Armor

Armor provides Damage Resistance, directly reducing incoming damage. For most characters, armor is worn; for most vehicles, it's built onto the vehicle itself. If your character has their own innate level of damage resistance, use the damage resistance advantage.
== Plates and Straps and Targeted Attacks ==
Armor works like it would in real life--it only protects the parts it covers. You may use targeted attacks to hit parts of an enemy that are less armored. Likewise, you can prevent more dangerous attacks by making sure your head (skull) and torso (specifically, vitals) are protected.
== Mentions ==
* Simple rules for body armor from appear in GURPS Basic Set.Basic Set, p.282-286 
* Low-Tech (TL0-TL4) has historical armors, and uses a percentage system for making your own armor pieces if needed.Low-Tech p.100-113
* High-Tech (TL5-TL8) has more examples from the 19th to 21st centuries.High-Tech p.65-75 (body armor), p.229 (vehicle armor)
* Ultra-Tech (TL9-TL12+) has statistics for science-fictional body armor.Ultra-Tech, p.171-181
** It also has powered suits / battlesuits and small mechs!Ultra-Tech, p.181-186
==Armor Table==
"Natural armor" (such as thick skin or a force field) protects all Hit Locations (except usually, the eyes) unless specified otherwise. The following table is based on Low-Tech which is the most recent GURPS book with detailed rules for armor. Basic Set p.282 and High-Tech use a slightly different and simpler system.
Location 	Cost and Weight	Hit Location	Notes
Head 	30% 	3-5 	[1]
Skull 	20% 	3-4 	
Face 	10% 	5 	
Neck 	5% 	17-18 	
Torso 	100% 	9-11 	[2, 3]
Chest 	75% 	9-10 	[2]
Abdomen 	25% 	11 	[2, 4]
Groin 	5% 	– 	
Arms 	50% 	8, 12 	[5]
Shoulders 	10% 	– 	[6]
Upper Arms	10% 	– 	[7]
Elbows 	5% 	– 	[8]
Forearms 	25% 	– 	[9]
Hands 	10% 	15 	
Legs 	100% 	6-7, 13-14 	[10]
Thighs 	45% 	– 	[11]
Knees 	5% 	– 	[8]
Shins 	50% 	– 	[9]
Feet 	10% 	16 	
===Notes===
:[1] Includes skull and face.
:[2] Roll 1d; on 1, the vitals are hit.
:[3] Includes chest and abdomen; see pp. 102-103.
:[4] Includes groin.
:[5] Include shoulders, upper arms, elbows, and forearms, but not hands.
:[6] Roll 1d; on 6, the armor is hit.*
:[7] Roll 1d; on 5, the armor is hit.*
:[8] Roll 1d; on 4, the armor is hit.*
:[9] Roll 1d; on 1-3, the armor is hit.*
:[10] Include thighs, knees, and shins, but not feet.
:[11] Roll 1d; on 5-6, the armor is hit.*
:* Partial limb armor provides only partial protection.
:Roll 1d once to see whether an attack hits armor. For an arm: (1-3) forearm; (4) elbow; (5) upper arm; (6) shoulder. For a leg: (1-3) shin; (4) knee; (5-6) thigh.
:Low-Tech Companion 2 has "Damage to Armor" rules which assign them HP and either Diffuse or Homogenous depending on if they are flexible or rigid.
=== Why are Legs the same cost/weight as a Torso? ===
* Legs are bighttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_body_surface_area
== Vehicle Armor ==
:Whereas human-like characters can have armor for different hit locations on the armor table, armor for vehicles often varies between front, sides, rear, top, and bottom. Vehicles sometimes have different DR on specific sections, such as the turret of a tank or crew compartment of a spaceship. A good example is the T-72 battle tank on GURPS High-Tech p. 244
== Armor as Powers ==
*Electromagnetic Armor: DR 1 (Hardened 4, +80%; Limited, Shaped Charges, -60%) [6]/level
*Icy Skin: DR 1 [5] + DR 1 (Heat/Fire, -40%) [3] + Slippery 1 [2] + Temperature Tolerance 1 [1]; [11]/level
*Insulated Skin: DR 5 (Limited, Energy, -20%) [20] + Radiation Tolerance 10 [15] + Temperature Tolerance 5 [5]; [40]/level
*Mirrored Skin: DR 2 (Limited, Light, -40%) [6] + Enhanced Dodge 1 (Limited, Light, -40%) [9]; [15]/level
*Super-Toughness: DR 1 (Limited, Crushing, -40%; Tough Skin, -40%) [1]/level
== Philosophy ==
Armor design and stats in GURPS typically begin from the premise that 1" of hard steel (sometimes defined as Rolled Homogeneous Armor) equals DR 70.GURPS WW II Designers Notes http://www.sjgames.com/pyramid/sample.html?id=2521 "we reapproached the Vehicles benchmark of 1" of hard steel equaling DR 70. Previous vehicle designs have taken this to mean armor-quality steel, but taking the conversion at face value, could we model better grades of Vehicles armor as face-hardened varieties with better performance per inch than strictly "hard steel?" " The Cover DR Table on p. B559 still lists steel, hard as DR 60 to DR 70 per inch. In conversation, developers remember that this rule of thumb was developed by Michael Hurst, David Pulver, and Sean Punch in the 1990s. Half of that would give half as much DR, and so on. Pyramid 3/52: Low-Tech II has an article on Low-Tech Armor Design. Pyramid 3/85: Cutting Edge has an article on 20th century and futuristic body armor design.
GURPS Low-Tech takes the position that if a player wants protection for a Hit Location, they should pay the cost and weight to have it fully protected, while GURPS High-Tech bases its stats on specific real-world armor and rounds the protection up to a complete hit location. Armor from GURPS High-Tech may therefore be lighter and cheaper than armor designed with an armor-design system. Another challenge is that low-tech armor tends to vary in protection more than high-tech armor made from homogenous materials by uniform industrial processes. Cognoscenti often argue whether the GURPS rules give too high a chance of weak attacks penetrating modern vehicles and body armor. GURPS World War II redefined what real armor corresponded to DR 70 to match historical performance against armor, but since GURPS 4th edition most authors keep to the definition above.
== Trivia ==
* The armor proportion system is supposedly built on the Rule of Nines, a system for describing how much surface area (skin) is on a patient, used for burn victims. (Mentioned in this thread)
==See Also==
*Blunt Trauma and Edged Weapons (the official implementation of Edge Protection)
*Damage Resistance
*Donning Armor
*Hitting ’Em Where It Hurts
*Layering Armor
*Nuisance Effect: Real Armor
*Targeting Chinks in Armor
*Hardened
*Armor Divisor
== References ==
Category:Rules