Environmental body armor

[drakinn]

extreme conditions often cause equipment to fail. how would you implement a fair way to test characters full environmental armor. For example surviving in a major desert of harsh jungle. I just imagine a suit of armor running its cooling system to the hilt for the majority of the day.

[Bill]

I dunno. I prefer to focus on action and relationships rather than mundane details like a cooling system breaking down. If I were going to do that, I'd say at least a week of continuous use. It's super-science armor designed to absorb the impact of attacks that would vaporize a building. A little sand and humidity isn't going to lay it low.

As for the test, I'd handle it as a saving throw; save on 5+ to start and increase the difficulty by one at regular intervals. So 6+ at day 8 and 7+ on day nine. I'd also increase the difficulty after every combat until the armor is serviced and possibly after half the MDC has been depleted. For example, the character as been wading through the Amazon for ten days, he's been in two fights and half the suit's MDC is gone; he needs to save versus mechanical failure on an 11+ or get the suit serviced.

[drakinn]

I dunno. I prefer to focus on action and relationships rather than mundane details like a cooling system breaking down. If I were going to do that, I'd say at least a week of continuous use. It's super-science armor designed to absorb the impact of attacks that would vaporize a building. A little sand and humidity isn't going to lay it low.

even the most mundane detail can turn into an adventure surrounding relationships and adventure. environmental system breaks down leading to exposure to illnesses and the need to survive. classic man vs. nature plot

[Bill]

even the most mundane detail can turn into an adventure surrounding relationships and adventure. environmental system breaks down leading to exposure to illnesses and the need to survive. classic man vs. nature plot

Yawn. Gimme a running battle on the back of a giant mobile command center wired to explode and loaded with puppies over foraging for food any day. To each his own though.

[Killer Cyborg]

I dunno. I prefer to focus on action and relationships rather than mundane details like a cooling system breaking down. If I were going to do that, I'd say at least a week of continuous use. It's super-science armor designed to absorb the impact of attacks that would vaporize a building. A little sand and humidity isn't going to lay it low.

even the most mundane detail can turn into an adventure surrounding relationships and adventure. environmental system breaks down leading to exposure to illnesses and the need to survive. classic man vs. nature plot

To a point, I agree.
The Firefly episode Out of Gas illustrates how maintenance and repair can make for a very interesting story or adventure.

My issue is consistency.
There are no rules in the game for armor breaking down or wearing out in any way, nor even running out of power.
In fact, there's indication that EBA is at least highly resistant to such things.

I dislike situations where normally reliable equipment suddenly breaks down and/or requires maintenance, because it disrupts suspension of disbelief.
Unless there's an x-factor involved that isn't normally present.

(In Firefly, the breakdown was caused by Mal not replacing a key part of the ship that had been mentioned in several previous episodes as needing to be replaced; the threat of mechanical breakdown was part of that setting and overall storyline. Not so much in Rifts, unless you want to make the whole game more complicated.)

[drakinn]

I dunno. I prefer to focus on action and relationships rather than mundane details like a cooling system breaking down. If I were going to do that, I'd say at least a week of continuous use. It's super-science armor designed to absorb the impact of attacks that would vaporize a building. A little sand and humidity isn't going to lay it low.

even the most mundane detail can turn into an adventure surrounding relationships and adventure. environmental system breaks down leading to exposure to illnesses and the need to survive. classic man vs. nature plot

To a point, I agree.
The Firefly episode Out of Gas illustrates how maintenance and repair can make for a very interesting story or adventure.

My issue is consistency.
There are no rules in the game for armor breaking down or wearing out in any way, nor even running out of power.
In fact, there's indication that EBA is at least highly resistant to such things.

I dislike situations where normally reliable equipment suddenly breaks down and/or requires maintenance, because it disrupts suspension of disbelief.
Unless there's an x-factor involved that isn't normally present.

(In Firefly, the breakdown was caused by Mal not replacing a key part of the ship that had been mentioned in several previous episodes as needing to be replaced; the threat of mechanical breakdown was part of that setting and overall storyline. Not so much in Rifts, unless you want to make the whole game more complicated.)

Most of my players maintain/clean their weapons, armor, and equipment each night they camp. this ensures that their equipment is in operational order. I just know that equipment fails and it can lead to great challenges and makes combat much more thoughtful.

[Noon]

Well, I'm not sure it makes things more thoughtful - the players can tell the GM is just proding them. It didn't matter how thoughtful they were before, the GM just lands them with a problem anyway. So why get more thoughtful? The GM will just drop more problems whether you think or don't think. So easier to just not think. Thus the group becomes less thoughtful.

Yawn. Gimme a running battle on the back of a giant mobile command center wired to explode and loaded with puppies over foraging for food any day.

On the other hand, if eating has lost it's lustre, how long will the command center maintain it's lustre?

[Cinos]

I agree pretty fully with KC on this, and vehemently disagree with Bill.

The mundane has a thousand times more story telling magic then any explosion or epic gun fight turned sword duel turned giant firebreathing monster-vampire.

If nothing else for the simple reason that it's relate-able. You can tell a lot and learn a lot about a character by how they're bothered by a fly. Situations like that let you learn about a character, both from a players perspective, and from a story one.

To address the problems KC did bring up, I did make some home rules for armor and weapons for breaking down and other subtle things (this was also to help change up the rules and make an item of combat gear more then "How much MDC" or "How much damage / Efficacy").

As a base line, all modern armor has a Durability of 10. Every 12 hours they're exposed (not necessarily consecutive hours), they make a check of a D20, adding their Durability against a GM made difficulty (Characters who are trained in repair or maintenance get a bonus, such as armorer, as well as characters expected to live out of their armor for a period, like soldiers). If it fails, it indicates a malfunction related to the stress. An arid badlands for example, runs a check of 14, meaning it needs a pretty bad suit of armor, or extreme lack of care to break down. While something super worse (baalgor, for example), might have a 20 or 25, drastically increasing the work need be done to keep it running well.

I also added more details to remove the 'super' nature of EBA's, a few brands just don't have the air conditions and controls others do (Like the Urban Warrior), and all are operated by contained batteries (or jury rigged to work off E-Clips) and only carry a week or two worth of a charge before it needs to be hooked up and re-charged, and running energy intensive things like AC can deplete this. This in tern can force stragetic choices to stay out of armor to conserve power, or create situations to drain the enemies powers before an ambush.

[Killer Cyborg]

Well, I'm not sure it makes things more thoughtful - the players can tell the GM is just proding them. It didn't matter how thoughtful they were before, the GM just lands them with a problem anyway. So why get more thoughtful? The GM will just drop more problems whether you think or don't think. So easier to just not think. Thus the group becomes less thoughtful.

I actually agree with Noon on this, to a point.

[Noon]

even the most mundane detail can turn into an adventure surrounding relationships and adventure. environmental system breaks down leading to exposure to illnesses and the need to survive. classic man vs. nature plot

Possibly a problem here is the habit of 'if it doesn't threaten your life, it doesn't matter'.

Trying to extend a broken air conditioner to life threatening levels is kind of...stretching it?

Maybe you just want to run a game session where it's not death that's around every corner? So it comes down to how happy the characters are with their lives so far, rather than whether they can hit the monster with the plasma rifle?