tehran was certainly possible, but probably not terribly likely, as it was in the early days of the supernatural. Additionally, I'm not certain an Iranian Supernatural Secret Society would be entirely welcoming of a female member, and as an aspiring scientist she wouldn't want to get branded as crazy, so I'd imagine even if she did have a supernatural encounter, she kept it largely to herself. Also maybe, I dunno, moved halfway around the world to get away from it. While in Japan, the supernatural was more likely to have interrupted into her life, but as you note she would have been too much of an outsider while there to join a secret society. The earliest she would have joined such would have been in Massachusetts. Her research seems to have an altruistic bent to it - medical implants, materials to protect against natural and man-made disasters, etc - so I feel it would be appropriate for her to be part of a group that she at least thinks has good intentions.

There's also this little paragraph from her MAE (Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, her department at NCSU) Bio:

Dr. Rabiei is a unique faculty advisor. Her students often work with professionals outside of MAE, on and off campus and quite often with international groups. Her students tend to be motivated, have good reading and writing skills, and enjoy scientific exploration. Much of her work leads to new inventions. She is fond of pointing out that her students work in an environment of creation.

Outside of work, Dr. Rabiei enjoys her time with family and students.

This makes me feel she would be appropriate as either the leader of a small independent group (which may learn of and ally with Kessler, as he similarly appears to have altruistic goals) or, perhaps more likely, is a high-ranking member of (and recruiter for) an international group of some sort. Ideally one based (or with tendrils in) Massachusetts, as I feel that would be the most likely area where she would have been initially recruited.

Originally Posted by fula farbrorn

How would we Stat up a NIJ III/IV vest ? they do exist and are becoming more and more prolific

GURPS gives NIJ IV armor sufficient protection to also count as NIJ III. In theory, you could distinguish NIJ IV armor from NIJ III/IV armor by giving it a different DR against certain attacks, but doing this just for NIJ IV armor would be odd, meaning you may need to rewrite how a good deal of GURPS armor works.