RIFTS

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>>44834602
>Hell, maybe I can play it as written
Of course you can. You'll have to houserule things as you go along but any mature adult with half a brain could manage it. Do not believe the epic meems about Rifts (lowercase BTW) being some unplayable morass. Get stuck in, and change things to suit yourself when needed.

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Rifts is proof that even the most godawful, hopelessly stupid, ruinously useless mechanics does not make a game inherently unfun. It makes every PF hater look like an idiot for complaining that the game is bad because Rifts is hilariously ____fun___ and people who think you can't have it in a bad system are morons.

I've been a rifts fan since it came out in 1991. The setting is a fun, everything but the kitchen sink post apocalyptic, mecha, magic mashup. The rules are little more than house rules 1st Ed AD&D with a percentage based skill system. Very simple actually. The problem is they are arranged in an unorganized manner. Then you pile on the mass of sourcebooks, world books, dimension books and it gets confusing and contradictory. Savage World Rifts may save the game. Also check out the TMNT and/or After the Bomb RPG which has a fun mutant animal creation system written by Erick Wujick.

Rifts fucking sucks, fuck this stupid game, fuck everyone who likes it. Have another Big Mac(TM), fatty.

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Posting Rifts in a Rifts thread

>>44835489
Dude, don't do that. You wouldn't like it if someone else fucked your favorite game and you, right?

>>44834602
The Palladium system, as it exists in Rifts, is an alright system being choked to death by splats and Kevin Siembieda's unwillingness to give the whole thing a tune-up.

>>44835529
Leave it to a Rifts player to not know the difference between "fuck that guy" and "I want to fuck that guy"

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>>44835539
Yeah rifts kinda needs some refinement, we've learned things about RPGs since 91

>>44835545
I don't even play Rifts, man. I'm just saying you shouldn't dish out what you can't take.

>>44835563
The Ultimate Edition came out in 2005, but I'm not sure how much that changed.

>>44835102
>Savage Worlds Rifts
This is probably the only way to play the game without it being total dogshit with godawful mechanics. Savage Worlds is awesome, I can't wait

>>44835102
>The rules are little more than house rules 1st Ed AD&D with a percentage based skill system.

So gut the skills out, reconvert it back to AD&D and I can suddenly crossbreed Rifts into damn near anything I want from the OSR?

Is this finally the Giant Robot system I want for my D&D?

Rifts was my first all the way back in 92. I ordered a palladium catalog because of all those damn comic ads they were running at the time and talked my parents into buying it for my birthday. I don't know which cover I beat off more to, the core book or world book 2:Atlantis.(I was fucking twelve. Everything made me horny) Also managed to play several sessions of the damn game as well. It was fun for all the wrong reason. We eventually moved onto PF and Heroes Unlimited before I discovered the system sucked some serious balls . but yeah still had fun.

>>44835591
It's almost a straight reprint of the original, the only change I remember is that they replaced what dragon species are offered for PC options.

>>44835728
You'll probably want to figure out a few rules for making missile swarms run more smoothly/be more interesting to shoot down, but there are a few sets of house rules like that floating around anyway. Oh, and allow personal stats to add to ranged attack rolls, the games thinks that a character at peak human coordination and a fumbling butterfingers are equally likely to hit a target at range.

>>44835539

Everyone things Siembieda is swimming in a Scrooge McDuck style money pit. The reality is the company has been surviving on a shoe string for years. They don't have the cash flow to do anything beyond crank out another splatbook and keep the wolf from the door a few more months.

There are only three ways Rifts and other Palladium IPs will prosper. 3rd party licenses (ala Savage Rifts), A buy out of Palladium by a larger game company or Kevin dies. I say this without malice toward him. But I don't think someone who has been the owner of a game company for 40 years is going to take on a new line of work. I bet he would take enough to live on the rest of his days and pay his guys a severance package. Say around a million.

I was talking to Kevin at GenCon last year and he lamented that no one buys RPG books anymore, PDFs don't make enough money nor do they a large enough volume sales, you have to sell "toys" or t-shirts, merchandise.

In a way I believe he is right. A game company can't afford the luxury a physical studio, warehouse and on salary staff of writers and artists anymore. It isn't 1990 anymore. But he hasn't made the change. Palladium operates like it is 1991 right down to their black & white layout.

I tried RIFTS with friends once, the character creation was so long, boring, and tedious that the second a character died and another needed to be made it killed all interest

>>44838450
>A game company can't afford the luxury a physical studio, warehouse and on salary staff of writers and artists anymore.
Well, not if their only output is RPGs. SJGames keeps afloat with Munchkin, Wizards has MtG, and White Wolf recently got bought by Paradox.

>>44834987
I'm an avid rifts/palladium fan an have read a almost all the splat books and main books they have but I have a question.

How is it that they capture the fun. I feel it is the setting but can it be something else?

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>>44838450
>>Everyone things Siembieda is swimming in a Scrooge McDuck style money pit.

No one ever thought that. Everyone thinks he is a liar that pisses away money and can't keep track of his shit, see the Robotech RPG Tactics kickscammer and the Crises of Treachery (when he somehow got his fan friends to bail out his company after an employee stole the Megaverse) and Thievery (when he lost track of his shitty collectibles, aka the most lulzy retirement fund ever and had it stolen).

>>44840131

Palladium did make good money back in the old days when they sold the Robotech VHS videos. That's when Siembedia was buying all those collectiables. For a guy with no education or art talent he has done ok. He came from a poor upbringing and their money woes don't surprise me.

>>44840131
Robotech Tactics RPG backer identified. Wave 2 when?

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>>44841847
Most likely never. Though a lulzy lawlsuit might make things better, especially if Uncle Kevvy's dirty laundry ends up getting aired.

>>44834602
OP here. The organization sucks, but reading the corebook feels comforting and familiar even though I've never read it before. The D20 based combat helps.

Mega-damage is cool and makes sense to me. To make powerful stuff feel powerful, there has to be a sense of scale and something to compare things with.

Different PCs working at drastically different power levels just means they're designed for different adventure styles. On first glance, running a pure sandbox game in this setting will be fucking difficult though. Too many things that can kill you unless you're careful.

Opposed rolls for combat seems like it will slow things down, but I need a playtest to be sure.

>>44838746

Rifts has that simulationist feel while still being fairly simple, and captures it for the magic, psionics and technology systems. There's very little abstraction, but by the same token it also leads to the ridiculous redundancy of a lot of the sub systems and the inconsistency for a lot of the rules.

There is something mechanically fun about having detailed numbers for every little laser or missile launcher on a dozen different unique robots, even if nobody ever uses half of them.

If you change the mega damage ratio to 1 SDC point = 10 MDC points I find this more useful. It makes 21st Century firearms weak but not useless as they are with the Canon 1/100 ratio.

Wait.

Am I reading this right? To get more attacks per melee you need to be skilled in hand to hand comabat and boxing? So PCs who want to shoot shit a lot or pilot giant robots need to be master martial artists to be optimized?

>>44846305

Boxing along with other skills provides bonuses to the various HtH Combat skills which in turn determine your number of attacks per melee round iirc.

Use the FATE conversion that's coming out.

>>44846305
There are other ranged-focused skill tracks for that. But if you stick to the core book, yes.

the attacks per round and simultaneous (convoluted) hand-to-hand combat system really turn me off. Can somebody point me to a good conversion of this?

I feel like their array of demons and monsters, even in the location books, is always sort of underwhelming and less menacing than I'd like to imagine. Seems like every mook is expected to be run using randomly generated monster tables

>>44837335
There are Olympic target shooters without hands and in wheelchairs

>>44846305
Wait.

Am I reading this right? To get more attack with a bow a fighter needs to level up their base attack bonus? So PCs who want to shoot shit a lot or fight on horseback need to be master swordsmen to be optimized?

>>44845936
>I want a normal pistol to be able to damage the armor of a tank or a building
I want to be a player in your game so I can rob bank vaults with a shotgun or by punching them with a martial artist.

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>>44840131
>>44843367

>>44847899
This but unironically.

>>44848318
(about half the playable characters in the main book can punch their way through MDC structures, you'd know this if you read the book)

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RIFTS is probably my favorite setting in any rpg but some of the rules and the poor layout make it difficult to teach to new players. As an aside I've recently started trying to convert some of the material in RIFTS to Mutants & Masterminds

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>>44848721
Also here are some Chuck Walton pieces

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>>44848753

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>>44848777

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>>44848806

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>>44848835
Last one

>>44848721
I love this art so much. Keep at it anon.

>>44848865
http://chuckwalton.deviantart.com/

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>>44848863
>>44848865
One more just for you Anon

>>44848835
Why isn't this SAMAS shooting at them?

>>44834602
Rifts is already Old School. It never left.

>>44851185
That's what makes it good!

Rifts is the reason I got into RPGs and the reason I stay. I still do some freelance work for Palladium and I'm happy to play violin on that sinking ship as it slips beneath the waves.

>>44853121
What did you work on, oh beneficent freelancer?

bump for nigger lovers

How did an old adventurer historian granny survive in the ultra high tech ultra lethal world of Rifts and become the number one enemy of a country. I mean goddamn.

>>44848863

Pilot "ohshitohshitohshitoshit!"

So Rifts is like if Shadowrun made tender love to Fallout and raised their child to be a mathamatician?

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>>44861440
It's more like if AD&D, Cyberpunk 2020, that giant Gundam statue in japan and the covers of every 80s metal album got together to drop acid and sodomize each other the end result would be something akin to RIFTS

>>44834602
>RIFTS to OSR

Why? Would a grabasstic kitchen-sink science-fantasy setting be better suited to GURPS, Mutants & Masterminds, or any other point-based generic system?

>>44856605
New to Rifts here and what is this about?

>>44862112
Yeah, probably.

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>>44862236

Erin Tarn is an old woman who has traveled around much of the Rifts world and usually posts a journal entry like preface at the beginning of a lot of the World Books to sort of get you into the mood of the book and what the place is like from her eyes. She is one of the major enemies of the Coalition States which is one of the strongest pro-human anti-everything else factions in North America essentially because she promotes knowledge and shit and the CS want their civilians ignorant and obedient.

>>44834602

Easiest way to play Rifts without it being a clusterfuck is to use the Rifts Ultimate Edition book and like one World Book of your choice and pretty much nothing else. The less books you use the more playable the game is.

>>44837335

Much of the RUA is a copy and paste job, but it did change, add and clarify a LOT of stuff as well.

>>44847899
I'm pretty sure even in the original core book, bank vaults were SDC, they just had an absurd amount of SDC.

There's a set of simplified rules out there called Microlite Platinum. You could probably find them via google.

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Here it is

>>44835539
The thing is, you can kind of see the steady decline of the Palladium system through the years.

The early games (Mechanoids, PFRP) work perfectly fine. Once they hit Heroes Unlimited, TMNT, and Beyond the Supernatural they get a bit table crazy. And then you get the Mega damage games and everything becomes a mess with multiple attacks per round, people getting vaporized if their armor is broken, and an infinite number of redundant options from splatbooks.

>>44861440
It's like someone decided to make an RPG based on all those anime OVAs US Manga Corps used to localize, and then people with no experience with those anime started dropping in more and more crazy stuff.

Seriously, look at the art for the original Rifts book and there's a ton of stuff copied from Vampire Hunter D, Nausicaa, and Bubblegum Crisis.

>>44862112
Rifts is already halfway there and I want to use the shitload of material that the OSR made through the years. Plus I find imagining a Rifts party screwing around and established D&D fun.

>>44864947
D&D setting I mean.

>>44863278
>Easiest way to play Rifts without it being a clusterfuck is to use the Rifts Ultimate Edition book and like one World Book of your choice and pretty much nothing else. The less books you use the more playable the game is.

Alright anon. Which World Book has the best/most giant robots and power armors?

>>44865056

World Book 5: Triax and the NGR
World Book 31: Triax 2
World Book 33: Northern Gun 1
World Book 34: Northern Gun 2

>>44865149

Hmmm also

World Book 11: Coalition War Compaign

Those happen to be like my 5 favorite books as well.

>>44865149
>>44865192
Thanks!

>>44864351
How is the Palladium fantasy RPG? How does it compare to AD&D?

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>>44865587

I thoroughly enjoy Palladium fantasy and consider it one of my favorite fantasy roleplaying systems and settings.

While it and Rifts have a lot of crossover Palladium fantasy isnt an MDC based game which honestly gets rid of half the problems that plague Rifts mechanically.

PF has a shit ton of fluff spanned across a lot of books so the world is really fleshed out and I think the Palladium systems combat works best in this game with attacks not missing nearly as much as a D&D game, but instead hitting either armor, and thus damaging it, or hitting exposed parts of the body and inflicting damage to the person. Makes the combat fun and feel pretty dangerous.

>>44865657
Is combat any quicker than it is in Rifts?

>>44865657
>>44865657
>The Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing Game (often shortened to Palladium Fantasy or PFRPG) is a game produced by Palladium Books. It is set in the Palladium world (use of the unofficial name "Palladia" is discouraged by the publisher)
>use of the unofficial name "Palladia" is discouraged by the publisher

Really?

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>>44865674

Its been a couple years since I have played either, but I think the PF combat is faster. Rifts deals with armors in the hundred and weapons that do 2d6dmg, that makes the Rifts combat insanely slow. PF doesn't really have that issue at all. The numbers game is way more reasonable.

>>44865741
Is there still the potential to be dealing with combatants that have 8 or more attacks in a round on a regular basis?

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>>44865718

*shrug*

>Correct:The image was enhanced with Adobe® Photoshop® Elements software.
>Incorrect: The image was photoshopped.
>Incorrect: The image was Photoshopped.
>Incorrect: The image was Adobe® Photoshopped.

I still use photoshop, some bullshit lines by a crazy person or legal department isn't going to stop me from enjoying a product lol.

>>44865772

4-5 attacks is wayyyyyy more common. I don't think ive seen a player ever get 8 or more in PF. Not as many ways to do so as in Rifts.

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>>44865373

Out of those I would probably recommend just Triax 2 if you are looking to just get started.

Triax 1 and 2 take place 7 or so years apart, so T2 has a lot of upgrades from T1. They also take place in Germany and the surrounding area and are pretty separated from a lot of the other books so its a lot easier to keep a game contained in the location. Plus all the good gear in it is part of the military so thats another good reason for the group to stay together and stay in the area. NG1, NG2 and CWC all have cool stuff, but North America is by far the most fleshed out area and a game taking place in Michigan with Mercenaries (what NG1 and 2 is mostly about) easily has the potential to spill out into any number of other books defeating the whole purpose of keeping it simple.

So apparently Rifts is balanced around the fact that players and NPCs have to get clever when dealing with Glitter Boys and other high damage enemies. Any tips on how to go about that?

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>>44865718
Yes Kevin is notoriously litigious and actively discourages anyone from trying to tweak, modify, or convert the Palladium system

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>>44866151

I happen to like the Wilks 1000 Pulse laser cannon for dealing with big enemies. Can't say I have fought a lot of Glitterboys, not even sure how that would really come up too often. But that badboy is affordable and does 3d4x10 damage with a 3000ft range.

If your going against a Glitterboy then disable the pilot inside, don't damage the goods. That shit is valuable.

>>44866151
>>dealing with Glitter Boys

Numbers is they way as a GM I dealt with those shiny faggots. Normally a new player playing a GB thinks he is Rambo and goes off to brute force a problem with his Boom Gun so it rarely hard to get him alone. SAMUSes are great GB killers, no lasers, just a nice strong railgun. 2-3 circling at high speeds and using cover will tear through a GB fairly quickly. The GB has to deploy his bracing to fire with any accuracy thus is immobilized if he wants to fire. The SAMUSes have no such problem and are fairly zippy on their wings and jet packs. The GB tries to draw a bead on one SAMUS and the others lay into him with fire. Together three SAMUSes have about the same MDC as the GB so it seems "fair" on paper.

>>44847755
And those athletes have developed some impressive coordination to pull that off, yes? Well, Rifts says fuck that, you get the bonus from your skill and level and that's it. There are no Olympian target shooters in rifts, because the only way to be better than someone else is to be higher level, and even then it's a pretty tiny difference.

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>>44866151
This is how I deal with Glitter Boys

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>>44866795

Just throw variant glitterboys at it?

I like the idea.

>>44834602
The Palladium Megaverse is a beautiful train wreck of a system.
I refer to it as the Megaverse system because ALL Palladium games (Except Recon) use the same system and are generally allowed (w/ gm permission) to use any character.

That being said while most classes are appropriate to the dimensional melting pot that is rifts it is entirely up to the GM to balance the party.

Example party power level issues:
-Rogue Scholar (Mediocre at combat, but great for roleplaying)
-A Titan Weapon Mage (Very Powerful, it lets you play a Titan w/ a Hero's magic super-power sword) [Very fun]
-A Power Armor/Giant Robot Pilot (Under powered usually, though the Glitterboy is amazing)
-A private detective type mind melter (Avg power actually, and somewhat hard to do due to limited skills if you have Magic or Psi)

And Finally
-A female Zentradi Power Armor pilot caught in a fold space accident (Using the REALLY old robotech system) [There are 3 Palladium Robotech/Macross systems]

Now imagine balancing that.

That is the problem with rifts.

I still love it though.

>>44834602
My number one house rule for Rifts (it is not an acronym, so no need to capitalize the whole word) makes the game much more balanced:

- there is no MDC
- anything that was once MDC is (SDC * 100)
- any "MDC" weapon effectively ignores any armor rating
- any "MDC" armor or substance effectively has an armor rating of 50 (or other rather large number, or infinity)

my number two house rule for rifts is: replace called shot rules with 80/20 rule mechanics (that's just because i am lazy)

my number three rule house rule for Rifts is: tone down anything Siembieda or Carella write to match the tone set by Erick Wujcik; modify stats for baddies appropriately

My number four house rule for Rifts is simply a reminder to remember that Rifts is supposed to be the spiritual successor to BTS, which in turn is a ripoff of Call of Cthulhu, which means that munchkinism should be discouraged by the GM. As the GM, it is MY duty to call that shit out when I see it and fudge accordingly.

After that, Rifts is pretty damn fun

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>>44866849
>Just throw variant glitterboys at it?
Yup the problem with Glitter Boys is that hardly anyone knows how to make them and the armor and weapons are some of the best you can get at level one.
Shadow Boys and the other assorted knockoffs are cheaper and easier to produce and are almost as heavily armed most of the time so you can have three to four knockoffs for every Glitter Boy

>>44867036
I like when people claim that they've removed MDC from Rifts but don't realize how badly that would fuck up the game if they were to actually play it that way

It's pretty funny that you guys are so assmad about a system that works perfectly fine that you'd come on the internet and lie about how you "fixed" it.

>>44866151
>high damage single target weapon with long range
Shoot missiles at it. Seriously, anything that can fire volleys of missiles will fuck a GB up right quick.

>>44868701
>>44866849
>>44866795
>>44866275
>>44866273

Keep em coming. Here are a couple more things I'm wondering about. Dealing with PC dragons and effectively running away/taking cover in a mega damage firefight.

I imagine non-combat characters need to do a lot of the latter if they fuck up.

>>44868701

Or just blow up its gun.

The absurd number of weapon systems on most robots actually makes a certain degree of sense in a system where you can make a called shot to shoot off just about anything from a vehicle.

>>44868846
Shooting at the boom gun is definitely good too. If nothing else it will make the GB shit itself and take cover usually

>>44868919

Of course, clarifying what you can actually aim at with a called shot is another one of those really uncertain rules in the system. Especially considering the wildly inconsistent "aim/snap/burst/etc..." rules and the contradictory descriptions in the weapons themselves.

>>44868980
That's retarded. It clearly says that you can call a shot at any target with any weapon that can make called shots. You can't call shots with missile volleys or bursts, but you can with pulses, which is part of what makes pulse weapons better than the older burst weapons.

How hard is that to understand?

>>44869040
Also in the profile of monsters/robots/etc it will tell you if a specific target like an antenna array or a head or limb or whatever is smaller and harder to hit than normal and what the penalty for that target is. This is all basic "read the book for the first time" stuff.

>>44868815
PC dragons are mary sue af, they are best for the type of player who wants a ton of attention constantly and wants to be able to do anything and fill any role. Allowing Dragon PC pretty much comes with a warning, you'll get the type of players the class appeals to when you allow it.

That being said, if you want to sorta focus the adventure/campaign around people hunting the dragon, it can be a good way to keep them under wraps, as they'll know that any big obvious dragon moves will bring the hunters down on them.

As far as dodging/taking cover, there are pretty specific rules about shooting at people who are in cover, diving, moving, dodging, etc. Those are all discussed in the ranged combat section.

>>44869213
Dragon Juicers (or a Blood Hunting Party) and or Coalition make for pretty good anti-dragon antagonists.

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>>44869294

>>44869213
Do megadamage buildings exist to hide in? I looked at the SDC chart for common objects and megadamage weapons seem to negate cover mostly.

Also, I assume moving consumes a melee attack?

>>44869377
Yes, there are plenty of MDC structures. Everything from golden age ruins to modern structures and fortifications. Keep in mind that even though MD weapons will blow up SDC cover, that doesn't mean that you can effectively shoot something you can't see.

Moving in and of itself does not consume a melee attack. You can move and attack, move and shoot or whatever you want to do. However if you spend time just moving around and not attacking, you will have used some of the time in the melee round and thereby have used up one or more of your melee attacks.

There are penalties for moving and shooting and so on in the combat sections.

>>44868663
How does this mechanic fuck up the game? "MDC" objects still are de facto impervious to small arms (by virtue of improbably high A.R), and can do tremendous damage to mundane objects (by virtue of x100 S.D.C damage) and can do damage to other "MDC" objects (by virtue of ignoring all A.R.) -- but removes a bullshit mechanic from the game.

This also has a side effect of removing "faeries/brodkil/cyber-wolfen/whatever bullshit supernatural race has MDC despite being six inches tall and made of meat" and also removes the whole "vibro blades do MDC so if I stab you with a vibro blade you should instantly become a puddle of blood" conundrum

don't get butthurt because you didn't come up with it first, munchkin

>>44869534
Hey, I realize this is a roleplaying forum but if you stop and think about the actual mechanics of what you made up and claim that you've done in your game, eventually (I'd hope) you will realize how you failed. It might help if you read the rules of Rifts too, that'll help dispel some of those misunderstandings that you're tossing around.

Have fun!

>>44869582
You do realize I've owned an original Rifts core book continously since 1990, and its first edition printing still has a couple errors (for example a couple places where Emperor Prosek is still called Emperor Tromm)

I've playtested this paradigm for *decades* and it does not fail. Common sense house rules apply. Fae, vibro-blades, etc. do not have the x100 multiplier. Energy weapons, etc. do.

I understand how this might not work for all people, but I do not appreciate a smug blanket statement that it cannot work. Again, I've been doing this for over twenty five *years* with success.

>>44869684
>continues lying without realizing the obvious reason why everyone can tell he is lying
The way you are autistic would almost be proof that you are telling the truth if you didn't fuck up so badly.

>>44869710

Am I the only person in this thread that never attempt to house rule Palladium because it worked fine for me?

>>44869040

Except for the huge number of places it uses "pulse" and "burst" interchangeably for weapons, sure. But nevermind that.

>>44869809

So anyone here like Phase-world? That's shit's my Jam there.

Well except for Cosmo knights, they were a tad over the top.

>>44868663
>>44868663
Why do you show up in every Rifts thread? You post the exact same way every time and sperg out at anyone who houserules your pet system. You've been doing this for years. Have you nothing better to do?

>>44869809
Please provide one example. Just one would suffice.

>>44869796
Of course not. The Palladium system is super simple which is why it's hilarious that all these mad liars insist that they've done some conversion that they've obviously never ran or played.

>>44869845
CJ wrote some awesome shit. It's too bad he couldn't be arsed to make sure that his numbers were in line with the rest of the game. That being said the content is all still good stuff.

I don't really care for RIFTS system, but I love the setting. It's so gonzo and insane, and I love it

>>44869912
Was he the one that wrote South America 2?

>>44869896

Yeah I mean it's not bloody hard, if anything Palladium as made it simpler to understand as time went on.

>>44869912

CJ was good for allot of things, keeping the balance of the game in check was not one of them.

Hey anyone remember those star-beings from Scrapers, now that shit was boss.

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>>44869875
>getting called out for lying on the internet like a retard is a conspiracy against me!

>>44869946
Yep. Also Juicer Uprising and Phase World. Good author, bad game designer (in my opinion, of course).

>>44869972

What you don't like Juicers that hunt dragons to kill for there blood?

>>44869972
I dunno, I know SA2 gets a lot of shit for being broken, but it did add something I will love it forever for: an anti-armour laser that can actually do that job.

>>44869991
Fuck yes I like them! I'm saying his concepts are great, the numbers he wrote for the concepts are not that great usually. But 99% of the shit is still workable, or you can just change the numbers to something that works in your game.

>>44869796
Probably not, but there are plenty of people that play 3.5 D&D without house rules. Some people like to tinker, some people have high standards, some people are picky.

>>44869957
Conspiracy traditionally involves two or people or an organization.

>>44869875
It's probably some Palladium employee. You'd defend it too if it was your livelihood.

>>44870024
I've always found the opposite! Every laser rifle does a ton of damage, a squad with laser rifles can easily tear down armored vehicles in a melee or two.

Even at 2d6 per shot, 4 shots per melee, that's an average of 28 damage per guy, if there are four guys that's over 100 damage per melee round. If there are 8 guys that's ~225 damage every 15 seconds.

If you've got guys burst firing cheap L20 rifles, that's 6d6 per shot for an average of 21 per shot, making each guy 4 attacks per round that are nearly equal to the whole melee of attacks from a single guy with a 2d6 pistol or light rifle. That's over 100 damage per guy per melee with dips to reload.

If they're actually using heavy weapons like something as simple as a railgun mounted on a truck that's dumping 1d6x10 into the target every attack at least four times per melee too.

Seriously, infantry in Rifts are strong as shit.

>>44870296
But the real question is can jet fuel melt steel beams

>>44870297
Well, when I think of an anti-armor, I think of something like a panzerschrek, which is to say capable of doing serious damage to, or even disabling a vehicle in a single shot.

>>44870331
Rocket launcher isn't disabling a modern tank in a single shot. Not even close. If you want to talk WW2-level Rifts stuff get a tank made by Chipwell. Then a 1d6x10 rocket launcher will perform like you want it to.

>>44870355
Or I can just use that anti-armour laser, which can do serious damage to at least light vehicles or disable specific components readily.

>>44866185
this is what happens when you hang out with harmony gold

>>44870392
two peas in a pod really

>>44870297

This is my experience in general, I ran a CS campaign during the Tolkien war that basically had the group thanking Christ that armor had as much MDC as they did

3d6 doesn't mean much until it's 5+ attacks of it, possibly burst fire, by small squads.

Oh your going to dodge that? burn an action per dodge at a -10 to dodge fucking laser beams? Good luck man!

>>44870390
If that thing is common enough that you've got one, why are people still fielding armored vehicles? If they're getting hard countered by infantry, what's the point of them?

That's why the numbers on that weapon are wrong instead of just being strong. If you play it like it's written and make the item super rare and ammo-intensive, it could just be "too good" but if you imagine that there are really squads who are using these as often as other armies use rocket launchers, there is no armored vehicle that is going to stand up to that. It warps the whole battlefield around the existence of a single piece of technology.

Then you have to ask why aren't those things mounted on every vehicle? Why would anyone not run those over anything else? Etc etc etc.

The issue people take with that weapon (and SA2 in general) is not that they aren't cool and fun, it's that they aren't logically consistent with the rest of the setting.

>>44870413
Gotta love those CS squads. Everyone thinks they're tough until they're getting hammered by stormtroopers.

>>44846521

FATE conversion for Rifts? Who do I give my money to?

>>44870466
It wasn't that good. Tanks are more than good enough to withstand multiple shots from it, and the fact it burns out an e-clip every shot is a pretty fucking big deal. The RT-20 being able to blow the infrared sights off Serbian main battle tanks didn't stop them from fielding main battle tanks.

>>44870499
I think he got it mixed up. There's a Savage Worlds conversion coming out, though there may very well be a Fate conversion out there. Probably wouldn't be too difficult to whip on up.

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>>44870480

Lets not forget the bad fucking time your going to have if you stumble upon a three pack of these fuckers on patrol.

>>44870519

Ah. Too bad. I really would like to play in that setting again, but I could really do without the charts, charts, and more charts thing. There are source books that are literally nothing but charts and lineart, and I think Kevin might actually be insane.

But damn, the setting is cool as fuck.

>>44870587
Savage Worlds is a relatively light system, they have some test-drive rules out there if you'd like to take a look.

>>44870308
I believe under MDC rules, it can.

>>44870912

Only MD Jet Fuel.

I wonder if Palladium rules would work well for Dark Sun? The two seem to be a match made in an 80s metal band garage.

>>44870912

Bitch Please, Jet Fuel burns for SDC damage.

>>44869944
I love Rifts setting so much, since most of the world is ignorant and illiterate and full of dangerous wilderness. The write up for the "smart guy"classes do a really good job of convincing you that they are just as badass as the combat classes in a different manner.

>>44871051

The rogue scholar may not be quite what you expect. Like the scientist, he or she is frequently a rugged, physically fit explorer and keeper of knowledge. Also like the scientist, the rogue scholar is on the Coalition States' top most wanted list of criminal activists. They are considered to be more dangerous than the men of science, because the scholar seeks out knowledge and truth and teaches it to others.

Science is confusing and intimidating to most people, but the scholar teaches on a much more rudimentary level and is therefore much more dangerous. By simply instilling uneducated people with curiosity, teaching them little things like how to read, write, and arithmetic, can sow the seeds of destruction. This completely undermines the Coalition's carefully executed plan to keep its citizens illiterate, uneducated, and complacent. A curious mind will always ask questions and ultimately challenge the authority before it when those questions are not satisfactorily answered. Something the powers that be dislike.

Rogue scholars and scientists are men and women of the world, having shared time with mutoids, D-Bees, men of magic, and other societies not under the repressive regime of the Coalition States (CS). The CS has built an empire using secret technology, forgotten sciences, and fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of that which is different. The rogue's teachings could destroy the walls of fear with the light of knowledge and the walls of differences could tumble down by learning just how similar people of all kinds really are.

To give their words greater impact, scholars frequently possess forbidden artifacts from man's past and articles from other civilizations of the present. Terrible objects such as books, photographs, artwork, recordings, film, and other things from the past and present. Things that could threaten the Coalition States' empire.

>>44871034
>>44871023
Maybe it couldn't melt a Rifts steel beam, but under Roboech rules, even reinforced bank vaults are only SDC. As written, you could theoretically melt through a bank vault door with a flamethrower in less than 10 rounds assuming some lucky rolls.

>>44871116

Wait are we talking pre bombardment structures or post bombardment structures if were talking Robotech RPG logic.

>>44871149
From the chart at the front of the book with examples of SDC values
>Door, Solid Metal 600SDC
>Door, Metal Safe 800SDC
>Weapon, Artillery Piece 1500SDC
>Door, Bank Vault 5000SDC

Steel beams should fall somewhere into that range.

>>44870587
What charts?

>>44871194

Yeah I'm guessing somewhere in safe door, to bank vault range to be sure, are we factoring in AR into this at all?

>>44871235
Pretty sure that an ongoing fire is going to bypass ar

>>44871660

Fair point.

>>44871116
There is no way that actually high security places aren't using mdc vaults. They'd just be way more expensive than common sdc ones

>>44871068
RIFTS is amazing. Wish I could find a local group who is smart enough for old games

>>44872419
>RIFTS is amazing

The setting is, the ruleset, not so much.

>>44856605
Erin Tarn wasn't always an old granny, you know. Her OCC is Rogue Scholar, which is in no way some stodgy bookwork, but more of a high-tech Indiana Jones.

The Coalition States (more like Emperor Prosek) hate her because she's literate, actively teaches people to think and question, writes and spreads the closest thing to accurate history anyone at the time can get, calls the CS on it's idiotic and fearful fascist bullshit, and is in no way under their control.

How closely should a player work with his Referee and his fellow players when making their characters? Should they watch every step of the process, or is something more hands-off allowed?

>>44872430
Oh, the rules are amazing too. Just not in a good way.

>>44868919
While that is a good idea, wise players remember that the GB can run at 60mph, have jump packs, enough armor to laugh at almost anything, and is strong enough to hand to hand even dragons.

>>44872569
You really want to keep your eyes on the players during chargen. Otherwise you end up with a party consisting of a rogue scholar, a techno wizard, a vampire hunter, and a cosmo knight.

>>44870480
I love CS death squads. They think they're king shit until they run facefirst into a Cyber Knight.

>>44872569
Mixed powerlevel games need some effort from everyone involved to stay on the same page. The GM also needs to give players and their concepts an opportunity to shine. I don't think Rifts works as a super strict sandbox due to how lethal it can be.

>>44872430
>millennial detected

>>44872551
Also she rolls deep with a fat pack of heroes at all times, hence why random monsters didn't clean her out

>>44872617
>GB
>hand to hand a dragon hatchling
Doubtful.

Even if the Hatchling doesn't just outright win with spells, GB does 1d6 MD on a punch, 2d6 on a power punch (counts as two attacks) and usually has 6 to 7 attacks per melee.

Hatchling usually has about 20 supernatural-tier strength, so it's doing 2d6+claws in melee, usually something like 2d6+2d6. It can also bio-regenerate, teleport, fly, use a bunch of magic and psychic powers and so on.

Hatchling is going to beat GB's ass in a straight up fistfight if it fights smart and doesn't just try to chew through GB's main body. Hatchling probably has 200-400 MDC to the GB's 770 of course, but GB can't regenerate, can't turn invisible, can't teleport, can't fly (can hover, but it's not going to help).

Hand to hand is definitely a GB's weak point that's why the Coalition's Glitter Boy Killer PA is melee centric

>>44871842
He was talking Old style robotech where the only place you say MDC and Mega-Damage were giant robots, some military vehicles, and space ships...

The only man portable MDC weapons were missiles I believe. It was a far better balanced system in that giant robots feel big...

Hell they are the only palladium robots other than the GB with realistic weapon ranges.

>>44873151
You mean besides every robot with missiles?

I think I'd like Rifts better without randomly rolled damage. The whole back and forth with striking, parrying, and dodging is enough rolling for me. Any house rules out there with that?

>>44873172
take the average damage of everything and apply that on a successful hit

>>44873210
What is the average on 3d6x10? Or are you just going to take half and have that be good enough?

>>44873279
10 and 11 are equally common. I'll take 10 for an even 100 mega damage.

>>44873167
Well yes, but I'm talking massive Particle beam cannons with 20 mile ranges or 8 mile range AA auto-cannons

Vs Rifts were missiles (which will bankrupt independent PCs that overuse them) are among the only weapons with a range consistently greater than 1 mile.

Most "sniper" weapon have a MAXIMUM range of 3750 feet and the Maximum range on most robot main weapon is about 2500 feet...

Note those numbers account for you shooting 25% beyond the listed range for a penalty.

The GB's 2 mile range is one of the top 3 (the others are artillery or the 5 and 8-inch guns on the James Bay class destroyer and Sea King missile cruiser) longest range non-missile technological weapons in Rifts proper.

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>The weapon can be used either with a plain pointed end (2D6 S.D.C. damage) or with an explosive head (4D6 M.D.)

>4D6 M.D.

what kind of hellish harpoon gun is this

If you try making a robot character, you are an asshole.
Cyborgs are OK.

>>44873545
Pretty sure it's the explosive bolt that's the hellish bit, not the harpoon gun.

>>44873151

To be fair later Robotech books starting with Southern cross started introducing MDC Personal armor.

Then Cyclones with main body MDC of a VF series Veritech happened and I kinda checked out.

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Diverging from the main topic, how are the Palladium Fantasy books for someone who's only interested in fluff?

I was kinda eyeing the Yin-Sloth Jungles.

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>>44877913

What specifically do you want to know? Most of the PF books are about 70% Fluff, so they aren't bad for that.

>>44878759
Are they good, which ones are hard to include in another setting, which ones are easy to adapt, which ones are really shitty and should be avoided, etc.

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>>44878878

Sorry haven't really read through a lot of PF books. I imagine they would be very easy to adapt to other games though.

The one I KNOW that sucks is World Book 2: Old Ones, because its incorrectly titled. It should be called "The Index of cities and towns: also there is one page on the old ones"

I say just go nuts and download them and see if you like them.

>>44878878
Download them, dumbass.

>>44878759
That predator hair though