To the topic, if you run Rifts as a series of combat encounters, it's flaws become very apparent. The trick to "balance" Rifts is to focus on non-combat resolutions. A great example is one of the scenarios in Rifts Mercenaries, where a minor supernatural intelligence is manipulating two towns into war so that the resulting death (and accompanying PPE released, making it the equivalent of a huge blood sacrifice) will allow the creature to fully enter the world. The way to prevent that is to stop the fighting.

Now, having said that, I realize that Rifts is full of robots and guns and missiles and swords and fighting is cool. My base house rules are
1. MDC=10 SDC. This makes Mega Damage important, but not overwhelming.
2. Some kind of damage increase or MDC decrease. Usually a bit of both. This speeds up combat so you're not plinking away at something with 650 MDC, with 2d6 MD values. Plink... plink... plink...
3. Re: 2, using morale helps too. Having the opponents retreat at 50% health effectively halves all MDC values unless they fight to the death.
4. I like to ignore most of the "Does not affect targets in MDC body armor" for spells and psionics. This frees up casters and psionics to have a lot more effective abilities, especially at lower levels.

Mostly, I think adventure design is key to having a fun Rifts campaign. Embrace the gonzo unbalance, because that's part of the charm of Rifts.

Quote from: SP23;986594I once played in a Rifts sessions were everyone was on acid. It was fucked up.

MDC is a hell of a drug.

Pretty good advice on here.  Do make sure you decide what sort of game you're going to run (coalition war, high magic/fantasy, wastelander survival, etc) and STICK TO IT!  Tell the players and make sure they build characters in line with that theme.  Power level can be adjusted for but if one player is constantly trying to wage full blown tech war in your wastelander game you will run into issues.  Ditch anything you personally don't like or don't fit your theme from the source books.  Spend some time adjusting the internal consistency of your game to your chosen playstyle/theme.

For instance, as an intellectual exercise and as insurance for any future desire to run Rifts, I am mapping out a game set in Oregon.  The theme I'm going for is wastelander survival with a flavor of rebuild/war to it.  Basically The Walking Dead All Out War style of game.  I'm working on stories for how the various settlements survived (if they remember) and how they evolved/grew over time.  I'm addressing what Long Range Coalition patrols are like in the region and how the residents view them and how they make the decision to leave as refugees.  I'm jotting down ideas for what a society with access to some parts of high technology but without full access to it works.  They have fusion power and lasers and the knowledge of advanced manufacturing but don't necessarily have the mines and infrastructure for manufacturing so how do they adapt that?  I pretty much tossed out all of New West and Spirit West for being beyond ridiculous and applied the Sourcebook demographics to modern Oregon/Washington population to work out the Human/DBee demographics.  I kept some stuff like the Simvan Ranges and Robot Horses.

If you can hammer out your own internal consistency for the setting then a lot of the difficulties start to fade away.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;986604Now, having said that, I realize that Rifts is full of robots and guns and missiles and swords and fighting is cool. My base house rules are
1. MDC=10 SDC. This makes Mega Damage important, but not overwhelming.

I assume you ignore then rule that only something that does MDC can affect ann MDC object (if that is still a part of the rules)?

Quote2. Some kind of damage increase or MDC decrease. Usually a bit of both. This speeds up combat so you're not plinking away at something with 650 MDC, with 2d6 MD values. Plink... plink... plink...

Do you have a preference in this regard?

Quote4. I like to ignore most of the "Does not affect targets in MDC body armor" for spells and psionics. This frees up casters and psionics to have a lot more effective abilities, especially at lower levels.

I never quite understood the rationale behind that limitation. Unless it was a way to justify some of the setting.

Quote from: Nexus;986615I assume you ignore then rule that only something that does MDC can affect ann MDC object (if that is still a part of the rules)?

I'm pretty sure in the official rules, doing 100 SDC in a single attack will convert to 1 MD. (A burst won't do MD, but an SDC rocket may) So I say for every 10 full SDC, 1 MD point is inflicted.

QuoteDo you have a preference in this regard?

This gets fiddly, but here's my current damage system.
MD weapons that do less than 1d4x10 MD, get a one dice bump. So a vibro-saber that does 2d4 MD gets increased to 3d4 MD. This goes for spells and psionic attacks as well.
MDC over 100 has that MDC reduced by half. So body armor with 85 MDC is fine. A power armor with 200 MDC is reduced to 150. (100+(100/2))
Modified criticals are a to hit roll that's 20 or greater, counting bonuses. A modified crit does x2 damage.
Natural crits are a natural 20. (Naturally! ) A natural crit does x3 damage.
Crit modifiers stack, say a full melee burst does x5 damage, a natural crit on a full melee burst does x7 damage.

This stuff is more a case-by-case basis:
Things with lots of MDC, Dragons or Gods or Intelligences, I may straight halve their MDC, or even divide it by 10.
I also like to give adult dragons x10 damage on all their attacks.

QuoteI never quite understood the rationale behind that limitation. Unless it was a way to justify some of the setting.

I'm not sure if it's ever brought up outside the specific ability descriptions. The compromise I settled on is to give bonuses to the magic/psionic save for these kinds of effects.
non-Environmental armor: No bonus.
Environmental MDC armor: +1 to magic and psionic saves.
Power armor/light vehicles: +2 to magic and psionic saves.
Robot vehicles, tanks, etc: +4 to magic and psionic saves.

A while back I started a thread about some house rules we used for Rifts/Robotech.

It's here

Quote from: Nexus;986464Does anyone have any advice for GMing Palladium's Rifts or can point me in the direction of a site with it?

This may come in handy.

Rifts® Primer - How to Play Rifts® and Create Adventures

If the ruleset requires that much house-ruling to make it playable why not just toss it entirely and just use the setting material with a better ruleset?

Quote from: Voros;986860If the ruleset requires that much house-ruling to make it playable why not just toss it entirely and just use the setting material with a better ruleset?

Because it really doesn't require that much house-ruling to make it playable.  The biggest problem with Rifts is that the system is 27 years old and is in desperate need of a revision (not a rewrite). Also, it's a toolbox system, which some of us actually prefer. Someone up thread that players should treat it like GURPS and that's the exact right way to approach it.

I always recommend new folks get started with RUE and start with one world book that fits the game they want to run. Limit it to classes in the core book and the world book. I usually recommend Vampire Kingdoms to start.

I prefer the Megaversal system to Savage Worlds. I really hope we get a revision to the book and a simplified skill system. The core system itself is front loaded and once we get to the table runs very similar to AD&D.

Quote from: Voros;986860If the ruleset requires that much house-ruling to make it playable why not just toss it entirely and just use the setting material with a better ruleset?

Some do. There's so much stuff for Rifts, that conversion to another system can be a hurculean task. It's possible to chuck the specifics and use general rules (say, if one were to use D&D, chuck all the Palladium spells and use D&D spells) but then you lose Armor of Ithan and biomancy and sub-particle acceleration, and bio-manipulation, etc, etc...
And then there's no rules for power armor and giant robots in D&D, so you'd have to either houserule it, and then you're back to massive houserules, or find a system that decently covers all the kitchen sink stuff available in Rifts.
Or, pare Rifts down to a few things, and then you're losing all the setting material that makes Rifts attractive.

It's a chore no matter how you slice it.

I played the robotech system for a while. Had an idea to fix the critical hit system on mecha and make it better.

Take the  total MDC of a Meghan location and divide by 100. The result is the cumulative % chance a MDC hit does a critical.

So a MAC II with a 400 MDC body takes 4 MDC damage hit . it has a 1% chance of scoring a critical. A battlepod with a wimpy 50 MDC body takes a 4 point hit and has an 8% chance of taking a critical. Much better system IMO.

Quote from: Schwartzwald;987209I played the robotech system for a while. Had an idea to fix the critical hit system on mecha and make it better.

Take the  total MDC of a Meghan location and divide by 100. The result is the cumulative % chance a MDC hit does a critical.

So a MAC II with a 400 MDC body takes 4 MDC damage hit . it has a 1% chance of scoring a critical. A battlepod with a wimpy 50 MDC body takes a 4 point hit and has an 8% chance of taking a critical. Much better system IMO.

I considered something like this. For crits would you use tables of specific effects, or damage multipliers, or a bit of both?

Quote from: Nexus;986491Just any general tips, war stories, warning, etc. I ran a brief game many years ago and it was kind of fun but dried very quickly. But I was feeling nostalgic lately and thinking of getting another one started.

Don't try to use every single book.  Start with the main book and one or two books ideally focusing on the same or adjacent areas. Your PCs can always go exploring later, but it's probably a good idea if they start out with a 'home base'. Make use of the NPCs and power-groups.

Make a combat cheat sheet; include all the modifiers for attacking and avoidance and cover. It will save you a ton of headaches. Should be about a single page double-spaced in length. Give a copy to each of the players.

As many others said, stick to only the rule book and whatever sourcebook for whatever part of the world you want to start in.

The more houserules you add, the more likely the game is going to suck. Everything rule-wise is pretty straight forward; d20 roll high for combat, percentile dice for skills. A simple but effective houserule that I believe RPGPundit came up with was to ignore the arbitrary skill tables and instead make all skills 35% + 5% per level of experience. Makes for a lot less flipping of the book.

Unlike almost every other game ever made, Intelligence is the most useful and important attribute any character of any class can have. Mental Affinity and Speed will rarely, if ever, come into play, so don't let your players stress about those.

As GM, make a list of races and Occupational Character Classes your players can choose from.

Make sure you understand Attacks per Melee!!!! Can't stress that enough. Each character has 2 attacks, plus any extras from Hand to Hand combat skills and Boxing. Generally, 4 attacks/actions at first level for most characters. If a character (like a Juicer) has more actions than every one else, have them make 2 actions for every 1 of the other characters. This is where initiative becomes really important. Probably moreso than any other game I've ever played.

Lastly, be consistent in your rulings. Rifts is a great game to cut your teeth on as a GM, because it makes you (the GM) have to think, instead of just reciting shit from a rule book. There will be many times where you will have to make a ruling on the fly, because the rule book either doesn't address it, or it will take forever to find the rule. Keep the game moving.

Yes, I did houserule the skills. Simplifying the skill system is the only houseruling I would suggest.  Anyways, there's a thread with those houserules somewhere in the Pundit's forum.