Battlesuit Examples

I remember looking through the Weapons Locker supplement for the Marvel Superheroes RPG and being amazed at how the different armors worked, and how there were so many different varieties of armor for Iron Man. I thought it was cool to have a character who could put on different battlesuits depending on the situation. However, I'd never been able to design a system that allowed for that level of variety while still having some semblance of game balance.

Until now.

I present to you, the Persister Battlesuit, including generations to get to level 3, and the three alternate suits for level 3:


Persister Battlesuit Mark 1
(base suit at level 1; 12 BPs); Grants +4 hp
STR 14 [-]; CON 14 [-]; PWR 12 [4]; Body Armor [-]; Bolt (1d6/30’) [2]; Flight [2]; Imperviousness (1d4) [2]; Strike (1d6) [2]

Persister Battlesuit Mark 4
(base suit at level 2; 25 BPs); Grants +8 hp
STR 15 [2]; CON 15 [2]; PWR 14 [8]; Body Armor [-]; Bolt (1d8/60’) [4]; Flight [2]; Imperviousness (1d6) [3]; Strike (1d6) [2]; Trick Weapon System (30’) [2]

Persister Battlesuit Mark 9
(base suit at level 3; 40 BPs); Grants +15 hp
STR 16 [4]; CON 16 [4]; PWR 16 [12]; Air Supply [2]; Body Armor [-]; Bolt (1d8/90’) [5]; Electronic Countermeasures [2]; Flight [2]; Imperviousness (1d8) [4]; Strike (1d6) [2]; Trick Weapon System (60’) [3]

Persister Battlesuit Mark 10: Bruiser Battlesuit
(first alternate suit at level 3; 40 BPs); Grants +18 hp
STR 20 [12]; CON 18 [8]; PWR 12 [4]; Body Armor [-]; Bolt (1d8/60’) [4]; Flight [2]; Imperviousness (1d10) [5]; Strike (1d12) [5]
This suit is for situations requiring a lot of muscle.

Persister Battlesuit Mark 11: Infiltrator Battlesuit
(second alternate suit at level 3, 40 BPs); Grants +12 hp
STR 14 [-]; CON 14 [-]; PWR 18 [16]; Air Supply [2]; Body Armor [-]; Bolt (1d6/60’) [3]; Chameleon [2]; Electronic Countermeasures [2]; Imperviousness (1d6) [3]; Sneak [2]; Sonar (3 miles) [4]; Utility Belt [2]
This suit is for situations requiring stealth.

Persister Battlesuit Mark 12: Explorer Battlesuit
(third alternate suit at level 3, 40 BPs); Grants +21 hp
STR 16 [4]; CON 20 [12]; PWR 14 [8]; Air Supply [2]; Amphibious [2]; Body Armor [-]; Bolt (1d6/60’) [3]; Imperviousness (1d8) [4]; Snare (60’) [3]; Utility Belt [2]
This suit is for non-combat situations: rescue or peacekeeping.

Notes:
- I originally thought of the STR and CON ratings as being bonuses to your existing attribute. However, that REALLY skewed things when you started with STR 6 vs. STR 12 (both normal human range). If you are getting +10 to STR from the armor, one character is ending up lifting about 20 tons while in the armor, and the other is able to lift about 200 tons. When you look at how that range (attribute 6 to 12) magnifies, you ended up with a base rating of about 14 to 15 in the scaling. Putting all armor at a base rating of STR 14 (regardless of your human STR rating) makes more sense. It also keeps you out of the problem of 'what if Hulk put on the Hulkbuster armor? Does that magnify his STR?' In this case, no.

- It took some tinkering with the numbers to get it to balance out, but I think it works well. A battlesuit hero of level 6 is going to be VERY powerful. However, level 6 is Thanos level (the current Iron Man would be level 4 in the game, so 1 level up from the examples given here). I'd put this suit at the comparable level of War Machine right now. He'd be level 3 as well. 

- I LOVE the system for trick weapons, and when you layer this (or utility belt for that matter) into this suit, it's just fantastic. I will always use the random option: In play, I go to activate the flare rocket launcher; maybe I have a flare rocket left, or maybe I swapped those out for smoke rockets. The die is about to tell me...