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Rhomphaia wrote:I have actually found that MDC harms gameplay for the opposite reason. For most "standard" characters (who are fragile SDC beings), their durability is directly tied to their body armor.

Plus, the fact that in several places throughout the books, it states that mages and psychics have a strong tendency not to wear artificial armor, preferring to rely on their "natural" abilities for protection...which seems rather counter-intuitive for survival.

Dunia wrote:I have, after GMing this game for some time (about a year or two - yes yes I am a newb compared to some), but I have found that the MD/MDC and SDC differences are harming the gameplay quite alot. I mean it is a good idea, but in reality, as soon as a player learns armor of ithan (cmany mages can get it at level1) then the game takes a whole new powerlevel, just as it does when all characters get MDC armour and MD weapons at creations. I mean, even the barwench, saloon bum and the russian villager gets both MD weapons and MDC suits. So even if all players all play russian villagers, i can throw in 20 mountain lions and 300 wolves and they will either ignore them, or wade through the carcasses of the animals while going from point A to point B.

Also, last thing I did with my players were to let them face a bunch of zombies in a ruined city, but as the sombies are SDC creatures and my players have MD/MDC wespons/armour/spells, it were not the horror thiing I wanted it to be, so if I am to play by the rules, then I must throw in MD aliens/godlins/demons/dragons in order to have a horror scenario (even if I let my players have no EQ the mages will clean most of the stuff up with their spells and the pyschics will do their job with their powers.

Rhomphaia wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:

Rhomphaia wrote:I have actually found that MDC harms gameplay for the opposite reason. For most "standard" characters (who are fragile SDC beings), their durability is directly tied to their body armor.

For me, that's one of the things that makes the game WORK.
I get tired of games where people are expected to take constant physical damage to their bodies, then heal up again and get shot/stabbed up again in the next fight.
Having the focus on armor, combined with the notion that getting shot when you don't have armor on will actually KILL you, makes the game more plausible for me.

Well, take for instance Shadowrun, where a character might pull a 50-Cent and get shot a whole ****load of times and live, it's actually much more likely to be killed by one or two shots if you're caught without armor. The same idea applies here. If your armor is gone, then you're not completely screwed and actually have a chance to get away and not be vaporized. The danger is still very much there, but survival doesn't rely almost solely on blind luck if for some reason you don't have the gear to keep fighting.

A powerful necromancer with some time on his hands can make Animated Dead with the following stats:
Speed 14
PS 20 (2d6+5 SDC per attack)
4 attacks per melee
144 MDC (288 MDC by some counts)
Bone Armor for an additional 80 MDC

keir451 wrote:

A powerful necromancer with some time on his hands can make Animated Dead with the following stats:
Speed 14
PS 20 (2d6+5 SDC per attack)
4 attacks per melee
144 MDC (288 MDC by some counts)
Bone Armor for an additional 80 MDC

Ok so we've got a slow, moderately strong, moderately armored, undead minion with zero intelligence versus a NG Samson....

sybert1138 wrote:Considering the modern firearm hasn't changed a whole lot from the first cartridge round that released in 1854 it's silly to conceive that these weapons that will be created in the next 80 to 90 years are going to be 100 times more powerful.

Killer Cyborg wrote:

keir451 wrote:

A powerful necromancer with some time on his hands can make Animated Dead with the following stats:
Speed 14
PS 20 (2d6+5 SDC per attack)
4 attacks per melee
144 MDC (288 MDC by some counts)
Bone Armor for an additional 80 MDC

Ok so we've got a slow, moderately strong, moderately armored, undead minion with zero intelligence versus a NG Samson....

Really?
That's what you expect from a good zombie adventure? Guys in POWER ARMOR going up against zombies?
Whatever floats your boat.
Seems like shooting fish in a barrel to me, though. I prefer a situation where the enemy has chance of winning.

Silver Fox wrote:I do the following:

1 M.D.C. = 10 S.D.C.

By this reasoning... if a weapon can do at least 10 S.D.C. points of damage, it can inflict 1 M.D.C. of damage to an M.D.C. structure or creature. As that 1 M.D.C. also does 10 S.D.C. it gives a slightly better chance and odds of surviving getting hit. Not much. But some.

And where I'm looking at wildlife.... wolves, bears, big cats, ect can better survive and thrive in the wilds and still be a feature instead of being overrun by all the M.D.C. creatures coming through the Rifts, even if more marginally.

Killer Cyborg wrote:This has come up before.

The problem is that you (and many other people) have a number of misperceptions about the game world:
1. That MDC is more common than it actually is.
2. That MDC creatures kill more often than they do.
3. That SDC creatures are entirely defenseless against MDC threats.

Here are some threads for you to browse through:
viewtopic.php?p=1047911
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=54483
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=76601
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=42824
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=41516

Here is a post I made a while back on the subject:
viewtopic.php?p=1894005#p1894005

Killer Cyborg wrote:

runebeo wrote:Well in the last 6 to 9 months of playing our campaign I think S.D.C. damage came into play less than a dozen times and as for MDC threats are, for most people, rare. I would have to say your vision of the Rifts must be way safer than the world books lead me to believe. With millions of Xiticixs to the north, a few million Spulgorth minions on Atlantis, Dinosaurs in south west and east, evil Mystic Knights around the Marylands, Minions of Lord of the Deep in the oceans, Archie's bots can show up anywhere, plus vampires, demons, golems, dragons, ghosts, elementals, cyborgs, juicers, Coalition troops, grumpy Indians, trolls and all the monsters from the random rifts that can open anywhere, sure it's not that uncommon for the common folk to run into trouble. The strong pick on the weak because it's not as much fun when they can possibly loss.

Yup.
There's all sorts of stuff out there that wants to kill you.
It's just that in most places it's not a daily, weekly, or monthly occurrence.
Some places, not even yearly.

Read the original Rifts book.
"The average person is not likely to have psionics nor mega-damage weapons and armor. He is not a master of magic nor holder of great truths. He is one of the ordinary folk who live and struggle with the day to day hardships of life."

"The entire world is mostly wilderness with scattered little towns, villages, and outposts. Cities are fairly uncommon, generally speaking. The environment, regardless of the level of technology or magic, is feudal-like, with kingdoms rather than cities, states, provinces, or nations as thought of in the 20th century.
The majority of these feudal kingdoms are ruled by, or appoint, or employ, a protector of group of protectors, much like the knights of old. The protector(s) is always a powerful warrior, frequently armed with power armor or giant robot vehicles. Men of arms seem to be the norm among these champions, but they can be mages, psychic, mutants, and even monsters."

The worldbooks are indeed chock full of MDC stuff, but there's a good reason for that:
RAG, 105
"Barbarians and wilderness people are the average folks of Rifts North America. We don't talk about them much because their lives are pretty grim and not particularly exotic. They are not the stuff of high adventure, so instead we tend to focus on the big cities, kingdoms and Coalition States. However, such bastions of civilization are, however, the true rarity."

The writers write about the stuff that is exciting and exotic, and that's not normal people doing normal things.
They don't write a World Book about the 100 square mile patch of Wisconsin where nothing really happens; they write about the most dangerous or potentially exciting places of the planet.

Read RUE.
P. 19, from Erin Tarn:
"I have had city folk question how it can be with all the fabled towns, tribes, clans, D-Bees and monsters they hear about, that one doesn't stumble over one hiding behind every tree. It doesn't work that way. The wildlife hides from intruders like us, the innocent animals run to avoid becoming hunted, and the predators watch from a nervous distance at least until they are ready to strike. People hear there may be hundred, thousands, even tens of thousands of a particular species, but they forget that number is spread across vast expanses of land, or that perhaps as few as one or two or a dozen may live in any given area. A predator like a mountain lion, for example, will consider one particular area that might cover 100 or 200 square miles as its domain or hunting ground and only it and its made prowl it (along with other species of predators). That's a large area that city dwellers can't adequately picture, and such a range is tiny compared to the sweeping wilderness that covers our land."

There are bobcats living in my neck of the woods in real life, but I've lived here over thirty years and have only seen a bobcat ONCE.

Just because there's stuff out there doesn't mean that it's a common occurrence.
Just because there are certain areas where certain Mega-Damage threats are common does not mean that they're common everywhere.
Of course you're going to find dinosaurs in the Dinosaur Swamps; it's an extraordinarily dangerous place, even for Rifts Earth.
Of course you're going to find Splugorth minions in Atlantis; it's an extraordinarily dangerous place, even for Rifts Earth.
Of course you're going to find Xiticix in Xiticix territory; it's an extraordinarily dangerous place, even for Rifts Earth.

And yes, you can run into evil bots, demons, monsters, mutants, bandits, etc. pretty much anywhere in North America.... but you can also NOT run into them.

Of course, the books don't focus on NOT running into them, because that's generally not a very fun adventure.

Dunia wrote:* All SDC damage will be reduced by 25% or 50% (I have not decided yet) when attacking MD protection. (For example: I stand here with my automatic rifle and I attack a CS soldier in a MD armour. I roll for attack, and hit him, rolling my 5D6 SDC damage and I get 20, these 20 will be reduced to either 5 or 10 damage to his dead boy armour (Main body 80 MDC/800 SDC) and he will take 5/10 of those 800. Then he shoots back with his laser rifle and rolls 12 MD against me, I have only SDC armour and I die without passing Go (and I do not collect $200)

This means that if I gather all of the hunters in my village and we use our SDC weapons against this Dead boy, we might get him down after a while, but in return he will vaporize most of us with his weapon.

Noon wrote:Before we get to 'punching a tank to death', can we all remember an old fashioned bulkhead is SDC. Or the iron bars of an old style jail. Jeez, why don't the prisoners punch their way through the bars?

Silver Fox wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:

Silver Fox wrote:I do the following:

1 M.D.C. = 10 S.D.C.

By this reasoning... if a weapon can do at least 10 S.D.C. points of damage, it can inflict 1 M.D.C. of damage to an M.D.C. structure or creature. As that 1 M.D.C. also does 10 S.D.C. it gives a slightly better chance and odds of surviving getting hit. Not much. But some.

And it means that a strong human can punch a tank to death with his bare hands.

Assuming said strong man is the Hulk or Superman, I would expect that, but given most can only deal 1d6 for damage. Yes I know there's bonuses from a high P.S. It moves to the next question, why is he punching a tank to death? Or are we talking the potential average Joe of Rifts Earth?

Which is why I go for the 10 S.D.C. to 1 M.D.C. so when it does come up. The average Joe or Deer, Rabbit, Wolf, Bear, Tiger, Elephant... ect.... just might have a chance to fight back and survive or get away.

i can throw in 20 mountain lions and 300 wolves and they will either ignore them

Killer Cyborg wrote:

Noon wrote:Before we get to 'punching a tank to death', can we all remember an old fashioned bulkhead is SDC. Or the iron bars of an old style jail. Jeez, why don't the prisoners punch their way through the bars?

Because of the PV.

glitterboy2098 wrote:sending SDC opponents against characters with MDC gear is just a matter of timing. enforce the fact they can't wear armor all the time and that putting armor on takes time.

Dunia wrote:What is PV?

TechnoGothic wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:

Noon wrote:Before we get to 'punching a tank to death', can we all remember an old fashioned bulkhead is SDC. Or the iron bars of an old style jail. Jeez, why don't the prisoners punch their way through the bars?

Because of the PV.

PV makes SDC setting work well. Too bad ppl ignore it or forget about PV so often.

Dunia wrote:

glitterboy2098 wrote:sending SDC opponents against characters with MDC gear is just a matter of timing. enforce the fact they can't wear armor all the time and that putting armor on takes time.

Then you can have a Mystic with sixth sense and armor of Ithan. he will not need an armour that much.

The mystic is sitting in the forest and a wolf is sneaking up at him, GM says ''Your spider sense is tingling'' and the next thing, the mystic is covered in MDC protection , also he has time to warn the entire group who will have 15-60 seconds to prepare.

Dunia wrote:* 1 MD/MDC = 100 SDC

Noon wrote:

i can throw in 20 mountain lions and 300 wolves and they will either ignore them

An idea to consider is that it's a bit short sighted that apparently only humans gain psionic powers. Animals could have them too. It doesn't seem to nulify the main premises of rifts.

glitterboy2098 wrote:

Dunia wrote:

glitterboy2098 wrote:sending SDC opponents against characters with MDC gear is just a matter of timing. enforce the fact they can't wear armor all the time and that putting armor on takes time.

Then you can have a Mystic with sixth sense and armor of Ithan. he will not need an armour that much.

The mystic is sitting in the forest and a wolf is sneaking up at him, GM says ''Your spider sense is tingling'' and the next thing, the mystic is covered in MDC protection , also he has time to warn the entire group who will have 15-60 seconds to prepare.

except that by canon, sixth sense only works on threats within 60ft of the person. a wolf can cross that 60ft in a few seconds, which means they have less than a melee of warning. and if the wolf gets a higher inititive, it can attack the mystic first, preventing him from getting spells off. (remember, wolves are capable of sensing psionics and magic, and are smart enough to know which opponents are going to be the bigger threat and thus the first to take out) not to mention that sixth sense doesn't tell you what the threat is. it's just a "hey, something bad is gonna happen" sense. so they might be expecting something totally different, and get caught flatfooted.

no, the issue isn't that wolves and such are SDC, it's (IMO) that people tend to treat wild animals in the game as machines and armies, not animals. they ignore issues of animal tactics, don't play up the animals strengths, forget rules that help balance the encounters, and so on. never intentionally mind you, but people tend to have mental blindspots, which can have interesting results.

Warmaster D wrote:I don't mess with the system at all. MDC and SDC works just fine especially if you are using the PV rules. SDC projectile weapons should never be able to harm MDC structures. Someone mentioned the 50 caliber machine gun inflicted enough SDC to do MD, it doesn't even work against some SDC structures let alone MDC ones. I own a 50 caliber precision rifle and even firing 671 grain tungsten penetraters there are regular objects that it won't go through, a thick enough piece of cold rolled steel for instance or advanced armor plate. My rifle will blow through the best modern body armor even with a front and back trauma plate Class IV + but it won't hurt a Bradley fighting vehicle or an Abrahms, although I might be able to destroy a track or fly wheel. My point is there are SDC weapons that can't hurt SDC structures so they sure aren't going to hurt MDC ones.

Killer Cyborg wrote:

glitterboy2098 wrote:

Dunia wrote:

glitterboy2098 wrote:sending SDC opponents against characters with MDC gear is just a matter of timing. enforce the fact they can't wear armor all the time and that putting armor on takes time.

Then you can have a Mystic with sixth sense and armor of Ithan. he will not need an armour that much.

The mystic is sitting in the forest and a wolf is sneaking up at him, GM says ''Your spider sense is tingling'' and the next thing, the mystic is covered in MDC protection , also he has time to warn the entire group who will have 15-60 seconds to prepare.

except that by canon, sixth sense only works on threats within 60ft of the person. a wolf can cross that 60ft in a few seconds, which means they have less than a melee of warning. and if the wolf gets a higher inititive, it can attack the mystic first, preventing him from getting spells off. (remember, wolves are capable of sensing psionics and magic, and are smart enough to know which opponents are going to be the bigger threat and thus the first to take out) not to mention that sixth sense doesn't tell you what the threat is. it's just a "hey, something bad is gonna happen" sense. so they might be expecting something totally different, and get caught flatfooted.

Or, replace "wolf" with "crocadile," and the mage might get his spell off, but still end up getting drowned in the river before he can alert his comrades.

glitterboy2098 wrote:

Dunia wrote:

glitterboy2098 wrote:sending SDC opponents against characters with MDC gear is just a matter of timing. enforce the fact they can't wear armor all the time and that putting armor on takes time.

Then you can have a Mystic with sixth sense and armor of Ithan. he will not need an armour that much.

The mystic is sitting in the forest and a wolf is sneaking up at him, GM says ''Your spider sense is tingling'' and the next thing, the mystic is covered in MDC protection , also he has time to warn the entire group who will have 15-60 seconds to prepare.

except that by canon, sixth sense only works on threats within 60ft of the person. a wolf can cross that 60ft in a few seconds, which means they have less than a melee of warning. and if the wolf gets a higher inititive, it can attack the mystic first, preventing him from getting spells off. (remember, wolves are capable of sensing psionics and magic, and are smart enough to know which opponents are going to be the bigger threat and thus the first to take out) not to mention that sixth sense doesn't tell you what the threat is. it's just a "hey, something bad is gonna happen" sense. so they might be expecting something totally different, and get caught flatfooted.
if the group has a natural MDC creature, there is some issue, but i reiterate my bit earlier about knockdowns and such.
and a large wolfpack can break up the cohesiveness of a group by breaking things down into individual battles. not to mention that a wolf, or wolves, charging in to attack deserves a horror factor due to the deep seated psychological fear people tend to have of charging predators.
no, the issue isn't that wolves and such are SDC, it's (IMO) that people tend to treat wild animals in the game as machines and armies, not animals. they ignore issues of animal tactics, don't play up the animals strengths, forget rules that help balance the encounters, and so on. never intentionally mind you, but people tend to have mental blindspots, which can have interesting results.

Nether wrote:I think you are giving faaaaarrrrr to much credit to wolves in a Rifts setting against players. Player characters being also above a norm, and we have had plenty of people in rl that have fended off wolf attacks and lives with nothing more than their hands.

Wearing MD body armor of even low level would let a group cake walk attacking wolves, even a huge amount of them.

Also the horror factor isn't there because the players aren't joe dude who lived in a city all his life and never seen a wild animal, let alone players who get in scuffles all the time, have weapons and armor vastly superior to anything those wolves could do anything against and its a non issue.

Also alot of gm's give flak to players that sleep in armor and want to give them penalties ext, which i think is complete crap. Those armors are comfortable to wear mostly, and when your travelling thru the Rifts world, your an idiot if you do sleep without it in the wild.

glitterboy2098 wrote:(ask soldiers how they like wearing MOPP suits or their gas-masks for long periods. answer, they hate it), and while supposedly temperature controlled, is going to chafe pretty quick due to sweat and body heat.

you'd have to be a masochist to want to wer them for long periods of time.

Mech-Viper Prime wrote:if a player is wearing the armor 24/7 , i think its more a problem with the GM then the ruleset

Noon wrote:Seriously, the 'You can't wear your armour all the time' argument is old and tired. It doesn't cut it.

Really, for mundane animals to become a threat (a threat as in they'll actually scratch up armour) you need to equip them with psionics or spell like abilities - either damaging ones or damaging and defensive ones. Or somehow they have railguns bolted to their backs*.

* not.

Noon wrote:

Mech-Viper Prime wrote:if a player is wearing the armor 24/7 , i think its more a problem with the GM then the ruleset

Or they are a borg. Or a dragon. Or...

But skipping that argument, what, do the players ALL take off their armour at once? And if they do, do they galavant around outside or stay inside a vehicle or building during that time? ALL players are chaotic stupid?

Seriously, the 'You can't wear your armour all the time' argument is old and tired. It doesn't cut it.

Really, for mundane animals to become a threat (a threat as in they'll actually scratch up armour) you need to equip them with psionics or spell like abilities - either damaging ones or damaging and defensive ones. Or somehow they have railguns bolted to their backs*.

* not.

sagajr wrote:Penetration Value. Described in the Compendium of Contemporary Weapons book along with the Defense(deflect?) Value (IIRC).


I simply revrite the rules of the damage capacity. First, I rename the Mega damage to massive damage (for me, mega means million not a mere 100 times more), than "recalibrate" the damage ratio. 1 point of massive damage cause 1 point of HP damage and 2 points of SDC damage to a SDC creature or material and ignores all types of AR.
MDC creatures and materials can be damaged by S(tandard)DC weapons but these weapons cause only half of its minimal damage (ie. an attack that normally do 1D6x10 SD cause only 5 points of damage to an MDC target) and all MDC targets have natural AR (12 + P.E. bonus for creatures and 15 to 20 for vehicles, buildings, tech devices etc., depending on the quality of the material).