Battlesuits
Creating Armored Heroes
First you have to have a character. I hope you already rolled up the Physical stats before coming here.
I'll Wait
Done? Ok here we go
These abilities are the character's normal levels. This is to reflect that the
character is a normal human wearing an armored suit that supplies his super
powers. Judges may wish to allow a character to increase his physical
stats when wearing the armor by roll once on Table 1 (below), then dividing
the results among the hero's four physical abilities (FASE).
Note that the ability scores indicated when the character adds
the modifiers to his personal attributes reflect the benefits of the armor
only when it is being worn. For example, a character whose Strength is Typical
(6), with a +3CS modifier for the armor, might add +1CS, +2CS or +3CS to his
Strength, or he might not increase his Strength at all, preferring to
divide +3CS among his other three physical statistics.
If the character created his own armor, he also receives a +1CS
to his Reason, a +1CS to his Electronics talent, and another +1CS to
repair and modify his personal armor. If the character receives the armor
from someone else, it is assumed that the original owner or people he knows
(all NPCs) can repair it. In the latter case, the hero would not receive
any of the Reason bonuses, though he could receive training later on, at
the Judge's discretion.
The character then rolls up the number of his armored suit's
powers, using
the usual tables in Chapter One. This character automatically has
Body Armor at Excellent (20) rank, though this can be
increased (see the note under "Defensive Powers,") which
follows. When the character's powers are determined, a special power rank called
Armor Endurance is also created. This is usually called ECM
(electronic countermeasures) and is used against attempts to control the
armor from outside sources.
Because of their nature, armored heroes can only use certain
powers that could be technology based. A suggested list of these powers,
from the Ultimate Powers Book, is given here:
Defensive Powers:
1-10 Body Armor (already taken but can be taken again; +1CS each time this is chosen as
a power).
11-14 Force Field
15 Reflection
16 Resistance to Energy Attacks
17 Resistance to Physical Attacks
Detection Powers:
18 Circular Vision
19 Energy Detection
20 Hypersensitive Hearing
21 Hypersensitive Touch
22 Life Detection
23 Microscopic Vision
24 Penetration Vision
25 Radarsense
26 Sonar
27 Telescopic Vision
28 Thermal Vision
29 Ultraviolet vision
Energy Control Powers:
30 Electrical Control
31 Energy Sponge
32 Hard Radiation Control
33 Magnetic Manipulation
Energy Emission Powers:
34 Cold Generation
35 Corrosive missle
36-37 Electrical Generation
40 Fire Generation
41 Hard Radiation
42-43 Heat Generation
44 Ice Generation
45-46 Kinetic Bolt
47-48 Light Generation
49-50 Magnetism
51 Nullifying Missle*
52-53 Plasma Generation
54 Projectile Missle
55 Radiowave Generation
56 Shadowcasting
57-58 Sonic Generation
59-60 Stunning Missle
61 Vibration
Fighting Powers:
62 Weapons Creation*
Illusory Powers:
63 Illusion-Casting
64 Illusory Duplication
Life Control Powers:
65 Sleep-Induced
Matter Control Powers:
66 Bonding
67 Machine Animation*
Matter Conversion Powers:
68 Disintegration*
Matter Creation Powers:
69 Missile Creation
70 Spray
71 Webcasting
Mental Enhancement Powers:
72 Clairaudience
73 Clairvoyance
74 Communicate With Cybernetics
75 Danger Sense
76 Speech-Throwing
77 Telekinesis (tractor Beams)
78 Total Memory
(These powers are not mental powers per se, but are technological versions of
mental powers)
Physical Enhancement Powers:
79 Hyper-Speed
80 Lung Adaptability
81 Stealth
82 Waterbreathing
83 Water Freedom
Self Alteration Powers:
84 Blending
85 Invisibility
Travel Powers:
88 Gliding
89 Hyper-Digging
90 Hyper-Leaping
91 Hyper-Running
92 Hyper-Swimming
93-00 Rocket
Players can choose their armor's powers from this list. If you
find this list to be too limiting, just use your imagination. The
cornerstone of super-hero gaming is the use of powers in new ways. Once the
powers for the battlesuit have been selected, rolls are made on Table 2 for the
power rank of each power. These rolls are not modified, with the exception
of Body Armor (as previously noted). Also generate a power rank for
Armor Endurance at this point.
Damaging Armor
To add depth to armored combat, each power--including Body Armor--and each
of the FASE ability modifiers is then assigned a number as part
of a random-roll table. These numbers will determine which of the
armor's systems are damaged when an attack exceeds the suit's Body Armor
(or applicable Force Fields, etc) by more than +1CS, as noted later.
The numbers should be arranged so as they can be rolled on a simple
die: 1d8, 1d10, 1d12, etc. Optionally, assign two or more numbers on such
a table to a power that would have a greater chance of being damaged., like
Body Armor or Flight, depending on your vision of the character's armored
suit and the placement of his weaponry and equipment.
We now get to the raison d'etre for this expanded system:
armored suit combat. Every time the character is in combat and receives a
blow that inflicts more damage than his Body Armor rank, the character
takes damage minus the amount absorbed by his body armor. For example, if a
hero has Remarkable (30) Body Armor and is hit by an Incredible (40) rank
Force Bolt, the hero takes 10 points of damage (40 - 30 = 10). This is per
normal rules. If the damage is 2CS or more than the Body Armor rank, the
character takes the appropriate damage, and percentile dice are then rolled on
the rank of the attack -4CS to determine if the character's armor was
damaged by the attack. For example, if the hero as above with Remarkable (30)
Body Armor was punched by a villain possessing Amazing (50) Strength, the
hero would roll 1d100 on the Good (10) column (50 - 4CS = 10). If the
result is red, then roll on Table 3. Energy attacks are a special case, as
Body Armor is 20 points less effective against energy attacks than against
physical ones. When a hero is hit by an Energy attack capable of breaching the
armor's reduced rank vs. Energy attacks, the character must follow the
procedure for determining armor damage from physical attacks as before.
Armored heroes can take Resistance to Energy Attacks to cover this weakness.
Repairing Damage
Fixing damaged armor is relatively simple. The hero must make a
Reason FEAT roll to make the proper repairs correctly. A Resources FEAT
roll might be called for as well, to see if the hero can
afford to make the repairs. Other strictures can be applied to
the roll at the Judge's whim. It is often a good idea for the Judge to make
the Reason FEAT roll for the hero in secret. That way, if the roll is a
failure by a narrow margin--say, within five points of the number needed for
success--the hero may mistakenly believe that his armor is repaired when it
actually might fail at an important moment. This is a nasty thing to do,
but I leave the decision whether or not to use this up to each Judge.
Armored Advancement
The player may, at some point in his hero's career, attempt to
modify the hero's armor by adding new powers. Armor powers can be added,
up to the maximum number that was determined at creation, by spending
3,000 Karma for each, plus 10 times the starting rank number for that power
(this is also the formula by which robots can add powers). Power advancement
is done normally, by spending 10 points times the current rank number
plus 500 points for cresting from one rank to the another.
A Reason FEAT roll should be called for, with the difficulty
equal to the new rank, if an old power is being advanced to a new, higher
rank or if a new power is set at its starting level. A Resource FEAT roll
might also be needed to see if the hero has the cash to perform the
modifications. The Judge should make his own rulings on how to do the "total
makeover" that's so popular with armored heroes, including such things as
resetting Popularity to zero, upping appropriate powers and FASE abilities
one rank, or adding new things. This should cost a great deal; about
10,000 Karma points, a high Resource FEAT roll (Amazing or better), and
access to high-tech equipment or a high (Incredible or better) Reason FEAT
roll (this is of course up to the individual Judge). All other forms of
advancement are performed normally.
Table 1
Armor Modifiers For FASE
Abilities
Die Roll Result
01-10 Unchanged
11-20 +1CS
21-45 +2CS
46-75 +3CS
76-95 +4CS
96-00 +5CS
Table 2
Power Rank Generation
Table
1d100 Power Rank
01-05 Feeble (2)
06-10 Poor (4)
11-20 Typical (6)
21-40 Good (10)
41-55 Excellent (20)
56-80 Remarkable (30)
81-95 Incredible (40)
96-00 Amazing (50)
Table 3
Armor Damage Table
1d100 Damage Results
01-20 One Power is at -2CS
21-40 One FASE ability modifier is at -2CS
41-65 One power is inoperative
66-90 All powers are at -1CS
91-94 All FASE ability modifiers are -1CS
95-98 All FASE ability modifiers and powers are at -2CS
99-00 Massive systems overload. All FASE ability
modifiers are at-2CS, and all powers, with the
exception of one (of the player's choice) are inoperative