Surviving Mega-=Damage Attacks
Incase anyone is curious, Rifts Ultimate Edition has the following on squishies surviving MD attacks:
To survive Mega-Damage combat, the character needs to don MDC body armor, power armor, use an MDC force field(rare) or a psionic or magical defense. Mega-Damage protection for humans alwasy scomes from an outside source, be it armor or magic, a robot or combat vehicle, power armor, etc., but sometimes event htat's not enough.
The Following guidelines are provided to give player characters a chance, however slight, to survive a Mega-Damage (MD) energy blast tha would normally kill or vaporize the character. If the GM agrees, the character can survive a mega-damage intensity wound as long as a trained medic, doctor or psychic healer makes a successful field surgery or medical skill roll.
How MD Weapons Work
Lasers, ion, and particle beam weapons fire a thin beam or pulse of energy with mega-damage capabilities. when the beam or pulse hits, it either vaporizes part of the body (what soldiers euphemistically call "mist" or "misting" an enemy). or slices through a body like a hot knife through butter, sheering off a limb/body part or punching a hole through the body. Note that most blasts and beams stop upon hitting their target and if a beam goes all the way through an SDC structure, it stops upon hitting whatever is behind the first target. The same is true of MD projectiles such as rail gun rounds.
Lasers burn and cauterize the flesh as they cut through SDC bodies. That's good if it sheers off a limb, because there is no bleeding, however, the shock to the body is so great that a single MD point does massive damage and kills its victim 99 out of 100 times. Cauterization is bad, because it makes reattaching a severed limb impossible (all the nerves and blood vessels are closed), and if the laser cuts into the body - the cauterization literally leaves a hole through the victim! This damages internal organs and requires extensive surgery to cut away the burned flesh and remove the damaged organs. Internal organs will have to be replaced with artifical bio-systems or cybernetic alternatives. Note, laser weapons have no kick and are silent. However , most humanoids are used to their weapons making noise and found silent laser weapons to be unnerving. As a result, manufacturers have built sound generators into their laser weapons to produce a sound with every blast or pulse.
An ion beam works isimilar to a laser only it does more severe damage, burning an irradiating the entire severed limb, effectively turning it into a piece of cooked meat, as well as a portion of the body around the wound.
Particle beams are the most destructive, "misting" - completely vaporizing - the limb/body part it hits.
Plasma bursts are in some ways worse, consuming the limb cut off the body, liquefying the flesh and bone, and severely burning 25-35% of the rest of the victim's body (third degree burns). Skin grafts will be necessary and additional muscle and internal organs could be so badly damaged they need to be replaced with bio-systems or bionics, all requiring massive amounts of surgery and money.
Mega damage explosives can work in a similar way, vaporizing an SDC character or structure at point-blank range (the center of the blast), but hitting those in the rest of the blast radius with shrapnel or destroying one or more body parts rather than instantly killing their victims. Even in our own real world, we see examples of technology - i.e.,body armour, advanced medicine and surgical procedures - saving lives, but at a terrible cost. More soldiers than any time in history are surviving grievous battlefield injuries, including the loss of one to all limbs. Mercifully, in the scientifically advanced setting of Rifts Earth, limbs, internal organs, eyes, skin and even the entire face can be rebuilt and replaced.
It goes on to have odds, etc but I'm finished with typing for now. ;)
