NEMA Bulldog stats question/comment

[dascase]

Is it just me or do the stats from the Bulldog seem oddly nerfed? Specifically I mean the Plasma Forearm Weapons. They do 5d6 at a range of 1600 ft. The rifle plama rifle some pages earlier does 6d6 at 1800 ft, and the plasma cannon can do 1d6x10 on burst and has a missle attached. Even the Bulldog's own shoulder lasers can do 6d6 combinded at a range of 2000 ft.

Am I missing something, or is this just an oversight?

[Josh Sinsapaugh]

Multiply all damage by x 10. Problem solved.

I wouldn't do that.

No, the damage is meant to be 5D6 M.D., they are just less advanced then other plasma weapons from other books. Presumably due to the fact that the Bull Dog is a comparitvly older Robot vehicle when compared to more advanced US and NEMA designs such as the Super Mastiff and the Chromium Guardsman.

[Dustin Fireblade]

Multiply all damage by x 10. Problem solved.

I wouldn't do that.

No, the damage is meant to be 5D6 M.D., they are just less advanced then other plasma weapons from other books. Presumably due to the fact that the Bull Dog is a comparitvly older Robot vehicle when compared to more advanced US and NEMA designs such as the Super Mastiff and the Chromium Guardsman.

That and the fact that few other countries had MD technology. No reason to do a lot of damage prior to the coming of Rifts and demons running around.

[dascase]

I still disagree somewhat. I understand that the Bulldog can be considered an older weapon system but the way it's guns are step up seems ineffectual. Consider it's lasers, they do more damage, at longer range. While it'd be good to have a non-laser weapon to combat Chromiums if there was ever a case for it, the weapons still seem pointless. When would you use them as opposed to the lasers?

And the idea of not wanting to do a lot of damage seems wrong to me. Take for example the NEMA standard body armor. It's got 120 MDC, now round it down to say 90 for some kind of enemy scavenged armor. A bulldog could do with his plasma guns 5 to 30 mdc. That's anywhere from 3 to 18 hits to destroy just one attacker. It seems to me that's a whole lot of shots for one target. Now put a squad of twelve armed with plasma cannons. 12 attackers doing 1d6X10 is 120 to 720 MDC from a longer range. The bulldog's got 310 MDC for its main body. For a machine designed to be an assault unit it's severely lacking in firepower. Now if the opponents are all SDC armed and armored anything above say 3 MDC is complete overkill and would just lay waste to the battle site which would be very problematic if it took place inside a city. As it stands right now if the Bulldog is even going to exist it should act as a step up from a Gunbuster not a step below in it's main weapon systems.

Personally I'm considering to options either just bringing the whole each system up 1d6 x 10 for each forearm gun flat out. Or, saying that in the interest of progress and firepower say that a plasma cannon was strapped on each arm and design rules for the burst setting.


sorry for the rant, i've just been pondering this for a while.

[Dustin Fireblade]

I still disagree somewhat. I understand that the Bulldog can be considered an older weapon sytem but the way it's guns are step up seems ineffectual. Consider it's lasers, they do more damage, at longer range. While it'd be good to have a non-laser weapon to combat Chromiums if there was ever a case for it, the weapons still seem pointless. When would you use them as opposed to the lasers?

And the idea of not wanting to do a lot of damage seems wrong to me. Take for example the NEMA standard body armor. It's got 120 MDC, now round it down to say 90 for some kind of enemy scavenged armor. A bulldog dould do with his plasma guns 5 to 30 mdc. That's anywhere from 3 to 18 hits to destroy just one attacker. It seems to me that's a whole lot of shots fot pne target. Now put a squad of twelve armed with plasma cannons. 12 attackers doing 1d6X10 is 120 to 720 MDC from a longer range. The bulldog's got 310 MDC for its main body. For a machine designed to be an assault unit it's severly lacking in firepower. Now if the opponents are all SDC armed and armored anything above say 3 MDC is complete overkill and would just lay waste to the battle site which would be very problematic if it took place inside a city. As it stands right now if the Bulldog is even going to exist it should act as a step up from a Gunbuster not a step below in it's main weapon systems.

Personally I'm considering to options either just bringing the whole each system up 1d6 x 10 for each forearm gun flatout. Or, saying that in the interest of progress and firepower say that a plasma cannon was straped on each arm and design rules for the burst setting.


sorry for the rant, i've just been pondering this for a while.

Well again, prior to the Rifts there was just no reason for NEMA to have such uber-damage capacity systems when I think there was only a dozen countries with MD tech, and three of those were "NEMA" countries, plus whatever allies of NEMA.
I think it would also be pretty safe to assume that NEMA had among the best tech out of those other countries. A enemy tank may have only had 50 MDC for example, in which case the Bulldog would own it.
I'm not saying at all that the Bulldog was the high end of the pre-Rifts weapons technology, simply there was no need for anything better at the time.
And at the same time there could also be a "military-grade" Bulldog version, though the upcoming "Mission Books" may give us some military equipment.
And no need to apologize, this could be the best discussion on this board since CE came out.

[Josh Sinsapaugh]

If you feel you need to modify the Bull Dog, why not lower the lasers damage instead of upping the forearm weapons.

I'm leaving it as is.

[maasenstodt]

Summary, this is a AFV, yet it's weapons are no more powerful then what is being packed by the infantry. If Trooper Joe Snuffy can pack a 5 lbs rifle doing 4D6 (or an 8lbs plasma gun doing 6D6), then a 12' tall, 11 ton 'bot AFV should be able to pack something a bit more. Otherwise it is no more then a missile magnet and waste of resources.

Bulldog is just one of many. Alot of NEMA stuff has 'nifty' pictures and fluff. Just when you get down to mechanics...it feels like I am ready Triax again (the Devestator and others) and sigh, since this is typical for Palladium and Kevin.

I couldn't agree more. The undervaluation of the damage potential of MDC weapons occurs throughout Palladium's games. From the first appearance of MDC in Robotech, where neither Zentraedi Battle Pods nor Veritech Fighters could kill each other as easily as in the actual show, to Rifts where one of the most powerful weapons on Earth (the Boom Gun) struggles mightily to kill even the weakest of power armors, and now to Chaos Earth, the problem is pandemic.

While I've used a number of house rules to try to ease around this issue, I do wish that it was something that Kevin and co. would address. Does anyone have any ideas as to why Kevin made the decisions that he did regarding the consistent superiority of armor over weaponry in his games, when in real life armor technology has almost always trailed that of weapons?

[dascase]

I totally agree that there are a lot of problems in the actual damage vs. intent categories. I was rereading the Triax book and noticed the little comic again. Take a look and see how quick single shots seem to take down armor systems well past their damage capabilities.

On the armor/weapon superiority issue take a look at the first instances of cannons in seige warfare in Europe. The evolution of the guns forced total redesigns of what a castle had to be in order to be effective. In the real world weapons always seem to be well in front or armor designs, the opposite of Rifts.

I think that we are all used to the one shot one kill idea that exists in most sci-fi movies so we carry that over into the rpgs we play. I still do find it interesting to find combat tactics that would work in the over arching weak weapons/strong armor world that is Rifts. I've personally started moving further and further away from power armor versus power armor situations. Take a look at Wellignton saws and guerilla tactics using fast moving units armed with missile launchers. More and more heavy damage missiles fired at longer ranges with high mobility win the day over most any power armor system. (Is it obvious I'm in the middle of a large scale merc army vs coalition game?).

I don't think there's any real answer to this problem except either adjusting tactics to use the existing systems as offered or using the intent of the designers and just saying "okay you killed it, keep going" (see the Triax cartoon for an example).

What I really want is a Compendium of Rifts-verse Weapons that deals with this issue and has new rules and updates to various past systems to make them fit in with everything else.

[maasenstodt]

No one mentions Battle vest or however it is called, it have 35 MDC and is blown in 2-3 shots. So do you want to be unlucky player and die from very high damage roll because you rolled 2 for dodge(or GM rolled 18 to hit)?

YES!!!

What's more, I'd like that kind of deadliness translated to most other things as well. No well armed unit of one class (infantry, power armor, robot, etc.) should require more than 2 or 3 decent hits to kill a target of the same class. In real life, one bullet (or for tanks, one APSD round, or for aircraft, one missile) can kill. I don't see why it should take 20 such attacks to register a kill in a game.

[Josh Sinsapaugh]

No one mentions Battle vest or however it is called, it have 35 MDC and is blown in 2-3 shots. So do you want to be unlucky player and die from very high damage roll because you rolled 2 for dodge(or GM rolled 18 to hit)?

YES!!!

What's more, I'd like that kind of deadliness translated to most other things as well. No well armed unit of one class (infantry, power armor, robot, etc.) should require more than 2 or 3 decent hits to kill a target of the same class. In real life, one bullet (or for tanks, one APSD round, or for aircraft, one missile) can kill. I don't see why it should take 20 such attacks to register a kill in a game.

Pssst....Psssst, that's what the A.R. on that thang is for...well at least I'm pretty sure it has an A.R...might not, haven't read the book in awhile.

[maasenstodt]

Pssst....Psssst, that's what the A.R. on that thang is for...well at least I'm pretty sure it has an A.R...might not, haven't read the book in awhile.

What I am addressing is the larger point - that it takes far too long for weapons to kill their targets. If you're looking for specific flaws in Palladium's MDC designs, however, while I don't recall what if any A.R. the aforementioned battle vest has, I know that both the Juicer armor and Dog Boy armor from the Rifts Main Book lack A.R. despite their clear lack of full body protection.

[Josh Sinsapaugh]

Now although I do not agree with the sentiment KS commented about that subject in the GMs guide. I believe it went something like this "Yes, in real life a tank can be taken out with one precision strike. But this is not real life, its a game."

However, its a game that is supposed to mimic real life...so we are all dead in the water unless you use your own ingenuity and "house rules."

[maasenstodt]

Now although I do not agree with the sentiment KS commented about that subject in the GMs guide. I believe it went something like this "Yes, in real life a tank can be taken out with one precision strike. But this is not real life, its a game."

However, its a game that is supposed to mimic real life...so we are all dead in the water unless you use your own ingenuity and "house rules."

I appreciate your remarks. My own feeling is that one hit kills can be problematic, but that the requirement of 10 or more hits is a far greater problem.

What really bothers me about Kevin's stance is that he seems to suggest that realism is not fun, saying that realistic combat "stink[s] for a science-fantasy game like Rifts." Rather, he claims that his games invoke "fantasy comic book action." But when we see actual comic book action in his books, such as the aforementioned comic in Triax & the NGR, what do we see? Why, damn my eyes if it isn't a bunch of one hit kills and seemingly realistic combat!

I think what is really needed is a happy medium. One hit kills (particularly with a good critical strike) should probably be possible, but if they aren't typical, that would be fine with me. On the other hand, the current MDC levels of armor are silly when taken in context with weapon damage. More than 5 hits (from a weapon of equivilant scale) for a kill, to use Kevin's word, stinks. I call for revision.

[Josh Sinsapaugh]

Now although I do not agree with the sentiment KS commented about that subject in the GMs guide. I believe it went something like this "Yes, in real life a tank can be taken out with one precision strike. But this is not real life, its a game."

However, its a game that is supposed to mimic real life...so we are all dead in the water unless you use your own ingenuity and "house rules."

I appreciate your remarks. My own feeling is that one hit kills can be problematic, but that the requirement of 10 or more hits is a far greater problem.

What really bothers me about Kevin's stance is that he seems to suggest that realism is not fun, saying that realistic combat "stink[s] for a science-fantasy game like Rifts." Rather, he claims that his games invoke "fantasy comic book action." But when we see actual comic book action in his books, such as the aforementioned comic in Triax & the NGR, what do we see? Why, damn my eyes if it isn't a bunch of one hit kills and seemingly realistic combat!

I think what is really needed is a happy medium. One hit kills (particularly with a good critical strike) should probably be possible, but if they aren't typical, that would be fine with me. On the other hand, the current MDC levels of armor are silly when taken in context with weapon damage. More than 5 hits (from a weapon of equivilant scale) for a kill, to use Kevin's word, stinks. I call for revision.

In that regard, I've been applying the "Common Scence" S.D.C. rules to M.D.C.

For example, if a person takes 30 M.D.C. in one shot to a helmet with only 60 M.D.C., the helmet is gone (and they're probably dead).

The helmet all together has 60 M.D.C., it doesn't seem right for a player or NPC to take oh say 59 M.D.C. in one attack to their 60 M.D.C. helmet and still have a 1 M.D.C. head covering. If I destroy 98% of my shirt that I'm wearing, I'm gonna be damn near shirtless.

...and probably get my butt kicked.

[Warwolf]

I'd like that kind of deadliness translated to most other things as well. No well armed unit of one class (infantry, power armor, robot, etc.) should require more than 2 or 3 decent hits to kill a target of the same class. In real life, one bullet (or for tanks, one APSD round, or for aircraft, one missile) can kill. I don't see why it should take 20 such attacks to register a kill in a game.

I know the plausibility is slightly off in this instance, but I think it was done to increase the survivability of player characters. Think about it, if it only took two or three hits to waste someone combined with the practical impossibility of dodging high-tech ranged attacks (I will say that Palladium's ranged combat system is quite flawed), every time you sat down to play a game you would most likely lose 50-100% of your gaming group! Now, this is assuming that there is a certain amount of gunfighting and action in your games rather than playing a bunch of rogue scientists searching for an alien species of bird (snore). If you need to, think about it in terms of a comic book, action film, or video game. In these it generally takes the hero at least ten to twelve gunshot wounds (typical caliber, not anthing like exploding or AP) to finally kick the bucket, but that is one of the things that makes those FUN. You know what ISN'T fun? Having to roll up a new character every time you game, or having to sit on your hands all night because your character got fragged in the first firefight. I think the high armor capacity (which, by the way, in Rifts is probably more around the 50-80 MDC range in on average, just because massive armor exists doesn't mean that everyone has it) is just K.S.'s way of preventing an adventure from turning into a bad rendition of Paranoia.

As for the plasma cannons on the Bulldog, I would have to say alter them to 1d6x10. My main reasoning for this is because of the name and description of the weapon. I don't know about everyone else, but when a rifle (though still a heavy weapon) deals 6d6 MD, a heavy cannon of the same type should deal at least slightly more. I would have to argue against burst fire for the weapons as an alternative, because under the description of the Incinerator Cannon (which in accordance with my reasoning has the ability to deal more than the rifle) it is described as an experimental design.

Now that I have stated my reasoning for changing it, a few reasons why it may have been statted thus follow:
1. Budget constraints in either design or production (see robot creation in Sourcebook 1).
2. Collateral damage considerations (that's why there's a need for frangible bullets).
3. Designer preference. Remember, military tech is built by the lowest bidder (not necessarily the best engineers). It all depends on what the brass wanted out of the armor.

Anyway, the final decision rests with you as the GM. These are just my opinions on the matter.

[Regault]

Eh, pretty much all Rifts products have had wonky stats when it comes to weapons and robots. I mean, why would people bother with limited ammo railguns when they could use an unlimited use plasma cannon that does comparable damage?

Honestly though, the thing that stuck out about the Bulldog most was the optional laser rifle. A huge "precision" weapon that only does about as much damage as a man portable gun and doesn't have any to hit bonuses?

The way I see it, you have a few options.

A: Convert to SDC system, only with the weapon damages ramping up more drastically than they do in the conversion book. Convert MDC to SDC on 1:1,1:1.5, or 1:2 basis, assign appropriate ARs to armor that follow the original Mechanoid Invasion/natural AR rules.

B: Cut MDC of armor by half or so. Rank weapons of similar damage by fluff implied strength, change dice to make some slightly stronger than others and increase differentiation.(For instance, making a 4d6 weapon a 6d4 or a 4d8). Give player characters some sort of fate points to increase survivability versus opponents.

C: While keeping the rest of the system the same, convert megadamage combat to Mekton Zeta rules.(Works reasonably well, since Palladium combat is on a d20 and MZ is on a d10, so when you make the armor's stats just multiply any bonuses or penalties to hit by 2.) With MZ+ scaling, most body armored characters and power armored characters have to work to survive against robots. Probably best to change Roadstriker scale to 1/2 or 1/3 and Personal scale to 1/5th.


Other things to consider:

"mook" rules tend to drastically speed up combat in Feng Shui, Deadlands, Savage Worlds, and other games. Although Chaos Earth finally got rid of the Battle of Trafalgar nature of early Rifts combat*(No more 95% chance to hit! Yay!), it still needs something of the sort to make the extras less of a nuisance and more flavoring while taking on the boss. With the MD system, I'd probably give lesser creatures a "death/incapacitated" threshold like in D&D3.5, where if megadamage in one round exceeds the creature's PE they either get knocked out of the fight or decide to cut and run.

Robots and power armor are a lot more survivable if you start using random hit locations for non-called shots. The Bulldog's main boddy only has 310 MDC, but add in the arms and legs and the total MDC shoots to 930.(Even more with the ludicrously overarmored feet.)





*Bear in mind Chaos Earth is the first Rifts product I've bought since South America, so they probably fixed the "5+ hits, 2+ with modern weapon proficiency" thing a lot sooner.