The way things currently work. wearing any armor over a location prevents bullet criticals from ruining your day. The trouble is, that there is no allowance made for the resistance of the armor as opposed to the physical damage caused by the bullet.

The rough idea for a fix for people who don't like to see mooks laughing off .50 cal rounds because of an undercover vest goes as follows:

Light armor only provides its full effect against rounds that do 2d6 base damage or less. Against rounds doing 2d8, it provides a bonus to the fortitude save to resist location effect(I'm thinking +2-4 personally). Against rounds doing 2d10 or more, it has no practical effect

Medium armor will stop rounds up to 2d8, and against rounds causing 2d6 or less, also subtracts one from each die rolled. Against rounds doing 2d10, it provides a fortitude bonus as above. Against rounds doing 2d12 or more, it accomplishes nothing.

Heavy armor provides full protection against rounds doing 2d10 or less, reduces 2d8 rounds by one per die, and 2d6 or less by two per die. It also provides a slight fortitude bonus against weaponry causing 2d12(+1-2, as it really has no business doing more than slowing these rounds down marginally). Against anything bigger than that, no effect.

Thoughts? As one possible alternate, armor might convert some or all damage from attack rolls lower than a modified twenty to stun damage.

I also think that something could be done to represent the impact resistance that armor would provide against explosions. Something like half the Defense bonus added to Reflex saves?

That's why the Babe goes in first and convinces the mook to take off his vest (and almost everything else)! Those shoulder holsters are just so last year!

I do like your ideas tho!

What Gino and I have been doing with regards to armor vs crits is this:
If the attack roll is a modified 20 or greater and capable of hitting the target, roll the hit location table to see where the bullet hits. If it hits a location that is covered by armor, then it's normal damage. If it hits a location NOT covered by armor, then it's a crit on that location.

I can see where you're going with the bullet vs armor effectivenes. It's intersting, but what about the use of Double Tap (+1d damage) or Burst Fire (+2d damage)? A TEC-9 could get as much as 4d6 damage. Would that be sufficient to overcome the armor's effectiveness or would it still be completely stopped by light armor considering that each round it's firing has the same penetrating power as the single shot?

another problem is a high lvl assassin or enforcer who has increased damage, I have someone who currently does 4d6 damage with double tap, next lvl he goes up to 5d6 and lvl after 6d6. We have some late game chars over here, playing 2x a week does that. If my boy can do a call shot for only -2 then do 6d6 damage to your head where you have a heavy armor helm on, sorry buddy but that helm is going to be screwed. Then to make it more fun, my enforcer who has a sniper rifle for her weapon of choice, she now deals to a target (who she didnt get time to do a kill shot on) 2d10 +4d6 damage with one single round. Heavy armor aint stopping that shit, sorry charley but when that single round can destroy a car what good is armor?

And for those of you dont want to kill your target in one shot, dont shoot him in the right leg, for some reason that area has beent he crit hit of death for so many people it is kinda scary.

If you don't wanna kill him or her in one shot, use a knife, not a gun...

The way that I originally envisioned it, the base damage of the gun is supposed to be the main deciding factor. So your burst may be doing 4d?, but for purposes of armor penetration it counts as a single round. I base this partially on the theory that multiple rounds with less KE are less likely to penetrate than a single higher energy impactor, and partially on the idea that having some jackass with a gun doing 2d6 has no business taking out the guy in Tactical gear on anything but a natural 20. But to represent the effect of laying down muliple bullets on target, I'd personally allow an extra hit location roll for each additional die added by firing multiple rounds(this might also be used as a house rule in general to simulate the fact that catching three rounds to the unprotected chest is far worse than a single bullet, which the rules don't currently reflect.

The benefit of specific bonuses is far harder to pin down. The idea that just occured to me is allowing class related bonuses to be cancel a certain amount of defense bonus provided by armor, but only for the purpose of determining bullet crits. This would represent a low level Enforcer that spent time studying up on his target learning the specific weak points of his target's chosen protective garb, or the fact that a high-level Enforcer will become one with his signature weapon to the extent that he instinctively places his shots where they will do the most good. Damage bonus from Talents just does lots more damage, and doesn't count towards armor penetration.

All of these ideas are tentative however, and helpful suggestions are welcome