(Answered) Cowls - Are they Ablative

[BairdEC]

My group had a question about the Cowl quirk last night.

SO p193 and BMM p83 both state:

Cowl (4 Points)
BattleMechs like the Cyclops have been outfitted with a
protective cowl that provides an additional 3 points of head
armor against all attacks except those that originate along the
row of hexes directly in front of the cowled ’Mech.

I read that (influenced by MegaMek's implementation) as reducing each attack's damage by 3 points, so a 5-point medium laser hit becomes a 2-point hit.  The cowl does not degrade or lose its protective effect regardless of the number of hits taken.  The cowl essentially provides three points of damage reduction per hit in the covered arcs.

The countering view was that the cowl should function similarly to a 'Mech shield's damage absorbance and damage capacity (TO p 291) or three points of modular armor (TO p281). The cowl provides only three points of additional armor for the first damaging hit in the covered arcs.

[Xotl]

It's armour: you get 3 more points than normal, destroyed as normal.  Damage reduction is a completely different mechanic and would be called out as such.  The "against all attacks" is only referring to which attack angles the extra armour applies to (e.g. you get 3 more points of armour, but it is not applicable against frontal attacks), not a statement that it lasts forever.  I'll reword it in the errata.