ATOW battlearmor

[victor_shaw]

So are they planing on giving time of war stats to Battle armor or do the stats from 3rd ed work in ATOW?

[monbvol]

Everything you need for that is already in AToW.

[Maelwys]

I think they're just wondering if the stats were published or going to be.

My question is, what value do you use to determine the BAR of the BA?

A Purifier has 6 points of mimetic armor. +1 for the Pilot.

Is the BAR in ATOW based on the 6 points of armor, or the 7 total?

[victor_shaw]

I have all the books and nothing I need is in AToW?
There are no attribute modifiers.
What size power pack do they carry
special rule for the different types of armor
No information on the individual Armors.
No info on their jump movement outside of tactical combat.
Little to nothing on how to use them in the RPG without resorting to tactical combat.
The list goes on.
I hate to tell you this but AToW is not this god of books you seem to think it is.

[victor_shaw]

Just the Armor not the person.
so it would be just 6 points or 8/7/6/6.

[monbvol]

Page 185, 186.  Talks about how to damage Battle Armor at any scale.

201 and 214 also provide useful information.

298 tells you how to use the various concealment systems available to Battlearmor.

Check page 216 for Strength modifiers.

Is it god? No but it does quite clearly cover a lot of what you are looking for.

[victor_shaw]

Page 185, 186.  Talks about how to damage Battle Armor at any scale.

? not sure where I asked for this.

201 and 214 also provide useful information.

Again this is tactical combat information. which is not what I was looking for.

298 tells you how to use the various concealment systems available to Battlearmor.

Didn't ask about this but o.k.
These are generic concealment systems that they have had in every version of the game.
In 2nd and 3rd each BA with concealment systems had their own rules on how they worked.

Check page 216 for Strength modifiers.

This is just a damage mod to melee attacks.
This doesn't help with lifting/running/dexterity/reflexes/etc.
Examples from 3rd:

Clan Elemetal armor
Equipment Ratings:F/C/E
Attributes: STR +4, DEX -1, RFL -1 until SRM pack is jettisoned.
Melee AP: 2
Target size mod: -1
Movement: -1/-2/-3 until SRM pack is jettisoned. jump capable

IS Battle Armor
Equipment Ratings:E/D/E
Attributes: STR +3, DEX -2, RFL -1
Melee AP: 2
Target size mod: -1
Movement: -2/-4/-6, jump capable

Infiltrator MK.II
Equipment Ratings:E/E/F
Attributes: STR +3, DEX -2, RFL -1
Melee AP: 2
Target size mod: -1
Movement: -1/-2/-3, jump capable

All 3 of these units are of the same class but have different weapon load-outs allowed, special and unique subsystem. The rules in AToW make every BA generic by weight, and you Have to do all the work to set them up.

Is it god? No but it does quite clearly cover a lot of what you are looking for.

None of the info you are quoting is what I was looking for that was present in the 2nd and 3rd edition of the game.
AToW needs some more Books or PDFs to flush-out a lot of this info.
They went way to generic were it counts and flushed out to many areas that were unimportant.

[monbvol]

You were asking how to handle Battle Armor outside tactical combat.  Page 185-186 describes how to damage them.

201 and 214 can be used at the very minimum as a framework of how to handle Battle Armor outside Tactical Combat.

298 now unifies the rules and gives all the information you need for stuff like Mimetic Armor, Basic Stealth Armor, and Improved Stealth Armor.

Page 216 also explicitly gives the Strength bonus.  Which effects lifting and running.  Dexterity and Reflexes modifiers seem to have been discarded.

If you want less generalization for Battle Armor the frame works are there that you can work from.

[monbvol]

To be fair and try and not be an ass I do understand that you're frustrated that you do have to work at converting Battle Armor.

I get that frustration but in all the things that AToW presents that someone has to work at to get the full benefit from, Battle Armor at least has a framework to start from.  There are a lot of other things I've had to put in tons of house rules for just to even get frameworks to start from.

[victor_shaw]

Was not trying to come off so harsh, but have just got tired of the "all you need is the corebook" or "or the the new system is great and has no flaws" response to ever question or comment on most RPG sites these days. Have been dealing with FFGs attempts to ruin Legend of the Five Rings lately #P.
That said, as I asked in the OP is 3rd close enough to 4th to just use the info on BA in 3rd?

[monbvol]

Well I did feel I may have come off as overly abrasive myself.

The biggest differences do seem to be in how they handle certain aspects.  Like Detachable Weapon Packs don't slow a trooper down anymore but until detached make it harder for them to Battleclaw someone in the face, which I think is actually a much stiffer penalty than decreasing Dexterity or Reflexes.

So yeah it'll probably still take some work but the 3rd stats should at least get you close enough that it shouldn't be a big deal.

[kronovan]

Examples from 3rd:

Clan Elemetal armor
Equipment Ratings:F/C/E
Attributes: STR +4, DEX -1, RFL -1 until SRM pack is jettisoned.
Melee AP: 2
Target size mod: -1
Movement: -1/-2/-3 until SRM pack is jettisoned. jump capable

IS Battle Armor
Equipment Ratings:E/D/E
Attributes: STR +3, DEX -2, RFL -1
Melee AP: 2
Target size mod: -1
Movement: -2/-4/-6, jump capable

Infiltrator MK.II
Equipment Ratings:E/E/F
Attributes: STR +3, DEX -2, RFL -1
Melee AP: 2
Target size mod: -1
Movement: -1/-2/-3, jump capable

I'm new to ATOW, but having recently poured over the book and companion I can't think of anything that would not allow those MW3 Battle Armor stats to work in this edition. The Target Size modifier could be a problem if you're running standard combat, as BA has a size of large and IIRC that grants a +1 modifier to hit. As well, the DEX and RFL penalties are going to have a big impact on ranged combat for those BA, as the Gunnery/Battlesuit skill links both of those attributes as does Piloting/Battlesuit. You'd also need to enhance the Melee AP stat with the values in the Battle Armor Melee Modifiers table on pg. 216, as the stats listed there also include the BD.

Most of the stats do seem to all be there in ATOW, but they're scattered over a series of tables in the standard combat and tactical combat sections. Attribute modifiers are the exception though - such modifiers don't seem to be present in any descriptive text or tables. Maybe it was the decision of the design team to eliminate such modifiers though, since as I said above they'd place quite a penalty on character performance in BA.

[monbvol]

The Strength modifier is still there but TPTB do seem to be of a mind that instead of impacting Dexterity and Reflexes, which can impact your shooting in Battle Armor and thus doesn't really mesh with the setting or make much sense, they would rather apply penalties directly to the Martial Arts and Melee skills.

Likewise they seem to have decided it was a bit silly to apply movement modifiers when none of the fiction or unit write ups mention Battle Armor having difficulty keeping up with PBIs.

These are all decisions I can live with and are part of why I consider Battle Armor to be worth the hundreds of XP in Vehicle trait to get.

[kronovan]

The Strength modifier is still there but TPTB do seem to be of a mind that instead of impacting Dexterity and Reflexes, which can impact your shooting in Battle Armor and thus doesn't really mesh with the setting or make much sense, they would rather apply penalties directly to the Martial Arts and Melee skills.

Likewise they seem to have decided it was a bit silly to apply movement modifiers when none of the fiction or unit write ups mention Battle Armor having difficulty keeping up with PBIs.

Agreed. While I'm far from the most read on the BT universe, I can't think of anything I've come across where such impediments were placed on characters wearing BA.

TBH It's sort of moot for me, as I don't really plan on mixing different combat scales in my adventures and probably won't use BA with the tactical combat rules. Before I ever cracked the ATOW book, I ran a mini-campaign set in the BT universe via an excellent fan-made hack for the Savage Worlds RPG. Since that hack was released before the Savage Worlds Sci-Fi Companion, there wasn't much to go on for mixed battles other than the abstract core rule for mass battles. The hack did however include excellent rules for merging Savage Worlds movement and attack with the Total Warfare damage system.

The creators of the hack had experience with editions of Mech Warrior and a bit with ATOW, and their recommendation was to not mix combat scales. Following that lead, for combat encounters in my adventures I just always made sure PCs had some sort of ride (combat vehicle or mech) for Mech scale combat. I did later bring in Battle Armor for combat at character scale, but that was after the SFC was released and I had templates for the core RPG to show how to stat them. I'm planning on going the same route with ATOW and will probably just use Total Warfare for anything on the tactical scale.

[monbvol]

*nod*

Battle Armor is the easiest and most powerful Vehicle type to incorporate into the personal scale.

[kronovan]

I'm also considering (no doubt sacrilege here to even admit it 8) ) using Alpha Strike for tactical combat, as a number of my players have embraced and enjoy it. I like that AS is a lighter rule set, which would better allow same sessions where adventuring and roleplay encounters are mixed in with decent sized tactical combat encounters. AS poses a number of problems/challenges though, in that it uses a single unified skill for combat pilots/drivers and there's lots missing from its rules like consciousness checks.

I was thinking of just doing the skills conversion as per the technique for TW and then averaging Gunnery/'Mech+Piloting/'Mech or Gunnery/Ground Vehicle+Piloting/Ground Vehicle to arrive at a single skill score. If I used it for tactical I'd definitely keep BA strictly to ATOW personal scale, as AS always treats them as squads of 4 which could be problematic if the party of PCs don't have that many donned in battlesuits.

Anyhow, didn't want to derail this thread too much. Just thinking BA has me thinking about all the possibilities for handling combat, which I consider a strength of this system.

[monbvol]

Oh no worries as I think it is a connected issue-taking Battle Armor from scale to scale and how to resolve it with one of those scales being AToW personal scale.

Alpha Strike is not a problem with me.  I actually really like the concept and have little doubt that if I ever play a game of table top in person again that is probably the rules that will be in use.  As you point out though it does lose a lot of the granularity of Total Warfare and even AToW.  Thus making converting a bit more of a chore and less satisfying.  But I won't ever say you are wrong for wanting to do it.