Powered Armor and Large Creatures


Rules Questions


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber
Quote:

Size

A suit of powered armor has the listed size, so you may take up more space when you’re wearing it. Some suits of powered armor list a reach in parentheses after size. Powered armor with a reach greater than 5 feet allows you to attack creatures within that range in melee even if they aren’t adjacent to you. Add the reach of the powered armor to the reach of any weapons you wield using the powered armor.

So, if Bob the Shobhad, a large sized character, decides he wants to purchase a Battle Harness, a suit of Powered Armor with size Medium, what happens?

A. Bob buys a Battle Harness that is size Large, to fit himself.

B. Bob buys a Battle Harness, forces himself inside, and becomes medium.

C. Bob cannot buy a Battle Harness, because they are only available in medium.

D. Something else.

After contemplating his purchase, Bob decides the Battle Harness is not intimidating enough. He decides instead to purchase a Brawler Frame (normally large). What happens?

A. Bob buys a Brawler Frame, and because he is Large, it must be Huge.

B. Bob buys a Large Brawler Frame and fits snugly inside.

C. Bob also cannot buy a Brawler Frame, because its cockpit is made for small or medium creatures.

D. Something else.


I would like to see the answer on this as well


Using this a general framework:
Armor Size
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.

Question one: I'd say A.

Question 2: I'd say B, I wouldn't be surprised if A is a more accepted answer.


There was an older thread here that discussed this issue once.

Question 1: The first part of that quote, "A suit of powered armor has the listed size", suggests that the answer might be C, but a GM could certainly allow it to be A.

Question 2: I second B. Size categories have a range that they cover. Unless Bob is the absolute max of size large, B should be fine.

I'll FAQ regardless.


ZeroShifter wrote:


Question 1: The first part of that quote, "A suit of powered armor has the listed size", suggests that the answer might be C, but a GM could certainly allow it to be A.

I would be very, very surprised to find out that "A suit of powered armor has the listed size" means that you are unable to alter the size of a powered armor for different sized races.

It would mean that every race smaller than Medium can never wear a power armor, for one thing, which would seem to go against Starfinder's stated "All the space peoples can use all the stuffs" mindset.

But, lord knows I've very, very surprised at FAQ answers before.


Pantshandshake wrote wrote:
It would mean that every race smaller than Medium can never wear a power armor

Actually, I do assume that smaller creatures can wear larger armor without problems, as the rules say "you may take up more space when you're wearing it.". Sorry that I didn't clarify.

I think HammerJack is asking the opposite: can medium powered armors be scaled up to fit large creatures, or are large creatures simply unable to use medium powered armor because of the armor size restriction?

I do agree with you that it's probably the former. Barring large characters from an appealing set of medium armor seems restricting.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

You have similar questions going down the size scale.

If a Tiny raxilite wants a battle harness does it:

A. Become a tiny suit

B. Remain a medium suit, but now it's a cockpit-type setup

C. Leave them disappointed because battle harnesses don't come in tiny

D. Something else

A, B and C each match with someone's reading from previous conversations, so clarification is needed.


Going from tiny to medium doesn't have the same violations of the laws of physics or ungodly amounts of space crisco that going from large to medium does, so I wouldn't assume they have to have the same rules.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

They may not have the same answers as going large, but they have the same questions. That could be important so that an answer isn't written for large creatures that has an unintended effect on tiny ones.


I think I understood your point. Let me see if I can explain my logic.

Power armor has a rule, where if the armor is the same size as your character, you wear it like regular armor. If the armor is bigger than you, you sit inside a cockpit-type device, your arms are not in the armor's arms, etc.

So, if a Shobhad and a Vesk both want a new Stag Step suit, then either the internal mechanisms between the two suits are vastly different, the Shobhad's suit is Huge, or the Shobhad can't have one.

So by extension, a small or smaller creature wanting to wear a battle harness either has a medium sized battle harness built with a cockpit inside sized for the creature, they buy a small or smaller battle harness, or they can't have one.

I don't believe the 'they can't have one' would be the correct answer. Either of the other two answers amount to what I said before, its customized armor using the rule I quoted. Now, if a set of PA's size cannot be customized, we do a little better: Everything can wear a bigger suit, via changing how you 'pilot' it. However, nothing Large or larger can ever wear a suit smaller than Large. I think this is also incorrect, as it still ends up violating the "all the space peoples can use all the stuffs" thing.


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

You also get an intersering edge case where a large creature with 10ft reach puts on a large suit with 5ft reach. And of course, do need to define the reach scaling of large suits becoming huge, etc. I would think they should increase 5ft of reach per size, but it would be best for that to be official.


In games that I have GM'ed and played in, the consensus was that the smaller-scale answer is B.

The raxilite would take up the space of a medium creature while wearing the suit as per "A suit of powered armor has the listed size, so you may take up more space when you’re wearing it."

The existence of gargantuan powered armor makes me believe that the "cockpit" setup is intended, but yes, clarification is still needed.


ZeroShifter wrote:

In games that I have GM'ed and played in, the consensus was that the smaller-scale answer is B.

The raxilite would take up the space of a medium creature while wearing the suit as per "A suit of powered armor has the listed size, so you may take up more space when you’re wearing it."

The existence of gargantuan powered armor makes me believe that the "cockpit" setup is intended, but yes, clarification is still needed.

I'm also of the opinion that "A suit of powered armor has the listed size, so you may take up more space when you’re wearing it." refers not to the interaction between wearer and armor, but armor and world. As in, a Raxilite isn't interacting with its battle harness as a medium creature, the battle harness is interacting with the world as a medium sized creature (armor. Thing.)

And, lastly (for now) the interaction of "Yes, we can remove the cockpit from this armor and run all new control interfaces and 'wiring' (for lack of a better term) from this large armor for you, Large Race" and "Yes, we can plug up the arm and leg holes, build a cockpit, and run all kinds of 'more wiring' to allow you, Small Race, to pilot this bigger-than-you armot" as being acceptable, but somehow we can't just take a medium sized armor and make the whole thing bigger.


My own ruling would be that the sizes for Powered Armor are for a Medium wearer/pilot, and generally speaking, Powered Armor for smaller or larger users are proportionately smaller or larger. Yes, this could produce issues, but that is where the GM steps in and enforces sense and enjoyment.


Starfinder Charter Superscriber

As a game master / StarLord, I would rule like this:

Creatures of equal size or less than the power armor, use the given size of the power armor. Creatures using power armors larger than themselves has never been a problem.

Creatures larger than the power armor, must have the armor size increased to fit them. Large creatures must have minimum large armors. I treat this the same way a kasathan would have to have his armor adjusted for four arms.

This is the most efficient way if dealing with this, without any troubles.

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