First off some TL8 Battledress
There hasn't been a discussion about battledress in a while. Not like it hasn't happened before.
Anyway, one of the things I was thinking about T20 is that battledress is described as a continuation of combat armor (effectively just powered combat armor) however the effectiveness of the "Medium Battle dress" example is terrifically more protected under the basic rules then combat armor.
For example a 3d12 attack:
Against Combat armor:
Target takes the 3d12 stamina damage, and takes (best dice minus six) lifeblood damage. On a critical the target takes 6d12 stamina and lifeblood damage and is almost certainly killed outright.
Against MBD (Medium Battle Dress):
Target takes 3d12 damage, reduced to 1d12-3 by vehicle scaling and to 1d12-13 by the armor for no damage ever. On a critical the suit takes 1d12 damage, which may get transferred to the occupant (depending on the critical table roll) but will generally result in a minor level of malfunction in the suit.
Which means that there is a massive discontinuity between the two. Partially this gets fixed by changing the scaling rules for BD, but even then there is still a gap.
Now that is "Medium Battle Dress" I am thinking there is a place for "Light Battle Dress" that is much closer to just powered combat armor.
So my thoughts.
Light Battle dress (TL13)
Acts like personal armor. AR10. +4Str, +2Dex, +4 Con(Buffering). The Con modifier acts as a buffer, this is the ammount of stamina damage (2/level) and lifeblood damage (4) that is ignored, only damage past this is applied to the occupant. Weight such that a Strength 14 occupant can also carry ~10 kg of equipment before being encumbered with the strength boosting activated. Battery powered with a fully active life of 10 hours. Filters and climate control as standard, additional oxygen tanks need to be carried seperately for truly hostile environments, though there is a small emergency tank inbuilt. Medical computer, catheterisation and auto-injectors for medical stabilization purposes.
I like the buffering concept, it allows a bridge between the two systems for more of a sliding scale. For piece of mind I would back-propogate the buffering to combat armor (+2 for TL<14, +4 for TL>13).
TL14 +6 Str, +2 Dex, +6 Con
TL15 +10 Str, +4 Dex, +10 Con
There hasn't been a discussion about battledress in a while. Not like it hasn't happened before.
Anyway, one of the things I was thinking about T20 is that battledress is described as a continuation of combat armor (effectively just powered combat armor) however the effectiveness of the "Medium Battle dress" example is terrifically more protected under the basic rules then combat armor.
For example a 3d12 attack:
Against Combat armor:
Target takes the 3d12 stamina damage, and takes (best dice minus six) lifeblood damage. On a critical the target takes 6d12 stamina and lifeblood damage and is almost certainly killed outright.
Against MBD (Medium Battle Dress):
Target takes 3d12 damage, reduced to 1d12-3 by vehicle scaling and to 1d12-13 by the armor for no damage ever. On a critical the suit takes 1d12 damage, which may get transferred to the occupant (depending on the critical table roll) but will generally result in a minor level of malfunction in the suit.
Which means that there is a massive discontinuity between the two. Partially this gets fixed by changing the scaling rules for BD, but even then there is still a gap.
Now that is "Medium Battle Dress" I am thinking there is a place for "Light Battle Dress" that is much closer to just powered combat armor.
So my thoughts.
Light Battle dress (TL13)
Acts like personal armor. AR10. +4Str, +2Dex, +4 Con(Buffering). The Con modifier acts as a buffer, this is the ammount of stamina damage (2/level) and lifeblood damage (4) that is ignored, only damage past this is applied to the occupant. Weight such that a Strength 14 occupant can also carry ~10 kg of equipment before being encumbered with the strength boosting activated. Battery powered with a fully active life of 10 hours. Filters and climate control as standard, additional oxygen tanks need to be carried seperately for truly hostile environments, though there is a small emergency tank inbuilt. Medical computer, catheterisation and auto-injectors for medical stabilization purposes.
I like the buffering concept, it allows a bridge between the two systems for more of a sliding scale. For piece of mind I would back-propogate the buffering to combat armor (+2 for TL<14, +4 for TL>13).
TL14 +6 Str, +2 Dex, +6 Con
TL15 +10 Str, +4 Dex, +10 Con
