SDC only for heroes and villains?

Tigermuppetcut · Fri Sep 17, 2004 6:08 am

In numerous palladium books normally in the section under SDC and Hit Points it mentios that the personal SDC allowance is what seperates heroes and villains from ordinary folk. Yet nowhere does it explicitly state that NPC's who are not very important (key villains) don't get SDC. Also all creatures are given SDC / MDC.

We all know KS plays a very different game to the one he actually sold everyone. I believe the way he uses SDC is probably part of that.

I'm thinking that complete bums and nobodies get just P.E. as Hitpoints. Creatures of low import and NPCs with a class but again of low import get SDC / MDC but the lowest possible on the stated roll, or something like that.

Athos · Unread post by **Athos** » Fri Sep 17, 2004 9:00 am

If you treat peasants and other "nobodies" as vagabonds in rifts, then they would get 4d6 SDC. For rifts, this seems like a reasonable amount, since if you didn't have any you wouldn't last long in that world.

RoadWarriorFWaNK · Sat Sep 18, 2004 1:50 am

the capitalist entreprenuer in Mystic China has 20 SDC to start with. I use that as a base, since that's the most 'normal' OCC i can think of.

Killer Cyborg · Wed Sep 22, 2004 1:29 am

danboals wrote:If you treat peasants and other "nobodies" as vagabonds in rifts, then they would get 4d6 SDC. For rifts, this seems like a reasonable amount, since if you didn't have any you wouldn't last long in that world.

????
Most of the stuff on Rifts Earth that'll kill you does megadamage.
Even if you roll all sixes, that's 24 SDC.
Average HP of 14
Total of 38 combined.
1 MD still blows you in half.

Athos · Unread post by **Athos** » Wed Sep 22, 2004 8:14 am

Killer Cyborg wrote:????
Most of the stuff on Rifts Earth that'll kill you does megadamage.
Even if you roll all sixes, that's 24 SDC.
Average HP of 14
Total of 38 combined.
1 MD still blows you in half.

That's why they have MDC body armor and weapons. But the average human is not an MDC creature as you seem to be implying is necessary. In fact, the CS is generally kicking ass with an army full of humans that are not MDC creatures.

SkyeFyre · Unread post by **SkyeFyre** » Wed Sep 22, 2004 9:53 am

There are plenty of times where SDC is important... think... you're sitting in your nice MDC armor sure... but you're still going to be able to take more damage than the guy with 10 SDC less than you... why? cause you still can take damage within armor... and you can't wear it all the time...

Of course MDC is the majority... but lets not rule SDC out.

I create NPCs as I would a normal player... equal ground.

If the NPC is a man of arms... I give him the SDC for a man of arms... if he's a vagabond... I give him/her the standard for a vagabond.

Killer Cyborg · Wed Sep 22, 2004 11:57 pm

danboals wrote:
Killer Cyborg wrote:????
Most of the stuff on Rifts Earth that'll kill you does megadamage.
Even if you roll all sixes, that's 24 SDC.
Average HP of 14
Total of 38 combined.
1 MD still blows you in half.

That's why they have MDC body armor and weapons. But the average human is not an MDC creature as you seem to be implying is necessary. In fact, the CS is generally kicking ass with an army full of humans that are not MDC creatures.

Yeah, but 99.5% of the time, their SDC doesn't matter.
CS soldiers don't stay alive due to their SDC, they stay alive because of their Mega-damage weapons and armor.
Vagabonds don't stay alive because of their SDC, they stay alive because they run, duck, hide, cower, and surrender a lot.

Killer Cyborg · Thu Sep 23, 2004 12:09 am

SkyeFyre wrote:There are plenty of times where SDC is important... think... you're sitting in your nice MDC armor sure... but you're still going to be able to take more damage than the guy with 10 SDC less than you... why? cause you still can take damage within armor... and you can't wear it all the time...

1. It's pretty rare to take damage while still in your armor. High Speed impact from crashing, falling, or being rammed is what does it.
While it DOES come up in games, I've probably had more people die from drowning.
And when it does come up in my games, the damage is almost always enough to kill most people anyway.
Like if a SAMAS flies down, scoops a guy up, gets up to speed and lets go...
the guy takes 27d4 SDC (average of 64) damage from impact, plus falling damage depending on how high up the SAMAS was flying when he let go...

So I don't think that the 4d6 SDC really matters too much.

2. Vagabonds don't start with any MD armor anyway...