This thread will be for general discussion of rules, times, whatever that doesn't fit into IC or OOC posts.
This message was last updated by the GM at 03:16, Sun 16 Aug 2015.

Was looking through the GM Guide and the Ultimate Edition on the rule for Supernatural Strength using melee weapons and they did properly clarify that (though the two books say slightly different things); check page 26 in GM Guide and pg 286 in the Ultimate.

The gist of it is that when using a melee weapon Sup.Str people use the higher of a) The weapon damage + character hth dmg bonus, or b) Supernatural Strength punch damage (+hth damage bonus? GM says yes, but Ultimate doesn't). I don't think this would apply to energy blades/wpns as their damage comes from the energy form versus strength.

This seems like a fairly decent way to handle it and would give supernatural character/creatures a reason to use an MDC weapon (in some cases) over their fists or claws. Since a fair number of supernatural strength persons have pretty high PS values they would be adding a good amount to damage rolls, which may tip the balance in favour of weapon use.

Example: Mika has +20 to damage, with her magical Dwarven longsword she would do 1D8+4+20; max 32! That's compared to her punching (4D6), so it makes sense for her to use such a weapon.

The downside is that if you're not using a magic weapon there's a chance you'll break it; 30% chance if you do more than 3x max damage, or x5 max damage for mastercraft weapons.

I'm sort of inclined to go with the Ultimate Edition rules as it doesn't make total sense that you could elect to do your supernatural punch damage plus hth dmg bonus. Seems like a cheap way for REALLY strong characters to do extra damage simply from picking up a 1d6 magic dagger.

That's amazing you still have those logs Erik... I'm getting nostalgic flashbacks reading through that old material.

I'm in the process of making a map of our HQ. Once I get a few more basics down I'll post some pics in that thread. There'll be a map for each floor; pretty handy feature in the dungeon cartographer program I've got.

Once I have the basic layouts posted we can discuss it as necessary; they're based on pencil sketches I have with the original hardcopy of my character, so they're pretty old.

Cathy's demanding a raise??  WTF.......

Well, she was left running the entire company.

I'm reading through the IC logs and I'm having doubts as to my ability to play Mika in the manner she behaved before, :P She's pretty impulsive and intense. Going to take some effort to get back in character for sure.

haha, I noticed that too.  Though honestly, I don't see a problem if you decide to have characters evolve a bit.  They have been through a lot, and it has been years.  Nothing wrong with maturation.

I updated an IRC log in Horsemen Part 2 - I added the 'private' conversations the characters had, which weren't in the main log file.

Direct link to that specific posting: link to a message in this game

they are in the middle separated by dashed lines.
This message was last edited by the GM at 05:31, Fri 04 Sept 2015.

Ya, reading through Vrryl... I'm going to be very rusty.

Hey guys, here to play Sophes again.  Looking forward to playing this again!

And another thread I updated.

link to a message in this game

This is the IC thread for the encounter with the high level rain maker king in the Kalahari Desert.  I added the IC/OOC private conversation Vrryl had with the rain maker when he handed over the tribute (inserted in the appropriate place).  I also added the interaction Lucky had with the rain maker at the end.

We've almost got the whole gang back together again now, and with more tattoos than a Hells Angels convention.

Man, there are certainly a lot of things we did that I had no recollection of, like that trip to Alfheim. Damn good thing you have these logs still.
This message was last edited by the player at 19:18, Sat 05 Sept 2015.

So question, on the last summary about that fake Erin Tarn that stabbed Mika, what kind of stab was it? Just with a regular knife or something; seems like it was a bit more foreboding for you to make such a note of it? I have no recollection of that occurrence.

Those openRPG logs are pretty fragmented, but at least there was something left.

Welcome back, monsieur Sophes!

In reply to Vrryl (msg # 15):

Ion Storm.. wow.. totally forgot about that...

I did too!  Mike had to remind me.

Yeah, just wait until you see the crazy maps of our HQ I'm doing up. I'll admit the base is probably more pimp than anticipated simply cuz I'm finding all kinds of neat stuff to do with the mapping program. I'll hopefully have them done in the next week or so; there is a separate map for each floor.

I think what we should do for advertising is set-up a TW system that generates a mini lightning storm above the base once a day; so people know where Ion Storm is :P

In reply to Mika no Krynn (msg # 18):

We can have a massive static/light in ball on the roof with lightning constantly lapping over the sides of the building following a faraday cage... Easy

Ok, so I created a separate game room (Ion Storm Archive) where I am putting all the old adventure summary information.  This will help not clutter up this game room.

Currently it 'only' has all of the England-based adventures.  Enjoy the trip down memory lane, and if you see something that sounds wrong or could use more information let me know.  There are a few holes for adventures that had less written notes. :)

And yes, Rob has played 3 different characters, and came and left 5 times!

I also added a small post-Pestilence chat log Mike had recovered from OpenRPG. :)

Reading through those logs brings back some good memories.  It sucks that life put me in a position that I couldn't play through all of it, now I can be a part of it and I am excited!  I had forgotten about the falcons until I read that part, was awesome that you included that as part of the whole story.

I wonder what you would have done with Sophes in Avalon as he was unable to be changed by any means being an Atlantean?

At the time, I was actually happy Sophes wasn't there to create that difficulty.  Though, the Merlin of that world was quite powerful.

I even did something fancy for Vrryl, since he was less alterable.  It was more of a cooperative shapechange for his character, especially since he was still hiding his true form from the entire group.

I remember that... that was a really cool adventure you did. Fun getting to change shape.

What happened that Mika was taken out during the fight with Pestilence?
This message was last edited by the player at 22:13, Sun 13 Sept 2015.

I don't have the exact details, but if my memory serves right, you guys had lit Pestilence on fire with numerous Fire Globes, and it was taking hundreds, if not a thousand, MDC every melee as a result of being covered in magical napalm.  Basically, the battle result was a given at that point - demon torched really fast and nothing really significant happened.

She got hit by his Plague Touch; which is a super-bad ass magical sickness. It just wore her down during the fight but then it was cured afterwards.

Oh that's what you meant, oops. ;)
What Mike said.
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:10, Tue 15 Sept 2015.

I read an interesting article in the Best of the Rifter book regarding spell casting, the original was from Rifter #21 I think. This idea originated back when you could only cast 2 spells a round, and naturally the GM ran into the usual problems when you have a high level caster that takes 7.5seconds to cast a spell when being assaulted by 4 people.

Considering the idea is in the Best of the Rifter I think they may have used it as a starting point in Palladium's move to an actions/spell system, like in the Ultimate Edition. Though I do like this idea better as the problem with actions/spell system is that it treats all spell-casters essentially the same regardless of level; hence Gandalf the White is the same as Smedrick the Wizard.

Anyway, the idea is that depending on your casting class category (dedicated/specialist/dabbler) you can channel X-number of PPE/XP level per action/attack. In the original article this was 5PPE/level for dedicated casters like Ley Line Walkers, for specialists like TechnoWizards and Shifters it is 5PPE/Level for spells in their focus field or 3PPE/lvl outside. Finally, the Dabblers are like Priests or Magic Super Spies, and they get 3PPE/lvl.

On top of those levels the author suggests Supernaturals add 2PPE/Level to the above, and Creatures of Magic (Dragons, Faeries, etc) add 5PPE/lvl to the above totals, due to their magically-infused natures. Similarly for those few NPC/RCC/OCC's that gave extra spell attacks you could just say they can channel X more PPE for each of their regular attacks.

I'm not sure if the author was using the old 2att/melee base or the newer 4att/melee system.  May need to play around with PPE/Level amounts a little to adjust, but I think a system like this works better than an arbitrary # of actions to cast a spell of X level, and it makes high level casters that must more impressive since they can rip-out the big guns very quickly. Meanwhile your level 1 ley line walker, though technically capable of casting Annihilate, wouldn't do so because it'd take him forever.

The PPE costs of spells in Rifts doesn't always trend linearly with level, for example level 6 and 7 spell have a lot of overlap in the 20PPE range, but the heavy hitters are usually reflected in PPE cost. I mean a spell like Annihilate costs 600PPE (300PPE for some), and thus even Vrryl would need 4 actions to cast it with the above numbers (10PPE X 9lvl = 90PPE/action x 4 = 360PPE), but he could cast most 9~10 level spells in a single action.

Thus it becomes a more strategic game for higher level casters; balancing their PPE reserves with the combat around them (dodging, positioning, etc). Since there's so much magic in this group figured this would be a good discussion, especially since the casting system was changing regardless.

It would certainly improve the situation where I'm sitting around for an hour waiting for my spell to go off. But I'm biased, as it would benefit me immensely.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:12, Mon 21 Sept 2015.

I really wasn't fond of the optional PPE channeling rules.  To start, it felt like the GM didn't understand that combat with mages didn't have to start in melee range, and he made a lot of off statements about mage capabilities and how a combat might go.  Also, he didn't seem to account for the fact that mages can prepare for combat, have magic items, and can run away.  I mean, I made that mistake really early in my GMing career when you guys encountered that mage on Mars, but I never made it again. ;)

But just focusing on the PPE channeling idea, I didn't like that it mages low level mages less capable than the old system.  Also, any wizard class that focuses on higher level spells will be completely useless for a long time in game.  It ignores the fact that spell level indicates complexity while PPE cost indicates power; The higher level, low cost spells are supposed to represent finesse.

Also, I think the new rules really knock out the need for something like that.  Most everyone now gets to cast 1 lower level spell per combat action, 1 medium level spell per 2 combat actions, and 1 high level spell per 3 combat actions.  This means that Vrryl can actually cast Annihilate twice per round!  I don't think PPE channeling actually benefits the highest level spells under the new system, I think it penalizes it and requires a lot of extra math.  Also, because of how fast they are cast, it will more often take a concerted effort by people to disrupt the casting instead of it happening accidentally.

By the way, before I was defining low level as 1-6, medium level as 7-11, and high as 12-15-Legend.  We may have to look at that too, though it might be ok to keep using those designations.

As a side note, the only spells that ever took a half hour or hour to cast were ritual magic, and those still take that long regardless.

I think Brett was referring to real-time to cast... while the rest of us did 3~4 combat actions, and the enemy was involved similarly he was often sitting around quite a while between "actions."

The Ultimate Edition rules state casting levels are 1~5, 6~10 and 11+ for 1/2/3 actions. I think the channeling rules for mid to higher level mages aren't that different from this set-up, but certainly lower level mages are punished. Additional attacks and non-combat actions that are gained by mages as they level do give level some weight; ie if you have 6 actions per round that's three mid-level spells versus 2.Annihilate would therefore be 3 action cast, so likely 1/2 a melee round for most casters.

The PPE channeling rules do make very high level casters extremely powerful as they could conceivably cast level 9 and 10 spells in one action. While first level mages become as useless as old D&D wizards. I thought I'd throw the idea out there anyways; I'm ambivalent towards which system since I'll likely be using psionics and attacks mostly while in combat.

It is just important for everyone to realize that if you are casting a multi-action spell to make sure you're out of harms way. Any parry, dodge, strike, knockdown, etc. disrupts casting. So make sure you have sufficient cover while casting.

I think figuring out the ranged combat rules is of greater import, for example penalties to dodge modern weapons and the like. They've made it much more complicated than before; keep mashing together rules.

Shadowrun rule #1: Kill the mage first!

Related to ranged combat I just noticed a slight discrepancy or mis-edit in the Rifts Ultimate Edition book; in the Skill section under Weapon Proficiency it does not list any bonuses to strike by level for Energy Weapons. These bonus are instead found in the combat section under ranged combat (page 360); who knows why.

Essentially they gave Energy Pistols the same bonus advancement as regular Rifts, and same deal for E-Rifles and Handguns.

Ok, I've been working hard on going through the rule systems.

Everything I'm posting is based on a combination of Rifts rules.  The new edition has some good things, but also has some really bad things, so I tried to take the best of all worlds and create a better system (and undo mistakes).

Today, I posted the combat basics, slightly revised ranged combat rules, and slightly revised "hand to hand combat" and "ranged combat" skill tables.

I tackled this and the magic rules first since they had the most problems.

I've been talking to Mike a bit about some of these things, but I welcome any feedback.  I tried hard to not over-complicate it, but at the same time leave it reasonable.
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:05, Sun 11 Oct 2015.

On a related note I've uploaded a whole bunch more books to the shared GoogleDrive.

Rifters: 11~58 (except 50 and 57... not sure why, but couldn't find them). Numbers 49 and 58 have some really great material on Lazlo, doubly amazing since so much of the stuff in the Rifter is meh at best.

Shemarrian Nation - Source book about the Shemarrian Warriors

Vampire Sourcebook - Additional material about vamps, in addition to World Book 1

Black Market - Not much gear, but a great breakdown of how the BM operates and is organized

Merc Town- Sourcebook for Mercs, could be a World Book really since it describes the place called Merc Town, which is just what you'd expect.

Dimension Books 11~15: Dyval, Dimensional Outbreak, Fleets of the 3 Galaxies, Thundercould Galaxy and Heroes of the Megaverse. Mostly stuff about the Minion War storyline, and some more stuff on the Phase World/3 Galaxies setting

World Book 31: Triax 2 - brings the NGR/Triax setting up to the current date of 109 PA; good stuff in there.

World Book 32: Lemuria - the sea-based equivalent of the true Atlanteans. Instead of dimensional travel they became masters of Biomancy.

World Books 33 & 34: Northern Gun 1 & 2 - Total explanation of the NG/Ishpeming/Manistique Imperium - TONS OF ROBOTS!!! and a bunch of other tech. Cool artist they got for the robot drawings.

In checking out various weapons in the books it also struck me that we likely need to re-think the secondary effect of the spell Sub-Particle Acceleration, the part where it re-charges e-clips. There is a glaring error in how it is written, somewhat typical, since it states it chargers 6 blasts... except almost every gun in the game has a different number of blasts per e-clip. Hence a particle beam rifle with only 6 shots can be charged fully for your 40PPE, but your Wilk's 457 (30shots) requires the equivalent of 200PPE to fill the same e-clip!

Since we use so much magic it's never been an issue, but I think we should come up with X% of an e-clip is recharged per casting instead. Something like 66% of a short e-clip, 50% of a standard and 33% of a long e-clip. A mage is likely burning through 33~75% of their PPE just to recharge one clip in that case.

Can you add me to your google drive, please. So I can look through all the books. Erik is needing me to make a few choices, and I'm a wee bit shy on resources to make them.

Didn't you receive the invite from Gabe? He sent out a shared invite to his G-Drive with all the books on it about a month back or so. I just added to it. He used your idzentity@gmail.com account since it is Gmail.

Regarding Sub-Particle Acceleration:

I agree, here is what I just added as house rules for magic:

Individual Spell Modifications [house rules]
   Sub-Particle Acceleration recharges the following amounts per casting
        1/2 of standard E-clip; 1/4 of long E-clip (or FSE clip); 1/6 of Energy Canister
   Winged Flight is Self or Others by touch

Note that Sub-Particle Acceleration is only 20 PPE per casting, not 40.  So using that spell its 40 PPE for a standard E-clip, 80 for a long E-clip, and 120 for a canister.  Does that seem fair?  Or should we go 60 PPE, 120 PPE, and 180 PPE?

If he sent an invite, I may have missed it. But I've got the books now, so we're good. Thanks for those.

Wow, going through these books... all kinds of nostalgic flashbacks.

I know right?

I was looking through the combat rules thread and noticed that for parrying there was a rule for how many parries you get per round.  Unfortunately it isn't addressed later in the rules so I am not sure how many Erik ha in mind.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:54, Sun 01 Nov 2015.

In Ultimate Edition it says you can parry a maximum of three attackers, but the fourth one gets an auto-hit.That was just for regular combat (hth), so I'm not sure if paired weapons changes any of that. I think the logic behind it was that the 4th person would be behind you and thus you'd be unable to detect and parry the attack.

The exception would be those RCC/OCCs that say you can parry all incoming attacks, like Juicers.

So I'm going to keep using the previous auto-parry rules that we used to use.

And of course, I just realized that they aren't posted because I haven't posted the hand-to-hand stuff yet.  So, here is what will be posted once I get the hand-to-hand stuff posted:

Automatic Parry Rules [house rules]
*Some of these rules don’t apply to Juicers or similarly super-enhanced beings.

   Automatic parries per melee round [house rule]
        # of attacks + # of available limbs for parrying + (P.P.-16)/4 rounded off
        Add 1 parry at levels 4,7,10, and 13
        So, if you have four attacks, two arms, and a P.P. of 23, you can parry 8 times in a round
   Paired Weapons skill allows one parry to count as two, but only if they are done at about the same time
   Attacking with a gun makes you lose one automatic parry.
   Parrying bare-handed
        -3 to parry weapons 6 inches or less.
        Parrying weapons over 6 inches damages your arm
   Parrying with a gun risks damaging the gun


The rule Mike mentioned from Ultimate Edition is talking about how many different attackers you can parry at once, as opposed to how many parries you get in a round.  I'm going to continue to operate under common sense as opposed to a locked rule on this one, since its based on attacker size, positioning, stealth, etc.
This message was last edited by the GM at 05:29, Mon 02 Nov 2015.

So I added the Hand to Hand stuff to the combat rules (including the automatic parry stuff above).  I also added a few other bits and pieces to the non-combat rules, including house rules on skills and bionics effects on magic and psionics.

Mercenary Company details have been expanded and updated.  Sections on the location and relationship with Lazlo were added.  Lazlo's partial funding of the clinic allowed for redistribution of points which actually lets your team have a base more like what you were wanting, which also increased the security of default.  The overall relationship with Lazlo, various exploits, time in the area, and point redistribution allowed the reputation to increase as well.

Note that the new reputation will really take effect when you return from Africa.
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:21, Wed 11 Nov 2015.

Hey guys, here are two magic tattoo-related revisions:
(currently these only affect Rob's character and the NPC Undead Slayer in the group)

The Undead Slayer and the Monster Hunter (from South America) ARE supernatural creatures and DO have Supernatural P.S. and P.E.  I went through a lot of books and forum posts to come to this rule decision and it appears Palladium CHANGED this. Atlantis was an older book, but every NPC Undead Slayer in a Siembieda book since has Undead Slayers written this way (ironically it is the Carella book 'Pantheons of the Megaverse' which is the only book that doesn't give it).

Eyes: Three (Supernatural Vision) also provides hawk-like vision for the duration of the tattoo

So the Supernatural Strength tattoo for Undead/Monster Slayers and T-Men just has the effect of adding 6 to P.S. for the duration, since they already have super strength?
This message was last updated by the player at 03:06, Wed 09 Dec 2015.

For Undead Slayers and Monster Hunters, yes the tattoo only increases the PS by 6.  Those are the only two classes that have supernatural strength (excepting Chiang Ku of course).

None of the other Tattooed Men (T-Men, T-Monster Men, T-Archers) have supernatural strength to start, so for them it provides supernatural strength and the bonus.

Just in case I don't get a chance to talk to you all in person or text tomorrow, have a merry Christmas and a happy new year!

Thanks dude, you too!

This isn't really related to what's happening in-game, but I was looking through the psionics section and noticed how crap the Mind Bolt power is relative to other super psionic damage abilities. I mean the concept of the power is fine, and you could argue the damage scale is ok as well, but the amount of ISP it take is crazy.

For 40 ISP you do 2D4 MD @ +4 strike, or 50 ISP for +8 strike.

If you take Electrokinesis, you get 5 separate sub-powers, one of which is an electrical MD attack that does up to 3D6MD for only 18 ISP. And that's just a regular super-psionic version.

Seems like one of those old powers that never got adjusted. May want to look at adjusting it for the future campaign to make it a more relevant ability.

So after looking through this and talking to Mike, I agree that every other super psionic power was given an MD boost in the Ultimate Edition while Mind Bolt was left the same.  So in the original edition, Mind Bolt was fine, but in the new edition in clearly needs updating to be relevant.

I will be looking at how to update it a bit.

I'm also interested to hear thoughts on this:

I am considering combining Palming and Concealment into one skill.  It seems to me that Palming is actually part of the Concealment skill already.

I'm cool with that; considering it is a skill solely dedicated to hiding things in your hand it is a little too focused. Meanwhile you can take another single skill that gives you Electrical Engineering.

Sorry Erik, your written description makes more sense than what you were saying to me tonight, lol.  The way you have written it I can agree with.  That palming acts as a part of concealment makes a certain kind of sense.  I would even consider making it one of those slash "/" skills where the different percentages mean different things. So one would be for traditional concealment, and the other for palming.

The two skills are the same in Rifts, Heroes Unlimited, and Palladium Fantasy.

The only difference I see is that Palming is done in one hand and thus only applies to smaller objects, while Concealment applies to both hands and pockets etc.  From shows I've been watching on sleight of hand, these aren't really different skills.  You learn these techniques together as part of sleight of hand tricks.

Concealment: 20% +4% per level
The practiced ability to hide small items on one's body or in hand, usually by moving it around from hand to hand or place to place, or hide them on one's person or an innocent bystander unnoticed.  Objects must be no larger than 14 inches in height and 6 inches in width.  The weight must be 10 pounds or less.  The smaller and lighter the object, such as a knife, gem, key, etc., the easier it is to conceal (add a bonus of +5%).  Larger items such as a book, scroll, club, statue, or similarly large or heavy object are difficult to conceal on one's person for obvious reasons.

Palming: 20% +5% per level
Simply the ability to pick up and seemingly make a small object, such as a coin, key, dagger, or playing card, vanish by concealing it in one's hand.  Adds +5% to the Card Sharp, Concealment, and Pick Pockets skills.

I would propose this:
Concealment and Palming: 20% +5% per level (+5% with small objects)
The practiced ability to hide small items on one's body or in hand, usually by moving it around from hand to hand or place to place, or hide them on one's person or an innocent bystander unnoticed.  Objects must be no larger than 14 inches in height and 6 inches in width.  The weight must be 10 pounds or less.  The smaller and lighter the object, such as a knife, gem, key, etc., the easier it is to conceal (add a bonus of +5%).  Small objects can also be "palmed", which is the ability to pick up and seemingly make a small object, such as a coin, key, dagger, or playing card, vanish by concealing it in one's hand.  Larger items such as a book, scroll, club, statue, or similarly large or heavy object are difficult to conceal on one's person for obvious reasons.  Adds +5% to the Card Sharp and Pick Pockets skills.

I think this is a great conversion of both skills.  I still think of concealment in the weapon mindset, but this is a better interpretation.  I would suggest if the character plans on moving the item around their person much it would require a roll each time the object moves.

Ok, the updated version of those skills has been added to the rules page.

Rob brought up a really good point in our Palladium Fantasy game.  The games have no rules on what happens to damage when you are wearing incomplete armor (like all fantasy armor) and you get hit by area affect weapons.  Rob can correct me if I am describing this wrong, but the current method he is using is to have area affect damage hit both the armor and the character.  Rob did seem to indicate that he wanted to put more thought into this.

I spent some time thinking about this problem as well, since it could come up in Rifts in certain circumstances as well.  I came up with what I hope are a variety of interesting solutions which could be used variably for different campaign and game styles.  I am posting this to generate discussion and hopefully find something that is generally liked. :)  I was a little concerned about area affect damage becoming over-powered in the game if it hit both the armor and the character for full damage.  This would mean that all area affect damage essentially counts as double damage if you are wearing armor.

Here are the various methods I came up with:

Area Affect Damage versus worn Armor [house rules]

Heroic method:
Armor always absorbs damage

Armor Rating method:
Suitable for more realistic distribution vs. attacks like fragmentary grenades
Roll vs. Armor Rating to determine randomly whether damage hits or bypasses armor

Distributed methods are possibly better for things like area affect fire, which should distribute quite evenly.

Distributed method – based on armor coverage:
Fantasy Armor – Half suits see 50% damage absorbed by armor, 50% damage to character
Fantasy Armor – Full suits see 90% damage absorbed by armor, 10% damage to character

Distributed method – based on armor rating:
Armor Rating 6 to 10 – 50% damage absorbed by armor, 50% damage to character
Armor Rating 11 to 15 – 75% damage absorbed by armor, 25% damage to character
Armor Rating 16 to 19 – 90% damage absorbed by armor, 10% damage to character

An interesting way to look at this issue for sure Erik!

I will say that I don't agree with the armour absorbing any of the area effect damage. It just doesn't make sense with regards to elemental type damage.

I can see a reason for a fragmentation effect, and in that case I would probably roll for the fragments to hit and see what came of that.

Using AR for the basis helps keep it in the spectrum of the game system, but I feel it misses the point.  Unless enchanted a suit of plate is going to offer no extra protection from intense heat or electricity, nor would leather or chain.

A spell like fireball requires an 18 to dodge it.  So as I did with Mike's* character if you have an AR of 18 or higher I could see some of the damage being mitigated from the character.  That being said, the armour would still take the whole effect. For armours with less than an AR of 18 though I would say both person and armour would take the total amount of the damage as the effect of the spell would hit both equally.

For a spell that emitted a kinetic type attack in an area of effect I would have to play it by ear.  As medieval type armours were created to protect from such attacks.

*Armour of Ithan is a totally different situation as it functions more like a force field with an AR.  So no damage of any kind would be transferred to the character.  Other spells or enchantments similar would yield the same results.

Some attacks do bypass armor in the game.  But, these are always described as armor-bypassing in the rules.  In the rules, fire and heat attacks are different and have different effects.  Penetrating/disrupting electrical attacks and lightning (ion) attacks are also different.  Fire attacks and call lightning do contact damage only to whatever they hit - they have no significant armor bypassing component.  They are blocked by physical objects and require line-of-sight.  Call lightning is not real lightning and is does not behave like real lightning.

This makes sense as well.  Most armors in Palladiums' games cover every part of the body except for the face.  If you are covered in metal or leather and you walk through a fire, you will get hurt less than if you were naked.  Even electricity is dissipated by extra layers unless the material is a perfect conductor.

I think the game becomes very unbalanced if area affect attacks like this do full damage to both the armor and the wearer.  This means every attack of that nature now does double damage and all of these attacks are now the most powerful attacks in the game.  Fire swords, plasma rifles, lightning (ion) blasters, normal ion blasters, Naruni plasma guns, etc., would also bypass armor now.  PPE/ISP costs would no longer reflect relative power of an attack because the cheaper area affect attacks of lower levels will do more damage than the more expensive individual attacks.

Any attack that does a certain amount of damage, with the exception of criticals and vulnerabilities, should only be able to its normal damage to an area.  If 90% of that area is armor and 10% is face, then 10% goes to the face and 90% gets applied to the armor.  If there is a good reason to have some bypass the armor, then it bypasses the armor.  For the same reason, if a sword attack beats the armor rating, it does not hurt both the armor and the wearer - it only hurts the wearer.

Also, the rules for kinetic attacks are laid out.  They hit the armor and if a certain amount of damage is done to the armor, the person inside can take extra SDC and get stunned, but it is minimal by comparison.
This message was last edited by the GM at 05:10, Mon 23 May 2016.

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.

Definitely agree to rolling some lackies first. Can play a squad on mission from our merc group ;-)

I like the brush down memory lane with Heavy Gear, I'd forgotten a lot of that, but memories started trickling in with your observations. A big part of Heavy Gear too was our understanding of the rules and tactics, combined with our characters levelling up, made us a pretty lethal group. Did I play the LT in that one?

Our Rifts characters have certainly built their strategy around out-surviving an enemy force. We're really good at that. Then.... chip away for the take down. A serious slug fest akin to a Rocky movie fight.

Yeah, you were LT, Erik had the Doctor/Ace, Edwin had the Engineer and I had the Duelist. Rob originally had the Sarge when we started. So many battles on that big hexmap.

SW is definitely more along the HG lines of play than traditional Rifts, and so would put quite a different spin on things. One plus is that it really reinvigorates a lot of the old classes that were sort of rendered lame or mediocre by the OCC/RCC power creep in the original.

It also opens up a much broader range of character ideas since you're no longer limited by an OCC/RCC as much.

Hey Mike, any chance you have been able to play test the SW system?

I ask because I may want to look at transitioning my game to it based on how long combat takes in Palladium systems.

Not at all. But from having read what I have I suspect it would be very similar in pace to Mutants & Masterminds or even 4th Ed D&D. Combat is designed to be quick and vicious, not unlike Feng Shui, but without the over-the-top HK action movie style.

From my perspective it would handle fantasy and modern infantry combat quiet well; gives a lot of options without getting bogged down in minutia. Infantry level Rifts combat should work really well I reckon. I don't think they've got the Rift mecha combat down right though, but that's due to how they handle MD and mecha and the values they provided. The fix would be to tweak some of the stats for power armor and robots, but I haven't fully completed that or had a chance to test the numbers.

One major combat accelerator would be that they have two types of NPCs like Feng Shui; Wild Cards (Named characters) and regulars (Mooks). If mooks get hit hard enough they're down and out; no need to keep track of HP or would levels or whatever. Whereas named bad guys function like characters.

There's a Fantasy Companion available, but I don't have it. Their companion books are pretty solid, I've got the SciFi and the SuperHeroes one and they've got lots of pre-work done for those genres.

Converting Palladium races would be pretty easy since they're not super beings, and half of them are already there (Elves, Dwarves, etc).

One major difference is that there are no classes in SW; you just pick the skills, talents and abilities you want. Lots of customization possible obviously. For spell casting and psionics I reckon the Fantasy companion has a lot of good material to flesh out the options. In general each 'spell' is a power and thus very effective when used, but you do not get many of them (typically only 2~4 to start).

Posted the Palladium standard Damage and Recovery rules in the combat rules post.

And yes, this is me saying I am back at it and ready to get Rifts going again. ;)

Feel free to catch up and let me know if you're ready!
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:27, Sun 19 Mar 2017.

Well looks like we had a plan setup in IC, so once everyone is back online here, we can just execute that.

I am good with the IC plan.

So, the new magic spell casting rules, which allowed a spell to be case for every combat action, seem to be quite unbalanced.

It doesn't make sense that by taking Hand to Hand Assassin and Boxing that you get to cast more spells per round.  It also doesn't make sense that mixed combat/magic classes get to cast more spells than master spell casters like the Ley Line Walker and Temporal Wizard.

Further, there are lots of bad guys that simply become impossible with 10-12 actions per round, imagine those as magic!

And finally, the new system totally nullifies the advantages of the rare classes and NPCs that got more than the base 2 spell attacks per round.

So, I created (with some discussion from Mike), a generic basis for new spell casting rules.  Its clear that more magic actions are needed, but the new rules they implemented were just too many spells per round.

It works the same way as the hand to hand tables.  It currently just defines how many magic actions you get per round, magic criticals (when applicable) and a minor strike bonus for targeted spells.  Its posted under the combat rules.

Does spell level have any impact on casting actions? Ie. Level 3 spell vs. Level 12 spell, are both considered 1 casting action?

I don't really mind either way as PPE costs will naturally limit all but the most powerful creatures from casting a series of high level spells.

Along the similar lines, I was just thinking that maybe you could have a casting equivalent of an aimed strike; it would cost 2 actions but would provide something like a +1 or +2 to the save target, or +3 to strike? It would simulate taking careful effort in shaping the magic to the exact effect.

I actually just kept the previous guidelines, level 1-5 is 1 action, 6-10 2 actions, 11-15 3 actions.

I figured that because you get more spell actions each round as you level up, it automatically makes spells take less time to cast as one levels up.

So at level 1 you can do 3 low level spells or 1 high level spell a round, etc.
At level 10 you can do 5 low level spells or 1 high level and 1 medium level, etc.


I'm not comfortable with having an increased save from extra time, since that's what ritual magic does already and save bonuses are a big deal.

I do think it might be possible to think about aiming for a strike bonus on targeted spells, but wonder if it should be skill-based like it is for modern firearms?  The question then would be, can you apply the normal Sniper skill to targeted spells or should it be a separate skill?  Personally, I'm angling towards a separate skill, but I think I would allow a normal Sniper skill or a Magic Aiming skill to both apply to Techno-Wizard weaponry (no stacking though).

I am interested in how you are going to measure the spell actions against normal actions. Will a spell caster have to give up a spell action to move or pull out a flask? How will it factor against total actions?

That was one of the reasons I put the phase system in before.  We have always had to replace other combat actions with spell casting actions, now it just changes the ratio.

Its easy in cases if you have 3 magic and 6 combat.

In cases like 4 spell actions and 6 combat actions, every 2 spell actions will use up 3 combat actions. So if you only use 1 spell action in a round it will use 2 combat actions and if you use 3 spell actions, it will use 4 or 5 combat actions.  I use the phase system to help out.  Its really ends up not a lot different than accommodating dodges out of turn and other things like that.

You can take Sharp Shooter with Magic Spells, at least you can if you're a Battle Magus, so that precedent is set. As for Sniper I think it'd certainly have to be a separate skill, but I question how useful it would be given the short range of almost all spells relative to energy weapons. Something like WP: Spells may be better, have it function similar to the Targetting skill, and you could probably have a Psionics version of it too. It would sort of help level the playing field in that regard.

I agree Mike, those are good ideas.

With regular thrown weapons you get your PP bonus, wp bonuses, HtH bonus and weapon bonus for your total strike bonus. So I think having the spell bonus, Magic Combat bonus and a WP bonus would be about equal. Even if the bonus is pretty high I think it is justified as the mage has to spend PPE and actions for the attack, whereas someone with a sword or gun just uses up one attack, and a shot out of the e-clip.

Targeting normally provides +1 strike at 1,3,7 and 10. I'd probably add another 1 at 12 or 13, not sure why they stopped. May want to modify the levels of the bonuses so there isn't much overlap with the Magic Combat levels, but not really a big deal.

Here is another question a little off topic. With the changes to the magic system Erik, would you be more willing to allow a battle magus in the campaign? I know in the past their number of attacks translated to spells was the big hang up.

It wasn't the number of attacks and how it related to spells.  It was because they are overpowered and unbalanced.  They get more physical bonuses than a cyber knight and have more attacks than a juicer.  They get sharpshooting equal to someone from the New West.  Yet, they are a mage with a lots of spells and magic sharpshooting and an extra spell attack for magic energy blasts.  I honestly don't know what to do with those classes from Dweomer because they are all basically Demigod+ power mages - I don't even like them for the current campaign power level.

I concur with Erik on this one; after looking once more those classes are WAY out of line with how they're described vis-a-vis all the other classes in the game. There is no mention of mystical enhancement, just that they train (like everyone else), but somehow are twice as good as everyone else... Juicer's included.

If it has something to do with Dweomer itself or the Lords of it, it should have been spelled out better.

The concept of the classes are sound, it's just whoever designed them took a double-dose of DJ Carella pills in the morning. I mean for a Battle Magus they should have just taken the CyberKnight concept, swapped out the psionics and cyber-abilities and put in combat oriented magic.

On a completely different topic; are we using all the house combat and other rules for this continuation? Since they were put in 5 years ago not sure if you were still looking to use them or not Erik.

I don't see a reason to change them right now.  The only thing I continue to ponder is magical attacks per round, so I will think about that, but otherwise they all seem fine.

Ok, oddly enough it was the magical combat styles and attacks part I was thinking about in particular. The rest of it was pretty regular stuff we had been using prior.

Let me look into that.  I should have it figured out by the time it will matter :)

Also did we have any house rules for jumping and such? Just realized those fields are blank on my character sheet.

I could post the rules for jumping and such we had for that martial arts campaign we did a while back with Palladium Fantasy/Ninjas & Superspies. That covered pretty much all regular movement and durations. Would not take into account supernatural strength or endurance though.

Ha!  I did make magic spell casting advancement tables.  They are already posted in the Combat Rules thread.

Awesome.

Yes, I know. I  was wondering if we were using those or not... in hindsight I suppose I could have referenced them specifically, but I figured you knew about them.

This answers my question anyways. So all good.