Ridiculous things in the books

[TechnoGothic]

Not-locked-count-1

people who let their players run wild and choose weapons and equipment from every book deserve to wind up with eyelor modded ATLs.
Crazies, and many other classes, could use better wording, palladium is known for occasional poor editing and proofreading.

but the only thing i find silly or stupid is how sad the magic and psionic systems are. I had to rework them to make them worthwhile. everything else is gm's not putting the foot down, munchkins running free, and bad/unclear writing/editing/proofreading.

in my game, psionics and magic are capable of being stand alone. they don't need technology to fall back on. other than that, i dont really have to change much.


Scratch that. military vehicle and robot MDC and Damage. WAY TOO LOW. but the simplest of scaling math fixes that. so aside from magic and psioics in general, and military vehicles/robots stats, i think the books are just about perfect.

Saw a GM who did this...
PPE and ISP is the total amount of times you can use said rescource in a Day. There was never spending PPE/ISP to use the spells/powers. It worked very well.
In that game, their was a LLW with around 200 PPE, and 30 ISP with less psionics. He was able to use 200 spells for he became tired and unable to use magic for the day. Which was great, and much more in theme to spell-casters to me that spending PPE to power a spell like we have now.

[Killer Cyborg]

The reason OUT of game is to help preserve game balance.

The reason is bogus, and the "solution" makes no real sense in-game, and doesn't significantly change or fix anything.

In game it's that channeling of PPE and stuff.

Therefore mages can use some armors, that are specially designed to allow them to channel that PPE. Why allow it? Because those armors themselves have a number of factors. 1) They ain't cheep. 2) They're going to be harder to repair, 3) They're not nearly as common and 4) they're not as strong.

1. They come as starting gear. There is no listed price, so I'm not sure why you think they're not cheap.
2. Where does it say that MDC hide/leather/chitin/whatever is harder to repair?
3. There's nothing indicating that mage armor is uncommon- it's basic starting equipment.
4. Plastic Man armor has 35 MDC. Light LLW armor has 2d6+32 MDC, for a range of 34 MDC (1 point less, wow!) to 44 MDC (1 point less than Huntsman, 6 points less than Urban Warrior), with an average of 39 MDC.
So yeah, it's "not as strong," but not by any amount that's going to really matter most of the time, and not always.
A mage with light LLW armor is, on average, going to have 4 MDC more than a mage with Plastic Man.
A mage with top-of-the-line light LLW armor is going to have up to 9 MDC more than a mage with Plastic Man.
And even in the most extreme case the other way, say a mage with LLW armor with only 32 MDC compared to a mage wearing Urban Warrior (50 MDC), the 18 point difference is now compensated for by the GI-Joe Rule.

Meanwhile, people who abused the original "mages prefer light armor for mobility" rule are simply going to ignore or abuse the current rule.

Those built in limitations make it harder for the mage to just throw something on. It helps with that 'out of game reason'. To help preserve over all balance.

Well, yes and no.
The thing is, a mage CAN still just throw something on.
And for the most part, it's not even going to hamper his abilities significantly, because the penalties aren't really that big of a deal anyway.

But sure, it's a minor pain in the butt for mages to shop for armor now, sometimes, depending on where they are.
That's not balance, though- that's just a minor pain in the butt.

this is part of the "mage package'.

Sure, NOW.
But it didn't used to be, and things worked fine before.
They "fixed" something that wasn't broken in the first place.

it's not a 'Ridiculous thing in the book'.

Let's see.... in order to fix something that wasn't broken, Palladium:
a) created a solution that makes no real sense from an in-game perspective
b) created a solution that does not accomplish its goal of promoting balance in any significant degree.
c) created a solution that adds complications to the game for both players and GMs (additional tables, more required tracking of wardrobe, etc.)
d) half-assed the solution by creating a rule that (until RUE) only meant that mages couldn't cast spells effectively while wearing the armor that they get during character creation, and post-RUE means that mages of any kind all have to borrow their armor from Ley Line Walkers.
e) created a solution by ripping off an overplayed cliche from D&D.

That seems pretty ridiculous to me.

[The Beast]

The reason OUT of game is to help preserve game balance.

The reason is bogus, and the "solution" makes no real sense in-game, and doesn't significantly change or fix anything.

In game it's that channeling of PPE and stuff.

Therefore mages can use some armors, that are specially designed to allow them to channel that PPE. Why allow it? Because those armors themselves have a number of factors. 1) They ain't cheep. 2) They're going to be harder to repair, 3) They're not nearly as common and 4) they're not as strong.

1. They come as starting gear. There is no listed price, so I'm not sure why you think they're not cheap.
2. Where does it say that MDC hide/leather/chitin/whatever is harder to repair?
3. There's nothing indicating that mage armor is uncommon- it's basic starting equipment.
4. Plastic Man armor has 35 MDC. Light LLW armor has 2d6+32 MDC, for a range of 34 MDC (1 point less, wow!) to 44 MDC (1 point less than Huntsman, 6 points less than Urban Warrior), with an average of 39 MDC.
So yeah, it's "not as strong," but not by any amount that's going to really matter most of the time, and not always.
A mage with light LLW armor is, on average, going to have 4 MDC more than a mage with Plastic Man.
A mage with top-of-the-line light LLW armor is going to have up to 9 MDC more than a mage with Plastic Man.
And even in the most extreme case the other way, say a mage with LLW armor with only 32 MDC compared to a mage wearing Urban Warrior (50 MDC), the 18 point difference is now compensated for by the GI-Joe Rule.

Meanwhile, people who abused the original "mages prefer light armor for mobility" rule are simply going to ignore or abuse the current rule.

Those built in limitations make it harder for the mage to just throw something on. It helps with that 'out of game reason'. To help preserve over all balance.

Well, yes and no.
The thing is, a mage CAN still just throw something on.
And for the most part, it's not even going to hamper his abilities significantly, because the penalties aren't really that big of a deal anyway.

But sure, it's a minor pain in the butt for mages to shop for armor now, sometimes, depending on where they are.
That's not balance, though- that's just a minor pain in the butt.

this is part of the "mage package'.

Sure, NOW.
But it didn't used to be, and things worked fine before.
They "fixed" something that wasn't broken in the first place.

it's not a 'Ridiculous thing in the book'.

Let's see.... in order to fix something that wasn't broken, Palladium:
a) created a solution that makes no real sense from an in-game perspective
b) created a solution that does not accomplish its goal of promoting balance in any significant degree.
c) created a solution that adds complications to the game for both players and GMs (additional tables, more required tracking of wardrobe, etc.)
d) half-assed the solution by creating a rule that (until RUE) only meant that mages couldn't cast spells effectively while wearing the armor that they get during character creation, and post-RUE means that mages of any kind all have to borrow their armor from Ley Line Walkers.
e) created a solution by ripping off an overplayed cliche from D&D.

That seems pretty ridiculous to me.

And that right there is the only reason needed for ignoring that rule. If I wanted to play D&D I wouldn't be playing Rifts.

[Dr. Doom III]

I'd say that's because they weren't ignoring it. It says 'prefer' it doesn't say 'can only wear'. Just as Techno-Wizards like to dress up in aviator outfits but it doesn't mean they have to dress that way exclusively.

Yeah well now you have to.

[Dr. Doom III]

A level 1 mage can't possibly survive with his 10 MDC Armor of Ithan.
If a low level mage wants to survive, he has to give up his magic abilities and wear armor, making himself a guy with a gun and armor who just isn't quite as good at it as everyone else.

You can if you add that 10 MDC to his light armor.
Especially back in the days when you could still dodge.

[Sureshot]

Even though I dislike the whole glass mage issue with mage in Rifts I have come to terms with it. What bothers me so much is beyond a few pieces of art mages are usually shown either in the thick of a battle or handling enemies all on their own. On one hand they say mages are not designed to be front line fighters yet on the other we see mages in the art doing just that. Which I at least find ridiculous. I wish they would illustrate them according to the way they describe the class in combat.

[Nightmask]

I'd say that's because they weren't ignoring it. It says 'prefer' it doesn't say 'can only wear'. Just as Techno-Wizards like to dress up in aviator outfits but it doesn't mean they have to dress that way exclusively.

Yeah well now you have to.

You're kidding, they've made dressing like an aviator an actual requirement of Techno-wizards? That's so crazy I can't even think of an analogy to compare it to for how crazy it is.

[flatline]

I tend to ignore the whole mages wearing armor issue. I prefer personal forcefields (Naruni or whomever) anyways.

Other bits I tend to ignore is that spells apparently require spoken words and gestures such that a mage in a globe of silence or with hands bound can't mentally shape PPE in order to cast a spell. I completely ignore that. Magic may be hard, but these guys are professional spell casters. Mnemonics and gestures might be useful when learning a spell, but any spell that you have mastery over won't require such crutches. An house rule that we used on and off, depending on the GM, was that using words or gestures took twice as long but gave a +1 spell strength. Using both words and gestures took 3 or 4 times as long (don't remember) but gave +2 spell strength. It added some flavor for those who wanted it with a small game mechanic benefit but still allowed quick and silent spell casting as the default.

--flatline

[Pepsi Jedi]

The reason OUT of game is to help preserve game balance.

The reason is bogus, and the "solution" makes no real sense in-game, and doesn't significantly change or fix anything.

It makes sense, unless you wanna be mr mage that has everything under the sun. People hate it but for the games to not turn into --uncontrolled-- twink fests you do need some sort of game balance.

In game it's that channeling of PPE and stuff.

Therefore mages can use some armors, that are specially designed to allow them to channel that PPE. Why allow it? Because those armors themselves have a number of factors. 1) They ain't cheep. 2) They're going to be harder to repair, 3) They're not nearly as common and 4) they're not as strong.

1. They come as starting gear. There is no listed price, so I'm not sure why you think they're not cheap.

And most classes start with MD armor.. but when it's tore up, destroied, stolen, lost, ect.. you have to buy more..... just like a mage.. So that's where and why I say it's not cheep. Buying special mage armor is buying a specialty product. so it's more expensive.

2. Where does it say that MDC hide/leather/chitin/whatever is harder to repair?

Because not every guy on the block can do it? The MDC hide leather or whhat ever armor is "A-typical." Think of it this way.... If you drive a Ford or a Honda you can get it repaired at any shop around the country, but if you drive an Austin Martain or Lambo you have to go to a specialty shop. The normal shop may be able to repair some of the stuff, but probably not much. You gotta take that specialty item to a specialty shop.

3. There's nothing indicating that mage armor is uncommon- it's basic starting equipment.

Really? ... REALLY? lol yes you get some starting, as you're a mage and stuff. but then look through the books. You'll find what? 10.. 20.. 30 suits of normal MD armor per every 1mage armor? It's so rare and hard to find in the books that you see threads here asking where it is.

"Rare" as in unable to find it? no. Rare as in maybe one shop in 20 or 30 might have it? Yeah.. and when it's rare, the price is going to go up. You're stuck on that "I GET SOME AS STARTING EQUIPMENT!" yeah you do, if you look at MOST of the OOC's starting equipment they start off with hundreds of thousands in gear if not millions. It's after that armor gets tore up and you gotta replace it where it gets hard. Mages aren't 'rare' but they're nnot nearly as common as normal people/non mage classes. Mages are special.

4. Plastic Man armor has 35 MDC. Light LLW armor has 2d6+32 MDC, for a range of 34 MDC (1 point less, wow!) to 44 MDC (1 point less than Huntsman, 6 points less than Urban Warrior), with an average of 39 MDC.
So yeah, it's "not as strong," but not by any amount that's going to really matter most of the time, and not always.

Cute KC.... and when you're not using the absolute cheepist weakest armor out there? Yeah plastic man armor is there, but noone chooses it. lol. When you get "one suit of MD Armor" very very few people choose the Big Lots armor if they have the choice of getting the ones that have double to triple that amount of MD. Seriously, in 10 years has anyone purposefully chosen 35 mdc armor, when the newer stuff can have that much on just your helmet? Impossible? No. I'd say it's pretty rare to go that way if you don't HAVE to.

A mage with light LLW armor is, on average, going to have 4 MDC more than a mage with Plastic Man.
A mage with top-of-the-line light LLW armor is going to have up to 9 MDC more than a mage with Plastic Man.
And even in the most extreme case the other way, say a mage with LLW armor with only 32 MDC compared to a mage wearing Urban Warrior (50 MDC), the 18 point difference is now compensated for by the GI-Joe Rule.

Yeah now try that equation with the armors that give 100+ MD on the main body. You're purposefully choosing the weakest armors for your compairsions.

Meanwhile, people who abused the original "mages prefer light armor for mobility" rule are simply going to ignore or abuse the current rule.

Those built in limitations make it harder for the mage to just throw something on. It helps with that 'out of game reason'. To help preserve over all balance.

Well, yes and no.
The thing is, a mage CAN still just throw something on.
And for the most part, it's not even going to hamper his abilities significantly, because the penalties aren't really that big of a deal anyway.

But sure, it's a minor pain in the butt for mages to shop for armor now, sometimes, depending on where they are.
That's not balance, though- that's just a minor pain in the butt.

Depends on your GM I'd expect. In our games, (( Just speaking for myself)) We rarely PLAY Magic classes. And magic while not rare, isn't just 'round the corner' for everyone. You can find it, you can get magic stuff, but it tends to be on the downlow. Most of our games are in CS Territory. (( not all but most)) So that makes it harder to find stuff like mage armor and such. If you're based out of Lazlo, it'll be easier sure. But it's supposed to be harder to find. Like I said above there's a horrible ratio of mage to normal armor.. 20 or 30 to one. (( as it should be! lol )) That does imply it's not common or easy to acquire. Some GM's will ignore this to let your people get geared to get you on to the meat of the game. But other GMs actually factor in rarity and the difficulty of getting some things.

this is part of the "mage package'.

Sure, NOW.
But it didn't used to be, and things worked fine before.
They "fixed" something that wasn't broken in the first place.

I'd actually disagree with this. People that ignore the "mages dont' wear the heavy armor" Ruined it for all of you mage players. They twinked out and ran around in the heaviest armor they could find and the designers went "no. that's NOT how it's supposed to be" so they stiffened up the restriction.

it's not a 'Ridiculous thing in the book'.

Let's see.... in order to fix something that wasn't broken, Palladium:

See this is where you have the problem. You say it wasn't broken. I say there wre a buncha mage players that were ignoring stuff so they stiffened up the restrictions. (( I'm being PC here. lol ))

a) created a solution that makes no real sense from an in-game perspective

Sure it does. Channeling magic is hard. That's why not everyone can do it. Part of that channeling of the PPE, the magic of the earth, means you have to be able to feel that PPE, channel it and focus it. If you're bound up in heavy not 'natural' that would interfear with your channeling and focusing of the PPE. *shrugs* It's like trying to do surgery with oven mitts on. You need to be able to feel it to get that fine control. CAN you perform surgery with oven mitts on? yeah but you get penalized for doing so.

b) created a solution that does not accomplish its goal of promoting balance in any significant degree.

And again, that's the thing. It's not supposed to make it 100% impossible. It's supposed to enforce that "Don't tend to use" Part of the thing.

c) created a solution that adds complications to the game for both players and GMs (additional tables, more required tracking of wardrobe, etc.)

Meh. It only comes up if a mage tries to go off script and throw on heavy CS armor or something. It's not that complex. If you don't use the wrong crap it doesn't come up.

d) half-assed the solution by creating a rule that (until RUE) only meant that mages couldn't cast spells effectively while wearing the armor that they get during character creation, and post-RUE means that mages of any kind all have to borrow their armor from Ley Line Walkers.

Well there are other armors out there, they're just pretty rare and hard to dig out of the books.

e) created a solution by ripping off an overplayed cliche from D&D.

See this, and this sort of thing makes me laugh. It's an RPG. D&D was the 'Gradpappy' of the RPGs. You don't rip off. You use what works. It's like the people in Wow's beta going 'OH THEY STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLE AOE LOOTING FROM SWTOR!!!" They're games in the same spectrum, you use what works.

D&D games have skills and stats. So do palladiums!! OMG!!! Did they steal them? No. Mages have spells. OMG!!! THEFT!?!? no. You use what works. In the RPG genre Mages have traditionally been squishy and don't wear heavy armors. You find it in most every RPG that has Mages and non mages. It's just part of the rpg genre.

You can't honestly say they ripped this off from D&D with out saying they ripped off their entire game from D&D.

That seems pretty ridiculous to me.

Non mage players have no problem with it what so ever. lol But still, it's there for game balance. It's there because SOME people, were twinkin' out in heavy armor and pointing to the "Preference" instead of 'Enforced rule" as to why they could. I.E. they were abusing the game because the rules were not definitive enough. So they made the rules more strict and definitive. These are the same guys that pull anti tank weapons off and use them as personal firearms and go "Well the rules don't say I can't".

That's the sort that got the mage/armor rule made more strict.

I

[nilgravity]

on some page in the middle of Merc town, just buried down in the other stuff they mention an airport with daily flights to all the major points in north America. Northern gun, Lazlo, New Lazlo, On down the list. Just... Daily flights.

Then move on to something else. Just. Poof. Just like that.

The entire section is maybe 2 or 3 paragraphs? And they move on like it's no big thing.

I actually think this is great. Daily flights doesn't mean safe. It just means that people are probably paying a buttload for a safer/faster travel.

You could have the players run into a "Nightmare at 20000 Feet" scenario.

Plus when planes crash on Rifts earth everything for miles around know they are there.

[Lenwen]

See the way I see it .. some people play rifter material as its "canon" .. so what I have done was made the whole mages can not wear heavy armor thing .. gone in my games. So long as they have their hands not covered, in my games it does not matter what armor they use .. within reason of course.

[Lenwen]

Nothing spells mage lovin like rifter material !!!

Captured by splugorthian slavers .. the 7th lvl mage gets forced into getting a couple magic tats ..

1) - Cosmic Armor : 45 PPE , Cosmic Armor : 120mdc + 30mdc / lvl = 330 MDC !!

2) - Sphere of Destruction : 180 PPE, 4d6x10 damage !!

3) - Monster Summon Tat : 100 PPE (monster with more then 151mdc) :
Sauradon !
MDC - 19,430
600ft tall, 900ft long .
30,000tons.
PS 56 (snps)

Gotta love those rifters !!!

[Mack]

Nothing spells mage lovin like rifter material !!!

Captured by splugorthian slavers .. the 7th lvl mage gets forced into getting a couple magic tats ..

1) - Cosmic Armor : 45 PPE , Cosmic Armor : 120mdc + 30mdc / lvl = 330 MDC !!

2) - Sphere of Destruction : 180 PPE, 4d6x10 damage !!

3) - Monster Summon Tat : 100 PPE (monster with more then 151mdc) :
Sauradon !
MDC - 19,430
600ft tall, 900ft long .
30,000tons.
PS 56 (snps)

Gotta love those rifters !!!

You need to double all of those PPE values. (Atlantis, p85)

[Lenwen]

Nothing spells mage lovin like rifter material !!!

Captured by splugorthian slavers .. the 7th lvl mage gets forced into getting a couple magic tats ..

1) - Cosmic Armor : 90 PPE , Cosmic Armor : 120mdc + 30mdc / lvl = 330 MDC !!

2) - Sphere of Destruction : 360 PPE, 4d6x10 damage !!

3) - Monster Summon Tat : 200 PPE (monster with more then 151mdc) :
Sauradon !
MDC - 19,430
600ft tall, 900ft long .
30,000tons.
PS 56 (snps)

Gotta love those rifters !!!

You need to double all of those PPE values. (Atlantis, p85)

Good call, completely forgot about that . Edited to show correct PPE value.

Also note, it might take a pair of Energy Sphere's to accomplish this but with two it would be trivial and that would not even touch your personal reserves of PPE either ..

Wheeeeee!

[Killer Cyborg]

The reason OUT of game is to help preserve game balance.

The reason is bogus, and the "solution" makes no real sense in-game, and doesn't significantly change or fix anything.

It makes sense, unless you wanna be mr mage that has everything under the sun. People hate it but for the games to not turn into --uncontrolled-- twink fests you do need some sort of game balance.

That would make sense IF the rule added any real balance.
But it doesn't.

Buying special mage armor is buying a specialty product. so it's more expensive.

Source?

2. Where does it say that MDC hide/leather/chitin/whatever is harder to repair?

Because not every guy on the block can do it? The MDC hide leather or whhat ever armor is "A-typical." Think of it this way.... If you drive a Ford or a Honda you can get it repaired at any shop around the country, but if you drive an Austin Martain or Lambo you have to go to a specialty shop. The normal shop may be able to repair some of the stuff, but probably not much. You gotta take that specialty item to a specialty shop.

Normal body armor can only be repaired in a handful of places- large cities with industrial bases.
MDC leather/hide should be able to be repaired any place people have leatherworking skills and some spare MDC leather.
Most places, that would be the more common.

3. There's nothing indicating that mage armor is uncommon- it's basic starting equipment.

Really? ... REALLY? lol yes you get some starting, as you're a mage and stuff. but then look through the books. You'll find what? 10.. 20.. 30 suits of normal MD armor per every 1mage armor? It's so rare and hard to find in the books that you see threads here asking where it is.

Are you saying that you think that scarcity in the books indicates scarcity in the game world?
As in, "squirrels are only mentioned 5 times in the books, and Witchlings are mentioned 12 times, therefore witchlings are more common than squirrels"...?

You're stuck on that "I GET SOME AS STARTING EQUIPMENT!" yeah you do, if you look at MOST of the OOC's starting equipment they start off with hundreds of thousands in gear if not millions.

Compare the cost of MDC hide/leather armor to regular MDC armor costs.
Let me know what you find.

4. Plastic Man armor has 35 MDC. Light LLW armor has 2d6+32 MDC, for a range of 34 MDC (1 point less, wow!) to 44 MDC (1 point less than Huntsman, 6 points less than Urban Warrior), with an average of 39 MDC.
So yeah, it's "not as strong," but not by any amount that's going to really matter most of the time, and not always.

Cute KC.... and when you're not using the absolute cheepist weakest armor out there?

The cheapest, weakest armor is homemade stuff out of MDC hide and leather.
Plastic Man is the weakest of the industrial stuff,which is why I also compared to Huntsman and Urban Warrior. That way I covered all the applicable armors listed in the main book in my comparison.

Yeah plastic man armor is there, but noone chooses it.

Source?

lol. When you get "one suit of MD Armor" very very few people choose the Big Lots armor if they have the choice of getting the ones that have double to triple that amount of MD.

Since mages never had the option of "one suit of MDC armor," but instead had the option of "light MDC body armor," with the explanation that mages seldom wear heavy armor because of movement penalties, your response is irrelevant.
Originally, mages got to pick from light body armors for their starting equipment.
Now they get to pick from a slightly different selection of light body armors which nets out roughly the same as before.

Seriously, in 10 years has anyone purposefully chosen 35 mdc armor, when the newer stuff can have that much on just your helmet? Impossible? No. I'd say it's pretty rare to go that way if you don't HAVE to.

Why's that?
You always only ever pick the most powerful gear, never anything based on a character's personality, theoretical limited means, or adventure setting/scenarios?

A mage with light LLW armor is, on average, going to have 4 MDC more than a mage with Plastic Man.
A mage with top-of-the-line light LLW armor is going to have up to 9 MDC more than a mage with Plastic Man.
And even in the most extreme case the other way, say a mage with LLW armor with only 32 MDC compared to a mage wearing Urban Warrior (50 MDC), the 18 point difference is now compensated for by the GI-Joe Rule.

Yeah now try that equation with the armors that give 100+ MD on the main body. You're purposefully choosing the weakest armors for your compairsions.

I'm comparing LIGHT armor to LIGHT armor, because LIGHT armor is what mages got to start off with before the changed rules that you claim bring balance.
If you can find a LIGHT armor with 100+ MDC to the main body that you think would be applicable to 1st level mages' starting gear, by all means let me know what it is.
I don't see the point in comparing armor that mages couldn't start out with to armor that they could start out with.

The thing is, a mage CAN still just throw something on.
And for the most part, it's not even going to hamper his abilities significantly, because the penalties aren't really that big of a deal anyway.

But sure, it's a minor pain in the butt for mages to shop for armor now, sometimes, depending on where they are.
That's not balance, though- that's just a minor pain in the butt.

Depends on your GM I'd expect. In our games, (( Just speaking for myself)) We rarely PLAY Magic classes. And magic while not rare, isn't just 'round the corner' for everyone. You can find it, you can get magic stuff, but it tends to be on the downlow.

Uh... are you under the impression that mages can only wear MAGIC armor these days?
If not, why are you talking about finding "magic stuff?"

Most of our games are in CS Territory. (( not all but most)) So that makes it harder to find stuff like mage armor and such.

I can see why official LLW armor would be rare, but not homespun stuff from hides/leather/etc. That stuff should be pretty much everywhere.

If you're based out of Lazlo, it'll be easier sure. But it's supposed to be harder to find. Like I said above there's a horrible ratio of mage to normal armor.. 20 or 30 to one. (( as it should be! lol )) That does imply it's not common or easy to acquire. Some GM's will ignore this to let your people get geared to get you on to the meat of the game. But other GMs actually factor in rarity and the difficulty of getting some things.

The problem here is that the "rarity and difficulty" so far seem to be purely in your own personal imagination.
Unless you can find some support in the books.

this is part of the "mage package'.

Sure, NOW.
But it didn't used to be, and things worked fine before.
They "fixed" something that wasn't broken in the first place.

I'd actually disagree with this. People that ignore the "mages dont' wear the heavy armor" Ruined it for all of you mage players. They twinked out and ran around in the heaviest armor they could find and the designers went "no. that's NOT how it's supposed to be" so they stiffened up the restriction.

a) Source?
b) And these players now suddenly stop ignoring the rules, now that the rules have changed?

it's not a 'Ridiculous thing in the book'.

Let's see.... in order to fix something that wasn't broken, Palladium:

See this is where you have the problem. You say it wasn't broken. I say there wre a buncha mage players that were ignoring stuff so they stiffened up the restrictions. (( I'm being PC here. lol ))

Again, the kind of players who ignore stuff are most likely just going to ignore the new rules too.

a) created a solution that makes no real sense from an in-game perspective

Sure it does. Channeling magic is hard. That's why not everyone can do it. Part of that channeling of the PPE, the magic of the earth, means you have to be able to feel that PPE, channel it and focus it. If you're bound up in heavy not 'natural' that would interfear with your channeling and focusing of the PPE. *shrugs* It's like trying to do surgery with oven mitts on. You need to be able to feel it to get that fine control. CAN you perform surgery with oven mitts on? yeah but you get penalized for doing so.

I know why oven mitts reduce sensitivity.
I don't know why you think that "unnatural" materials should- that's just random.
There's nothing in the description of magic anywhere else that indicates that man-made materials are somehow a problem for magic or flowing PPE.
It has no precedent, no consistence with the existing descriptions of magic, and nothing else to make it make any real sense.

b) created a solution that does not accomplish its goal of promoting balance in any significant degree.

And again, that's the thing. It's not supposed to make it 100% impossible. It's supposed to enforce that "Don't tend to use" Part of the thing.

You seem to be reading "in any significant degree" and thinking that it means "100% impossible."

c) created a solution that adds complications to the game for both players and GMs (additional tables, more required tracking of wardrobe, etc.)

Meh. It only comes up if a mage tries to go off script and throw on heavy CS armor or something. It's not that complex. If you don't use the wrong crap it doesn't come up.

No. It comes up any time that the mage needs new armor, and the stuff that's available isn't hide/leather/whatever.
And since you've been arguing that this would be a LOT of the time, that the kind of armor that mages can wear is super-rare and expensive compared to other armors, I'm not sure why you're suddenly pulling an about-face and acting like it's not something that comes up very often.
It's either one or the other, pick one and stick with it.

d) half-assed the solution by creating a rule that (until RUE) only meant that mages couldn't cast spells effectively while wearing the armor that they get during character creation, and post-RUE means that mages of any kind all have to borrow their armor from Ley Line Walkers.

Well there are other armors out there, they're just pretty rare and hard to dig out of the books.

Meaning that they're not really options as a rule.

e) created a solution by ripping off an overplayed cliche from D&D.

See this, and this sort of thing makes me laugh. It's an RPG. D&D was the 'Gradpappy' of the RPGs. You don't rip off. You use what works. It's like the people in Wow's beta going 'OH THEY STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLE AOE LOOTING FROM SWTOR!!!" They're games in the same spectrum, you use what works.

D&D games have skills and stats. So do palladiums!! OMG!!! Did they steal them? No. Mages have spells. OMG!!! THEFT!?!? no. You use what works. In the RPG genre Mages have traditionally been squishy and don't wear heavy armors. You find it in most every RPG that has Mages and non mages. It's just part of the rpg genre.

You can't honestly say they ripped this off from D&D with out saying they ripped off their entire game from D&D.

I can honestly say that they ripped off almost their entire game from D&D.
But the objection, if you read my post, wasn't to Palladium ripping off D&D rules, it was to them ripping off an overplayed cliche.
Argue against what I say, not against strawmen.

That seems pretty ridiculous to me.

Non mage players have no problem with it what so ever. lol But still, it's there for game balance. It's there because SOME people, were twinkin' out in heavy armor and pointing to the "Preference" instead of 'Enforced rule" as to why they could. I.E. they were abusing the game because the rules were not definitive enough. So they made the rules more strict and definitive. These are the same guys that pull anti tank weapons off and use them as personal firearms and go "Well the rules don't say I can't".

That's the sort that got the mage/armor rule made more strict.

And that's the sort of player that won't care.
So the "solution" does nothing to fix the "problem."

[Nightmask]

Will all the reference to people 'ignoring the rules so they had to be made stricter' regarding mages and body armor I've yet to see how the text saying 'mages PREFER light armor' constitutes a limitation that mages couldn't pick heavier armors and those that did were somehow breaking a suggestion treated as a restrictive requirement. Things things like preferences aren't rules, they're suggestions and sometimes people actually buck what's common and go with something different. Like someone who favors a rival sports team to that of his home town even though everyone's supposed to prefer their home town team.

[Pepsi Jedi]

Non mage players have no problem with it what so ever. lol But still, it's there for game balance. It's there because SOME people, were twinkin' out in heavy armor and pointing to the "Preference" instead of 'Enforced rule" as to why they could. I.E. they were abusing the game because the rules were not definitive enough. So they made the rules more strict and definitive. These are the same guys that pull anti tank weapons off and use them as personal firearms and go "Well the rules don't say I can't".

That's the sort that got the mage/armor rule made more strict.

And that's the sort of player that won't care.
So the "solution" does nothing to fix the "problem."

I was going to go point by point again but it boils down to the above.

It solves the problem if people play by the rules and the game as intended by the creators.

If they don't, they don't. Everyone has house rules. The ignoring the mage armor rule is (( in my mind)) the same as ripping that anti tank weapon off the power armor or vehicle and using it like a simple rifle or pistol. It's not how the thing (( be it a giant ATL, or a Mage using heavy armor)) Was intended to work in the system. It's a way to get around the rules.

The book tells you that the MDC alloys interfere with the flow of PPE and interferes with the ability to cast spells. There's not a dissertation on it. It's a simple statement when addressing the armor. On 188 RUE it goes into it. Saying that it has a strange effect on the channeling of the mystic energy. If more than 50% of the body is covered, you're assessed a +20% cost penalty on the PPE spent. and you have to roll on the table there, which can reduce damage, duration, or range, or range AND duration, by up to 40%.

Those, in my mind are significant penalties that are in the game to 'solve' the mages 'ignoring' the light armor usage.

Ignoring it is just like ignoring the fact that crazies are crazy, and juicers die in a few years. You certainly CAN. It's just not what the designers have in mind. If so they wouldn't have it specifically addressed in the book.

I understand mages don't LIKE it, but it's a purposeful built in rule that purposefully limits the mage's ability to suck up damage. To keep the mages "Squishy".

[Pepsi Jedi]

Will all the reference to people 'ignoring the rules so they had to be made stricter' regarding mages and body armor I've yet to see how the text saying 'mages PREFER light armor' constitutes a limitation that mages couldn't pick heavier armors and those that did were somehow breaking a suggestion treated as a restrictive requirement. Things things like preferences aren't rules, they're suggestions and sometimes people actually buck what's common and go with something different. Like someone who favors a rival sports team to that of his home town even though everyone's supposed to prefer their home town team.

I direct you to page 188 under "Wearing body armor" in the magic section of the RUE.

"A sorcerer can not wear more than partial armor, ideally covering no more than a third of his body. Never more than half."

It goes on. I trust you can open the book. See the why's, and the penalties.

[Nightmask]

Will all the reference to people 'ignoring the rules so they had to be made stricter' regarding mages and body armor I've yet to see how the text saying 'mages PREFER light armor' constitutes a limitation that mages couldn't pick heavier armors and those that did were somehow breaking a suggestion treated as a restrictive requirement. Things things like preferences aren't rules, they're suggestions and sometimes people actually buck what's common and go with something different. Like someone who favors a rival sports team to that of his home town even though everyone's supposed to prefer their home town team.

I direct you to page 188 under "Wearing body armor" in the magic section of the RUE.

"A sorcerer can not wear more than partial armor, ideally covering no more than a third of his body. Never more than half."

It goes on. I trust you can open the book. See the why's, and the penalties.

And that would be the altered rules remake of the original Rifts book, my reference is regarding the suggestions that those changes were made because people were ignoring a non-existent rule in the original book that mages could only wear light armor. Of which I agree with KC that it's a ridiculous ruling that make things more like AD&D where mages are far more powerful in scale when they grow in levels unlike Palladium where mages don't power up that much in comparison and starting 1st level characters can be all over the map in destructive potential and durability and seems to force mages to be even worse than glass cannons. It's as if Palladium doesn't want people playing mages and so is skewing the rules more and more against anyone ever wanting to play one.

[Giant2005]

Non mage players have no problem with it what so ever. lol But still, it's there for game balance. It's there because SOME people, were twinkin' out in heavy armor and pointing to the "Preference" instead of 'Enforced rule" as to why they could. I.E. they were abusing the game because the rules were not definitive enough. So they made the rules more strict and definitive. These are the same guys that pull anti tank weapons off and use them as personal firearms and go "Well the rules don't say I can't".

That's the sort that got the mage/armor rule made more strict.

And that's the sort of player that won't care.
So the "solution" does nothing to fix the "problem."

I was going to go point by point again but it boils down to the above.

It solves the problem if people play by the rules and the game as intended by the creators.

If they don't, they don't. Everyone has house rules. The ignoring the mage armor rule is (( in my mind)) the same as ripping that anti tank weapon off the power armor or vehicle and using it like a simple rifle or pistol. It's not how the thing (( be it a giant ATL, or a Mage using heavy armor)) Was intended to work in the system. It's a way to get around the rules.

The book tells you that the MDC alloys interfere with the flow of PPE and interferes with the ability to cast spells. There's not a dissertation on it. It's a simple statement when addressing the armor. On 188 RUE it goes into it. Saying that it has a strange effect on the channeling of the mystic energy. If more than 50% of the body is covered, you're assessed a +20% cost penalty on the PPE spent. and you have to roll on the table there, which can reduce damage, duration, or range, or range AND duration, by up to 40%.

Those, in my mind are significant penalties that are in the game to 'solve' the mages 'ignoring' the light armor usage.

Ignoring it is just like ignoring the fact that crazies are crazy, and juicers die in a few years. You certainly CAN. It's just not what the designers have in mind. If so they wouldn't have it specifically addressed in the book.

I understand mages don't LIKE it, but it's a purposeful built in rule that purposefully limits the mage's ability to suck up damage. To keep the mages "Squishy".

Other than stating that the game designers intended Mages to be squishy (which is a very subjective opinion in itself), it seems your support for the squishiness of Mages comes down to balance.
With that in mind, I have to ask why?

Mages in DnD and Rogues are the primary damage dealers, as such they are limited to light or no armor.
Bards and Clerics are your support classes and with the right abilities, they are not limited in armor.
Fighter-types are your tanks and are not limited by armor.

In Rifts, Mages are support. The Fighter-types fill the roles of both damage dealing and tanking.

If you want to throw balance in the mix, nerfing the protection of Mages heads in the wrong direction. Their defenses shouldn't be limited and if they are, in a very minor way. Fighter-types are the ones in need of nerfing if balance is your primary concern - they are the ones who manage to fill multiple roles.

[Dr. Doom III]

Will all the reference to people 'ignoring the rules so they had to be made stricter' regarding mages and body armor I've yet to see how the text saying 'mages PREFER light armor' constitutes a limitation that mages couldn't pick heavier armors and those that did were somehow breaking a suggestion treated as a restrictive requirement. Things things like preferences aren't rules, they're suggestions and sometimes people actually buck what's common and go with something different. Like someone who favors a rival sports team to that of his home town even though everyone's supposed to prefer their home town team.

When everyone does it it's no longer doing something different. It becomes what's common.

[Nightmask]

Will all the reference to people 'ignoring the rules so they had to be made stricter' regarding mages and body armor I've yet to see how the text saying 'mages PREFER light armor' constitutes a limitation that mages couldn't pick heavier armors and those that did were somehow breaking a suggestion treated as a restrictive requirement. Things things like preferences aren't rules, they're suggestions and sometimes people actually buck what's common and go with something different. Like someone who favors a rival sports team to that of his home town even though everyone's supposed to prefer their home town team.

When everyone does it it's no longer doing something different. It becomes what's common.

While it's subjective that 'everyone's doing it' one does have to remember that we're talking PC here, they're supposed to be somehow different and above the run of the mill version of their OCC. They're the ones the story of the game revolves around, being different than the NPC. Rifts is also a LOT more dangerous than AD&D, the PC frequently run across things that can vaporize tanks from 1st level on up and EVERYONE should have access to the best protection possible for them, they definitely shouldn't have new rules released to make the game more lethal for them particularly when it makes it more lethal for a select group.

[Pepsi Jedi]

Will all the reference to people 'ignoring the rules so they had to be made stricter' regarding mages and body armor I've yet to see how the text saying 'mages PREFER light armor' constitutes a limitation that mages couldn't pick heavier armors and those that did were somehow breaking a suggestion treated as a restrictive requirement. Things things like preferences aren't rules, they're suggestions and sometimes people actually buck what's common and go with something different. Like someone who favors a rival sports team to that of his home town even though everyone's supposed to prefer their home town team.

When everyone does it it's no longer doing something different. It becomes what's common.

While it's subjective that 'everyone's doing it' one does have to remember that we're talking PC here, they're supposed to be somehow different and above the run of the mill version of their OCC. They're the ones the story of the game revolves around, being different than the NPC. Rifts is also a LOT more dangerous than AD&D, the PC frequently run across things that can vaporize tanks from 1st level on up and EVERYONE should have access to the best protection possible for them, they definitely shouldn't have new rules released to make the game more lethal for them particularly when it makes it more lethal for a select group.

This is another misconception that I find humorous. the "They're supposed to be somehow different and above the run of the mill version of their OOC"

No.... they're not. lol

They're different and above the run of the mill "Civilian" or "General person" in the world. They're not farmers or the guy that serves you at Hotdog on a stick".

Being special or different from your OOC is what my group calls "The Snowflake effect". As in "Everyone thinks they have to be the most exotic, uniquic and special snowflake"

in White wolf, it's the 'Peaceful Get of Fenris" or the "Militant, bad ass Child of Gaia" or the "Quite, and meek Brujah" or the "Rude and crass Toreador" Ect. These are the people that look at what the book offers and can't stand to 'normal'.

*shrugs* It's fine, but it smacks of "I'm going to be a NONCONFORMIST!!!! JUST LIKE ALL MY FRIENDS!!!!!"

Yes. Mages CAN wear heavy armor. Their magic just suffers for it, to the tune of 20% more cost and reduced range duration and/or damage. Thhey also get more movement penalties and stuff for wearing it. But you CAN do it.

It's the 'Ignoring the inconvenant rule, just because it's inconvenant" that is twinkish. Reguardless as to the "Why" (( People on my side say Game balance, some on the other side seem to think they're trying to be like D&D, for no other reason than to be like D&D.)) Either way, the rules are there. It states in multiple places that mages just don't do it. Then it says why. Then it gives the pretty steep penalties. Then it says it again. Not that they "CAN NOT" just that they "DO NOT".

It's back to the guy operating on you. He can wear latex gloves or he can wear thick ovenmits. He CAN wear either but if he wants to do his job right, he wears the latex gloves to give him the best feel and control. For mages they 'CAN' Wear heavy armor, but it muffels them. Restricts them. Hems them in and weakens their magic.

To totally ignore that, just because you don't like it, is exactly the same as going "I like the benifits of the Crazy OOC.. but those insanities, they make no sense. After all if you can make a Borg and they don't get any mental penalties for having their entire body replaced, why would a few implants do this to me. Naa. I'm going to make a Crazy with out the insanity." It's the same as going "I like Juicers. They're awesome, but that pesky 'Dieing in a few years thing" sucks. Who'd want that? They have the technology to make crazies and borgs, and they don't automatically die.... why can't juicer technology catch up and just not kill you? So I don't like it. I'm going to ignore it as it's inconvenient and my juicer will just juice forever"

The mage/armor thing is a built in aspect of the class. It's there, in clear terms. If you ignore it, it's because you want the class unfettered of it's own built in limitations.

Which.. it ---is--- rifts.. You ----can---- just take those rules out. But you're changing the game on the tune of the non crazy crazy, or the juicer with out the time limits.

[Giant2005]

The mage/armor thing is a built in aspect of the class. It's there, in clear terms. If you ignore it, it's because you want the class unfettered of it's own built in limitations.

Would you have the same perspective if they went the other way?
Instead of the RUE inventing a rule that prevented Mages from wearing armor, it invented a rule that prevented Men-At-Arms classes from wearing armor.

[Nightmask]

Will all the reference to people 'ignoring the rules so they had to be made stricter' regarding mages and body armor I've yet to see how the text saying 'mages PREFER light armor' constitutes a limitation that mages couldn't pick heavier armors and those that did were somehow breaking a suggestion treated as a restrictive requirement. Things things like preferences aren't rules, they're suggestions and sometimes people actually buck what's common and go with something different. Like someone who favors a rival sports team to that of his home town even though everyone's supposed to prefer their home town team.

When everyone does it it's no longer doing something different. It becomes what's common.

While it's subjective that 'everyone's doing it' one does have to remember that we're talking PC here, they're supposed to be somehow different and above the run of the mill version of their OCC. They're the ones the story of the game revolves around, being different than the NPC. Rifts is also a LOT more dangerous than AD&D, the PC frequently run across things that can vaporize tanks from 1st level on up and EVERYONE should have access to the best protection possible for them, they definitely shouldn't have new rules released to make the game more lethal for them particularly when it makes it more lethal for a select group.

This is another misconception that I find humorous. the "They're supposed to be somehow different and above the run of the mill version of their OOC"

No.... they're not. lol

They're different and above the run of the mill "Civilian" or "General person" in the world. They're not farmers or the guy that serves you at Hotdog on a stick".

Being special or different from your OOC is what my group calls "The Snowflake effect". As in "Everyone thinks they have to be the most exotic, uniquic and special snowflake"

in White wolf, it's the 'Peaceful Get of Fenris" or the "Militant, bad ass Child of Gaia" or the "Quite, and meek Brujah" or the "Rude and crass Toreador" Ect. These are the people that look at what the book offers and can't stand to 'normal'.

*shrugs* It's fine, but it smacks of "I'm going to be a NONCONFORMIST!!!! JUST LIKE ALL MY FRIENDS!!!!!"

Yes. Mages CAN wear heavy armor. Their magic just suffers for it, to the tune of 20% more cost and reduced range duration and/or damage. Thhey also get more movement penalties and stuff for wearing it. But you CAN do it.

It's the 'Ignoring the inconvenant rule, just because it's inconvenant" that is twinkish. Reguardless as to the "Why" (( People on my side say Game balance, some on the other side seem to think they're trying to be like D&D, for no other reason than to be like D&D.)) Either way, the rules are there. It states in multiple places that mages just don't do it. Then it says why. Then it gives the pretty steep penalties. Then it says it again. Not that they "CAN NOT" just that they "DO NOT".

That's a fairly ridiculous assessment, that because someone ignores a rule (which was just a SUGGESTION originally) that they must be twinking things out. It stated that they generally didn't do it (for reasons much like why Rogues preferred light armor to no armor at all over heavy armor, yet not yet seeing an insistence that because so many thief characters use heavy armor instead of the preferred armor that a rule's been put into place that they can't wear heavy armor at all) not that they couldn't do it.

As far as 'I'm being a non-conformist just like my friends' go, everyone's free to conform to what they want to conform to and if someone says 'hey I'd like my Techno-Wizard to dress like the Joker instead of an Aviator' and someone else goes 'hey that's right I don't have to limit my mage to no armor at all I can wear something better' because they're reminded that they don't have to conform to those suggestions more power to them for playing what they want.

It's back to the guy operating on you. He can wear latex gloves or he can wear thick ovenmits. He CAN wear either but if he wants to do his job right, he wears the latex gloves to give him the best feel and control. For mages they 'CAN' Wear heavy armor, but it muffels them. Restricts them. Hems them in and weakens their magic.

To totally ignore that, just because you don't like it, is exactly the same as going "I like the benifits of the Crazy OOC.. but those insanities, they make no sense. After all if you can make a Borg and they don't get any mental penalties for having their entire body replaced, why would a few implants do this to me. Naa. I'm going to make a Crazy with out the insanity." It's the same as going "I like Juicers. They're awesome, but that pesky 'Dieing in a few years thing" sucks. Who'd want that? They have the technology to make crazies and borgs, and they don't automatically die.... why can't juicer technology catch up and just not kill you? So I don't like it. I'm going to ignore it as it's inconvenient and my juicer will just juice forever"

The mage/armor thing is a built in aspect of the class. It's there, in clear terms. If you ignore it, it's because you want the class unfettered of it's own built in limitations.

Which.. it ---is--- rifts.. You ----can---- just take those rules out. But you're changing the game on the tune of the non crazy crazy, or the juicer with out the time limits.

The mage limitations are tacked on to make an already vulnerable class even more vulnerable and less interesting to play. At least in AD&D when a mage grows in power he's inflicting damage the fighters can't even dream of approaching, hence why they're giving those limitations. Meanwhile in Palladium mages are mediocre at best when it comes to destructive potential, technology rules so you're taking a class that can't even deal damage like the heavies and making it so it can't even defend itself like the heavies. Totally uncool.

[Lenwen]

At least in AD&D when a mage grows in power he's inflicting damage the fighters can't even dream of approaching, hence why they're giving those limitations. Meanwhile in Palladium mages are mediocre at best when it comes to destructive potential, technology rules so you're taking a class that can't even deal damage like the heavies and making it so it can't even defend itself like the heavies. Totally uncool.

This ..

is 100% completely the problem ..

And of course .. anyone who plays anything other then mages .. have no issues with it .. cause its not their class of choice.

[Balabanto]

At least in AD&D when a mage grows in power he's inflicting damage the fighters can't even dream of approaching, hence why they're giving those limitations. Meanwhile in Palladium mages are mediocre at best when it comes to destructive potential, technology rules so you're taking a class that can't even deal damage like the heavies and making it so it can't even defend itself like the heavies. Totally uncool.

This ..

is 100% completely the problem ..

And of course .. anyone who plays anything other then mages .. have no issues with it .. cause its not their class of choice.

The apocalypse is upon us. Killer Cyborg sort of agrees with Lenwen! I agree with Lenwen at the same time! Holy !@#$!~!!!!!

Really, the issue is this. Powerful techno-wizard armor is dirt cheap at mid to high levels. It costs about 700,000 credits or so to make a truly ridiculous suit of TW armor, assuming the GM doesn't jack the cost up until it bleeds. (But if you pay one of these major TW companies to do it, only the first suit costs that much, then it's production line time)

A SAMAS costs about two million credits. Who won the cost effectiveness battle now? The 10th level Invincible Armor Spell for 6 PPE, along with Multiple Image and Dispel Magic Barriers so that you can hack down other people's magical defenses while not getting hit, or that Samas that costs 1200 credits to repair for every single MD Point. And Invincible Armor is wonderful for a number of reasons, not the least of which is "Infinite GI-Joe Rule" Even if you don't use it on anything else, you have to use it on Invincible Armor because that's what the spell says. Just make sure the armor has the lightness enchantment (Two slots) in order to get the most use out of the other three.

THAT'S actually one of the dumbest things in Rifts, too. Why would I want to stop my players from throwing as many spells as possible into a single thing? Then if it gets blown up, it's GONE.

So not only do you have that, but the virtually non-existent armor repair rules also sabotage the game. This forces the GM to give out tons of cash JUST so that the players can fix their armor. A mage doesn't have to do that. He can save his money for spells and a really powerful suit of armor.

Let's also not forget the Forager Battlebot. There's a big problem with the Forager Battlebot. It is the cheapest way to kill people from a distance. This robot does NOT fire mini-missiles. It fires medium range missiles in volleys of up to four. Whenever something really needs killin', call in the forager! Ohh, yeah! All you need is a spotter and something just took 3d6 x40 MD armor piercing. Are you KIDDING? This is flipping deadly. Most things don't have 400 MD to start with, except the aforementioned mage with his invincible armor spell who has to dig out of a giant hole. Even a full combat borg, who now owes his operator 500,000 credits to repair him, assuming he was wearing heavy Borg armor is going to be pretty pissed.

This also means that the best strategy for killing people in Rifts is not to actually unload your bolts. It's constant harassment. No one can constantly suck down massive alpha strikes followed by running away to reload. Eventually, the heroes will run out of money.

[flatline]

So the claim is that they made the rules more restrictive because everyone was ignoring them?

Well, I didn't. My starting equipment said "light MDC body armor is frequently worn under their cloaks (seldom wear heavy armor because it reduces their speed and mobility by half)." and so to avoid taking a speed penalty, I always started with Huntsman or Urban warrior armor.

So please quit claiming that they changed the rules because everyone was ignoring the original rules.

Also, please notice that the penalty for heavy armor had nothing to do with my spell casting abilities. That stupidity didn't happen until FoM.

--flatline

[Killer Cyborg]

Non mage players have no problem with it what so ever. lol But still, it's there for game balance. It's there because SOME people, were twinkin' out in heavy armor and pointing to the "Preference" instead of 'Enforced rule" as to why they could. I.E. they were abusing the game because the rules were not definitive enough. So they made the rules more strict and definitive. These are the same guys that pull anti tank weapons off and use them as personal firearms and go "Well the rules don't say I can't".

That's the sort that got the mage/armor rule made more strict.

And that's the sort of player that won't care.
So the "solution" does nothing to fix the "problem."

I was going to go point by point again but it boils down to the above.

It solves the problem if people play by the rules and the game as intended by the creators.

And if people did that, there wouldn't be a problem in the first place.
(for that matter, we're only going on your personal opinion that there was a problem to begin with).

The book tells you that the MDC alloys interfere with the flow of PPE and interferes with the ability to cast spells. There's not a dissertation on it. It's a simple statement when addressing the armor. On 188 RUE it goes into it. Saying that it has a strange effect on the channeling of the mystic energy.

Yes, and that notion comes out of a vacuum- nothing in the previous rules (before SoT or BoM or the rule came originally) indicated any such thing, or anything remotely like it.
And nothing anywhere else in the rules has any consistency with this. You don't have trouble casting spells when you're in an MDC vehicle, for example.
And, again, it's just as random as if they decided that natural materials interfered. Or if the presence of animals did. Or if the mages had to be wearing a beer hat.
It's a rule that doesn't fit with the rest of Palladiums rules on magic.

If more than 50% of the body is covered, you're assessed a +20% cost penalty on the PPE spent. and you have to roll on the table there, which can reduce damage, duration, or range, or range AND duration, by up to 40%.

Those, in my mind are significant penalties that are in the game to 'solve' the mages 'ignoring' the light armor usage.

IF so, that must be because you don't play mages.
For one thing any TW device ignores the penalties for armor, so it's only proper spellcasting that's an issue.
More importantly, the penalties doen't really matter.

+20% cost on PPE means that a spell that costs 10 PPE now costs 12 PPE.
Big whoop.
A Ley Line Walker in RUE starts off with 3d6x10+20+PE PPE, so an average first level LLW has 135 PPE.
Wearing the proper armor, he can cast Fire Bolt (for example) 19 times.
Wearing the wrong armor, he can only cast Fire Bolt 16 times.
Believe it or not, that extra three castings isn't going to matter 99.99% of the time.
Most mages don't actually deplete their PPE reserves on anything resembling a regular basis.

What's more, on low level spells, the penalties literally do not matter at all.
Globe of Daylight has a PPE cost of 2.
120% of 2 is 2.4, which rounds right back down to 2 again.
Which means that there is ZERO difference cost-wise between casting that spell wearing LLW armor and wearing Heavy Deadboy.

Now you're thinking that high level spells are probably where it makes a difference.
Say you're spending 600 PPE on Teleport: Superior, wearing the wrong armor would bump that up to 720, a full 120 PPE!
Big whoop.
In order to cast that kind of spell, a mage has to have extra PPE coming from somewhere anyway: ley line nexus, blood sacrifice, borrowing from other people, or a crapload of talismans, etc.
And I can't think of ANY of these methods where getting an extra 120 PPE would be significantly harder than getting the initial 600 to begin with.

As for the other penalties, take a look at that table again and do the math.
There's a 20% chance that no penalties kick in.
There's a 20% chance each that damage/effects OR duration OR range OR range + duration are affected.

So you cast Fire Bolt, and what's the potential problem?
Well, range could be affected... but I've rarely seen anybody cast spells at maximum range, so that's not going to be a problem except in very rare cases.
Damage could be affected, and that'd possibly suck... but there's only a 20% chance of that happening.
And in those 20% of case where you cast Fire Bolt and your damage IS reduced, it's reduced by 1d4x10%.
If you roll average damage for your Fire Bolt, that's normally 14 MD.
IF the damage ends up being reduced, that means there's a
25% chance that you instead inflict 13 MD (big whoop)
25% chance that you instead inflict 11 MD
25% chance that you instead inflict 10 MD
25% chance that you instead inflict 8 MD

Which means that the 20% of the time that damage being nerfed matters, it's not going to make a heck of a lot of difference about 75% of the time, IF that: remember, the GI-Joe rule means that small damage differences like this probably don't matter anyway.

Or let's say that you cast Magic Net instead.

The range is normally 60', the damage is zero, and the duration is 30 seconds per level of the caster.
Right off, there's a 40% chance that the spell isn't affected at all, because you either roll the that no problems occur or that a problem with damage occurs.

20% of the time, range will be decreased. With a range of 60', this means that there's a 25% chance each time range IS affected of the new range being:
54'
48'
42'
36'
Most likely the first 6-12' isn't going to determine whether or not the spell hits the target, so there's only about a 50% chance that the range difference is going to matter, less if you take possible range issues into account when casting spells in the first place.

20% of the time, the duration is going to be reduced by 1d4x10%.
So instead of 30 seconds per caster level, the spell will instead last:
27 seconds
24 seconds
21 seconds
18 seconds
Per level.
At first level, that might make a difference, but probably not much of one since the people are still going to be immobilized for over a full melee round minimum.

And there's a 20% chance that both range and duration are reduced by 20%, so the spell will have a range of 48' and a duration of 24 seconds per level.
Which, again, isn't really going to matter the vast majority of the time.

Or say you cast a spell on yourself, something like Fly As The Eagle.
Damage isn't an issue, and range isn't an issue. The only element that could be affected that matters is duration.
So if you roll that duration alone is affected, that means that instead of 20 minutes per level, you get:
18 minutes per level
16 minutes per level
14 minutes per level
12 minutes per level

None of which is really likely to matter. If you cast the spell in combat, even at 12 minutes you're not going to have to worry about the duration running out on you before combat is long over.
For non-combat usage, like long-range travel, you're going to have to cast the spell multiple times anyway, at low level at least.
So I'd say there's something like a 10% chance of it mattering, in the 20% of the time that duration happens to be affected anway.

None of the above is really an incentive to not wear normal body armor.

What IS an incentive for mages to not wear body armor is that now everything you do takes longer.
You can't just cast Fire Ball, then roll for damage.
You have to cast Fire Ball, then roll to see what (if anything) aspect of the spell is reduced, then you have to roll again to see by how much, and if those results might matter, you have to do the math to find out exactly what's going on.
And you have to discuss from time to time with the GM whether PPE cost is rounded up or down, and whether Mega-Damage should be rounded up or down, and other piddly little disagreements might arise because Palladium was (according to you) so offended at people ignoring the original rules that they came up with a bunch of useless and more complicated rules for those same people to ignore (not to mention a large number of other people who followed the original rules, but avoid the new mess that was created).

Ignoring it is just like ignoring the fact that crazies are crazy, and juicers die in a few years. You certainly CAN. It's just not what the designers have in mind. If so they wouldn't have it specifically addressed in the book.

Except that going insane or dying are actual significant penalties that matter.
Possibly sometimes having your spells nerfed in ways that probably won't matter is not.

I understand mages don't LIKE it, but it's a purposeful built in rule that purposefully limits the mage's ability to suck up damage. To keep the mages "Squishy".

a) To what end?
b) It fails to accomplish it's goal.

[Colt47]

Does anyone even play with that 20% PPE cost increase rule in the RUE for spell casters wearing heavier (even artificially made) armor? I don't think I've ever played by that rule, though I've played that mages can't use full environmental armor for obvious reasons.

[flatline]

Does anyone even play with that 20% PPE cost increase rule in the RUE for spell casters wearing heavier (even artificially made) armor? I don't think I've ever played by that rule, though I've played that mages can't use full environmental armor for obvious reasons.

What rules do you find obvious about mages wearing environmental armor?

--flatline

[Armorlord]

Does anyone even play with that 20% PPE cost increase rule in the RUE for spell casters wearing heavier (even artificially made) armor? I don't think I've ever played by that rule, though I've played that mages can't use full environmental armor for obvious reasons.

What rules do you find obvious about mages wearing environmental armor?

--flatline

Something about sealed artificial armor preventing the flow/sensing of PPE, if I recall correctly. Away from my books, but I know that one was in effect long before RUE as well. That's were TW EBA work-arounds come into play for players that are particularly concerned about air supply and environmental comfort.

[Pepsi Jedi]

The mage/armor thing is a built in aspect of the class. It's there, in clear terms. If you ignore it, it's because you want the class unfettered of it's own built in limitations.

Would you have the same perspective if they went the other way?
Instead of the RUE inventing a rule that prevented Mages from wearing armor, it invented a rule that prevented Men-At-Arms classes from wearing armor.

It wasn't invented in the RUE, It was clarified. And given penalties, (( In my mind)) because 'a certain type of player' ignored it the first time. Now you have the reasoning why. Those pretty significant penalties.

[Colt47]

Does anyone even play with that 20% PPE cost increase rule in the RUE for spell casters wearing heavier (even artificially made) armor? I don't think I've ever played by that rule, though I've played that mages can't use full environmental armor for obvious reasons.

What rules do you find obvious about mages wearing environmental armor?

--flatline

Something about sealed artificial armor preventing the flow/sensing of PPE, if I recall correctly. Away from my books, but I know that one was in effect long before RUE as well. That's were TW EBA work-arounds come into play for players that are particularly concerned about air supply and environmental comfort.

As Armorlord says. It doesn't mean that you can't cast spells while wearing environmental armor: it just means that you can't cast spells while the environmental armor is sealed up. Techno-wizardry can allow a spell caster to use magic while in a suit of environmental armor.

Huh, I guess that makes my old statement about mages not being able to use environmental armor false.

[Dr. Doom III]

Will all the reference to people 'ignoring the rules so they had to be made stricter' regarding mages and body armor I've yet to see how the text saying 'mages PREFER light armor' constitutes a limitation that mages couldn't pick heavier armors and those that did were somehow breaking a suggestion treated as a restrictive requirement. Things things like preferences aren't rules, they're suggestions and sometimes people actually buck what's common and go with something different. Like someone who favors a rival sports team to that of his home town even though everyone's supposed to prefer their home town team.

When everyone does it it's no longer doing something different. It becomes what's common.

While it's subjective that 'everyone's doing it' one does have to remember that we're talking PC here, they're supposed to be somehow different and above the run of the mill version of their OCC. They're the ones the story of the game revolves around, being different than the NPC. Rifts is also a LOT more dangerous than AD&D, the PC frequently run across things that can vaporize tanks from 1st level on up and EVERYONE should have access to the best protection possible for them, they definitely shouldn't have new rules released to make the game more lethal for them particularly when it makes it more lethal for a select group.

It also called playing in character and going by the spirit of the game.

[Pepsi Jedi]

Non mage players have no problem with it what so ever. lol But still, it's there for game balance. It's there because SOME people, were twinkin' out in heavy armor and pointing to the "Preference" instead of 'Enforced rule" as to why they could. I.E. they were abusing the game because the rules were not definitive enough. So they made the rules more strict and definitive. These are the same guys that pull anti tank weapons off and use them as personal firearms and go "Well the rules don't say I can't".

That's the sort that got the mage/armor rule made more strict.

And that's the sort of player that won't care.
So the "solution" does nothing to fix the "problem."

I was going to go point by point again but it boils down to the above.

It solves the problem if people play by the rules and the game as intended by the creators.

And if people did that, there wouldn't be a problem in the first place.
(for that matter, we're only going on your personal opinion that there was a problem to begin with).

Actually no. If you read this thread bunches of people ignored it and still do. lol Including yourself it seems.

The book tells you that the MDC alloys interfere with the flow of PPE and interferes with the ability to cast spells. There's not a dissertation on it. It's a simple statement when addressing the armor. On 188 RUE it goes into it. Saying that it has a strange effect on the channeling of the mystic energy.

Yes, and that notion comes out of a vacuum- nothing in the previous rules (before SoT or BoM or the rule came originally) indicated any such thing, or anything remotely like it.

Not for nothing, but so? Every new rifts book comes up with 50 things that weren't there before. the RUE is the Updated rules set. The revision after over a dozen years of play. The creators clarified why mages don't wear heavy armor. Because it messes them up. The only people that care, are the mages that were ignoring the rule. If you wern't ignoring it, it changed nothing because you were wearing the right armor. If you were wearing heavy armor, then this effects you.

And nothing anywhere else in the rules has any consistency with this. You don't have trouble casting spells when you're in an MDC vehicle, for example.

Because the MD vechile isn't right up against your skin. It's not touching you 'all over'. You're sitting in a cabin/pilot's compartment. You may note that the rule DOES count against power armor.. which is right against you and touching you all over.

And, again, it's just as random as if they decided that natural materials interfered. Or if the presence of animals did. Or if the mages had to be wearing a beer hat.
It's a rule that doesn't fit with the rest of Palladiums rules on magic.

You're acting like it's new though, it's not. It's a clairification of something from the start. And it makes sense if you see mages as something other than just a list of numbers nad list of spells.

If more than 50% of the body is covered, you're assessed a +20% cost penalty on the PPE spent. and you have to roll on the table there, which can reduce damage, duration, or range, or range AND duration, by up to 40%.

Those, in my mind are significant penalties that are in the game to 'solve' the mages 'ignoring' the light armor usage.

IF so, that must be because you don't play mages.
For one thing any TW device ignores the penalties for armor, so it's only proper spellcasting that's an issue.

Because, as explained, it interfears with your ability to channel your magical energy.

More importantly, the penalties doen't really matter.

+20% cost on PPE means that a spell that costs 10 PPE now costs 12 PPE.
Big whoop.

And one that cost 100PPE now is 120PPE... yes. Big whoop. It might not slow down your piddly little dinky spells but the ones that take more are inflated by a fifth. AND you roll on the chart which makes what ever you cast, weaker in some aspect. Damage, duration or range.

A Ley Line Walker in RUE starts off with 3d6x10+20+PE PPE, so an average first level LLW has 135 PPE.
Wearing the proper armor, he can cast Fire Bolt (for example) 19 times.
Wearing the wrong armor, he can only cast Fire Bolt 16 times.
Believe it or not, that extra three castings isn't going to matter 99.99% of the time.
Most mages don't actually deplete their PPE reserves on anything resembling a regular basis.

Of course not... it's when they get to 110 or so and suddenly 'Are" out because that 20% hit... and they NEED those extra three fire bolts to finish off the enemy, and have nothing to throw but harsh language. Or more accurately when they hit that point and need 6 or 10 more firebolts to finish off the enemy because so many of his previous ones were up to 40% weaker. [/quote]

What's more, on low level spells, the penalties literally do not matter at all.
Globe of Daylight has a PPE cost of 2.
120% of 2 is 2.4, which rounds right back down to 2 again.
Which means that there is ZERO difference cost-wise between casting that spell wearing LLW armor and wearing Heavy Deadboy. [/quote]

So we're ignoring the Range reduction, damage reduction and duration reduction as well right?

Now you're thinking that high level spells are probably where it makes a difference.
Say you're spending 600 PPE on Teleport: Superior, wearing the wrong armor would bump that up to 720, a full 120 PPE!
Big whoop.
In order to cast that kind of spell, a mage has to have extra PPE coming from somewhere anyway: ley line nexus, blood sacrifice, borrowing from other people, or a crapload of talismans, etc.
And I can't think of ANY of these methods where getting an extra 120 PPE would be significantly harder than getting the initial 600 to begin with

In battle. Where it matters. And it'll add up, as above with your fire bolt example. It's nnot a vaccume. You have ---everything--- costing 20% more. which means you're basicly only have 80% of your 'magical ammo'.

Add that in with up to -40% damage, and only 80% ammo anyway and it's pretty bad. As is the reduced range. Mages don't generally want to get up and mix it up with things... that reduced range will put you that much closer to what you're trying to kill.

As for the other penalties, take a look at that table again and do the math.
There's a 20% chance that no penalties kick in.
There's a 20% chance each that damage/effects OR duration OR range OR range + duration are affected.

No.... there's a 20% chance that no penalties kick in.
There's an 80% chance that one or more of them does. Yes it's 20% each... but you're breaking it down to try and make it look less than it is. There's an 80% chance that you get screwed with one or more of the penalties.

80% is pretty high. Sure 1 in 5 times you squeek through but the other 4 out of 5 times you don't.. andd you don't know how your magic will be screwed each time. What if THIS time it screws the range and you don't even hit your target? What if the next time it reduces the damage by almost half, and due to that the baddie survives just long enough to take off your magy head? It's a big deal.

So you cast Fire Bolt, and what's the potential problem?
Well, range could be affected... but I've rarely seen anybody cast spells at maximum range, so that's not going to be a problem except in very rare cases.

It's up to 40%. It's going to come into effect. Unless your mage is firing off everything point blank it's going to come up. Your range is effectivly halved. As you said noone stands at the absolute edge of their range, because their target could move a few feet and be safe.. so you'll stay at 80% of your max range or so.. bbut your max range is only 60% of normal.. so you stand at about 50% of max range. That's alot closer than before.. and it matters. It puts you closer to your target, and easier to get hit as well.

Damage could be affected, and that'd possibly suck... but there's only a 20% chance of that happening.

And it would suck, if your shots are -40% it's going to suck alot. Especially when you factor in the cost inflation. You're paying 20% mmore to get up to 40% LESS out of it.

And in those 20% of case where you cast Fire Bolt and your damage IS reduced, it's reduced by 1d4x10%.
If you roll average damage for your Fire Bolt, that's normally 14 MD.
IF the damage ends up being reduced, that means there's a
25% chance that you instead inflict 13 MD (big whoop)
25% chance that you instead inflict 11 MD
25% chance that you instead inflict 10 MD
25% chance that you instead inflict 8 MD

Which means that the 20% of the time that damage being nerfed matters, it's not going to make a heck of a lot of difference about 75% of the time, IF that: remember, the GI-Joe rule means that small damage differences like this probably don't matter anyway.

It matters because it's possible each and every time. Again you're paying 20% more to receive up to 40% less. It adds up. Any 'One shot' yeah your numbers are right. But it factors in, in combat where you're firing off more than one shot, you're doing less with them or missing eniterly due to the range, and each one you DO fire off costs more for less return.

Would a man at arms pick up a laser rifle that had 40% less range and 40% less damage, randomly and over all had only 80% ammo capacity? No. That'd be STUPID.

Or let's say that you cast Magic Net instead.

The range is normally 60', the damage is zero, and the duration is 30 seconds per level of the caster.
Right off, there's a 40% chance that the spell isn't affected at all, because you either roll the that no problems occur or that a problem with damage occurs.

Depends on your GM. Ours wouldn't allow you to dodge like that. Just like a fireball doesn't have duration, so if you roll that it defaults to damage or range, with this one not having damage, it'd default to duration or range.

20% of the time, range will be decreased. With a range of 60', this means that there's a 25% chance each time range IS affected of the new range being:
54'
48'
42'
36'
Most likely the first 6-12' isn't going to determine whether or not the spell hits the target, so there's only about a 50% chance that the range difference is going to matter, less if you take possible range issues into account when casting spells in the first place.

20% of the time, the duration is going to be reduced by 1d4x10%.
So instead of 30 seconds per caster level, the spell will instead last:
27 seconds
24 seconds
21 seconds
18 seconds
Per level.
At first level, that might make a difference, but probably not much of one since the people are still going to be immobilized for over a full melee round minimum.

And there's a 20% chance that both range and duration are reduced by 20%, so the spell will have a range of 48' and a duration of 24 seconds per level.
Which, again, isn't really going to matter the vast majority of the time.

But it's the times it DOES matter that kill ya. That's the point. It's nnot an instant death sentence. It makes your magic very very unpredictable, and hard to plan for, and constantly overcharges you for what you're Attempting to do. Often with unknown frak ups. Your magic becomes a constant game of russian roulette. "Am I too far away? What if this spell fizzles halfway tthere? Or what if I throw it and it fizzels annd is only half as strong? What if my magic net can only hold them for one melee round (( 18 seconds) Instead of two ((30 seconds))?? I don't know.. this armor is frakin' me up.

Who wants to be teamed with the guy that honestly has no eartly clue how his own magic will work from one cast to the next?

Or say you cast a spell on yourself, something like Fly As The Eagle.
Damage isn't an issue, and range isn't an issue. The only element that could be affected that matters is duration.
So if you roll that duration alone is affected, that means that instead of 20 minutes per level, you get:
18 minutes per level
16 minutes per level
14 minutes per level
12 minutes per level

None of which is really likely to matter. If you cast the spell in combat, even at 12 minutes you're not going to have to worry about the duration running out on you before combat is long over.

I'd imagine it'd matter alot if you think you can fly for 20 minutes, and you're a few 100 feet up when it conks out at 12 and you fall to your death. Remember, spells don't have count downs. OOC you know how long they last. IC, your mage knows "I can fly for about 20 minutes with this spell" and if you're flyin' like an eagle and it dissapears, you go splat.

For non-combat usage, like long-range travel, you're going to have to cast the spell multiple times anyway, at low level at least.
So I'd say there's something like a 10% chance of it mattering, in the 20% of the time that duration happens to be affected anway

Again that depends on if your GM lets you dodge the penalties by ignoring the rolls that don't apply. But short version. Yes, you'll cast more, and it's less economical. up to 40% less range at 120% cost.

None of the above is really an incentive to not wear normal body armor.

What IS an incentive for mages to not wear body armor is that now everything you do takes longer.
You can't just cast Fire Ball, then roll for damage.
You have to cast Fire Ball, then roll to see what (if anything) aspect of the spell is reduced, then you have to roll again to see by how much, and if those results might matter, you have to do the math to find out exactly what's going on.
And you have to discuss from time to time with the GM whether PPE cost is rounded up or down, and whether Mega-Damage should be rounded up or down, and other piddly little disagreements might arise because Palladium was (according to you) so offended at people ignoring the original rules that they came up with a bunch of useless and more complicated rules for those same people to ignore (not to mention a large number of other people who followed the original rules, but avoid the new mess that was created).

But remember, those that follow the rule, aren't effected, so it doesn't change their play one way or another. it --only-- effects those that choose to ignore it. As for those that choose to ignore it.. if they're inconvenienced.. well. Isn't that built in? Their mage is inconvenienced, and the player is as well. Double bladed sword there to try and enforce the rule.

Ignoring it is just like ignoring the fact that crazies are crazy, and juicers die in a few years. You certainly CAN. It's just not what the designers have in mind. If so they wouldn't have it specifically addressed in the book.

Except that going insane or dying are actual significant penalties that matter.
Possibly sometimes having your spells nerfed in ways that probably won't matter is not.

120% cost with possible 60% return is significant. Any ONE spell? Probably not. ALL your spells costing 120% and the possibility of them being only 60% as strong? BIG DEAL. And again, I don't know of many admins that will 1) hold you to the rule. and also 2) Let you dodge it if you roll something that doesn't pertain.

If they'll let you dodge like that, chances are they're not making you roll anyway. If they're making you roll they probably aren't going to let you dodge in that fashion.

I understand mages don't LIKE it, but it's a purposeful built in rule that purposefully limits the mage's ability to suck up damage. To keep the mages "Squishy".

a) To what end?
b) It fails to accomplish it's goal.

120% cost, 60% return. I think it accomplishes it quite well. IF YOU DO IT. If you ignore it. then why care one way or another?

[flatline]

Do the new rules improve the gaming experience enough to justify their use?

And for the record, the rules never impacted me because:
1. Activating talismans isn't affected by armor
2. Force fields don't affect magic (and once I got my hands on a wearable force field, armor was a thing of the past)
3. I never wore heavy armor anyways since it carried a speed penalty

Even so, I thought the new rules (and these are definitely new rules, rather than clarifications of existing rules) made no sense and were a huge step backwards from the playability standpoint without adding anything useful.

--flatline

[Pepsi Jedi]

Do the new rules improve the gaming experience enough to justify their use?

And for the record, the rules never impacted me because:
1. Activating talismans isn't affected by armor
2. Force fields don't affect magic (and once I got my hands on a wearable force field, armor was a thing of the past)
3. I never wore heavy armor anyways since it carried a speed penalty

Even so, I thought the new rules (and these are definitely new rules, rather than clarifications of existing rules) made no sense and were a huge step backwards from the playability standpoint without adding anything useful.

--flatline

How can it be a huge stepbackwards for playability standpoint if they never impacted you?

[flatline]

Do the new rules improve the gaming experience enough to justify their use?

And for the record, the rules never impacted me because:
1. Activating talismans isn't affected by armor
2. Force fields don't affect magic (and once I got my hands on a wearable force field, armor was a thing of the past)
3. I never wore heavy armor anyways since it carried a speed penalty

Even so, I thought the new rules (and these are definitely new rules, rather than clarifications of existing rules) made no sense and were a huge step backwards from the playability standpoint without adding anything useful.

--flatline

How can it be a huge stepbackwards for playability standpoint if they never impacted you?

I design and analyze processes for a living and so I'm sensitive to "smell" even if it doesn't directly impact me.

But here are the obvious issues I see:
1. It complicates play without offering any benefit (like doing your taxes vs doing work you get paid for...you might not like either, but you benefit from one, the only "benefit" of the other is to get back money that was already yours).
2. It creates logistical issues that weren't part of the game before. Before, a mage could wear any armor in the books without worrying about it except for having his speed cut in half if it was heavy armor (very simple mechanic to keep track of). With the new rules, you either scrounge up armor that has specific properties or you incur all the added complexity from #1.
3. Part of the attraction of Rifts is that you have so many options, so any rule that attempts to limit those options for no good reason is automatically a bad rule. We had been playing Rifts long before this new rule and integrating the rule into our play would have disrupted (again, for no good reason) that balance between magic and tech that had already been established in our campaign.

Now, the rule would never have affected me because if I play a magic user, I pretty exclusively play Temporal Wizards which:
1. have access to Talisman starting out
2. have access to equipment from other dimensions (like wearable force fields) starting out (with GM's permission, of course).

So as a Temporal Wizard, I can usually ignore the rule starting out. No other magic OCC that I'm aware of can do this.

-flatline

[Nightmask]

Will all the reference to people 'ignoring the rules so they had to be made stricter' regarding mages and body armor I've yet to see how the text saying 'mages PREFER light armor' constitutes a limitation that mages couldn't pick heavier armors and those that did were somehow breaking a suggestion treated as a restrictive requirement. Things things like preferences aren't rules, they're suggestions and sometimes people actually buck what's common and go with something different. Like someone who favors a rival sports team to that of his home town even though everyone's supposed to prefer their home town team.

When everyone does it it's no longer doing something different. It becomes what's common.

While it's subjective that 'everyone's doing it' one does have to remember that we're talking PC here, they're supposed to be somehow different and above the run of the mill version of their OCC. They're the ones the story of the game revolves around, being different than the NPC. Rifts is also a LOT more dangerous than AD&D, the PC frequently run across things that can vaporize tanks from 1st level on up and EVERYONE should have access to the best protection possible for them, they definitely shouldn't have new rules released to make the game more lethal for them particularly when it makes it more lethal for a select group.

It also called playing in character and going by the spirit of the game.

And at what point is it not playing in character to go 'gee I want to survive I better wear something better than a T-shirt and jeans'? Or is it against the spirit of the game to again to want your character to survive to have to operate under a crushing handicap that everyone else doesn't have to that makes you far easier to kill?

[Hystrix]

And at what point is it not playing in character to go 'gee I want to survive I better wear something better than a T-shirt and jeans'? Or is it against the spirit of the game to again to want your character to survive to have to operate under a crushing handicap that everyone else doesn't have to that makes you far easier to kill?

Light Mage armor has around 35 MDC. Armor of Ithan spell has 10 MDC minimum. Telekinetic Force Feild has 25 MDC minimum. A Nurauni Force Feild has 60 MDC minimum. All of these are availibler to mages without penalty, and every single one of them could stop a tank round. Not exactly T-shirt and jeans.

[Nightmask]

And at what point is it not playing in character to go 'gee I want to survive I better wear something better than a T-shirt and jeans'? Or is it against the spirit of the game to again to want your character to survive to have to operate under a crushing handicap that everyone else doesn't have to that makes you far easier to kill?

Light Mage armor has around 35 MDC. Armor of Ithan spell has 10 MDC minimum. Telekinetic Force Feild has 25 MDC minimum. A Nurauni Force Feild has 60 MDC minimum. All of these are availibler to mages without penalty, and every single one of them could stop a tank round. Not exactly T-shirt and jeans.

TK Force Fields aren't available to mages (except maybe the Mystic, since they're a combined magic user/psionic class), and the Naruni Force Field is an alien technology that's not going to be a given available item to a mage either. Everything you've listed is quite limited in protection (and unless I misread what someone else said the mage armor requires leaving body parts exposed for easy killing), anything firing MD attacks is launching 4-6 of them in a single melee, and everyone else including the Vagabond can choose to make use of far heavier protections.

[Killer Cyborg]

Non mage players have no problem with it what so ever. lol But still, it's there for game balance. It's there because SOME people, were twinkin' out in heavy armor and pointing to the "Preference" instead of 'Enforced rule" as to why they could. I.E. they were abusing the game because the rules were not definitive enough. So they made the rules more strict and definitive. These are the same guys that pull anti tank weapons off and use them as personal firearms and go "Well the rules don't say I can't".

That's the sort that got the mage/armor rule made more strict.

And that's the sort of player that won't care.
So the "solution" does nothing to fix the "problem."

I was going to go point by point again but it boils down to the above.

It solves the problem if people play by the rules and the game as intended by the creators.

And if people did that, there wouldn't be a problem in the first place.
(for that matter, we're only going on your personal opinion that there was a problem to begin with).

Actually no. If you read this thread bunches of people ignored it and still do. lol Including yourself it seems.

I've read this thread.
Feel free to point out the "bunches" of people who ignored the original rules.
And feel free to explain why you think that I'd be one of them.

The book tells you that the MDC alloys interfere with the flow of PPE and interferes with the ability to cast spells. There's not a dissertation on it. It's a simple statement when addressing the armor. On 188 RUE it goes into it. Saying that it has a strange effect on the channeling of the mystic energy.

Yes, and that notion comes out of a vacuum- nothing in the previous rules (before SoT or BoM or the rule came originally) indicated any such thing, or anything remotely like it.

Not for nothing, but so?

So the existence of a rule does not justify the rule.
So when you try to use the current rules' existence to justify the rules, you're not doing anything useful, productive, or interesting as far as this conversation goes.
You're not going to convince any thinking person with that argument, because it doesn't actually justify anything, nor explain anything, nor present any new information.
So don't bother.

And nothing anywhere else in the rules has any consistency with this. You don't have trouble casting spells when you're in an MDC vehicle, for example.

Because the MD vechile isn't right up against your skin.

And why would that matter?

You may note that the rule DOES count against power armor.. which is right against you and touching you all over.

Care to quote the passage that describes power armor as "touching you all over?"

And, again, it's just as random as if they decided that natural materials interfered. Or if the presence of animals did. Or if the mages had to be wearing a beer hat.
It's a rule that doesn't fit with the rest of Palladiums rules on magic.

You're acting like it's new though, it's not. It's a clairification of something from the start. And it makes sense if you see mages as something other than just a list of numbers nad list of spells.

I see no truth in anything you have just said.
It is new.
It is not a clarification, it's an outright change.
It makes no sense from any angle that has been presented so far.

If more than 50% of the body is covered, you're assessed a +20% cost penalty on the PPE spent. and you have to roll on the table there, which can reduce damage, duration, or range, or range AND duration, by up to 40%.

Those, in my mind are significant penalties that are in the game to 'solve' the mages 'ignoring' the light armor usage.

IF so, that must be because you don't play mages.
For one thing any TW device ignores the penalties for armor, so it's only proper spellcasting that's an issue.

Because, as explained, it interfears with your ability to channel your magical energy.

Not really addressing anything that I said there.
It doesn't address your inexperience with actually playing mages.
It doesn't address the fact that any TW item can bypass the limitations entirely.
I'm guessing that it's supposed to address the mention that the limitations only affect proper spellcasting, but since I wasn't asking a question, and you're not presenting new information, your response is meaningless.

More importantly, the penalties doen't really matter.

+20% cost on PPE means that a spell that costs 10 PPE now costs 12 PPE.
Big whoop.

And one that cost 100PPE now is 120PPE... yes. Big whoop. It might not slow down your piddly little dinky spells but the ones that take more are inflated by a fifth.

Explain why you think that would be a big whoop.
Because I've already explained why, from low-level spells to high-level spells, it simply is not important as a rule.

A Ley Line Walker in RUE starts off with 3d6x10+20+PE PPE, so an average first level LLW has 135 PPE.
Wearing the proper armor, he can cast Fire Bolt (for example) 19 times.
Wearing the wrong armor, he can only cast Fire Bolt 16 times.
Believe it or not, that extra three castings isn't going to matter 99.99% of the time.
Most mages don't actually deplete their PPE reserves on anything resembling a regular basis.

Of course not... it's when they get to 110 or so and suddenly 'Are" out because that 20% hit... and they NEED those extra three fire bolts to finish off the enemy, and have nothing to throw but harsh language.

Right.
So it only matters in situations that I have never, ever seen happen, in 20+ years of playing Rifts.
This is my point.
It's not any kind of regular situation.
Mages don't regularly deplete their PPE down to dangerous levels.

Or more accurately when they hit that point and need 6 or 10 more firebolts to finish off the enemy because so many of his previous ones were up to 40% weaker.

By "so many of his previous ones," of course, you mean 10% of 20% of the total number cast.
So in a scenario where a mage casts Fire Bolt 16 times (due to the PPE cost from wearing armor), he could expect to have his damage reduced .32 times.
If you do the math, you should notice that this is actually less than one time.

What's more, on low level spells, the penalties literally do not matter at all.
Globe of Daylight has a PPE cost of 2.
120% of 2 is 2.4, which rounds right back down to 2 again.
Which means that there is ZERO difference cost-wise between casting that spell wearing LLW armor and wearing Heavy Deadboy.

So we're ignoring the Range reduction, damage reduction and duration reduction as well right?

I'm guessing that you didn't bother to read the whole post before responding?
Or that you DID, but had no relevant objection to the point that I'm making here, which is that the additional PPE cost literally makes no difference at all with low level spells?
Because I address the other penalties later.
Right now, in this part, I only address what I'm talking about, the reasons why the PPE penalties are insignificant.

Now you're thinking that high level spells are probably where it makes a difference.
Say you're spending 600 PPE on Teleport: Superior, wearing the wrong armor would bump that up to 720, a full 120 PPE!
Big whoop.
In order to cast that kind of spell, a mage has to have extra PPE coming from somewhere anyway: ley line nexus, blood sacrifice, borrowing from other people, or a crapload of talismans, etc.
And I can't think of ANY of these methods where getting an extra 120 PPE would be significantly harder than getting the initial 600 to begin with

In battle. Where it matters.

You don't cast spells that cost 600 PPE in battle, not unless you've properly prepared ahead of time by putting the spell on a scroll (in which case the additional cost would already be paid, and therefore not matter), or by stocking up on enough PPE batteries that you have plenty of energy, in which case the additional cost wouldn't matter.

And it'll add up, as above with your fire bolt example.

Exactly. It'll add up just the same: insignificantly.

It's nnot a vaccume. You have ---everything--- costing 20% more. which means you're basicly only have 80% of your 'magical ammo'.

Sure, but 80% of "infinite" is still "infinite."
And there is an infinite supply of PPE that a mage can use.
The only limit is how much he can hold at one time, and I've already described why reducing that by 80% isn't going to matter.
But what the hell, let's look at it one more time.

Under the original rules, a LLW could expect to have 2d4x10+20+PE PPE at first level
That's an average of 80 PPE.

Under the new rules, a LLW can expect to have 3d6x10+20+PE PPE, for an average of 135 PPE.
Stick this guy in heavy armor, and he effectively drops down to 108 PPE... which is still 28 PPE more than he would have had originally.
So... where's the penalty in that?

Also, his PPE is only effectively nerfed in regards to incantations.
He still has the exact same amount of PPE to use to recharge/activate TW items, or to share with other mages, or to use special OCC/RCC powers.

Add that in with up to -40% damage,

... that only happens 25% of 20% of the time.
so for every 100 times you cast a damage spell, you can expect 20 of those times for the damage to be nerfed by some degree, and only 5 of those times is the damage going to be nerfed by the 40% that you seem to think is such a huge deal.
But yeah... that 1 in 20 times, it can possibly be inconvenient.
Or not, depending on what you're doing when it happens.

Mages don't generally want to get up and mix it up with things...

Source?

As for the other penalties, take a look at that table again and do the math.
There's a 20% chance that no penalties kick in.
There's a 20% chance each that damage/effects OR duration OR range OR range + duration are affected.

No.... there's a 20% chance that no penalties kick in.
There's an 80% chance that one or more of them does. Yes it's 20% each... but you're breaking it down to try and make it look less than it is. There's an 80% chance that you get screwed with one or more of the penalties.

No, I'm breaking it down to show it how it is.
Yes, there's an 80% chance that something happens... but that "something" could well be something that doesn't matter.
Like nerfing the damage on Magic Net.
Or nerfing the range on a Touch spell.
Or nerfing the duration on an Instant spell.

So you cast Fire Bolt, and what's the potential problem?
Well, range could be affected... but I've rarely seen anybody cast spells at maximum range, so that's not going to be a problem except in very rare cases.

It's up to 40%. It's going to come into effect.

Yeah... 1 in 20 times.
Not a big deal.

Damage could be affected, and that'd possibly suck... but there's only a 20% chance of that happening.

And it would suck, if your shots are -40% it's going to suck alot.

No, it only might potentially suck.
Because if you cast a Fire Ball at a target, and the target dodges, then it doesn't matter if damage is nerfed.
If the target is impervious to fire, it doesn't matter if the damage is nerfed.
If you happen to roll really high, say 20 MD, that gets nerfed down to 12 MD, which nets out as if you only rolled average damage, which isn't really a big deal.
If you happen to roll really low, then nerfing the damage further isn't likely to matter anyway.

Especially when you factor in the cost inflation. You're paying 20% mmore to get up to 40% LESS out of it.

I've already explained why the cost increase doesn't matter.

And in those 20% of case where you cast Fire Bolt and your damage IS reduced, it's reduced by 1d4x10%.
If you roll average damage for your Fire Bolt, that's normally 14 MD.
IF the damage ends up being reduced, that means there's a
25% chance that you instead inflict 13 MD (big whoop)
25% chance that you instead inflict 11 MD
25% chance that you instead inflict 10 MD
25% chance that you instead inflict 8 MD

Which means that the 20% of the time that damage being nerfed matters, it's not going to make a heck of a lot of difference about 75% of the time, IF that: remember, the GI-Joe rule means that small damage differences like this probably don't matter anyway.

It matters because it's possible each and every time.

In the same sense that rolling a natural 1 is possible every time.
It is, and it happens 1 in 20 times, and it can be significant from time to time... but it's nothing to worry about or agonize over.
Because it's really not a big deal overall.

Would a man at arms pick up a laser rifle that had 40% less range and 40% less damage, randomly and over all had only 80% ammo capacity? No. That'd be STUPID.

Actually, you're touching on another problem with the current rules.
If anything, they create an incentive for mages to avoid casting spells.
Because why compromise your ability to SURVIVE combat in order to cast Fire Bolt instead of just using a laser rifle?
That'd be STUPID.

Or let's say that you cast Magic Net instead.

The range is normally 60', the damage is zero, and the duration is 30 seconds per level of the caster.
Right off, there's a 40% chance that the spell isn't affected at all, because you either roll the that no problems occur or that a problem with damage occurs.

Depends on your GM. Ours wouldn't allow you to dodge like that. Just like a fireball doesn't have duration, so if you roll that it defaults to damage or range, with this one not having damage, it'd default to duration or range.

Your house rules are irrelevant here: we're discussing the actual rules of the game.

20% of the time, range will be decreased. With a range of 60', this means that there's a 25% chance each time range IS affected of the new range being:
54'
48'
42'
36'
Most likely the first 6-12' isn't going to determine whether or not the spell hits the target, so there's only about a 50% chance that the range difference is going to matter, less if you take possible range issues into account when casting spells in the first place.

20% of the time, the duration is going to be reduced by 1d4x10%.
So instead of 30 seconds per caster level, the spell will instead last:
27 seconds
24 seconds
21 seconds
18 seconds
Per level.
At first level, that might make a difference, but probably not much of one since the people are still going to be immobilized for over a full melee round minimum.

And there's a 20% chance that both range and duration are reduced by 20%, so the spell will have a range of 48' and a duration of 24 seconds per level.
Which, again, isn't really going to matter the vast majority of the time.

But it's the times it DOES matter that kill ya.

Possibly.
Or possibly not.
And those times may well never happen.

That's the point. It's nnot an instant death sentence. It makes your magic very very unpredictable, and hard to plan for, and constantly overcharges you for what you're Attempting to do. Often with unknown frak ups. Your magic becomes a constant game of russian roulette. "Am I too far away? What if this spell fizzles halfway tthere? Or what if I throw it and it fizzels annd is only half as strong? What if my magic net can only hold them for one melee round (( 18 seconds) Instead of two ((30 seconds))?? I don't know.. this armor is frakin' me up.

Not in my experience.
In my experience, the rules don't really do any of that, because the changes to your spells are insignificant overall.
And, of course, because TW weapons and such are an easy bypass to potential problems.

Or say you cast a spell on yourself, something like Fly As The Eagle.
Damage isn't an issue, and range isn't an issue. The only element that could be affected that matters is duration.
So if you roll that duration alone is affected, that means that instead of 20 minutes per level, you get:
18 minutes per level
16 minutes per level
14 minutes per level
12 minutes per level

None of which is really likely to matter. If you cast the spell in combat, even at 12 minutes you're not going to have to worry about the duration running out on you before combat is long over.

I'd imagine it'd matter alot if you think you can fly for 20 minutes, and you're a few 100 feet up when it conks out at 12 and you fall to your death.

Sure, if your GM wants to rule that your character has no idea how his spell has been compromised.
Which IS a legitimate ruling... just as legitimate as ruling that the mage does know how it's been compromised.

Of course, to be safe, you can just recast the spell 12 minutes in, or take other precautions.

Remember, spells don't have count downs. OOC you know how long they last.

I can't remember what has never been written.
Of course, maybe it HAS been written, and I've missed it.
In which case you can probably cite the relevant passage from the books.

For non-combat usage, like long-range travel, you're going to have to cast the spell multiple times anyway, at low level at least.
So I'd say there's something like a 10% chance of it mattering, in the 20% of the time that duration happens to be affected anway

Again that depends on if your GM lets you dodge the penalties by ignoring the rolls that don't apply.

Yes, it does depend on your GM using the actual rules of the game instead of house rules.

But short version. Yes, you'll cast more, and it's less economical. up to 40% less range at 120% cost.

Which, for reasons already explained, isn't likely to ever matter.

None of the above is really an incentive to not wear normal body armor.

What IS an incentive for mages to not wear body armor is that now everything you do takes longer.
You can't just cast Fire Ball, then roll for damage.
You have to cast Fire Ball, then roll to see what (if anything) aspect of the spell is reduced, then you have to roll again to see by how much, and if those results might matter, you have to do the math to find out exactly what's going on.
And you have to discuss from time to time with the GM whether PPE cost is rounded up or down, and whether Mega-Damage should be rounded up or down, and other piddly little disagreements might arise because Palladium was (according to you) so offended at people ignoring the original rules that they came up with a bunch of useless and more complicated rules for those same people to ignore (not to mention a large number of other people who followed the original rules, but avoid the new mess that was created).

But remember, those that follow the rule, aren't effected, so it doesn't change their play one way or another.

No, those that follow the rules are affected any time they wear heavy armor.
Which, since there is no more real reason NOT to wear heavy armor than before the new rules, is going to be about the same percentage of people as before the new rules were added.

it --only-- effects those that choose to ignore it. As for those that choose to ignore it.. if they're inconvenienced.. well. Isn't that built in? Their mage is inconvenienced, and the player is as well. Double bladed sword there to try and enforce the rule.

The point above, if you read it, is that the mage isn't affected.
Only the player is affected.
Really, the entire gaming group is affected, since they have to sit through 2 additional rolls and various calculations, and possibly arguments, every time a mage wearing man-made armor casts a spell.

Ignoring it is just like ignoring the fact that crazies are crazy, and juicers die in a few years. You certainly CAN. It's just not what the designers have in mind. If so they wouldn't have it specifically addressed in the book.

Except that going insane or dying are actual significant penalties that matter.
Possibly sometimes having your spells nerfed in ways that probably won't matter is not.

120% cost with possible 60% return is significant.

Correction:
120% cost is insignificant.
Only getting a 60% return is possibly significant, in some of the 1 in 20 times that it's a factor at all.

I understand mages don't LIKE it, but it's a purposeful built in rule that purposefully limits the mage's ability to suck up damage. To keep the mages "Squishy".

a) To what end?
b) It fails to accomplish it's goal.

120% cost, 60% return. I think it accomplishes it quite well.

You are wrong, for the reasons already explained in detail.

[Hystrix]

And at what point is it not playing in character to go 'gee I want to survive I better wear something better than a T-shirt and jeans'? Or is it against the spirit of the game to again to want your character to survive to have to operate under a crushing handicap that everyone else doesn't have to that makes you far easier to kill?

Light Mage armor has around 35 MDC. Armor of Ithan spell has 10 MDC minimum. Telekinetic Force Feild has 25 MDC minimum. A Nurauni Force Feild has 60 MDC minimum. All of these are availibler to mages without penalty, and every single one of them could stop a tank round. Not exactly T-shirt and jeans.

TK Force Fields aren't available to mages (except maybe the Mystic, since they're a combined magic user/psionic class), and the Naruni Force Field is an alien technology that's not going to be a given available item to a mage either. Everything you've listed is quite limited in protection (and unless I misread what someone else said the mage armor requires leaving body parts exposed for easy killing), anything firing MD attacks is launching 4-6 of them in a single melee, and everyone else including the Vagabond can choose to make use of far heavier protections.

Still not the same as a t-shirt and jeans. Everything I described is not only available, it could stop at least 2 to 4 MDC attacks made aganst it. Unless you have a killer GM who sends impossile threats against your character on a regular basis, or unless you are crazy enough to put yourself on the front lines, you'll be fine. Most body armor IRL can stop ONE bullet. After that it's pretty worthless. I think mages have plenty of protection by any standard. Just do a little reasearch man. It's all in the books.

[SAMASzero]

CS being able to continually hire mercenaries even when they have a reputation for wiping all and any who have any CS tech, DBs, or any other undesirables. When realistacally the would be blacklisted by many if not most such organizations. Who wants to work for someone who may kill you to the last man for owning a CS pistol.

CS Sympathizers (or greedy mercs who don't give a damn as long as the pay is good) without CS weaponry, of course.

The habit of the writers of oncluding silly thing such as turnip people and animals such as ducks and expect you to take such creations serioulsy and keep a straight face. Sorry but I was told flat out that if I include a sentient turnip in my games that the players are walking out and never coming back. As for silly animals the Lurduuk from Dimension Book 14 is a good example. I don't care if it quaks out the planet killing beam from the death star or if it has a Horror Factor of 30. It's a duck. They are not scary and people eat them. Giving it a bony ridge on it's head and lightning abilites. It's still a damn duck. Give us something scary and cool or nothing at all. Once again I or any other player in my group will walk if anyone tosses in such a creature because no amont of disbeleif is going to make us do anything but makes us laugh so hard that we will have tears in our eyes.

I partially agree to this, or at least I agree with the fact that you don't like it. It depends on how serious you want to take your world. If you don't like it, that's your thing. Just don't use it, and you won't even miss it.

Note to self: Get Dimension Book 14.

The annoying habit of how certain items in an attempt to make sure that the players cannot get them through the Black Market or something similar always have the "not avaliable on the Black Market only available to army XYZ". Making it seem like every soldier in the Triax or CS armies as an example is some sort of paragon of virtue and would never accept a bribe to part with the weapon. BS. Anything with reason should be avaliable on Rifts Earth. With less legal restrictions and less organizations to keep a careful eye if anything their should be a thrving black market. One that should be as powerful as the Cs if not a few levels below. A CS soldier refuses to give codes to the armory the Black Market kidnaps his family. Or if he's single he dies in an "accident" and is replace by a more "favorable " one to the BM. Which has me worried for the upcoming BM sourcebook as PB makies them to be less effective then thy are in real life imo.

Well, this is usually in books where the faction in question has just gotten these brand new weapons and pieces of tech (Coalition War Campaign and Triax 2). They're not available on the BM not because of loyalty, but because they're too new to have filtered into the market in any appreciable amount.

Furthermore, the CS and NGR may be trying to be as secretive about their new tech as much as possible. Sure, it's inevitable that the tech will fall into the hands of undesirables,, but that doesn't mean you can't delay it as long as possible. In other words, for the first few years, they probably actively sought to retrieve or destroy any equipment stolen, captured, or salvaged.

Besides, I'm sure that by the the time the Siege ended you could easily find a Skull-Smasher or Terror Trooper for sale if you knew the right people.

The absured range and damage value of hand weaposn vs vehicle and robot weapons. I get that they wanted to give the guy in the sut of armor a fighting chace of surviving. Yet when it's to the point of nerfing weapon damage values to the point that a rifle can outdamage a robot. No way. One guy in a suit of armor against a robot in my games is dead or hurting badly. Hopefully in a eventually new edition they will fix this because it's becoming a recognizable feature o the game in gaming community./ Not a very good one imo.

Ah yes. Half my mechanical review threads consist of me going off on that. And believe me, it gets worse when you get to space. Speaking of which, I really need to start my third review thread...

[Pepsi Jedi]

Do the new rules improve the gaming experience enough to justify their use?

And for the record, the rules never impacted me because:
1. Activating talismans isn't affected by armor
2. Force fields don't affect magic (and once I got my hands on a wearable force field, armor was a thing of the past)
3. I never wore heavy armor anyways since it carried a speed penalty

Even so, I thought the new rules (and these are definitely new rules, rather than clarifications of existing rules) made no sense and were a huge step backwards from the playability standpoint without adding anything useful.

--flatline

How can it be a huge stepbackwards for playability standpoint if they never impacted you?

I design and analyze processes for a living and so I'm sensitive to "smell" even if it doesn't directly impact me.

But here are the obvious issues I see:
1. It complicates play without offering any benefit (like doing your taxes vs doing work you get paid for...you might not like either, but you benefit from one, the only "benefit" of the other is to get back money that was already yours).

What a horrible anology. You do realize that your taxes pay for the military, the government the upkeep of roads.. ect ect ect ect. You DO get benifit out of doing your taxes. You might not LIKE doing them. You still benifit. 1) Either getting money back or 2) Bu ALLLLL The things the Taxes pay for.

As a side note, it only complicates the game if you go against type. If you don't, it doesn't come up. You're CHOOSING to complicate the game.

2. It creates logistical issues that weren't part of the game before. Before, a mage could wear any armor in the books without worrying about it except for having his speed cut in half if it was heavy armor (very simple mechanic to keep track of). With the new rules, you either scrounge up armor that has specific properties or you incur all the added complexity from #1.

Parta being a mage. Soldiers have to keep track of Ammo. They have to make sure their armor is viable. Mages, if they choose to go against type, have to keep track of the penalties that come from doing so. It's a choice you make.

3. Part of the attraction of Rifts is that you have so many options, so any rule that attempts to limit those options for no good reason is automatically a bad rule. We had been playing Rifts long before this new rule and integrating the rule into our play would have disrupted (again, for no good reason) that balance between magic and tech that had already been established in our campaign.

lol So in other words, you blatently ignored the rule before... and when this came out and gave you penalties for it, you don't like it. But it ONLY Penalizes you, if you ignore what mages do/don't do.

Where's the problem? Oh.. You don't wanna be penalized. Got cha. *Shrugs* That is a choice you make. Play as the class is designed, or take the penalties. It's a choice you make. Again you're complaining about the same sort of thing as 'A crazy being crazy" or "A juicer dieing in a few years"
You can ignore it (( as you seemed to have previously)) But you're not playing the game as envisioned. It's your choice.

Now, the rule would never have affected me because if I play a magic user, I pretty exclusively play Temporal Wizards which:
1. have access to Talisman starting out
2. have access to equipment from other dimensions (like wearable force fields) starting out (with GM's permission, of course).

Good for you?

So as a Temporal Wizard, I can usually ignore the rule starting out. No other magic OCC that I'm aware of can do this.

-flatline

They can simply have mages as mages "ARE" in the game, or.... choose to be special snowflakes, wear heavy armor and take the penalties. Or... simply throw out a rule because they don't want to play the class as written. All are choices they can make. How ever makes people happy. Just don't blame it on the SYSTEM, when it's just players prevering to have their cake and eat it too. In rifts, as of the RUE, this is how magic works. If you don't want the penalties, don't wear the heavy armor. If you want to change the game go ahead. Nothing's stopping you from playing perfectly sane Crazies or Juicers with no ill effects. It's just not as "RIFTS" is set up. But it IS your choice.

[The Beast]

3. Part of the attraction of Rifts is that you have so many options, so any rule that attempts to limit those options for no good reason is automatically a bad rule. We had been playing Rifts long before this new rule and integrating the rule into our play would have disrupted (again, for no good reason) that balance between magic and tech that had already been established in our campaign.

lol So in other words, you blatently ignored the rule before... and when this came out and gave you penalties for it, you don't like it. But it ONLY Penalizes you, if you ignore what mages do/don't do.

Where's the problem? Oh.. You don't wanna be penalized. Got cha. *Shrugs* That is a choice you make. Play as the class is designed, or take the penalties. It's a choice you make. Again you're complaining about the same sort of thing as 'A crazy being crazy" or "A juicer dieing in a few years"
You can ignore it (( as you seemed to have previously)) But you're not playing the game as envisioned. It's your choice.

There was no rule before.

[zaccheus]

Parta being a mage. Soldiers have to keep track of Ammo. They have to make sure their armor is viable. Mages, if they choose to go against type, have to keep track of the penalties that come from doing so. It's a choice you make.

I just want to point out that I think you are making a huge assumption/misconception regarding "mages" and their "type", at least in regards to rifts. A common theme in the game is that mages are hunted, at least by the coalition, Free Quebec and the NGR, arguably the largest bastions of human civilization, and most likely factions that are going to come up in just about every game. If I lived in a world where the major goverments hunted down mages with a vengence and I was a mage, I absolutely would go against my "type". I'd have to be an idiot to dress the part and conform to "type"(ie wear armor that is stereotypically worn by mages), it would be paramount to suicide. In fact, it would make far more sense for almost every mage, except the most cocky or powerful to pretty much always were heavy armor and carry around a laser rifle and try their hardest to look like every other mercenary under the sun. Otherwise, wearing light "natural" armor or the LLW armor would provide the same protection that wearing a sandwich board that says I AM A MAGE PLEASE KILL ME would provide.

[Pepsi Jedi]

Parta being a mage. Soldiers have to keep track of Ammo. They have to make sure their armor is viable. Mages, if they choose to go against type, have to keep track of the penalties that come from doing so. It's a choice you make.

I just want to point out that I think you are making a huge assumption/misconception regarding "mages" and their "type", at least in regards to rifts. A common theme in the game is that mages are hunted, at least by the coalition, Free Quebec and the NGR, arguably the largest bastions of human civilization, and most likely factions that are going to come up in just about every game. If I lived in a world where the major goverments hunted down mages with a vengence and I was a mage, I absolutely would go against my "type". I'd have to be an idiot to dress the part and conform to "type"(ie wear armor that is stereotypically worn by mages), it would be paramount to suicide. In fact, it would make far more sense for almost every mage, except the most cocky or powerful to pretty much always were heavy armor and carry around a laser rifle and try their hardest to look like every other mercenary under the sun. Otherwise, wearing light "natural" armor or the LLW armor would provide the same protection that wearing a sandwich board that says I AM A MAGE PLEASE KILL ME would provide.

By this logic it's just stupid to be a mage at all, pick up the rifle and put on the armor and be a trooper.

I gget what you're saying. I'm pointing out that IN RIFTS EARTH, that's how Mages roll. If you wanna go different you can, but there's penalties for it.

[flatline]

3. Part of the attraction of Rifts is that you have so many options, so any rule that attempts to limit those options for no good reason is automatically a bad rule. We had been playing Rifts long before this new rule and integrating the rule into our play would have disrupted (again, for no good reason) that balance between magic and tech that had already been established in our campaign.

lol So in other words, you blatently ignored the rule before... and when this came out and gave you penalties for it, you don't like it. But it ONLY Penalizes you, if you ignore what mages do/don't do.

Where's the problem? Oh.. You don't wanna be penalized. Got cha. *Shrugs* That is a choice you make. Play as the class is designed, or take the penalties. It's a choice you make. Again you're complaining about the same sort of thing as 'A crazy being crazy" or "A juicer dieing in a few years"
You can ignore it (( as you seemed to have previously)) But you're not playing the game as envisioned. It's your choice.

There was no rule before.

Apparently I should have anticipated the rule before it was written.

--flatline