Forums of the Megaverse®

Hello

Two concepts I wrestle with intellectually with the game rules are:
1. MDC completely undamageable by SDC weapons.
2. For me an unintuitive division of the different types of PS (normal, enhanced, extraordinary, supernatural).

Just wanted to get some ideas of how some of the GM's (or optional rules that i might not know of) have handled these items if they were changed for thier campaigns.

1. Not using the pure MDC system in the rules. I read that you can do away with MDC and just use the SDC by converting it all 1 for 1. Thats not really how i want to go. I want to respect the concept behind the MDC system in that some materials are incredibly dense / hard to damage. Yet at the same time it theoretically makes sense for me to allow SDC weapons to eventually degrade and MDC item. My real hangup simply comes from the idea that some SDC weapons used in sufficient quantity or spent enough time using them would eventually cause damage to MDC items.

So for those who dont use the pure MDC system what variants have you come up with ? I'd love to hear any ideas.

2. Has anyone thought of a way to normalize the PS into one grade of PS yet still work in the very signficant different types of PS ? The various overlapping types just tear at me. I'd love a system or method of having one type of PS and still getting the effect of higher strength.

Again your ideas / methods are appreciated !

Here's a post talking about the MDC thing, some cool ideas on it:

viewtopic.php?f=44&t=92950

As for the strength thing, I have no idea...so far, hasn't been much of a problem in my group...

Here are a few threads from the Rifts and Robotech forums one SDC/MDC issue that are fairly recent

viewtopic.php?f=9&t=90828
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=93042
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=90846

for the Thread creator on the MDC thing.

Questions. What kind of general setting do you plan to use this in???
what is the main type of enviornment that your groups PC's will be operating in??
what kind of weapons are available and what weapons do the PC's use???

You said that you do not want to use a "Pure" MDC setting and that you want to allow
some weapons to be able to Damage the "MDC" Structures.

I will not give out spacifics but but I can post some things that should be allowable.

Most Anti-Tank weapons such as the Bazooka, Rocket Launcher, RPG, Etc... should
be able to damage MDC structures. Many Vehicle mounted weapons(Firearms) with
the proper Ammunition type should also be able to do minimal damage MDC structures.
The type of Ammunition used is very important if you are using firearms and even then
it might not be enough depending on the weapon. Most if not all Side arms and assult
rifles will do absolutely no damage at all to an MDC structure. Many Heavy machineguns
also will not damage an MDC structure with out the Proper ammunition. Even with the
proper ammunition the damage inflected will probably be minimal.

The vast Majority of Heavy firearms with a Bore below 20mm even with Armor Piercing
ammunition will do minimal damage because they are not designed to inflect such damage.

The following SDC weapons (Firearms)Loaded with proper AP ammunition that should do mildly
significant damage to MDC Structures in my opinion are listed below. These Include but are not
limited to the following.

The Tank is used as a somewhat common MDC structure in MDC Settings.

A good Movie to watch that shows what an mdc firearm weapon can do to an sdc object is
"Blue Thunder" The Scene where the 20mm gatling cannon literally blows a police cruiser into 2
halfs without harming the driver is an example of a mega damage weapon can do to an sdc structure.
The m230 30mm Chaingun Cannon Mounted Under the nose of the American Built Ah64a Apache
gunship. This Weapon is a Proven Tank Killer. The Gau-8 30mm Chaingun Cannon mounted on the nose
of the American Built A-10 Thunderbolt. This weapon is also a proven tank killer.
Most Shells fired from a Modern Tank should do Mega Damage. The current American built M1A1 Abrhams
uses superdense heavy mass Depleted Uranium shels. Bullets/rounds/shells made from this materal will
always have AP potential depending on the powder load of the weapon in question.

I hope this helps you out.

WarSpartan wrote:Hello

Two concepts I wrestle with intellectually with the game rules are:
1. MDC completely undamageable by SDC weapons.
2. For me an unintuitive division of the different types of PS (normal, enhanced, extraordinary, supernatural).

Just wanted to get some ideas of how some of the GM's (or optional rules that i might not know of) have handled these items if they were changed for thier campaigns.

1. MDC can be damaged by any SDC attack that inflicts 100+ damage in a single attack. Typically, this is going to be explosives, but IIRC it also applies to burst-capable weapons like heavy machine guns.

2. Yeah, that's always been pretty stupid, and it's gotten worse when they decided that certain PS levels could inflict MD.
I just play it as-is, but my thought has been that somebody should:
-Come up with a PS damage table for normal PS that has increasing punch damage, like the current supernatural PS punch tables do. The tables should be designed in such a way that a character with a PS of 100 does 10x the damage of a character with PS of 10.
-Use only ONE PS type, modified by the current description of the PS. If a character/creature has "Supernatural" strength, then multiply their PS score by 100, for example.

I'm going off of memory here, but I had a house rule for SDC/MDC that instead of doing different amounts of damage they had different penetration values.

SDC was they base line rating for determining how much damage could take and everything was simply converted to SDC, thus a Glitterboy had 770 SDC. It's MDC rating though gave it a Hardened AR rating. I think I used something like 15 + 1 per 50 MDC or something along those lines. If you hit over the AR of the armor/vehicle/creature you did damage like normal, under the AR and it bounced. MDC weapons automatically bypassed AR, thus always damaging the target if you hit. Normal AR used the values the books typically gave the armors, except that hits that bypassed the AR value (because of accuracy) did half damage to the armor and half damage to the person wearing it. And since MD weapons always bypass armor, each shot did half to the armor and half to the wearer.

I only got to play with the rule for about 4 sessions, but it seemed to work pretty well and addressed the problem of everyone having to have MDC weapons and tech to survive. It definitely gave an edge to the high-tech people, but someone with SDC gear, good luck and planning could still manage to contribute to a battle.

for the PS problem, I redesigned the Attribute charts, including PS, and made it the same for all levels of strength, different types just got multiplyers to the bonus. So a human with a 20 strength would hit for example 1d6 + 5, a vampire with a 20 would do 1d6 + 20 and have the advantages of doing MDC damage as listed above.

I posted a thread topic on this, with charts and ideas and stuff. It's easy to find right in this section of the forums.

WarSpartan wrote:Hello

Two concepts I wrestle with intellectually with the game rules are:
1. MDC completely undamageable by SDC weapons.
2. For me an unintuitive division of the different types of PS (normal, enhanced, extraordinary, supernatural).

Just wanted to get some ideas of how some of the GM's (or optional rules that i might not know of) have handled these items if they were changed for thier campaigns.

1. Not using the pure MDC system in the rules. I read that you can do away with MDC and just use the SDC by converting it all 1 for 1. Thats not really how i want to go. I want to respect the concept behind the MDC system in that some materials are incredibly dense / hard to damage. Yet at the same time it theoretically makes sense for me to allow SDC weapons to eventually degrade and MDC item. My real hangup simply comes from the idea that some SDC weapons used in sufficient quantity or spent enough time using them would eventually cause damage to MDC items.

So for those who dont use the pure MDC system what variants have you come up with ? I'd love to hear any ideas.

2. Has anyone thought of a way to normalize the PS into one grade of PS yet still work in the very signficant different types of PS ? The various overlapping types just tear at me. I'd love a system or method of having one type of PS and still getting the effect of higher strength.

Again your ideas / methods are appreciated !

Here is my proven Rifts M.D.C. to S.D.C. Conversion rules.....

Here are some conversion Rates for the Rifts RPG (also applicable to the Chaos Earth and Splicers RPGs) to convert M.D.C. power armor , bots , vehicles and weapons to the S.D.C. system. Multiply by the Listed amounts to get S.D.C.

M.D. Times 2 is now the S.D.C. damage for vibro-blades .

M.D. Times 2 is now the S.D.C. damage for hand-held Small Arms type weapons .

M.D. Times 3 (Tmes 2 for Man-sized Railguns) is now the S.D.C. damage for heavy or power armor mounted weapons (Includes Hand Grenades and the grenades used in Grenade Launchers), also note that Railguns do their converted burst damage in M.D. as S.D.C. per a singe shot (I.E. a C-40R SAMAS Railgun now does 2D4x10 S.D.C. per a single round) and that bursts from railguns should be treated as exacty the same as those of Machineguns.

M.D.Times 10 is now the S.D.C. damage for heavy vehicle mounted weapons (Includes the Glitter Boy's Boom-Gun) .

M.D. Times 5 is now the S.D.C. damage for explosives/missiles.

M.D.C. Times 3 is now the S.D.C. for body armor (this puts Plastic-Man roughly equivalent with riot armor) and ALL Rifts High-Tech Body Armor has the equivalent of Natural/Robot A.R.

M.D.C. Times 3 is now the S.D.C. for power armor , cyborgs , small vehicles, and man-sized robots (this gives a Death's Head SAMAS 750 S.D.C., about as much as a mack truck) and ALL Bionic Systems and Military Vehicles have an equivalent of Natural/Robot A.R.

M.D.C. Times 3 is now the S.D.C. for M.D.C. tanks, conventional vehicles that are larger than man sized, ships , submarines, Glitter Boys and Giant Robots (this gives the largest Iron Heart Armaments tank something like 1900 S.D.C., which is better but still in the same ballpark as an M-1 Abrams at 1500 S.D.C.), and also ALL Military Vehcles have an equivalent of Natural/Robot A.R.

M.D.C. Times 1 to Times 10 for truly massive things (starships, Chi-Town, etc). The balance on these kinds of things varies dramatically (See the below notes on A.R. for these).

The Armor Rating of Different Types of Armor : The only other consideration for armor is to assign an Armor Rating (A.R.).

Most padded, plastic, and light vests and body armor like the Huntsman, Urban Warrior, Juicer, and Plastic Man armor are A.R. 13. Strong and lightweight body armors like the Bushman, Gladiator, Crusader, Explorer and full plate body armor will likely have an A.R. 15 or 16. Most power armor have an A.R. of 16 to 17 and so do human sized robots , like Skelebots, and giant robots , heavy robot vehices like the Coalition Spider Skull Walkers, tanks, APCs, etc., have and A.R. of 18. The Armor Ratings for bionic and robotic characters are likly to be in the range of at A.R. 11 or 12 for light armor, 14 or 15 for medium armor, and 16 or 17 for heavy armor, an an 18 MAXIMUM for heavy full plate armor.

Vehicles like the Big Boss and the various car and airplane like vehicles-like vehicles have an A.R. of 6 to 8, but armored vehicles like the Mountaineer A.T.V. have an A.R. of 13 to 14. Old Style Military Vehicles , the Coalition Mark V APC, Death’s Head Transports, and other tank, APC, military Aircraft and combat vehicles have an A.R. of 17. The old CS Sky Cycle has an A.R. of 14 but the new ones have an A.R. of 16.

Force Fields and Magic Barriers usually have an A.R. of 19 or 20, allowing the force field to absorb all or most of the damage. When all of the force field’s S.D.C. is used up it’s destroyed/gone. The Armor of Ithan spell provides an A.R. of 18 and 200 S.D.C. points.

Physical Strength of Robots, Power Armor, Cyborgs, and Juicers: Use these rule for the raw Physical Strength (P.S.) Of the items and individuals.

Exo-skeleton body armor and Partial Conversion Cyborgs and Juicers have a physical strength equal to the Heroes Unlimited Minor Super Ability : Extraordinary Physical Strength , Power Armor, Full Conversion Cyborgs have an physical strength equal to the Heros Unlimited Minor Super Ability : Super Human Physical Strength , and Giant Robots have an equivalent physical strength to the Heroes Unlimited Major Super Ability : Super Human Physical Strength .

NOTE: For magical and supernatural creatures, spells, and creations just use the rules on page 31 of the Rifts Conversion Book One Revised Edition to turn them into S.D.C./Hit Point equivalent creatures/spells, then take a look at how they stat out and modify them to your liking.

Ajax wrote:The best way to fix the PS problem is to redesign the system and get rid of the whole normal, strong, crazies x2 or 3 thier normal str, juciers x4 thier normal, Exceptional str, robotic str, and supernatural str systems and just have a single PS chat just keeps going up and have those super strong monsters and robots have off the chart (figuratively speaking) PS ratings. But that requires fixing the whole palladium system, which is too much work just for a game considering I don't get paid to be a gm so I am working on a varible chart using your overall lifting/carrying capacity(based off of strength and size) and density (ie normal squishy SDC or tough MDC). Once I get it completed I'll post it so people can see what I'm running my mouth about.

No, you still need the Supernatural PS. The reason for that is that SNPS isn't just about being really strong, it's also about not looking like you should be that strong. Like looking like you can only lift 180 pounds, but in reality you can lift 4,500 pounds.