Vehicles, Fixed Defence and Drive/Pilot

[Ecalsneerg]

Ok, so this has finally come up in-game. All vehicles of a certain size have the same Defence. However, both Drive and Pilot mention using them to avoid being attacked, but no DC is given. Is there any actual way to temporarily improve vehicle Defence.

[quotemyname]

I saw this early this morning, then slept on it and came up with an idea.

In D&D the Mounted Combat feat allows you to use a Ride check in place of your mount's AC. I propose the Vehicle Combat feat. It will do the same thing, except for Vehicles!

[Geez3r]

Attacking a vehicle is just like attacking a character. Vehicles generally have an applicable size modifier included in their Defense, and tend to be easier to hit than characters overall. The driver of a vehicle can take a standard action for “evasive maneuvers†during a round. If so, substitute the result of the character’s relevant skill check (Drive or Pilot), modified by the vehicle’s size, for the vehicle’s normal Defense that round. For example, a character piloting a gargantuan fighter jet (–4 size modifier) takes evasive action and gets a Pilot check result of 22. Subtracting the jet’s size modifier gives a Defense score of 18 for that round (much better than the jet’s default Defense of 6). Just as in melee combat, one can also “fight defensively†while driving a vehicle, which grants a +2 dodge bonus to the vehicle’s Defense and applies a –4 penalty on attack rolls made by any occupants of the vehicle.