I love how everyone's got a quick answer for the BOOM Gun... but no one commented on the how terribly weak  many later books were. Is it really power creep when you can reliably pick up a book from the second half of the setting (so far) and find nothing a power gamer would actually want to use?  

I also pointed out the GB is also still one of the heaviest PA's in terms of armor.

Mostly in my experience you don't have power creep so much as a random shotgun spread of power.  New West and Russia both had flavor to spare, but no real 'gotta have it' toys.  South America had some nifty toys (and plenty of junk to go with it), but could be hit or miss on flavor.

So far, what I can tell as unabashed 'power creep' may come from two distinct 'setting updates', maybe three.  When the Coalition got revamped and redesigned, they got new and improved toys, though the actual power difference seems reasonably marginal. Ditto Northern Gun, which is set another few years past War Campaign.   It may be the third 'update' was the Seige On Tolkieen/Federation of Magic, but frankly I don't know enough to care...

But even here there is a clear hierarchy of power, which is fully explicated in... I think NG1 lays it out.   Phase World stuff is still top notch, with Naruni and Atlantis bracketing them, then you've got Archie/Titan Industries, then Japan then Coaltion... and so forth.   It's more or less a policy that no amount of 'creep' in Coalition gear will catch up to Phase World, which doesn't get that many updates. So again: where is the creep?  THe term implies a vector (Must.Resits.Urge.To.Quote.Despicable Me!)... and our 'highest power' supplement was way back in teh beginning!

Would your rather play a core rulebook Borg? Or the Triax VX-600 Marauder Borg, from WB5? Or a Sovietski Cyborg Shock Trooper, from WB17?

Would you rather fight a core rulebook Cyber-Knight? Or a Phase World Cosmo-Knight?

Would you rather pilot a SAMAS from the core rulebook, or the Striker SAMAS from WB11?

Would rather cast Call Lightning from the core rulebook, or Particle Acceleration from WB16?

Palladium's been putting increasingly powerful toys on PCs' hands ever since the line got its start. And it's all over the place. The fact that some books are not as bad as others, and that the Glitter Boy remains a sacred cow of sorts, is a Good Thing. But it's still falling short of what I would consider an ideal set-up — technology does seem to be advancing mighty fast, as WB11 Coalition gear can easily duke it out with their Triax (supposedly untouched pre-Rifts tech expertise) and even Phase World CCW (starfaring civilization capable of FTL, antigravity and stuff) equivalents.

Quote from: Spike;908543I love how everyone's got a quick answer for the BOOM Gun... but no one commented on the how terribly weak  many later books were. Is it really power creep when you can reliably pick up a book from the second half of the setting (so far) and find nothing a power gamer would actually want to use?  

I also pointed out the GB is also still one of the heaviest PA's in terms of armor.

Mostly in my experience you don't have power creep so much as a random shotgun spread of power.  New West and Russia both had flavor to spare, but no real 'gotta have it' toys.  South America had some nifty toys (and plenty of junk to go with it), but could be hit or miss on flavor.

So far, what I can tell as unabashed 'power creep' may come from two distinct 'setting updates', maybe three.  When the Coalition got revamped and redesigned, they got new and improved toys, though the actual power difference seems reasonably marginal. Ditto Northern Gun, which is set another few years past War Campaign.   It may be the third 'update' was the Seige On Tolkieen/Federation of Magic, but frankly I don't know enough to care...

But even here there is a clear hierarchy of power, which is fully explicated in... I think NG1 lays it out.   Phase World stuff is still top notch, with Naruni and Atlantis bracketing them, then you've got Archie/Titan Industries, then Japan then Coaltion... and so forth.   It's more or less a policy that no amount of 'creep' in Coalition gear will catch up to Phase World, which doesn't get that many updates. So again: where is the creep?  THe term implies a vector (Must.Resits.Urge.To.Quote.Despicable Me!)... and our 'highest power' supplement was way back in teh beginning!

KS seems to prefer slow and grindy attrition combat.

CJ Carella understood that Rifts combat sucked ass.  Low end cannon fodder monsters like the Brodkill have 250 MDC while PCs are probably only going to be able to bring 1d4x10 weapons to bear against them, but more likely only 3d6.  That doesn't even account for the fact the PCs are probably going to only have a +2 to hit against a Brodkil's +6 or +8 to dodge.  Rifts combat run by the book against published monsters is a lot of whiffing with the occasional hit doing a handful of damage points against something with hundreds of MDC.

CJ cranked up the damage values to where they should be.  His MDC values remained mostly in the range where they had been for the line at the time.  You may still have a problem hitting against his stuff, but at least when you do then there's a meaningful impact.

When KS got rid of CJ, he seemed to take a much more active interest in the mechanics.  His answer was to up MDC values and degrade weapon damage values.

I don't know much about the line past Free Quebec.  Prior to that book the power creep is mostly a Coalition centric thing.  KS got mad that the toys of other fictional groups in the setting were more powerful than the toys of his creation.  So he went out of his way to bend the setting so his skull boys were back on top.  As for Coaltion gear not catching up to Phase World, I'd say that some of the later CS stuff is on par with Phase World.

Now, in the 90s, it was very difficult to run a campaign of Rifts.  Every time a new world book came out, players wanted to ditch their current characters and make new ones with the OCCs/RCCs and gear in the new book.  It had nothing to do with flavor.  It was simply that the newer stuff simply had more bonuses, more MDC, more damage output, more power than anything which came before.  

I see what you're saying with more recent stuff trying to be more level.  I don't know.  I haven't seen anything past Arzno (other than some art in Northern Gun), and I really don't care about anything new for the game.  Maybe power creep is a thing of the past.  But rest assured that if KS needs to make his skull boys look cool, they'll find a Phase World tech memory core or something and catapult ahead of everyone.

Quote from: The Butcher;908548Would your rather play a core rulebook Borg? Or the Triax VX-600 Marauder Borg, from WB5? Or a Sovietski Cyborg Shock Trooper, from WB17?

Would you rather fight a core rulebook Cyber-Knight? Or a Phase World Cosmo-Knight?

Would you rather pilot a SAMAS from the core rulebook, or the Striker SAMAS from WB11?

Would rather cast Call Lightning from the core rulebook, or Particle Acceleration from WB16?

Palladium's been putting increasingly powerful toys on PCs' hands ever since the line got its start. And it's all over the place. The fact that some books are not as bad as others, and that the Glitter Boy remains a sacred cow of sorts, is a Good Thing. But it's still falling short of what I would consider an ideal set-up — technology does seem to be advancing mighty fast, as WB11 Coalition gear can easily duke it out with their Triax (supposedly untouched pre-Rifts tech expertise) and even Phase World CCW (starfaring civilization capable of FTL, antigravity and stuff) equivalents.

I don't remember the stats of the Marauder.  Can Triax borgs wear the standard armor types listed in the rulebook?  Meh.  I'm going to go original core rulebook military borg, then I get to customize.

I'd definitely go Cosmo-Knight.  I loved the Rom Spaceknight vibe of them.  Plus their stats backed up the fluff.  Core rulebook (and even Siege on Tolkeen Cyber Knights) had semi-decent fluff, but they were lame characters to play whose mechanical capabilities could never back up what the fluff said about them.

That's a tough one.  Of course I prefer the Striker.  Who doesn't love tons of missiles?  However, the SAMAS is still fun in it's own MADOX 01 plagarizing way.  I guess my answer would be, I'd prefer to play a SAMAS pilot who goes through his Gundamesque hero journey and gets a Striker upgrade at the midpoint of the series.

I don't remember what Call Lightning does, but you're comparing it to a spell from WB16.  All the spells from WB16 are much needed upgrades from the corebook.  As nearly all the spells in the corebook other than Carpet of Adhesion are pitifully low powered, I'll go with Particle Acceleration.

Combat, conflict and violence are all big parts of Rifts.

I don't care that a Juicer wears 45 MDC Juicer plate, and that a Coalition SAMAS can take 250 MDC. I care that a Juicer is a person who sacrificed some of their humanity in order to be able to compete against supernatural monsters. I care that a SAMAS is a way that a couple of power armor pilots can patrol a ruins and have a chance if they run into demonic minions.
I care that a Giltter Boy's Boom Gun and armor is an example of how powerful pre-Rifts technology was, that that technology was lost and found again, and that the pilots inherit their armor from their parent or mentor, instead of buying one.

 

Quote from: Gabriel2;908551KS seems to prefer slow and grindy attrition combat.

CJ Carella understood that Rifts combat sucked ass.  Low end cannon fodder monsters like the Brodkill have 250 MDC while PCs are probably only going to be able to bring 1d4x10 weapons to bear against them, but more likely only 3d6.  That doesn't even account for the fact the PCs are probably going to only have a +2 to hit against a Brodkil's +6 or +8 to dodge.  Rifts combat run by the book against published monsters is a lot of whiffing with the occasional hit doing a handful of damage points against something with hundreds of MDC.

CJ cranked up the damage values to where they should be.  His MDC values remained mostly in the range where they had been for the line at the time.  You may still have a problem hitting against his stuff, but at least when you do then there's a meaningful impact.

Pretty much agree. Though unless a target has auto-dodge, it would have to pull an action to dodge, reducing it's attacks that round, and opening it up to running out of active defenses.

Quote from: The Butcher;908548Would your rather play a core rulebook Borg? Or the Triax VX-600 Marauder Borg, from WB5? Or a Sovietski Cyborg Shock Trooper, from WB17?

I prefered the AT-C8000 Wing Blade from WB 8.(Though thats more like a mech.)
And I kinda like the original Samas.

Butcher, its like you didn't even read my post?

Seriously, I could change your second line to 'Would you rather play a Cyber Knight or a Dragon Hatchling?', and the unbalanced scales of your question would remain exactly the same, only it would prove my point, not yours.   Presto!

Did you miss the part where I pointed out a clear delination of power levels by 'faction' that remains constant through the series?  YOu know, how Triax stuff is better than Coalition stuff and anything Phase World is Top Dog?

See? I never disagreed that there are different power levels. I dispute the term 'Creep' to define it.  Creep implies constant growth, yet for the most part later books are full of 'crap', power wise. Black Market (Book... ah... 27? Fuck it. High number X), is full of junk toys. Why? Because the Black Market gets their shit from the bottom of the power stack, so even though its a fairly recent book, the stuff is still crap.

So Would You Rather pilot a core book SAMAS or a Bandito SAMAS (WB 14)?


Of course, as the levels aren't as far apart in terms of results as the fluff tends to indicate... as you note correctly...  its not much of a big deal.  I mean: Our big 'Power Creep' is so game destroying that you can play with core gear and still troop like a champ.   Whoa.   So very broken.

Quote from: Spike;908716Did you miss the part where I pointed out a clear delination of power levels by 'faction' that remains constant through the series?  YOu know, how Triax stuff is better than Coalition stuff and anything Phase World is Top Dog?

There is very little consistency as to how this is applied across 25 years of publication. The WB11 Super SAMAS is closer to the Phase World Silverhawk in terms of MDC and damage dealing capacity than to (say) the Triax Predator.

Quote from: Spike;908716See? I never disagreed that there are different power levels. I dispute the term 'Creep' to define it.  Creep implies constant growth, yet for the most part later books are full of 'crap', power wise. Black Market (Book... ah... 27? Fuck it. High number X), is full of junk toys. Why? Because the Black Market gets their shit from the bottom of the power stack, so even though its a fairly recent book, the stuff is still crap.

So it's only creep if each and every new faction is superior to previous ones in all things?

Quote from: Spike;908716Of course, as the levels aren't as far apart in terms of results as the fluff tends to indicate... as you note correctly...  its not much of a big deal.  I mean: Our big 'Power Creep' is so game destroying that you can play with core gear and still troop like a champ.   Whoa.   So very broken.

It's only game-breaking if you're a bitch ass GM who gives your players the run of the whole line to pick starting gear from and dispatches core rulebook Dead Boys against them.

Quote from: The Butcher;908796So it's only creep if each and every new faction is superior to previous ones in all things?

Nah, but you should see a clear elevation of power across the game line in an upwardly mobile direction.  Again: Some of the most powerful stuff in the game came early, while plenty of later books are weak.  Its all over the place, mang.   I haven't really dug into the 'living power armor' in Lemuria, but the conventional weapons are sorta meh, but then you've got a class that tames giant sea monsters, so...  

But as can be constantly pointed out: What tops the Cosmo Knight in the entire line up?  Gods maybe?


I'm too lazy to do multiple quotes tonight, so in answer for the problem with letting players play all the cool and only giving them core rules deadboys? not broken: You've got ALL THE DEADBOYS.  Make them fight all of Chi Town. Go buy a case of printer paper (not a ream, a case), and print out ten Dead Boys in boring ass gear per side per page and I guarantee you will wipe the party in a handful of turns. Even if they are cosmo-knights! Sure, they'll only take, like, one point of MDC per shot. So what? You've got a million shots at them this turn!

Um.. I'm not liable for any repetitive motion injuries sustained in trying to roll all those attacks.

Quote from: Spike;908875Nah, but you should see a clear elevation of power across the game line in an upwardly mobile direction.  Again: Some of the most powerful stuff in the game came early, while plenty of later books are weak.  Its all over the place, mang.   I haven't really dug into the 'living power armor' in Lemuria, but the conventional weapons are sorta meh, but then you've got a class that tames giant sea monsters, so...  

But as can be constantly pointed out: What tops the Cosmo Knight in the entire line up?  Gods maybe?


I'm too lazy to do multiple quotes tonight, so in answer for the problem with letting players play all the cool and only giving them core rules deadboys? not broken: You've got ALL THE DEADBOYS.  Make them fight all of Chi Town. Go buy a case of printer paper (not a ream, a case), and print out ten Dead Boys in boring ass gear per side per page and I guarantee you will wipe the party in a handful of turns. Even if they are cosmo-knights! Sure, they'll only take, like, one point of MDC per shot. So what? You've got a million shots at them this turn!

Um.. I'm not liable for any repetitive motion injuries sustained in trying to roll all those attacks.

"Power" in Rifts tends to mean main body MDC. Adult Dragons, Intelligences, those nutty Metzla dudes from Atlantis. Gods in Rifts get thousands of MDC, but do a comparable amount of MD as everyone else. Maybe on the high end of 2d6x10 or even 3d6x10 sometimes, but that's peanuts against a main body MDC of (say) 4,500. Cosmo-knights (just re-read their entry) have around 700 MDC, and their signature attack, the cosmic energy bolt, "only" starts out at 1d6x10, geting up to 5d6x10 at max. Doubled if they juice the attack up 50 additional PPE. Some of their other powers are notable, especially innate FTL travel, but not combat oriented. A juicer has better combat bonuses, and a squad of enforcers can hose him down with MRM/SRM missile volleys.

But really, if someone is GMing Rifts by lining up various opponents and having the characters run a gauntlet of combat encounters, then they're running a pretty boring-ass game, IMO. And yes, I have been guilty of that in the past.

Ok. You guys can argue about power creep all you like, but I'm more interested in campaign building.

Taking my cue from Vamp Kingdoms and Juicer Uprisings as inspiration for frameworks, I've started fleshing out people, factions and places for PCs to interact with. I'll just dump my text file at this point.

The Night Clan.
Dark Claw, leader of a pack of werewolves who terrorize the area. Typical alpha werewolf type. Strongest and leads by might and personality.
Blood Moon. Werewolf dark mystic. Supports Dark Claw with her knowledge of magic, summoning demons, and spellcasting.
Wolf totem makers.
Wolf totems are carved from wood or stone, and used as magical sentries. The totems are enchanted, and a small piece of the substance is carved into an identical likeness of the totem. Any mystic or psionic character can spend 20 PPE or ISP to activate a totem by holding the matching carving and concentrating. The user can see and hear through the totem's eyes and ears. This effect lasts for 6+1d6 minutes, and then the user must expend another 20 PPE/ISP to continue the effect. Wood totems have 25-75 MDC after being enchanted, and 50-150 MDC for stone totems.
Werewolf assassins and agents.
Raiding packs. Typical raiding pack is 2d6 werewolves.
A warband is 3d6x10 werewolves. Very rare to see so many werewolves at once. Usually a warband will form in response to a powerful threat.
Most werewolves will not use technology. During times of war, 50% of the clan will use technology or magic to supplement their natural abilities. 25% have either armor, or a weapon. (Technological, technowizardy, or magical) and 25% will have both armor and weaponry.
Dark Claw posesses a runeblade Axe, techno-wizard gun and magical armor. He will use these only as a last resort, prefering his natural werewolf abilities.
Dark Claw likes things the way they are. A large territory with plenty of prey. Unfortunatley, the Clan is in danger of becoming too large to ignore, and Dark Claw knows this. Despite his best efforts Werewolves are driven to expand their numbers. The Clan has sent several spies, who remain in human form, into the nearby communties to keep tabs on any plans to attack the Werewolves stronghold.
Lycanthropy-
Like Vampires, Werewolves do not reproduce "naturally". A victim bitten by a werewolf (takes SDC damage), must make a save vs. magic at a -5 penalty. (+5 bonus if a non-human SDC race, like elves, dwarves, etc) Failing this save means the victim will become a werewolf during the next full moon. During the time between being bitten and becoming a werewolf, the victim will have disturbing dreams and act in an unusual fashion. Being territorial, dominant and aggressive. Some small percentage of new werewovles will retain much of their previous memories and attitudes, and can retain their old alignment. Most will become a selfish or evil alignment, and succumb to the desire to hunt and slay, especially liketo hunt mortals, humans and SDC D-Bees.
Mostly humans and some elves, dwarves, and human-like SDC D-Bees are vulnerable to lycanthropy. Dragons, Brodkil, non-intelligent monsters and animals cannot be turned into a werewolf.

Fort Devon.
Mid-sized Coalition base. Fort Devon is under the command of Major Krystal Wellman. Major Wellman and the troops under her are mostly indifferent to D-Bees. Their remoteness from Chi-Town and any Coalition reinforcements means that they are not usually antagonistic towards the D-Bee population. They do activley hunt and destroy demonic threats, and dangerous monsters. They will avoid mages and D-Bees and not go out of their way to help them. They do consider most humans to be worth protecting, and will respond with aid if asked by a human community. Their current orders are to establish trade and protection treaties with the nearby human arcology. To seek out rumored pre-Rifts caches in the nearby ruins, and to protect any humans that require aid in their territory.

Black Market travelling caravan.
The Black Market caravan is made up of thirty vehicles, including four huge land crawler vehicles that are almost mobile villages. Half of the caravan makes regular trips to nearby settlements to buy and sell good. They have a body chop-shop capable of MOM, Juicer and borg conversion. The caravan attempts to stay one step ahead of raiders and Coalition patrols, while being available for trade and commerce. They can provide repairs, recharging eclips, maintenence on generators and vehicles, and sell ammuntion and equipment. They have most of the inventory from Wellington, Northern Gun, Ishpeming, and some looted Coalition gear, and a smattering of Triax and Naruni equipment availalble.
Most equipment goes for listed prices. Coalition gear sells for 2-5 times it's listed price, and Triax and Naruni equipment sells for 5-10 times it's listed price.
The Black Market merchants will buy used weapons and gear at 25-50% of it's listed price. They want to turn around and sell the items at a profit, and used gear is not as valuable as new gear. They will buy new gear at 50-75% of it's listed price, if the item is in new quality, and will be easy to sell.

Human arcology.
Has a 30% pro-Coaltion population. Including some in the council. A prominent council member is willing to provoke supernatural entities, like the Night Clan werewovles, into attacking, in order to pressure the rest of the population into supporting Coalition membership.

Bandit gangs
Multiple bandit gangs roam the wilderness and wastelands, preying on villages and caravans. Made up of cyborgs, mutants, demons and D-Bees.

Pre-Rifts Ruins
Similar to Madhaven. Ghosts and entities prowl the ruin, alongside gangs of mutants. A very dangerous place to visit, but adventurers seeking pre-Rifts treasures sometimes brave the ruins. Few return, and those who do are usually disturbed, suffering from the memory of horrors and ghosts they encountered.

Quote from: Ulairi;908030Everyone keeps telling me the Palladium rules are awful but I'm rereading the core rulebook (RUE, 5th printing) and I'm not seeing why the rules are so terrible. Rifts was the second RPG I ever played and we didn't have issues back in high school playing. Reading the rulebook again and it's not that complicated of a game. Character creation takes a long time and isn't well explained but once you're in the game the rules aren't that complicated. What am I missing?

I really like the RIFTS Palladium rules. The problem isn't so much the system, as it is that the rules aren't well-organized.  It takes a bit of learning curve for a GM to master them.

Quote from: The Butcher;908268Rifts should be an awesome sandbox.

What makes a good Rifts sandbox? I'll chip in with my opinions of course.
One of the appeals of the Vampire Kingdoms and the first Sourcebook, is that they both set up locations and NPCs in such a way that adventures tend to form around them. Vampire Kingdoms tells the GM where the vampires are, what they're doing, and why they're doing it. From that, a GM can spin up a specific set of encounters, and place leads and rumors into the game session. Juicer Uprising goes about this in a bit of a different way, in that the adventures form from a series of events outlined in the world book.

QuoteAnother issue is a lack of sandbox-friendly, modular adventures.

I agree, but I also think that an adventure from K Siembieda would look like the section in Juicer Uprising that covers the details of an event driven scenario. We can also see it in the Hook, Line and Sinker format for his adventure seeds. I don't think a proper Rifts module would resemble an Adventure Path, or a D&D module.

Perhaps someone can help me with this house rule I've been stewing on for a few weeks now.

Instead of upping damage with multiplier systems, I had the brainstorm to simply reduce MDC across the board. Simple and elegant, at first.
But then I thought that I don't want to reduce body armor. That's not too bad.
First revision is, MDC up to 100 stays the same, MDC over 100, divide by 2.
Didn't get very far with that one. That puts stuff in the 100-200 MDC bracket lower than body armor in a lot of cases. Not acceptable.
Second revision. MDC up to 100 stays the same. 101-200 MDC divide by 1.5, MDC over 200 divide by 2.
Better, and I did a check of the conversion using all the MDC values in the core rulebook.
But it still creates a few edge cases. Specifically, the Flying Titan is now equal to the Samson power armor.
And this means anything from an expansion might come out worse, if it's in the 101-200 MDC range, or on the low end after 200.

It's a workable kludge to simply adjust edge cases "manually" as they come up, but I'm wondering if I'm missing a better solution along these lines.

Really, the MDC values of everything are so inflated that it doesn't hurt to divide all MDC values by 2.  Toward the end of playing I started dividing everything by 3 and 4.  But if you're just talking about original corebook stuff (pre-South America), then dividing everything by 2 will be fine.