Power Armor as Vehicle?

[Victim]

I'm looking for opinions regarding building a suit of power armor as a vehicle.

 

On one hand, vehicular PA can easily represent many powered armor concepts fairly easily. Multiple suits are handled easily without a clumsy multiform construct. The suit's strength isn't dependent on the pilot; I really hate it when a pilot's physical stats radically alter the suit's abilities. For example, if you compare a pilot with starting physical power and toughness attributes, versus one with max NCM values, there's a huge difference. A 300 kg difference in lifting becomes a 75 ton difference, etc. Also, vehicles come cheap enough that secondary powers that might otherwise be overlooked can be purchased. For example, radar, radios, air conditioning. Finally, using a vehicle means that stupid stuff like 1 pip multi-Penetrating attacks don't blow up your OIF in one shot.

 

The downsides would be that vehicles are generally big and heavy, require a skill to drive, take longer to get into than OIHID or OIF, and cost points to replace. Also, the vehicle gets weaker as it takes damage. Also, indirect attacks with the proper sfx might be able to frag the pilot through the armor.

 

On the other hand, vehicular armor might be a bit too cheap, especially if the simplifying rule from the FAQ is used. Having lots of powers in a vehicle can effectively multiply points, like a Multiform. Also, the vehicle can protect the character perhaps a bit too well. In addition to serving kind of like a force wall, since vehicle probably blocks LoS, it also shields the pilot mentally.

[Killer Shrike]

Yeah, the old vehicle power suit is one of the major ways to cheese out, but on the other hand as youve pointed out it makes a lot of logical sense. I would say that in a universe where its a common place tactic it will tend to balance out (like Mechwarrior), but I wouldnt allow it for a standard champs game for instance.

 

But thats just me. More of a knee jerk than a finely reasoned decision.

[JmOz]

IMO: This comes down to F/X, some suits should be built as a OIF, others as OIHID and some as vehicles.

 

AS A GM I would look really really closley at anyone who brought me a Vehicular based suit, as it is so easy to abuse. But remember EVERY ROUND OF COMBAT THEY MOVE they need to make a Combat Piloting/Driving roll (and they will need both skills depending on things) This is a huge limitation IMO. HOWEVER the suit comes at a really CHEEP price

 

I personlay have long used the idea of a "Primary User" for Foci. Most foci are built arount the idea of the Primary User (The character), as part of the F/X ou decide how it interacts with other characters (It will raise any characters str to 60, not +45, I can use the mental crystal as is, anyone else can with side effects, etc...)

 

Also, I would allow mental attacks on a pilot of a vehicle for a small vehicle (Any vehicel that is not some kind of multiple crew type thing like a ship or something), as long as they have LOS on the piloting area

 

The forcewall element is easily fixed by not allowing the defenses to protect beyond a certain point (In a 20-30 def campeign I would say 10), then any more defense bought must take either "Personal defence -1/4" (It's from TUV) or does not protect passesngers (-1/2)

[Trebuchet]

I've got a female supervillain named Scarab with two versions: One version when she's inside the armor (OIF) and another version when she's remote-piloting the vehicle (bought as a vehicle).

 

The version where she's inside the armor is faster, more agile (if that's really a good term for a 5 meter tall humanoid mech) and generally performs better in combat. The vehicle is clumsier but can't be Stunned of course, is immune to Ego powers, can move in ways a human can't (such as bending joints backward or rotating the torso 360°, and there's always a chance the remote control signal might be jammed or interrupted. (The vehicle has a fairly sophisticated onboard computer to allow it to perform limited tasks in such cases.) But it's still the same piece of ceramic and titanium high tech machinery.

 

One of the character's PsychLims is that she loves wearing the armor due to the sense of power it gives her. That's going to get her into trouble one of these days.

[SkyKnight]

I kind of lump powered armor into 3 major categories:

 

Exoskeleton

Classic OIF or OIHID powered armor. The innate abilities of the pilot are pretty important and it just offers more armor than normal un-powered devices with some attribute increases.

 

Example: BGC Hardsuit

 

"Heavy" Suit

This is an OIF or OIHID suit with about 2 levels of growth (either purchased or 5ed'ed but still functions as armor. I like to add 50% damage reduction for physical & energy to represent that the suit is quite massive and protects the occupant very well. This sort of suit works well for a Power Armored brick, since he will only have 30 to 40 stun and limited CON. Otherwise he will be constantly CON stunned or even unconscious compared to normal bricks.

 

Example: BGC K2 Armored Trooper

 

Mecha

This is a vehicle with arms & legs. It uses normal vehicle rules and can be surprisingly pricy when all of the necessary skills and systems are in place. You also will have a hard time taking it indoors.

 

Examples: Battlemech, Veritech fighter

[farik]

If you use the vehicle Mecha hit location rules as well as the piloting roll rules I think the vehicle versus focus balances out since as a vehicle the vehicle is more powerful but the character is more vulnerable.

 

I also agree that LOS would work as long as the pilot location was evident and someone with mindscan wouldn't be hindered by the vehicle at all.

[Agent X]

It all depends on the build. A player who built his armor as a vehicle should exercise restraint. I think it's superior to multiform for the design of multiple suits of armor and it allows the player to buy all those science skills, bases, etc. that he might want if he's, I dunno, a multi-billionaire.

[freakboy6117]

i was kind of considering this for my Dr hel of the strange defenders write up. i wanted her to be sort of medium level power wise a just starting out super(with a lot of skill but not much experince) but with a couple of powerful vehicals as back up so she can mix it up with the big leagues