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Hey guys,
Unarmed Strikes are normally basic weapons, so Weapon Specialization scales with level. Vesk get a special rule using 1.5 level instead, and their unarmed attacks are not archaic. Does that apply to attacks made while wearing powered armor?
Say the Vesk is a level 5 Soldier. He's wearing a battle harness, giving him 18 strength and 1D10 unarmed strikes. He punches an akata.
What is his melee damage?
Is his attack considered archaic?
It does not apply to the powered armor. It only affects their natural weapon. Just like you can't use it with a sword.
The damage would be
1d10B + 4 for str.
Yes it counts as archaic because you are using the harness that basically has doom fist gauntlets.
Hi and thanks for answering!
I find it a little odd that by your ruling the Powered Armor attack is a strict downgrade for a Vesk? I'd much rather do 1D3+4+7 than 1D10+4+5 with the archaic penalty. I see your argument with the sword, but the powered armor specifically notes that it modifies "unarmed attacks":
When you make an unarmed melee attack with the powered armor, it deals damage equal to the armor’s listed damage value plus its Strength modifier.Under Vesk it says:
They can deal 1D3 lethal damage with unarmed strikes and the attack doesn't count as archaic.
Both of these call out unarmed attacks and don't have any limiting language like Hammer Fist does, so I'd expect them to work together. In other words, a vesk strikes for lethal and non-archaic damage with unarmed attacks, even if his unarmed attacks are affected by an external effect like Improved Unarmed Strike or Powered Armor.
Then it goes on to say:
Vesk gain a unique weapon specialization with their natural weapons at 3rd level, allowing them to add 1–1/2 × their character level to their damage rolls for their natural weapons (instead of just adding their character level, as usual).
Here's where I think it really gets iffy. One could definitely argue that when you're attacking with the Powered Armor damage die, you're effectively replacing your own natural weapon with the armor's natural weapon. Then you're back to using level=damage rather than the 1-1/2x modifier.
Then again, the Vesk unarmed strike ability is literally called "natural attacks". The problem is the Vesk text interchangeably refers to unarmed strikes and natural attacks, and I have no idea what the difference between an unarmed strike and a natural attack is in Starfinder.
The Core Rule Book is vague like you mention, Kudaku. However, the Alien Archive is a bit more descriptive on what natural attacks actually are.
By this I mean they describe a damage type (like slashing or piercing) as well as a mode (gore, claws, etc...).
Rules as written, Vesk "natural weapons" are whatever you want as they are not explicitly described as being any different from other races unarmed strike. So it is reasonable to use their enhanced weapon specialization.
Sadly with the inclusion of the Alien Archive, the Vesk is the only race with a non-descriptive unarmed attack bonus. Making them the only race with this advantage.
For my own rulings I lean towards describing what a Vesk natural weapon is, like a tail slap with bludgeoning damage and disallow it from applying to Improved Unarmed Strike (this goes for all races with a natural attack).
The natural weapon seems to be intended as a nice back up option to allow races with the feature a means to threaten in melee at all times. Given the Alien Archive's more descriptive text, I do not believe natural weapons are intended as a method to be built around to abuse their higher specialization bonus (or lack of archaic damage penalty) in conjunction with feats/class features that further enhance unarmed combat. In effect, I treat natural weapons their own special weapon class.
Wait, really? That's fantastic! Can you give me a page reference for where they describe how natural attacks work?
I did a word search in my AA PDF and found three races with the Natural Attacks racial feature. While they list the damage type (piercing/slashing) they don't seem to define the "mode", instead they all refer to "unarmed strikes".
Natural Weapons: Formians are always considered armed. They can deal 1d3 lethal piercing damage with unarmed strikes, and those attacks don’t count as archaic. Formians gain a unique weapon specialization with their natural weapons at 3rd level, allowing them to add 1-1/2 × their character level to their damage rolls for their natural weapons (instead of just adding their character level).
Natural Weapons: Nuars are always considered armed. They can deal 1d3 lethal piercing damage with unarmed strikes and the attack doesn’t count as archaic. Nuars gain a unique weapon specialization with their natural weapons at 3rd level, allowing them to add 1-1/2 × their character level to their damage rolls with their natural weapons (instead of just adding their character level, as usual).
Natural Weapons: Reptoids are always considered to be armed when they are not using their change shape ability. They can deal 1d3 lethal slashing damage with unarmed strikes, and the attack does not count as archaic. Reptoids gain a unique weapon specialization with their natural weapons at 3rd level, allowing them to add 1-1/2 × their character level to their damage rolls for their natural weapons (instead of adding just their character level, as usual).
Near as I can tell these are in the same boat as the vesk? I'm even more confused now. :(
I think it would depend on whether the power armor is something they wear so they can still punch or tail slap, or functionally a vehicle that they're riding inside
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I find it a little odd that by your ruling the Powered Armor attack is a strict downgrade for a Vesk? I'd much rather do 1D3+4+7 than 1D10+4+5 with the archaic penalty.
My math isn’t that great but the power armor I think has a higher damage output:
Power armor 10-19Natural attack 12-14
My next question to you is, What do you think a battle harness looks like? Maybe it’s like the Elysium armor? Maybe even Edge of tomorrowish? I mean the battle harness is only medium size.
When you make an unarmed melee attack with the powered armor, it deals damage equal to the armor’s listed damage value plus its Strength modifier.Under Vesk it says:They can deal 1D3 lethal damage with unarmed strikes and the attack doesn't count as archaic.
The rule book also states.
Strength
When wearing powered armor, the armor determines your effective Strength. You use it for all Strength-based rolls. Even if your Strength is higher, you’re limited to the armor’s Strength.
Damage
When you make an unarmed melee attack with the powered armor, it deals damage equal to the armor’s listed damage value plus its Strength modifier.
To me this means you are using the strength mod and the natural damage for the armor. Not the Vesk.
Then again, the Vesk unarmed strike ability is literally called "natural attacks". The problem is the Vesk text interchangeably refers to unarmed strikes and natural attacks, and I have no idea what the difference between an unarmed strike and a natural attack is in Starfinder.
For me you just have to compare. Human vs Vesk. Humans have fists. Vesk have a mouth full of razor teeth, nasty looking claws and tail that you could whip someone. I really don’t see a battle harness improving your bite or tail whip. Really it’s up to the DM. For my games I would say no because I see the battle harness as the examples I gave links for.
Near as I can tell these are in the same boat as the vesk? I'm even more confused now. :(
I think you are just reading those examples instead of imagining how they work in battle.
Formians have a stinger. piercing
Nuars have horns. piercing
Reptoids have claws. slashing
Vesk have claws, teeth and tail. All three.
That's why to me a battle harness wouldn't give benefits to these natural attacks. Hitting the FAQ button but it probably won't get answered like all the other times I have hit it.
Your math looks right but in my experience most enemies wear armor, which would reduce the archaic powered armor damage from 10-19 to 5-14. I'd rather be able to consistently deal ~13 damage with my unarmed attacks than swing from ~14.5 damage to ~9 with the powered armor depending whether or not I'm fighting a humanoid. At that point IUS is a flat out superior option to powered armor fighting for a vesk.
Out of the two examples you listed I'd be closer to Edge of Tomorrow, 20 bulk would indicate much heavier set of armor than what Matt Damon was using. When I think of a Vesk in battle harness I'd imagine something like this picture. Note his clawed gauntlets and that his tail is armored. Since each armor is custom fitted to each character, I don't think it's entirely unreasonable to expect that a vesk can still use his natural attacks while wearing something like this.
That said, BNW raises a good question about what kind of powered armor is in use - If the vesk was in a Large spider suit or a Huge flight frame he's essentially piloting a vehicle, not fighting in a close-fitting suit of armor. At that point it would be much harder to put his natural attacks to use.
Battle harnesses damage isn't archaic. Though I am looking on my phone. Care to point me to where it says it does?
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Care to point me to where it says it does?
Sure!
When you make an unarmed melee attack with the powered armor, it deals damage equal to the armor’s listed damage value plus its Strength modifier.
Powered Armor gives you (potentially) better damage dice, but it's still an unarmed strike. Unarmed strikes are archaic unless stated otherwise, like in the Vesk natural attacks text. There's no such text in the Powered Armor writeup.
I think you can make a good argument that Powered Armor shouldn't be archaic (archaic writeup refers to primitive materials etc), but for SFS etc, near as I can tell, powered armor unarmed attacks are still unarmed attacks, and thus archaic. Soldiers with Hammer Fist avoid the problem since they treat unarmed attacks as if you are attacking with a battle glove.
Come to think of it, that also means that powered armor unarmed attacks can only deal nonlethal damage.
>__<
After reading all the comments I think I figured out the issue. @Kudaku, You are reading a couple things and thinking they are the same thing. They are called the same thing but they aren't the same thing.
Vesk - They have unarmed attacks that do extra damage because they are considered natural attacks. This is why they said that Vesks are always armed.
Unarmed strikes (archaic) - This is true for every race that doesn’t have an unarmed attack. Humans, Shirren, Ysoki, etc…
Powered Armor - Has an unarmed attack but it is only considered unarmed in the sense that you aren’t using a melee weapon. You can use a sword/ hammer/ etc with battle harness. But if you don’t use a melee weapon you have an unarmed strike that deals 1d10 blunt damage. This is just as lethal as a battleglove. You are not using your fists. You are using the battleharnesses fists.
Now here is where you are talking about another element
I think you can make a good argument that Powered Armor shouldn't be archaic (archaic writeup refers to primitive materials etc), but for SFS etc, near as I can tell, powered armor unarmed attacks are still unarmed attacks, and thus archaic.Soldiers with Hammer Fist avoid the problem since they treat unarmed attacks as if you are attacking with a battle glove.
Right there----^ That is not how that works.
Armor Storm (Hammer fist) -
Hammer Fist (Ex):
You treat any unarmed attack you make while wearing heavy or powered armor as being made with a battleglove (see page 187) with an item level equal to or lower than your soldier level, and you calculate damage for these attacks as if you had the melee striker gear boost (see page 112).
This does not mean that power armor unarmed strike isn't a battleglove type weapon. It is saying that while using heavy armor OR power armor your fists are battlegloves equal to your soldier level.
Without this your heavy armor does not have battle gloves and your powered armor only does the standard that is listed on the armor.
I can totally understand how you can think they are the same thing. There isn't clear direction and reading those things can turn you around.
Okay, so let me see if I understand your argument correctly:
Unarmed Strikes are completely different from Unarmed Attacks. Unarmed Strikes are archaic and nonlethal, unless it states that they are not (like the Vesk does). Unarmed Attacks however, are always armed and lethal.
Is that right?
If the unarmed attack is a power armor fist then yes.
Then... Shouldn't that be stated somewhere? I assumed that "unarmed strike" and "unarmed attack" can be used interchangeably, like they are in Pathfinder and Starfinder's Improved Unarmed Strike feat text.
I've talked to a few different GMs about this, so far they seem to think that power armor "unarmed attacks" mean "unarmed strikes" and follow the unarmed strike rules - ie you replace the 1D3 with whatever damage the armor delivers, but barring text that says otherwise the attacks are still considered archaic and nonlethal.
I'm not trying to be obstinate, but I'm planning to take my vesk character down the power armor route and I'd really like to understand exactly how Improved Unarmed Strike, Natural Attacks, Powered Armor Unarmed Attacks and the nonlethal/archaic traits interact first - ideally with rules text backing up the ruling. Less unpleasant surprises that way.
I have similar concerns about Improved Unarmed Strike referencing "lethal attacks" but not saying anything about no longer treating unarmed strikes as nonlethal/archaic for characters that do not have access to the natural weapon racial trait, but that's probably better off in another thread.
Then... Shouldn't that be stated somewhere? I assumed that "unarmed strike" and "unarmed attack" can be used interchangeably, like they are in Pathfinder and Starfinder's Improved Unarmed Strike feat text.
It should be listed somewhere. Your points were super good. You connected dots I don't think a lot of people would've connected and it made me actually have to look at the books.
I've talked to a few different GMs about this, so far they seem to think that power armor "unarmed attacks" mean "unarmed strikes" and follow the unarmed strike rules - ie you replace the 1D3 with whatever damage the armor delivers, but barring text that says otherwise the attacks are still considered archaic and nonlethal.
I think the question goes back to text vs implication. Also remember there is a huge thread about things that need to be clarified. I recently made a blog post about FAQs and still silence.
Damage
When you make an unarmed melee attack with the powered
armor, it deals damage equal to the armor’s listed damage value
plus its Strength modifier.
With the power armor means you are using the power armor. So you are using the power armor to make an unarmed attack which is actually just a battleglove equalling 1d10 B. Are you hitting with this.
I'm not trying to be obstinate, but I'm planning to take my vesk character down the power armor route and I'd really like to understand exactly how Improved Unarmed Strike, Natural Attacks, Powered Armor Unarmed Attacks and the nonlethal/archaic traits interact first - ideally with rules text backing up the ruling. Less unpleasant surprises that way.
You can still do this but it just won't be as strong as using a top tier sword. Use the higher damage weapon and then toss it if you need and hulk buster it up. Lvl 13 you can do an additional 1d6.
I have similar concerns about Improved Unarmed Strike referencing "lethal attacks" but not saying anything about unarmed strikes no longer being nonlethal/archaic, but that's probably better off in another thread.
I saw that thread and I FAQ'd that one too.
JetSetRadio did a great job of describing my similar point of view on interpretation.
As for a page reference in AA, look at page 155:
"NATURAL WEAPONS (EX)
Natural weapons (and natural attacks), such as acid spit, bite, claw, or slam don't require ammunition and can't be disarmed or sundered"
That text, and the specific call outs for descriptors on damage like the races you mention, lead me to believe "natural weapons" are their own class of weapon separate from the traditional idea of "unarmed strikes".
Unarmed is used interchangeably in the Core Rule Book/Alien Archive but the use seems ambiguous to me.
I think in the alien references you quote the nuance comes from the first sentence. For example "Reptoids are *always* considered *armed*. [when not shape changed]". This tells me they always have a weapon, their claws. The second sentence describes the mode in which they deal lethal slashing damage which is via *unarmed strikes*.
A problem with this is *unarmed strike* is a specific weapon type listed under the basic weapons table, but it is also referenced as a style of combat. As a weapon type, unarmed strikes do archaic damage at a 1d3 + strength and can be improved by the Improved Unarmed Strike feat.
Natural Weapons are an EX ability in the list of special traits in the Alien Archive that appear to add a new weapon type in addition to the default basic weapon option for a given race. Natural weapons can reference a number of effects that are not necessarily unarmed strikes in the classic sense.
So to me, the context of what *unarmed strike*/*unarmed attack* needs to be understood in what it is being referenced to. And I realize a lot of this has been said, but sometimes it is nice to talk/type it out for my own sake too. ;)
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Was this ever clarified anywhere?
Was this ever clarified anywhere?
I don't think so, but I feel more confident in how I'd rule it now.
My mistake earlier was that I saw the battle harness as "power armor" akin to Fallout's T51B power armor or Astartes Power armor - ie you're still using your own limbs to strike while wearing battle harness. If powered armor worked that way then it would make sense that your own limbs and skill in unarmed combat would make a difference, which is why I thought it was odd that the Vesk's natural attack damage progression didn't come into play.
However I've since come to realize that all of Starfinder's powered armor, including the battle harness, are more akin to piloted vehicles than what I typically think of when I say power armor. I think what misled me was that I was considering the battle harness only from the perspective of my vesk. He's already medium and moves at 30 feet per move, so the impact of the battle harness is limited - that makes it feel smaller and lighter than the other suits, so it's natural to compare it to something like the T51B. However the difference became clear to me once I considered putting an ysoki or a contemplative in powered armor. The ysoki is now medium-size, and the contemplative suddenly has a ground speed of 30 instead of 5. Based on that interaction I think it is clear the battle harness is more akin to a very maneuverable vehicle than a power-assisted armor suit. You're not using your own legs for locomotion, you're using the suit's limbs to move. You're not punching with your own fist, you're directing the suit's limbs to attack for you.
I'm now feeling confident that a vesk does not use his natural attack damage progression when making unarmed attacks with a battle harness even though the suit is the same size as him.
As for the other matter, if powered armor unarmed attacks are nonlethal/archaic, I'm not sure. I think you can make a good argument that they should be treated as lethal attacks with modern weapons and that referring to the unarmed strike rules was an oversight, but RAW it still seems to me that powered armor unarmed attacks are unarmed attacks, which are archaic and nonlethal. "It's not archaic because the armor gauntlets are made of advanced materials" is a decent argument, but you could use the same argument for any character making unarmed attacks while wearing heavy armor. I've already ruled that powered armor unarmed attacks are treated as lethal and modern in my home games, so this is mostly an academic question for me at the moment.
I've participated in a few powered armor discussions now and there are definitely a lot of things that would benefit from more detail and a bit more clarity:
How do I reload mounted weapons on my powered armor? Do I need the automated loader, or can I use my limbs to do it as well? Can I manually reload mounted weapons out of combat?
How long does it take to mount and/or unmount a weapon in a powered armor weapon mount?
What kind of action is it to replace the battery in a powered armor? Can I do it from inside the suit, or do I have to get out first?
My spider harness is size large. Does that mean I can only wield large-sized weapons, or only medium-size weapons, or a mix of both?
How about my weapon slots, what size of weaponry can go in those?
I'm playing a dragonkin. Can I somehow squeeze into a medium-size battle harness? If not, can I buy a large-size battle harness? If I can resize armor to make it bigger, can I also resize it to make it smaller?
I'm playing a contemplative. Can I wield two-handed weapons in my powered armor limbs without taking the atrophy penalty on the attack rolls?
I'm playing a kasatha. Does my flight frame have two or four arms?
I'm playing a human. Can I borrow my kasatha friend's flight frame to gain two extra arms?
I expect powered armor will get a lot of love in the Armory book, I'm hoping they'll also set aside some space to explain how powered armor works in more detail. :)
Ugh... Apologies for disappearing for so long. I keep reminding myself that I owe you a reply but the last few weeks have been absolutely crazy. Luckily Easter break just kicked in so I finally have time to sit down and organize my thoughts!
Oh Kudaku, I hate that I love your posts so much.
Thanks! ...I think!
First, I think that power armors have their own attack damage, specific to each armor, is a telling detail in the 'power vs heavy fisticuffs.' It isn't the final nail in the coffin, but every time there's a rule difference between two things, it should make it that much easier to rationalize that those things are different.
Sure, I'm pretty happy letting this one go. By this point it's at best a RAW v RAI argument for me, and since I don't play SFS it's not hugely important.
Second, reloading. I'm in the camp where reloading your mounted weapons is probably something you have to do outside of the suit if you don't have the autoloader. Or maybe someone can do it for you while you're in the suit?
I agree with this. If we assume that you can reload mounted weapons normally the autoloader seems pretty useless other than being able to reload a weapon without changing your grip on a different two-handed weapon, which is a very minor advantage for an armor upgrade slot.
Third, mounting a weapon. I like the idea of everything being more or less plug'n'play. I'm going with a minute, maybe 2, if you're in a workshop-friendly setting. Longer if you're just doing it out in the field?
I'm not really sure what a good time would be, so far I've been using the same time as the one needed to replace an armor upgrade (10 minutes to replace the unit and resecure all connections). Installing a jetpack and installing a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher seems like it would take about the same time.
Fourth, the battery. It should be in the cockpit with you, so you don't run out of power mid fight and have to get out. But, it should be outside the cockpit, because you don't want to be strapped to a burning battery. So, its neither! Seriously though, I can't decide on this one.
This one is tricky, and can pop up mid-combat since there is at least one effect (Discharge, T3 spell) that let you drain a battery dry with a single standard action. Turning off a powered armor suit has the potential to absolutely ruin the day of the poor sod inside it. I think I'd err on the side of caution and say the battery port is inside the armor, and that powered armor is designed so that you can enter and exit it even when it's unpowered.
Fifth, weapon size. I think for the hands of the suit, you'd use weapons appropriate for your character size (it's closer to 'wielding' them.) For mounted weapons, I'd say you can use... maybe up to suit size +1? You're not wielding them, so there's no interaction between you and their size, but a huge sized reaction cannon is probably too big for a battle harness.
This is another tricky one, I feel like you have to balance "realism" vs "viability".
From a realism perspective the bigger the armor is, the less realistic it is that it can effectively use human-scale weapons in its giant fists. A huge-size flight frame holding a medium-size assault hammer would look a bit like Red holding the rock hammer. For maximum realism, the powered armor should be limited to wielding size-appropriate weapons. Huge armor, huge hammer.
On the other hand, the bigger the armor is, the more likely it is that there will be times where you won't be able to use it - the flight frame won't fit in the ysoki starship's cramped corridors, it's inappropriate to wear a spider harness to a formal embassy dinner etc. In those cases the PC has to fall back to his (presumably cheaper and worse) backup armor. If his main weapons are scaled for his large/huge powered armor he'd either have to go unarmed, or also maintain a set of backup medium-size weapons since he can't wield large/huge weapons without his suit. With the way weapon costs scale in Starfinder, this could very quickly become prohibitively expensive.The forums have been asking for more medium-size armor specifically because size can be a problem, we don't need more reasons to make large/huge armor even less viable options. For maximum viability, the powered armor should be able to wield small/medium weapons no matter how big it is.
Ideally you'd hit a balance point between the two extremes - maybe you could introduce a tech item that lets you shrink or enlarge weapons as needed? This would also help large races who are currently unable to use medium-size weapons, which a lot of intelligent NPC opponents tend to leave behind.
Sixth, character/armor size. There's a rule for resizing armor in the book, correct? Something like an extra 25% cost? So your Dragonkin would need to pay the cost to have a Large version created. I don't think the book covers resizing to lower (or is it just a flat fee for 'bigger' or 'smaller' in the book?)
They're a little hazy on this. They say "powered armor is normally designed to be operated by any roughly humanoid creature of small or medium size - only creatures not matching those criteria must have the armor tailored to fit them" and refer to p. 196. That page reads:
Armor comes in different sizes for different creatures, and you might have to adjust a suit of armor to fit you if it wasn’t made for your race. A ysoki can’t effectively wear armor made for a human, and a kasatha needs to adjust armor that was made for a two-armed creature. If it’s in doubt whether a creature can fit the suit, the GM decides whether the armor needs to be adjusted. When you buy armor new, the purchase price includes any adjustments.
and
If you get secondhand armor that wasn’t tailored for you, you can have it adjusted, which requires a successful Engineering check (DC = 10 + 2 × the armor’s level). Alternatively, you can spend 10% of the armor’s purchase price to have it adjusted by a professional—typically an armorsmith or anyone with multiple ranks in Engineering.
So it's up to the GM if you can get a powered armor resized to fit a large (or tiny) PC. If you can, then it's either free of charge if you buy it new, or a (fairly hard) engineering check. There's nothing on resizing powered armor to make it smaller, and personally I'd be hesitant to allow it.
Seventh, Race specific stuff.
Contemplative: I would say no penalty. The suit is doing all the work for you, that's why it's got its own strength score.
Kasatha: I would think the battle harness would need extra arms. Every suit bigger than medium, you're probably not 'wearing' the suit (i.e., your arms aren't in the suits arms.) So no, you wouldn't *need* a 4 armed flight frame, but you should get one anyway, because its awesome.
Human, other races suits: I'd say you wouldn't be able to use the extra arms in someone else's suit, unless you have two extra cyber arms. I'd absolutely allow extra arms to be added to your own suits, maybe... 25 to 50% more expensive than a cyber arm?
Contemplative: Agreed. In my mind the contemplative armed services would make extensive use of powered armor, more so than many other militaries - they seem like exactly the kind of race that would use technology to make up for their physical frailness.
Kasatha: I think this is a good example of where the "retailoring" option under armor comes in. I think a kasatha with a custom tailored powered suit should absolutely have, and be able to use, four arms on his powered armor.Human: Having four arms is a race feature, I'd be hesitant to let humans get it "for free". I'd probably spin something about not having the brain receptors to adequately handle two extra limbs without some external assistance. I agree with you that a human with cybernetic arm implants would absolutely be able to do it - the implants help him "handle the load", so to say.
Ultimately a lot of this is guesswork, I'd really like to see a more comprehensive breakdown of exactly how powered armor works. Especially the battery problem and the weapon size issue could do with some attention.
If the claws of some Barney wanna be reptile are not archaic, the fist on a suite of plasma beam / reptile claw deflecting ultra tech power armor sure as heck shouldn't be archaic.
This might be the first time we've agreed on this many points in one sitting.
Lol! Could be! I really hope some of these questions are answered in the upcoming armory book, PA is way too cool to be held back by missing rules.
Here's something else. it's... kind of weird. What's your take on cobbling together a quadrupedal power armor? Assume that it doesn't have a space-centaur in there, but actually a Vesk soldier belonging to a player that enjoys making his GM deal with as many strange things as possible.
As long as the player isn't trying to leverage an unfair mechanical advantage out of it (ie "my caterpillar-armor has hundreds of legs so it can't be tripped!") I'd be perfectly fine with it, in fact I'd encourage it! The Spider-harness already reminds me rather strongly of Spiderman's Doctor Octopus. Considering the bizarre anatomy of some of the alien races already in Starfinder I'd fully expect PA to have a wide range of forms as well, I can't even imagine what a Bantrid powered armor suit would look like.
I have a related question: if a Vesk Solarian chose to form their color weapon as gloves (or claw tips, or whatever), could they add 1.5 times their level to damage while wielding that solar weapon?
Ah, so it's kind of like if you tried to stack the Vesk ability with the Armor Storm ability? Or would that work since they are literally gloves and count as unarmed?
Ah, so it's kind of like if you tried to stack the Vesk ability with the Armor Storm ability? Or would that work since they are literally gloves and count as unarmed?
They're not just gloves, they're acting as weapons shaped like gloves, meaning that Hammer Fist cannot be used with Natural Weapons, because it can't be Unarmed and a Battle Glove at the same time.
I have an Armor Storm Vesk and ended up drawing up a spreadsheet calculating when Natural Weapons overtakes Hammer Fist as the "unarmed" option of choice. I think it was around level 5 or 6. Maybe earlier if you took Improved Unarmed Attack (which is a crazy good choice for a Vesk Soldier; means you can carry a heavy weapon or longarm and still make fairly strong attacks of opportunity when needed).