Most of the splat books are terrible, so why use them at all?

I never understand the argument that because something is written in an obscure book, it HAS to be used.

Quote from: everloss;660187Most of the splat books are terrible, so why use them at all?

I never understand the argument that because something is written in an obscure book, it HAS to be used.

You ever play D&D 3.5? Seems like if it's "officially" published (i.e. WotC), someone will want to use it. I had one player in a game I ran get pissed because I wouldn't allow a bunch of overpowered Forgotten Realms prestige classes...

Mega damage worked well in early Robotech but I always thought that Heroes Unlimited had a much cleaner way of dealing with Vehicles & Robots.  As opposed to personal Armor absorbing SDC damage under AR instead of the character's SDC, only attacks above AR inflicted damage to the SDC of Vehicles & Robots while the rest did no damage.  I could foresee having to house rule that Vehicle & Robot weapons inflict damage directly to SDC to other Weapons & Robots for combat expediency though.

Quote from: Brad;660197You ever play D&D 3.5? Seems like if it's "officially" published (i.e. WotC), someone will want to use it. I had one player in a game I ran get pissed because I wouldn't allow a bunch of overpowered Forgotten Realms prestige classes...

Nope, never played 3.5. Almost did once, the last time I made the mistake of trying to join a game at the game shop. Dude had a laptop with some 300 pdfs and I was supposed to go through them, even though I had little control over what character I could be. It was either some sort of Fire Elf, or some sort of Fire Dwarf (because those are apparently the most powerful when min/maxed to full effect). Uh... no, thank you.

Most players of any game that I've played or know of, usually don't bother buying sourcebooks, so they never really know what's been published. Since I'm usually the GM, I'm perfectly fine with that.

I never had a problem with megadamage in RIFTS or Robotech. But I could see the interest in running a RIFTS game where only the big robots and ultrahigh tech were megadamage.

RPGPundit

I concur with RPGPundit.  I ran a 6 year campaign from level 1 to level 8 and never had an issue with the MDC/SDC component.  Honestly, every time I see this come up, its usually poor GMing or players that just want to shoot everything.  Its very easy to go crazy/gonzo gaming with RIFTS, but if you write a good story and pace it properly, having MDC/SDC shouldn't create an issue.  

My players learned early on the pitfalls of using MDC weapons to deal with every scenario.

MDC weapons make a huge difference, especially if you use books like New West, where you have six-shooters with MDC damage. One shot can destroy a building. If the players don't have MDC weapons, they will be helpless against many enemies, unless the GM only uses a very limited pool of bad guys.

MDC weapons and armor everywhere reminds me of rune weapons in Palladium RPG.  In the main rulebook, rune weapons are incredibly powerful and extremely, extremely rare (only two hundred or so in existence!).....  yet in the supplements they are everywhere.  

My guess is that the writers get a bit carried away and no one reigns them in.

Quote from: J Arcane;660000Shit, technically a 1d4 MDC pistol could take on modern tanks.  And win.

Yeah but remember SDC tanks are modern for us - 2000CE.  Mega-damage tanks are like what is Rifts, 2150CE or something?  It is weird that mega-damage doesn't have an AR rating, so yeah a couple hundred MDC pistol shots could damage a MDC tank.

Quote from: danbuter;723768MDC weapons make a huge difference, especially if you use books like New West, where you have six-shooters with MDC damage. One shot can destroy a building. If the players don't have MDC weapons, they will be helpless against many enemies, unless the GM only uses a very limited pool of bad guys.

Mega damage weapons compared to SDC buildings I always had just make a hole, not blow up the building.  There's nothing about a MDC weapon that magically distributes its energy.  It's going to blow through, wasting most of the energy going through a few houses, like firing an AK in a residential neighborhood, only it would go through a lot more houses.

I used to be more confused by MD pistols until I read an early entry on "MDC creatures." I can't remember which book it was in. Maybe Conversion Guide?

Anyway, that gave me the impression that MDC creatures were the Rifts equivalent of older D&D's "can only be hit by a +1 or greater weapon." Things like golems and vampires, who are basically immune to normal weapons but can still be blown away with a magical weapon. Except that the magical weapons are described as smashing buildings and insta-killing normal people, and increasingly everyone seems to have them.

I really like the idea of MD and MDC gear as something the elite have, something that makes you a one-person army and lets a few Glitterboys take over a country in the early days (if not hold ground). It gives a nice haves and have-nots theme.

The problems I had were:

1: Everyone gets freakin' MD and MDC over time, and they seem to go from tools of the elite to something all but the smallest villages have.

2: The cool aesthetic effect of "I have this awesome handgun that can blow away a building" is ruined when the majority of opponents have MDC that requires like twelve direct hits to penetrate.

3: That bullshit justification for why you still might want SD weapons because of hunting and stuff. If I want to hunt, I'd carry a hunting rifle, not a military submachine gun that's useless for its intended purpose. It wouldn't be so bad if most people (and animals) didn't have MDC, though.

God I love this game (and BTS, and Palladium 1e - I need to get myself a copy of TMNT - DONE -, as I already have Robotech!). Didn't play it (yet), but this thread has me reading it again.

Quote from: The Butcher;659685That, right there? This is my real #1 beef with Rifts.

I can accept the supernatural stuff, in fact Rifts (and BTS, which originated the concepts) is one of the games that best explains supernatural stuff. Sure, it's mumbo jumbo, but it's remarkably consistent mumbo jumbo.

But the universal availability of magic, portable, non-deadly-radiation-spewing miniature nuclear reactors that provide infinite energy for a X number of years... yeah, that gets on my nerves. Sure, it's no biggie looking the other way, but wouldn't it be cool if energy/fuel for all the super-tech toys were another resource you had to manage? You could even cut down the repair bills a bit, to compensate.

In the original Macross and Mospeada that Robotech aglomerates from and by default the RPG draws from, the earth mecha ran off regular fuels and batteries. Not magic "protoculture".

And didnt the Mospeada/Invid part of the RPG cover fuel and resource problems? Not sure. Been a while.

Quote from: Benoist;723902God I love this game (and BTS, and Palladium 1e - I need to get myself a copy of TMNT - DONE -, as I already have Robotech!). Didn't play it (yet), but this thread has me reading it again.

If you cant find TMNT then nab the After the Bomb book as it takes the TMNT/Road Hogs/After the Bomb set and merges it into one book, minus the TMNT refferences.

Quote from: CRKrueger;723842Yeah but remember SDC tanks are modern for us - 2000CE.  Mega-damage tanks are like what is Rifts, 2150CE or something?  It is weird that mega-damage doesn't have an AR rating, so yeah a couple hundred MDC pistol shots could damage a MDC tank.

Also there was a yooper(?) company that was still making SDC power armor and tanks and such, we used to call them mook industries, because only mooks used their stuff.