So, I'm statting out the Skakoans. Away from their homeworld, Skakoans have to wear a pressure suit to provide them with methane to breathe and a high-pressure atmosphere they're used to. And if the suit takes too much damage, it can explode.

I'm trying to figure out how to represent these effects in game terms, but I can't find any rules for armor damage, nor for items that may explode if they take damage. Am I overlooking something?

If there are no such rules, how would you run this? A Skakoan's suit takes damage if the enemy rolls a Triumph? Someone can attempt a field repair with a Mechanics check and an Emergency Repair Patch? Tie the threat of explosion to high-value Critical Injuries?

Thanks, and Happy New Year!

Unless you want it happening all the time I'd probably only allow weapons with Sunder to damage the armor. It normally takes four damage to destroy something completely. On the standard list of things to spend Advantage and Triumph on in combat is spend two Triumphs to destroy a piece of equipment. I probably wouldn't worry about having a possibility of it exploding on each damage.

Since it would be such a vital piece of equipment to any Skakoan character I'd probably make Emergency Repair Patches simply remove one damage each and/or let it be repaired with a Mechanics check with difficulty equal to the damage level and each success repairs one damage.

As far as the explosion goes, just pick a level of damage and say it does that much damage to everyone engaged with the character. What happens to the character himself is another issue as it is hard to imagine him surviving.

I'd tie it to critical injuries. If you get the critical that leaves them bleeding out, then have the suit starting to fail and have it blow when they finally die. If you get the critical that results in instant death, have it blow immediately.

I think Sunder is a good suggestion. Or you could just have it happen on a Triumph (but be careful of this happening if you have any major Nemesis level Skakoans because it could be a sudden and anti-climatic end to them). For damange I would treat it as a Stun grenade. You want this more for just the messy thrill of it than being a major tactical consideration.

Actually Sunder has a good chance of never coming up. If they're minions how about just having it happen whenever one of them dies? After all, it's hard to imagine a Skakoan dying because they've been shot by a blaster without actually puncturing their suit. So on second thoughts I would go with this: Sunder or Minion death, whichever happens first. That way you're basically in a fight with a bunch of living grenades which sounds exciting.

Also, and apologies if this is gross, keep in mind that it doesn't have to be full rupturing like a balloon (though it can). If a PC shot a Skakoan in the faceplate of their helmet for example, rather than popping like a balloon you might see most of the Skakoan's body forced out in a jet through the puncture hole. The stun could be getting hit by the "pressure hose" which would explain why only some were affected.

Of course that depends on your group's tolerance for such things. :/

Thanks for the ideas, everyone. To clarify, there are two bad things that can happen to a Skakoan's suit: It can simply be compromised (exposing the character to outside atmosphere, which is like vacuum to them—and potentially gross as they explosively decompress), or it can explode.

To prevent simple exposure, the suits are supposed to have self-repair capabilities. I like the idea of only needing emergency repair patches in cases where the suit is damaged by something with Sunder capabilities. I'm tempted to let Pierce-quality items damage it as well, but I think the self-repair would probably come into effect in such situations. I'd rather avoid the bookkeeping of tracking suit "wounds," so maybe it's as simple as saying that when a Skakoan takes more than four wounds from attacks with the Sunder quality, his suit is compromised, subjecting the character to the outside atmosphere until someone applies a repair patch. I'm not sure, though, whether a Mechanics check should be required as well, since this is akin to a Critical Injury for the suit....

For the exploding suits, I was planning to make the damage identical to a frag grenade, due to the pieces of the suit flying everywhere. I also agree that an exploding suit should be incredibly rare for PC and Nemesis-level Skakoans, since that's pretty much game-over for them. But I like the idea of minion-level Skakoans essentially being walking grenades. Maybe it should require a Triumph to make a Minion-level Skakoan explode? Reduce their wounds down to 0 and roll a Triumph on the attack?But, yeah, all this suggests that an exploding suit should probably only be tied to character death (and thus criticals).

The pressure suit does not cover the whole body.

which means I think you would need to cause a critical injury to even get close to damaging it. I would still allow a ERP to stop a blow out.

The pressure suit does not cover the whole body.

which means I think you would need to cause a critical injury to even get close to damaging it. I would still allow a ERP to stop a blow out.

The suit does indeed cover the whole body according to the lore; otherwise, Skakoans suffer explosive decompression. I'm still toying with the Sunder versus Critical ideas, though.

If you are giving them this massive disadvantage you would have to be giving them unbelievable advantages. Look at they way races are currently designed. They are all about equal and a suit that requires constant attention seems more of a pain the tukas than something fun to tinker with.

I am not familiar with the lore of the race however, we do have the gand suits to look at and the nature of the suit is left to the GM rather than being dictated by the designer. It can become a story element but it is not something that is burdensome to the player.

Wat Tambor had a suit (even if it was custom made) that left his head exposed, and I doubt it sealed more then his chest. Regardless they would have to be naturally heavily armored to contain the higher pressures which would limit the effectiveness of "Popping them"

With flammable gas you need a decent ratio of oxygen to make it actually go boom, otherwise a leak even if its on fire will simply spray a gout of flame from a pressurised source.

So if you hole a suit, it'd spray gas out and fill an area, if you introduce a flame = boom

Otherwise I'd look at a Burning effect for something like a blaster hitting it, which is probably going to be fairly unpleasent for everyone around them as well as the blast-ee.

If you are giving them this massive disadvantage you would have to be giving them unbelievable advantages. Look at they way races are currently designed. They are all about equal and a suit that requires constant attention seems more of a pain the tukas than something fun to tinker with.

I don't think the OP specified they were talking about creating a PC race so there's no requirement to balance anything. If they are creating a PC race, then I'd just assume that wounds included their armour and re-fluff parts of the critical hits table that needed it. 150+ suit ruptures.

Thanks for the comments, everyone. To clarify, this is for a PC race. The suit does cover the whole body according to fluff, even for Wat Tambor; the only image we have of him out of his suit is one of the thing being forcibly removed:

I can't vouch for the real-world science of all this; I'm basing the talk of the suit blowing off the fluff that WOTC designed and The New Essential Guide to Alien Species repeated.

I've provisionally statted out the suit for the movie aliens project I've been working on (link in my sig) as follows:

• Atmosphere Requirement: Skakoans may survive in methane-rich, high-pressure atmospheres without harm. However, outside such conditions, Skakoans must wear a specialized pressure suit or else treat the atmosphere as if it were vacuum (see Edge of the Empire Core Rulebook , p. 214, or Age of Rebellion Core Rulebook , p. 227). Skakoan characters start the game with a light pressure suit by default, but they may trade this free gear for 1,000 credits, which must be used toward the purchase of a medium or heavy pressure suit at the time of character creation.

Skakoan Pressure Suit (New Gear)

Skakoan pressure suits are a type of environment suit that provides the wearer with a pressurized, methane-rich atmosphere. The suits have self-repair capabilities that allow them to continue to function even if the wearer takes Wounds in combat. However, if a Skakoan suffers an injury from a weapon with the Sunder quality, the suit takes damage—moving progressively from undamaged to minor damage, moderate damage, major damage, and finally to a compromised state. Applying an Emergency Repair Patch can repair the suit one level; up to five Emergency Repair Patches can be used in a single day. Outside combat, an Easy Mechanics check can repair the pressure suit completely. Upgrade the difficulty of this check once for each level of damage the suit suffered before repairs were attempted.

The pressurized methane stored in the suit may cause it to explode if severely damaged. An exploding suit damages anyone within Short Range with Damage 8 and Blast 6. This effect can be triggered by either Triumph or Despair on a roll that kills the suit's wearer or moves the suit to compromised status, depending on whether the explosion would be beneficial or detrimental to the attacker.

Skakoan pressure suits come in light, medium, and heavy models—identical to Heavy Clothing, Armored Clothing, and Heavy Battle Armor, respectively (see Edge of the Empire Core Rulebook , p. 170, or Age of Rebellion Core Rulebook , p. 183), except for price and rarity. The light pressure suit costs 1,000 credits, the medium pressure suit costs 4,500 credits, and the heavy pressure suit costs 11,000 credits; all three models have a Rarity of 8.

Is that unbalanced? I'm sympathetic to the idea that keeping track of the state of the suit may be too much of a disadvantage for a PC race, but Sunder-quality attacks aren't all that common in my experience, and I've tried to make the suit pretty resilient even against Sunder attacks. Thoughts?

In my opinion this is a significant drawback to the race. What are you giving the race to cover up for this weakness? Again I am unfamiliar with the lore of the race. From a gaming perspective I would not play a race with this big of a weakness unless I trusted the GM to not us it.

Edit - made third sentence more clear.

Thanks for the comments, everyone. To clarify, this is for a PC race. The suit does cover the whole body according to fluff, even for Wat Tambor; the only image we have of him out of his suit is one of the thing being forcibly removed:

I can't vouch for the real-world science of all this; I'm basing the talk of the suit blowing off the fluff that WOTC designed and The New Essential Guide to Alien Species repeated.

I've provisionally statted out the suit for the movie aliens project I've been working on (link in my sig) as follows:

• Atmosphere Requirement: Skakoans may survive in methane-rich, high-pressure atmospheres without harm. However, outside such conditions, Skakoans must wear a specialized pressure suit or else treat the atmosphere as if it were vacuum (see Edge of the Empire Core Rulebook , p. 214, or Age of Rebellion Core Rulebook , p. 227). Skakoan characters start the game with a light pressure suit by default, but they may trade this free gear for 1,000 credits, which must be used toward the purchase of a medium or heavy pressure suit at the time of character creation.

Skakoan Pressure Suit (New Gear)

Skakoan pressure suits are a type of environment suit that provides the wearer with a pressurized, methane-rich atmosphere. The suits have self-repair capabilities that allow them to continue to function even if the wearer takes Wounds in combat. However, if a Skakoan suffers an injury from a weapon with the Sunder quality, the suit takes damage—moving progressively from undamaged to minor damage, moderate damage, major damage, and finally to a compromised state. Applying an Emergency Repair Patch can repair the suit one level; up to five Emergency Repair Patches can be used in a single day. Outside combat, an Easy Mechanics check can repair the pressure suit completely. Upgrade the difficulty of this check once for each level of damage the suit suffered before repairs were attempted.

The pressurized methane stored in the suit may cause it to explode if severely damaged. An exploding suit damages anyone within Short Range with Damage 8 and Blast 6. This effect can be triggered by either Triumph or Despair on a roll that kills the suit's wearer or moves the suit to compromised status, depending on whether the explosion would be beneficial or detrimental to the attacker.

Skakoan pressure suits come in light, medium, and heavy models—identical to Heavy Clothing, Armored Clothing, and Heavy Battle Armor, respectively (see Edge of the Empire Core Rulebook , p. 170, or Age of Rebellion Core Rulebook , p. 183), except for price and rarity. The light pressure suit costs 1,000 credits, the medium pressure suit costs 4,500 credits, and the heavy pressure suit costs 11,000 credits; all three models have a Rarity of 8.

Is that unbalanced? I'm sympathetic to the idea that keeping track of the state of the suit may be too much of a disadvantage for a PC race, but Sunder-quality attacks aren't all that common in my experience, and I've tried to make the suit pretty resilient even against Sunder attacks. Thoughts?

Well to be "balanced" it needs to have something on the other side as a positive, otherwise it's all negative. But I don't see anything there that is drastically wrong or would stop me playing one. I think it's fine. Maybe they get a free '3' in an attribute or a couple of bonus starting skills such as free Mechanics (which they then treat as a career skill). The skills seems the best option to me, btw.

I've currently got them starting with 4 in Intellect and a rank in either Gearhead or Technical Aptitude (player's choice). I like the idea of Mechanics as always being career, so I may add that to give them some ability to fix the suit if necessary.

With flammable gas you need a decent ratio of oxygen to make it actually go boom, otherwise a leak even if its on fire will simply spray a gout of flame from a pressurised source.

So if you hole a suit, it'd spray gas out and fill an area, if you introduce a flame = boom

A blaster makes a pretty good ignition source.

I've currently got them starting with 4 in Intellect and a rank in either Gearhead or Technical Aptitude (player's choice). I like the idea of Mechanics as always being career, so I may add that to give them some ability to fix the suit if necessary.

Woah - too high! 4 in Intellect is way too much for a race's starting bonus. I'd say make it 3 or probably better, just give them the talents or career skills.

I've currently got them starting with 4 in Intellect and a rank in either Gearhead or Technical Aptitude (player's choice). I like the idea of Mechanics as always being career, so I may add that to give them some ability to fix the suit if necessary.

Woah - too high! 4 in Intellect is way too much for a race's starting bonus. I'd say make it 3 or probably better, just give them the talents or career skills.

The Drall have already established that a starting characteristic of 4 is possible, but I'm not sure that it's warranted in this case.

I've currently got them starting with 4 in Intellect and a rank in either Gearhead or Technical Aptitude (player's choice). I like the idea of Mechanics as always being career, so I may add that to give them some ability to fix the suit if necessary.

Woah - too high! 4 in Intellect is way too much for a race's starting bonus. I'd say make it 3 or probably better, just give them the talents or career skills.

Drall get 4 Intellect to start, though, so there's precedent. Skakoans get docked in Willpower, Brawn, and Presence to compensate (all at 1).

I've currently got them starting with 4 in Intellect and a rank in either Gearhead or Technical Aptitude (player's choice). I like the idea of Mechanics as always being career, so I may add that to give them some ability to fix the suit if necessary.

Woah - too high! 4 in Intellect is way too much for a race's starting bonus. I'd say make it 3 or probably better, just give them the talents or career skills.

Drall get 4 Intellect to start, though, so there's precedent. Skakoans get docked in Willpower, Brawn, and Presence to compensate (all at 1).

There is precedent, but I don't like it with Drall, either. I'm advising against this. Loading up high advantages on one side and high disadvantages on the other doesn't work well. Rather than producing something "balanced" it results in something hyper-specialized that has to be carefully accommodated and just doesn't work well as a whole. An eggshell with a machine gun is not equivalently balanced to a something tougher but with less firepower just because exaggerations have been made in both directions. Instead you get things that are game-breakingly good and yet rely on GM tolerance at the same time. I guess what I'm saying is two bad things don't make a good thing and both heavy weakness and exaggerated ability are bad things in a PC race.