Vehicle Templates:

The vehicle's template is the general way it is organized.

Mechs

A Mech is a vehicle that is generally humanoid. It moves like a creature would „ that is, it can enter squares it left. It uses the Mech weapon mount system, which is laid out in a similar manner to how a character uses weapons.

Mech combat works just like character-scale combat, with the following exceptions:

1.   Drive Skill: Whenever you make a physical skill check (dexterity, endurance, or strength) from a mech, you use your relevant skill modifier or your Drive Skill, whichever is lower. Without the proper mech operation technique, your drive skill modifier is treated as 0. For example, if you are trying to make a Dodge defence, and you have a +6 acrobatics modifier but only a +4 drive modifier, you would use the +4 bonus.
2.   Use the mech's stats in place of yours. Use the mech's strength, toughness, size, scale, speed,  etc.

Powered Armour

Powered armour is, in essence, a mech the same scale as the pilot. The pilot climbs into and wears the powered armour as opposed to sitting in a cockpit piloting it. It functions like a mech, with a few fundamental changes:

1.   The pilot skill is not needed. Instead, use the acrobatics skill whenever a pilot check would be necessary.
2.   Without the Armour: Powered Armour Proficiency technique, you apply mobility penalties to all physical skill checks, rather than simply dexterity ones.
3.   The armour€s toughness and yours are not calculated separately „ instead, the powered armour adds its Armour defence bonus to your toughness. Its own toughness (which includes its effective “3” endurance for being an object and its chassis€s durability) is only used when the armour is attacked separately, such as from a called shot or when nobody is wearing it.
4.   Use the armour€s strength, speed, etc. in place of your own.

So, a character with unarmoured toughness 9/3 and strength 3 wearing a suit of powered armour with strength 5, aluminum chassis (+3), and cerametal plate armour (+9) would in total have 18/12 toughness, as the character uses the powered armour€s armour bonus (but not chassis bonus) and his own endurance. Attacks against a character in powered armour threaten to wound the pilot directly. Neither the character€s own mass nor the mass of the vehicle€s chassis are  added to encumbrance. Suits of powered armour never have multiple crew or passengers, except possibly in the case of onboard AI acting as an ECO, engineer, or even gunner.