Quote from: thedungeondelver;351900Why?

I've never played RIFTS so maybe I'm missing some history and possible abuses and mangling of the MDC/SDC system, but it seems entirely reasonable to me: little tiny stuff, no matter how lethal to a squishy human (think .22 bullets, baseball bat blows, knife stabs) are utterly ineffective against massively armored targets.  You can chip away at an Abrams' front glacis all day long with a Weatherby .22 squirrel gun.  There is no critical, no cumulative damage (not in your lifetime), nothing that you can do with that rifle that's going to make the Abrams crew (or Veritech pilot, or M.A.C.-II crew, etc. etc.) so much as flinch.  Period.  Hit it once, hit it a thousand times, it will not give.

There are two problems that pop out in my mind right away. First, you can't cut off someone's arm with a vibroblade, however carefully. Even a single point of MDC turns someone into mist. Second, light combat armor can have MDC, which means a guy in a freakin' padded suit with a non-sealed helmet can get hit in the chest with a cruise missile and walk away from it.

The leaf ponchos are just a bad implementation, rather than an example of bad rules.

Quote from: Tetsubo;352024It it's absurd to expect one player to have the survivability of an ant while another has the survivability of an elephant. The MDC mechanic is absurd in and of itself. I have no need to add any absurdity.

The thing is, no one in RIFTS will have the "survivability of an ant"; everyone has access to MDC armour. You can fairly easily end up with 100-130MDC from decent armour, which any character can and will have. Even if all you have is 30MDC "plastic man" armour, the only "absurd" part is to expect that the game will be set up in such a way that the rogue scholar will have nothing more to do than try to fight the baddies head on the way a Glitter Boy would. In fact, playing a low-MDC character with other skills (any of the Scholar classes, basically) affords shitloads MORE playability options than the fighter classes, who are basically there just to fight. They're more interesting.

RPGPundit

MDC is a mechanic of scaling. It functions pretty well at that.

Quote from: pawsplay;352073First, you can't cut off someone's arm with a vibroblade, however carefully. Even a single point of MDC turns someone into mist.

Although that is implied by the rules it is just silly. A super sharp weapon that cuts on a molecular level is not going to transfer any form of energy to the rest of the body. It will simply cut through like a hot knife in butter.

Quote from: pawsplay;352073Second, light combat armor can have MDC, which means a guy in a freakin' padded suit with a non-sealed helmet can get hit in the chest with a cruise missile and walk away from it.

A modern cruise missile would be an MDC weapon. Not on the power level of cruise missiles in Rifts, but still MDC. The conversion of modern weapons to MDC is way off.

Quote from: pawsplay;352073The leaf ponchos are just a bad implementation, rather than an example of bad rules.

Yes, those were a horrible implementation of MDC.

Quote from: RPGPundit;352087In fact, playing a low-MDC character with other skills (any of the Scholar classes, basically) affords shitloads MORE playability options than the fighter classes, who are basically there just to fight. They're more interesting.

RPGPundit

I fully agree.

Quote from: Settembrini;352124MDC is a mechanic of scaling. It functions pretty well at that.

I prefer the use of GM common sense.

I don't need a bunch of rules to tell me that a plain old 9mm pistol isn't going to do much to a tank. If the engine's running, the tankers won't even hear the shots hitting the thing.

Quote from: Malvor;352125Although that is implied by the rules it is just silly.

No, that's actually a rule. The explicit kind. Maybe it has unintended consequences wrt vibroblades, but there it is.

QuoteA modern cruise missile would be an MDC weapon. Not on the power level of cruise missiles in Rifts, but still MDC. The conversion of modern weapons to MDC is way off.

I didn't say it wouldn't damage his armor. Just that it wouldn't deplete it, and despite being the center of a massive explosion with exposed lungs, neck, etc. and logically being knocked back ten feet or more, not taking any actual injury inside the suit.

Quote from: Tetsubo;351941I despise the MDC mechanic. It leads to the issue of having a Glitterboy and a researcher type of PC in the same party and trying (and failing) to reconcile that difference in power levels. When a 'hold-out' pistol can blow out the entire wall of your average saloon, I see that as a problem.

I prefer how Savage Worlds and earlier editions of Gamma World handled the issues. They just flat out say, "Weapons below a certain power level, can't harm armored vehicles." Straight forward and simple.

If I were to ever run Rifts (which is about as likely as me flapping my arms and flying) I would drop the MDC mechanic and add a class of 'heavy weapons' to the game. Hold-out pistols would not be in that category.

I don't think there is anything wrong with mdc pistols blowing the wall off a saloon. You run into it in star trek. An energy pistol can one shot a guy in super armor and if you hold down the trigger you can melt a tank. MDC isn't armor piercing or heavy weapon in rifts. It isn't supposed to differentiate small arms from antivehicle. In seperates old from super. An mdc laser pistol should shred an m1a1 into scrap. There isn't anything wrong with that.

Quote from: pawsplay;352073There are two problems that pop out in my mind right away. First, you can't cut off someone's arm with a vibroblade, however carefully. Even a single point of MDC turns someone into mist. Second, light combat armor can have MDC, which means a guy in a freakin' padded suit with a non-sealed helmet can get hit in the chest with a cruise missile and walk away from it.

The leaf ponchos are just a bad implementation, rather than an example of bad rules.

Vibro-blades can cut the arm offa borg though. You don't take a vibro weapon to a fight to be gentle. I like to imagine tissue damage from small mdc weapons being huge tears, like when lightening strikes a tree.

As far as the blast radius weapon, someone in a suit with their head exposed would be decapitated, though the armor would remain functional once you cleaned it out.

Its a question of house-ruling, mostly. I don't see why you couldn't use a vibro-blade, which is a pretty fine weapon, to just take off someone's sdc limb.

In fact, its not even a house rule; if you look at the Ultimate Edition RIFTS book, it has clear guidelines on the type of damage weapons do. Page 359 of the UE book details odds of survival from suffering MDC damage. It makes the following points:

1. If the MDC blast was directed at a limb, ALL of the MDC damage was directed at that limb, completely destroying the limb. The character then goes into immediate shock, losing all hit points and SDC and falling comatose.
2. However, he has a chance of salvation if within the next few minutes (2-8) a character with professional medical skills manages to make a roll to stabilize the victim.

There are even some random tables which provide what significant parts of your body were vaporized by the MDC blast, after which a SECOND medical check must be made in a facility with sufficient medical supplies within a span of 40-240 minutes after the first check. If the character survives, he stands a high chance of permanent injuries, will most likely require cybernetic reconstruction, and will be likely to suffer psychological trauma, but you CAN survive an MDC blast.

RPGPundit

Ultimate Rifts is a country I have not travelled.

Damnit all this post is doing is giving me a wicked urge to pick up Ultimate Rifts and give it a spin.

I'm not too fond of the heavy-handed approach Kev takes to his books; his authorial voice intrudes when I don't want it there....but I still have fond nostalgic memories of my years playing Palladium Fantasy, and I know I would like to play/run Rifts, if I could just muster up the effort to wade through the rules-confusion it will inevitably cause....does any Palladium book ever adequately describe not only how to dodge but how to parry, anywhere? Last time I looked at one of their books (Dead Reign) I was unfortunately not surprised to see that it still seemed to overlook describing even certain basic mechanics, such as how you actually parry, how to order multiple actions from combatants, and so forth...my memory is  a bit foggy though, and I don't own the books anymore, but those bits seem to surface up when I think about it.

I haven't played a Palladium game in years, but I seem to remember it was fairly straightforward in TMNT, which was my go-to for a long time.

Threads like this make me yearn for the wahoo of Rifts, too, so you're not alone.  But I'm pretty sure I could do the wahoo in a way that would be more satisfying to me now.

Its still plenty satisfying to me.

RPGPundit

Well, that's plain to see.

I just think - rules issues aside - if I were going to run something that were a 'mashup' setting, I'd want to mash it up myself.  And we've just recently run an apocalypse/post-apocalyptic game, so I'd probably go for wahoo space opera (plus mecha).