Ideas for heavy armour... is power armour overpowered? HELP!!!

[duffybear1988]

Hi all

I have just converted up a 28mm inquisitor with a lightning claw and revolver.  Now I have the problem of making the rules fit the figure.  He has his own converted suit of terminator armour.

Now I know that to have him run around in that would basically break the game, so how do I go about representing it in a more friendly way?

I could count it as power armour, or give him some serious negatives, such as being slow and ponderous.  His warband only consists of himself and an average human pathfinder, and I don't plan to expand it at all, so I will rarely, if ever have the advantage of numbers on my side in games.

Does anyone have any ideas of how to represent bulky powered armour that won't put my friends off of playing?

[Charax]

There are lots of ways to make heavy armour that isn't gamebreaking. For example, make most of it Ablative - 10 points of Power Armour is intimidating. 3 points of Ceremite under 7 points of Ablative armour is just as defensive, but vulnerable to massed fire (the ceremite's extra effect only kicking in if something penetrates the first 7 points)

[Koval]

Balancing a heavily armoured character by limiting your number of characters isn't the best option. Go for an alternative approach, and justify it with a good bit of background -- make it fit the character, rather than making the character fit the armour.

It could simply be that this variety of power armour is a much larger and less well-made affair than the suits worn by most unaugmented humans (the Ignatus pattern's fairly popular among Inquisitors as it's not especially cumbersome, but there's also the type worn by the Adepta Sororitas, and sufficiently wealthy Rogue Traders can probably acquire a suit as well). Say it looks like it's trying to be Tactical Dreadnought armour, but it's a classic case of form over function and the actual armour itself has suffered for it.

With that in mind I'd borrow a few 40KRP rules mechanics, namely that you become easier to hit (I'd say a +20 for people to hit you would be sensible). I'd also suggest that the suit itself is fairly noisy (increased range for people to hear your footsteps, and you can't sneak -- do keep in mind that power armour's supposed to be a bit noisy anyway), and you'd possibly have a movement penalty as well if you're trying to sprint (-1 yard?)

I'd argue that the revolver's a bit silly, though that's from a practicality point of view as your hands are going to be huge. If you really want it to be a revolver I'd consider using a Mid-Magnum or High-Magnum version from Marco's RIA, just on the basis that they're likely to have physically larger frames.

I'm not especially wild about the lightning claw, either, but that is evidently what you've modelled. Again, make it fit the character.

[Kaled]

I realise this is not really an answer to your question, but another option you have if your character turns out to be too powerful for most games is to make a version of him not wearing his armour for games where he's investigating and save the heavily-armoured version for games where he knows he's walking into a fight. It can be a good way to give him more character and makes for a fun modelling challenge.

[Inquisitor Dionzi]

Myself, I made Dionzi have power-armour to begin with, and I was shouted out into a little, little box that I didn't come out of for a while  That said, I merely switched it to a complex suit of carapace armour fashioned to look like power armour!

[Koval]

Why? As long as you can justify it and it makes sense for the character, I wouldn't have had a problem with it at all.

[greenstuff_gav]

Lord Inquisitor Ro Hymunin wears full Power Armour (to all locations bar head) as it suits his character; brash, arrogant and headstrong. as an in-game balance he's not a great shot or skilled in combat but when he does hit.. pow!

as Koval says; if you can justify why a character has it (remembering how Powered Armour is a high-class, high maintenance fairly uncommon item) then use it!

[Mordenkenain]

it depends on what you want the character to do, If they are also a beast in close combat, yes, my bodyguard only has plate, but is VERY difficult to harm. If they are a shooty character, also, a bad idea, if they are wearing the armour because they are more of a 'thinky character' and need some defense, go right ahead

[Koval]

it depends on what you want the character to do, If they are also a beast in close combat, yes, my bodyguard only has plate, but is VERY difficult to harm. If they are a shooty character, also, a bad idea, if they are wearing the armour because they are more of a 'thinky character' and need some defense, go right ahead

Completely discounting the fact that armour tends to be worn by people expecting to get hurt (so the fighty types you mention, rather than the thinker), I don't think this is a particularly sound approach. Giving the character something because you want to is all well and good up to a point ("because I wanted to" is a fair chunk of the creative process, after all), but it's got to fit the character, his identity, his personality, his strengths and weaknesses. Basically, "is he the sort of character that would have X, if so, why?" is how I'd do it.

As an example, I've got a power-armoured character, Inquisitor Ottakar Grant, on my spreadsheet. I wouldn't use him in games of Inquisitor primarily because I have no idea how to model someone who's about 4'11" and built like a cannonball, but the point is that he's got power armour. Reasons why include "he's an Inquisitor", "he's very active in blasting the ever-living snot out of xenos and xenoist cults", and "although he can do subtlety when he has to, he's the type to pull out all the stops when it comes to shooting stuff". He needed his armour more or less custom-built anyway, and decided that if he was going that far, he might as well go all the way up to power armour.

[MarcoSkoll]

... I partially agree with Mordenkenain - after all, giving a power sword to a WS 87 character is more of a monster than giving it to a WS 65 character - but, as Koval says, game balance has to play out against character.

A thinky character... isn't going to be the kind of person who needs heavy armour. It's not their job to get stuck in. If it's not power armour, it's probably going to be very cumbersome for such a person... and if it is, everyone will think you're the best person to shoot first.

I'd excuse that the most skilled combatants might avoid heavy armour - partly for game balance, but perhaps for fluff reasons like keeping mobility, avoiding unwanted attention and the like. Similar to the reasons why most of my characters don't carry bolters!

[Mordenkenain]

Yes, I perhaps didn't express myself very well, I was merely trying to get across the idea that the most skilled characters are probably inadvisable to give power armour to as it makes them a little unbalanced. Sorry, I have a tendency to overdo my examples a bit