I think there's merit in both arguments there, but there's a big line between typical Rifts armor and squishy-world Palladium armor... largely on account of the AR concept as you've identified.

In Rifts the typical distinguishing feature is either full environmental versus non-environmental armor, and that really boils down to the armor's ability to protect in NBC situations. I think Palladium messed it up a bit with stuff like Juicer Plate, which suggests there would be gaps in it (an AR) while the stats say otherwise. At any rate I think the mega-damage materials are sufficiently tough and engineered to withstand massive heat, electricity and kinetic damage and so they stop those attacks dead on.

In the non-MDC worlds, and especially the low-tech fantasy ones, armors were really developed only to impede kinetic force. But we risk going way down the rabbit hole if we start assessing elemental effects on armor types in a realistic way, not to mention it gives an unintended advantage to certain spells/abilities. The way it's written up AR is a number that must be beat to inflict damage beyond the armor to the wearer, but if something is hitting everywhere at once what then?

I do think AOE attacks should damage equipment/armor first and foremost, and then possibly carry through to the person. The extent of that damage is the problem though. The issue is compounded by the way so many Palladium spells level up; same PPE but more dmg. For Rifts 1D6MD is a lot of damage, but a first level Palladium wizard casting a fireball with a 20' explosive radius is only doing as much damage as trained human punch... that's pretty sad. At 10th level though you're doing some serious damage for that same 15 PPE.

We could take a look at some Rifts stuff and see if there's anything there; what happens to those who aren't in full-enviro armor when exposed to 150C heat? The answer may lay in applying full damage to the armor and equipment, but then apply a lesser secondary effect and damage to the wearer. For example, wearing full plate would prevent you from getting directly burned from the fire itself, but the residual heat would cause pain and some degree of burns; likewise with cold and electricity.

Could be something in Heroes Unlimited somewhere too, like under a power description and its effects on people beyond pure sdc damage.

I'm flying back to Houston tomorrow for a month, but I'll try to keep up on this thread as much as possible.

I think for myself the chief concern is how the armour would mitigate any damage a fireball or other spell effect like it would do.

For Rifts with it's environmental armour and armours very close to that, it makes sense that the armour would first be damaged before any would transfer to the character.

For Palladium Fantasy though nothing outside of certain enchanted armours would have that effect. The AR system works really well with directed attacks, it just seems to fall flat on any kind of AOE attack. While I don't feel the damage to the armour and to the person in equal measure is an issue, both of you do. I look at armour the same way I would look at a tree or wall nearby that would be hit by the same blast of damage.  All would be hit equally in my eyes. For NPCs I can see all the players not really caring as it will make beating enemies easier, where the issue arises is when attacks of this nature are targeting the party.

For this I am thinking of this. Using fireball as an example it attacks essentially at a roll of 18. If this beats the AR of the defender then the full damage would be taken by the character (if not dodged).  The armour would take damage at 50% of the damage taken by the character.  It would be adjusted by how close to 18 the AR is. if you have 18 AR then normal armour would take 25% instead of 50%.  For every step under 18 it would increase by 5% and every step over would decrease by 5%.  So chaimail would take 45% as it has an AR of 14. The damage done would max out at 50% and go no higher.

Magical armour would dictate things differently depending on the enchantment on it. Obviously invulnerable armour would take no damage, and other enchantments would be dealt with as they come up.

Yeah, that's not a bad way to do it without getting too crazy into the details. One question though, what do you mean by 'step'? For every point of AR difference it goes up/down by 5%?

I think the reverse could be applied as well; even if AOE attack doesn't beat the AR you'll still take some damage, depending on the difference.

This would make AOE attacks much more effective, but that highlights why no one just stands in a blast radius and takes it. You either run out of it the way, take cover, or you take damage. We may just have to figure out the exact numbers/percentages. For the most part the damage amounts won't be too high unless you're fighting high level wizards or monsters.

One issue with the AR system is that the numbers were created in the first editions of the games when strike bonuses were minimal, now even an AR of 18 doesn't provide solid protection, but that's a whole different problem.

Another question this debate raises, while not pertaining to Rifts, does effect all the SDC worlds is Natural AR. The concept always bugged me since if you roll under Natural AR the target takes no damage; suggesting that they have skin harder than any material in the world since all armors actually do take damage.

I would suggest that Natural AR is effected by AOE in the same fashion as regular armor at least, with a certain percentage of damage still causing damage to the person. Otherwise one could consider the Natural AR as % chance to be impervious to any elemental attack (fire, ice, air, etc).

In general I think it would be better for Natural AR to simply reduce the damage taken (by 50% or something) instead of nullifying all damage.

I don't consider the '18 to dodge' as being an attack roll.  Fire Ball is a special hard-to-dodge and automatic-hit attack, with a separate strike component and hard-to-dodge component.  I consider it to have a penalty of -10 to dodge stacked on top of an automatic-hit of 8 (the minimum for ranged attacks).  Hard to dodge energy blast attacks are frequently given a penalty to dodge (Ballistic Fire is also -10; see list at bottom).  For comparing Armor Rating to Fire Ball, I would consider the Fire Ball to have an effective attack of 8 to 10, not 18.  You do not get to aim Fire Ball at part of the target, it is self-directed.

The main issues here are whether armor fails to provide any protection against area-effect attacks and how much damage the armor absorbs.

I disagree that armor will provide no protection.  Anyone who steps in fire with shoes on is happy they are wearing shoes, because the shoes take most or all of the damage.  If you are 99% covered in hardened leather armor and quickly walk through a bonfire (6d6 damage) you will not take 6d6 damage.  You might take a few damage to exposed areas (more if you chose to lie on your face in it), and some might bypass the armor as heat, but the armor will provide protection (Hollywood stuntmen rely on this all the time).  Also, in the less than two seconds of a Fireball's existence, the fire cannot migrate along the gap between layers of clothing, it doesn't work that way.  (I will state that prolonged damage from Fire Walls or similar attacks could be considered differently)

I think that whatever the armor absorbs should not apply to the person wearing it and vice versa.  Doing otherwise creates too many balance problems with damages in the game and gives an unfair advantage to area effect attacks against people in armor.  Also, if an attack creates a certain amount of damage over an area, that damage should not be effectively increased (which is what happens if you apply full damage to the target and full or partial damage to their armor as well).

I agree that some damage from instant-attacks will bypass armor, but more than half should be absorbed by full armor.  (again, prolonged area affect attacks could be different)

I also agree that Natural armor rating would not fully protect against area effect attacks.

Regarding changing Fireball:

I don't think the 18-to-dodge should apply if you change the Fireball spell to have an area of effect.  The Fireball spell is supposed to be an accurate, hard-to-dodge, single-target spell.  Since the Level 10 Meteor spell (which hits a 40 foot radius) only has a +4 to strike and no dodge penalty for targets, an area-effect Fireball spell should be a straight attack versus dodge roll (only higher-level spells have multiple components mixed in).

For comparison purposes, here are the updated Palladium spells as found in the Book of Magic.  The fire-related attack spells (invocations) do escalate quite nicely with level and have variable effects (Level-PPE).
(1-1) Blinding Flash: blinding area effect, save, no dodge
(1-2) Cloud of Smoke: impairs vision, can leave cloud
(4-8) Fireblast: 3d6, 1 foot wide, 50 feet long, normal dodge
(4-7) Fire Bolt: 4d6, +4 strike, 100ft (+5/lvl), normal dodge
(6-10) Fireball: 1d4/lvl damge, 90 feet, special 18 to dodge
(7-25) Ballistic Fire: 1d6 per missile (1 missile/level), 1000 feet, multi-target, -10 to dodge
(7-20) Fire Gout: flamethrower 6d6+1/lvl, 3 foot diameter, 30ft/lvl, -3 to dodge
(8-40) Fire Globe: napalm 5d6 + 5d6/melee for 1d4 minutes, thrown 200 feet, normal dodge
(9-40) Dragon Fire: 1d4x10, 100 feet, use twice per melee for duration, special 16 to dodge
(10-75) Meteor: 1d6x10+2/lvl, 200 feet/lvl, 40 foot radius, +4 strike, normal dodge
(11-160) Firequake: earthquake, gaseous fumes, and gouts of fire, all with separate penalties over an area
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:24, Tue 31 May 2016.

Also one somewhat unspoken aspect of all Palladium AOE attacks is that the blast radius is essentially un-dodgeable. If you're in the BR you get hit for 1/2 damage; as per missile attacks. Only certain super powered individuals or if you're in power armor that moves fast could you reasonably expect to be able to dodge out of the BR.

If AR is to represent the % of the body protected by armor I would just say that if you're caught in a blast radius, which already does 1/2 the damage of a direct hit, then the character's body takes damage equal to (20-AR)*5%. So if the attack did 56dmg, someone in the blast radius takes 28dmg, and of that 28 dmg if they are wearing chainmail (AR14) the armor takes 70% and they take 30%.

I think it's important though to distinguish in all attacks what is the direct hit damage, so the BR can be determined. For instance, in the Meteor Strike spell is that 40ft blast radius or are you summoning an 80' diameter meteor? 1D6x10+2/lvl is similar to a short or medium range missile, so I think it would be the damage for a direct strike and the BR damage would be 1/2.

I like the concept of just a flat 1/2 damage that cannot be escaped with AOE.

Fireball is different than typical AOE spells as it was originally just a single target spell (and not a great one at that).  The 18 to dodge I am thinking will be waved for most in light of 1/2 damage effect that cannot be dodged. (Minus supernaturally fast beings) Instead I am planning on saying that the fireball must be targeted at someone and the blast expands from there.  The dodge roll is there for the targeted person of the spell, meaning if they dodge they take 1/2 damage instead of full damage, and everyone else would just take the 1/2 damage if they are in the blast radius.

As for the examples Erik is stating I can agree in small part with it. The shoes on a fire is true for a small campfire, but the relevance begins to wain when confronted by a roaring inferno. While people do use leather to protect themselves against flames, it isn't just the leather.  It is specially treated and then they smother themselves in a flame retardant substance.  So what I think this brings up is what each fire spell really represents pertaining to what we know exists in the real world.

I see fireball as a back draft explosion that all firefighters fear. Sudden, incredibly hot and no amount of mundane protection will properly protect you. Firefighters caught in these phenomena are usually killed from the intense heat and burns. I state this so you both can understand where my thoughts of mundane offering little to no protection comes from.

I think to keep it simple that any BR attack would damage at the 1/2 damage rate that Palladium bases things on and that armour will take half that damage unless it is Rifts styled armour or enchanted to be immune or resistant to such attacks. This translates that players would take 1/2 damage and the armour would take 1/4 damage of the rolled damage for the spell or effect.

So this is happening (officially sanctioned by Palladium):

https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...e-worlds/description

While I haven't played any games in the Savage Worlds system it is fairly well played and received; it is even one of the base systems in the HeroLab application.

I'm going to grab the base rules, and some of the draft material they've thrown out for the Rifts: Savage and see how it looks. It's not being released until the end of the year, but could be an interesting option for the next campaign (assuming we finish this one) if it's decent. Savage Worlds system is much more modern than original Palladium so it may alleviate some of the frustrating logic gaps we encounter. It's also a universal system, like FATE or even D20, so a person should be able to convert whatever they need from the original sourcebooks, but it remains to be seen if they can properly capture the spirit of Rifts.

Over $400K for a game is a pretty amazing response though, so I'm hoping the authors are as passionate about it as the backers.

That looks really cool. I've not heard of the Savage Worlds system, have to check out some of their stuff. Nearing $440k backing.... some serious support.

Yeah, the Deluxe Savage Worlds rules (PDF) are on sale at DriveThruRPG for $10 right now. Good score.

I glanced through the rule book the other night, along with some developer notes and draft pages from the source books they're making. SW uses a lot of concepts familiar to a lot of other modern systems, like Mutants & Masterminds/d20, but also has one very convenient scale rule for weaponry that makes it much more applicable to Rifts than a lot of other games.

Basically instead of MD, they have something called Heavy Weapons; unless your weapon is rated as a Heavy Weapon you cannot hurt Heavy Armor. They're taking that idea and rebranding it MD/MDC it would appear.

There is a caveat though in that like Mutants & Masterminds characters don't have HP or damage points, but a series of status's. This certainly changes the dynamic as you can't just give something more MDC to make it tougher in a sense, so it will be interesting to see how they handle it and if it can capture the same basic essence without being the same. I think what they're doing is reserving the heavy weapons (MD) designation for power armor, monsters, and the like, while personal weapons and armor are not (but given really good stats).

For attributes it reminds me a bit of Heavy Gear; all attributes have an average of a D6 and the average target number is 4. So you have roll 4 or higher on a d6 to succeed. But if you roll a 6 it explodes, like Heavy Gear, so you roll again and add it. Instead of advancing with +1's though, when you increase your attribute you increase the die type: D4 > D6 > D8 > D10 > D12. Hence letting you roll higher numbers by default, but lowering your chances of exploding (you need to roll the max, so 12 on a D12). There is also a margin of success concept built into the game; so the better you roll the better the effect.

Skills are similar to the D20 system in design; they cover broad areas of knowledge, but the game allows for GM/Games to require a focus and/or even specializations. Skills use the same notation as attributes; die types of increasing value.

Then there are various Edges you can get which are like Feats and Powers in a D20 or Mutants game, and thus can be tailored to suit the setting.

From the Dev notes they're going to create 'Frameworks' for the OCC's in Rifts. Which should work well, as they're more or less the same thing in a different form: a collection of skills, abilities and equipment.

There's no point system in Sw and so they can eschew the balance issue quite a bit. There's definitely been discussion on their part about the idea though and how to handle it (Operator vs Glitter Boy for example). It sounds like they're are going to implement some random roll tables for various starting perks/gear/etc. to assist in balancing the OCCs.

Since the game doesn't use levels per se it certainly changes character development. Instead of levels you get advancement points which you buy upgrades or new powers with. The total of these points a character accumulates over the course of the game then equates to a character "Rank" to denote general power/experience.

So I picked up the Savage Rifts books yesterday in PDF; all 4 books for only $35 USD right now. I'll spend the next couple of weeks reading through when I can. At first glance they cover the basics of the main book and provide a number of Rifts-focused races (Altaran, Quick-Flex, etc) for character creation. I haven't dived fully into it yet but the idea is that they provide you with the necessary tools to covert whatever OCC and Race you want from the source books.

They have also cleaned up a lot of the mess created over the years in Rifts. A few examples; Races are just that, races and not RCCs that preclude them from taking an OCC (Iconic Framework). Though some races will have hindrances that prevent them from taking certain OCC/Iconic Frameworks. Similarly they have solid rules on the effects of cybernetics on magic use and how much you can take before your body is overtaxed (similar to Shadowrun). Technowizardry has some good, straight-forward rules as they become a magic gadgeteer class essentially, which makes things much more power-consistent.

They haven't tried to balance out the power of characters, rather they provide those without super abilities a greater chance to get cool gear and/or perks at character creation. Also there are no levels, instead characters get point which they can spend to increase their capabilities. A running total of these points puts the character into a certain class (Novice ~ Legendary), and each class unlocks certain special abilities you can get.

The biggest change noted so far is how MD is handled. Essentially only very heavy armor is given MD status, meaning you need an MD capable weapon of damaging it, and MD weapons don't inflict x100 damage they can just hurt MD armor. This would include cyborgs, power armor, tanks, etc. Regular infantry weapons and armor typically do not have MD status, though they can inflict a lot of regular damage or provide really good protection. So this means your grunt with a laser pistol is never going to take down a Glitterboy, no matter how many hundreds of shots he fires... and that makes sense. It also means that getting hit with a laser rifle without armor is not necessarily insta-death (though you're likely going to be really hurt).

I'll have to read into more the details, but this seems to give a bit more chance of survival to squishies in Rifts. The one caveat is that they have specific injury rules whenever you get wounded, which makes getting hit no fun. There are no HP type numbers, rather there are statuses similar to Mutants & Masterminds which we're all somewhat familiar with. My initial impression is that this new system will play out much more like the stories in the Rifts books and the novels, where you never want to get hit as you could be taken out... versus the "I have 550 MDC so I can just stand there and take it." mentality.

How are they approaching magic, and specifically saving throws against it? I rarely use magic for offensive actions, or even direct affects... usually more support on myself, or alternative effects to win. I felt the idea of spending precious PPE only to watch it fizzle wasn't worth the gamble when it was more efficient to just use a gun.

The system handles magic, psionics and all special abilities much like Mutants & Masterminds. For magic each spell is just a generic power with some trappings (descriptors) on it. Each magic and psionic class has a skill for their particular abilities (ie. Casting, or Techno-Wizardry), this skill is then rolled to determine the effect of the casting. Depending on the spell/power in question the target value may be a fixed number (usually 4), or it could be an opposed roll versus the trait of a target.

For attacks you basically roll your skill to hit (TN usually 4 plus mods), and if you hit you make a damage roll versus their Toughness... very much like M&M. So there aren't any saves per se.

Spells cost a number of PPE to cast, and depending on the class extra PPE can be pumped into them for a Mega-effect. Typically characters start with about 15 PPE or ISP, but powers only cost 1~2 points to activate on average.

The one potential issue I am potentially seeing is the lack of total negation powers that are typical in Rifts (like impervious to energy). Though I may just need to read through everything more carefully. Additionally, there may be a bunch of minor or odd use spells that will not be represented with the current rules structure, but I imagine they could be GM call since they typically don't effect combat.

For regular man to man combat I think everything will work pretty well. But once you get big robots and Glitterboys involved then things start to get totally whack, and this is being severely debated on a number of forums. The primary issue centers on the crazy damage potential of the Boom Gun, and medium and heavy railguns. They can effectively wipe out anything in a single attack with the current stats. Looking at the numbers myself a few tweaks and one could probably bring them more in line with how they play in Palladium.

Combat in SW is way more fast and furious, likely only 3~6 rounds tops. Again this would be much more in line with M&M instead of the Palladium/WoW dps races against a mountain of hit points. A few playtest sessions would be a good idea to ID any potential bugs.

Do you think they are worth picking up right now Mike?

The base book (The Tomorrow Legion's Players Guide) is probably worth it at the current price. You need the Savage Worlds core rules to use it fully though; the Deluxe edition is also on sale for $9.99 USD in PDF right now. The nice thing is that it sort of combines a bunch of stuff from various Rifts books in terms of gear and races; there's some new Northern Gun stuff, Triax stuff, races from various books and the like.

The GM's guide has a bunch of setting stuff we already know for the most part. Foes of North America is pretty decent as it's full of various creatures and NPC types, but not essential.

One thing is that the Savage Rifts rules definitely allow for more flexibility in characters; they don't restrict what skills and such you can take. Your OCC (called an Iconic Framework) just gives you a set of powers and some hindrances; after that you just choose what you want.

The effects of cybernetics on magic and psionics are WAY better handled with the Strain Rating system, which is a lot like the Shadowrun system of limiting cybernetics. They don't have a "if you get 2 things you lose all power policy" rather it's a progression. Naturally no master psionic or mage would want to get cybernetics, but stuff like the Momano seems way more feasible at first glance.

I haven't made a character yet as I'm going through everything still. I'll hopefully get a couple together and then I'll have more to report, at least on that side.

So they updated the PDFs for various errata that have been called out over the last couple of months, so I got the latest versions... love PDF rpgs. I'm going to try to create our existing characters using the Savage Rifts system, as best as I can, to test the limits of what can be done. There are some things that simply will not transfer over well, and a number of the OCCs are not in the official material yet, but I should be able to draw upon what they did for some NPCs.

I'll let you know how it goes as it goes, as likely this will take some time.

So in the small time I've devoted to it over the last few weeks I've managed to sort of piece together a Iconic Framework (~OCC/RCC) for an Undead Hunter. It was one of the easier ones since they have Sunaj as an NPC group in the books already; though they gave them default psionic powers and are generally very kick-ass.

Along with the Undead Hunter I tried to create the Atlantean race and still be 'relatively' within the balance rules established within their system; I think I got the gist of it there. The biggest difference will be the stats, in that they don't get all the bonuses above and beyond normal humans, as each step up in Savage Worlds in your stats has a BIG game impact. They've taken some RCCs and just made them a regular race as it were, which tends to strip a fair degree of power of some of them. The Altara are now just a race, who can pick any framework, versus being a Framework of their own (which they should be in my opinion since), which means they stripped out a lot of stat bonuses, psionic powers, etc. For the regular races it's an easy conversion, but not so much for those RCCs that can't pick OCCs, as they are typically their own deal.

I'm working on the Demi-God next, and subsequently Chiang-Ku, both of which present a bigger dilemma. The Undead Hunter you can sort of balance the power level and maintain the feel, but it's much more difficult with Demi-Gods and Chiang-Ku because they're essentially an Iconic Framework with another Iconic Framework on top, so very powerful. The game they've developed is really designed around relatively normal-mortal races selecting a particular class, so once you get into very powerful races things sort of breakdown for balance. I'm thinking some sort of XP penalty would be the best resolution, meaning they only receive a fraction of normal XP depending on their power level, until a certain experience level.

Having said all that the balance of relative power-level/cost amongst the existing frameworks is pretty broad; most are made with about 40 power points, while some like the FlameWing Dragon Hatchling is about 96. But gear is not included in the power point cost, and naturally gear is a major factor in Rifts.

All-in-all I think the game works well on a infantry-level of play; power levels, weapons and armor seem to be pretty balanced in that regard. Combats are WAY faster though, with things often resolved in only 2~4 rounds, so the strategies and feel of it will be very different than the current Palladium Rifts slugfests. In video game terms I'd say Savage Rifts would be more like an FPS or MOBA, where things get burned down fast, while Palladium would be a traditional MMO, where you sit there and hit each other for a time while selecting various abilities.

There are positives and negatives with that; one being the relative power level of things is totally flipped around. You're badass based on how much damage you can do rather than how much damage you can take. Some things are way tougher in the game than others, but there's always a chance with the right weapon and abilities that you could one-shot it. To this end I think Savage Rifts captures more of the intense feel you read in the short stories in the books, where things are getting blasted apart or ripped apart with ease.

Unfortunately once you move into Power Armor and Robot combat things kind of go out the window. When doing their conversions they made some seemingly odd and poor choices on the defense side, while hyping up the offensive capabilities. The biggest issue currently is with the Glitterboy; it is much less tough than any number of Robots out there, while in Palladium it has more MDC than almost anything. No idea what happened with the disconnect. The weaponry is very powerful, so if you get hit with a heavy railgun, Boomgun or Heavy Missile you're pretty much insta-toast, even as a Gargoyle, dragon hatchling, etc. Some people have proposed some balancing house rules that would likely address the weapon power issue.

In other ways robots are too difficult to damage as well from the fact that only certain things are labelled MDC now, and typically that means big supernatural creatures, Borgs and armored vehicles. If you're not MDC you can still be as tough, but being MDC means non-MD weapons can never hurt you. For most weapons there's an easy anti-infantry vs. anti-armor distinction, but they never really address Supernatural Strength wherein if you have it you do MD with your punches. This is a relatively easy fix though.

I think a lot of the issues with Heavy Armor/Weaponry could be resolved after some play testing. The best course would be to have a game with relatively normal heroes (ie. not Demigods) to get the base rules and game flow established, and then make house rules from there. This would also provide some insight into what changes need to be made to their default races and frameworks and how better to convert OCCs/RCCs from Palladium Rifts. There's a LOT of flexibility in the Savage Rifts system for cool character concepts and they've systems in place to govern things more appropriately than the loose or non-existent Palladium systems (like cybernetics effect on PPE/ISP).

Thanks for that write up, dude. As I was reading I was thinking it would be a good idea to play through as normal first, then I read your last paragraph. Totally agree. Plus it's very very difficult to play some of our characters without a rather in depth understanding of the rules that compliments them. Or the rules that would have to be adjusted.

Strange about the Glitter Boy armour, as you say. Maybe an oversight on their part rather than on purpose? There's a lot of strategy in our current method of fighting, rather than just a gunslinging fest it sounds like their leaning to. Probably better suited to your old juicer character.

Also isn't XP in Rifts already adjusted for RCCs/OCCs that are more powerful than usual? I think Chiang Ku is pretty steep, at least.

It is in Palladium Rifts, but not in Savage Worlds. With SW all characters are essentially created equal and so the experience you receive is character points in essence (not quite), so somewhat similar to Mutants & Masterminds. Therefore, having a powerful character is just that and it could be very unbalancing versus a 'regular' character.

Having said that, no one's that tough anymore. The SW game system leans towards much faster game play, again somewhat similar to M&M, and this would necessitate very different tactics. Also Savage Rifts mages do not have set spells like in Palladium, and their hundreds of spells. Rather you select powers that you operate as spells. Again you're seeing a lot of similarities with M&M, which I think would facilitate the transition for some of us who use M&M.

Our current characters, with Sophes maybe being the exception, are just very complex... even for Rifts. Sophes was easier because they had Sunaj as an NPC villain group in the book so I could just work off of that.

The heavy armor/weapons issue can easily be taking care of by modifying some of the stats they presented and nerfing some of the heaviest weapons. One point of contention is they give all railguns an ROF, which in SW means you can roll a number of attacks per round equal to your ROF. So if it's 3 you can get up to 3 attack rolls at once, each scoring separate damage... and for the most part one hit would be more than enough to kill anything. Railguns cannot really fire single shots, so I think it was pointless to give them ROF AND high damage; one or the other. Scaling back the damage and keeping the ROF would probably have been the best way to go capture how they work in Rifts, with the Boomgun being the exception (super high dmg and 1 ROF). So some tweaking of the numbers in that regard would likely make things much more manageable.

Well, I am not gonna lie.... makes me feel sad that Sophes isn't as cool and hard to convert as Mika and Vrryl..... But it DOES vindicate me on saying how much more powerful they are than Sophes too!

I guess my only question would be about balance. Since Rifts and Palladium games have traditionally had zero balance is there truly a need for it in the Savage World version? I am all for just needing the flavor of a class or race, the problem is that flavor is pretty much totally subjective. What one person deems as a good fit regarding flavor probably won't fit all palates.

All this just makes me want to spend my hard earned sheckles to read up on the rules even more!

Oh, and Mike.... don't vote Trump or Hillary.... remember... it is a TRAP!!!!


On a side note, how are things going for you Erik? Any word on when this is going to get moving again?

Yeah, the balance thing is tricky even in Savage Worlds. For example, one guy totaled the point costs of some of the Iconic Frameworks, using the system from their SuperHero Companion, and most came out at around 40, but the Flame Wing Dragon Hatchling was 96! But that doesn't mean the hatchling is over 2x more powerful than most classes, they just have a lot of varied abilities.

In Savage Worlds everyone gets the same amount of base skill points so that's where some of the distinction in Rifts OCCs doesn't translate exactly either, but some frameworks get bonus skill points.

A great equalizer will be gear too; you don't pay points for gear, it comes as part of your framework or you buy it with loot you get in-game. That way you commando guy, with the right armor and guns, comes out just as bad-ass as a dragon hatchling in many respects, and better in some.

With the way combat works and how they've set the MDC system it really changes things up, which make some of the original classes way more combat capable than before. Bursters are super bad-ass now, just like they're described, and can pose a real threat to really tough opponents. Whereas in Palladium Rifts their fire powers did minimal to medium damage, in Savage Rifts they could one-shot guys.

As for Sophes I tackled him first cuz they had the Sunaj in the books already, so that was a great starting point. The problem with DemiGods and ChiangKu is that they're a powerful base race that also gets an OCC, and that kind of messes with the Savage Worlds system. It will probably be easiest to just make the race and then give them the ability to select either a special power set like Ley Line Walker or a set of extra edges and skill points.

I'll say stats is a really tough one that I don't think translate over too well; every step up in Savage Worlds makes big difference. Target for most rolls is 4, and for stat/skill levels you go D4, D6, D8, D10, D12; thus going from a D6 to a D8 is a good step up in success chance. And each attribute presents a limit, of sorts, for skills associated with it (2x cost if you skill is higher than the governing stat). Whereas in Palladium 1~16 essentially does nothing, and then there are various levels of effect after that depending on the stat.

So at the end of the day there will be a whole new sense of balance in the Savage Worlds setting; suddenly everything becomes a more dangerous in a sense. With the exception of having to fix the Robot/Vehicle ratings a bit, which are kind of wacked out.

I was thinking the other day that with Savage Rifts our tactics and strategies would be more akin to our old Heavy Gear campaign. In HG we always worked to maximize our damage output while exploiting the character's superior skills, and refined our gear towards that, which in turn allowed us to hit our opponents very fast and very hard and neutralize them before they were a threat.

In Rifts I think typically our strategies revolve around negation of our opponent's offense. We prevent their attacks from hurting us or minimize the damage/effect which then allows us to chip away at them, regardless of how tough they are. This makes total sense because you can't really one-shot too many things in Rifts.

It's a different outlook that may take some getting used to, especially with some classes that traditionally have lacked a great deal of damage capability in Rifts, but now can hit decently hard in Savage Rifts.

Interesting. I do remember in Heavy Gear us getting blown up a lot. So that could mean a lot of new characters in Rifts.

I guess I am just interested to see if the Undead Slayers get what I feel as the spirit right. Do they have supernatural strength? Are their stats better than a typical combat human? Do they have great defensive capability and utility?

I know that Sophes rarely was the damage dealer in the normal Rifts campaign. Would he become that much more dangerous in the Savage Worlds version?

That was early Heavy Gear; after a while we were wiping out whole gear squads in minutes. But the mindset shift is the important part; quick offensive warfare versus trench/siege warfare styles.

Well that's just the thing; there is no Supernatural Strength in Savage Rifts. You just do damage and it compares against their armor and toughness. Now really tough things, like power armor and dragons, have MDC and unless you have a heavy weapon (MD) you can't damage them at all. This is the biggest digression I think; normal laser rifles and such do not do "MD", they just do regular damage. Only heavy weapons do MD, and a lot of melee weapons (oddly enough).

Thus giving the Undead Slayer, or any class/race, any amount of MD armor rating makes them effectively immune to regular weapons (not just ancient SDC stuff). Which is pretty bad ass, as you need a heavy weapon to take one out.

The reverse doesn't really apply though; so an MD weapon just does it's normal damage versus regular armor. Having said that most weapons, outside of melee, deal LARGE amounts of damage and thus will likely hurt or kill the target that isn't a tank or something with lots of MDC armor.

That's one of the things I'm thinking may need a house rule revision/tweak, but the current logic is that you don't want a guy with a laser rifle one-shot a Glitterboy because of a lucky roll. A scaled effect ratio may have been a better choice though, like 4:1. So your infantry weapons only do 1/4 damage to heavy armor or big monsters. I'm still assessing how those numbers would play out on average though.

Now the Undead Slayer doesn't technically exist in the official game materials yet, only the Sunaj, so everything is still up in the air. But the Sunaj NPCs in the game look pretty tough. Tattoos essentially function just like spells in most respects, though they open the possibility to have some custom powers as well that are outside the sphere of regular spells. For example, their magic weapon tattoo now makes any regular melee weapon an MD weapon, and their vampire tattoo grants them +4 armor and +4 resistance against all vampire attacks. And neither of those cost any PPE to use, their just permanent.

At the end of the day almost everything does more damage relatively speaking, since there are no damage points anymore. If your damage exceeds their armor + toughness the target ends up either shaken, wounded (4+ over armor+tgh) or incapacitated. No-name NPCs are out as soon as they're wounded, but named characters and PCs can take up the 3 wounds before being incapacitated. So while it's unlikely you'll be punching out a Glitterboy or Skull Walker, regulars can taken out with a single hit.

That's why it'd be wise to whip up some regular characters first and run through some sessions first and see how combat plays out before really jumping in to convert our existing characters. And some things, like Mika's demi-god magic ability, simply do not translate over effectively and thus would have to be reworked completely... likely end up just being like a regular Ley Line Walker's spell abilities.