I've played as a Character in Power armor before and as a GM having to deal with it. Frag rockets will mess up his day, the raw damage they put out is killer, and it builds up quickly. Krak, melta, and plasma will ignore most if not all of his armor.

But if you're looking for something to discourage him consider that it takes a space marine, with all their attendants hours to put on the armor and that in a full suite, in battle filed conditions, giving him any kind of medical treatment will be next to impossible. Power Armor is also insanely complicated to take off so he would need a tech priest and a good bit of time to take it off even out of combat.

Something else that you could do is send psykers against him. Some psychic powers, such as Psychic Scream and Soul Killer ignore armor, so you wouldn't be flat out killing the other characters, but the guy with power armor is no longer undefeatable. Also, other effective powers would be the Dominate tree. Compel, Dominate, and Puppet Master will basically turn the walking tank into a formidable enemy for the rest of your players. You could also have a Biomancer using powers such as Inflict Pain, Agony, and Blood Boil, to make the Power Armor player completely useless

I don't find a problem with some players being much stronger than other players in a fire fight. The game is much more than who can deal or take the most damage in combat.

As a GM I try hard to come up with adventures (or modify purchased adventures) to enable players to get by with clever tricks, social interactions and other stuff. There will of course be fire fights, but if there is enough variety even the other players will enjoy it when their super tank gets to work and they can huddle in behind him and feel protected. A power armor will be awkward in social situations, and if he refuses to leave the armor behind, he must simply sit out of some of the content.

Also make carapace armor and best quality xeno available. That only puts players a few points behind, that is not terrible much. Maybe let the commanding rogue trader get a 30/5 shield or something similar. I have a player with light armor in my campaign that insists on wearing light armor, to prevent him from falling too far behind the power curve I actually let him get some shielding tech into his armor as a reward for his good service to the empire.

I'm going to assume that the player in question isn't a Astartes sargeant, so his breathing is self-contained with a helmet. If not, however, then poison gas and viral grenades would molest him nicely. Maybe you can arrange for him to "lose" his helmet? Leaving it behind somewhere? He's got to drink or eat sometime. Furthermore, a power-armored opponent is a huge threat and should, thus, be neutralized first; Have all enemies concentrate attacks on him, especially heavy weapons. If they are aware that he is using power armor, Explorers often become famous, then it is almost guaranteed they are not going to challenge the explorer without heavy weapons. This would also increase the survivability of the other explorers, who may even find themselves preoccupied with saving his life if he is constantly wading into battle, against enemies who are intelligent enough for tactics.

But a "ally" in power armor might also be a significant threat to the party. Imagine the blight for the explorers if he were successfully attacked with hallucinatory weapons; gas grenades, poison darts, neural nanites, etc. That would be something! 2 tons of ceramite / plasteel being wielded by someone mad with rage or fear, who thinks his friends are "really" Chaos daemons or Tyranids. Ouch.

How about critical hits causing mechanical failures? Power armor repair should be difficult and maybe involve building costly, high-maintenance relationships on Forge Worlds, or even epic endeavors to convince power armor technomats to be placed in permanent tutelege under the offending explorer. There is also The Wild West problem; if the power armor is a relic or sufficiently ancient, it may be famous. Plenty of skeazy and shifty low-lifes are looking to make a name for themselves by killing the owner of St. Cripsin's Holy Vestments. Most of this scum isn't inclined to fight fair, so they are gonna try to kill him while he's on the toilet.

Also, Psykers. A good Psyker can make mincemeat out of the brains of almost anyone in power armor.

i'll say it again: power armour doesn't make someone a threat nearly as much as what weapons are carried. a technical with a heavy machinegun is a far greater threat than the armored car that picks up money from banks and casinos

In Rogue Trader violence should be one of the many tools used by the PC's. Now if one of the PC's has chosen to be that tool (i.e a power armoured arch militant death dealer) then that is great and when the time for violence comes then they should be perfectly entitled to roll through most general cannon fodder.

However as a GM you need to emphasise that violence is just a tool. A Rogue Traders power is based o ntheir wealth and political influence. Simply put if a player insists that he is always wearing power armour then start hitting the whole group with Aquisition modifiers. If they question this then simply say that it is diffficult to finalise a trade deal when x character keeps attending meetings dressed like a walking armoury.

Like wise the stink, noise and reputation of power armour means a basic -30 Fel when dealing with any social situations that require any kind of tact.

Finally if he is literally always wearing the power armour then slap a massive PF cost on it. After all he is using a rare and valuable resource (power armour power packs) on a constant basis. That costs money……

As for combat have found that simply allowing NPC's to do Righteous Fury is the best way of evenign up combats. At the very least 1 in 10 hits is going to hurt.

Thanks for all your help guys, all the suggestions have been great.

Power Armour is Very Rare, -20.

A modestly rich Rogue Trader can get 100 sets of this armour if he wants!!! Power Armour is a status symbol in the Imperium. Wearing it at trade negotiations sends a message, but this is not necessarily one that will harm your position. IMO it wouldn't be at all strange for an entire RT party to turn up to a negotiation wearing binged Power Armour. This is a game where people gold plate their 5km long Cruisers…

In the same vein, I find the idea that the cost of the batteries would hit PF to be absurd. STC crystal batteries are both abundent and rechargeable.

Fundamentally, I cannot understand why +2 AP verse carapace is generating such a fuss…

Fresnel said:

I'm in total agreement. Most of the PCs in my group can claim 3 AP even when wearing unassuming uniforms or casual dress. Almost all of them (excepting the Astropath) can claim 5 or 6 AP when in battle dress. An extra 2 AP isn't really that big of a deal, especially considering the built-in limitations of power armour (the ones that are RAW, not ad hoc penalties assigned by the GM specifically to dissuade the use of power armour).

My previous experiences with power armor were under the DH system, where high AP weapons weren't as common or as easy to obtain. The scale of RT is different, so that extra 2AP isn't as much of an issue. I notice they have not given the option for a military power supply now, so that will also disuade too much use. Again, the issue was that the player would refuse to go anywhere without the suit, and I've recieved plenty of feedback on how to balance things out now.

Also note, the FAQ has changed the availablity of power armor as extremely rare, not very rare, so it's not nearly as easy to obtain now.

Bowoodstock said:

Ok, but again I don't think a further -10 qualifies as 'not nearly as easy to obtain'. Even Good Quality, Extremely Rare equipment is well within the reach of many RTs.

For context, the Arch-Militant in our game has Lathe-Wrought Carapace with impact and rending upgrades, plus a conversion field. He wields a Good Quality Storm Bolter. But it not beyond the GM to give him critical damage…

The RT in my game has power armour, he rarely wears it due to the fact it needs recharging every few hours. He has a recharge unit installed in his personal Rhino for combat situations but otherwise wears his best carapace. Most of the characters wear Pressure Carapace suits and have subskin armour and at least refractor fields, the power armour is not a big deal.

The size penalty more than makes up for the extra AP since he becomes a big fat target (go Lumin heraldry) and while he takes 2-3 less damage a hit, he gets more hits and takes more damage. Considering he only packs a powerfist, plasma pistol and occasionally a long las, he deals very little damage. As for the unassuming techpriest who has a compact shuriken catapult built into his arm and a number of illegal and dangerous weapons about his person, he is far more dangerous but alot less obvious.

HappyDaze said:

Oh sure, I mean a huge threat from a in-game role-playing psychological aspect, not necessarily a sheer games mechanics. You definitely described a situation in which an explorer with power armor isn't a huge threat that tactically knoweledgeable enemies would probably realize. I should have wrote; opponents perceive power-armored explorers as a threat, regardless of game mechanics, and would adjust their manner of attack accordingly.

It's designed to be formidable-looking and intimidating, that's for sure! If your enemies are especially ignorant, they may even mistake the explorer for an Adeptus Astartes at first. Until they realize that the explorer isn't 2.25 m tall and wielding a bolt thrower.

Fresnel said:

Light and normal power armour have been errataed to "Extremely Rare".

I've let players buy military grade power packs as an expensive acquisition (I can't recall the difficulty off the top of my head). Frankly, a few points of armour hasn't been a big deal in my experience.

Yeah I began as a newbie RT GM about 6 months ago. Never played the system or anything too similar before. My arch militant starts with Good Quality medium PA and refuses to take it off. This caused undue stress for me but by now I have found a lot of ways to deal with armored enemies. Our party now has characters with AP + T of 20+ and at the low end we have a tech priest in Flak with Toughness 35. There's a lot that you can use against this!

Here's a list of weapons and people who would have lots of them that can own PA but your own group won't become insanely powerful after looting their items:

AP Sniper Rifles/Hotshot Longlas with Red Dot - Poor Quality Krak Missile Launchers - Krag Grenade Launchers - Gland warriors/ skitari/ cyborgs with Unnatural Strength(x2) + Chain Axes/swords - Psychics - Daemons with weapons that ignore all armor - Power Weapons - Hellguns

Yes a lot of that will oneshot most the party. But that's the point, they'll have to be clever to win, not just use huge guns. Consider the following encounter (All stuff is found in the main book/made up and explained here)

To take on an RT group of 4-6 players at level 1

5-8 Grunts with Lasguns, Flak

1 Gland Warrior with Chainaxe and "Macro-growth gland" (Counts as Common Quality Muscle graft), Hell Pistol, Light Carapace

Missile Launcher. team. 2 Guardsman. Light Carapace and Missile Launcher, lasguns. "Rapid Reload" talent so long as one guardsman uses the "Ready Reload" extended action

Sure they can shoot the guy with the rocket launcher, but then his buddy will continue using it, albeit significantly less effectively. Also the gland warrior will jump on them if they get close. The rocket launcher is the center of the encounter, the grunts will be layind down cover fire/their lives to prevent the explorers from reaching and disabling it, while the missile team will try to take out the highest priority threats. Since the missile team is lightly armored, everyone can participate in killing them. Should the missile team kill the PA explorer, they still can only fire one rocket a turn, which needs to hit and not be dodged, giving the remaining explorers a pretty decent chance to finish the encounter on their own.

Warmaster Picklehauber said:

No, I'm talking an in-game perspective too. On it's own, a guy with armour isn't scary. When you give weapons to the guy in armour it gets scary. On the other hand, an unarmoured guy with a weapon can still be pretty scary. This isn't metagaming, it's just good sense.

You could also go the route of: three man team grapples and pins the heavily armored guy, while the rest of the bad guys engage the other players. After pining, the team begins pulling his armor off or pulling him away or… well he is pinned, they can do pretty much whatever they want to him. Then the less armored players would have to rescue him from certain doom.

That way this three man team need not have big scary guns to threaten the less armored players.

My GM just expected us to deal with it though. He will throw just about anything at us and most of the time we manage to deal with it. Often times we leave power armor behind because other things would keep us safer… like stealth…. or not being instantly recognized. Many times we know that the space is limited and taking power armor will hinder us due to it's bulk… wouldn't want to get stuck in a crawlspace and made into genestealer chow cause we were wearing too much armor.

Often times taking cover is better protection than that armor anyway, and you should probably do that even if you are in power armor. If you are being shot at and decide to just stand out in the open and take it, regardless of armor level, in my opinion, you deserve a the pain coming your way followed by a messy death. Oftentimes if you ARE taking cover, unless they have anti tank weapons like darklances, brightlances, and lascannons, you could be naked behind that cover and do just as well (one of our players did just this to prove a point to another player infact)

On a somewhat unrelated point, could a RT acquire Terminator armor? It's purely ridiculous, I know, but there are a few examples of it being manufactured for "lesser mortals" (aka NOT Space Marines). In the Inquisition, I know that Ordo Malleus Inquisitors CAN get Termie armor, and in the RPG, at least, members of the other Ordos might be able to pull strings, and requisition a suit, but is there any place they might go, and any amount of money they might spend where a Rogue Trader could acquire one of these vaunted suits of near-vehicle, mounted weapons with a force field goodness? Just wondering. Every once in a while, I think there might be a few things even these men and women can't get, but then they buy a starship, and own a planet, or two, and I have to wonder, again. Would they just be Near Unique rarity?

If a human heretic in Black Crusade can have terminator armour, then there's no reason that a RT couldn't do the same. Its availability - not to mention the availability of its weapons - would be the major drawback. Upkeep tests to keep it going might are likely to be harder than power armour, and it's not too unlikely that it'll be short of a few key systems much as the armour from Black Crusade tends to be.

venkelos said:

I thought they already had one out? Must of been that Ordo Malleus one I remember seeing somewhere. Don't play BC, but I don't see a RT wouldn't be able to acquire a set or two of Terminator Armour.

Nameless2all said:

I'm going to disagree, i think any terminator armor "bought" by a rogue trader would be a walking invitation for an Astartes chapter or the Inqusition to come kick their teeth in and take it off their corpse. It's one of those things that you don't just buy and if you have it you certainly don't do anything to advertise that you do as the assumption will be that you looted it off someone's corpse somewhere and that it originally belonged in some chapters armory.

lurkeroutthere said:

Except for the little detail that a Chapter armoury is highly unlikely to include Terminator suits fitted for baseline humans…

lurkeroutthere said:

Considering that Rogue Traders are, according to the book, roughly par with Chapter Masters, it doesn't seem unreasonable that a rogue trader could've Acquired a suit of Terminator armor. Naturally such a thing would never be bought- nobody is running a terminator armor stand waiting for someone to bring up a wheelbarrow convoy with 529,593,058,397 thrones. But it's conceivable that a powerful and influencial Trader could call in favors and pull strings and maybe bribe a bit to have the Imperium send a suit his way, calling it a reward for blowing up a few dozen heretic planets or something.

When ever my players want something ridiculous like a suit of terminator armor, I never tell them no. Instead I make it the focus of an epic quest of doom to acquire it. I currently have a explorator player who is trying to figure out how to craft a suit of terminator armor so he can outfit the whole party with it. Other crazy plans I have players doing (or done) include:

-an sanctioned psyker trying to figure out how to make wraith bone and unlock the secrets of eldar tech.

-a space marine who is bound and determined to start his own chapter, that has a warrant of trade attached to it… and find all the lost primarchs… and revive the emperor.

-a navigator who is trying to unlock the secrets of his genes in order to gain control over the mutations inherent to the navigator gene.

-an arch militant who is trying to make a twin linked storm heavy bolter that he can actually carry and use personally.

-the same arch militant is also trying to develop psychic powers

-an inquisitor who has decided to try to turn tyranid monsters into cyber/psyber familiars (this one is lots of fun)

-an explorator who is trying to become a favored disciple of the Deceiver (yeah I'm talking about the c'tan) and alter himself into a necron lord equivalent

-a rogue trader who wants to carry a contingent of titans under his own control rather than the legio titanicus

My games can get rather amusing to me as my players try to accomplish these goals. More often than not I don't need a plot to keep them going as they try to achieve their personal goals.

It's one thing to say the imperium treats them as on par with chapter masters, Autonomy doesn't equal authority. It's also quite another thing to say that other chapter masters treat them on par with chapter masters. As always there's what you can do and what you should do. For my part I don't think the imperium itself has the ability to gift Terminator armor. You'd have to go directly to the Cult Mechanicus and talk to them. I just think that there are some thing that transend raw profit factor (as it's basically just money and favors) and go strictly into authority and might makes right. That's not to say that anything is impossible, more to say your just not going to get it with an acquisition test and even when you have it there will likely be some consequences.

"Except for the little detail that a Chapter armoury is highly unlikely to include Terminator suits fitted for baseline humans"

Clearly more sign that they not only stole priceless relics but profaned their machine spirits by making alterations to them.