SpiritInterface wrote:What I said in my original post was that I have noticed in allot of Palladium game I had been invited to play in in the last few years is that everyone including the characters who are a Men of Magic OCC, Psionic PCC, "Super Heroes" classes have been wearing the heaviest armors around and carrying the biggest guns around. That mages aren't mages, psi's aren't psi's, and heroes aren't heroes anymore, they're stormtroopers with different skill sets.
Since you brought this back up, directly to me, I'll expand on my previous comments.
I think that the problem is unrealistic expectations on your part.
As people have pointed out, the appropriate gear in a combat zone is combat gear, the best that you can reasonably carry.
You seem to have in your mind an unrealistic vision where wizards wear wizard clothing, warriors wear warrior clothing, and everybody's fashion and accessories fit into neat little stereotypes, but that's not how the real world works, and it's not how a game world is going to work unless you happen to find a gaming group that has exactly your same set of stereotypes.
You don't see mechanics and cooks as heavily armored and armed as ground combat troops.
You also don't see them facing regular combat.
If your wizard PCs are hanging back in a cave, where nobody's really shooting at them, and if they're the types to run and hide and let the professionals take care of things when the fighting starts, then yeah, give them light armor.
But don't expect anybody who is
expecting to enter combat to think, "Eh. This isn't my MOS, so I won't gear up as heavily as everybody else... I want people to KNOW that I'm a mechanic, after all."
The reason why some people in the military have lighter weapons and armor than standard infantry is because they're not expecting a fight.
PCs as a rule are expecting a fight. The game is more or less built around having a series of regular combats as the core of every adventure.
You can work around combat, and you as a GM can avoid having ANY if you like, but overall the game is a combat game, and the players know it.
And the PCs run into trouble often enough that they'd know it too... Unless you're actually running adventures where a reasonable PC wouldn't actually be expecting combat, in which case you are the awesome exception to the normal hack-and-slashers that RPGs attract.
Yes they wear body armor but it is nowhere as heavy or as covering. As it stands it would be the equivalent of every member of a party wearing a bomb disposal armor suit and light machine gun or a multi grenade launcher regardless of their training.
If there's reasonable expectation of being attacked by masses of explosive-wielding enemies, and you have the gear, why
wouldn't you give everybody a bomb suit and a LMG or grenade launcher?
When the crap's about to hit the fan, everybody needs to gear up if they want to survive.
I don't know if this is because of power creep in the later books, player munchkinism, or bad GMing. When in a game the team magic casters actions in the round are pulse laser burst, pulse laser burst, "oh yeah I can throw a spell" casts light weight spell, pulse laser burst, pulse laser burst, just because he wanted to get in on the action why does the team need the magic caster and why is the player playing him.
A BIG part of this IMO is the misperception that mages are supposed to use magic for everything,
starting at first level.
Which is silly, because it's not as good as tech when it comes to dishing out raw damage on a regular basis.
Magic is about versatility, not firepower.
When you need to fly, or turn invisible, or make the ground super-sticky to stop an enemy vehicle, that's when you use magic.
You don't waste it on something as mundane as blasting something for Xd6 MD, not when you can just pick up a gun and do the same job.
Just like there's a time and a place for a Vagabond to Eyeball-A-Fella, but that time and place is NOT in the middle of a firefight, instead of picking up a gun and shooting somebody.
Look at Lord of The Rings.
95% of the time, Gandalf used his sword, a staff, or fireworks to deal with a problem.
That other 5% of the time... those were the times he saved his PPE for.
Someone asked where I got that men of magic have a deep pseudo-religious belief in magic, it comes from Kevin saying that they do. Saying that it takes that kind deep of belief in magic in order to be able to use magic. That those who use magic have such a deep arrogance in magic over tech that they use tech only when given no other choice.
Right. As I said, your personal take on things doesn't seem to be the way other people take things.
If you want to quote the book on the subject, you might notice that it doesn't actually say what you think that it does.
And even if it does, it contradicts it someplace else.
The long and the short of it- the reason why we're scratching our collective heads at your previous statement- is because "The first step is believing that magic is real and that one can master the knowledge and will to control it" (RUE 185) does NOT mean "Magic is the ultimate power" or "Magic is a pseudo-religion."
Neither does any of the other stuff in that section of RUE.
Neither, for that matter, does the misguided essay/rant that some fanboy got published in the BoM with KS's personal approval.
All that Kev really agrees with there is the idea that mages should like magic... and nobody here is disagreeing with that.
We just think, like Kev and the books repeatedly state and show in a large number of ways, that there's nothing about liking magic that means that it's your only trick, nor that you forsake technology in favor of magic in inappropriate situations.
For example:
RUE 113
Ley Line Walkers are inquisitive and open to new ideas, people, and philosophies. Many are literate, study areas of science and have no aversion to using high-tech weapons, vehicles, and equipment.I can pull a LONG list of examples and citations elaborating on that theme, but that's the long and the short of it- mages can (and often DO) enjoy technology in addition to magic.
Outside of places like Dweomer, and other pretty fanatical places, mages like technology.
That's why they get so much of it in their starting equipment.
So... why does the team NEED a caster?
Hell, maybe they don't. It all depends on the nature of the mission/quest/adventure/campaign.
But maybe they need somebody who knows where the ley lines are.
Maybe they need somebody to rift them all home and keep them from getting stranded in an alternate dimension.
Maybe they need somebody to Magic Net the enemies, so they can be captured alive (and/or with loot intact).
Maybe they need somebody to break a curse.
Maybe they need somebody to throw up a protective forcefield around the party in an emergency.
Maybe they need somebody who can turn invisible.
Maybe they need somebody who can fly without a jet pack.
Maybe they need somebody who can summon Shadow Beasts for recon and/or defense.
Maybe they need somebody who can astrally travel.
Maybe they need somebody with telekinesis, and the Psychic was sick that day.
Maybe they need any number of things that magic is really GOOD at, but that tech isn't so hot at.
Why's a party of PCs ever need a Rogue Scholar?
So that he can start teaching children literacy when a firefight breaks out?
Or maybe it's so that he can decode the ancient writing and bypass the trap before the rest of the party triggers it. Maybe it's so he can decode that treasure map. Maybe it's so that he can make friends with that tribe of D-Bees using his anthropology skills.
Mages aren't combat gods- they're skill-monkeys. They have special abilities and knowledge that the party might not need 80% of the time... but that's invaluable that other 20% of the time.
Or maybe they're not that useful at all, because the GM isn't giving them the right opportunities and challenges (or the players aren't recognizing them).
There's no guarantee that any one class is going to be useful in every game.
But one of the NICE things about Rifts is that pretty much anybody can pick up a gun, slap on some armor, and help out in a firefight.
Beats the hell out of early D&D, where a mage gets 1 spell per day (Magic Missile, for 1d4 damage), and then has to enter combat with his 1d4 HP, using his dagger (1d4 damage) in melee combat, guarded by his mighty robes (no AC bonus) and probably get killed by a kobold.
OR he can just do pretty much nothing (maybe hurl some darts!) for most of a 24 hour period, waiting to use that one spell.
You probably never experienced that kind of thing, but that was
the standard for mages in RPGs when Rifts hit the scene.
Mages were practically useless in combat at low levels, and had to spend a LOT of time running and hiding. The only reason to play a mage was to endure the crappy low levels in the hopes that you survived long enough to become a room-clearing powerhouse at high levels.
Rifts is kind of the same way, in that mages start off without much power, and they gain it as they level up.
Call Lightning can do 1d6x10 MD, with no chance of miss, when cast by a 10th level mage. That's not too shabby!
But in Rifts, in the meanwhile, mages can at least use armor and guns to survive.
As I said the first time, that's not a bug, that's a
feature.
so go figure.