Power Armor Piloting

[Dustin Fireblade]

<clipped from other thread>

... I noticed something this morning in RUE page 318

Dodging and Shooting while Driving BOTH cause a piloting check to avoid losing control. This is one of those things in the past I've always wondered about. This makes it a GM Call any time the player fails a pilot check along with taking a shot or taking a dodge be it they wreck or they automatically fail the dodge/shot.

I've always felt that the pilot power armor and robots skill was under used. This would drastically change that but also weigh down armor combat with many extra rolls. It also might be able to be argued this balances the basic power of them verse non-armor based characters.

I've been arguing with a player over this intrepitation (not about a game in motion).

Do yinz guys do this? Seems like a power armor guy would be rolling many many many pilot checks and would be basically guaranteed to fail every combat at some point. While on one hand I like skill getting some usage the other hand thinks this is to much. So I'm curious on if you people read this the same way, if you do it... or if you only do it when they are going fast.

I'm inclined to assume hovering or being mostly still would avoid these checks but i don't know if this is "as writ" for the dodging.

pilot power armor is like 56 + 3 per level.... plus some occ's give a 10 or 15 % bonus... so its like a 25% chance to fail any check.

I did if the character had to jump to a specific spot, or some sort of a precision move. As the GM you can impose a bonus or determine the level of difficulty, which I did. Most of the time they made their rolls but I recall a few failed rolls.

[Dog_O_War]

I've been arguing with a player over this intrepitation (not about a game in motion).

Do yinz guys do this? Seems like a power armor guy would be rolling many many many pilot checks and would be basically guaranteed to fail every combat at some point. While on one hand I like skill getting some usage the other hand thinks this is to much. So I'm curious on if you people read this the same way, if you do it... or if you only do it when they are going fast.

Hellz no. That's stupid. It's also in conflict with the blurb right under the listed percentage of the pilot: robots and power armor skill, "Power Armor is typically man-sized and often worn like body armor, although sometimes the pilot sits inside. In all cases, the power armor responds to the pilot's physical movements." (bolded for emphasis)
There is no skill roll to move one's arms and legs, therefore it's impossible to fail when the suit responds in-kind to these movements.

I'm inclined to assume hovering or being mostly still would avoid these checks but i don't know if this is "as writ" for the dodging.

pilot power armor is like 56 + 3 per level.... plus some occ's give a 10 or 15 % bonus... so its like a 25% chance to fail any check.

Hovering requires a pilot jetpacks roll, as power armor uses jetpacks to fly.

Also, no piloting check is required to make a dodge-roll in PA, as again - in all cases it responds to the wearers' movement. So if the wearer decides to dodge out of the way of an attack, so too will the suit.

For Robots, not so much.

[Jorel]

OK i can dig that... but what when the PA guy is blazing at 60 MPH running? I mean, at that point you can't really say its responding to his legs... at that point the guy is riding the totally automated legs of the armor.

I'm not running any game at the moment, just wondering if I do, how to run armors.

If it is questionable terrain, then have the player make a skill check, otherwise that is a pretty standard maneuver.

[Dog_O_War]

OK i can dig that... but what when the PA guy is blazing at 60 MPH running? I mean, at that point you can't really say its responding to his legs... at that point the guy is riding the totally automated legs of the armor.

I'm not running any game at the moment, just wondering if I do, how to run armors.

Well for one, there is no piloting roll needed, as the suit is in all cases, responding to the wearer's movements. That includes running. As to how the user/suit have a normal guy moving at that speed via running motion shouldn't be your primary concern. I typically explain these types of situations away with FIREBALL!

[Colt47]

OK i can dig that... but what when the PA guy is blazing at 60 MPH running? I mean, at that point you can't really say its responding to his legs... at that point the guy is riding the totally automated legs of the armor.

I'm not running any game at the moment, just wondering if I do, how to run armors.

Well for one, there is no piloting roll needed, as the suit is in all cases, responding to the wearer's movements. That includes running. As to how the user/suit have a normal guy moving at that speed via running motion shouldn't be your primary concern. I typically explain these types of situations away with FIREBALL!

Actually, fireball has the excuse of being magic and therefore unexplainable to begin with. The power armor on the other hand has practically no excuse as to how it can move at those speeds unless it is actually leaping across the terrain instead of running. If I remember right from the bio-mechanical demonstrations human legs can only withstand up to ~40 mph before suffering damage, augmented or not. In other words, any power armor with a "running speed" over 40 mph is physically damaging to the pilot unless the pilot is using the suit like a miniature robot. This is due to repetitious strain on the legs.

[Dog_O_War]

OK i can dig that... but what when the PA guy is blazing at 60 MPH running? I mean, at that point you can't really say its responding to his legs... at that point the guy is riding the totally automated legs of the armor.

I'm not running any game at the moment, just wondering if I do, how to run armors.

Well for one, there is no piloting roll needed, as the suit is in all cases, responding to the wearer's movements. That includes running. As to how the user/suit have a normal guy moving at that speed via running motion shouldn't be your primary concern. I typically explain these types of situations away with FIREBALL!

Actually, fireball has the excuse of being magic and therefore unexplainable to begin with.

Replace magic with "technology not currently possible in our reality" and you achieve the same answer. FIREBALL! is just quicker to say, and is generally pretty descriptive when it comes to any Sci-Fi/Fantasy game.

That is, it's more than possible to have a technologically created fireball when the technology you deal with doesn't yet exist

[Dog_O_War]

I can't think of any other factor to make it possible... so with that I think I would have to also fall back on the FIREBALL! explanation also. And I'm cool with that... I was just trying to find where in the rules is specifically declares when vehicle rules apply to power armor. I'm hearing a lot of assumptions due to the reality that palladium books never print all the details you need to do anything where you need to be able to read them.

Actually, to expand on a more technologically possible answer, PA typically reduces fatigue by 90% (wearer fatigues at 10% normal is the standard blurb in all PA). I would assume that because of the MPH number listed, the suit itself can be basically self-propelled, so I would figure on a button or voice command to increase running speed; "SAMAS, 40mph." "SAMAS 60mph." That sort of thing. That would be my guess for speeds beyond human norm.

[Vrykolas2k]

I call for such things randomly.

[Tearstone]

You're not taking into account Robotic PS. A great example is in the GI Joe movie. The Accelerator Suits.

They moved with a normal running pace, but the power in each stride was much higher, making for longer strides, which equated to a faster speed. I would imagine it's much the same for power armor, in that the pilot is running at his normal pace but the suit puts out so much force with the legs that the stride is several times longer in the same amount of time for each step.

This may be possible, it may not be possible, but that's my take on it.

[rc_brooks]

While an older post, I also ask for piloting roles if they are attacking and roll a 1-4 on an attack, if that helps figuring out when to use a PA/Robot pilot check.

[Dog_O_War]

While an older post, I also ask for piloting roles if they are attacking and roll a 1-4 on an attack, if that helps figuring out when to use a PA/Robot pilot check.

I just turned the skill into a proficiency.

As in "Powered Armour Proficiency", which enables the wearer to utilize a suit with the same rules as having Pilot: Robots and Power Armor, except that there is no percentage there to confuse them. It also successfully divides powered armour from robots.