Any word on Starfinder 2e Power Armor?

[Master Han Del of the Web]

I'm a sucker for power armor in sci-fi settings. Has there been any word on if, when, or how Paizo intends to bring back power armor that I just have yet to see?

[Perpdepog]

Count me curious, also. I guess you could flavor your own power armor, take a suit of heavy armor and give it upgrades like load lifters and the like, but that doesn't feel power armor enough to me.

It's entirely possible that power armor is being set aside for now, along with mechs and starships, because it'll likely require extra rules. Some things power armor does, like setting your strength score to a higher number, aren't really things you do in PF2E's engine, at least not before level 17, and we'd obviously like power armor to be available earlier than that.

[Driftbourne]

In many ways, power armor is kind of like a one-person mini mech, so I wonder if it will end up with the mech rules later on. Even if that doesn't happen if it's not in the core book, I could see it in the book with the technomancer and mechanic sense that will be a tech-heavy book.

[kaid]

Driftbourne wrote:

In many ways, power armor is kind of like a one-person mini mech, so I wonder if it will end up with the mech rules later on. Even if that doesn't happen if it's not in the core book, I could see it in the book with the technomancer and mechanic sense that will be a tech-heavy book.

I would not be shocked if power armor comes in whatever book they are working on for the technomancer and the engineer as that sounds like a very tech oriented book. Could roll the mech rules in there too.

[keftiu]

I would agree that the coming 'tech supplement' feels like the likely place for it. They've mentioned doing a playtest for it in 2025.

[Perpdepog]

Driftbourne wrote:

In many ways, power armor is kind of like a one-person mini mech, so I wonder if it will end up with the mech rules later on. Even if that doesn't happen if it's not in the core book, I could see it in the book with the technomancer and mechanic sense that will be a tech-heavy book.

This is what I think it'll be framed as, too. You can already have some suits of power armor that are at mech sizes, reaching huge, and at that point the difference between the two is more a question of rules implementation than anything. It's possible that most power armors will be coded as small-to-large sized mechs, which I think I'd be OK with.