Power Armor that takes damage

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Emerald_Flame300
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Power Armor that takes damage

Post by Emerald_Flame300 »

Greetings,

If you look back at my character builds, you will see that I really like the Power Armored character. I have been an Iron Man fan for years (Since the Armor Wars series). I also like Green Lantern... but that's for another post.

The reason that I am posting this is multifaceted. In M&M, the idea of Power Armor is more narrative and less mechanical. By this I mean that the suit is a collection of powers.. and not an actual thing. I remember playing Champions: The New Millennium and they had rules for damaging equipment. I was thinking of this when I was recently building another character. When a Power Armor character takes damage, the character as a while takes damage, as if the suit is a part of them. When the suit goes away, they are still damaged. But the suit is not?? What about system failures? Does anybody know of alternate rules for incorporating damage to armor? An example of this is with Iron Man.... Tony takes a beating inside of the armor but the armor takes a beating too.... Theatrically, the suit is damaged and systems can fail due to the damage. What about armor ablation?

I like the M&M3e system and I played it for years, but I have always thought that the Power Armor rules were.... lacking.

Any help would be appreciated.
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Davies
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Re: Power Armor that takes damage

Post by Davies »

If you (as GM) want to say that a Removable Protection device needs to be repaired after it's taken a few good hits, you can give the character a hero point for Power Loss, same as any other form of Power Loss. Likewise, you (as Player) could volunteer that to get a hero point. Otherwise, I think armor ablation is covered by the way that your Toughness bonus effectively decreases with every failed resistance.
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Ares
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Re: Power Armor that takes damage

Post by Ares »

Maybe one option could be that if you pulled some kind of called shot to certain systems, you can briefly disable certain powers for a number of rounds based on your success. Like, if Iron Man is getting ready to Repulsor Blast someone, and Bullseye makes some kind of trick manuver where he throws something to hit the Energy Emitter in Tony's palm, then he can't use his energy blast for a number of rounds based on Bullseye's success.
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Shock
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Re: Power Armor that takes damage

Post by Shock »

Davies wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 2:22 am If you (as GM) want to say that a Removable Protection device needs to be repaired after it's taken a few good hits, you can give the character a hero point for Power Loss, same as any other form of Power Loss. Likewise, you (as Player) could volunteer that to get a hero point. Otherwise, I think armor ablation is covered by the way that your Toughness bonus effectively decreases with every failed resistance.
I might expand on this concept and add a flaw to the armor that says the wearer has to make a Fortitude save (or power check) after a failed Toughness save or a random system fails until repaired
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Davies
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Re: Power Armor that takes damage

Post by Davies »

You might also consider the Smash action, which lets you damage a worn object at no penalty. So the rules already let you do things like Ben Grimm grabbing Doctor Doom's gauntlets and crushing them during the Battle of the Baxter Building.
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FuzzyBoots
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Re: Power Armor that takes damage

Post by FuzzyBoots »

Davies wrote: Sat Oct 17, 2020 9:19 am You might also consider the Smash action, which lets you damage a worn object at no penalty. So the rules already let you do things like Ben Grimm grabbing Doctor Doom's gauntlets and crushing them during the Battle of the Baxter Building.
Related to that, since power armor quickly gets to insane amounts of Toughness, it's worth treating separate systems as individual Device. Instead of a TOughness of 22 for the entire suit, the Jets are Toughness 2 (or maybe rounded up to 3). The Plasma launchers are Toughness 4. The Powered Shell is Toughness 7. The Sensor Systems is Toughness 8. Or even breaking out some of the subsystems.
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JDRook
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Re: Power Armor that takes damage

Post by JDRook »

FuzzyBoots wrote: Sat Oct 17, 2020 6:29 pm Related to that, since power armor quickly gets to insane amounts of Toughness, it's worth treating separate systems as individual Device. Instead of a TOughness of 22 for the entire suit, the Jets are Toughness 2 (or maybe rounded up to 3). The Plasma launchers are Toughness 4. The Powered Shell is Toughness 7. The Sensor Systems is Toughness 8. Or even breaking out some of the subsystems.
I'm guessing the Toughness for individual systems is based off the old PP/5 equation. I never found that satisfying before, however it occured to me that giving that same system a proportional penalty to hit could work well. For example, the above Jets could be Toughness 3 but -7 to hit due to size and/or surrounding shielding, while the Sensor System at Toughness 8 is better armored but larger and easier to target at only -2. This has the advantage of making Accuracy-shifted PCs more useful.
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