Guardian Skittermander Question

[spectrevk]

One of my players is a Skittermander who took the "Guardian" alternate trait, which states:

Quote:

Most skittermanders are self-sacrificing, and some put themselves directly in harm’s way to protect others. These skittermanders can enter or occupy the space of a single Small, Medium, or Large creature without imposing the normal penalties on either themselves or the creature sharing their space. They take a –2 penalty to AC while sharing their space but provide the creature whose space they share with a +1 shield bonus to AC against ranged attacks.

This replaces grappler.

However, he's also a soldier, and recently began wearing Powered Armor, which means he's no longer Small, he's now Medium. Was the rule intent here that their ability to occupy the same space as a small, medium, or large creature without penalty was due to their size, or something else? I've been allowing it thus far as I don't think it's game breaking, but I'm curious what the "official" ruling is.

[Metaphysician]

Taken literally, that ability says nothing about the size of the possessor. So, I don't see how wearing powered armor would change that.

If you want to interpret it more loosely, and with the understanding that all normal bearers of this trait would be Small? Wearing powered armor that upgrades their size to Medium would change the effected sizes to Medium, Large, and Huge.

( Note that a Small creature could still use your Medium sized powered armor self as *cover*, even if they might not strictly be able to occupy the same space as you freely. )

[spectrevk]

Thanks, that's a good point.