On Game Balance and a Defense of the Palladium System

[Jorick]

This was just (re)posted on FB by the John Wick Presents page.

http://johnwickpresents.com/games/santa ... e-balance/

As a fan of Palladium, it made me think about the points made in relation to the Palladium system, and KS' stated resistance to game balance in his systems.

In many ways I see the Palladium system as not simply a "house ruled AD&D," but as an AD&D reworked by people who like to roleplay more than they like to "game." There's lots of rules, but they fulfill the purposes of conflict resolution in a story made as variable as possible. When I was a kid, Palladium was the first example I saw (and I still can't think of others off the top of my head), where not only the hero "classes" but everything from common peasants to Gods could be constructed in basically the same way. The implication was one could play anything.

The article linked above states: "Game balance isn’t about hit points or armor class or spells per day or any of that. Game balance is about helping the player tell his character’s story in such a way that he doesn’t eclipse the other characters."

One of the most common complaints I hear about the Palladium system is about the amount of time that it takes to build a character. I also find the amount of time daunting now that I'm older and have less time in general, but when I was a kid this was one of Palladium's greatest strengths. The skill selection system forces you to make a lot of marginal choices. In making those choices, many if not most of which have little effect of the "effectiveness" of the character, one is encouraged to create a full history for the character. Maybe you pick boxing for the stats, but what about the choice between auto repair or computer repair (for example)? Every available skill slot presents a choice that has to be resolved, and most are resolved through the concurrent creation of backstory.

Then there's the attribute system. The way it should be played is that one takes what rolls one makes. The rolls force choices regarding character creation. I rolled low on these, average on those, and high on the others; what am I? This was actually frustrating as a kid, because I wanted to make the cool dude I saw, or I had a preconception of a character, and I didn't want to be bothered or limited by attribute requirements and such. GURPS and later White Wolf were appealing because I could manipulate my attributes more easily based on the system, without houseruling. But generally, by rule, the Palladium system encourages actual character creation during character creation.

I'm not arguing that the Palladium rules aren't opaque, and I admit that "common sense" is less communal than one might hope at a game table. More modern narrative focused game systems achieve great things without the "clunkiness" of the old-school RPG style, and productively try to present themselves in such a way that the expectation is narrative not rules-lawyering and tactics.

But I have always felt that Palladium offers and encourages the kinds of narratives one sees in novels and movies (groups of diverse characters interacting). Most other games leave me feeling flat in their focus on evenly matched characters built around their abilities in combat scenarios. As the article says, the actual roleplaying aspects of those games are what the gaming group adds on top of what is provided in the rules.

I think Palladium games run a lot more smoothly when the GM and players expect to play a more narrative game, embrace the character creation rules as tools to help create characters with history, and the rest of the rules as available conflict resolution rolls, or rolls to mimic the limits and randomness of reality without relying on the whims of a willful GM. I think problems mostly occur when gaming groups try to play the D&D/mini oriented/"balanced for combat" style they may have grown used to from other games.

[Hunterrose]

I agree fully with this post with one caveat.
My players all start with the PCC/OCC they want to play and go from there, I'm not going to force a player to be something they don't want to be just because of a lousy dice roll. Ultimately these games are meant to be power fantasies. So a perfect Stat roll is not required, but a Bio or character history is.

I find mixing characters of varying power levels quite fun actually. Because it forces the stronger players to think about someone other than themselves (If superman can block every bullet and can't but hurt, but Lois dies because he's reckless, does he still "win"?).

I'm also building the campaign and the adventures around what the PCs have shown interest in and what their characters care about. We are rules lite and high on character role playing.

I find it frustrating when I see GMs with adversarial relationships with their PCs or are more interested in putting fine points on rules and determining exactly what can or cannot be done.

If a player can think of a compelling and creative plan or action, I usually let them do it. I'm more interested in hearing them explain some elaborate scheme or power combo than I am in watching them roll a D20 10 times with a minus this and such. (They still gotta roll, but it's my job to encourage them to try fantastical stuff).

[slade the sniper]

Short answer: I don't buy in to "game balance'"

I started gaming with PB, so the idea of "game balance" never even became an issue in any game I ever played until I started playing D20/D&D 3E. Every other game I played was much more story driven with combat added. D20 turned games that I played in (and GM'ed) into slow combat simulations with some RP elements. I know that you CAN have great RPG with the D20 system, but the way the rules are constructed, it really does feel like the game is very heavily focused on combat.

After a decade of trying to make balanced games with PCs and level appropriate encounters...I just stopped bothering. Now, my games are about the characters only, and combat is only when the PCs choose or when they make a mistake.

-STS

[Rogerd]

I agree fully with this post with one caveat.

I'm also building the campaign and the adventures around what the PCs have shown interest in and what their characters care about. We are rules lite and high on character role playing.

I find it frustrating when I see GMs with adversarial relationships with their PCs or are more interested in putting fine points on rules and determining exactly what can or cannot be done.

If a player can think of a compelling and creative plan or action, I usually let them do it. I'm more interested in hearing them explain some elaborate scheme or power combo than I am in watching them roll a D20 10 times with a minus this and such. (They still gotta roll, but it's my job to encourage them to try fantastical stuff).

Without game balance it would be like playing a World of Darkness game where one character is a Mage and the others are other supernatural splats. Only the Mage matters, and the others are effectively useless.

So agree with you 100%, balance is essential so that everyone can contribute fully in a game, and have a good time. For me being a GM is not about trying to kill players off - again adversarial, but letting them interact and when they are about to do something really dumb give them fair warning and the option to extricate themselves without dying.

[Killer Cyborg]

"Game balance" means a wide variety of things, depending on who's using the term and in what context.
There's PC vs NPC balance that comes up in combat.
There's PC vs PC balance that comes up pretty much anywhere.
There's combat balance.
There's skills balance.
There's combat vs. skills balance.

As much as KS has protested that he doesn't care anything about Game Balance... he also takes various moves to try to maintain or create game balance.
So I'm not sure what he's talking about when he says the term.

In my view, Rifts was a pretty well-balanced game when it came out, because every type of character had different benefits and downsides that made them pretty awesome in some situations, and pretty useless in others, with it all averaging out pretty well when you look at the big picture.
A Hatchling Dragon from the RMB, for example:
-is MDC
-doesn't need to rely on armor
-doesn't need to rely on weapons/ammo
-can use magic
-doesn't age
-can shapeshift
-can teleport
And so forth.

BUT they got only a handful of skills, a very narrow set of possible skills to choose from, and were almost always High Priority Targets.

Compare that to a RMB Vagabond, who:
-Starts with no mega-damage armor.
-Cannot cast spells.
-Cannot use technowizardry items (the primary kind of magic item, back in the day) unless the Vagabond is psychic.
-Starts with more skills than the dragon will ever have, and gains even more skills as they level up.
-Can easily become proficient with energy weapons, which allows them to deal out more damage than a dragon using their natural attacks.
A fire dragon, for instance, could do 6d6 MD with his breath, which was respectable... but paled in comparison to a JA-11 unloading a clip for 3d6x10 MD at a much, much longer range.
-Can learn to pilot power armor, tanks, and other heavy combat vehicles.
-If they're human, they are NOT typically hunted by the CS, not even to the level that City Rats, Rogue Scholars, and other criminals tend to be hunted.

A RMB Vagabond and a RMB Dragon would actually make a very good team, with the Dragon handling most of the combat (especially at lower levels), and the Vagabond doing all the Skills work, and going places the Dragon couldn't go (like Chi-Town).

So from my view, it seems like KS and his crew put in a LOT of effort to balance the game initially, right down to how many skills/powers a class got, and what kind of gear they got and/or could use.

I mean, a Rifts setting without game balance would mean that you could have a Crazy Juicer Ley Line Walking Mind Melter Glitter Boy Pilot.
Or it would mean that Crazies/Juicers had no downside.
Instead, what we had was a game book in which it was pretty difficult to run a balanced adventure (i.e., a mix of stuff, not just all combat or all skills or all magic) with a team of 4-5 people, and to have any one character who was useless or obsolete.

Where game balance in Rifts started fading in my eye was when power creep started making older classes and races obsolete.
For example, they started having mega-damage humans in various ways, which provided the benefits of being a supernatural creature, without much in the way of downsides. CB1 was particularly bad about this, letting non-magical humans become mega-damage based on stuff as simple as "wrist hardening exercises" or "stretching" powers.
Another case that comes to mind is the Psi-Tech OCC, which outdoes the Operator OCC in their area of expertise, in every way.
Psi-Techs can literally do everything that Operators can do, only more, and better.
If you had a Psi-Tech in the game, and an Operator... well, you'd have to put in significant effort to make sure that the Psi-Tech didn't dominate the game, and that the Operator would have plenty to do.

Another thing that screwed up game balance in Rifts was that Palladium kept adding rules (often unannounced) that shifted the entire balance of things around.
In the RMB, a 1st level CS Grunt had 2 attacks to start, and a 1st level LLW had 2 attacks to start.
If they faced off, trading blows, the Grunt could shoot the LLW twice per melee, and the mage could cast two spells back at the Grunt in the same time.
Call Lightning was the damage spell of choice, and at first level it did 1d6 MD (same damage as a pistol, except you couldn't miss). At second level, it did 2d6, same as a single shot from a laser rifle. At 3rd level, it did 3d6, same as a high-end laser rifle. And so on.
So as long as the Grunt didn't rip off a clip or something, things were pretty fair. And if he DID rip off a clip, he'd spend all his attacks doing so, and then he'd have to spend more time to reload, so it could be a risky maneuver.
Oh, and the Grunt was reliant on ammo, whereas the Mage could replenish PPE without having to go back to town and spend thousands of credits, so that was pretty balanced there too.
(Yes, sure, our mages back then tended to use guns first and spells second, especially at low levels, so arguably they were at an advantage over Grunts who couldn't use spells at all... but the Grunts didn't have to pay for their ammo, weapons, or repairs as long as they were getting them from the CS, AND the CS Grunt wasn't a target for Dog Boys and Psi-Stalkers and such. SO again, it all balanced out pretty evenly.)

Then Palladium decided that everybody would get two extra attacks if they had HTH training, AND they decided that casting two spells per melee would eat up all of the mage's attacks no matter how many attacks he had, and that shifted balance.
Then a Grunt vs Mage combat would mean the Grunt had FOUR attacks on average to start, while the mage only got too spells.
So any mage who wanted to try to hold his own in combat was really pushed away from trying to rely on magic to get the job done, and pushed toward using weapons instead.
And if a mage summoned an animal? Their attacks weren't boosted, so suddenly their summoned animals were half as effective relative to the now 4 attacks most characters got.
Same with golems, mummies, and other creatures/constructs that had a set listed number of attacks; they all became effectively nerfed because most everybody else got the boost of 2 extra attacks.
So that shifted the game's balance in quite a few ways.

And the more books Palladium churned out, the less they cared about game balance.
Except for all the ways that they still care, whether or not it makes sense.

[foilfodder]

This topic is always relavent even if this thread has been necro'd twice.

People are going take react negatively to articles like this, because it basically says, if you're not playing this way, you are doing it wrong. Of course that's going to get a bad reaction. If I was writting an article on GMing and RPGs the article would start with a question, "Did your players have fun this session?"

If the answer is "yes" nothing needs to change. Stop reading the article and go to writing more gaming material. If the answer is "No" then reading the article and thinking about GM techniques would be a good idea for the reader as a person who wants to improve their GMing.

Rant on relationship between GM and Players and group dynamics

Spoiler:

In my experience game balance depends more on:
1) the GM's methods and style
2) player to player dynamics of the group

As the OP mentioned

The article linked (http://johnwickpresents.com/games/santa-vaca/ten-years-ago-santa-vaca-game-balance/) above states:
"Game balance isn’t about hit points or armor class or spells per day or any of that. Game balance is about helping the player tell his character’s story in such a way that he doesn’t eclipse the other characters."

You can GM "By-the-Book" relying on the game system to keep the game flowing and the players balanced and happy. Many GMs start out this way, leaning heavily on the books. GMs can also throw the some or most of the rulebook out the window. Several RPG books state not to let the rules interfere with having fun. This technique is key to "Storyteller" types. Most gaming sesions have a GM that spends time between "By-the-Book" and "Storyteller" mode. Even the staunchiest "By-the-Book" won't have your character roll to successfully brush their own teeth and even "Storyteller" GMs will have a player pick up some dice or check a rulebook once or twice.

Whether or not one type of GMing works or doesn't depends on your players and how they interact with you and the other players. Not being afraid to use stereotypes,
- Rules-Lawyers and the By-the-Book GM get along very well. A well-run session everyone should be aware of what is going on and when it is there turn to act and how to carry out actions.
- Storyteller GMs and Real-Roleplayer participants usually co-exist well. A well-run session is more like story-telling around a campfire. Here are what I consider great examples of this type of gaming
a) FATE CORE w/ Will Wheaton, Felicia Day, John Rogers, & Ryan Macklin ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOFXtAH ... I8yBuxZu5U )
b) DREAD w Will Wheaton, Laura Bailey, Molly Lewis, and Ivan Van Norman ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0loSZFsyoQ )


A some up of the article would be
Time in the spotlight should be prioritised over game balance
Detailed weapon lists are a bug, not a feature
The goal of a RPG is to advance story.

Bringing this back to the original post:

If you learn more toward a "By-the-Book" Gamemaster, and Palladium is your book, you should be able to balance your sessions around the player characters. Yes, many players drawn to this game system will tell you that combat-oriented characters are not all equal, and as far as stats on paper they are correct. It is up to the GM to challenge the party not just in combat, but other situations in which other characters and players have a turn in the spotlight.

If you lean more toward a Storyteller GM, half the time it won't matter what the character stats on a piece of paper are. Most of the game is controlled by Player-to-NPC interaction and Player-to-Player interaction. The fact that one character can pick up a army tank with one hand and another can't doesn't matter as much as the moral or social situations you set them up in and their responses as that character.

If both a GM and players are happy with a rules heavy combat session of Rifts/Palladium/BTSN/etc, nobody should be telling them to play differently. If the players are unhappy because sessions are not going well, then maybe articles offering advice like the one above can help.

[slade the sniper]

"Did your players have fun this session?"

If the answer is "yes" nothing needs to change.

*mic drop*

-STS

[Warshield73]

When it comes to rules in a game I think the distinction between rules heavy and light are pretty meaningless. For me as a GM, and even more as a player, are reciprocity and consistency. Regardless of the rules what matters to me is if an NPC can do it so can my PC and if it is the rule today it will be the rule tomorrow.

When I was in college and my first few years after I played with lots of GMs that liked to change the rules are apply those rules differently between NPCs. To me these two concepts are the most important when I play and they seem to save me a lot of trouble when I GM.

[Killer Cyborg]

This topic is always relavent even if this thread has been necro'd twice.

People are going take react negatively to articles like this, because it basically says, if you're not playing this way, you are doing it wrong. Of course that's going to get a bad reaction. If I was writting an article on GMing and RPGs the article would start with a question, "Did your players have fun this session?"

If the answer is "yes" nothing needs to change. Stop reading the article and go to writing more gaming material. If the answer is "No" then reading the article and thinking about GM techniques would be a good idea for the reader as a person who wants to improve their GMing.

Sounds like you're saying that if you're not playing for fun, then you're doing it wrong.

If both a GM and players are happy with a rules heavy combat session of Rifts/Palladium/BTSN/etc, nobody should be telling them to play differently. If the players are unhappy because sessions are not going well, then maybe articles offering advice like the one above can help.

I like that better; "happiness" is a better gauge than "fun."
But I'd take it one more step off to the side a bit, and go with "satisfaction."
Just to be pedantic.

[Augur]

Over the decades, I've found two things to be of universal value in the playing of any RPG:

1. the consistency of the application of the rules (whatever they may be)
   
   • This is why we created a House Rules Forum for the posting of rules clarifications.
2. the players feeling as though they have input regarding those rules which might be in dispute
   
   • This is why we also have an Administrative forum where players and GMs alike can seek rules clarifications, make arguments regarding such, and propose changes to both canon and house rules.

[Zer0 Kay]

Short answer: I don't buy in to "game balance'"

I started gaming with PB, so the idea of "game balance" never even became an issue in any game I ever played until I started playing D20/D&D 3E. Every other game I played was much more story driven with combat added. D20 turned games that I played in (and GM'ed) into slow combat simulations with some RP elements. I know that you CAN have great RPG with the D20 system, but the way the rules are constructed, it really does feel like the game is very heavily focused on combat.

After a decade of trying to make balanced games with PCs and level appropriate encounters...I just stopped bothering. Now, my games are about the characters only, and combat is only when the PCs choose or when they make a mistake.

-STS

Pfft Game Balance is the neutering of characters. It is the imbalance that makes everyone's characters special and unique if none can peform any better than any other than what is the point. That game should be named Blanco or Bland or Vanilla... no that has too much flavor. It would suck playing Star Wars and your smuggler was just as capable of wielding the force as your Jedi. The minute a Hatchling Dragon is balanced with a Rogue Scholar, I quit.

[Warshield73]

Short answer: I don't buy in to "game balance'"

I started gaming with PB, so the idea of "game balance" never even became an issue in any game I ever played until I started playing D20/D&D 3E. Every other game I played was much more story driven with combat added. D20 turned games that I played in (and GM'ed) into slow combat simulations with some RP elements. I know that you CAN have great RPG with the D20 system, but the way the rules are constructed, it really does feel like the game is very heavily focused on combat.

After a decade of trying to make balanced games with PCs and level appropriate encounters...I just stopped bothering. Now, my games are about the characters only, and combat is only when the PCs choose or when they make a mistake.

-STS

Pfft Game Balance is the neutering of characters. It is the imbalance that makes everyone's characters special and unique if none can peform any better than any other than what is the point. That game should be named Blanco or Bland or Vanilla... no that has too much flavor. It would suck playing Star Wars and your smuggler was just as capable of wielding the force as your Jedi. The minute a Hatchling Dragon is balanced with a Rogue Scholar, I quit.

Agreed. I do believe that each player needs to have something that they can contribute to the group and that means planning the make up of the group is essential. This means that in your example the Smuggler should be a better pilot, or more contacts or something that lets them take center stage as often as the Jedi.

Balance does come down to the GM giving every player a chance to shine with there unique abilities and skills. Imposing a system where the vagabond and dragon are always equal will just be beyond boring.

I do think PB would benefit from a system similar to what we saw 2nd ed. Robotech with Special Aptitude bonuses added to games like Rifts but that is a minor thing.

[Fenris2020]

I got started with AD&D 1st edition in its latter days... so having to deal with the whims of the game designer on "balance" wasn't fun. Then I went to Marvel which definitely puts setting over "balance", which is what I prefer. I've also played Talislanta, which is about the same... setting and role-play are the important aspects.
I generally insist on a fairly detailed back-ground, taking into account the youth of a beginning character; characters don't grow up in a vacuum. If it's a "middle-ages" setting and so on, I also take into account the fact that certain castes are going to have a hard time acquiring training in a lot of cultures for certain weapons.
I also take into account my players' life experiences. And while some people may gripe about this, I don't allow gender-bending because I have yet to meet a person who can really role-play the opposite gender well. In a group of mixed genders, guys miss-roleplaying gals generally causes some discomfort. If it's all guys, it still gets old when someone wants to have a scene of lesbian elven incest or some other tripe.

[Killer Cyborg]

The minute a Hatchling Dragon is balanced with a Rogue Scholar, I quit.

Then you quit when the RMB came out.

[Zer0 Kay]

The minute a Hatchling Dragon is balanced with a Rogue Scholar, I quit.

Then you quit when the RMB came out.

I still don't consider that "balanced".

[Zer0 Kay]

Short answer: I don't buy in to "game balance'"

I started gaming with PB, so the idea of "game balance" never even became an issue in any game I ever played until I started playing D20/D&D 3E. Every other game I played was much more story driven with combat added. D20 turned games that I played in (and GM'ed) into slow combat simulations with some RP elements. I know that you CAN have great RPG with the D20 system, but the way the rules are constructed, it really does feel like the game is very heavily focused on combat.

After a decade of trying to make balanced games with PCs and level appropriate encounters...I just stopped bothering. Now, my games are about the characters only, and combat is only when the PCs choose or when they make a mistake.

-STS

Pfft Game Balance is the neutering of characters. It is the imbalance that makes everyone's characters special and unique if none can peform any better than any other than what is the point. That game should be named Blanco or Bland or Vanilla... no that has too much flavor. It would suck playing Star Wars and your smuggler was just as capable of wielding the force as your Jedi. The minute a Hatchling Dragon is balanced with a Rogue Scholar, I quit.

Agreed. I do believe that each player needs to have something that they can contribute to the group and that means planning the make up of the group is essential. This means that in your example the Smuggler should be a better pilot, or more contacts or something that lets them take center stage as often as the Jedi.

Balance does come down to the GM giving every player a chance to shine with there unique abilities and skills. Imposing a system where the vagabond and dragon are always equal will just be beyond boring.

I do think PB would benefit from a system similar to what we saw 2nd ed. Robotech with Special Aptitude bonuses added to games like Rifts but that is a minor thing.

Which is different from balance where everyone has a fair chance to perform the same. That is bad.

[Warshield73]

The minute a Hatchling Dragon is balanced with a Rogue Scholar, I quit.

Then you quit when the RMB came out.

Hatchling was not balanced to a rogue scholar in RMB, not even close. Yes they are vastly more powerful now then they were then but they were by no means balanced. I will give you that KS was more concerned with trying to balance the RCCs back then, things like the hatchling had to reach 3rd level to start casting magic comes to mind, but they were still massively more powerful than any other PC.

[Killer Cyborg]

The minute a Hatchling Dragon is balanced with a Rogue Scholar, I quit.

Then you quit when the RMB came out.

Hatchling was not balanced to a rogue scholar in RMB, not even close.

Incorrect.

RMB Rogue Scholar:
-32 skills to start. 39 max, at 15th level.
-Pilot: Robots & Power Armor available
-Weapon Proficiencies unrestricted, so an NG-P7 (1d4x10 MD per shot) or a JA-11 (4d6 per shot, 6d6 per short burst, or 3d6x10 MD for a full mag burst) would be allowable and usable.
-Boxing allowed
-MDC armor, weapons, and vehicle allowed. Since "the vehicle can be any non-military type ground vehicle," they could start with a non-military robot vehicle (like the Behemoth Explorer) in addition to their EBA and energy weapon.
-Psionics allowed.
-Hunted by the Coalition.

RMB Dragion Hatchling:
-9 skills to start. 17 skills max, at 15th level.
-Pilot: Robots & Power Armor available (for some reason)
-NO Weapon Proficiencies. Can fire loaded weapons, but takes twice as long to reload, and always fires Wild.
-No boxing, wrestling, climbing, swimming, or any other physical skills.
-No starting equipment.
-Teleportation
-Spells (depending on breed)
-Psionics (depending on breed)
-Hunted by the Coalition, and often mages and supernatural creatures, AND dragons light up for anything that can detect the supernatural and/or magic/psionics.

That's pretty darned even.
Frankly, if at first level, before the dragon has a chance to get any gear? Depending on what the Scholar gears up with, he's got the combat advantage starting out the gate, because that dragon can do like 6d6 MD per attack with fire breath (IF a fire dragon), but that's less than a good gun, and significantly less than a vehicle-mounted rocket-launcher.
I mean, a good dragon player might get lucky, us all the right strategies, and win the fight depending on why and where it's taking place. But it'd be a FIGHT, even then.

But even out of his vehicle, if you put a Hatchling Dragon and a Rogue Scholar in a party together, they'll be a good match. The dragon has combat advantages, but when it comes to skills dragons... suck. Like really, really bad. Whereas Rogue Scholars are skill kings.
So unless every adventure is always the kinds of combat the dragon excels at, there will be plenty of times when the dragon has to sit back and twiddle his claws while the rogue scholar hacks a computer, or decrypts a cipher, or synthesizes an antidote to something, or picks a lock, or any number of the WIDE variety of adventuring that deals with skills more than brawn.

[Killer Cyborg]

The minute a Hatchling Dragon is balanced with a Rogue Scholar, I quit.

Then you quit when the RMB came out.

I still don't consider that "balanced".

Then you're using the word wrong.

[Warshield73]

The minute a Hatchling Dragon is balanced with a Rogue Scholar, I quit.

Then you quit when the RMB came out.

Hatchling was not balanced to a rogue scholar in RMB, not even close.

Incorrect.

RMB Rogue Scholar:
-32 skills to start. 39 max, at 15th level.
-Pilot: Robots & Power Armor available
-Weapon Proficiencies unrestricted, so an NG-P7 (1d4x10 MD per shot) or a JA-11 (4d6 per shot, 6d6 per short burst, or 3d6x10 MD for a full mag burst) would be allowable and usable.
-Boxing allowed
-MDC armor, weapons, and vehicle allowed. Since "the vehicle can be any non-military type ground vehicle," they could start with a non-military robot vehicle (like the Behemoth Explorer) in addition to their EBA and energy weapon.
-Psionics allowed.
-Hunted by the Coalition.

RMB Dragion Hatchling:
-9 skills to start. 17 skills max, at 15th level.
-Pilot: Robots & Power Armor available (for some reason)
-NO Weapon Proficiencies. Can fire loaded weapons, but takes twice as long to reload, and always fires Wild.
-No boxing, wrestling, climbing, swimming, or any other physical skills.
-No starting equipment.
-Teleportation
-Spells (depending on breed)
-Psionics (depending on breed)
-Hunted by the Coalition, and often mages and supernatural creatures, AND dragons light up for anything that can detect the supernatural and/or magic/psionics.

That's pretty darned even.
Frankly, if at first level, before the dragon has a chance to get any gear? Depending on what the Scholar gears up with, he's got the combat advantage starting out the gate, because that dragon can do like 6d6 MD per attack with fire breath (IF a fire dragon), but that's less than a good gun, and significantly less than a vehicle-mounted rocket-launcher.
I mean, a good dragon player might get lucky, us all the right strategies, and win the fight depending on why and where it's taking place. But it'd be a FIGHT, even then.

But even out of his vehicle, if you put a Hatchling Dragon and a Rogue Scholar in a party together, they'll be a good match. The dragon has combat advantages, but when it comes to skills dragons... suck. Like really, really bad. Whereas Rogue Scholars are skill kings.
So unless every adventure is always the kinds of combat the dragon excels at, there will be plenty of times when the dragon has to sit back and twiddle his claws while the rogue scholar hacks a computer, or decrypts a cipher, or synthesizes an antidote to something, or picks a lock, or any number of the WIDE variety of adventuring that deals with skills more than brawn.

I'm feeling like you left a few things out of the hatchling like
- MDC equal to heavy PA or light robot
- MDC hand to hand damage that was equal to a light mech at the time
- Vastly superior attributes
- far greater number and variety of psionics guaranteed not percentile chance
- Metamorphosis
- and all of this for the low low price of the slowest XP chart in the game

I do agree that they make a good match but truthfully I think that for almost any OCCs/RCCs of different categories. Dog Boys work great with Operators or Techno-Wizards.

As someone who went from GMing Robotech 1e to GMing Rifts with 5 humans and a Hatchling Dragon in it I can tell you the balance was NOT there. Again it is way tougher now but even back then it was not balanced in any meaningful way.

[Killer Cyborg]

I'm feeling like you left a few things out of the hatchling like
- MDC equal to heavy PA or light robot
- MDC hand to hand damage that was equal to a light mech at the time
- Vastly superior attributes
- far greater number and variety of psionics guaranteed not percentile chance
- Metamorphosis
- and all of this for the low low price of the slowest XP chart in the game

Indeed. I figured we're all pretty familiar with that stuff.

I do agree that they make a good match but truthfully I think that for almost any OCCs/RCCs of different categories. Dog Boys work great with Operators or Techno-Wizards.

Right. Because things were pretty well-balanced in the RMB.

As someone who went from GMing Robotech 1e to GMing Rifts with 5 humans and a Hatchling Dragon in it I can tell you the balance was NOT there. Again it is way tougher now but even back then it was not balanced in any meaningful way.

Yet you agree that the classes make a good match, and that this is true of almost any OCCs/RCCs of different categories.
Which is balance.

[Warshield73]

I'm feeling like you left a few things out of the hatchling like
- MDC equal to heavy PA or light robot
- MDC hand to hand damage that was equal to a light mech at the time
- Vastly superior attributes
- far greater number and variety of psionics guaranteed not percentile chance
- Metamorphosis
- and all of this for the low low price of the slowest XP chart in the game

Indeed. I figured we're all pretty familiar with that stuff.

We are all staggeringly familiar random psionic abilities and how aimed, burst , and wild shooting works as well but you still included it.

You left out key important details of the Hatchling RCC while including minutia about boxing skill so I thought it was important to add them.

You were also very misleading about psionics saying simply that it is allowed which is not true. In RMB you have to roll with most characters not getting them at all, some getting minor (which even the weakest dragon was going to have 3 to 5 times more powers and greater ISP and ME) or that if the scholar was lucky enough to roll major psionics and get a comparable number of powers to the weakest dragon he would loose half his OCC related skills.

Don't get me wrong there was some attempt to balance certain aspects of Rifts in RMB, the above example of skill loss for psionic power, but it was not balanced between a Rogue Scholar and a Dragon.

I do agree that they make a good match but truthfully I think that for almost any OCCs/RCCs of different categories. Dog Boys work great with Operators or Techno-Wizards.

Right. Because things were pretty well-balanced in the RMB.

No, I did not limit this to RMB as this is true across the Rifts titles. Truthfully it is more true now with RUE then it was with RMB

I could have easily said that a Temporal Warrior (WB 3) works great with a Psi-Mechanic (WB 12) or that a Sphinx Ley Line Walker (CB 1) works great with CAF Scientist (DB 2). It has nothing to do with nonexistent balance it is about complimentary abilities and skills.

We talked about this in another topic on Best Group Build but in essence there is no best build or balance. It is about complimentary skills and abilities to allow the party to survive.

As someone who went from GMing Robotech 1e to GMing Rifts with 5 humans and a Hatchling Dragon in it I can tell you the balance was NOT there. Again it is way tougher now but even back then it was not balanced in any meaningful way.

Yet you agree that the classes make a good match, and that this is true of almost any OCCs/RCCs of different categories.
Which is balance.

No that is not balance, it is only tangentially related to balance. See the OP for the definition of balance that we are working from.

[Killer Cyborg]

Let’s try this another way, then.
In what way(s) Is the RMB not balanced under this definition:

“Game balance is about helping the player tell his character’s story in such a way that he doesn’t eclipse the other characters."

[Killer Cyborg]

I didn't expect that to be a conversation ender, but maybe it was.

[Zer0 Kay]

Let’s try this another way, then.
In what way(s) Is the RMB not balanced under this definition:

“Game balance is about helping the player tell his character’s story in such a way that he doesn’t eclipse the other characters."

Is it? Then why is there an attempt to maintain a game balance between classes in a single player RPS game? Prior to video games the phrase was rarely heard. You never hear a chess player complain the queen is OP and needs to be nerfed for game balance. The one I've always hated is game balancing in FPS games where they'll nerf one gun because it is seen as OP. When what they should be doing is trying to be realistic. An round of Y calibur with X propellant should always cause Z damage and weapons with A number of twists in rifling over B length of barrel should always be accurate to C range and weapons that fire at M rate with with X propellant through B length barrel with N weight should deviate O amount but no in the sake of game balance two weapons using the same ammo will do different amounts of damage for a single round. THAT is game balancing where things are nerfed in order to make chances for different players "equal" but what it does is really unbalance the game toward a single tactic "keep moving". So many FPS hate the sniper even though they have sniper rifles in some cases to such an extent that some games implemented the kill cam to force snipers to move as if they were an infantryman.

So maybe in RPGs what we are really talking about is game equity rather than game balancing.

[Killer Cyborg]

Let’s try this another way, then.
In what way(s) Is the RMB not balanced under this definition:

“Game balance is about helping the player tell his character’s story in such a way that he doesn’t eclipse the other characters."

Is it?

It's the definition being used in this conversation, I've been told.
Do you see any way(s) that Rifts does NOT fit this definition of Balance?
Do Dragons necessarily eclipse Rogue Scholars when it comes to telling each character's story?

[Father Goose]

At this point, it seems like this has devolved into quibbling about the definition of the word "balance," and whether or not it is the right word to describe "helping the player tell his character’s story in such a way that he doesn’t eclipse the other characters."
Since the OP defined how the word was being applied, it seems an unnecessary argument.
So, based on the definition supplied in the OP, do you believe it applies to Palladium games or not? That is (or should be) the basis of this thread discussion.
For my part, I feel Narrative Balance is much more important than Mechanical Balance, which I believe is the point of the OP as summed up in the definition given for Balance.
Narrative Power is derived from the player/character's ability to meaningfully contribute to and affect the story.
If the game provides equal opportunity for all players/characters to contribute and affect the story, then it is Narratively Balanced.
Mechanical Power comes from the numerical values and the % likelihood of success when attempting to use dice or other mechanics to achieve a goal. If the game provides the same or similar chance of success for all players/characters with the die roll being the only real variable, then it is Mechanically Balanced.
Palladium has always favored Narrative Balance over Mechanical Balance. Other systems (like D&D) put a premium on Mechanical Balance.
This is why a Palladium game can feature a Titan Mercenary, a Godling with magic and psionics, and a Human Vagabond Cook and everyone can have a good time, but other games have tight restrictions on what is an appropriate PC race/class and what is NPC only.

[Zer0 Kay]

Let’s try this another way, then.
In what way(s) Is the RMB not balanced under this definition:

“Game balance is about helping the player tell his character’s story in such a way that he doesn’t eclipse the other characters."

Is it?

It's the definition being used in this conversation, I've been told.
Do you see any way(s) that Rifts does NOT fit this definition of Balance?
Do Dragons necessarily eclipse Rogue Scholars when it comes to telling each character's story?

Well people should not use malleable definitions because that is when things go to heck. Instead of trying to change a definition they should use the proper term or come up with a new one. If I made an OP stating that Rhinorrhea means a person who plays a game just to hear themselves talk as opposed to a Munchkin, Power Player or Rules Lawyer would you argue for my case and the use of that word or correct me and tell me that it means being afflicted with a runny nose?

Besides No and Not really.

[Killer Cyborg]

Let’s try this another way, then.
In what way(s) Is the RMB not balanced under this definition:

“Game balance is about helping the player tell his character’s story in such a way that he doesn’t eclipse the other characters."

Is it?

It's the definition being used in this conversation, I've been told.
Do you see any way(s) that Rifts does NOT fit this definition of Balance?
Do Dragons necessarily eclipse Rogue Scholars when it comes to telling each character's story?

Well people should not use malleable definitions because that is when things go to heck. Instead of trying to change a definition they should use the proper term or come up with a new one. If I made an OP stating that Rhinorrhea means a person who plays a game just to hear themselves talk as opposed to a Munchkin, Power Player or Rules Lawyer would you argue for my case and the use of that word or correct me and tell me that it means being afflicted with a runny nose?

Besides No and Not really.

Okay... so you didn't even read the original post...?

[Zer0 Kay]

Let’s try this another way, then.
In what way(s) Is the RMB not balanced under this definition:

“Game balance is about helping the player tell his character’s story in such a way that he doesn’t eclipse the other characters."

Is it?

It's the definition being used in this conversation, I've been told.
Do you see any way(s) that Rifts does NOT fit this definition of Balance?
Do Dragons necessarily eclipse Rogue Scholars when it comes to telling each character's story?

Well people should not use malleable definitions because that is when things go to heck. Instead of trying to change a definition they should use the proper term or come up with a new one. If I made an OP stating that Rhinorrhea means a person who plays a game just to hear themselves talk as opposed to a Munchkin, Power Player or Rules Lawyer would you argue for my case and the use of that word or correct me and tell me that it means being afflicted with a runny nose?

Besides No and Not really.

Okay... so you didn't even read the original post...?

Yes I did. Yes I got that he was going off of

The article linked above states: "Game balance isn’t about hit points or armor class or spells per day or any of that. Game balance is about helping the player tell his character’s story in such a way that he doesn’t eclipse the other characters."

I'm also working from "I can't access the article", but regardless they are attempting to redefine game balance and what I'm saying is they shouldn't. Instead of taking words that already mean something and trying to make them mean something else, they should come up with a new phrase like "game equity". I'm not going to pander to the post, or more specifically the article, and will instead continue to argue that he isn't talking about game balance and wonder why the heck everyone is just going "okey dokey... yup game balance." Then I will wonder what the heck they will call it when KS's successor will call it when they decide they need to go back and change equipment stats so that everyone has a chance to succeed which would disregard the choice of skills and class as unimportant placing individuality ancillary to solo playability. That has no place in RPGs unless we're practicing I9 sports' version of RPGs and everyone is getting a medal just for participating.

[Killer Cyborg]

Okay... so you didn't even read the original post...?

Yes I did.

So you know that the context is a specific article that proposes this definition, and that we're supposed to discuss balance in the context of that article.
And you know that it's NOT just some random poster coming up with their own definition that makes no sense.

As for definitions, there is no one formal definition of "game balance."
It's not something that's settled.
People are still trying to come up with proper definitions, and this one makes as much sense as any other in the context of RPGs.

[Zer0 Kay]

Okay... so you didn't even read the original post...?

Yes I did.

So you know that the context is a specific article that proposes this definition, and that we're supposed to discuss balance in the context of that article.
And you know that it's NOT just some random poster coming up with their own definition that makes no sense.

As for definitions, there is no one formal definition of "game balance."
It's not something that's settled.
People are still trying to come up with proper definitions, and this one makes as much sense as any other in the context of RPGs.

Yes, yes, yes and yes. Just because someone else wrote an article on it doesn't mean I have to agree with the article. In the context of the article it is a bad idea to use phraseology for something that can easily be applied with original meaning from the original industry. Just because game balance sounds like it should be a good thing and is, most times, in videogames doesn't mean while applying it to other game formats that it should still be a good idea, especially when applying all the tools and methods of game balancing as used in one industry to another. So to say, game balance is good and Kevin is wrong about not ever wanting his system to be game balanced, is wrong. It is moving the goalpost as KS was defining GB as it was used for the VG industry which would be bad to apply to ANY RPG. So instead of taking phraseology that has meant one thing and many people have made statements based on that phraseology and will later be considered wrong if the new definition takes hold because most people for whatever reason can't understand that when you read stuff when it was written often has more important context than the words that are written around it. So instead it would be smarter to use phraseology that hasn't been used or more closely used.

According to these it seems like it is pretty settled.
https://www.techopedia.com/definition/2 ... me-balance
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_balance
https://www.gamedesigning.org/learn/balance/
https://learn.canvas.net/courses/3/page ... me-balance

[Killer Cyborg]

Okay... so you didn't even read the original post...?

Yes I did.

So you know that the context is a specific article that proposes this definition, and that we're supposed to discuss balance in the context of that article.
And you know that it's NOT just some random poster coming up with their own definition that makes no sense.

As for definitions, there is no one formal definition of "game balance."
It's not something that's settled.
People are still trying to come up with proper definitions, and this one makes as much sense as any other in the context of RPGs.

Yes, yes, yes and yes. Just because someone else wrote an article on it doesn't mean I have to agree with the article.

True.
But since the OP was asking about how the Palladium system stacks up under THAT definition, discussing other definitions is pretty off-topic.
Other than noting that you don't like that definition, there's nothing really more to say about that here.
You're always free to start your own thread that discusses your own ideas of what game balance might entail, but it doesn't seem to be the point of this particular conversation.

[Zer0 Kay]

Okay... so you didn't even read the original post...?

Yes I did.

So you know that the context is a specific article that proposes this definition, and that we're supposed to discuss balance in the context of that article.
And you know that it's NOT just some random poster coming up with their own definition that makes no sense.

As for definitions, there is no one formal definition of "game balance."
It's not something that's settled.
People are still trying to come up with proper definitions, and this one makes as much sense as any other in the context of RPGs.

Yes, yes, yes and yes. Just because someone else wrote an article on it doesn't mean I have to agree with the article.

True.
But since the OP was asking about how the Palladium system stacks up under THAT definition, discussing other definitions is pretty off-topic.
Other than noting that you don't like that definition, there's nothing really more to say about that here.
You're always free to start your own thread that discusses your own ideas of what game balance might entail, but it doesn't seem to be the point of this particular conversation.

But sure I can. I can say.

Even though I, and I feel many others would , refuse to redefine game balance in that way, by that definition almost every RPG ran by a good GM is balanced. A game is always going to have loopholes for a rules lawyer, power gamer, munchkin or twink to exploit, manipulate, argue or "cheat". Simply being an overbearing person with a meak GM would make any game unbalanced by those standards. What the article seems to be arguing is more play equity rather than game balance and again that equity is the GM's purview not the game publishers. The game developer would have to do something stupid like applying a talking stick and even then people will be talked over, out done because they aren't as good at developing their own story or because they're just slow. It is up to the GM to govern game flow and if the GM finds a talking stick or a timer helps with his group he will often find it doesn't help with new groups.

How is that for not being able to say something while saying I don't like the idea KC? Thanks for the civil discourse, have a great day. Oh, NOW I'm pretty sure I have nothing to say on the topic.

[Curbludgeon]

There is so much baggage to unpack in a couple of those posts that I'll pretend that was a successful mic drop. Eesh.

I agree with what Killer Cyborg said about power creep altering mechanical imbalances. To return to the dragon example, hatchlings using the Dragons & Gods book rules for Rifts characters often have a bunch of skills, which eliminated one of the most straightforward ways to have a hatchling character's player not disrupt parity at the table. While it's possible to maintain narrative balance regardless of power level, having lots of little shifts can affect setting conceits and player expectations.

I enjoy when rpgs incentivize characters more reliant on narrative balance with separate mechanics. Mutants and Masterminds, for example, gives out Hero Points when a character's Complications affect play. These can be used for various effects like rerolls, minor scene edits, and power stunts. While some games like Univision directly state characters of different power levels have different access to these sort of points, other games would still requires a handshake agreement. It can serve as a useful way to keep everyone engaged when, to use a comic book example, Captain America's being inspiring and tenacious isn't depicted as some sort of leadership or luck power but is still as useful a contribution as Thor being able to shoot lighting and throw buildings. Savage Rifts did this a bit with the M.A.R.S. tables, and if there was ever to be a revamp of the Palladium System I'd want an option for something similar hardwired.

[Warshield73]

Let’s try this another way, then.
In what way(s) Is the RMB not balanced under this definition:

“Game balance is about helping the player tell his character’s story in such a way that he doesn’t eclipse the other characters."

I didn't expect that to be a conversation ender, but maybe it was.

Not really a conversation ender just further to add. Defining game balance this way just puts almost every rule under game balance which you can make a case for but in this context we are simply talking about a specific kind of game balance that really comes out of the video game style of balancing all characters so they are equal in all situations.

Is it? Then why is there an attempt to maintain a game balance between classes in a single player RPS game? Prior to video games the phrase was rarely heard. [u]You never hear a chess player complain the queen is OP and needs to be nerfed for game balance[/u]. The one I've always hated is game balancing in FPS games where they'll nerf one gun because it is seen as OP. When what they should be doing is trying to be realistic. An round of Y calibur with X propellant should always cause Z damage and weapons with A number of twists in rifling over B length of barrel should always be accurate to C range and weapons that fire at M rate with with X propellant through B length barrel with N weight should deviate O amount but no in the sake of game balance two weapons using the same ammo will do different amounts of damage for a single round. THAT is game balancing where things are nerfed in order to make chances for different players "equal" but what it does is really unbalance the game toward a single tactic "keep moving". So many FPS hate the sniper even though they have sniper rifles in some cases to such an extent that some games implemented the kill cam to force snipers to move as if they were an infantryman.

So maybe in RPGs what we are really talking about is game equity rather than game balancing.

Oddly enough it was Queen Isabella complaining that the figure was too weak that created the rules change that OP the queen so the opposite really but your point does stand.

I also like your point about equity vs. balance but it feels like we are talking at cross purposes. It's almost like these terms are vague and poorly defined. I do like the concept of mechanical vs. narrative balance but again there is no real agreed upon definition we can still spend lots of time talking around each other.

Getting back to the OP I don't get the feeling that the article is so much trying to change the definition of game balance as it is arguing for a change in the mindset around the term. It took me a few months but I grew to love the imbalance in Rifts and when the Conversion book came out with all of those options I loved it even more.

There are some rules that attempts to balance certain items or weapons within the game but when you look at just the characters there is no mechanical balance between a Sphinx LLW and a human LLW. In the narrative however you can have plenty of situations where the human has the advantage but not because of an arbitrary penalty for the sphinx but just for what is happening in the story.

There is so much baggage to unpack in a couple of those posts that I'll pretend that was a successful mic drop. Eesh.

I agree with what Killer Cyborg said about power creep altering mechanical imbalances. To return to the dragon example, hatchlings using the Dragons & Gods book rules for Rifts characters often have a bunch of skills, which eliminated one of the most straightforward ways to have a hatchling character's player not disrupt parity at the table. While it's possible to maintain narrative balance regardless of power level, having lots of little shifts can affect setting conceits and player expectations.

I kind of agree with this but I think it is complicated especially in Rifts. Each setting is sort of it's own thing and it can be hard to balance both within and as part of the whole while still creating the setting you want. As a general rule though the power creep for weapons, vehicles, magic and yes OCCs is out of control.

I enjoy when rpgs incentivize characters more reliant on narrative balance with separate mechanics. Mutants and Masterminds, for example, gives out Hero Points when a character's Complications affect play. These can be used for various effects like rerolls, minor scene edits, and power stunts. While some games like Univision directly state characters of different power levels have different access to these sort of points, other games would still requires a handshake agreement. It can serve as a useful way to keep everyone engaged when, to use a comic book example, Captain America's being inspiring and tenacious isn't depicted as some sort of leadership or luck power but is still as useful a contribution as Thor being able to shoot lighting and throw buildings. Savage Rifts did this a bit with the M.A.R.S. tables, and if there was ever to be a revamp of the Palladium System I'd want an option for something similar hardwired.

I have lots of Savage Worlds books but I mainly just read the setting information so I haven't seen the MARS tables but I agree it would be cool to add a table like especially for characters that don't have specific OCC abilities or for races that are more mundane, like humans. I actually created a chart like this that combines psionics with the human ability table in the Rifts Line Star and the special abilities table in Robotech 2e. It really allows players to broaden their characters abilities or dive in and make the ultimate of whatever there character is. I haven't used it much though because not sure how to implement it but it's something I've been working on for years.

As for revamping the PB system I have piles of ideas, as I am certain everyone does, but I'm sure at least half the fans would hate them so...

[Zer0 Kay]

There is so much baggage to unpack in a couple of those posts that I'll pretend that was a successful mic drop. Eesh.

I agree with what Killer Cyborg said about power creep altering mechanical imbalances. To return to the dragon example, hatchlings using the Dragons & Gods book rules for Rifts characters often have a bunch of skills, which eliminated one of the most straightforward ways to have a hatchling character's player not disrupt parity at the table. While it's possible to maintain narrative balance regardless of power level, having lots of little shifts can affect setting conceits and player expectations.

I enjoy when rpgs incentivize characters more reliant on narrative balance with separate mechanics. Mutants and Masterminds, for example, gives out Hero Points when a character's Complications affect play. These can be used for various effects like rerolls, minor scene edits, and power stunts. While some games like Univision directly state characters of different power levels have different access to these sort of points, other games would still requires a handshake agreement. It can serve as a useful way to keep everyone engaged when, to use a comic book example, Captain America's being inspiring and tenacious isn't depicted as some sort of leadership or luck power but is still as useful a contribution as Thor being able to shoot lighting and throw buildings. Savage Rifts did this a bit with the M.A.R.S. tables, and if there was ever to be a revamp of the Palladium System I'd want an option for something similar hardwired.

Having a feats and flaws selection has been discussed by others on the forums and I think that some people have even put their tables somewhere around here.

[Nuristas]

What I personally like the most about Rifts are the following things:

You can make the character you wish to make. There is bound to be an OCC/RCC somewhere which fits the bill for the concept you have in your head. If your DM allows it, you are golden.
Combat is "meaningful". I mean by that the fact that combat has choices: the ability to parry/dodge which today is omitted from a lot of RPG's cause people want fast and furious combats.
"There is always a bigger fish" meaning that even if your PC's go bunkers, it is not that hard to somewhere find something which can challenge them.
Characters are front-loaded. This avoids the Power creep in many games where at level x (5-11), suddenly the game is utterly turned upside down and one ability will always end a combat.
Non-Mages are actually meaningful and needed and they stay that way all game long. Magic is the great equalizer but there is nothing wrong with a good gun/sword/....

So is the system clunky, yes it is. Is it outdated, most likely it is. Is it fun to play in, it certainly is.

[Zer0 Kay]

What I personally like the most about Rifts are the following things:

You can make the character you wish to make. There is bound to be an OCC/RCC somewhere which fits the bill for the concept you have in your head. If your DM allows it, you are golden.
Combat is "meaningful". I mean by that the fact that combat has choices: the ability to parry/dodge which today is omitted from a lot of RPG's cause people want fast and furious combats.
"There is always a bigger fish" meaning that even if your PC's go bunkers, it is not that hard to somewhere find something which can challenge them.
Characters are front-loaded. This avoids the Power creep in many games where at level x (5-11), suddenly the game is utterly turned upside down and one ability will always end a combat.
Non-Mages are actually meaningful and needed and they stay that way all game long. Magic is the great equalizer but there is nothing wrong with a good gun/sword/....

So is the system clunky, yes it is. Is it outdated, most likely it is. Is it fun to play in, it certainly is.

I like how you put it at the end... however:
I think what people see as clunky is the choices the more choices people have the more likely it is to make things... wobble and the more likely it is for people to throw in monkey wrenches and make it derail.
What people see as outdated is that choice which makes the system not streamlined but all the new systems are soulless or at best childlike.
That makes it fun to play for people who like choices and strategy, people who like building worlds and people who like role-playing but it is unbearable for people who want a mindless distraction from their real life, people who just want to hear and partake in a story and people who prefer roll-playing. Games now must be closer to boardgames in ease of understanding and complexity and I don't mean good board games I mean candy land and shoots and ladders or worse hungry, hungry hippos. People don't want to learn chess, risk, and catan. Heck checkers is pushing it, "what do you mean crown? Hey you can't come back this way. This is too hard..."

[Nuristas]

What I personally like the most about Rifts are the following things:

You can make the character you wish to make. There is bound to be an OCC/RCC somewhere which fits the bill for the concept you have in your head. If your DM allows it, you are golden.
Combat is "meaningful". I mean by that the fact that combat has choices: the ability to parry/dodge which today is omitted from a lot of RPG's cause people want fast and furious combats.
"There is always a bigger fish" meaning that even if your PC's go bunkers, it is not that hard to somewhere find something which can challenge them.
Characters are front-loaded. This avoids the Power creep in many games where at level x (5-11), suddenly the game is utterly turned upside down and one ability will always end a combat.
Non-Mages are actually meaningful and needed and they stay that way all game long. Magic is the great equalizer but there is nothing wrong with a good gun/sword/....

So is the system clunky, yes it is. Is it outdated, most likely it is. Is it fun to play in, it certainly is.

I like how you put it at the end... however:
I think what people see as clunky is the choices the more choices people have the more likely it is to make things... wobble and the more likely it is for people to throw in monkey wrenches and make it derail.
What people see as outdated is that choice which makes the system not streamlined but all the new systems are soulless or at best childlike.
That makes it fun to play for people who like choices and strategy, people who like building worlds and people who like role-playing but it is unbearable for people who want a mindless distraction from their real life, people who just want to hear and partake in a story and people who prefer roll-playing. Games now must be closer to boardgames in ease of understanding and complexity and I don't mean good board games I mean candy land and shoots and ladders or worse hungry, hungry hippos. People don't want to learn chess, risk, and catan. Heck checkers is pushing it, "what do you mean crown? Hey you can't come back this way. This is too hard..."

We have actually played our fill of games like D&D etc. The problem we had with those systems is that everything felt so... vanilla. There were no real meaningful choices and the path your character was going to go was the same for every character of said type. You could of course always make the choice of playing something which was "special" but most often special meant disturbing/sub-optimal/annoying/non-teamplayer/...

In Rifts you have a table filled with all kind of different things, a system where you can actually do more in combat than the legendary: I attack, you soak damage, you attack, I soak damage, .... (continues till somebody drops). It was a staple in many of the systems which were made in the 1990's/2000's but they made combats, a lot longer and/or complicated and most people don't really like that these days. It needs to be an easy to digest/understand RPG where you can't choose wrong cause everything has been super balanced out. Dare not to do so, and the hammer of public opinion/social media/reddit/... shall destroy you! Which according to me is weird.

People love the Avengers and many other Superhero movies, but even there, not all superhero's are made equal or have equal powerlevels yet they are all meaningful. People kinda lost the idea of "Storytelling" and working together to create a story. Than again, it might just be me imagining things

[Fenris2020]

What I personally like the most about Rifts are the following things:

You can make the character you wish to make. There is bound to be an OCC/RCC somewhere which fits the bill for the concept you have in your head. If your DM allows it, you are golden.
Combat is "meaningful". I mean by that the fact that combat has choices: the ability to parry/dodge which today is omitted from a lot of RPG's cause people want fast and furious combats.
"There is always a bigger fish" meaning that even if your PC's go bunkers, it is not that hard to somewhere find something which can challenge them.
Characters are front-loaded. This avoids the Power creep in many games where at level x (5-11), suddenly the game is utterly turned upside down and one ability will always end a combat.
Non-Mages are actually meaningful and needed and they stay that way all game long. Magic is the great equalizer but there is nothing wrong with a good gun/sword/....

So is the system clunky, yes it is. Is it outdated, most likely it is. Is it fun to play in, it certainly is.

I like how you put it at the end... however:
I think what people see as clunky is the choices the more choices people have the more likely it is to make things... wobble and the more likely it is for people to throw in monkey wrenches and make it derail.
What people see as outdated is that choice which makes the system not streamlined but all the new systems are soulless or at best childlike.
That makes it fun to play for people who like choices and strategy, people who like building worlds and people who like role-playing but it is unbearable for people who want a mindless distraction from their real life, people who just want to hear and partake in a story and people who prefer roll-playing. Games now must be closer to boardgames in ease of understanding and complexity and I don't mean good board games I mean candy land and shoots and ladders or worse hungry, hungry hippos. People don't want to learn chess, risk, and catan. Heck checkers is pushing it, "what do you mean crown? Hey you can't come back this way. This is too hard..."

We have actually played our fill of games like D&D etc. The problem we had with those systems is that everything felt so... vanilla. There were no real meaningful choices and the path your character was going to go was the same for every character of said type. You could of course always make the choice of playing something which was "special" but most often special meant disturbing/sub-optimal/annoying/non-teamplayer/...

In Rifts you have a table filled with all kind of different things, a system where you can actually do more in combat than the legendary: I attack, you soak damage, you attack, I soak damage, .... (continues till somebody drops). It was a staple in many of the systems which were made in the 1990's/2000's but they made combats, a lot longer and/or complicated and most people don't really like that these days. It needs to be an easy to digest/understand RPG where you can't choose wrong cause everything has been super balanced out. Dare not to do so, and the hammer of public opinion/social media/reddit/... shall destroy you! Which according to me is weird.

People love the Avengers and many other Superhero movies, but even there, not all superhero's are made equal or have equal powerlevels yet they are all meaningful. People kinda lost the idea of "Storytelling" and working together to create a story. Than again, it might just be me imagining things

I agree, most of the games these days are mind-numbingly boring.

[Zer0 Kay]

What I personally like the most about Rifts are the following things:

You can make the character you wish to make. There is bound to be an OCC/RCC somewhere which fits the bill for the concept you have in your head. If your DM allows it, you are golden.
Combat is "meaningful". I mean by that the fact that combat has choices: the ability to parry/dodge which today is omitted from a lot of RPG's cause people want fast and furious combats.
"There is always a bigger fish" meaning that even if your PC's go bunkers, it is not that hard to somewhere find something which can challenge them.
Characters are front-loaded. This avoids the Power creep in many games where at level x (5-11), suddenly the game is utterly turned upside down and one ability will always end a combat.
Non-Mages are actually meaningful and needed and they stay that way all game long. Magic is the great equalizer but there is nothing wrong with a good gun/sword/....

So is the system clunky, yes it is. Is it outdated, most likely it is. Is it fun to play in, it certainly is.

I like how you put it at the end... however:
I think what people see as clunky is the choices the more choices people have the more likely it is to make things... wobble and the more likely it is for people to throw in monkey wrenches and make it derail.
What people see as outdated is that choice which makes the system not streamlined but all the new systems are soulless or at best childlike.
That makes it fun to play for people who like choices and strategy, people who like building worlds and people who like role-playing but it is unbearable for people who want a mindless distraction from their real life, people who just want to hear and partake in a story and people who prefer roll-playing. Games now must be closer to boardgames in ease of understanding and complexity and I don't mean good board games I mean candy land and shoots and ladders or worse hungry, hungry hippos. People don't want to learn chess, risk, and catan. Heck checkers is pushing it, "what do you mean crown? Hey you can't come back this way. This is too hard..."

We have actually played our fill of games like D&D etc. The problem we had with those systems is that everything felt so... vanilla. There were no real meaningful choices and the path your character was going to go was the same for every character of said type. You could of course always make the choice of playing something which was "special" but most often special meant disturbing/sub-optimal/annoying/non-teamplayer/...

In Rifts you have a table filled with all kind of different things, a system where you can actually do more in combat than the legendary: I attack, you soak damage, you attack, I soak damage, .... (continues till somebody drops). It was a staple in many of the systems which were made in the 1990's/2000's but they made combats, a lot longer and/or complicated and most people don't really like that these days. It needs to be an easy to digest/understand RPG where you can't choose wrong cause everything has been super balanced out. Dare not to do so, and the hammer of public opinion/social media/reddit/... shall destroy you! Which according to me is weird.

People love the Avengers and many other Superhero movies, but even there, not all superhero's are made equal or have equal powerlevels yet they are all meaningful. People kinda lost the idea of "Storytelling" and working together to create a story. Than again, it might just be me imagining things

I agree, most of the games these days are mind-numbingly boring.

Or worse they're the equivalent of the new movies where they take an old 80s - 90s TV series and twist it. Mostly it seems that they turn drama into horror or a comedy (21 Jump Street, Star sky and Hutch, Fantasy Island, etc.) If they're going to remake something, don't rip the soul out and then stuff your hand up its anus to use it as a puppet. "Look, look how original I am. You people have never seen this show before. You laugh, you jump, I make money, everyone is happy. Its a win-i don't care scenario".

[killgore444]

Balance does come down to the GM giving every player a chance to shine with there unique abilities and skills. Imposing a system where the vagabond and dragon are always equal will just be beyond boring.

To me, that's like Superman hovering over a gunbattle and not doing anything because he wants the other heroes like Green Arrow and Robin feel needed.

We have actually played our fill of games like D&D etc. The problem we had with those systems is that everything felt so... vanilla. There were no real meaningful choices and the path your character was going to go was the same for every character of said type. You could of course always make the choice of playing something which was "special" but most often special meant disturbing/sub-optimal/annoying/non-teamplayer/...

You really need to say I rather than we. Or at the very least be much more specific about which WE you are revering to.
As for your points about D&D, in 3rd ed and earlier, what you said is very much in contradiction to my own experience. Third ed especially made it absurdly easy to alter your character path and be oh so very special. Much easier in fact than Rifts where in order to take advantage of new ideas, you needed to create a new character, because there was no way in hell that they were going to say that gunfighting in the new west was just a skill anyone with proficiency in a pistol could take, you needed to create a special new character to use it.

In Rifts you have a table filled with all kind of different things, a system where you can actually do more in combat than the legendary: I attack, you soak damage, you attack, I soak damage, .... (continues till somebody drops).

And yet to this day, the vast majority of combats I've seen in any PB session is exactly that. With a few extra dice rolls for dodge and parry. In fact, most of the games I've GMd, I spend far to much time reminding players they need to roll dodge, or no, you've already taken your turn, and are on the other side of the room so can't act now.

People love the Avengers and many other Superhero movies, but even there, not all superhero's are made equal or have equal powerlevels yet they are all meaningful. People kinda lost the idea of "Storytelling" and working together to create a story. Than again, it might just be me imagining things

The issue with comparing games to movies and trying to TELL stories is the writers of movies (and comic books) are often willing to allow for characters to forget they can do something, players generally aren't. Have you ever told a player "No you can't do that, I need you to forget you can do that for MY story, now let this guy who has less than 2/3rds your skill percentage make the roll so he can actually contribute."? That's what you're saying needs to be done when you make a comparison to movies and comic books.

Where game balance in Rifts started fading in my eye was when power creep started making older classes and races obsolete.
For example, they started having mega-damage humans in various ways, which provided the benefits of being a supernatural creature, without much in the way of downsides. CB1 was particularly bad about this, letting non-magical humans become mega-damage based on stuff as simple as "wrist hardening exercises" or "stretching" powers.
Another case that comes to mind is the Psi-Tech OCC, which outdoes the Operator OCC in their area of expertise, in every way.
Psi-Techs can literally do everything that Operators can do, only more, and better.
If you had a Psi-Tech in the game, and an Operator... well, you'd have to put in significant effort to make sure that the Psi-Tech didn't dominate the game, and that the Operator would have plenty to do.

Mostly agree here, but they also made quite a few decisions that have never made sense to me such as the amount of PPE a LLW gets to cost of spells. Although it was much better in RMB than in RUE. In RMB the LLW had no issue with environmental armor or carrying a gun (heck, there was even a LLW who wore Deadboy armor in one of the books). Now, you're almost penalized for using anything Tech based (and are penalized for using tech armor (heavily)). Add to that there is little/no option for casting any spells that do MD until 5th level (I'll give the books credit, there is supposed to be a way to learn the magic, but I've dealt with far to many GMs who won't allow you to learn a spell until you're that level ). And even if you do manage to convince the GM to let you learn it before 5th level, it still takes 1/10th your PPE and doesn't even work on power armor and robots. Sixth level for a spell that dependably does damage. All because someone complained how spellcasters where ignoring magic in favor of tech and instead of advocating improving the way magic was handled, advocated taking away tech from spellcasters. Sorry, that's my major pet peeve.

Another thing that screwed up game balance in Rifts was that Palladium kept adding rules (often unannounced) that shifted the entire balance of things around.

Such as no tech armor for spellcasters.

(Yes, sure, our mages back then tended to use guns first and spells second, especially at low levels, so arguably they were at an advantage over Grunts who couldn't use spells at all... but the Grunts didn't have to pay for their ammo, weapons, or repairs as long as they were getting them from the CS, AND the CS Grunt wasn't a target for Dog Boys and Psi-Stalkers and such. SO again, it all balanced out pretty evenly.)
...Snip...
And the more books Palladium churned out, the less they cared about game balance.
Except for all the ways that they still care, whether or not it makes sense.

The power creep has affected monsters as well. Look at the Xiticix in RMB and compare to World Book 23 - Xiticix Invasion. While RUE gave a few bennies to LLWs and other spellcasters, there hasn't been anywhere near the creep as it gives enemies. And that applies across the board, unless you decide to play one of the superpowerful new OCCs or PCCs from one of the splatbooks.

To me, game balance issues are about how the party compares to each other in power level and growth potential. I remember talking to a group of potential new players for my D&D3ed game and because the ALL talked about playing druids I mentioned that I was nerf the Druid in my games. One of them made the comment that that meant the druid was no better than any of the other classes and that there was no reason to not play those classes, and he meant it in a negative way despite the fact that that had been my point. If most players look at a OCC/PCC and can't come up with a reason why they would play it over another OCC, then yes, there is balance issues.

If all the players want to play OCCs on the same power level from Vagabonds to Godlings, fine, I'm all for that no matter what power level it is. But when most of your group has been playing humans/SDC races and the new guy shows up with his godling and the GM doesn't see any issue, that's when I'm likely to walk from the game.

[Killer Cyborg]

While RUE gave a few bennies to LLWs and other spellcasters, there hasn't been anywhere near the creep as it gives enemies.

Up until the Federation of Magic, spellcasters had to level up in order to deal real damage with their spells (warlocks being something of an exception).
The standard for spells was to gain damage dice by level, so even if a 1st level character learned a 13th level spell somehow, they could still only cast it for 1d6 or 1d4 damage or whatever.
FOM changed that, introducing a bunch of spells that inflicted high damage regardless of caster level, which is significant power creep for casters.
Sub-Particle Acceleration lets you do 1d6x10+ MD regardless of level, compared to Call Lightning which would make you wait until 10th level to dish out that kind of damage.
10th level.
In a game where we're told that's in the high end of what a character might be expected to achieve. I mean, the levels go all the way to 15, but that wasn't because Palladium expected people to GET there.

Yes, casters were nerfed too, with the armor rule, and the base number of HTH attacks changing without affecting the number of spell castings per melee, but that doesn't change that the power level of spells saw some major power creep.

[killgore444]

FOM changed that, introducing a bunch of spells that inflicted high damage regardless of caster level, which is significant power creep for casters.
Sub-Particle Acceleration lets you do 1d6x10+ MD regardless of level, compared to Call Lightning which would make you wait until 10th level to dish out that kind of damage.

Problem with that is, you can't actually learn those spells at 1st level. Starting spells for a LLW have NO options for MDC damaging spells (unless they changed a spell in RUE that I haven't reread). Yes, technically he can learn ANY spell, but the chances of doing so are minute. I'm 1 of only 2 GMs I've been in a PBs game who doesn't restrict access to spells higher than caster level for instance. Then, if your GM allows, you have to purchase the spell (how much money does your low level character have?), and then LEARN the spell. Even if instructed, you still need to roll to learn it (although there's no chance it's a screwed up version if you succeed and you get a bonus) with the same penalty to learn high level spells as to independently research them.

When you combine that with the armor rule, and apparently there is now XP penalties if you don't play your character right, by ignoring anything that isn't magic, then the Ley Line Walker got much more Nerf than Creep.

They couldn't even make it a skill selection to say that if you spend one of your limited OCC skills than you can cast in armor without penalty. This is actually what I decided as a GM. Since in RMB, LLWs are not automatically literate, but can use armor, but in RUE, they are literate but can't use armor, than that means it's just a shift in focus of skill training so taking it as a skill allows for the wearing of armor.

[Killer Cyborg]

FOM changed that, introducing a bunch of spells that inflicted high damage regardless of caster level, which is significant power creep for casters.
Sub-Particle Acceleration lets you do 1d6x10+ MD regardless of level, compared to Call Lightning which would make you wait until 10th level to dish out that kind of damage.

Problem with that is, you can't actually learn those spells at 1st level. Starting spells for a LLW have NO options for MDC damaging spells (unless they changed a spell in RUE that I haven't reread). Yes, technically he can learn ANY spell, but the chances of doing so are minute. I'm 1 of only 2 GMs I've been in a PBs game who doesn't restrict access to spells higher than caster level for instance. Then, if your GM allows, you have to purchase the spell (how much money does your low level character have?), and then LEARN the spell. Even if instructed, you still need to roll to learn it (although there's no chance it's a screwed up version if you succeed and you get a bonus) with the same penalty to learn high level spells as to independently research them.

Yes, technically you can learn any spell.
What exactly the chances are that you DO learn the spell depends on the DM.
I'm with you in that personally, I haven't had too many GMs hand out spells often at first level, BUT at the same time I also haven't had many GMs who really hand out spells at all, period, nor really do anything to address the issue that casters tend to want/need different loot than other players.
So I'm not sure they're the best GMs.

And I wouldn't use the fact that I've only rarely had GMs accommodate Techno Wizard characters as an argument that Techno Wizards didn't get significant power creep.

Regardless, unless a GM actively stops a character from doing so, any LLW or similar base mage can purchas spells from alchemists, magic shops, guilds, etc. as per RMB 165
Mental Blast (5d6 MD, damage previously only attainable with a 5th level Call Lightning) is a 5th level spell, and would cost CR 44,000.
A 1st level RMB LLW starts off with an average of CR 2,500, with another CR 7,500 in black market items. So that's CR 10k on average as starting money.
After an adventure or two, it's not unreasonable to assume they'll have enough money to buy Mental Blast whether or not they gain enough XP to get to level 2, much less level 5.

But they also start with a "vehicle of choice," usually a TW device, hover vehicle, motorcycle, or jet pack.
If they start off with a nuclear powered Speedster hover cycle with a built-in lase, something that no GM I've dealt with would blink at for most adventures/campaigns, that's got a base value of CR 461,000, which means it could be sold to the black market per RMB 208 for CR 46,100-92,200, more than enough to buy that spell even without dipping into savings.
Granted, not every mage is going to want to sell his fancy ride for a spell, but in most groups I've played in, players often carpool anyway (plus, LLWs can ley line teleport and such, or make due with a flying spell, or spend CR 1k on a wingboard, etc.)
If they get the right price for their vehicle, they can even buy a level 6 combat spell for CR 77,000, and walk away with Power Bolt, or pool the money from their vehicle sale with their starting cash (CR 12,200 on average) and buy a level 6 combat spell (CR 99,000) like Fire Gout (6d6 MD, damage previously requiring a 6th level Call Lightning or 9th level Fire Ball), Lightblade (1d4x10 MD at first level), or the vaunted Sub-Particle Acceleration (1d6x10 MD at first level).
AND considering the fact that this spell can be used to recharge E-Clips (RMB cost of CR 1500 per recharge), the mage could make their money back as a charging service with under 100 chargings.
With many parties, it would make economic sense for them to all chip in to get the party mage this spell ASAP, in fact, simply so they could get free recharges for their eclips.

Of course, this all depends on the GM, but that's true of every aspect of Rifts.
A GM who interprets the rules in such a way that the party already gets free recharges because they allow the party Operator to use jumper cables and a nuclear power source to recharge would mean it makes less economic sense on the party level, though the mage could still sell his services to NPCs at book price, unless the GM decides book price is stupid and nobody would buy at that price because everybody knows an operator with a nuclear power pack and jumper cables.
A GM could decide that the PC cannot find a shop/guild/etc. who is wiling or able to sell a 6th level spell at any price.
A GM could decide that the Black Market won't buy the vehicle at that kind of price, or that the PC for some reason cannot find a black market dealer, contact, or middle-man to sell the vehicle.
A GM might not give out much in the way of loot, and it might take a character until 5th level to scrape together CR 40k or whatever to buy a spell.

But again, this kind of thing is always a factor in Rifts, with every class, and every form of power creep.
A GM can always say that certain weapons, armor, vehicles, or even class powers are unavailable, or don't apply to the character, or whatever, or the NPC or whatever.
Heck, a lot of GMs seem to use mook rules, where they don't even stat minor bad guys, so your PCs could mow down Xiticix like they were nothing until there was a Big Encounter or Big Bad or whatever.

When you combine that with the armor rule, and apparently there is now XP penalties if you don't play your character right, by ignoring anything that isn't magic, then the Ley Line Walker got much more Nerf than Creep.

1. Where's you get the XP penalty thing...?
2. The armor rule is stupid, and yes, it's a definite nerf. That doesn't change the power creep with spells, although I agree it could balance it out a bit.
Still, if you read over the mage armor rules, it's not really a very big nerf at all. It mostly just means you have to pay an extra point or two of PPE per spell, then roll some dice on a few tables where maybe perhaps one of the spell penalties might apply to your situation depending on the circumstances.
It's more of a penalty for the player and everybody else at the table than for the characters, as the biggest penalty is all the extra rolling and a bit of math.

They couldn't even make it a skill selection to say that if you spend one of your limited OCC skills than you can cast in armor without penalty. This is actually what I decided as a GM. Since in RMB, LLWs are not automatically literate, but can use armor, but in RUE, they are literate but can't use armor, than that means it's just a shift in focus of skill training so taking it as a skill allows for the wearing of armor.

Seems reasonable.
I just ignore the mage armor rule entirely when I run, and if I played under a GM who insists on the by-the-book penalties, I'd just wear whatever armor I want and waste everybody's time rolling extra dice every time I cast a spell until the GM got sick of the stupid rule.

I mean, here's what we're talking about. (RUE 188 rules)
(I'm just going to put this rant/analysis in spoiler tags, in case people want to skip it.
Because I get rather long-winded in my explanation/analysis here.)

Spoiler:

First, the GM has to decide what exactly "50% of the body" even means. If i wear a Heavy Deadboy chest plate, with MDC hide armor for my head, arms, and legs, is that 50% of the body that's covered in artificial stuff?
Many GMs would probably say "Yes," but they'd have to make the call because the book never explains what it's talking about.

So then spells cost 20% more to cast while I'm in armor. Okay.
The GM will have to decide what to do with decimals. Like if I cast a spell for 1 PPE, does it now cost me 1.2 PPE, and I need to track that?
Or are we rounding off, so that spell still costs me 1 PPE?
I'd expect most GMs to round down.
Most first level spells cost <5 PPE, which means there is no change when I'm casting them, unless the GM wants me to track PPE past the decimal point.
With higher level spells, we're looking at basically 1 extra point of PPE per 5 points of standard casting cost.
It's not until level 4 that spells in the RMB (not looking at the BOM right now) start casting 10 points of PPE, so most things can be cast up until that point with the big whopping penalty of 1 extra PPE.
Why bother?
Like, Armor of Ithan costs 10 PPE, and that'd be 12 PPE with the penalty.
An average LLW starts with 135 PPE.
So instead of casting AoI 13 times in a day, I can only cast it 10 times.
But I've rarely ever needed to cast that many spells in one day, so who cares...?
NOT a big penalty.

And with the bigger spells where 20% of the casting cost is significant?
Well, those are typically cast using borrowed PPE taken from cultists, ley lines, powerful magic items, and so forth.
So again, it's not likely to ruin anybody's day, and not likely to make any significant difference.

Anyway, say I cast Armor of Ithan for the whopping 12 points of PPE.
Now I have to roll percentile dice:
1-20 = "reduce the spell damage or effects by 1d4x10%."
This spell has no damage. The GM has to decide what the "effects" of the spell are, and how this applies.
Is the MDC an "effect"? Probably? GM's call.
I roll the dice a second time, as will happen every single time I cast a spell, which is a waste of everybody's time.
If I roll a 1 or 2, then I only get 8-9 MDC per level. Again, it's at the "why bother" level of interference. Not likely to make much difference.
If I roll a 3 or 4, then it's annoying, but not exactly "I'm going to skip wearing decent armor entirely because of this possible effect" level of annoying. Slightly impaired AoI + good armor is still better than full AoI and bad armor.
Next the GM gets to decide whether the following other parts of the spell are "effects" that are reduced by 1d4x10%, and how exactly that applies:
-The armor is invisible.
-The armor is weightless.
-The armor is noiseless.
-The armor is a full suit.
-The armor can be instantly created.
-Magic fire, lightning, and cold do half damage to it

Have fun with that, GM!
And have even more fun deciding what 1d4x10% of 1/2 damage is, and calculating that each time it applies in combat.

Anyway, if I roll 21-40 on the penalty tables, my AoI's duration is reduced by 1d4x10%.
So instead of 60 seconds per level, it's now only 54 seconds per level (who cares? why bother?), or only 48 seconds per level (who cares, why bother?), or 42 seconds per level (Eh. This MIGHT possibly matter in some battle, but probably not), or 36 second per level (I'll take my chances that either I won't roll this one, OR that even if I do, the combat won't last long enough to matter; 36 seconds is still over two full melee rounds, and a deadly firefight at first level doesn't necessarily last that long. At 2nd level, that's nearly 5 melee rounds. By 3rd level that still lasts longer than most battles.

If I roll a 41-60 on the penalty table, then my AoI's range is reduced by 1d4x10%.
The range is "self or touch."
So... NOTHING happens unless the GM wants to get really creative with this.

If I roll a 60-80 on the penalty table, then both range is reduced (i.e., nothing happens) AND the duration is reduced (i.e., nothing much happens other than number crunching and time-wasting).

And if I roll 81-100? Then no penalties at all.

So with spells like AoI, what we're looking at is that the net result of the casting penalties are:
a) An insignificant boost in spell cost.
b) I have to roll percentile dice where there's a 40% chance that nothing at all happens, and a 60% chance that there's a 50% chance that nothing significant happens.
I'll take those odds.

Then there are spells like "Negate Poison/Toxin."
It would cost 6 PPE instead of 5. Big whoop.
The range cannot be reduced.
The duration cannot be reduced.
There is only a 20% chance that anything bad would happen, and the worst case scenario would be that the GM has to decide what 10%-40% of "turning a poisonous substeance inert, rendering it harmless" entails.
Best guess is that the poison would inflict 10%-40% of its normal damage, instead of zero damage, but just like with the previous penalties, a penalty of 10%-20% isn't likely to be significant, and a penalty of 20%-40% isn't like to be a big deal in the vast majority of castings.

Then there are damage spells. Let's look at Call Lightning.
This spell would cost 18 PPE instead of 15. Meh. Kinda annoying, potentially, maybe? Just budget it into your PPE accounting.

Damage being reduced could be a problem, depending on circumstances; that's the main thing the spell does, damage.
The spell does an average of 3.5 MD per level of the caster.
So a 2nd level mage casting Call Lighting for what would normally be 7 MD on average, would instead see that dropped to 6 MD (who cares) at the -10% level. Who cares?
At the -20% level, we're looking at 5.6 damage. So the GM makes a call whether that nets out as 5 damage, or 6 damage. If the GM goes with 6 damage, then again, who cares?
If the GM goes with 5 damage, meh, I still don't care.
At the -30 and -40% ranges, we're looking at 4.9 damage (i.e, 5 damage, as per above, unless the GM gets weird about things) and 4.2 damage (i.e., 4 damage) respectively.
Only doing 4 damage on a spell that should do 7 MD would suck if it happened every time, but it won't.
For every 5 castings of the spell, the damage will be reduced only 1 time.
For every time the damage IS reduced, there's basically a 75% chance that it won't be a big enough damage reduction to matter, and certainly that it won't be as much of a factor as the variation provided by the damage dice in the first place.

Range being reduced COULD matter, if you're casting the spell at max range, but I don't think I've seen that happen often.
Usually magical ranged combat spells still have such poor range that they're only used in close or close-ish quarters where even a 40% penalty isn't going to make a difference.
The range is 300', so basically 1 football field's length.
Would a 10% reduction matter in most cases where range matters at all? VERY probably not.
Would a 20% drop matter? Doubt it.
30-40%? Sure, but the odds are strongly against you both being in a situation where that kind of drop matters AND also having the dice lead you to this result.
Again, we're looking at a 20% chance of even getting to the point where there's a 50% chance of this kind of penalty being imposed.

The duration is instant. Cannot be reduced.

So... with Call Lightning, we're looking at a 40% chance that nothing goes wrong, a 20% chance that there's a 50% chance that something will go wrong depending on the circumstances of your combat, and a 20% chance that there's a 25% chance that your damage will be significantly reduced for this one casting.

These are not penalties that really matter, nor that are intended to actually be played out.

They're a lazy, barely thought-out bluff to keep players from putting their characters in tech-based armor, in a game where virtually all mages start with tech-based armor as a default, where few to any viable alternatives to tech armor have even been statted out (even fewer back when the rule was introduced), and where the alternatives that do exist tend to be hard to get and/or tend to net out as basically the same as their artificial equivalent.

I highly doubt anybody actually uses these rules as-written, and if they do I assume it's only because none of their players bother to put the rules to the test by just ignoring the bluff of potential penalties.

They're technically a nerf, but even in the case where somebody applies them, they're not a very big nerf, especially compared to the boost in spell power.
The armor penalties mean getting pinged for a few extra PPE here or there, and a slight chance the damage of your spell will be reduced by as much as 40%.
The FoM spells mean that if you get one at low levels, you could be inflicting 1d6x10 damage per spell instead 1d6 damage per spell.
(Okay, casting time comes into this a bit. Sub Particle Acceleration takes what, 2 attacks to cast? Where low-level spells could inflict 1d6 MD in a single casting. So it's more like a x5 boost instead of a x10 boost, but still.
Beyond that, there's stuff like Throwing Stones which lets an average mage with 4 attacks per melee crank out 7d6 MD potentially per single casting over 2 melees at first level, compared to older spells requiring multiple castings at only 2 castings per melee)

[killgore444]

And I wouldn't use the fact that I've only rarely had GMs accommodate Techno Wizard characters as an argument that Techno Wizards didn't get significant power creep.

I've never actually had a player interested in playing a TW (same as I've never had one interested in playing an operator or mechanic or research scientist). When it comes down to it, the way the class is described, it seems like all you'd ever do is spend time in the shop building stuff for other people. So I've at best glanced at the TW section of RUE.

Techno-magic bothers me for a completely different reason though, and thanks to some one on this board, I can now articulate why. Techno-magic is supposed to be TECHNOLOGY POWERED by magic. Or MAGIC POWERED by technology. It is not supposed to be a magic staff that uses random modern things. A car that has it's fuel tank replaced by a Talisman, perfect. A wand that casts the repair object spell with a bog standard e-clip attached to power it, just as good. That's the type of things I think of when I see TECHNO-MAGIC! I do not think of a wand shaped sort of like a gun that casts lighting strike and uses the users own PPE.

Although I do wonder, with all the new rules about how negatively metal and fabricated materials such as plastic and electronics affect magic, how is ANYTHING the TW does legitimately possible?

Mental Blast... snip

As a GM, I just decided that the energy bolt spell which does the EXACT same damage it did in PFRPG and other SDC setting was just a typo. When they copy/pasted from other books, they forgot to change the damage like they did for EVERY OTHER SPELL! I mean come on, it has the exact same PPE cost as it does in SDC settings, just like all the other spells that got upgraded to MDC.

But they also start with a "vehicle of choice," ...Snip

Of course, this all depends on the GM, but that's true of every aspect of Rifts.

While I'm seeing what you're saying for most of this, even if I disagree with a lot of it, on this one I'm going to have to throw a giant NOPE your way.

I'm fairly generous as GMs go. I especially am much more lenient on magic users in PBs since the tend to get the big old shaft. But selling starting equipment is for me, a no go. Even if you could find someone who would buy it from an unknown user turned seller, you're going to get, depending on the rolls for the purchasers and yours Appraisal and Bargain skills, between 10% to 50% of market price. And honestly, that's actually kind of generous. This IS used equipment. Try selling a non-classic used car to get an idea of what sort of market value you're going to get.

And that's assuming you don't botch a roll in trying to locate a buyer and get someone who will just shot you and take your stuff. Or finding out that the 'friend' you bought it off of had stolen it in the first place. Actually, that's a whole other tangent on the importance of number of skills and skill selection. And psychics get just as nerfed here as magic types.

unless the GM decides book price is stupid and nobody would buy at that price because everybody knows an operator with a nuclear power pack and jumper cables.

Or the GM just looks at the amount of actual cash/credits people have and decide that there are cheaper ways to go about things. Besides, as both a player and a GM, I've always felt that any power armor or robot comes with the ability to charge e-clips (as due many military vehicles). Something I picked up from either Robotech or Battletech, not sure which. And as much as I harp on spell-casters getting nerfed, not only would the LLW have to actually have the technical skills to do this, but then I'd just be p***ing on the technology based characters to boost the LLW. Something I have no desire to do.

A GM can always say that certain weapons, armor, vehicles, or even class powers are unavailable, or don't apply to the character, or whatever, or the NPC or whatever.

While true, it seems that only spell-casters consistently are on the receiving end of this.

Heck, a lot of GMs seem to use mook rules, where they don't even stat minor bad guys, so your PCs could mow down Xiticix like they were nothing until there was a Big Encounter or Big Bad or whatever.

The true mook rules, no. But I do use a lesser version for simplicity's sake. I, like 90% of GMs world wide, have a limited amount of free time, so I use abbreviated stats on non-important combat types, or almost no stats on non-combat types who'll fold no up no matter if they're stated or not.

1. Where's you get the XP penalty thing...?

Not sure if Mysteries of Magic (which discusses it a bit) came out before the article in Rifter or not, but the article was reprinted in the Book of Magic. In the write up about how the author sees magic (which does NOTHING to address the many points made about the Palladium magic system) he goes on a rant about how spell casters should always use magic first, and always try and figure out ways to make magic work for a situation. That anyone who just carries a gun or dons normal armor is missing the point and not playing his character correctly.

Since one of the key components of XP is ROLE-playing, not playing your ROLE correctly would result in XP penalties. Making it worse, since that appeared in a canon book (instead of just the Rifter), it's now canon as well. I honestly wonder if the author plays anywhere to close to canon rules on magic, because I just don't see how someone with no effective combat spells can be said to be not playing his character correctly if he just pulls a gun and shots the bad guy. Heck, there was even a Harry Dresden short story that had this.
Evil (incompetent buffoon) mageling; "Prepare to defend youself!" pulling out focuses and magic do-hickies.
Harry Dresden pulls out .357 magnum revolver.
Evil imbeciles sidekick; "What are you doing?"
HD; "I'm a fixing to defend myself!"

Still, if you read over the mage armor rules, it's not really a very big nerf at all. It mostly just means you have to pay an extra point or two of PPE per spell, then roll some dice on a few tables where maybe perhaps one of the spell penalties might apply to your situation depending on the circumstances.

I'll grant you, not as bad as it was in PFRPG from which the rule derives, it's still annoying and nerfy to someone who took a page out of an NPCs book and used stolen Dead Boy armor he had enchanted by an alchemist in the original game.

Besides, environmental armor has those nice computers in them with heads up displays. And anyone, player or NPC, can make a called shot against unprotected areas of the body. Unless you're in fully enclosed armor, it pays huge dividends to your enemy to spend some time AIMING.
Also, I as a GM, like several other GMs I've played with, understand the awful power of explosions. Specifically, that they damage EVERYTHING in a blast area unless it is FULLY protected and/or covered by something that can take the blast. It might only be a bit of neck and the edges of your face around your gas mask, but those areas just allowed you to take the full brunt of the damage, completely bypassing your armor (not really, it ALSO took the damage, but is likely in better shape). Hope you convinced your GM to allow you to play a MDC race.

It's more of a penalty for the player and everybody else at the table than for the characters, as the biggest penalty is all the extra rolling and a bit of math.

It's why most of the GMs I've gamed with would further penalize you for disrupting the game by having more encounters with CS Nega-physics or psi-nullifiers or some other **** like that until you play your character correctly and stop disrupting the game. You aren't the only one who can be petty in those situations, get to know your GM first.

Although I will admit, that while I will USUALLY walk from a game that I dislike, there have been a GM or 2 that has caused me to stick it out JUST to be a disruptive p****! Generally if I walk, and the GM (and players) don't say anything, or say the correct things and are polite about it, that's all there is to it. But when people get rude or snarky, and start talking s***, then I'm more than willing to throw down.

Seems reasonable.
I just ignore the mage armor rule entirely when I run, and if I played under a GM who insists on the by-the-book penalties, I'd just wear whatever armor I want and waste everybody's time rolling extra dice every time I cast a spell until the GM got sick of the stupid rule.

As much as I complain about it, I don't want to just totally ignore it either, even as a player. It's one of those weird things that I WANT to keep it in the spirit of the rules, but hate the rule itself.
Besides, I want to PLAY, not just be a GM. I can normally get a GM to go with it if I just use a skill slot to say I can now do it. And fact I've done it a couple of times without asking the GM ahead of time.
GM "OK, you know that's extra PPE and a fail roll right?"
Me "Ohm, no, I took the cast in armor skill. Negates the penalty."
GM "What?! To hell with it, ok."
Doesn't always work though.

They're a lazy, barely thought-out bluff to keep players from putting their characters in tech-based armor, in a game where virtually all mages start with tech-based armor as a default, where few to any viable alternatives to tech armor have even been statted out (even fewer back when the rule was introduced), and where the alternatives that do exist tend to be hard to get and/or tend to net out as basically the same as their artificial equivalent.

And unfortunately, there are more than a few people who GM who also take them seriously. And as much as we're talking about house rules to ignore them, it's 50/50 on which way it goes with house rules. Some ignore, some simplify by saying it increases cost by 50% (or 100%) and you have to make a Principles of Magic roll or the spell simply fails and you waste the PPE. Could go either way.

For me, some of the house rules I use for magic:

Spoiler:

First, I use a variant form of PPE channeling from the Rifter. To long to print here, and I forgot what number it was in in the Rifter, but basically, LLWs and Warlocks; 5 PPE per level per action on invocations. Shifters get only 3 since they specialize in rituals. This, though it uses similar terms is different then channeling energy from a ley line.

I allow duel classes, just add the XP cost to level together. When doing ISP and PPE, either keep separate tabs and allow no crossover, or rule for the 1st level on each and take the highest, but add the per level improvement for the lower one as a 1st level boom, and then add the per level increase together after that. Likewise you gain the skills of both classes, use the expert rules from Rifter #30 whenever duplicate skills come up.

All magic using OCCs may use a single OCC skill (or 2 other skills) to wear armor at no penalty, or a single other skill and have to make a Principle of Magic roll or loss half the PPE and fail to cast (no other rolls). Armor can also be enchanted to do the same thing,and any use of the power Bio-Aura also negates it.

No Elemental Fusionists. I use Warlocks. They must pick a primary element, but can still use the other elements. All spells and summons from primary element are cast at +1 level. All spells and summons from opposed elements are cast at -1 level. They gain the same PPE as Shifters (1d6x10 plus 70 adding 5d6 per level after). In many ways, a Warlock is just a Shifter who made a more exclusive pact with the elemental forces. They may, per action, channel 0.4 PPE per level times the level of the Ley Line (most ley lines are level 10, see below). Warlocks learn, at 1st level, 4 spells per each level, levels 1-4 (2 must be from primary element, opposed element costs 2 choices), and 1 spell from each level 5-8 which MUST be from primary element.

Not many changes to Shifters other than then the changes to PPE (1d6x10 plus 70 adding 5d6 per level after). This gives the same max PPE at first level while reducing the spread potential and the possibility of suck, but increasing the ridiculously low improvement per level. I also use the variant shifter from Rifter 15 that make them more explorers than summoners (if they chose). Since they are more about rituals than invocations, they may only, per action, channel 0.3 PPE per level times the level of the Ley Line. No change to magic learned since this OCC is so focused.

For Ley Line Walkers I grant 2d6x10 plus 80 PPE at first level, plus 1d4x10 per level thereafter. Again, this leaves the same max at first levels while reducing the chance of being shafted with a bad roll. In previous games, I'd experimented with 3d6x10 plus 120 at first level to increase the max by 100, but decided instead to go with this after I was told about the ability of LLWs to overcharge their PPE (which for some reason I didn't know about). They may, per action, channel 0.5 PPE per level times the level of the Ley Line. LLWs learn, at first level, 3 spells from each spell level 1-4, 1 spell from each spell level 5-8 and then 3 spells from ANY level, even 15th (but no spells of legend).

PPE overcharging (which any spell caster can do, not just LLWs) works sort of like the spell energy sphere. You may store an extra amount equal to half your base PPE per level. So 0.5Xs at 1st level, 1 Xs at 2nd, 1.5Xs at 3rd, etc. This is VERY short term however. You leak 2d6 per hour that you're awake, and in addition to that leakage, you lose 10% of what you initially stored per every hour you are asleep or unconscious. This leakage results in visual, auditory and olfactory effects which render stealth impossible unless on a Ley Line, and in fact increase the range of Dog-Boys and Psi-Stalkers (and all others with similar abilities) by the same multiple (based on what you stored, not your max). It also grants them a percentage bonus equal to 1/10th the amount of PPE you have stored. So don't do this if you're trying to be sneaky.

Almost all ley lines are power level 10. If a random roll is used, I roll 1d6. If it come up a 1 or a 6, then I roll 2d6 of different colors. The first one determines up or down or if it negates previous roll. A roll of 1 reduces the power of the line by 1d6 (the second dice), a 2 results in a loss of 1 or 2 (high/low on second dice). A 3 or 4 negates the first roll and the line stays a 10. A roll of 5 increases it by 1 or 2. and a 6 increases it by 1d6.
Ley line junctures simply add their power levels together. And I use multiples of power available to be channeled rather than set amounts for celestial events.

What do you think?

[Killer Cyborg]

And I wouldn't use the fact that I've only rarely had GMs accommodate Techno Wizard characters as an argument that Techno Wizards didn't get significant power creep.

I've never actually had a player interested in playing a TW (same as I've never had one interested in playing an operator or mechanic or research scientist). When it comes down to it, the way the class is described, it seems like all you'd ever do is spend time in the shop building stuff for other people. So I've at best glanced at the TW section of RUE.

The device-creation can all be done off-camera, before or between sessions.
Part of the appeal is that TWs can start off with technowizardry devices, often of their own devising. Plus in RMB they had actual engineering skills, IIRC, so were something of a skill monkey in addition to a mage.
RUE nerfed theirs skills, I think, but made them a bit more viable as straight-up casters to compensate.
Overall, I prefer the RMB versions.

Techno-magic bothers me for a completely different reason though, and thanks to some one on this board, I can now articulate why. Techno-magic is supposed to be TECHNOLOGY POWERED by magic. Or MAGIC POWERED by technology. It is not supposed to be a magic staff that uses random modern things. A car that has it's fuel tank replaced by a Talisman, perfect. A wand that casts the repair object spell with a bog standard e-clip attached to power it, just as good. That's the type of things I think of when I see TECHNO-MAGIC! I do not think of a wand shaped sort of like a gun that casts lighting strike and uses the users own PPE.

You are exactly right to make this complaint, and are far from the only one to do so.
This is one of the reasons why I preferred the RMB TWs to the RUE version.

Although I do wonder, with all the new rules about how negatively metal and fabricated materials such as plastic and electronics affect magic, how is ANYTHING the TW does legitimately possible?

Because Palladium doesn't care about consistency in their own rules anymore, not on that level.
I mean, the RUE section on mage armor even mentions that Techno Wizard armor is cool for mages, but with nothing clarifying whether that means any mage can wear any kind of TW armor without penalties, or whether there's supposed to be special unstatted TW armor that allows mages to cast normally, or what.

Mental Blast... snip

As a GM, I just decided that the energy bolt spell which does the EXACT same damage it did in PFRPG and other SDC setting was just a typo. When they copy/pasted from other books, they forgot to change the damage like they did for EVERY OTHER SPELL! I mean come on, it has the exact same PPE cost as it does in SDC settings, just like all the other spells that got upgraded to MDC.

It's been listed as SDC damage so many times in so many books, even in NPC and race descriptions, that I can't believe it's an accident.
But if YOU want to believe that, I won't argue!
It make no sense that the spell still does SDC.

But they also start with a "vehicle of choice," ...Snip

Of course, this all depends on the GM, but that's true of every aspect of Rifts.

While I'm seeing what you're saying for most of this, even if I disagree with a lot of it, on this one I'm going to have to throw a giant NOPE your way.

I'm fairly generous as GMs go. I especially am much more lenient on magic users in PBs since the tend to get the big old shaft. But selling starting equipment is for me, a no go. Even if you could find someone who would buy it from an unknown user turned seller, you're going to get, depending on the rolls for the purchasers and yours Appraisal and Bargain skills, between 10% to 50% of market price. And honestly, that's actually kind of generous. This IS used equipment. Try selling a non-classic used car to get an idea of what sort of market value you're going to get.

Like I said, it depends on the GM.
I quoted the book prices for black market resale and the original product.
A GM can interfere with that, of course, but that's the GM interfering.
The default is that what I described is not unreasonable.

But why go bother keeping a mage from trading in a tech vehicle they might not need or want, for a magic spell that's 10-20% of the value?
I believe we've agreed that mages tend to not get enough support from GMs when it comes to obtaining spells in general, and this seems like an extension of that.

unless the GM decides book price is stupid and nobody would buy at that price because everybody knows an operator with a nuclear power pack and jumper cables.

Or the GM just looks at the amount of actual cash/credits people have and decide that there are cheaper ways to go about things. Besides, as both a player and a GM, I've always felt that any power armor or robot comes with the ability to charge e-clips (as due many military vehicles). Something I picked up from either Robotech or Battletech, not sure which. And as much as I harp on spell-casters getting nerfed, not only would the LLW have to actually have the technical skills to do this, but then I'd just be p***ing on the technology based characters to boost the LLW. Something I have no desire to do.

When you say "many military vehicles," which ones are you talking about, and when did the books they're in come out?
I know of only a couple off hand, I think, and I don't think they existed until maybe a decade ago. Hard to keep track, but I think it was well after RUE came out.

A GM can always say that certain weapons, armor, vehicles, or even class powers are unavailable, or don't apply to the character, or whatever, or the NPC or whatever.

While true, it seems that only spell-casters consistently are on the receiving end of this.

Depends on the GM, but as a trend I agree that tech-based characters tend to be more catered to than casters.
Personally, my rule when I ran was to only allow stuff from books I was familiar with, and to keep things in line with whatever balance I had for the adventure I was running.
Often this meant no Naruni tech or other exotic stuff.

1. Where's you get the XP penalty thing...?

Not sure if Mysteries of Magic (which discusses it a bit) came out before the article in Rifter or not, but the article was reprinted in the Book of Magic. In the write up about how the author sees magic (which does NOTHING to address the many points made about the Palladium magic system) he goes on a rant about how spell casters should always use magic first, and always try and figure out ways to make magic work for a situation. That anyone who just carries a gun or dons normal armor is missing the point and not playing his character correctly.

The article in the BoM (I don't have Mysteries of Magic) is both wrong-headed and often misinterpreted.
I've argued about it frequently here on the message board over the years.
Suffice to say, I disagree with the author's philosophy of magic, which would turn mages into magic-obsessed one-trick ponies who would stupidly try to cast a spell in a situation where an E-Rifle would save their life.
Kev endorses the article, but his comments make me think he's not necessarily endorsing the parts people think he is.

Personally, I go the other way; I see mages as saving their PPE for important stuff, things that require magic, things less mundane than firing an energy blast at a mook for less range and less damage than a good energy pistol would provide.
And the fact that most mages start with zero magic equipment, and plenty of tech gear, supports me more than the author of that essay.
As do, IMO, Kev's notes within that essay.
I see no reason to play mages as characters who will always play an Ace where a Deuce would get the job done. The fact that they think highly of magic would be a reason NOT to waste their precious PPE on lesser things.

Since one of the key components of XP is ROLE-playing, not playing your ROLE correctly would result in XP penalties.

Eh. That's one take, I suppose. I remember the essay talking about bonuses for playing "in character," though, not about penalties for not doing so.

Making it worse, since that appeared in a canon book (instead of just the Rifter), it's now canon as well. I honestly wonder if the author plays anywhere to close to canon rules on magic, because I just don't see how someone with no effective combat spells can be said to be not playing his character correctly if he just pulls a gun and shots the bad guy. Heck, there was even a Harry Dresden short story that had this.
Evil (incompetent buffoon) mageling; "Prepare to defend youself!" pulling out focuses and magic do-hickies.
Harry Dresden pulls out .357 magnum revolver.
Evil imbeciles sidekick; "What are you doing?"
HD; "I'm a fixing to defend myself!"

Well, it's canon that this is an essay that Kev agrees with on various levels.
That's about it, as far as I know.
I haven't seen "using magic to solve a problem" added to the XP charts.

Still, if you read over the mage armor rules, it's not really a very big nerf at all. It mostly just means you have to pay an extra point or two of PPE per spell, then roll some dice on a few tables where maybe perhaps one of the spell penalties might apply to your situation depending on the circumstances.

I'll grant you, not as bad as it was in PFRPG from which the rule derives, it's still annoying and nerfy to someone who took a page out of an NPCs book and used stolen Dead Boy armor he had enchanted by an alchemist in the original game.

Yeah, the fact that mages in Rifts could use most armor and weapons just like everybody else is specifically what drew me into the game, and away from AD&D 2nd Ed where mages mostly still had to use daggers, darts, and staves as weapons, and robes/bracers for armor.
So I consider the change something of a betrayal, emotionally.

Besides, environmental armor has those nice computers in them with heads up displays. And anyone, player or NPC, can make a called shot against unprotected areas of the body. Unless you're in fully enclosed armor, it pays huge dividends to your enemy to spend some time AIMING.
Also, I as a GM, like several other GMs I've played with, understand the awful power of explosions. Specifically, that they damage EVERYTHING in a blast area unless it is FULLY protected and/or covered by something that can take the blast. It might only be a bit of neck and the edges of your face around your gas mask, but those areas just allowed you to take the full brunt of the damage, completely bypassing your armor (not really, it ALSO took the damage, but is likely in better shape). Hope you convinced your GM to allow you to play a MDC race.

After various arguments about blast radius damage online, I got a chance to ask Kevin in person once if the blast radius hits every exposed part of people in it, or just the Main Body.
He said "it depends on how deadly you want your game to be," or words to that effect. I think I have a more specific quote in an old post somewhere on the forums.
Basically he neither endorsed nor condemned the idea of a blast hitting every part of a person.

But by RUE rules as written, anything that's not a Called Shot (or a natural 20) hits the Main Body by default, and as blast areas can't technically make Called Shots, I'd say the RAW take would be that explosions only hit the Main Body.
I like the way you play, though, and am not for a moment suggesting you're in the wrong for doing so.

Also, environmental armor has temperature control, which would actually be quite important in real life in any number of situations, as well as the ability to keep out fleas and other pests.
I wouldn't want to deprive casters of that!

It's more of a penalty for the player and everybody else at the table than for the characters, as the biggest penalty is all the extra rolling and a bit of math.

It's why most of the GMs I've gamed with would further penalize you for disrupting the game by having more encounters with CS Nega-physics or psi-nullifiers or some other **** like that until you play your character correctly and stop disrupting the game. You aren't the only one who can be petty in those situations, get to know your GM first.

But I would be playing my character correctly; I'd be taking the penalties as listed in the books.
There's even a mention (RUE 113) that around 10% of mages wear full-body armor, with the casting penalties for conventional armor being one of the main listed reasons.
So my character is just one of that 10% of mages that exist in canon.

I'm not saying a GM wouldn't get petty about things, but if/when they DID, they'd be doing so because I was operating within the rules, not because I was disrupting the game.
Unless it's considered to be "disrupting the game" whenever a player takes an action that results in a GM having to use rules he doesn't like using, but refused to alter or abandon.
It's the rules that would be disruptive, and I don't make the rules.

Seems reasonable.
I just ignore the mage armor rule entirely when I run, and if I played under a GM who insists on the by-the-book penalties, I'd just wear whatever armor I want and waste everybody's time rolling extra dice every time I cast a spell until the GM got sick of the stupid rule.

As much as I complain about it, I don't want to just totally ignore it either, even as a player. It's one of those weird things that I WANT to keep it in the spirit of the rules, but hate the rule itself.
Besides, I want to PLAY, not just be a GM. I can normally get a GM to go with it if I just use a skill slot to say I can now do it. And fact I've done it a couple of times without asking the GM ahead of time.
GM "OK, you know that's extra PPE and a fail roll right?"
Me "Ohm, no, I took the cast in armor skill. Negates the penalty."
GM "What?! To hell with it, ok."
Doesn't always work though.

There's a potential skill workaround, there's a potential for a TW enhancement workaround, or even a non-armor TW device workaround.
It's just silly that Palladium put us in this spot in the first place, and for what gain?
For a company that's repeatedly said they don't worry about balance, they certainly put in a lot of extra effort to try to balance mages... even though mages are overall kinda shafted in the first place.

They're a lazy, barely thought-out bluff to keep players from putting their characters in tech-based armor, in a game where virtually all mages start with tech-based armor as a default, where few to any viable alternatives to tech armor have even been statted out (even fewer back when the rule was introduced), and where the alternatives that do exist tend to be hard to get and/or tend to net out as basically the same as their artificial equivalent.

And unfortunately, there are more than a few people who GM who also take them seriously. And as much as we're talking about house rules to ignore them, it's 50/50 on which way it goes with house rules. Some ignore, some simplify by saying it increases cost by 50% (or 100%) and you have to make a Principles of Magic roll or the spell simply fails and you waste the PPE. Could go either way.

For me, some of the house rules I use for magic:

Spoiler:

First, I use a variant form of PPE channeling from the Rifter. To long to print here, and I forgot what number it was in in the Rifter, but basically, LLWs and Warlocks; 5 PPE per level per action on invocations. Shifters get only 3 since they specialize in rituals. This, though it uses similar terms is different then channeling energy from a ley line.

I allow duel classes, just add the XP cost to level together. When doing ISP and PPE, either keep separate tabs and allow no crossover, or rule for the 1st level on each and take the highest, but add the per level improvement for the lower one as a 1st level boom, and then add the per level increase together after that. Likewise you gain the skills of both classes, use the expert rules from Rifter #30 whenever duplicate skills come up.

All magic using OCCs may use a single OCC skill (or 2 other skills) to wear armor at no penalty, or a single other skill and have to make a Principle of Magic roll or loss half the PPE and fail to cast (no other rolls). Armor can also be enchanted to do the same thing,and any use of the power Bio-Aura also negates it.

No Elemental Fusionists. I use Warlocks. They must pick a primary element, but can still use the other elements. All spells and summons from primary element are cast at +1 level. All spells and summons from opposed elements are cast at -1 level. They gain the same PPE as Shifters (1d6x10 plus 70 adding 5d6 per level after). In many ways, a Warlock is just a Shifter who made a more exclusive pact with the elemental forces. They may, per action, channel 0.4 PPE per level times the level of the Ley Line (most ley lines are level 10, see below). Warlocks learn, at 1st level, 4 spells per each level, levels 1-4 (2 must be from primary element, opposed element costs 2 choices), and 1 spell from each level 5-8 which MUST be from primary element.

Not many changes to Shifters other than then the changes to PPE (1d6x10 plus 70 adding 5d6 per level after). This gives the same max PPE at first level while reducing the spread potential and the possibility of suck, but increasing the ridiculously low improvement per level. I also use the variant shifter from Rifter 15 that make them more explorers than summoners (if they chose). Since they are more about rituals than invocations, they may only, per action, channel 0.3 PPE per level times the level of the Ley Line. No change to magic learned since this OCC is so focused.

For Ley Line Walkers I grant 2d6x10 plus 80 PPE at first level, plus 1d4x10 per level thereafter. Again, this leaves the same max at first levels while reducing the chance of being shafted with a bad roll. In previous games, I'd experimented with 3d6x10 plus 120 at first level to increase the max by 100, but decided instead to go with this after I was told about the ability of LLWs to overcharge their PPE (which for some reason I didn't know about). They may, per action, channel 0.5 PPE per level times the level of the Ley Line. LLWs learn, at first level, 3 spells from each spell level 1-4, 1 spell from each spell level 5-8 and then 3 spells from ANY level, even 15th (but no spells of legend).

PPE overcharging (which any spell caster can do, not just LLWs) works sort of like the spell energy sphere. You may store an extra amount equal to half your base PPE per level. So 0.5Xs at 1st level, 1 Xs at 2nd, 1.5Xs at 3rd, etc. This is VERY short term however. You leak 2d6 per hour that you're awake, and in addition to that leakage, you lose 10% of what you initially stored per every hour you are asleep or unconscious. This leakage results in visual, auditory and olfactory effects which render stealth impossible unless on a Ley Line, and in fact increase the range of Dog-Boys and Psi-Stalkers (and all others with similar abilities) by the same multiple (based on what you stored, not your max). It also grants them a percentage bonus equal to 1/10th the amount of PPE you have stored. So don't do this if you're trying to be sneaky.

Almost all ley lines are power level 10. If a random roll is used, I roll 1d6. If it come up a 1 or a 6, then I roll 2d6 of different colors. The first one determines up or down or if it negates previous roll. A roll of 1 reduces the power of the line by 1d6 (the second dice), a 2 results in a loss of 1 or 2 (high/low on second dice). A 3 or 4 negates the first roll and the line stays a 10. A roll of 5 increases it by 1 or 2. and a 6 increases it by 1d6.
Ley line junctures simply add their power levels together. And I use multiples of power available to be channeled rather than set amounts for celestial events.

What do you think?

Seems pretty reasonable to me.

[killgore444]

The device-creation can all be done off-camera, before or between sessions.
Part of the appeal is that TWs can start off with technowizardry devices, often of their own devising. Plus in RMB they had actual engineering skills, IIRC, so were something of a skill monkey in addition to a mage.
RUE nerfed theirs skills, I think, but made them a bit more viable as straight-up casters to compensate.
Overall, I prefer the RMB versions.

Like I said, I really can't comment because I've never had anyone interested in playing one. I honestly never even bothered to read it in RUE.

You are exactly right to make this complaint, and are far from the only one to do so.
This is one of the reasons why I preferred the RMB TWs to the RUE version.

That actually makes me happy. That so many other people look at the class and think; "Oh, battery operate magic spells" or of being able to touch a rune on their wall and power their bog standard microwave.

It's been listed as SDC damage so many times in so many books, even in NPC and race descriptions, that I can't believe it's an accident.
But if YOU want to believe that, I won't argue!
It make no sense that the spell still does SDC.

I think it was a mistake at first, but after enough complaints and negative comments whoever was responsible decided to double-down rather than admit a mistake. Depends on the tone used when the first complaints hit.

As for the argument that spell casters need an SDC spell, just say any spell can be reduced to SDC from MDC at the casters choice. That way he can still kill a rabbit for food without having to pick up tiny junks from the dirt, but still be able to blast juicer in armor.

But why go bother keeping a mage from trading in a tech vehicle they might not need or want, for a magic spell that's 10-20% of the value?
I believe we've agreed that mages tend to not get enough support from GMs when it comes to obtaining spells in general, and this seems like an extension of that.

It's not JUST the mages. I've had some, let's just say, negative encounters with players trying to trade up on beginning gear before they got something to replace it. NOT just the mages. In fact, most of my players that tried this were Men at arms. Most of the mages in my games look at the gear and wonder what they could use that for (such as using their line drifting power to provide lift for a jet pack so it gets a speed bonus (much better than a wingboard btw)). But like so many things, a few bad apples will ruin it for others, and I tend to throw situations at players in low levels that they need their gear.

When you say "many military vehicles," which ones are you talking about, and when did the books they're in come out?
I know of only a couple off hand, I think, and I don't think they existed until maybe a decade ago. Hard to keep track, but I think it was well after RUE came out.

Anything with a nuclear power plant. I've never really put to much thought into honestly. As for when they came out, I didn't get a copy of RUE until well after the Coalition Wars Book came out, but I couldn't tell you when RUE actually came out.

Yeah, the fact that mages in Rifts could use most armor and weapons just like everybody else is specifically what drew me into the game, and away from AD&D 2nd Ed where mages mostly still had to use daggers, darts, and staves as weapons, and robes/bracers for armor.

Agreed.

So I consider the change something of a betrayal, emotionally.

I wonder if that was what grated me so much about it? I know I hated the rule, but like the issue with techno-magic, I couldn't figure out the reason. One of the things I liked about GURPS was you could play a cyborg or a robot who was a spell caster as well, did RMB allow that as well, can't actually remember that one (and do NOT want to try and find a rule that might not even exist). I know they say in later books that cyberware disrupts your connection to magic, just like in the game Shadowrun (I so want to make a comment about conversions), but can't remember if it was in RMB or not.

But by RUE rules as written, anything that's not a Called Shot (or a natural 20) hits the Main Body by default, and as blast areas can't technically make Called Shots, I'd say the RAW take would be that explosions only hit the Main Body.
I like the way you play, though, and am not for a moment suggesting you're in the wrong for doing so.

I used to space it for the most part, since except for power armor, it usually wasn't a big issue. But after CWC came out with such a massive boost to CS army power (and being told that once again, mages can't cooperate with each other), I decided that the next time the GM I was playing with at the time threw a CS patrol at us, I was going to insist that EVERY single part of their armor that was in the blast radius take the full damage. It actually affects SAMAS suits more than body armor. The lowest number for MDC on BA is the arms of light deadboy armor at 55. But the hands of a smiling jack or old style samas is only 25. And unlike the larger PA or robots, the pilots biological hands are inside the mechanical glove of the samas.

Also, environmental armor has temperature control, which would actually be quite important in real life in any number of situations, as well as the ability to keep out fleas and other pests.

This is such an important feature. In Dinosaur Swamp, they actually talk about it and give GMs advice on how to get players out of their suits of armor (I got an even simpler idea, don't throw mega damage combat at them every time they do get out).

Another feature that doesn't apply to most games, I use the Nightbane rules on spells like Create Scroll. Which means you can download scrolls onto a computer. Think about all those nice nifty suites of armor with heads up displays connected to voice activated computers...

There's a potential skill workaround, there's a potential for a TW enhancement workaround, or even a non-armor TW device workaround.
It's just silly that Palladium put us in this spot in the first place, and for what gain?
For a company that's repeatedly said they don't worry about balance, they certainly put in a lot of extra effort to try to balance mages... even though mages are overall kinda shafted in the first place.

Part of it is, that the magic system was built around the PFRPG. It has to work in that world and doesn't scale AT ALL with the massive increase in power technology gives to other OCCs. Just making spell research and design less a effort in futility and, you know, admitting that yes, mages too can work together and even use common research methods scientists use.

On that note, have you ever looked at all the scientist OCCs printed in different books such as the Triax Research Scientist in the Rifter? Ever notice that there is almost never an actual skill roll for them to succeed? Just a little time and effort. The Triax one grated even more since they gain a reduced time frame by WORKING TOGETHER! Mages meanwhile have less than a 30% chance to successfully research a 1st level spell (it gets worse as the spell level goes up or if it isn't a standard spell). And even if the research does succeed, you then have to make a 2nd, completely random roll (IQ and skill need not be bothered with) and have less than a 20% chance of it actually being what you wanted.