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I'm curious as to which Host Armor metabolism you think is the best.

Personally, I'm a fan of the Parasitic Metabolism. Extra M.D.C., extra Bio-E points, some cool bonuses, don't have to worry about feeding. Of course, it's going to eat my PC alive in the next decade or two, but the robots will probably kill them long before that.

Depending on the OCC it being use for. Carnivore and Vampiric are way down on my list. Have a hard time playing a dark character little least wear a darker Armor.

I tend to prefer Parasitic for a variety of reasons. Several benefits and the only drawbacks are stuff that my character will be long dead or retired before they're an issue. Carnivore and Vampiric are both fun as well though, Vamp especially if your game focuses more heavily on house rivalries

Napoleon wrote:i don't see why anyone wouldnt choose Parasitic, unless you wanted a few specific bio weapons or biting ability. The bonuses from Parasitic just rock.

So the fact that someone with parasitic armor can't engage in much beyond base defense isn't a turn off for you? To me, when you're limited to 3 or 4 days in the field before you die, when you have to spend about 2 to 3 days recovering for every day you've used the armor, and when your armor can't handle going without you for more than a week before it starves, the attraction of those bonuses becomes almost moot. For all of the upside, parasitic armor is just excessively limiting.

I voted lithovore since it makes for a great ranger or scout type character. You have unlimited access to food (meaning virtually unlimited range), a bunch of nice skills and abilities, and a great bite. It's an armor with almost no limitations, and thereby it presents many more options. In my games, I'd take all of those options over some extra bonuses almost every time.

Considering the "average" Dreadguard in my game is suited up no more than 2 days at a time and anything more than 16 hours is uncommon it's not really that limiting. Why would anyone need to rest for days when there are Saints available for healing? You play the HA to your characters strengths, if your Dreadguard has a PE below 20, Id recommend not using parasitic armor; if PE is over 30, it's silly to ignore parasitic.

Of course, how games are played makes a big difference. In my games, since I consider the Splicers to be elites, they are often involved in missions similar to those of contemporary special forces - that is, they are rarely involved in static defensive operations. As I said, though, base defenders and those who don't venture far from their houses suffer little from the parasitic armor's drawbacks.

Nevertheless, my points remain. Your typical roughneck, even after O.C.C. attribute bonuses and standard skills, probably only has a P.E. of 16 or so. On average, then, you're not looking at more than 20 HP to start with. Given that the average day wearing the parasitic suit drains 5 HP, 4 days of operations would literally kill them. Sure, a saint could help, but they're never a given in the field, and without them it takes some time to recover, during which your armor is likely starting to starve.

I'd never advocate ignoring parasitic or any other armor type for that matter. But given the limitations involved for anyone but the exceptionally hardy, neither can that type's drawbacks be ignored.

Parasitic? The bes tis Parasitic? a lot of masochist around..

Nevertheless, my points remain. Your typical roughneck, even after O.C.C. attribute bonuses and standard skills, probably only has a P.E. of 16 or so. On average, then, you're not looking at more than 20 HP to start with. Given that the average day wearing the parasitic suit drains 5 HP, 4 days of operations would literally kill them. Sure, a saint could help, but they're never a given in the field, and without them it takes some time to recover, during which your armor is likely starting to starve.

Man, if your players are only running 16PE after skills, they need new dice. The PE scores in my group are 40 (roughneck), 25 (outrider), 27 (outrider), 24 (falconeer), 13 (saint), 41 (scarecrow). You get 1d4 just for being a roughneck, Athletics skill package gives you 4 chances at PE skills (acrobatics 1, gymnastics 2, Kick Boxing 1, Outdoorsmanship 1, Physical Labor 1, Running 1, Wrestling 1), Basic Military guarantees you 1PE from running, Support Man offers Physical Labor and you get as many as 8 extra physical skills at first level from electives and secondary skills. Unless you don't roll anything higher than 12, there's absolutely no reason for a Roughneck to EVER have less than 20PE and the average Roughneck is probably going to have close to 25 PE. The drawbacks from parasitic armor are hardly anything like debilitating on the average mission.

maasenstodt makes a great point in regards to the lithovore armor. Food would be quite plentiful, and the seismic sense is especially handy. As an added bonus, you get extra damage for the turd, er, casting guns.

For my money, I think the biggest weakness with many HAs would be combat stamina. In other words, their ability to continue to function and fight in prolonged (several hours of more) battles. Thus far, all my combat has been fairly short, but I don't think they would fare very well in a prolonged seige/firefight? (a la "Black Hawk Down" or "We Were Soldiers", 12-18+ hours of almost straight combat.)

Most ranged bio weapons have a horribly small payload (Medium Bore Cannon: 18 rounds?! Yikes! ) and require hours to regenrate. Some HA mounted weapons even require full meals before they can reload. A prolonged firefight is not going to offer too many chances to get your grub on.

Actually, if you create the character right, the best weapon for a long term fight is bio vents. No payload limits and as long as you keep under 20 shots per minute, no pilot side effects.

Oh yes, love the bio-vent. I've fooled around with various host armor designs and always make sure I have either a bio-vent, super light cell, or spore discharger just in case.

demos606 wrote:Man, if your players are only running 16PE after skills, they need new dice. The PE scores in my group are 40 (roughneck), 25 (outrider), 27 (outrider), 24 (falconeer), 13 (saint), 41 (scarecrow). You get 1d4 just for being a roughneck, Athletics skill package gives you 4 chances at PE skills (acrobatics 1, gymnastics 2, Kick Boxing 1, Outdoorsmanship 1, Physical Labor 1, Running 1, Wrestling 1), Basic Military guarantees you 1PE from running, Support Man offers Physical Labor and you get as many as 8 extra physical skills at first level from electives and secondary skills. Unless you don't roll anything higher than 12, there's absolutely no reason for a Roughneck to EVER have less than 20PE and the average Roughneck is probably going to have close to 25 PE. The drawbacks from parasitic armor are hardly anything like debilitating on the average mission.

I was typing a more extensive response last night when the power failed, so I'll limit myself to a few quick responses. First, your players' PE scores are exceptional. I don't think it's possible for either the roughneck or the scarecrow to have a PE higher than 42, yet a third of your party has PE scores within 2 points of that level.

Second, to suggest that players need new dice with PE scores near 20 seems rather silly to me. I don't begrudge munchkins, but taking every bonus-providing skill out there for its own sake isn't my bag, nor is it very realistic. I have some very athletic friends, and none of them could be said to possess even half of those skills. Play it how you enjoy it, though I'd recommend that you check out page 42 of Rifter 19 if it's available to you.

Third, with characters that exceptional, why are they going on "average" missions that rarely take more than a day? Frankly, given the scale and scope of the challenges I put in front of my vastly more average PCs, I have a hard time imagining anything but adventures of global or even greater scope being a sufficient challenge.

Lets look at Dreadguard, Outriders and Roughnecks and start them at minimum for OCC before skills.

Dreadguard: 14 minimum, 1d4 OCC bonus, Running 1, as many as 7 more from physical skills (9 slots and optional skill program available at 1st lvl) - possible 26 from roll of 14; 27 possible without rolling an exceptional stat

Outrider: 10 minimum, +2 OCC bonus, Running 1, as many as 7 more from physical skills (9 slots AND a skill program available at 1st lvl) - possible 20 from a roll of 10; 25 possible without rolling an exceptional stat

Roughneck: No minimum (assign 10 for giggles), +2 OCC bonus, Running 1, as much as 7 more from physical skills - possible 20 from a roll of 10; 25 possible without rolling an exceptional stat


Did you do even basic research on the OCC before you started making assumptions on how the host armor would affect them? Now, Ill agree the Scarecrow and the Roughneck are exceptional, even for their OCCs. Have you actually *played* Splicers or did you just look at the book and think "ok, I might you some of the robots in my Rifts game"?

Splicers is not the cremepuff (high armor, low damage) setting PF or Rifts tend to be. Yeah the characters are ass powerful and heavily munchkin if you look at them from Rifts standards but in their own setting, thats what they need to even survive. It is disturbingly easy to land 7+ attacks and 10+ autododge at 1st lvl in Splicers but guess what, almost *every* robot has at least +5 to strike with their primary weapon systems without the benefit of NEXUS control and enough firepower to disable HA and War Mounts in 1 round of combat given a standard patrol. Just for reference, thats a party of 7 (6 and a Saint) vs 3 Hunter-Searcher Probes, 2 Skitter pods, and 2 Slicer Robots. Grendle was down in 1 round, Behemoth and Rider were down in 2, Dreadguard was at 40% and Scarecrow at 50% after 4 rounds when their backup arrived. Falconeer was saved by her 210pt Bio forcefield and we just won't talk about the poor Archangel.

In Splicers, what is munchkin anywhere else is necessary for survival against the NEXUS robots. I actively encourage my players to take as many PP and PE bonuses as they legitimately can to improve their odds of survival because they know I have no problem killing them if they push a bad situation - ANY combat against the machines is a bad situation.

Oh yeah, just for reference, a short mission for that team takes at least a week to complete if they aren't being dropped and extracted by Draco or Zephyr.

For the record, I have done a Splicers campaign, so my opinion is not that of a spectator making guesses. What's more, while I haven't played much Rifts in the last decade, my PFRPG games (1st Ed.) are dreaded for their TPK potential and are decidedly not cream-puff in nature.

As for the nature of the game, I agree that Splicers is necessarily high powered due to the deadliness of the opponent. That doesn't mean that you have to resort to munchkinism to play it, or even to survive. I do think you're exactly right in saying combat = bad idea. Indeed, it's because of that very fact that the importance of imaginative skill use in this game is so great. Why bother with a skill that adds little to a character but a stat bonus when it could cost one the ability to barter or find water?

I think our gaming philosophies are just a bit different, and that's OK.

Combat is a bad situation, not necessarily a bad idea. Unlike the rest of Paladiums products, combat is near guaranteed to be fatal even if you do everything "right" simply because no matter how heavily equipped you are, the robots are always going to be better. My group decided early on that they wanted to "take it to the machine" so yeah, heavy physical skills are called for so theres any real chance of survival (and necessitates a saint or they're completely ineffective after the first minor robot encounter)

But even without munchkinizing a Splicers character, anyone with HA can easily get a 20+ PP even without rolling exceptional stats. As devoted as most PA OCC are to physical undertakings, it really makes very little sense not to take the skills availbable to enhance the OCC focus. Saints, Packmasters, and Archangels are all less physical classes with better access to (and need for) "support skills". Outriders are the one HA OCC I can legitimately see taking support skills because they actually rely on their Mounts for the heavy firepower and workload.

I know it, I just havent thought about it in terms of this discussion, but yes, parasitic HA do eat away SDC before touching HP directly which greatly extends the field durability of the HA.

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Posted: Sat Oct 30, 2004 6:47 am Post subject:

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carmen, is the damage the wearer of parasitic host armor takes HP\SDC damage or is it direct to HP?
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Carmen
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Posted: Sat Oct 30, 2004 7:19 am Post subject:

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Comes of his SDC first.

I was gonna say Parasitic at the beginning, and the further discussion made that an almost obviously perfect decision. The fact (which I didn't know) that the damage comes off SDC first further solidifies my resolve. Just how fast again do you recover SDC on your own?

Of course, I could see great reasons for the other armors as well. Mostly for a cool factor, of course. I'd like to create a dragon HA using the Carnivore metabolism--fire breath, horns, wings, tail, claws, etc. Again, mostly for a cool factor.

Just my thoughts,
Poocho

i dont have a "fav"
I like Lithovore, Parasitic, Photosynthetic, and Thermosynthetic...maybe a Carnivore rarely.

I Once made a Host Armor with 20 or so Bio-Energy Vents...

I was like Xetor from Guyver. With all those Bio-blasters. I even had Super Light Cell on the head.
Another varient i made used Super Light Cells instead of bio-energy vents, it also had a Omega Blaster. Of course that just about all it had too.

Those were Two great builds. Sit back and Fire away with many at once.
Cannot remember which one i actually used in the one game i ran though.

Still great builds.

Ok, i just dug out my book (shame on me)

I remember which i liked best now...

Thermosynthetic Host Armor.

Here in Florida that would be a huge boon.
Its always Hot, well most of the time.

I like being able to cut loose at night in games so the photosynthetic Host Armor wouldnt cut it.

That and my Game was set in a DUNE like World.

Poocho wrote: Just how fast again do you recover SDC on your own?

Poocho

Recovery : Non-Professional Treatment = 2 HP per Day or 4 SDC per Day

Recovery : Professional Treatment = 2 HP per day for the first two days, then 4 HP per day following day. 6 SDC per day after the HPs are healed up.

As soon as you Heal Up some, you have to put your Parasitic Host Armor on again. You'll be hoping it isnt starving by that point though.

The loss of 1d6 SDC/HP per year could be mean. Specially if the game jumps a few years in-game and you dont gain an addition levels during that time. With a Few bad rolls, you might be down into the HPs.

I'll take a Host Armor that wont "eat" me to near death.

For the huge drawback of it feeding off the pilot, i'd have given Parasitic Host Armors an addition +5 or +10 Bio-Points to what it gives already.

Or you could get a Saint to heal it at 2d8 per minute.

demos606 wrote:Or you could get a Saint to heal it at 2d8 per minute.

You forget No Method of Healing besides normal recovery will heal the Feeding damage of a Parasitic Host Armor.
Saints cannot heal it.
Regeneration wont heal it either.

I didn't forget it because it isn't true. The only damage a parasitic suit does that cant be healed by Saint/magic/psionics is the longterm damage every year to SDC then hp or the 10 year reduction to PB. Healing is as far away as the touch of a Saints tentacles for those coming in from an extended patrol without a Saint in the patrol (my group takes a Saint cause there's always parasitic armor worn).

my bad, yeah...the long term damage/loss...

cool.