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I just had a goofy thought about making a semi-pacifist Rifts character, and that made me wonder: are there stats for the MDC of the various man-portable MD weapons, ie. rifles etc? The idea was an (likey alien/DB) extremely strong and durable character who doesn't want to kill... so s/he wades through the enemy fire to grab their weapons and smash them.

Qev wrote:I just had a goofy thought about making a semi-pacifist Rifts character, and that made me wonder: are there stats for the MDC of the various man-portable MD weapons, ie. rifles etc? The idea was an (likey alien/DB) extremely strong and durable character who doesn't want to kill... so s/he wades through the enemy fire to grab their weapons and smash them.

I remember seeing it somewhere... but most mdc weapons are mdc themselves usually somewhere in the 5-20 mdc range if not specifically listed such as in a vehicle or power armor description.

Most personal weapons are not that high MDC I believe it states the range in the GMG but 5-20 sounds about the ballpark I remember as well. I do sort of wish they would include the MDC of weapons in their description as it is one extra way to differentiate weapons. Like take a wilks and an NG weapon the wilks likely does more damage but the weapons are a lot more flimsy than the NG versions.

I have seen sharp shooting gunslingers who specialized in disarming their opponents.

I agree with the above statements.
Instead of the weapons that deal the most damage, the durability of the weapon should also play a part in the choice.

CB1 gave stats for a bunch of the RMB equipment. I realized I overlooked it repeatedly so scribbled the stats in my RMB and made notes about the page number.

aah conversion book 1 pg 14 and 15 in my copy
typical black market pistol 12mdc
typical bm rifle (L-20) 24 mdc
coalition, 8mdc pistol 18mdc rifle
triax 10/20
wilks 6/12
etc.

Wow, actually seems like a viable strategy to target weapons. Then force a surrender.

That's why called shots are tricky. Hitting a, weapon would probably be in the -3 range. Not sure if it explicitly states that, though.

One of my TW sharpshooter's (Combat Techno-Wizard from the Rifter 2, GM allowed him to take the Sharpshooting Skill) finest moments was severing a SAMAS's rail gun's ammo belt. His other favorite thing to do was pluck missiles out of the sky.

I didn't really make any direct attacks on personal weapons although it wouldn't have been a bad idea. Also I have to assume it depends on how the GM is feeling at the moment, but damaging a weapon might/should render it useless even if it hasn't lost all its MDC.

SDC/MDC is rarely meant to represent utter destruction but rather, the amount of damage needed to render something useless.

Tor wrote:SDC/MDC is rarely meant to represent utter destruction but rather, the amount of damage needed to render something useless.

Right, I should have thought of that at the time ... doh!

This kind of thing is what gunfighters/gunslingers/psi slingers specialize in. Pistols may not be in general the most damaging things ever although there are some exceptions but with the high PP and sharp shooting abilities blowing peoples guns up tends to be a faster way to disable somebody as a threat than shooting your way through their body armor.

that all depends on how many guns they have.

also how accurate you are. guns are likely a called shot with a penalty, since they are a small and very mobile target compared to someone's torso.

which means you need to spend 2 actions, and you're more likely to miss. the combination of those two factors means that you have to at least double the effective MDC, and quite possibly as much as 2.5 times.

then if you factor in the possibility of dodges, and the fact that they can dodge your 2-attack action with a single action of their own, and likely launch a counter-attack, it gets even less appealing.

taking out someone's gun *could* be an excellent option, for the right character in the right situation, but i wouldn't want to recommend it for general use. if you're ambushing someone (so they don't get a dodge) and have all the time in the world to line up an aimed shot with the sniper skill to back it up (so you'll probably be at a net positive to hit) and you have a gun that will take out the opponent's gun in one shot, and they don't carry multiple weapons, and they are not themselves a weapon, it can work pretty well.

in contrast, if you're in the middle of a firefight, it's probably not great. it's even less great if they have a forcefield or backup weapons, and yet even worse if they essentially are a weapon themselves (that is, this is a terrible strategy against a magic user or most master psychics, because they'll just keep generating force fields to ignore your weapons fire, and most of them can create a weapon if you destroy their conventional one. or they can just disable you, and take your conventional weapon, and use it on you).

i certainly wouldn't consider it to be a standard tactic in a firefight.

I'm gonna try this in game. Just to get the gm to eye twitch.lol

Often times I will do this. Not as a pacifist character but because I like looting.
If someone has a nice suit of armor or if I'm lucky enough a really sweet vehicle, I'll target the weapon systems instead to get them to surrender and then steal their stuff. I also use it in hostage situations where the victim can't be shot and I'm running out of options or in a situation with no less than lethal gear.

I'll also add that we have a house rule in our on-going Rifts world that if you hit the E-Clip there is a chance that it will cause the weapon system to explode and possibly inflict damage to the operator.