Your house rules.

[Lenwen]

I'd like to check out some other people's house rules when playing Rifts, no matter how small or large show me what you guys use to cover the gap in the actual mechanic's ?

[Alrik Vas]

There's a post started on the GM's forum about this...kinda.

[rat_bastard]

Talisman is a ritual that requires 20 hours of non continuous work to complete, create scroll and amulet require 10.

Perception is IQ+MA or ME +3% a level, every +1 you get in perception grants you an additional 5%.

Mystic Invisibility: this spell is dropped the moment the recipient performs any mystic act (using a charged TW device does not count as a mystic act but charging one does).

Death Curse: This spell does not exist in this game.

[Eashamahel]

Most non-pulse, non-sniper weapons fire bursts.

Attacks that have no chance of killing someone are still a threat to them (a person with 20MD being stomped on by a 50ft robot is a life threatening attach, even if the max damage couldn't possibly kill them).

Non-environmental armour carries the potential for greater injury. Huntsman armour, for example, or Juicer Assassin's Plate wearers could easily have arms broken or legs shot off (though most attacks still hit the main body).

I'll think of some more soon. Honestly I've got so many that I don't even realize I'm using them anymore.

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

I'll think of some more soon. Honestly I've got so many that I don't even realize I'm using them anymore.

Same here, with the additional note of... Im probably playing with lots of rules i dont even realize arent RAW, because of how sloppy the rules are (a great example being the C-12, for instance).

[flatline]

Talisman is a ritual that requires 20 hours of non continuous work to complete, create scroll and amulet require 10.

Yuck! Why have you ham-strung mages like this? Is this in response to player abuse?

--flatline

[Alrik Vas]

Well, how long does it normally take?

[flatline]

Well, how long does it normally take?

Talisman isn't required to be a ritual, so you can cast it in 3 actions if you have access to sufficient PPE and know the invocation version.
If you happen to know the ritual version of the spell, then it takes longer. I don't know what RUE specifies now for level 13 rituals, but it's certainly less than 20 hours.

--flatline

[Alrik Vas]

That's pretty nuts. 3 actions to make a talisman. Outside of combat it means it takes minimal time and effort. You could sit on a ley line all day long. Sounds like pretty bad abuse considering the kind of power you can get out of one of those.

[Nightmask]

That's pretty nuts. 3 actions to make a talisman. Outside of combat it means it takes minimal time and effort. You could sit on a ley line all day long. Sounds like pretty bad abuse considering the kind of power you can get out of one of those.

The amount of PPE required to make a Talisman isn't cheap even if you are sitting on a Ley Line, you also need the physical object to enchant handy before you can cast it, and when you consider how fast you can cast other high level spells including spells of legend it would be quite ridiculous for Talisman to somehow be so much more insanely complex that it would take nearly an entire day to cast when other more powerful spells don't even remotely take that long.

As far as abuse goes, there are way too many things one can gain access to in the game that can provide a significant benefit to a PC or group that if you removed everything someone might get extra benefit out of you'd have almost nothing left.

[flatline]

That's pretty nuts. 3 actions to make a talisman. Outside of combat it means it takes minimal time and effort. You could sit on a ley line all day long. Sounds like pretty bad abuse considering the kind of power you can get out of one of those.

I'm curious why you think it's abuse.

If you have enough money to buy 10 guns and you buy guns, is that abuse? If I have access to enough PPE to create 10 talismans, is that abuse?

I do make heavy use of Talismans, but I've never received any flak from the GM or the other players about it. Of course, the typical power level of our campaigns was high enough that a mage with a large amount of PPE batteries and a bunch of spell talismans was not unbalancing. You should try it sometime. The bottleneck is PPE since it costs PPE to create Talismans and to recharge them. If you don't have access to surplus PPE, then there's not much you can do. That's how the GM can keep these things in check if he finds they're unbalancing.

--flatline

[rat_bastard]

You can still have ten talismans, you just need to spend 20 days making them. Its not a huge issue and we agreed to the rule.

[flatline]

You can still have ten talismans, you just need to spend 20 days making them. Its not a huge issue and we agreed to the rule.

As a player I could work with those rules. I just don't understand why you would add such a burdensome time requirement to it when it already has a burdensome PPE requirement.

--flatline

[rat_bastard]

You can still have ten talismans, you just need to spend 20 days making them. Its not a huge issue and we agreed to the rule.

As a player I could work with those rules. I just don't understand why you would add such a burdensome time requirement to it when it already has a burdensome PPE requirement.

--flatline

Because the PPE requirement is not at all burdensome.

[Alrik Vas]

That's pretty nuts. 3 actions to make a talisman. Outside of combat it means it takes minimal time and effort. You could sit on a ley line all day long. Sounds like pretty bad abuse considering the kind of power you can get out of one of those.

I'm curious why you think it's abuse.

If you have enough money to buy 10 guns and you buy guns, is that abuse? If I have access to enough PPE to create 10 talismans, is that abuse?

I do make heavy use of Talismans, but I've never received any flak from the GM or the other players about it. Of course, the typical power level of our campaigns was high enough that a mage with a large amount of PPE batteries and a bunch of spell talismans was not unbalancing. You should try it sometime. The bottleneck is PPE since it costs PPE to create Talismans and to recharge them. If you don't have access to surplus PPE, then there's not much you can do. That's how the GM can keep these things in check if he finds they're unbalancing.

--flatline

Rifles and spells are pretty different though, i'm not sure that's a decent comparison. Magic can do a lot of different things all from the same caster. A rifle is meant to kill and that's about it. It can't create a time warp, change the weather, make you fly, see the invisible, make you impervious to energy, dominate someone's will, summon powerful entities, banish vampires, transport you to another dimension or anything aside deal damage.

Now, with enough time, money and effort, you could take a rifle apart and rearrange those pieces to do some things different than kill, but i'd say spells have an enormous leg up on pew-pew.

Making a talisman seems like...well, just a way to cast a spell faster and without it draining your current PPE. It SOUNDS like cheating (though it isn't!). Like...why would you ever cast a spell designed for combat in more than one action? Why even make spells cost more than one action with Talisman around? The book goes through all this blather about how casting high level spells in combat is dangerous, but then they give you a spell like talisman that lets you eliminate all the danger with a little bit of prep work.

It's like having a phase beamer-ectoplasmic-rail gun missile launcher pistol-sword. Why not? You took the time to make it.

Now, its up to the GM to drive the game, let things get super powered or keep them meager and gritty, so I get where you're coming from, Flatline. I just really don't enjoy the finger-snap power level of no-saving-throw "attacks" that defeat nearly every situation the same way.

[Eashamahel]

I'm sensing that this conversation about Talismans has happened before, and that the people who don't like the spell are probably set in their opinion and have strong arguments as to why. It would probably be best to just let it go for this topics sake.

I've thought of some others. Most of these didn't start out as house rules, they were just either how the game worked in the beginning and we liked it so much it never changed, or how we thought it worked and liked it better and never bothered to alter it.

Auto-Dodge.
This ability, also called 'automatic dodge' worked exactly like 'automatic parry', in that, characters gain all of their 'parry' bonuses to 'auto-parry', so all 'dodge' bonuses applied to 'auto-dodge'. Seemed simple enough at first, and still works great.

Simultaneous Attack.
This goes along with the 'realistic fear of death' from earlier, but had a few other points. Characters who got Simul'd on could choose to dodge the attack (A punches B, B decides to Simul instead of defending and launches that attack, A chooses to attempt to dodge the attack), similarly characters with paired weapons (or a shield, ect) could choose to use their second weapon to parry the simultaneous attack. Between this and auto-dodge, Juicers were a legit threat in combat, able to do things ordinary humans couldn't possibly keep up with.

Called Shots.
These could be made with single or burst shots. All that was required was that you 'called' where you wanted it to hit. This raised your 'to hit' number from 5 (or to 12, and could potentially incur negatives on your 'to hit' roll. This actually worked out very well, as if character A chose to fire a short burst at character B's legs/gun arm/head/ect, then the negatives to their strike roll made it easier for B to defend themself (didn't have to roll as high to dodge).

WP Energy Weapon Types.
One of the earliest bits of confusion we had was how Rate of Fire interacted with Energy weapons and their WPs. The modern weapons (ie real world guns) had individual classifications that explained it all. WP Revolver, Automatic Pistol, Sub Machine Gun, Bolt Action Rifle/Shotgun, Assault Rifle, ect. All fired differently, some could fire bursts, some not, ect, and it was easy to understand by their type, whereas Energy weapons just had Pistol, Rifle, and Heavy. Once we started looking at weapons and classifying them more like this it worked wonders.
For example, the NG Super with it's 20 rounds was a Sub-Machine gun. The Wilks laser pistol was an Automatic pistol style (again with it's 20 rounds) whereas the C-8 was more of a Revolver. The c-27 and NG Particle beam weapon worked like Shotguns, where the C-12 worked like an Assault rifle. All of this impacted their burst fire abilities, and the game has worked great ever since.

Bursts and Sprays.
We use a combination of the Rulebook and Conversion Book tables. Most guns can fire the short bursts (x2 damage), guns with up to 10 rounds can fire up to the medium burst (x3 damage), guns with up to 20 rounds can fire the full clip burst (x8), and guns with 30 round can fire up to the original full clip burst (x10). Guns with higher payloads just work like multiple clips (without re-loading). It's evolved to this over the years, but now it works extremely well, never have problems anymore, and everyone I play with likes it.


MDC Ratio.
Sometimes I chance the MDC ratio from 100:1 for SDC to 10:1. It works well, and I like what it does to the game, but it's not hard and fast, I change it back for other games all the time. This one is really just me playing around, and not a 'rule'.


All of the above (except the MDC ratio one) I use in every game I run, I had to think hard to even remember that this isn't how the game works/worked/ect. There are many people who don't even realize this is NOT how the game is supposed to work, because they play with me, or if they have realized, think it's just the difference between the RMB which i use, and the UE.

[Ashendale]

There's a post started on the GM's forum about this...kinda.

Yeah, I started that one. But it kinda went sour/debate-y *sigh*

Still, I think more users browse the Rifts forum than GMs like me :P It would be nice to get some more input onRifts-specific house rules anyhow. I can repost mine here later if no one objects to repeat content.

[ghost2020]

I use the mdc ratio being 1 mdc to 10 SDC.

I also am experimenting with MDC being a type of damage, rather than making it completely impervious.
Where one can still affect MDC with sdc weapons, just takes a bit longer.

Also, mdc doesn't kill you outright, it's just another type of damage, as in only mdc weapons can affect mdc materials efficiently enough to do 1 to 1 damage.

Seems to work just fine, no one dies outright when out of their armor, bonuses for strength are added to vibro blades, etc. Seems to play really well.

I also am trying out adding PP to ranged weapons, because it never made sense to not allow it.


Going back to bursting rules similar to conversion book stuff.

[flatline]

Standard e-clip holds enough energy for 20 nominal shots and only fits rifles or pistols adapted for them.

Pistol e-clip is one third the size, 1/4th the capacity, and 1/2 the cost of the standard e-clip. Adapters exist to let rifles use pistol e-clips.

Long e-clip holds enough energy for 30 nominal shots and can be used in anything that can use the standard e-clip.

--flatline

[Dog_O_War]

There's a post started on the GM's forum about this...kinda.

Yeah, I started that one. But it kinda went sour/debate-y *sigh*

Still, I think more users browse the Rifts forum than GMs like me It would be nice to get some more input onRifts-specific house rules anyhow. I can repost mine here later if no one objects to repeat content.

What can I say? Some rules are bad and the rulemaker just doesn't know it.

I also am experimenting with MDC being a type of damage, rather than making it completely impervious.
Where one can still affect MDC with sdc weapons, just takes a bit longer.

Huh? You can already affect MDC with sdc weaponry. Explain?

[Eashamahel]

Ah, the old universal clip issue. I've played with it being both ways. Clearly from the pictures of the guns an E-clip for a C-8 is different than the E-Clip for a NG Particle Beam rifle, but is the C-8 Clip different than the C-12? Or C-12 to the C-14?

I know we've done it 'each gun unique' as well as 'each brand unique' and finally 'each unique for type' which I think worked the best.

Also, if you try the 10:1 ratio, SDC CAN hurt MDC. Even at 100:1 SDC can hurt MDC (and it's gotten easier and easier to do!). A good example is an SDC automatic rifle doing 4D6/round, at 10:1, that's 1MD/bullet.


Another one that I often use is that 'lethal' attacks do HP and 'non-lethal' do SDC. I've rarely made it a hard and fast rule, but it's often in place as part of the 'believe it's a threat, even if it shouldn't be mechanics wise' system (similar to the classic 'that will clearly kill you, no matter how much SDC/HP you have' that is often written in books).

For a randomly specific one, I long ago had players roll to see how long their Juicer was going to life for. I'd just say wait until your years are up, and then I'll roll one month at a time. On the last month, I'll roll for what day in that month, and then come that day, what hour in that day, so they'll likely get 'last call' symptoms and such, but have no actual idea exactly when it is going to happen, which seemed better to me. Players who were used to rolling up Juicers and not caring suddenly acted a lot differently when informed they wouldn't know when it was going to happen (though I don't think I've ever played with anyone that made it to Last Call).



Just considered it, and Wormwood is a book that, over two dozen plus years of playing it, has likely been houseruled so far at different times as to totally not resemble the system it describes, though I think the last game I played of it was straight out of the book, it was the setting of one of the longest games I've ever ran, and we tried a ton of different things to help that system work.

[ghost2020]

I also am experimenting with MDC being a type of damage, rather than making it completely impervious.
Where one can still affect MDC with sdc weapons, just takes a bit longer.

Huh? You can already affect MDC with sdc weaponry. Explain?[/quote]


I wanted SDC weapons to have some bearing in the game still. The MDC being affected by SDC weapons at a 10 to 1 ratio or possibly a 1 to 1 ratio. The other part is that if you're shot by MDC weapon it's just a 'type' of damage and it doesn't do 100 or 10 times as much damage. It's just a kind of damage. It just takes off damage as a point for point basis.

Basically the mdc weapons are needed to affect mdc structures (armor, vehicles, creatures, etc) but when used against SDC (people, vehicles, armor) it just does a point for point. Seems to play just fine.

[Eashamahel]

So, an SDC human takes the same 10 points of damage, whether that is 10MD or 10SD, however a MD tank takes no damage from 10SD ? Or takes 1MD from the 10SD, and 10 damage from 10MD? And a vibro blade does MD, but the SD strength bonus from PS adds to that MD damage whether it's against an MD structure (which would be immune to the SD punch/strength on it's own) or an SD one?

[ghost2020]

Yes, the human takes 10 pts of damage whether it's mdc or sdc, because the MDC isn't a quantity of damage, but a type or "flavor" per se.

You can shoot the MD tank with an AK-47 and it can take 1 md per 10 sdc, and 10 mdc from a 10 mdc laser blast.
We have felt that it puts a bit more 'grit' back into the game.

A vibro blade does the MD, so it can cut through MD structures, and SDC structures, and the SDC strength adds to it because it's an MDC weapon which is doing the actual damage.
Still playing out whether we want it to count as a 1 to 1 for sdc strength damage with md melee weapon or stick with the 10:1 ratio for sdc to mdc.
Melee weapons would have their own exception rule then.

It plays ok either way. Makes the guy running around with the sword a bit more exciting and threatening. Leaning towards leaving it at the 10:1 ratio just for making it unified.

The problem is that the RIFTS system needs a good overhaul, which really isn't going to happen.
I'm ok with that. We've found a handful of rules that work for us and we just keep going.

[Noon]

I'd like to check out some other people's house rules when playing Rifts, no matter how small or large show me what you guys use to cover the gap in the actual mechanic's ?

Which gap? As a rock 'em, sock 'em gamble based combat game they work all right.

Try to get into more complex stuff and then it gets problematic.

[Dunia]

Too many to list here.
I started with skipping the level system as those systems really suck and should have died at the end of the 1980's. Redid the damage system and added bodyparts., A better combat system. More versatile spells that are not dedicated to combat. Etc.

So, after a while, I just decided to wrote my own system and it really flowed.

But I kept the major history of the world and most world fluff.