Topic: Powered Armor - Driving or Armor Skill needed?

[Mungo]

Hi,

Short question: is Powered Armor to you a vehicle and needs the Driving Skill or is it armor and needs the Armor skill?

Personally I am leaning towards the vehicle, as it is most likely big enough to have structural hits (between 7-10 according to rules for buildings). But all weapons would be Personal Weapons (e.g. Support Laser), with the exception of a missile launcher (as there are yet no rules for small ones).

BR
Juergen

[GMLovlie]

If by powered armour one is thinking Landmates (Appleseed) or bigger stuff, yes, I would agree, vehicle. If on the other hand it is an armour that only improves certain abilities and perhaps has a power-core for life-support, electromagnetic boots, datapad on the wrist and sensors in helmet etc, then I would consider it armour skill, not vehicle. So it depends on what definition one apply to the Powered Armour terminology.

I might be stupid, but I find no reference in the pdf of Powered Armour, but something along the lines of Landmates would be wicked to have included, I know my players would rejoice! (and so would I).

[NicholasHMCaldwell]

If it is tending towards the mecha end of the spectrum, then it is a vehicle with structural hits, a Driving skill and support-level personal weapons (and maybe just maybe Tiny Vehicle weapons).

If it is just a hybrid environment suit crossed with combat armor and a few extras tacked on, it's just Armor.

Best wishes,
Nicholas

[GMLovlie]

For the mecha/landmate armours/vehicles/walkers, there would also be need for something akin to Mounted Combat, for example Mecha Combat.

-80 to melee and -40-60 to ranged attacks, offset in the same way as with mounted combat.
Of course equipment bonuses, make and quality will affect this further.

Adding this type of vehicle to the game might not be necessary, but it is something I would love to see in the game, and particularly the Appleseed-type; Landmates. They're wicked! And makes for good sci-fi!

It is something that perhaps should be considered?

[lazarus]

Not sure mecha really need to be added to the game - the vehicles as presented can do it.  If you really want a separate skill for it, then add a pilot category.

Based on my reading of the Vehicle rules, they can actually handle pretty much everything vehicle-wise.  Thinking a second, if there were hit location tables for vehicles (a la Martial Law), then bipedal and quadropod vehicle tables would probably be written, but without location charts that doesn't matter much.

Laz

[GMLovlie]

Perhaps I got confused by you, or you by me, but I do intend to use the Drive/Pilot skill, whatever the generic one is called(tired now), but to use it in combat would add difficulty, like that of being astride a horse trying to shoot or hit someone with a sword, thus the combat skill, like mounted combat in HARP; Mecha/Landmate Combat for HARP SF, that is my thought at least.

The vehicles can perhaps cover it, but for flavour, flair and style I would want this... Perhaps not needed for the core rulebook, but a supplement perhaps?
There is something about the Landmates in Appleseed (2004) that is beardy and makes me go a bit gooey

[lazarus]

There is already the CS&M: Combat Piloting/Driving.  This works well for mecha combat, as well.  Essentially, I'm asking "why add yet another special case?"

Laz

[GMLovlie]

Ah, ok, well, heh, forgot about that one, or rather chose to think of it in a different way, sorry for the misunderstanding.
Then there would be no need to add another skill (strictly speaking), just another flair and flavour in the vehicle department, but as you said, perhaps not for the core rules.

[Wōdwulf Seaxaning]

Does HARP SF or SFXtreme actually have Mecha statted up? I love mecha, I'm a big Gundam , Appleseed & Heavy Gear fan. So I'd love for official rules for using Mecha & have various type of mecha statted up for HARP SF.

[Marc R]

IMO armor you wear is Armor, armor you ride is a vehicle. There are very few borderline instances where you can't tell one from the other, but almost always it should be clear.

There are rules for robots and rules for vehicles and rules for cybernetics. . .while there's no vehicle scale powered armor or mecha rules in play, everything you'd need to make it work is there, you could cut-n-paste Frankenstein out rules fairly easily.

Off the top of my head for armor you sit in like most mecha, very doable using the vehicular combat rules, for iron man like armor you'd need to devise some rules to make it work. (The damage scaling mechanisms would even allow for mecha from man scaled up to Voltron sized).

At the most limited form you could just strap some weapons and armor onto one of the walker vehicle types and go to it.

Ripe ground for a supplement, perhaps.

[GMLovlie]

So has anyone attempted to make some landmates/mecha vehicles or armour? I'd love to see someone else's take on this before I try to do this myself. It's been a long time since I meddled in this system on such a level.