System House Rules

[The ineffible GM]

wrong forum, try the GM's forum

[SkyeFyre]

Bursts
Energy weapons as well as conventional weapons are capable of performing bursts. The breakdown is as follows.
3 shot burst inflicts x2 damage
6 shot burst inflicts x3 damage and takes up two actions
Laser Bursting does not recieve the normal penalty of halved bonuses as long as the laser is a pulse rifle. Otherwise the burst is a result of the rapid pulling of the trigger by the shooter and gets the penalty as normal.

SDC Damage Through MDC Armor
In addition to the rules presented in the books, sometimes if a character takes damage in a certain way additional SDC damage may apply. For example if a character wearing Coalition Deadboy Armor with 50MDC is hit by an L-20 rifle which inflicts 30 damage with a laser burst the character may take an additional 3D6SDC damage through the armor due to the burn. The same shot hitting a SAMAS however would not inflict the damage.

GI-Joe Rule
If the attack does more damage than what the armor's maximum is, it goes through and full MDC damage hits the character.
Example:
Deadboy with 50MDC maximum on armor but only has 12 remaining is hit by an ion blast which does 16MDC. The remaining armor absorbs the blast and the Deadboy is still alive. Even if he is hit by a mini-missile inflicting 40MDC he will survive. However if that same Deadboy is struck by a Boom-gun round or missile inflicting 51 or more MDC he recieves the full MDC damage applied to him.

Extra Lives (Read before going nuts... lol)
This is something I am implementing because I know it's not fun to have a character you really have gotten attached to and then all of a sudden a few bad rolls happen and they're dead. Basically each character gets 3 strikes or 3 extra lives. Now this is not like your basic Super Mario, try again lives. It merely gives the character a chance to live, but there are still strings attached.

An example might be someone who is struck by a Mega-Damage laser. Now according to Rifts Ultimate, if that character recieves medical treatment within 2D4 minutes they can survive. Now lets say their time is up, but someone can still treat them, we'll bend the rules and allow them to be healed however they're still going to be hurt and likely to be missing a limb... strike 1 buddy. Now lets say this same character is killed in an explosion and isn't really able to be saved. Well there may be some being who sees something in this character and may be willing to return them to life for a task, or maybe their spirit lives on in the Astral Realm and they have to find a way to return to the world of the living. Strike 2. They get back and not long later they jump in front of the fireball intended for little Timmy. We'll once again bend the rules to help them out a bit (strike 3), any time after that, the character dies. End of story. Just so everyone realises, this is not a free extra try, there is still a price.

I realize that this may seem too generous or that the players would abuse this but it's worked wonderfully with my group. They don't do anything absolutely stupid thinking "just because I can and I'll survive". They realize that there is a price and that if they waste that life now, that the natural 20 that the sniper they're going to run into, rolls, is going to end their character's life completely.

That's about it. Other than that we pretty much just play by the book.

[lather]

Weapon Proficiency: Double tap
Two aimed shots in a single attack. Applicable only to small arms and calibers smaller than .45, although I have seen it done with a .45. The second shot is aimed, however, it starts at -3 to strike. This penalty is whittled by the actual weapon proficiency.

Skill: Close quarters battle
Rolls to strike are percentiles. Every strike has a 10% chance of being fatal, unless the shooter declares he is shooting center mass rather than to the opponent's head.

Head shots cause opponent to lose initiative and 1 attack.
Body shots cause opponent to lose intiative.

Also included in basic movement techniques and tactics. All CQB characters have experience using shotguns and explosives for breaching purposes, can operate in gas masks normally, and during other periods of limited visibility.

This gives the trained characters quite an advantage when kicking in doors. This skill package is available only to SWAT and other special operations forces, and only those with at least 1000 experience points gained while participating in special operations. IQ, PP, PE, and Spd must be at least 12 to be considered for training.

Fast and instense, if a bit munchy. We like it nonetheless.

[Natasha]

Weapon Proficiency: Double tap

You forgot some of the restrictions, such as the .30 calibers. Then we could double tap with the AN-94

But I like the double tap rule.

Skill: Close quarters battle
< bla bla bla >

We like it nonetheless.

I didn't like taking one to the face as soon as I came through the door though.



Ambiguity not intended.

[Natasha]

GI-Joe Rule

I like this one. Why it's named "GI-Joe Rule"?

Extra Lives (Read before going nuts... lol)

I like this one, too. I not know a single player that would say, "well, I got another life, so I'm going guns blazing now".

If a player is attached to a character, I think it is good to find ways to let him play the character as much as possible.

[Natasha]

5 second rounds.

I like that there is defined timing, but at the same time, I don't. Hehe.

SDC armors- no longer track SDC. When attacked, if the attack falls under the AR of the armor, the damage is halved. (Round down)

We play 1e, so this significantly makes the fighting more fatal.

MDC armors- Body armors convert the MDC damage to SDC (1: 1 ratio, not 1: 100), making a hit more survivable. Powered armor (essentially a vehicle) still tracks MDC.

Lost me here. If I have 50 MD armour and it goes to 50 SDC it is more survivable than going to 5000 SDC?

I like that vehicles stay MDC. Unless I am shooting at it

Attributes 8 or less have a –2 (2%) penalty to related rolls. An 8 or less PB has a 20% chance to disgust rather than impress.

At least on intial contact. The MA can bridge some of the gap, if the opportunity appears of course.

Spd is number of yards covered in one 5 second melee round. (Not exact, but close enough for a game).

I think this is exactly the same as the official rules.

Official rules: Spd = feet/second.

1 feet in a second is 0,3333333 yards. In 5 seconds this is 1,6 yards.

5 feet is 1,6 yards. So in official rules I travel 5 feet in 5 seconds, or 1,6 yards.

Then again, I attempt math

Untrained use is at base percent. No OCC or level bonuses allowed.

Depends on the skill? For example, Computer Programming.

but how many games have you heard of with levels past 10 anyway?

I'm happy to make it past 5th.

Well, those are mine. Add yours, so we can see how flexible the Palladium system can be with your groups!

Well, sometimes I wonder what system we are playing hehe.

[SkyeFyre]

GI-Joe Rule

I like this one. Why it's named "GI-Joe Rule"?

As of Rifts Ultimate, if you have 1 MDC left on your armor and you get hit by a boomgun round criting for 360 MDC, that last 1 MDC will absorb the last of the damage and your character takes no damage to themselves. So I wrote up some rules to make it make more sense.

It's called the GI-Joe rule because we're shooting around with high powered lasers and nobody dies.

[Noon]

Of course only GM's get their knickers in a knot about the last point of MDC being able to absorb 360 mega damage. Players A: Typically don't run into the extreme examples and B: Are concentrating on actually playing, rather than examining the aesthetics of the system.

[Natasha]

GMs concentrate on playing, too

I think if I have a handful of damage capacity remaining and I get hit with 360 points of damage, then more than my armour is getting damaged.

[Natasha]

It's called the GI-Joe rule because we're shooting around with high powered lasers and nobody dies.

Hehe. ok thanks.

[SkyeFyre]

Of course only GM's get their knickers in a knot about the last point of MDC being able to absorb 360 mega damage. Players A: Typically don't run into the extreme examples and B: Are concentrating on actually playing, rather than examining the aesthetics of the system.

All of my players had something to say about it. Including the GB pilot of the group who was critting random thugs and they were chewing him apart because of the rule. We all found it unrealistic, and kind of took away from some of the wonder and fear that is around Mega-Damage technology. So we just fixed it. I personally like the rule, just think it could have used some elaboration to the limits of the rule.

[Noon]

The boomgun could do with further elaboration - it certainly does more than one blast per attack (two hundred flichettes, IIRC), and the last bit of armour rule applies to only the blast that reduces the armour to zero.

[Nekira Sudacne]

The boomgun could do with further elaboration - it certainly does more than one blast per attack (two hundred flichettes, IIRC), and the last bit of armour rule applies to only the blast that reduces the armour to zero.

actually, it says it only fires one shot, that shot breaks open to release the flichettes

[zor_prime1]

I have a few rules:

Character Generation (Probably very common)
With attributes, I allow the players to roll 4D6 and take the highest 3. If they get a bonus die, then the 4th die is the bonus.

Combat
The melee consists of rounds. The number of rounds is determined by the lowest participant in the combat. Usually the players and NPC's have attacks above that. These are called "Splice Attacks". With these they are allowed to use the balance of those attacks to block, attack, or perform a 2-attack action during the round. Only one splice attack can be used per round unless the player's attack count is more than double the number of rounds. The splice attacks can only be dodged by another splice attack or an autododge. There are a few more little restrictions with them, but I've excluded them for the sake of space. But my players love this rule. It empowers them and the combat goes quick. But they also recognize that an enemy is dangerous if he has splice attacks too.

Here is the rule in it's entirety:

http://www.geocities.com/zor_prime1/insert.htm

That's all I can remember for now. It's been a long time since my group has had an RPG session though.

[Noon]

The boomgun could do with further elaboration - it certainly does more than one blast per attack (two hundred flichettes, IIRC), and the last bit of armour rule applies to only the blast that reduces the armour to zero.

actually, it says it only fires one shot, that shot breaks open to release the flichettes

That's enough elaboration for you?

[Nekira Sudacne]

The boomgun could do with further elaboration - it certainly does more than one blast per attack (two hundred flichettes, IIRC), and the last bit of armour rule applies to only the blast that reduces the armour to zero.

actually, it says it only fires one shot, that shot breaks open to release the flichettes

That's enough elaboration for you?

Of course?

what's wrong with it.