by Matthew Weaver-Uzelac
It's a fact of life, people just don't like getting shot, stuck, slashed, smashed, blown to bits or set on fire. They are funny like that. The average survivor in the Wasted West think along the same lines. Because the Wasted West is such a dangerous place, people take great pains to avoid getting shot, stuck, slashed and so on. Some are fortunate enough to own a piece of per-war armor, many are not. In the thirteen years since the world got flushed and went swirly, brainers have come up with hundreds of ways to keep from getting wounded.
Lacking the facilities to make bullet proof vests and such, many survivors are using local material at hand to make life safer for them. Each piece of improvised armor is as different as the person putting it together.
In general the stronger the material the better the protection. Of course there is a limit to how much armor a person can wear before falling down. Cinder blocks would provide a wonderful amount of protection, but the wearer would essentially become a fixed position. Each selection of materials represents the absolute most a person can wear and still have mobility.
"Do it yourself armor."
Making a suit of armor takes time and material. The Waster must make a scrounging roll for the type of material available for her armor suit. Alternatively, the player can buy the materials if they are in a community where such things are available. Once the waster has obtained the materials for her suit, she must spend at least 1d6 hours plus the level of protection (expressed as a positive value) gluing, stapling, stitching or duct-taping the suit together. Usually the protective layers are affixed to regular clothes like old coats or coveralls. For armor that provide a "Positive amount of protection" (i.e. armor that reduces the level of the dice ) the player must spend 1d6 times two hours to attach pieces to the clothing. This makes it easier to simply "put on" the armor.
Of course if a player wants to start out with a set of improvised armor, they only need to pay for the amount of coverage. The cost is determined by multiplying the cost of materials by the number of locations covered. It can be assumed that a location can be covered front and back for the listed price.
Foolproof(3) Thick Clothing, Layer of paper -1 Phone book armor,
several layers of burlap $5
Fair(5) Padded Clothing, Hides,
Imitation leather -2 Scrap of thick winter coat,
Cheep leather jacket football pants with pads $15
Onerous(7) Wooden slats, bone,
real leather -3 Homemade “Samurai” Armor
Bear hide, football pads $25
Hard(9) Strips of Plastic,
Rope armor, boiled leather -4 Boiled leather pants or shirt $35
Incredible(11) Aluminum, or other thin metal -5 Aluminum siding sewn
onto clothing $50
Incredible(13) Metal plates, Thick or
High impact Plastic 1 Breastplate made from
a freezer door, Football helmet $65
Let's see this armor making process in action:
Jonah the survivor really doesn't want to die. So he looks around the shack he calls a home and finds some aluminum siding. He decides that he needs to protect his chest and arms the most. He takes an old dinner jacket, buys some aluminum siding from the guy next door and goes into his workshop. He must spend 1d6 plus 5 hours per location making his armor.
Cost
Left arm, Right Arm and Chest $35 a piece for a total of $105
Time
Left arm 3 (d6 roll) +5= 8 Hours
Guts 4 (d6 roll)+5= 9 Hours
Right arm 6 (d6 roll)+5= 11 Hours
Total time 28 Hours
Jonah now has a jacket with an AV of -5 to the arms and guts
If the player wishes, they can use different materials on different parts of the suit of armor. In that case they must spend another 1d6 hours on the suit to attach the pieces together.