There’s a lot of really cool stuff happening in Edge of Tomorrow, but the thing that caught my eye first was the power armour. It seemed very low-tech, like some of the rigs that have been proposed and even tested. Given that my game Starship Commandos also uses power armour, I think it’s evident I dig the idea.
But how do you use power armour in your game. What does it do?
It really depends on the system you are using. It might not even be noticeable, just another power/talent/feat that gives some advantages but doesn’t super-power the PC. In other games, it might amp up the character so much, she is far more powerful than characters without it.
For Starship Commandos it provided a series of benefits, and if one of these benefits applied to the situation at hand, the character gained a bonus die (best two dice added together against a target number). Without power armour, the characters weren’t defenceless, but they came to rely on their “harnesses” a lot, so when they lost access to those benefits – say, when someone triggered an EMP – they felt exceptionally vulnerable.

For a game like D&D, powered armour could basically be highly enchanted magical armour – giving AC bonuses as well as stat bonuses and perhaps some other benefits. In Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, power armour – like Iron Man’s – is simply the narrative framework for powers and does not necessarily make the character better or worse than any other character.
And, honestly, it’s not the mechanical benefits of power armour that intrigues me – it’s the aesthetics of it. Power armour just looks cool, whether it’s the armour from Edge of Tomorrow or something more like the suits in Halo.
You can read more about Edge of Tomorrow at Wikipedia and IMDB.
You find more Edge of Inspiration articles here.
You can find out more about Marvel Heroic Roleplaying here.
You can find out more about Starship Commandos here.