Battle Armor

[IDA_Guy]

THE BEST OFFENSE IS A GOOD DEFENSE!
For centuries there has been a race between weapon and armor development. As soon as a new defensive technology is developed, weapons are built to overcome them. With the release of numerous weapon compendiums for modern and sci-fi games, armors have been losing the race in d20 games. But now, BATTLE ARMOR strikes back to balance the odds. BATTLE ARMOR includes:

• Ten suits of defensive armor for modern and futuristic campaigns
• Full illustration for every armor suit
• Rules for equipment mounts, weapon mounts and ready racks
• Standard equipment and weapon loads for each suit
• As an added bonus, 12 Stand-Ins Printable Figures, ready to print and use in your own campaign

Available at e23, RPGNow, and DriveThruRPG.


Read the review here on Enworld.

 

[Crothian]

Battle Armor

Armor is one of those odd things that people seem to know is important and they get it for their characters but it does not seem all that popular. Armor is passive in nature; it rarely has much game feel or options especially in the more modern game. Weapons usually outclass armor; it seems to have been that way for centuries if not longer. Modern armor is sleek, lightweight, and rarely covers more then the torso. The days of the large, cumbersome full suits are over. But Battle Suits wants to bring them back. This book offers nine battle suits for the near future and one for the not so distant past.

Battle Armor is a new PDF by Interactive Design Adventures. They are best known for the PDF stand ins an alternative to miniatures. The book is written by Owens K. C. Stevens and is twenty pages long. The PDF comes in two version one made for the computer screen the other for printing. The Layout is a little spacious and the text a but big. The art is black and white pencil drawing and the borders make it feel like one is reading a notebook. Unfortunately the text does not match that feel being what is usually for a book. Instead they could have added some notes as if written by a person reporting about the armors or just something a little more colorful like that. The book is book marked.

Each armor is given some basic stats like defense value, maximum dexterity bonus, movement rate, armor check penalty, what can be attached to it, and some other basics. Each is also given a nice description that discusses how it came to be about and the success of the battle armor. At times it almost reads as historical recounts.

The ten different armors are all pretty different. They range from the Tin Man which is designed for the 1930’s to the Deathsuit which is used in near future death games. Each suit of armor has a nice description and comes with some basic equipment. There is also the Thinsuit, a piece of armor that could be worn under someone’s cloths and easily concealed.

The armors are interesting but might not really be powerful enough to really protect against the weapons they will be going up against. There is a nice variety and with the history of the armor is can easily be used to represent something more. The campaign can be shown to reflect these histories so the armor actually has a reason for being developed and not just there as some equipment in future games seems to be. The art and layout could use some improving and I would have liked if each Battle Armor occupied its own page instead of having them occupy pages together. That would allow for one to print out just the armor they want to use. There are some good ideas and I would recommend this book for someone looking for Battle armor in their modern or futuristic games.

 

[reveal]

Ask anyone what the most essential piece of equipment you need in a standard d20 Modern (or Future) game is and they’ll most likely say a weapon of some sort. Is that true? No, it’s not. To me, the most essential piece of equipment is armor. Sure, you can have the biggest gun or the coolest toy that shoots out laser beams, but how are you going to survive when some punk decides to shoot you with a small caliber handgun? Without armor, you won’t.

Battle Armor is a short (20 pages) PDF from Interactive Design Adventures, LLC, written by Owen K.C. Stephens. It has a total of 10 new armors that can be implemented in any d20 Modern campaign, regardless of its setting. I always like to see new types of armor out there because it allows a player to create a character with more style. This book does a good job of presenting new armor that is both usable and stylish, but it’s not perfect in doing so.

Likes

Each one of the 10 new armors is unique, allows for personalization, and is just plain cool. Some of the armors are made for nothing more than bullet stopping power, like the Tin Man armor, and some are made for undercover operatives who want to stay protected but don’t want to give away their ace in the hole, like the Thinsuit.

The illustrations are very nicely done. M. Newell Curlee, the artist, definitely has an eye for how to make armor look good, not just function well. I also like that the book tells you specifically that the art is a sample of what the armor might look like, but it’s up to the individual to tailor it for their own character.

Dislikes
The layout of the book is not good. The information about each armor is spread out amongst two pages, making the reader have to flip back and forth for information. I would have preferred each armor to have its own page, allowing a DM to present the player with a one page reference for their new suit.

The illustrations, while very nice, are what really hampers the layout. They are large. In some cases, almost half the page is taken up by the picture of the armor. Making them smaller would have helped alleviate the page-spanning problem.

The copy I received had pictures of, I guess, holes on the either the left or right side, as well as a long, black bar next to the holes. It didn’t add anything to the PDF and, instead, adds more ink or toner that needs to be expended to print this out.

Some of the suits of armor have life support available in them. For example, one suit allows you to breath internal air for 5 minutes, in case there is poison around you. The problem is, the book never states how to turn it on. That may seem petty, but if I were in a fight and someone suddenly threw tear gas at me, I would like to know a) how to turn on my life support and b) what kind of action (Attack, Move, Full-Round, or Free) it is since it’s the middle of combat and I want to plan out my actions.

Conclusion

I really like the armors in this book, even though my list of dislikes is longer than my lists of likes. My main gripes come from the layout of the book and not the armors specifically. If I were running a d20 Modern game, I would make a few minor adjustments, such as upping the Wealth DC on some of them, but I would still use them.

-- Tony Law

 

[Owen K.C. Stephens]

Thanks for the Review!

Thanks for taking the time! Feedback of all kinds is always helpful. I will mention that one of the things we've done differently for Battle Armor II is to place all the armor suits on one- or two- page spreads that match the page breaks.

Owen K.C. Stephens