Just talking to the player before you slam the hammer down on them? They will likely understand if you don't want their character walking around in full armor everywhere, it's common sense. If you start having in character NPCs antagonize them without explaining first, things are going to get messy quickly. If you absolutely have to do it in character, just tell the player their morph will eventually have to stop and take a leak.

Erulastant wrote:

Exoskellys have plumbing.

Is it plumbing you'd WANT to use? Because I don't really want that to come dislodged while I'm being pelted with .50 rounds.

The first problem is, that you allowed the players have whatever they wanted, and get to do whatever they wanted with it. Fess up to them and tell them that the battlesuit complicates things greatly. Tell the other players that it turns out that the only weapons that will threaten a battlesuit are the kinds of weapons that will wipe out the rest of the team, like plasma weapons and seekers. It might be in everyone's best interest if the player keeps the battlesuit at home. If he does not, then any fight will result in the opponents running away and returning when they get such weapons. ---- Anyways... How big of a threat is the character with the exoskeleton? If he is armed like a Reaper, then the character should get a Reaper like response. It will raise eyebrows and might get the character arrested. If the character does try resist arrest, then the cops might bring out the plasma weapons and seekers so they can deal with the character. Likewise, the character will draw attention. Firewall is about a secret society trying to protect transhumanity. If they can't be incognito, then they have already partially failed their job. The exoskeleton may be tough, but it is also an environmental suit as well. It can handle a range of temperatures beyond a normal biomorph, but this is not unlimited. Likewise, life support is only good for 48 hours. The character probably needs to sleep as well. Throw the character into difficult environments don't give them a break. A Hyperdense exoskeleton (EP core p. 344). It is bigger and stronger than a battlesuit (but not as well armored though). It can probably harm the battlesuit in melee combat. Standard missiles (seekers) deal x2 the listed amount, pushing the damage beyond plasma rifles. It also doubles the area of effect (woe to the other players). Many of these weapons cost [Moderate], a fraction of the cost of a battlesuit. A dazzler (p. 316) will probably blind a person wearing a battlesuit. Technically it will blind the battlesuit, but the wearer will probably be completely sealed for maximum protection. Social grace. It might have none. A person who runs around in a battlesuit all the time might breed distrust, and might sour deals that the character might otherwise get. The other parties might ask the character to wait outside or at home, since the suit does suggest the character is battle ready. Comply or they might refuse to show up. Exoskeletons can be hacked and remotely piloted. Does a character want to be in one when someone else is in control? If someone else is in control, can they sour the character's rep by going on a rampage?

Social repercussions seem really likely here. It might not be illegal in an autonomist habitat, but he's doing the equivalent of driving a tank to work every day. A few might think he's a badass, but most will probably think he's a tool ("Are you for real? You need to wear a battlesuit while you get breakfast?"). I wouldn't be at all surprised to see his rep take a hit whenever he interacts with someone where wearing a battlesuit isn't justified ("I'm a reputable woman, do you really feel so threatened that you need to wear that to meet with me?"). Plus, he's basically giving himself the data footprint negative trait. Anyone looking for him or his colleagues is going to have a really easy time finding him. As for taking his toy away temporarily, nanoswarms are probably the way to go. A military-grade fullerene armor shell is great for stopping bullets and plasma beams, but it's just a convenient source of carbon to a protean nanoswarm. His expensive toy can be easily dealt with using tech in the [high] cost range: Someone anticipating combat with a battlesuit-wearing opponent could hit him with a saboteur nanoswarm. Unless someone's actively running a nanodetector, he probably won't even realize something's up until the accumulated damage starts inflicting wounds on his machine. It would take on average 12 seconds to reach that point, and on average one minute to render the battlesuit completely inoperable until he gets it repaired. If you want to threaten him in combat without giving the enemy weapons that would wipe out the other characters, have someone with a buzzer hit him with a disassembler nanoswarm. Every turn his armor rating will drop by 1-5 points. Even if they win the combat, his suit will be rendered to base components within a couple minutes if they can't stop those nanites. If you don't want to destroy his battlesuit, give him clues that people in the area have been known to use nanoswarms in combat and that having a guardian swarm to protect his asset would be a good idea. It won't stop the disassemblers from stripping his armor, but it will (probably) stop them from destroying his suit completely, allowing him to repair it. For something with a little more flavor, hit him with a Protean nanoswarm that strips his armor but doesn't harm any other components (it would presumably function like a disassembler but stop when the armor rating hits 0 instead of moving on to the battlesuit's durability). "Look at your battlesuit. Look again. Your fullerene armor shell is now diamonds!" Cackle maniacally as he triggers an enemy trap that makes his armor slowly crumble into piles of useless gems around him, leaving him with a battlesuit frame that augments his strength but offers no protection until he can repair it (which might be easier in this case since it's just putting in new fullerene armor instead of repairing extensive nano-sabotage or damage from having the entire shell eaten away by nanites). In the future, I'd tell players that they can start with whatever gear they want, but warn them that you aren't going to tailor your campaign to make their gear permanent; remind them that spending 20 CP on gear means you are 20 CP behind your fellow players when everyone dies and has to resleeve. And if you really want a battlesuit for a mission, you can always try to pull some favors to get one.

Oh and i forgot one nice thing. Wearing such a suit constantly is going to cause massive hygiene problems. he is going to stink when he gets out of that thing and keep such pressure on the flesh constantly should eventually result in bed sores which are great avenues for infection

Sniper rifles with RAP ammo rip big juicy chunks out of heavily armoured things. Speed 2 gives you four shots at AP -18 every round. Don't forget the +5/+10 DV bonus for 30/60 MoS. I may have discovered this in my current game, where two characters nearly totalled an SLOTV in three rounds from two kilometers away. Thanks, Accushot ammo!

ORCACommander wrote:

Oh and i forgot one nice thing. Wearing such a suit constantly is going to cause massive hygiene problems. he is going to stink when he gets out of that thing and keep such pressure on the flesh constantly should eventually result in bed sores which are great avenues for infection

Not really. This is Eclipse Phase. Belters are known to wear hardsuits for months at a time. Cleaner nanoswarm handles the hygiene, smart material linings and medichines keep you healthy and free of bedsores.

ORCACommander wrote:

true but hush. the pc is probly thinks with meat so he may not be smart enough to know to turn them on or set them up to do that in the first place :)

That's like telling veteran Shadowrunners they don't have a flashlight because their players forgot to put it on their character sheet, or telling an experienced Fighter that his armor is full of nasty sludge and his sword is dull because he neglected to tell the DM he's maintaining it properly. As a GMing tactic, it's disingenuous bullshit. Anyway, FuzzySadist? You have to learn to deal with this. You're never going to be able to stop players from getting their hands on paramilitary hardware, civilian hardware that can easily be repurposed into paramilitary hardware, and outright military hardware, moreso in Eclipse Phase than in any other game, because they can literally manufacture it out of chunks of scrap metal and scoops of grit. Don't think like a D&D DM. Everybody does not have to be equally contributory in combat. Think of it like Shadowrun - the Street Samurai's job is to own people in combat, the Face's job is to own people in social situations. And quite frankly, if some yobbos who are unprepared pick a fight with a guy in power armor, they deserve to be annihilated. No-selling half-assed combatants is the entire point of power-armor. I know, it's a hard mindset to get out of, I fall prey to it myself sometimes, but unprepared enemies simply aren't going to be able to scratch a character in full armor, so try very, [i]very[/i] hard not to take it personally. The NPCs are not your characters, a player victory is not your defeat; NPCs are simply actors who exist, following their own agendas, which are presumably bringing them into conflict with the players. That said, everybody and his mum should know how loltastically easy it is to get comfortable, wear-all-the-damn-time armor which can shrug off submachinegun fire like it's literally not there. Those who are serious about combat plan accordingly, so bear it in mind. Submachineguns, pistols, etcetera, are the domain of gang bangers, street thugs, and rent-a-cops; people who expect to be shooting at completely or almost-completely unarmored, and most likely unarmed, targets. People who are expecting to have to kill the kind of person who's going to shoot back are going to be carrying heavy railpistols loaded with AP rounds, minimum, as a sidearm, which is what you carry when you don't expect to have to use it. If they [i]are[/i] expecting trouble, then go up to rail-rifles. Alternatively, you can go for standard firearms with the gimmicky ammunition, but one of my players discovered to his detriment the other day that a focused full burst of accushot ammunition failed to do any appreciable damage, far less than a single shot from a railpistol with non-AP ammo. Make it an IC thing, too, I did. After that fight, my player (on a Scum swarm) got spammed by people telling him that though his immediate reaction against a couple of usurious thugs from Luna was both valiant and effective, they criticized his weapon and the ammunition it was firing, strongly suggesting that he switch it for a rail-rifle with AP ammo.

ORCACommander wrote:

You know shadow i was just saying that to be funny -_-

Yes, but this is the internet, and there's always going to be [i]some[/i] GM who's going to see that and say "That's a damn good idea. They don't tell me any of that stuff, I'll screw 'em hard with it."

I suggest giving them the opportunity to die gloriously for the hab. All the shouldering-through-undersized-doors stuff, BFGs &c. Then the local population can realize that "Gee, I guess they WEREN'T up to no good with that tin can" and present your character with a nice new sleeve and a low-profile power armor that actually fits through doors. You know, along with a bar tab they might never manage to drink up. I suggest starting with a smart vac suit, with aftermarket (but designed into the spec, so therefore more pleasant to use and stylish) upgrades which must not neglect muscle-plastic based actuators providing a strength boost. Armor can be buckytube-impregnated-silicone or something flexible but head-turningly sturdy. I recommend using Warframe as a design muse, given the nanotech power armor serving as the core conceit of the game. Point is - less dangerous, more rep, still reason to treat it as glorified underwear when someone breaks out the plasma cannon.

I, for one, would never allow the +30 to attack roll spray of full-auto fire to be applied to any kind of called shot. You're not calling a shot, you're spraying a praying. Spray and pray is what you use if you're having trouble landing [i]any shots at all[/i], anywhere on the target, it's not what you use to find that one little gap between his helmet and his chestpiece where his armor is merely ballistic smart-cloth and not the carbonan carapace that every other bit of his armor is. Additionally, I would not allow a called shot to bypass armor to be applied to a military hardsuit. If the player has achieved his armor rating by layering normal military armor and all the little options, yes, but not a hardsuit. That's the benefit of a hardsuit, I would say, over layering everything else.

ubik2: Recoil or not, you're still using the +30 benefit of auto-fire to spray bullets around to hit someone you're having a hard time hitting. Otherwise, what you're doing isn't the +30 to-hit, it's the +3d10 damage, because you're putting the entire burst on the target. It makes precisely zero sense to use the +30 autofire spray to seek a called shot.

templariomaster wrote:

Troll him and troll him hard.

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo. No. No. Nooo-ooooo-ooo. No. Treating one player unfairly because you don't agree with they way they are exploiting the game's rules is a good way to get beaten up by that player. If you're going to start taking away player character's toys and/or having specific counters for their tactics, either start doing it for EVERY character or prepare to lose a player. They aren't going to put up with being abused. Don't be THAT Game Master.

OP, templariomaster's advice? That should be treated as an object lesson in exactly what [i]not[/i] to do. Busting out hard counters in the hands of people who have no reason to expect the player's tactics and hence have prepared those hard counters, just because you're feeling they're having too easy a time of things, is shit game-mastering.

ShadowDragon8685 wrote:

ubik2: Recoil or not, you're still using the +30 benefit of auto-fire to spray bullets around to hit someone you're having a hard time hitting. Otherwise, what you're doing isn't the +30 to-hit, it's the +3d10 damage, because you're putting the entire burst on the target. It makes precisely zero sense to use the +30 autofire spray to seek a called shot.

You can use the +30 autofire to help you hit a fly. You can use it to help you hit a weak point. (It's a narrower spray than when you're not doing the called shot, but that doesn't mean it doesn't work.)

Lets have in mind, that obviusly the problem here is that the master cant put anything bigger than a battlesuit in the game, because the game itself isnt focussed in combat but the battlesuit is destroying the fun on the parts that have combat. Trolling is just a bit of justice.

"When you find yourself in bed with an ugly woman, best close your eyes, get it over with. Cut her throat. Be done with it." Bad players are like contemporary Republicans. You let one kick and scream and every good citizen suffers. Stop dicking around and Occam's razor that [bleep.]

templariomaster wrote:

Trolling is just a bit of justice.

Nooo, trolling is the exact opposite of justice. This is the worst possible way of handling the problem, unless the goal is to drive the player(s) away.

ShadowDragon8685 wrote:

If the player has achieved his armor rating by layering normal military armor and all the little options, yes, but not a hardsuit. That's the benefit of a hardsuit, I would say, over layering everything else.

Ignoring the "no penetration" for a second, as we've already discussed that elsewhere, I'd say the benefits of a battlesuit over layering are; 1. No layering penalties. 2. Increased strength and movement options. 3. It's technically a vehicle. The last two the most important. It means that if you're in a battlesuit, then you can use more, heavier weapons than otherwise: I would be okay with battlesuits toting around machine guns instead of combat rifles, for example. For the same reason, they can be tricked out with mounted weapons and other synthmorph/vehicle-only equipment. Also important is that as a vehicle they have thier own internal AI, which can either act independantly should the speed of the suit exceed that of the wearer, or provide support like reloading weapons or giving aid to climbing/freefall/freerunning rolls.