Sealed armor?

[Judge Death]

IN UT4e, it says that the power of thermobaric grenades explains the popularity of sealed armor. This clearly implies sealed armor is superior protection against them yet I find no rules for anything of the kind.

What advantage does sealed armor have vs. thermobaric grenades?

[elustran]

I seem to recall reading somewhere that unsealed armor has reduced protection against explosions, but I could just be remembering 3e, where sealed armor was squared against explosions.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by elustran

I seem to recall reading somewhere that unsealed armor has reduced protection against explosions, but I could just be remembering 3e, where sealed armor was squared against explosions.

From the basic set:

All large area attacks use the average of your torso DR and the lowest-DR part of your body, usually the eyes for 0 (p400). So that's one thing.

Explosions specifically use Torso armor only, which is weird (p414). Also, I'd say that's contradictory with the Large Area injury rules, which specifically refer to bomb blasts.

None of this refers to Sealed armor. The Sealed trait also doesn't shed any light on this. Unfortunately my copy of UT is at home, so I can't check out thermobaric grenades and see if anything interesting is going on there.

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Explosions specifically use Torso armor only, which is weird (p414). Also, I'd say that's contradictory with the Large Area injury rules, which specifically refer to bomb blasts.

... 'sfunny, I never caught that before. I wonder what the reasoning behind it was?

None of this refers to Sealed armor. The Sealed trait also doesn't shed any light on this. Unfortunately my copy of UT is at home, so I can't check out thermobaric grenades and see if anything interesting is going on there.

SFAICT, Sealed will only protect you from contact with the fuel (some stuff used for FAEs is pretty toxic). If it ignites, you'll have more to worry about than Hazmat exposure :/

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Explosions specifically use Torso armor only, which is weird (p414). Also, I'd say that's contradictory with the Large Area injury rules, which specifically refer to bomb blasts.

It makes sense, though, since the primary damage caused by an explosive shock wave occurs to the lungs, with some additional damage to the bowels. The shock needs to be VERY intense to injure limbs and whatnot (although injury to the eardrum is common).

Luke

[Kromm]

Explosions are supposed to use Large-Area Injury (p. B400) if you're using that optional rule. Remember that everything in Chapter 13 is meant to be optional, which is why its contents aren't in the basic combat rules in Chapter 11. We tried not to make one optional rule depend too much on another.

Sealed has nothing to do with explosions. It protects against contact agents, water, and dust, and lets you justify Pressure Support or Vacuum Support for a suit. But being in a squishy foil suit that happens to be sealed won't do a lot for you in an explosion.

As for thermobarics, their main advantage is that the bursting charge spreads out the explosive before it's detonated. This lets them devastate a wider area. A totally realistic treatment would say that somebody caught in the cloud (a small area in the center of the blast) would be affected as if by a fluid incendiary (p. B411), with unsealed armor protecting at 1/5 DR.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by lwcamp

It makes sense, though, since the primary damage caused by an explosive shock wave occurs to the lungs, with some additional damage to the bowels. The shock needs to be VERY intense to injure limbs and whatnot (although injury to the eardrum is common).

That's interesting, and good to know (although I wonder about eye injuries - partly because eye injuries are in the local news at the moment, however).

It sounds like the Large Area Injury section therefore needs to have the comment about bombs cut and a cross reference to the explosions section with a footnote that explosions use --> those special rules, not these special rules.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by lwcamp

It makes sense, though, since the primary damage caused by an explosive shock wave occurs to the lungs, with some additional damage to the bowels. The shock needs to be VERY intense to injure limbs and whatnot (although injury to the eardrum is common).

This is true, but having low-DR or no-DR flanges where the neck, arms, and legs join the torso offers other avenues for this effect to exploit. It's safe to say that having a hardsuit on your torso and nothing else is useful, but that having hard arm, leg, neck, and head protection rather than open cuffs is even more useful.

[Anthony]

Against the actual overpressure damage for an explosion, sealed armor (if not ruptured by the blast) would protect, unsealed armor would not protect at all. However, the primary kill mechanism for most explosions is not overpressure (for a pound of explosives, concussion wouldn't have a significant effect on lethality at a distance of more than 1 hex).