Advanced Armored Battlesuit Rules
for Marvel Super Heroes
Originally Published by
Justin Mohareb in Dragon Magazine # 180.
Scenario one (from the Iron Man comic book): Tony Stark, as
Iron Man, fights Firepower and receives several damaging blows. Tony is beaten
senseless and has his armor nearly destroyed, so he has to fly warily to his
nearby helicopter.
Scenario two (from the MARVEL SUPER HEROES game): Tony Stark, as Iron Man,
fights Firepower and receives several damaging blows. Tony is beaten senseless
and flies his undamaged armor at top speed to his nearby helicopter.
Notice the difference? In the MARVEL SUPER HEROES game, armored battlesuit
combat should be handled differently to reflect damage incurred to the armor
during combat, and to better represent the unusual abilities of an armored
hero. The system in this article showcases an alternate method of generating
and playing high-tech armored characters.
CREATING ARMORED HEROES
This article assumes that you have MA3 THE ULTIMATE POWERS BOOK. If you don't,
simply use the PLAYERS' BOOK from the Advanced Set rules, selecting the powers
you think are reproducible by machinery or electronics. Using this system,
armored heroes are rolled up using column 2 ("Normal Folks") of the
character-generation table, not column 3 ("High Technology") as in
both the Ultimate Powers Book or the Advanced Set rules. 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 him with his super powers.
Judges may wish to allow a character to increase his
physical stats when wearing the armor by rolling once on Table 1 here, 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 above, 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 the ULTIMATE POWERS BOOK or the Advanced Set rules. 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 use only certain powers that could
be technology based. A suggested list of these powers, from the ULTIMATE POWERS
BOOK, is given here:
DEFENSIVE POWERS: Body armor (already taken but can be taken again; +1CS each
time this is chosen as a power), Force Field, Reflection, Resistance to Energy
Attacks, Resistance to Physical Attacks.
DETECTION POWERS: Circular Vision, Energy Detection, Hypersensitive Hearing,
Hypersensitive Touch, Life Detection, Microscopic Vision, Penetration Vision,
Radarsense, Sonar, Telescopic Vision, Thermal Vision, Ultraviolet Vision.
ENERGY CONTROL POWERS: Electrical Control, Energy Sponge, Hard Radiation
Control, Magnetic Manipulation.
ENERGY EMISSION POWERS: All except for Energy Doppelganger.
FIGHTING POWERS: Weapons Creation.
ILLUSORY POWERS: Illusion-Casting, Illusory Duplication.
LIFE CONTROL POWERS: Sleep - Induced.
MAGICAL POWERS: None.
MATTER CONTROL POWERS: Bonding, Machine Animation.
MATTER CONVERSION POWERS: Disintegration.
MATTER CREATION POWERS: Missile Creation, Spray, Webcasting.
MENTAL ENHANCEMENT POWERS: Clairaudience, Clairvoyance, Communicate With
Cybernetics, Danger Sense, Speech-throwing, Total Memory. (These powers are not
mental powers per se, but are technological versions of mental powers).
PHYSICAL ENHANCEMENT POWERS: Hyper-Speed, Lung Adaptability,
Stealth, Water breathing, Water Freedom.
POWER CONTROL POWERS: None.
SELF ALTERATION POWERS: Blending, Invisibility.
TRAVEL POWERS: Gliding, Hyper-Digging, Hyper-Leaping, Hyper-Running,
Hyper-Swimming and 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 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
equal to the amount of 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 the
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 take 20 points of
damage and 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 to 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 plus 500 points for cresting from one rank to
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.
Creativity is the key to any successful and enjoyable role-playing game. This
system can only get you started on the way. Where you go now is up to you.
TABLE 1
ARMOR MODIFIERS FOR FASE ABILITIES
1d100....................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 Result
01-20....................….. One
power 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