I'm willing to give rail guns a little leeway, because while your firing at an incredible rate of fire, I imagine it's not very accurate. It's in the barrel for a fraction of a second (even less than a conventional firearm), no rifling in the barrel...

There's also the fact the bullet travels so damn fast, you're only way of tracking it is watching to see what gets messed up (or trusting your sight). What makes incendiary bullets work (tracer bullets), won't work with a rail gun.

We used to joke that only when you rolled a "4", did every bullet (40) actually hit the target. All the other times you were chewing up scenery...

...and sometimes scenery goes BOOM real good! :pundit:

I've been going over the RMB and several of the early world books working out a house rule system to speed up character creation and unify the dice mechanic while still keeping the feel of the game. I won't go into any of that here.

But I mention it because I've noticed that with a few exceptions, most of the OCCs are actually pretty balanced. And it hurts me to say that because I hate the conotations that word has in RPGs.

For example, a RMB Cyber-knight starts with around 100 MDC (cyber armor plus whatever body armor over it), plus a psi-sword they can use at any time, plus a handful of crappy psi-powers, plus a weapon (of players choice) for each of their Weapon Proficiencies. They also have martial arts combat.

A glitterboy has 770 MDC and a single weapon, that can only be used if it is effectively motionless.

A dragon hatchling has up to 600 mdc, no weapons other than a breath weapon, no magic powers other than highly inaccurate teleport, and very limited metamorphosis of 2 hours.

A vagabond pretty much has clothes and a backpack. and some chewing gum.

Say these three walk into a town. Weapons and armor have to be checked in at the city gate. Bye bye power armor. The dragon can walk around for 2 hours before scaring the living shit out of everyone and getting attacked by the city defenders. The cyber-knight is good, unless the city hates psionics (any city or town in the Coalition, and many outside of it), or associate him with an "evil" dragon. The vagabond walks through the gates with no problem, goes where he wants (if he doesn't look bad enough), and can just slink away when the rest of the group is fighting the city guard.

If you eliminate MDC and just use Hit points and sdc, they become a lot more... even, for lack of a better word.

Although, I tend to include role playing opportunities when I consider things like "balance." So I think I see it different than, say the 3.x and above generation.

In other news, I just flipped through Rifts Black Market and it's definitely the best Rifts book I've read in a decade. D-Bees of North America is a close second.

Quote from: Novastar;776888I'm willing to give rail guns a little leeway, because while your firing at an incredible rate of fire, I imagine it's not very accurate.

You imagine wrong.

The magnetic propulsion means that it is extremely straight coming out of the barrel, so no rifling is needed. The speed at which it moves means that crosswinds won't have as much impact on trajectory as slower objects.

Now a Glitterboy "shotgun" rail gun is something else entirely as spreading projectiles isn't how rail guns work.

Quote from: Dan Vincze;776876I've been experimenting with limiting the damage absorbed from a single attack to some fraction of the armor's total capacity (probably 1/4 to 1/3), with anything over the limit blowing through to the wearer.

Here's what I do.

Every 1 MDC your armor takes, you take 1 SDC. The armor absorbs/ablates tremendous energy and it damn well hurts when it happens. And you're thrilled because each of those SDC you take means you're not dead that many times over.

It also means you can knock out foes instead of killing them by blasting their armor apart and turning them into a fine red mist.

Quote from: snooggums;776947You imagine wrong.

O snap!

Quote from: snooggums;776947You imagine wrong.

Perhaps. But it works as well as other Handwavium about a man-sized PA being able to brace to use a railgun, and have a miniature nuclear reactor to power it...

Quote from: everloss;776945A vagabond pretty much has clothes and a backpack. and some chewing gum.

...and super powers, if you're using the Conversion Book...

One thing I liked about Palladium games over all other games of the time period, is the experience point system.

For a game that is always being looked down on for being combat heavy, the experience system gives very few XP for killing things. Discourages it, in fact. On the other hand, one could say it encourages killing LOTS of things, I guess

Quote from: everloss;777076One thing I liked about Palladium games over all other games of the time period, is the experience point system.

For a game that is always being looked down on for being combat heavy, the experience system gives very few XP for killing things. Discourages it, in fact. On the other hand, one could say it encourages killing LOTS of things, I guess

Definitely gives the gm latitude over how much xp to award.

Quote from: everloss;777076For a game that is always being looked down on for being combat heavy, the experience system gives very few XP for killing things. Discourages it, in fact. On the other hand, one could say it encourages killing LOTS of things, I guess

A game is only combat-heavy if that's what the players and GM are into. Palladium is neither combat-heavy nor combat-light. It maybe appears to be more combat-focused due to the number of pages devoted to detailing weapons.

Quote from: Matt;777187A game is only combat-heavy if that's what the players and GM are into. Palladium is neither combat-heavy nor combat-light. It maybe appears to be more combat-focused due to the number of pages devoted to detailing weapons.

I was referring to the general perception of the game, especially on internet message boards. When I ran it, my games were much more focused on role rather than roll. Palladium (TMNT, Robotech, and Rifts) were the games I cut my teeth on. I wasn't into fantasy or DnD until just a few years ago, and all the years of running/playing Palladium games has really influenced how I go about running other games.

It's rather surprising (to me) how common it is for opinions of Rifts to be based on house rules, GM style, and hear-say, rather than the game itself. Seemingly more so than for other games.

Quote from: everloss;777204I was referring to the general perception of the game, especially on internet message boards. When I ran it, my games were much more focused on role rather than roll. Palladium (TMNT, Robotech, and Rifts) were the games I cut my teeth on. I wasn't into fantasy or DnD until just a few years ago, and all the years of running/playing Palladium games has really influenced how I go about running other games.

It's rather surprising (to me) how common it is for opinions of Rifts to be based on house rules, GM style, and hear-say, rather than the game itself. Seemingly more so than for other games.

I think you're correct. I hear the system slammed by folks I suspect have never even cracked the spine of a Palladium game. I have never had any problems with it, but I also have never played any of the MDC games so maybe I have just missed them. I hear "the mechanics need to evolve," but no elaboration as to why or how. I think it's just one of those oft-repeated things people say to appear knowledgeable rather than admit ignorance or be shunned by those who say so. Oh well. I have fun with my games and that's all I really care about.

The PB system needs some work, but many systems do.

Palladium's attribute system and its skill system are unaligned, its chargen has troublesome loopholes and its combat system has ill-defined sections. In short, its a rough system for noob GMs and weak GMs.

But in the hands of an experienced GM, the PB system offers some great Actual Play bits - opposed attack/dodge/parry are awesome, as are Roll with Punch and the tactical use of actions by PCs and enemies.

Quote from: Spinachcat;777210But in the hands of an experienced GM, the PB system offers some great Actual Play bits - opposed attack/dodge/parry are awesome, as are Roll with Punch and the tactical use of actions by PCs and enemies.

Yeah, those are my favorite bits.

Quote from: Spinachcat;777210Palladium's attribute system and its skill system are unaligned

What does that mean? What is an "aligned" attribute and skill system?

Quote from: everloss;777076One thing I liked about Palladium games over all other games of the time period, is the experience point system.

For a game that is always being looked down on for being combat heavy, the experience system gives very few XP for killing things. Discourages it, in fact. On the other hand, one could say it encourages killing LOTS of things, I guess

I just dusted off my old Heroes Unlimited Revised book.  There is a list of sixteen ways to earn experience.  Only three of them directly relate to defeating an enemy.

I can remember running sessions where the point was to do weird comic book things instead of beat up on more bank robbers.  My players were rewarded for navigating through the story much more than for any of the fights they were a part of.

That completely changed my view of roleplaying, coming out of only the Marvel Basic Set beforehand.