Burn or explode?

[The Galactus Kid]

So lets say that Tito is walking alont in his beatup plasticman armor with about 12 MDC left. Someone jumps out from behind a building and goes "Yo TITO. Take this punk" and shoots him with a lser pistol doing 18 damage to Tito. My question is will the laser burn a clean hole through Tito, killing him, or will he explode? Will the laser burn through him, and burn through the SDC building behind him? And the wooded area beyond that?

[Killer Cyborg]

So lets say that Tito is walking alont in his beatup plasticman armor with about 12 MDC left. Someone jumps out from behind a building and goes "Yo TITO. Take this punk" and shoots him with a lser pistol doing 18 damage to Tito. My question is will the laser burn a clean hole through Tito, killing him, or will he explode?

Not a clean hole, more like a large, gaping hole.
Sourcebook 1 describes energy pistols blowing holes the size of volleyballs through SDC walls, and Energy Rifles blowing holes the size of basketballs.
It also describes 1 point of MD blowing a deer in half.

Will the laser burn through him, and burn through the SDC building behind him?

yup.

And the wooded area beyond that?

Depends on how much SDC the building has, and the range of the laser pistol.

[Rimmer]

Well ok, option 1: blast penetrates armour in the back, big gapping hole in armour, persons chest follows suit, blast then fails to penetrate front chest armour and liquifies persons entire torso. option 2: blast penetrates both back and front of armour leaves behind hole about the size of basketball, and proceeds onwards to as far as its range allows, or more likly half range and half damage as most of the energy just toasted Tito !

[Athos]

My question is will the laser burn a clean hole through Tito, killing him, or will he explode? Will the laser burn through him, and burn through the SDC building behind him? And the wooded area beyond that?

Assuming Tito has only been hit in the front, his chest, it might be reasonable to assume the back of his armor is still roughly intact. In this case, I would have to say that the laser would burn a hole through Tito but stop when it got to the back of his armor. Said hole would be fairly good sized, silver dollar-ish and would probably be cauterized by the laser, so there wouldn't be much major leakage. If Tito has been taking hits from all sides, you can use a little poetic license on whether it punches through or not.

[RoadWarriorFWaNK]

He explodes. any time the MDC of something is blasted away it explodes. SDC beings hit by MDC weapons explode. Even if they were hit by a vibro-blade or a punch from a monster. Because explosions are cool.

[Vrykolas2k]

"I have an .88 Magnum... it shoots through skewls."

[grandmaster z0b]

People exploding should only happen when hit by an explosive or a powerful rain gun blast and that should be more of a splat than an explosion IMHO. The most an energy weapons does is vaporise people in my games, or in the case of plasma just leave a charred corpse.
This is totally for dramatic purposes, I save the explosions for missiles and grenades.

[The Galactus Kid]

So...hurricaine Ivan? Does that count as a powerful raingun burst?

[Athos]

Having looked it up in the Rifts Main Book, I believe I have an "official" ruling.

Page 9 - "A mega-damage weapon will blow you to atoms."

Not sure I believe it, but there it is in black and white.

[Athos]

Per the last post...

I would think that would make resurrection a tad difficult to use in most cases.

[Mack]

I had a house rule for this: An MD blast to a SDC target inflicts double the damage straight to hit points. In Tito's case, his armor would absorb 12 MD, leaving 6 MD to hit him, so I'd apply 12 damage (6x2=12) straight to his Hit Points. Tito now needs immediate medical attention (shock, blood loss, etc...) and probably a cybernetic organ or two.

This makes an MD blast survivable, but not something you'd want to do often.

[Mack]

Oops, my bad. I meant:

AMPLIFIED HEARING
Recognize Specific Sound/Voice: 47% + 5%/lvl
+1 Parry, +2 Dodge, +6 Init

Getting my parts mixed up.

The +6 Init was reduced in the Borg book. To +2 I think.

[Josh Sinsapaugh]

Tito would survive!

Not even lasers can destroy the Jackson family!

[Borast]

All the kidding aside...Tito is now worm food.

Your laser pistol with a 2cm laser beam will burn a 2cm wide path through Tito's corpse, and out into the building behind him.

The energy packet of the laser beam will cause all the tissues within ten centimetres to rupture as they are instantly boiled. Then there is the seriously burned portion, gradually becoming unharmed tissue.

Think about it like a super-high energy bullet. It's not the bullet that kills you, it is the hydrostatic shock of cells rupturing that does you in. If the bullet can cause enough damage/carry enough energy, the shock of the impact of a through-and-through in your ARM can kill you (especially if you are older or have other medical problems).

As for the mention of "atomising" you... that was to put the point across. After all, we've ALL met gamers that don't quite understand (like assorted members of KotDT) the meaning of "rip-up character sheet, start creating new character."

[Borast]

So...

Kittenstomp...does that mean you agree with my post?

[Esckey]

Just how much heat would be transfered from the laser that's passes through the body in less then .000000001 secs?

[Traska]

Remember, also, that this is a beam powerful enough to pulverize what we think of today as "high-strength" steel. A weapon doing just 2D6 megadamage can, in a (good) single shot, completely obliterate a well-made pre-rifts safe. And that beam would be hitting the safe for the same amount of time that it would be hitting the soft squishy internals of the human body.

Simply put, it's like swallowing a lightning rod during an electrical storm.