Your biggest alterations to the standard rules...

[Rifter11]

I'm curious to know what are the major changes you have made to the rules.

Personally, I have two:

1) Attribute generation. I allow players to roll one extra die per stat, then reroll the lowest rolled and then drop the lowest number. With the exception of 3D6 races, if they can roll higher than the equivelant of all 5s on the dice, they get to roll another die and add the result to the stat. If that roll is a 6 or higher, they add another die. 3D6 races have to roll a 16 or higher to get the bonus die.

2) Experience points. The first game I ran lasted for two years and at the end of that the players were only 3rd level. I think I followed the rules for giving exp to a T which resulted in the low levels. I have since decided I want my players to feel rewarded. So I have thrown out those rules. Instead of hundreds or thousands of exp earned, they now earn only one exp per session. But leveling requires only 3 exp for levels 2-5, 4 for levels 6-10 and 5 for levels 11-15. They can also earn an extra point here and there through good roleplaying or great accomplishments. This has worked great and I even use it in my Pathfinder games.

So what changes/house rules do you use?

Edit: made a minor language clarification

[Killer Cyborg]

Hm.

Well, I'd usually ignore the extra two attacks that popped up in Rifts somewhere around Atlantis.
Everything from vampires to animals to magic was all based around a "two attacks per melee is standard" model, so a LOT of stuff got messed up when they changed the basic formula.

Also, I kept the original Burst/Spray rules from the RMB, though based the number of shots required on a hypothetical standard rather than a specific weapon or clip's ammo capacity.
I didn't like that a short burst from a pistol with 20 shots would eat up more ammo than from a pistol with 10 shots, but only to do the same damage, so I think I went with something like "all pistols are based on 20 rounds, and all rifles are based on 30 rounds."
So if your pistol had 20 rounds you could fire a full mag burst/spray, but if your pistol only had 10 rounds max, it could only do a half-mag burst/spray max.

Also, I ignored the -10 rule, and stuck to the original "you can dodge gunfire through a combination of spoiling their aim, and pure luck."

And to make the C-12 Laser Rifle make sense, I ruled that it fires a 5-round PULSE, not a 5-round BURST.

I usually also ran things where casting a spell only took a single attack, unless you were doing a Ritual.

For attributes, my group would usually go with "Roll 5 dice, keep the top 3 (or top 4, or top 2, depending on race and such).

I think I eventually ruled that the Sniper bonus +2 on aimed attacks counted as a NATURAL bonus, so it meant you'd crit easier.

I ignored the mage armor rules, because they're pointless. Mages could wear whatever they wanted without interfering with casting, short of power armor. The usual movement penalties would apply; that was always enough to discourage many mages from wearing heavy armor all the time.

I ignored the new CK rules, and stuck to the RMB CKs, except for how psi-sword stuff.

[Dustin Fireblade]

Rolling attributes - roll 4d6 and keep the three highest (humans), and arrange as desired

Ranged Combat - changed about everything there.

No MDC/Convert everything to SDC. We used a damage reduction mechanic

Skills - borrowed this from someone else, but basically all skills are either Easy, Medium, Hard. All skills in a category have the same skill percentage (Easy is 70% +2% per level for example).

I'm sure there's probably something else, but we haven't ran a Rifts game for years now.

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

I'm curious to know what are the major changes you have made to the rules.

Personally, I have two:

1) Attribute generation. I allow players to roll one extra die per stat, then reroll the lowest rolled and then drop the lowest number. With the exception of 3D6 races, if they can roll higher than the equivelant of all 5s on the dice, they get to roll another die and add the result to the stat. If that roll is a 6 or higher, they add another die. 3D6 races have to roll a 16 or higher to get the bonus die.

I've tried several different methods of attribute rolling, and my favorite lately is to roll 2d12 and assign the results to each attribute as desired. So far it's resulted in a lot of my characters having around 20 in their preferred stats, after physical skills/OCC bonuses are added.

I prefer to have at least two concept-relevant attributes get a bonus. If I want to play a smooth-talker (a rarity for me, but it can be fun in small doses), then I see no point in having an MA beneath 16. The bonuses we get to attributes over 22 or so start to get ridiculous, so I consider anything in the 17-22 range to be useful but not game-breaking. Hence why rolling 2d12--especially for attributes that can't get bonuses from physical skills--often results in me getting the bonuses I want in the range I want them. I haven't rolled a 23 or 24 yet.

2) Experience points. The first game I ran lasted for two years and at the end of that the players were only 3rd level. I think I followed the rules for giving exp to a T which resulted in the low levels.

No offense, but if I was playing in that group I would've rebelled way before the two year mark. Siembieda says that only after levels 7-8 should it take really long (1+ years) between levels. If you took 2 years and never reached level 4, it means you probably weren't putting the group into conflicts against major threats with much frequency. Which is fine if you're not making your campaign action-packed, but in that case I would've abandoned the conventional XP system after a couple of months rather than years.

I have since decided I want my players to feel rewarded. So I have thrown out those rules. Instead of hundreds or thousands of exp earned, they now earn only one exp per session. But leveling requires only 3 exp for levels 2-5, 4 for levels 6-10 and 5 for levels 11-15. They can also earn an extra point here and there through good roleplaying or great accomplishments.

This sounds like a good system. Straightforward, much easier for keeping records. I might modify it for longer campaigns by having each level cost 3/4/5 XP as a multiplier. For instance, this would mean level 3 costs 9 XP, 7 costs 28 XP, and 12 costs 60 XP. Then you could give out a lot more merit-based XP rewards and still avoid levelling too quickly.

[Grazzik]

I did a quick search. If you are looking for ideas, you may want to check out these "post your house rule" threads for what others have already shared. I don't vouch for the quality of the posts

Rifts - https://palladium-megaverse.com/forums/ ... p?t=154818
Rifts - https://palladium-megaverse.com/forums/ ... p?t=142358
PFRPG - https://www.palladium-megaverse.com/for ... p?t=127128
PFRPG - https://www.palladium-megaverse.com/for ... hp?t=90786
PFRPG - https://www.palladium-megaverse.com/for ... p?t=116094
PFRPG - https://www.palladium-megaverse.com/for ... p?t=141128
N&SS - https://www.palladium-megaverse.com/for ... hp?t=39826
AtB - https://www.palladium-megaverse.com/for ... p?t=120838
Robotech - https://www.palladium-megaverse.com/for ... p?t=105001
During Open House - https://palladium-megaverse.com/forums/ ... hp?t=58297

[Ace, TW]

Hmm let’s see…

Guns.

+3 for carefully aimed single shots
+1 for called shots to heads or hands etc.
+1 for bursts. There is only one size of burst. If you want to full melee burst, just burst every attack on your turn.
These all use 1 attack. If a weapon doesn’t have a burst it is base single shot x3 when doing a burst. It uses 1/3 of the ammo.

Attacks per melee. If someone has considerably more attacks than their opponent they don’t go round robin. The guy with more can sometimes go twice before the other guy goes once. Sorry, they are just faster than you.

No -10 to dodge and everyone can parry with things meant to parry like a ballistics shield. Too many rules otherwise. No penalties for ranges. Again, simple rules. Its Aimed, called or burst. Those are the variables. Sniper helped aimed and called and optics aid all 3.

Sharpshooter lets you add P.P. So some guys are just better shots naturally. Which is how it normally worked anyway.

All skills were rounded to the nearest 5% mark and all skills go up by 5% per level. This way we can just update our %per level number and keep the amount of bookkeeping to a minimum and not have to update individual skills. New skills get added with a starting % that is lowered by the same amount. So a new level up skill might start at 25% and let’s say you get it at level 3. So it would be written down as 10% (25-15). When you use it, it would act like the others skills. Base, unchanging skill of 10%(in this case) plus level 3 advancement of +15% (5%x3). So it is back to 25%.


Cyber Knight Psi swords get damage buffed to 4d6 to start to make them comparable to a rifle shot. They quickly level up to be equal to plasma cannon or particle beams of 1d4x10 or 1d6x10. Otherwise it gets regulated to a parrying dagger instead of a main weapon.

[Rifter11]

I did a quick search. If you are looking for ideas, you may want to check out these "post your house rule" threads for what others have already shared. I don't vouch for the quality of the posts

Rifts - https://palladium-megaverse.com/forums/ ... p?t=154818
Rifts - https://palladium-megaverse.com/forums/ ... p?t=142358
PFRPG - https://www.palladium-megaverse.com/for ... p?t=127128
PFRPG - https://www.palladium-megaverse.com/for ... hp?t=90786
PFRPG - https://www.palladium-megaverse.com/for ... p?t=116094
PFRPG - https://www.palladium-megaverse.com/for ... p?t=141128
N&SS - https://www.palladium-megaverse.com/for ... hp?t=39826
AtB - https://www.palladium-megaverse.com/for ... p?t=120838
Robotech - https://www.palladium-megaverse.com/for ... p?t=105001
During Open House - https://palladium-megaverse.com/forums/ ... hp?t=58297

Sweet!

[Rifter11]

Thanks for all the input!

[Slider65]

Rail Guns. Oh how I loath how these things are portrayed in Rifts. Coupled with Kevin's apparent hatred of anything to do with kinetic energy weapons of any type, and all of them ending up being on the very bottom of the scale as far as utility goes, and I'm not even going into how 99% of all rail guns do the same damage. Doesn't matter how large the bore diameter of them that is shown in the pretty picture are, or how many rounds they fire, or what the fluff in the description says about them, yeah, damage is the same. And I'm not even sure what they are? Are they machineguns? If they are, why don't they use the rules for those? If they are simply bullet hoses, why do they take so many rounds to do so little damage. 40-60 rounds to do the same, or less damage, as a pulse laser or ion weapon, particle beam rifle, or plasma gun? And all of those rounds are hitting one target? None of them miss and go off to punch holes in the landscape or innocent bystanders? They sure don't follow the burst fire rules in RAW either.

So, my house rules are as follows, to try to make some sense out of these things. First, base damage. I take the damage as listed, i.e. 1d4x10 and cut it in half. So 4d6/round for the basic SAMAS rail gun. That is for a single round fired from the gun. Not 40 <sheesh> And it allows pilots to fire aimed single shots to conserve ammo and actually do something other than be ignored.

Now apply the burst fire rules to the weapon, with a little bit of sanity, and my experience with actual weapons in the real world. All ammunition usage is the same, no matter what the weapon is mounted on. Because this is pretty much a simplified version of what is used IRL.

A short burst is 5 rounds and does 2x damage. Also useful for walking the rounds onto a target (missing until you get the range.)

A medium burst is 10 rounds and does 5x damage. And is actually really difficult to get all of them to hit as your target refuses to sit still and get shot. Go figure. Or is moving at anything faster than a shuffle. Or is diving for cover, or is flying away, etc. etc.

A long burst is 20 rounds and does damage x10. And counts as two attacks as you try to steady the weapon and track the target at the same time. Hard enough from a stable platform, now try it from a suit of power armor doing 200 mph or faster, and against a target that is also moving. There's a reason you have a targeting computer in your power amor to make this even somewhat feasible.

Then we get to the fun stuff, where you can actually use the machinegun rules to spray rounds into an area and make the other guy sit up (or get down behind cover) and notice he is in danger. Seriously 1d4 damage to 1d4 targets for 40 rounds? Do they even notice the paint got scratched on their armor?

So, now it is 4d6 to 1d4 targets. and fires twice the number of rounds as a normal short burst, so 10 rounds.

A medium burst is 20 rounds, hits 2d4 targets and takes 2 attacks.

A long burst is 40 rounds, hits 2d8 enemies and takes 4 attacks as you walk the fire back and forth.

Progressively more rounds fired, and does what machineguns are supposed to do, keep the other guys head down while your forces maneuver forward.

And then we get to the really fun stuff for any flying PA pilot, and that is making a strafing run on all those squishy targets with no cover. Double the ammunition usage of a full burst, or 80 rounds. Lots of lead flying here. But it hits ALL targets within a line 10' wide, but 100' long, and does 8d6 damage to everything in the area. It also uses up all your attacks for the entire round, as the goal is to do a fly by and not give the other guy a chance to shoot back.

For giant robots this is also a lot of fun as you make all those squishy infantry guys run for cover or get chewed to pieces. And while they are running, they are not doing pesky infantry things like shooting back at you. Same for coaxial mounts or those cupola weapons on tanks. I've even toyed with the idea of saying that anyone dumb enough to not run for cover, or hit the dirt, or dodge, etc. takes double damage. Standing still and even attempting to shoot back deserves it's own special kind of (Darwin) award after all.

Again, the damage above is for the relatively light SAMAS rail gun. The Sampson is at 5d6/round, and some of the smaller light infantry or Borg rail guns are even less. Giant sized rail guns like those mounted on Robots, double the base damage. So the UAR-1 is doing 1d6x10 per round, and increases depending on whether they are using aimed bursts, or spraying an area. To be fair, they are almost never going waste ammunition firing bursts at a single guy in body armor, or would switch to lighter weapons, and even keep to firing short bursts against power armor and cyborgs. But against other giant robots or vehicles they would use longer bursts. Same with any other platform, like the Spider Skull Walker.

And now there is an actual reason to fear rail guns.

Edit: Had to fix a few mistakes.

[Fenris2020]

One of my main ones is, you add your PP bonus to shooting attacks. It works for archery, so why not for "guns"?
Another is, all creatures with Supernatural/ Robotic PS add their MD punch damage to melee weapons. I think that was an actual rule that fell by the way-side somewhere along the way.

[Killer Cyborg]

One of my main ones is, you add your PP bonus to shooting attacks. It works for archery, so why not for "guns"?
Another is, all creatures with Supernatural/ Robotic PS add their MD punch damage to melee weapons. I think that was an actual rule that fell by the way-side somewhere along the way.

SB1 mentioned that robots add their PS damage bonus to MD attacks, which is actually BETTER than just adding punch damage in many cases.

CB1r has damage bonuses to MD melee attacks based on Robotic PS, but it's not as simple as "just add punch damage."

I've generally just allowed them to add punch damage.

[Devjannz]

I don't have too many House Rules but here are the one's I have put in place and that seem to work well:

1.) Characters with Natural MDC: Instead of just one MDC Score I have it separated like Hit Points and SDC. Like normal HP, characters gain a D6 per level to MD Hit Points. MDC however only goes up at 1/2 the listed value. SO if they gain 1d6x10 per level, it would be half what is rolled.

The reasoning behind this is to make it more in line with how HP/SDC works and so you can use many of the same mechanics for it. A Critical strike roll would bypass the MDC and go straight to the MD Hit Points. Physical Skills can increase it by the same dice numbers as SDC.

2.) The Speed Attribute: I have never thought that the random roll for speed made sense because how fast someone can go is a combination of several physical factors. For the game I have players take their PS, PP and PE rolls and average them for Spd (maybe not the best way but it seems to work pretty good so far). This gives a base attribute to use and then things like Running and other skills/abilities that can affect Spd are applied as usual.

3.) MD Laser/Ion Pistols/Rifles vs SDC targets: Instead of doing the MD Damage listed, they do the Die Roll x2 in SDC (and HP at the same time if a living target). The reason for this is because both of those items are usually described as punching a hole through a target not vaporizing them (unless it is a beam of substantial power and size). It also gives SDC beings a chance (however slight) if actually surviving a hit by those types of weapons. Vehicle weapons (not mounted rifles) and Particle Beam weapons still do the normal damage as they have more power or are designed to disrupt physical items at an atomic level.


That is all I have really. I hope that they make sense and feel free to use them if you like.

[Fenris2020]

Firearms, energy weapons and so on add the PP bonus to hit.