Weapons House Rules, Could this Work?

[Sparticus]

Hi, I've been a fan of rifts for about 17 years now and have done a number of games. Now I have been playing with the idea of spicing up the weapons a bit to give them more variety. Basically based on certain capabilities one may be more appropriate or desirable for certain situations than another.

Laser: Unchanged. These are the basic gold standard of high tech weapons.

Rail Gun: crits on a natural 18, 19, or 20 (doing double damage). By their very nature I have always felt that rail guns are very good at armor penetration.

Ion: dose double damage to bots, power armor, borgs and robots. It's a lighting gun by definition so while it will do damage to fleshy targets to equipment its brutal.

Particle: Critical hits do triple damage. This is the heavy hitter of the energy weapon world and should do massive damage.

Plasma: dose half damage the round after it struck the target. Example would be a plasma weapon dose 6D6 so next round the target hit would suffer 3D6.

Vibro: crits on a natural 18, 19, or 20 (doing double damage). Unlike rail guns which are propelled at hypervelocity the vidro weapon disrupts the target surface area on the molecular level thereby weakening the structure allowing it to cut much essayer.

So what do you all think good, bad, or ugly?

[Slight001]

seems interesting and does kind of make the player put some consideration into their weapon choices beyond chose highest damage per action and must have backup in case GM throws in enemies with immunities to primary weapon...

Personally I'd have Vibro-blades have a bonus to a players natural chance to crit rather then be a flat xyz chance to crit. Example: as written your vibro-blades are no better for Bob the Incompetent (crits on a natural 20 only) then Stan the Man (already crits on an 18, 19 or 20). However if Vibro-Blades instead offered a bonus to crit range... well then the weapon has universal appeal... beyond it's tech goodness...

concept:
Vibro-Blades: increases crit range by +1. For Example Bob who has no natural crit capacity beyond the lucky shot (nat20) can now crit on a 19 or 20. While, Stan a trained swordsman will find his natural crit range (18, 19 or 20) increased marginally further to 17, 18, 19 or 20.

The above is based on the belief that hand to hand crit range increases don't affect ranged weapons in general...

[MaxxSterling]

I wouldn't even ask questions like this on here. I personally cannot stand house rules, however, I think what you have should be in canon. Go for it.

[cyber-yukongil v2.5]

I've used house rules similar to this for years.

Ion I give a chance to stun tech targets (lose init and some combat penalties) equal to the damage dealt by the weapon. They also do double damage to energy fields of all kinds.

Particle beams I allow to knockdown like physical ammo or explosions.

I use the same rule for Plasma, though my advice, be weary of Bursters with held actions!

[rem1093]

This is are house rules.
Laser- like you we didn't change anything.
Plasma- We added splash damage, to one foot around the point of impact.
Particle- We have two types. One is pulse that can knockdown. And stream that will keep going to max range if it depletes the MDC of all targets in path.
Ions- can do double damage to energy fields or creatures.
Rail guns- We use two types, the Coil gun and a Rail gun. The Rail gun, is the burst one that fires heavier rounds using less propellant, but can be like any other type of normal round, or round type. (Think of firing a round the mass of a 20mm with a 50 cal. that fires like a normal 50 cal.) The second one is the Coil gun, as a single shot gun that fires propellant less rounds. This allows for more specialty rounds, such as exploding, water filled, or the Boom gun rounds.

[Lenwen]

Hi, I've been a fan of rifts for about 17 years now and have done a number of games. Now I have been playing with the idea of spicing up the weapons a bit to give them more variety. Basically based on certain capabilities one may be more appropriate or desirable for certain situations than another.

Laser: Unchanged. These are the basic gold standard of high tech weapons.

Rail Gun: crits on a natural 18, 19, or 20 (doing double damage). By their very nature I have always felt that rail guns are very good at armor penetration.

Ion: dose double damage to bots, power armor, borgs and robots. It's a lighting gun by definition so while it will do damage to fleshy targets to equipment its brutal.

Particle: Critical hits do triple damage. This is the heavy hitter of the energy weapon world and should do massive damage.

Plasma: dose half damage the round after it struck the target. Example would be a plasma weapon dose 6D6 so next round the target hit would suffer 3D6.

Vibro: crits on a natural 18, 19, or 20 (doing double damage). Unlike rail guns which are propelled at hypervelocity the vidro weapon disrupts the target surface area on the molecular level thereby weakening the structure allowing it to cut much essayer.

So what do you all think good, bad, or ugly?

I like this .. I like this A L O T !!!

[Akashic Soldier]

I think that this would make an awesome Rifter article if it was fleshed out a little more. Make it.

Though I'd rethink vibro. Maybe just inflicting an extra dice of damage on called shots to represent that they are better at severing limbs or something. After all, if everything crits on 18-20 than it kind of makes invalid leveling on the HTH table a little. If you are keen on expanding this concept PM me and we will go over it in more detail.

[sagajr]

Hi, I've been a fan of rifts for about 17 years now and have done a number of games. Now I have been playing with the idea of spicing up the weapons a bit to give them more variety. Basically based on certain capabilities one may be more appropriate or desirable for certain situations than another.

Laser: Unchanged. These are the basic gold standard of high tech weapons.

Rail Gun: crits on a natural 18, 19, or 20 (doing double damage). By their very nature I have always felt that rail guns are very good at armor penetration.

Ion: dose double damage to bots, power armor, borgs and robots. It's a lighting gun by definition so while it will do damage to fleshy targets to equipment its brutal.

Particle: Critical hits do triple damage. This is the heavy hitter of the energy weapon world and should do massive damage.

Plasma: dose half damage the round after it struck the target. Example would be a plasma weapon dose 6D6 so next round the target hit would suffer 3D6.

Vibro: crits on a natural 18, 19, or 20 (doing double damage). Unlike rail guns which are propelled at hypervelocity the vidro weapon disrupts the target surface area on the molecular level thereby weakening the structure allowing it to cut much essayer.

So what do you all think good, bad, or ugly?

I use the following house rules (inspired by other RPG systems):
Laser - Precision weapons (always use the standrd Strike modifiers even if the attacker shoots bursts or pulse blasts). Additionally, virtually any laser weapon can be upgraded to have dazzler mode.
In dazzler mode, the weapon fires a low-powered, wide beam of coherent light, which can be temporarily blind eyes and optical sensors, but do no physical damage. Ideal for personal defense and riot control.
To be affected, the target must be hit by the dazzler on his/her head (need a quick aimed or called shot with +3 modifier thanks to the wider beam; this takes only a single attack not two attacks). To resist the blinding effect, the victim must save against non-lethal poison if his/her eyes are not protected, but Protected Vision (like polarized visors/eyes or light manipulating spells/effects) adds +5 to resist, while special anti-dazzler visiors negate all negative effects and automatically save the victim. Failure to resist inflicts Blindness (see blinding flash spell) for 60-P.E. second and after that, the target dazzled for another minute. Even with a successfull save, unless protected by anti-dazzler visor, the victim suffer temporary (1 melee round) dazzle (-2 to strike, parry, dodge and initiative).
The range of the dazzler attack is very limited, and cannot exceed 25% of the weapon's basic effective range. 10 dazzler blasts counts as a single normal shot.
Dedicated dazzlers (only dazzler rifles and handheld cannons exists and usually used by the police forces) affect large area and do not need to hit the head of their target, but only at a more limtied range. Rifles may affect a 10 feet diameter area for up to 250 feet away, while the effective range of the cannons are limited to 500 feet, but these weapons affect 25 feet diameter area. Every creature in the area is automatically hit by the weapon.

Ion - Weaker form of the particle beam technology, sometimes called as lightning guns. These weapons use charged lighter particles (usually electrons) to do impressive damage to their targets.
Virtually any ion weapon can be set to shocker mode after a minor modification. In this mode, the weapon use a limited range, lower-powered electrical blast to neutralize living targets. Use the same rules described under the Zapper gun (Game Master Guide page 150), but unlike the Zapper gun, this shocker attack do not affect targets in selaed environmental armor or in power armor unless the armor lost more than 50% of its original MDC value. Furthermore lower the range of the weapons to one half. 10 SDC blasts counts as 1 standard MD blast.

Plasma - Plasma weapons do their normal damage to the point of impact, plus 25% of their original damage to everything within 1 (for pistols), 2 (for rifles) or 3 (for handheld cannons) feet radius.

Particle Beam - This weapon accelerates charged, stored heavier particles to near-lightspeed velocities and focus them into a tight beam, which do massive damage due to disruption of the target's atomic structure, rapid heat up and focused radiation. They can even cause a target to explode from the massive amount of energy being transferred, which adds a minor kinetic effect to the above mentioned destructive elements. Thanks to all these effects, the particle beams can be used even against invulnerable targets (be it invulnerability superpower or impervious to energy spell) even if nor fully efficient (do only one quarter damage to such targets).
Against living creatures there is another effect which may cause further problems. If the target do not have any environmental protection or not protected by some form of energy/magic shield when hit by a particle beam, its bio-regeneration power (the amount of SDC/HP or MDC regenerated) is lowered by 10% (for pistol shots)/ 25% (for rifle blasts)/ 50% (for handheld cannon shots) for 1 hour. Every additional hits increase the duration by an additional 15 minutes. The largest and heaviest particle beam cannons (used by tanks or giant robots as main weapons) can knock out the bio-regeneration for the listed duration.
Victims without exceptional regenerative powers (ie. no bio-regen powers) who survive the hit without environmental or shield protection, will suffer from radiation poisoning (tormented by constant nausea the victim is weakened, his/her phisical abilities lowered by 1D6 points, strike/parry/dodge/attacks per melee values are halved as well as his/her skill values) until cured (by the ritual version of the Cure Illness spell ritual or Greater healing spell or Psychic Purification or 1D4 days long medical treatment).
Targets with immunity to radiation do not suffer these effects (radiation sickness and bio-regeneration problems).

Railgun - Changed the chance for stun (see R:UE page 356) to the same value as the damage done by the weapon (ie if the railgun do 40 damage to the target, there is a 40% chance to stun the opponent). DU round gives the weapon the Armor Piercing rules (R:UE, page 362), plus the above mentioned better stun chance.

Vibro weapons - No need for fancy special rules just increase their damage (double the damage of their plain, SDC variant and this will be their new MDC damage value, ie the new basic damage of the vibro longsword will be 2D8+4 MD, while a redesigned vibro short sword will do 2D6 MD).

[jaymz]

I like these ideas and may just have to tweak them for my own use. Nice work

[Wooly]

A brief 1 or 2 page Secondary Weapon effects write up would make a great short Rifter article. Lets list the classes of weapons

Triax Pump Weapons?

Big Bore Weapons (Already have a knock down IIRC)

Explosives: Concusion/blast damage. Even a character inside a vehicle, EBA, PA that absorbs the blast you are going to get your brain moving inside your skull. Concussions and traumatic brain damage.

[Wooly]

A brief 1 or 2 page Secondary Weapon effects write up would make a great short Rifter article. Lets list the classes of weapons

Triax Pump Weapons?

Big Bore Weapons (Already have a knock down IIRC)

Explosives: Concusion/blast damage. Even a character inside a vehicle, EBA, PA that absorbs the blast you are going to get your brain moving inside your skull. Concussions and traumatic brain damage.

RUE already has rules for SDC damage while inside armor and knockdown from railguns, heavy weapons, missiles, and other heavy MD attacks...

I know it does. I don't think it is severe enough. Not to mention that repeated exposure to traumatic brain injury is just now starting to be understood by physicans.

[Wooly]

A radiation weapon effect would be neat too.

I remember the old Twighlight:2000 RPG had a rad counter on the character sheet. After too much exposure to "hot" map areas characters began to suffer the effects of radiation posioning.

This could be applied to nuked pre-rifts cities (craters) as well as certian weapon types. No doubt curable with magic or advanced medicine but hey the more you can throw at the players the better.

[flatline]

A radiation weapon effect would be neat too.

I remember the old Twighlight:2000 RPG had a rad counter on the character sheet. After too much exposure to "hot" map areas characters began to suffer the effects of radiation posioning.

This could be applied to nuked pre-rifts cities (craters) as well as certian weapon types. No doubt curable with magic or advanced medicine but hey the more you can throw at the players the better.

If you want realism then:

Plasma weapons as presented are impossible. Replace "Plasma" with "Really Hot Air" and ask yourself if it's possible to make a hair dryer that has a range of hundreds of feet (hint: you can't).

Particle Beams and Ion Beams would have horrible ranges in an atmosphere and back-scatter would lethally irradiate everyone near the weapon (especially including the person using the weapon).

--flatline

[Wooly]

A radiation weapon effect would be neat too.

I remember the old Twighlight:2000 RPG had a rad counter on the character sheet. After too much exposure to "hot" map areas characters began to suffer the effects of radiation posioning.

This could be applied to nuked pre-rifts cities (craters) as well as certian weapon types. No doubt curable with magic or advanced medicine but hey the more you can throw at the players the better.

If you want realism then:

Plasma weapons as presented are impossible. Replace "Plasma" with "Really Hot Air" and ask yourself if it's possible to make a hair dryer that has a range of hundreds of feet (hint: you can't).

Particle Beams and Ion Beams would have horrible ranges in an atmosphere and back-scatter would lethally irradiate everyone near the weapon (especially including the person using the weapon).

--flatline

Nope, don't want realism and I don't know how you extrapolated that I did from my post. I want fun, plausible in a science fantasy rules that enhance the game experience for all players.

[flatline]

A radiation weapon effect would be neat too.

I remember the old Twighlight:2000 RPG had a rad counter on the character sheet. After too much exposure to "hot" map areas characters began to suffer the effects of radiation posioning.

This could be applied to nuked pre-rifts cities (craters) as well as certian weapon types. No doubt curable with magic or advanced medicine but hey the more you can throw at the players the better.

If you want realism then:

Plasma weapons as presented are impossible. Replace "Plasma" with "Really Hot Air" and ask yourself if it's possible to make a hair dryer that has a range of hundreds of feet (hint: you can't).

Particle Beams and Ion Beams would have horrible ranges in an atmosphere and back-scatter would lethally irradiate everyone near the weapon (especially including the person using the weapon).

--flatline

Nope, don't want realism and I don't know how you extrapolated that I did from my post. I want fun, plausible in a science fantasy rules that enhance the game experience for all players.

Oh, okay.

Plasma weapons are still implausible.

But you should definitely ignore back-scatter with particle and ion beams.

--flatline

[Wooly]

A radiation weapon effect would be neat too.

I remember the old Twighlight:2000 RPG had a rad counter on the character sheet. After too much exposure to "hot" map areas characters began to suffer the effects of radiation posioning.

This could be applied to nuked pre-rifts cities (craters) as well as certian weapon types. No doubt curable with magic or advanced medicine but hey the more you can throw at the players the better.

If you want realism then:

Plasma weapons as presented are impossible. Replace "Plasma" with "Really Hot Air" and ask yourself if it's possible to make a hair dryer that has a range of hundreds of feet (hint: you can't).

Particle Beams and Ion Beams would have horrible ranges in an atmosphere and back-scatter would lethally irradiate everyone near the weapon (especially including the person using the weapon).

--flatline

Nope, don't want realism and I don't know how you extrapolated that I did from my post. I want fun, plausible in a science fantasy rules that enhance the game experience for all players.

Oh, okay.

Plasma weapons are still implausible.

But you should definitely ignore back-scatter with particle and ion beams.

--flatline

I probally couldn't pass a 9th grade science exam. But IIRC Plasma is a super hot 4th state of matter between a liquid and a gas. I don't recall any Rifts books explicity spelling out what plasma gun technology entails or the difference between partical beam, ion and plasma weapons.

[Wooly]

Ion Weapons
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_cannon
In science fiction, an ion cannon is a beam weapon that fires beams of ions (atoms or molecules with an electrical charge). Due to its power, it is usually classified as a superweapon. An ion cannon is a type of particle cannon; only the particles used are ionized. Due to their electrical charges, they have the potential to disable electronic devices, vehicles, and anything else that has an electrical or similar power source. Because of their classification as super-weapons, ion cannons have found their way into movies and television shows that have a science-fiction based setting.

Particle Beam Weapons
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle_beam_weapon
A particle beam weapon uses an ultra-high-energy beam of atoms or electrons (i.e. a particle beam) to damage a material target by hitting it, and thus disrupting its atomic and molecular structure. A particle beam weapon is a type of directed-energy weapon, which directs energy in a particular direction by a means of particle projectiles with mass. Some of these weapons are real or practicable; some are science fiction[citation needed].

An electron particle beam weapon works by disrupting electric circuits and electronic devices in its targets. If any living animals or persons were to be caught by the electric discharge of an electron beam weapon, they would most likely be electrocuted. An electron beam weapon can also damage or melt its target by the electrical resistance heating of the target (because of Ohm's law).

Plasma Weapons
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_rifle
When discussing weapons in science fiction, a plasma weapon is a type of raygun that fires a stream, bolt(s), pulse or toroid of plasma (i.e. very hot, very energetic excited matter). The primary damage mechanism of these fictional weapons is usually thermal transfer; it typically causes serious burns, and often immediate death of living creatures, and melts or evaporates other materials. In certain fiction, plasma weapons may also have a significant kinetic energy component, that is to say the ionized material is projected with sufficient momentum to cause some secondary impact damage in addition to causing high thermal damage. In some fictions, like Star Wars, plasma is highly effective against mechanical targets such as droids. The ionized gas disrupts their systems.

Plasma weapons are often, especially in video games, depicted as very powerful, but short-ranged and/or less energy-efficient than other weapon types.

Railgun, Coilgun, Gauss Gun

http://ca.answers.yahoo.com/question/in ... 458AABcVhO
A rail gun is where a capacitor bank discharges through two parallel rails with the projectile between them making contact to both rails this produces a powerful magnetic field around both rails and the projectile which drives the projectile down the rails away from the points where they are connected to the capacitor bank.

A coil gun uses a capacitor bank aswell but instead operates an electromagnetic coil wound around the barrel which draws the projectile towards its center with immense force and just as or before the projectile reaches the center the discharge ends allowing it to continue at that speed with out being pulled back by the field.

Some Weapons that could be found in Rifts

Electrolaser
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolaser
An electrolaser is a type of electroshock weapon which is also a directed-energy weapon. It uses lasers to form an electrically conductive laser-induced plasma channel (LIPC). A fraction of a second later, a powerful electric current is sent down this plasma channel and delivered to the target, thus functioning overall as a large-scale, high energy, long-distance version of the Taser electroshock gun.

HERF (High Energy Radio Frequency) Weapons
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-energ ... cy_weapons

Electromagnetic (radiation) weapons are a type of directed energy weapons which use electromagnetic radiation to deliver heat, mechanical, or electrical energy to a target to cause various, sometimes very subtle, effects. They can be used against humans, electronic equipment, and military targets generally, depending on the technology.

High-energy radio frequency weapons (HERF) or high-power radio frequency weapons (HPRF) use high intensity radio waves to disrupt electronics.

High and low power, Pulsed Microwave devices use low-frequency microwave radiation which can be made to closely mimic and interact with normal human brain waves having similar amplitudes and frequencies. The heart, lungs, and other vital organs are controlled by very low voltage electric signals from the human brain. It should be possible to disrupt, catastrophically, such signals— from a distance— using this technology.[citation needed] Taser-like motor effects are also possible. The purpose of the PEP (Pulsed Energy Projectile), the LIP (Laser Induced Plasma) weapon and the Active Denial System (ADS) is to induce pain, although the PEP has lethal capabilities.

Pulsed Impulsive Kill Laser
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulsed_Energy_Projectile
Pulsed Energy Projectile or PEP is a technology of non-lethal weaponry currently under development by the U.S. military. It involves the emission of an invisible laser pulse which, upon contact with the target, ablates the surface and creates a small amount of exploding plasma. This produces a pressure wave that stuns the target and knocks them off their feet, and electromagnetic radiation that affects nerve cells causing a painful sensation. The technology can also be used as a lethal weapon, and indeed an early name was Pulsed Impulsive Kill Laser (PIKL).

[Wooly]

double tap. Please delete.

[flatline]

I probally couldn't pass a 9th grade science exam. But IIRC Plasma is a super hot 4th state of matter between a liquid and a gas. I don't recall any Rifts books explicity spelling out what plasma gun technology entails or the difference between partical beam, ion and plasma weapons.

Plasma is just gas that is so excited that the particles have ionized. This makes it particularly useless as a ranged weapon since hot gas will simply expand in all directions and ionized gas will disperse even faster since like charges repel each other.

--flatline

[Wooly]

I probally couldn't pass a 9th grade science exam. But IIRC Plasma is a super hot 4th state of matter between a liquid and a gas. I don't recall any Rifts books explicity spelling out what plasma gun technology entails or the difference between partical beam, ion and plasma weapons.

Plasma is just gas that is so excited that the particles have ionized. This makes it particularly useless as a ranged weapon since hot gas will simply expand in all directions and ionized gas will disperse even faster since like charges repel each other.

--flatline

In Star Wars the blasters use a magnetic field to enclose the plasma. Probably science fantasy?

[flatline]

I probally couldn't pass a 9th grade science exam. But IIRC Plasma is a super hot 4th state of matter between a liquid and a gas. I don't recall any Rifts books explicity spelling out what plasma gun technology entails or the difference between partical beam, ion and plasma weapons.

Plasma is just gas that is so excited that the particles have ionized. This makes it particularly useless as a ranged weapon since hot gas will simply expand in all directions and ionized gas will disperse even faster since like charges repel each other.

--flatline

In Star Wars the blasters use a magnetic field to enclose the plasma. Probably science fantasy?

If the technology exists to trivially contain plasma in fields, then it would be equally trivial to protect yourself by a magnetic field rendering yourself immune to plasma.

--flatline

[Wooly]

I probally couldn't pass a 9th grade science exam. But IIRC Plasma is a super hot 4th state of matter between a liquid and a gas. I don't recall any Rifts books explicity spelling out what plasma gun technology entails or the difference between partical beam, ion and plasma weapons.

Plasma is just gas that is so excited that the particles have ionized. This makes it particularly useless as a ranged weapon since hot gas will simply expand in all directions and ionized gas will disperse even faster since like charges repel each other.

--flatline

In Star Wars the blasters use a magnetic field to enclose the plasma. Probably science fantasy?

If the technology exists to trivially contain plasma in fields, then it would be equally trivial to protect yourself by a magnetic field rendering yourself immune to plasma.

--flatline

A plasma channel is a conductive channel of plasma. A plasma channel can be formed in these ways:-

With a high-powered laser that operates at a certain frequency that will provide enough energy for an atmospheric gas to break into its ions, or form a plasma, such as in a Laser-Induced Plasma Channel, for example in an electrolaser.

With a voltage higher than the dielectric breakdown voltage applied across a dielectric, and dielectric breakdown occurs.

A plasma channel has a low electrical resistance and, once formed, will permit continuous current flow if the energy source that heats the plasma can be maintained. Unlike a normal electrical conductor, the resistance (and voltage drop) across an unconfined plasma channel decreases with increasing current flow, a property called negative resistance. As a result, an electric spark that initially required a very high voltage to initiate avalanche breakdown within the insulating gas will rapidly evolve into a hot low voltage electric arc if the electrical power source can continue to deliver sufficient power to the arc. Plasma channels tend to self constrict (see plasma pinch) due to magnetic forces stemming from the current flowing through the plasma.