New Edition of Rifts

[keir451]

A major house rule I employ is to use the D&D 3.0 experience table for all O.C.C.s, that way I don't have to look through each book for that specific exp. table. This allows for rapid early advancement, but slower advancement at higher levels.
I also apply the standard of "Physics works", even MDC beings can be harmed by things such as falls from great heights or impacting the ground at high speeds. This seriously cuts down on power gaming.
I also run the CS Army more like our Army in it's training standards and capabilities, which helps the players to understand how the CS won vs Tolkeen.
I also change the "name" of the power sources from nuclear to fusion, this way we solve the question of the 20yr life span; the fusion plant will run for 20yrs before exhausting its hydrogen supplies, but once it's hydrogen is "dry" one can just add water (2 Hydrogen atoms for every Oxygen ) and the system seperates the hydrogen on its own and we're back in bussiness.
A fun house rule that I use on psychics w/ telemechanics or object read is saving throws everytime they encounter things that are truly ancient (millions or even billions of years old), even if they save they get nose bleeds from the slight (or major) aneurisms, if they fail they pass out or even go into a coma, depending on my 'generosity' at the moment, i.e; random dice roll and how badly they failed their save vs psionics roll.
Another house rule I started employing recently has to do with Madhaven, I keep the psychic scar but aloow for a MUCH lessend effect if you're in Power Armor or any enviromentally sealed vehicle, this allows characters to be more effective and my players complain far, far less about "game rape".
Finally, I allow for nuclear weapons to be able to kill vampires and vampire intelligences.
Those are a few of my favorite "House Rules".

[RainOfSteel]

A major house rule I employ is to use the D&D 3.0 experience table for all O.C.C.s, that way I don't have to look through each book for that specific exp. table. This allows for rapid early advancement, but slower advancement at higher levels.

This is interesting in that is provides uniformity, but many of the classes, I think anyway, were partially balanced, as much as anything in Palladium has been balanced, by being given bigger XP tables. I certainly wouldn't mind taking a Dragon Hatchling under these circumstances.

I also run the CS Army more like our Army in it's training standards and capabilities, which helps the players to understand how the CS won vs Tolkeen.

I am interested in how solely considering the CS Army to have received 20th/21st Century USA Army-style training and capabilities would have had any effect on the outcome of the war. The CS Army as stated in the game has capabilities that the USA Army does not; were the millions of armor suits, mecha, air vessels, and robots removed in favor of lesser 20th/21st Century USA Army-style training and capabilities?

Also, are you describing this for the war as presented in the Siege on Tolkeen series? I ask this because SoT was a mass of contradictions built on implausibilities for all factions.

Or was this under your own personal variant of the war where you rearranged things to make Tolkeen's defeat and the CS's victory reasonable (as opposed to just being confusing)?

I also change the "name" of the power sources from nuclear to fusion, this way we solve the question of the 20yr life span; the fusion plant will run for 20yrs before exhausting its hydrogen supplies, but once it's hydrogen is "dry" one can just add water (2 Hydrogen atoms for every Oxygen ) and the system seperates the hydrogen on its own and we're back in bussiness.

It would be deuterium and possibly tritium too. Electrolysis by itself would take quite a while to get a decent amount of deuterium and I don't think it would produce tritium.

A fun house rule that I use on psychics w/ telemechanics or object read is saving throws everytime they encounter things that are truly ancient (millions or even billions of years old), even if they save they get nose bleeds from the slight (or major) aneurisms, if they fail they pass out or even go into a coma, depending on my 'generosity' at the moment, i.e; random dice roll and how badly they failed their save vs psionics roll.

As much as I hate telemechanics as a constantly game-breaking power, I don't think I would do that to players without giving a giant warning, such as, "When you use your power, the psychic flows of information swarm back into your mind, overloading you with incomprehensible information, it's becoming painful, what do you do?"

Finally, I allow for nuclear weapons to be able to kill vampires and vampire intelligences.

Does this include nuclear-tipped LRM missiles per the chart? Would the explosion kill all vampires in the AoE?

Although one hasn't been written up for Rifts that I have seen, the technology could exist to maintain stabilized Californium, where it's half-life had been suppressed by a damper. A 20mm round of Californium has been estimated to produce a small nuclear explosion on impact alone if shot out of a cannon. Would that also kill vampires?

[keir451]

@RainOfSteel; I just dislike hunting for different exp. tables. I can usually adjust things to compensate for faster level advances.
In My Opinion the uses their equipment intelligently, utilizing tactics, etc. The point of my statement wasn't that they had received 20th century training, but that they, like our Army, are a highly trained force. This training (utilization of their equipment, etc. and the discipline it would have instilled) would have been, along w/ their superior technology, the real reason they won the war against Tolkeen.
I generally ignore the contradictions and rewrite the SoT entirely to make it more reasonable as far less confusing.
Re: Telemechanics, that's how my Gm described it at first as an overload of info. the aneurisms we just threw in so we could have a visible effect.
Re: Nukes vs Vampires, Yes thus includes the LRMs from the charts as well as any style of "nuclear weaponry", the combination of the heat and light plus the shockwave throwing them into who knows what kills them.

[RainOfSteel]

In My Opinion the uses their equipment intelligently, utilizing tactics, etc. The point of my statement wasn't that they had received 20th century training, but that they, like our Army, are a highly trained force. This training (utilization of their equipment, etc. and the discipline it would have instilled) would have been, along w/ their superior technology, the real reason they won the war against Tolkeen.

The CS did intelligent things and reaped the benefits. Sounds good. I just wonder, did your version of Tolkeen also put on a better show?

I generally ignore the contradictions and rewrite the SoT entirely to make it more reasonable as far less confusing.

Many of us have done that, though we all usually come out a differently at the end based on where we want the game to go.

[keir451]

In My Opinion the uses their equipment intelligently, utilizing tactics, etc. The point of my statement wasn't that they had received 20th century training, but that they, like our Army, are a highly trained force. This training (utilization of their equipment, etc. and the discipline it would have instilled) would have been, along w/ their superior technology, the real reason they won the war against Tolkeen.

The CS did intelligent things and reaped the benefits. Sounds good. I just wonder, did your version of Tolkeen also put on a better show?

I generally ignore the contradictions and rewrite the SoT entirely to make it more reasonable as far less confusing.

Many of us have done that, though we all usually come out a differently at the end based on where we want the game to go.

yes my version of tolkeen did put on a better show, I just had to rewrite the magic so it functioned better.

[ZorValachan]

I also do not like 4th Edition.

ya its to minatures based. i want sped in meters not freakin squares... what if i dont have a map. all 4th is is a way for you to have to spend more money on crap you do not need

x5 = feet. not so difficult

[ZorValachan]

unlike WoTC who have mind you gone through 3 editions in less than a decade. that is just to much crap to buy.

You'll notice it hasn't hurt their sales though, even though it was the talk of the RPG community that work began on DnD3.5 almost as soon as 3.0 hit the shelves because a new edition after a few years was a conscious part of their strategy.

New editions also don't seem to have hurt White Wolf (which survived three new editions of its old World Of Darkness games followed by a reboot of the entire setting, and is still the second-biggest RPG company by a considerable margin) or Steve Jackson Games (four editions of GURPS so far, and thoroughly entrenched as the third biggest-selling RPG company around).

Palladium's habit of doing new editions as infrequently as possible so that all the books will stay usable is nice, but I can't really find much evidence that it's either a good thing or a bad thing from a sales perspective.

I'm willing to guess palladium books has never been as financially profitable as the big boys but also don't have the overhead, so I don't know if the infrequent new editions or revisions is really a good thing at all. The small company size does keep the king in charge of the kingdom and has a tendency to keep the system at a status quo, however it does slow the release of new product and preserves outdated or inaccurate mechanics.

Essentially we're using a core that consist of a combat mechanics based off a 34 year old system with the addition of deteriorating armor and a skill system based off a 30 year old skill system. The strength is in the settings and writing, the weakness of it is in mechanics (writing is strong, statistics and modeling is weak).

Mechanoids first SDC world has psychic powers and magic both powered by ISP

I'm pretty sure it originally had only HPs and uses per day (like AD&D).

PFRPG introduces magic powered by PPE

Actually that particular change happened with Heroes Unlimited and was changed with PFRPG second edition, which also included the addition of SDC, changes in H2H skills and the addition of ISP for psionics, first edition used HP and uses per day for both magic and psionics.

N&S introduces an alternate set of HtH

It also introduced the concept of CHI for powering martial arts skills.

Heroes Unlimited Introduces unpowered powers

Also introduced the PPE and ISP later used for all games.

TMNT introduces Bio-E for genetic engineering and a way that the Megaverse can possibly be tied together (TMNT Trans-Dimensional).

Originally was only HP based, with animal psionics use without ISP.

Robotech introduces MDC a missile chart and in Invid Invasion introduces mini-missiles

Arguably the most divisive change. I think the need to make the new tech so much better than modern tech created this gigantic power creep and has led to the continual power creep we have seen ever since. Instead of the wonderful tech being neat due to the cool factor of giant robots, that are reasonably more durable than normal, we got giants robots which are far more durable than the ones from the canon source. I am currently sand boxing with a scaled system(SDC, MDC(1:10), HMDC(1:100) that uses multiple penetration levels and damage reductions (it seems to be working well so far but who knows).

Rifts introduces an official connection to all dimensions in the Megaverse and so much more

Love the setting...

So the system isn't stagnant it is just modified slowly... by evolution , heck look at the skill systems between the various games.

Skill system changes, OCC, and powers I can get since they are different settings, I don't like the way that combat mechanics don't stay consistent between books in the same setting, never mind throughout the system, or the way the that calculated attributes aren't consistent.

PFRPG 1st edition introduced ISP. Was for Psionics as well as Illusions and Healing.
BTS introduced PPE. HU used spells per day as did PFRPG until it was changed in later editions after BTS

[X'Zanthar]

I am trying to find a Modern or science fiction RPG to get my group into. Fantasy is getting boring.

-RB

Dude! Eclipse Phase
http://www.eclipsephase.com

Havn't played it yet because I can't find anyone in my area for a F2F game. But it's really cool. I've allready writen two adventures and made tons of characters and NPC's

The best things about it that Rifts doesn't have.
A. No magic crap.

B. No magic crap.

C. because there's no magic crap they game modles reality, science and physics as closely as possible.

D. It's a D100 system that is extremely smooth and fast but still encourages tactical and stratigic role-play.

E. No class/level based CG ********. building a character is tottaly freeform if you have a concept that has a widely disparate skillset you just build that character you don't have to find a class that fits your character.

F. Guns, Lasers, Railguns, Cyberware, Synthmorphs, Biomorphs, Warriors, Spies, Spaceships, Nano swarms, AI's, Evil AI's...

G. More fully developed (realistic) factions than Rifts. And that's just in the main book.

H. You get to switch bodies if you don't like the one you have or another one would work better for what you're about to do.

I. Did I allready say science and no magic crap?

Any yes, the books would become obsolete as new updated product lines could be released. It seems pointless for any new players to even immerse themselves in the game at this point.

I am a new player. I'm dealing with a fairly cool concept that has stagnated for 15 or more years now and you have to face it some of those years were pretty crappy. Rifts is tired. The system desperately wants to be updated. I keep buying books and the return on each book is minimal. If you dump the class sistem and make it into a free form point buy character generation system you easily cut each sourcebook by a third. If you consolodate all of the spells and guns that are exact duplicates of eachother with diferent names you cut the BoM and the DMG in half. If you stop copy/pasteing material from one book to another and stop allowing KS to write half page adds explaining why something 'isn't' stoopid you cut 10-15 pages out of every book again. If someone in layout could invent something like a TABLE instead of an ugly block of stats for each piece of gear you cut some books by more than 50%.

A good writer and a good designer could put all of Rifts in 4 books with no loss to the setting and greatly enhanced game play.

I love Eclipse Phase! I have been reading through the core book and even made a few characters. Nice system. The setting could be a bit gloomy for my taste, but it does not have to be, there is flexability.

[X'Zanthar]

If I were Palladium, I wouldn't update Rifts until/unless it was at the xxth year mark or I was ready to change formats entirely.

Heh, On topic I agree. Though I would like some streamlining and LESS duplication.

Having played in the megaverse for years and enjoying the rich setting (starting with PF and Mechanoids), the system is secondary.