My Splicers campaign problems

[bigbobsr6000]

One option is to have a more powerful leader of a NPC group attack the powerful PC. While the other PCs deal with the others. Not each encounter, but on occasion. The idea you had with the second session seemed balanced. Enough danger in the fight fo all to get hurt or killed. Not saying to kill the PCs but the danger must always be there.

2nd, try to have a situation where all their skills must be used as a team effort to win a battle. Like going against a single powerful Villian that takes them all to defeat.

Hope this helps.

[runebeo]

Only a Packmaster or a Outrider can pilot a Dracos. Archangels can not control one. Dracos are powerful and they look great.

[Spinachcat]

Give all the other players +50 Bio-E to spend on their host armor and other gear. The Draco/Outrider will still be most powerful, but not by a notable margin.

Then throw more stuff at them...

[runebeo]

Runebeo, Is that somewhere in the book? I couldn't find it. thanks

Read Dracos profile on page 115 under other data it says obeying the command of an Outrider or Packmaster (only)

[demos606]

I'd be better able to offer advice on your Angel problem if I knew what loadout they'd taken for their gear. As for allowing them the use of Mounts, it's an option but you're going to end up using bigger groups of robots with longer battles.

My advice, give them enough robots that standing and fighting is the suicide play it's meant to be. If they don't get smart and start avoiding robot patrols, it's going to suck to be them real fast. Use the Bone Wastes and Ghost Towns as adventure sites and you'd be surprised how fast the balance of power shifts in the group.

[sHaka]

My, rather unhelpful, advice would be not to allow outriders to take Dracos as mounts. Certainly not for starter campaigns or level one characters. I would imagine that Warlords would want their dracos piloted by their most experinced outriders?

I may get shouted at for this, but I've always felt that the Outrider class was over-powered compared to the other classes - host armour and a choice of any of the mounts. It seems a bit much to me.

Just my 2 pence.

(nice to see more people running a Splicers campaign )

[LostOne]

I may try the +50 bonus bio-e, but that still won't solve the problem I'm now having of the battles being too long. In order for their to be a challenge, i need the group to fight a lot of robots, but this leads to very prolonged battles that aren't really as fast and fun as some of the other campaigns my group has played in. Any ideas on that?

If you want faster battles, add a blanket x2 or x3 to damage being dealt by both sides. Faster battles.

I had anticipated this being a potential problem in my game while preparing for it. Seems like everything has hundreds of MDC, but the ranged stuff first level Host Armors can get is low damage, like 2d8 type stuff. Also robotic PS has fairly low punch damage. So most of our characters will be using handheld weapons for greater damage, one of the character is specializing as the "heavy artillery" of the group with a flying host armor and four of the handheld rocket launchers (used one at a time, but has 4 so he can get more shots off before being out of ammo, since those rockets take a long time to regenerate).

One of the other players is a flyer (the organic jets) with two sets of max damage bone blades on his forearms (1d6x10 MD) and paired weapons. So he'll fly until he's in melee range then tear the enemy up with dual-strikes.

Might port in some rifts energy weapons for the Technojacker if he ends up needing a damage boost in a few levels.

[sHaka]

My, rather unhelpful, advice would be not to allow outriders to take Dracos as mounts.

This might be a good idea for my next campaign. I don't know though... Don't Behemoths do even more damage? And if Outriders can't use Dracos, who can?

I suppose I was suggesting that only Higher level outriders should have access to Dracos.

But like you say, not much use to you now!

[runebeo]

Read Dracos profile on page 115 under other data it says obeying the command of an Outrider or Packmaster (only)

I thought that section describes how a dracos will act when it is not being piloted. In other words, I think that means that when it is not being piloted it will only take commands from a packmaster or outrider. I'm pretty sure that's what it means, especially since in the archangel description it says they pilot flying warmounts, and both the dracos and zephyr have that same description under other data, and they are the only two flying warmounts in the game. Although I could be wrong, what do you think?




Well thats how I thought it was only Packmaster and Outrider could use them in that case Dracos for ever member of the squad. Thats like 12 to 19 attacks per member, thats a lot of napalm blasts!
When the squad off doing stuff inside the Packmaster can control all the Dracos and really do some damage. Why have a pack of hounds when u can have a pack of dragons.

[demos606]

Honestly Davis, part of the problem is the 'angels loadouts, they don't do well at taking advantage of the flight capabilities of the OCC. The only stuff I would keep from those loadouts is the rockets and maybe the bio-vent. When I get back this afternoon I'll post my 'angels loadout for comparison for you.

[LostOne]

I think what'll make your game a lot smoother is to kill off the dracos. Replace it with a ground unit that is less powerful and don't penalize the player on the Bio-E to customize the replacement. Basically, the Great House is unwilling to give another Dracos to an Outrider who let the one he had get killed. Those things take 5 years to gestate and 8 years to grow, so their numbers are very limited simply due to the space they take up to grow and train. "But we have a Strider/Grendel/Zephyr ready to go right now." Great Houses don't have unlimited space.

How to kill it? After it has been effective in a fight, aka drawing attention, have it targeted by multiple robots with missiles. Or have a special custom robot (avatar of one of the NEXUS personalities) spear it with a nastily barbed harpoon while it is flying and dodging other attacks. Basically, by the time it's safe for the Outrider and Dracos to land, the spear has triggered the nano-plague and has mortally wounded the Dracos. Or maybe his Dracos is flawed, a genetic anomally has cursed it with a heart murmur or something that catches up with it during the most hectic battle it's ever seen. Or during non-combat the Dracos is flying and flies over an unseen robot patrol, a Robot gets a critical strike and blows the Dracos head off as a surprise attack.

If the player is mature, discuss it with him before hand, let him know you are doing this because it is unbalancing the game and causing you as GM extra problems you don't need. If he's reasonable, he'll go with it with a minimum of bellyaching. If he's an unreasonable player, make it seem as if the dice had it in for the Dracos.

[csbioborg]

have you ever though of maybe making less combat orientated missions. If its a infiltration mission to a village or another splicer compund then you might get better balance and role play

[TechnoGothic]

As someone else who had a Player choose a dang Dracos for their Outrider i feel for yah.
Those things are just too powerful for lower level PCs. That and the Player wanted to even sleep in the harness just to keep the bonuses and not be seperated from the dang thing. I eventually seperated the two, and kept him away from it to balance things out.

From now on, Outriders will only get the Strider Warmount to begin with in my games.

I'd rather have Roughnecks, Packmasters, Archangels, Biotics, and Dreadguard in my games though.

[runebeo]

Another option is if your GM don't allow the union between man & beast which has seemed to be one of the biggest issue. Could also limit the number of attacks to only 10. Our Outrider main mount is a Dracos, but he uses different mounts for certain missions and our GM sometimes limits he's mounts involvement in our missions, yet she said the mount's bonuses don't really matter in range combat. I hope the new books will bring in some optional rules to help Splicers crossover better with Rifts. Maybe on Rifts Earth without proper care and bio-technology upgrades the host armors & mounts grow weaker and the union between man & beast bonuses are reduced to only +2 attacks, +2 on other combat bonuses and make it hard for them to get back into the good graces of their houses for abandoning their home and if any of the ultra or mega upgrades to weapons revert back to normal without the constant tech support. I love the setting as is, but I sure wished it was more designed with a straight crossover theme with Rifts. I hope some groups retool the rules so they too can enjoy this great game.

[demos606]

Draco's just aren't that big a deal for me. NEXUS air robots can shoot them from further away than the rider or Dracos can retaliate and have an insurmountable speed advantage. Other Houses would use Dracos or Zephyrs working with Angels in response to a Dracos on the field and would probably start shooting at it with Behemoths as well. It's all about scale - compared to other Splicers stuff Dracos just aren't that much more powerful.

[TechnoGothic]

Draco's just aren't that big a deal for me. NEXUS air robots can shoot them from further away than the rider or Dracos can retaliate and have an insurmountable speed advantage. Other Houses would use Dracos or Zephyrs working with Angels in response to a Dracos on the field and would probably start shooting at it with Behemoths as well. It's all about scale - compared to other Splicers stuff Dracos just aren't that much more powerful.

I know 4 local Rifts/Splicers groups near me.
All of us, focus on the Splicers Houses. The Machine/Nexus has never appeared in the other guys stories yet, only Once in mine (which i regreted later). Seems we just like the inter-house relationships between houses and how House fight House much more. So for us, Dracos can be overpowered most of the time.

[demos606]

Dracos are only stupidly powerful at close range. Zephyr and Angels can stay outside the range of the Draco's big guns and wear it down fairly easily with minimal damage to themselves. Behemoth can't stay out of range forever like the Zephyr or Angels but with an 11000 range, it's a force to be reconed with for enemy Dracos. Bio-rocket slingers (p136) should be part of any House force as well and at least some of the HA should have missiles as well. No warmount takes more than 3 melees to take down with focused fire in anything bigger than a 3 on 3 fight if the forces are properly equipped.

If your games are having problems with Dracos, maybe the problem isn't the Dracos.

[RockJock]

I had a similar problem in a Splicers game a few years ago. I took over as GM mid-stream so I didn't have a whole lot of say in what everyone was running. I Didn't kill off the Draco or anything that harsh, but I put an emphasis on stealth and skills, The Draco is a huge flying thing. Dracos can be picked off at range, and definitely announce the group is coming. In the end the Outrider player started picking other mounts to take on missions, and I eventually let him switch his primary to a Strider without a huge loss of Bio-E investment.