this is a house rule that my players and I came up with.

this should be prefaced with the fact that my friends are insane

Armour damage:

all armor is treated in a similar way as Cover, every 3 hits that exceeds the AP value of the armor, reduces the AP for that location by 1. in addition to the armor being no longer environmentally sealed after 1 hit as normal

sub-system damage:

if the AP is reduced to 3 AP on any one location, there is a chance of damage one of the many sub-systems of the armor, system damaged and % is determined by location:

Head: 30% chance of knocking out auto-senses

arms: 40% change of knocking out Recoil Suppression

Chest: 50% lose 1d5-2 doses of pain suppressors (min 1), 40 % change of disabling Nutrient recycling, 10% chance of entirely disabling Bio-monitors and injectors.

Power Core damage:

we really enjoyed the backpack critical damage table, but decided to make it a little more interesting.

any penetrating hit from the back that deals to the body or head has a change of damaging the power pack, the chance of damage depends on how many AP are left.

10 AP = 0%, 9 AP = 5 %, 8 AP = 10%, 7 AP = 15%, 6 AP = 20%, 5 AP = 25%, 4 AP = 50%, 3AP = 60%, 2 AP = 70 %, 1 AP = 90%, 0 AP = 100%

the backpack has its own set of AP separate from the body, and the effects are those listed on the table, 1-3, no effect, 4-5 damaged, 6+ unpowered

Repair:

Repair Cement: RC seals a breach and restore 1 AP to the location, however, to represent that this is just a stopgap measure, the restored AP is ablative, meaning that any hit on the location will strip that AP, regardless of if the shot penetrated.

Narrative repair:

Power armor repair takes 2 hours for every AP lost (up to a maximum of 42 AP) for a tech marine, given the correct materials and facilities, this time can be shorted to 1 hour per AP if multiple techs work on the armor, but it can never take less that 1 hour per AP as all the rites must be performed.

Backpack repair: 2 hours for every AP lost, in addition to 8 hours per critical damage acquired by the backpack (max 6 critical damage). this time can be reduced to 1 hour per AP as above, and 3 hours per critical damage.

so there it is, we are still tweaking it, any suggestions are welcomed. the point of this was to make cover vital, a marine can still take alot of oncoming fire outside of cover, but his armor shouldn't be pristine at the end of the day

*edit - minor errors, added FatPob's suggestion*

hmm, though I applaud the effort above, I feel in game it would not work well, and after one tough fight the marines armour would be useless.

Remeember that every time you reduce the AP on the marines you are effectively giving the enemy a +1 damage (up to +8/10).

My only thought would be if the armour took a hit 3 times its ap in one hit would it lose a point of protection if you felt it was necessary.

Myself, I doubt ever would use this as it's bookkeeping for bookkeeping's sake,

hmmm, I like the 3 hits to a location... thanks!

as for book keeping, it is not so bad, i made large cards for each of my players with all the info for power armor on it (only one with the book at the moment)

it is essentially a blow up version of the armor graphic on the character sheet, and all they have to do is check off the damage on the sheets.

for anyone who is interested, i will post the sheet here.

i am not at my computer however, so that will have to wait.

FatPob said:

It's not bookkeeping for bookkeeping's sake. It has a marked effect on the feel of the game, creating a more gritty experience and a sense of resource management in terms of their armor no longer being indestructible. Personally I like it, and it really captures the fluff of Space Marine combat (there's a reason a lot of the art and a lot of people's armies feature battle damage to armor).

While I like it, I think it probably needs to be tweaked. I also tend to think a GM needs to be mindful of thowing too many truly dangerous combat encounters at the team during a mission as the attrition is going to take it's toll and progressively make each encounter more dangerous. It could turn into a meatgrinder very quickly if one isn't mindful.

here is the Armor sheet for anyone who is interested in trying this out.

rapidshare.com/files/422230289/Astartes_Mk_VII_Power_Armor.pdf

i laminated them for my players, it works wonders with dry-erase markers.

sheet protectors work just as well too