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.