Full Conversion Borg MDC too high?

[jburkett]

Hello, I am relatively new to Rifts so perhaps this isn't an issue for more seasoned players. [These stats are from RUE] So, a full-conversion (combat) 'borg starts out with Main Body - 180 MDC. Then, add medium infantry 'borg armor (which seems pretty standard) for an additional +230 MDC. For a total of 410 MDC. There is also the option for heavy infantry 'borg armor (instead of the medium) for an additional +360 MDC. That would be a total of 540 MDC! (Main Body. Not including limbs, etc). Given that the average full-conversion 'borg is between 8ft - 10ft tall this seemed a bit much. If you compare this to a Coalition Enforcer Robot that is 19ft tall and has Main Body - 350 MDC. As I thumbed through RUE a little more, it also seemed that the MDC for armored vehicles (on average) seemed a bit low compared to the full-conversion 'borg. Has this been explained somewhere. I understand that some might say that a robot (or, even more so, a suit of power armor) or armored vehicle is more of a protective shell. But, I would argue that a 'borg also has vital, mechanical, internal mechanisms that need protecting. A 'borg isn't armor through and through. Anyhoo, I would appreciate some input on this or please feel free to direct me to where this may have been discussed at length elsewhere. Thanks!

[guardiandashi]

Congratulations you picked up on one of the issues with palladium.

With that said one of the "explanations " is that the armor on larger units is spread out so doesn't provide as much protection....
Which is kind of silly in a lot of ways.
With that said in many ways its a balance issue to avoid making some units too powerful.

[13eowulf]

I would point out that your comparison isnt exactly apples to apples.
For the borg, after that 180 main body is gone the 'borg is dead. The 230-360 armor on top of that is just that, armor.
For the UAR- l Enforcer after that 350 is gone, then you have to defeat the 100 M.D. Pilot's compartment.
Then you face the pilot, who most likely has body armour, likely another 50-100 M.D.
THEN, when that armor is gone, thanks to the GI Joe rule, and only then, can you try and kill the pilot.

While still not exactly the same in terms of M.D., it is closer, and because of the RUE armor rules, assuming you can defeat each 'layer' of armor in a single action, it will take you twice as long to kill the pilot of the Enforcer.

Now granted I understand that the goal of 'killing' the Enforcer does not mean you have to kill the pilot, but from a PC survivability point of view, it is a factor to consider.

[jburkett]

I would point out that your comparison isnt exactly apples to apples.
For the borg, after that 180 main body is gone the 'borg is dead. The 230-360 armor on top of that is just that, armor.
For the UAR- l Enforcer after that 350 is gone, then you have to defeat the 100 M.D. Pilot's compartment.
Then you face the pilot, who most likely has body armour, likely another 50-100 M.D.
THEN, when that armor is gone, thanks to the GI Joe rule, and only then, can you try and kill the pilot.

While still not exactly the same in terms of M.D., it is closer, and because of the RUE armor rules, assuming you can defeat each 'layer' of armor in a single action, it will take you twice as long to kill the pilot of the Enforcer.

Now granted I understand that the goal of 'killing' the Enforcer does not mean you have to kill the pilot, but from a PC survivability point of view, it is a factor to consider.

Okay, I can see that by your example that this does add a bit more MDC to the equation for the Enforcer. I think what I am struggling to wrap my brain around is the volume of MDC material given the relative size of a 'borg vs. the Enforcer (8ft - 10ft 'borg vs. 19ft Enforcer). It just doesn't add up for me. The Enforcer is twice the height and I would venture to guess 4x the volume? (or more). Yet, all the MDC when added up is 'borg 410-540 MDC to Enforcer 500-550 MDC. And, the Enforcer shuts down when it takes 350 MDC damage. It seems that per volume, the 'borg is a much more efficient use of MDC material. Does this make sense or am I still missing something here? Thanks for your input btw!

[Natasha]

I never found it to be so bad because the borg has to pay its own way.

In general, from a purely perspective of scale, Rifts is hopeless. Accept the mystery.

The answer to the volume question depends on the shape. For both cylinder and rectangular prism, doubling the height doubles the volume (all else equal).

[13eowulf]

I would point out that your comparison isnt exactly apples to apples.
For the borg, after that 180 main body is gone the 'borg is dead. The 230-360 armor on top of that is just that, armor.
For the UAR- l Enforcer after that 350 is gone, then you have to defeat the 100 M.D. Pilot's compartment.
Then you face the pilot, who most likely has body armour, likely another 50-100 M.D.
THEN, when that armor is gone, thanks to the GI Joe rule, and only then, can you try and kill the pilot.

While still not exactly the same in terms of M.D., it is closer, and because of the RUE armor rules, assuming you can defeat each 'layer' of armor in a single action, it will take you twice as long to kill the pilot of the Enforcer.

Now granted I understand that the goal of 'killing' the Enforcer does not mean you have to kill the pilot, but from a PC survivability point of view, it is a factor to consider.

Okay, I can see that by your example that this does add a bit more MDC to the equation for the Enforcer. I think what I am struggling to wrap my brain around is the volume of MDC material given the relative size of a 'borg vs. the Enforcer (8ft - 10ft 'borg vs. 19ft Enforcer). It just doesn't add up for me. The Enforcer is twice the height and I would venture to guess 4x the volume? (or more). Yet, all the MDC when added up is 'borg 410-540 MDC to Enforcer 500-550 MDC. And, the Enforcer shuts down when it takes 350 MDC damage. It seems that per volume, the 'borg is a much more efficient use of MDC material. Does this make sense or am I still missing something here? Thanks for your input btw!

To paraphrase Colonel Jack O'Neill: One is a weapon of terror. It's made to intimidate the enemy. The other is a weapon of war. It's made to kill your enemy.
The UAR-1 is older, and, to be frank, a tool. The Borg is a living person still (technically), and there could be a subconscious need/desire to preserve that life when constructing their armor.
With the enforcer, you want the pilot to survive, but the not necessarily the bot. He can get into a new bot. All that training is valuable, experience even more so.
With the borg if their main body is destroyed you cant put them in a new bot, all their training and experience is lost.

[Killer Cyborg]

It's not that the MDC of borgs is too high.
It's that the MDC of most vehicles and robots is too low.

[dragonfett]

I have always thought it hilarious that the CS weapons of war like the UAR-1 (or really any manufacturer of robot vehicles, really) had a little more than 4-7x the armor of a grunt's body armor, and the main weapon on it did roughly 2.5x the damage of the standard infantry rifle (C-12), despite sending 80 shards of metal at high velocity at the target, and had costs well into the millions. To be honest, either the damage of the gun needs to be higher, or it needs to have a bonus to strike (basically you are targeting an area in which the target is in and filling it with metal), or give it an area of effect, or some combination of those three.

[Vincent Takeda]

its too expensive to build enforcers out of the good stuff, so they're built outta the cheap stuff.

Less simplistic answer? The way I'm reading it the enforcer has
350 main body, 200 per leg, 150 per arm, 75 per hand 90 for the head, and 100 for the pilot compartment before getting to the pilot...

The borg has
360 for heavy infantry plating, 100 per leg, 50 per arm, 40 for the head, and 280 for the borg inside the armor.

If you look close those numbers are almost identical... so the idea is that the most jacked borg's armor is as thick as the enforcers. Just because the enforcer is twice as tall doesnt mean his armor is proportional. Its not twice as thick. Once you get through that 350/360mdc of plating, there's either a 100sdc pilot shell or a 280mdc of bionic body to contend with.

To me it just seems like the armor on each is nearly exactly the same thickness (triax red type gets 420, or just slightly better than the 20% bonus that a skilled armorer could achieve according to rifts: bionics), so despite the enforcer being twice as tall, his armor is not twice as thick.

[ShadowLogan]

Okay, I can see that by your example that this does add a bit more MDC to the equation for the Enforcer. I think what I am struggling to wrap my brain around is the volume of MDC material given the relative size of a 'borg vs. the Enforcer (8ft - 10ft 'borg vs. 19ft Enforcer). It just doesn't add up for me. The Enforcer is twice the height and I would venture to guess 4x the volume? (or more). Yet, all the MDC when added up is 'borg 410-540 MDC to Enforcer 500-550 MDC. And, the Enforcer shuts down when it takes 350 MDC damage. It seems that per volume, the 'borg is a much more efficient use of MDC material. Does this make sense or am I still missing something here? Thanks for your input btw!

I've never looked at the issue in terms of volume, but I have looked at it in terms of Mass to Total MDC.

Actually the UAR-1 has something like 1995 MDC to a (RUE) FCB's 1630 if using HI-B3 and taking all locations to max. Average mass for a FCB is 450kg (that's average, no idea what it would be if we take the MDC to the max, nor the mass of the body armor) or 36x less massive than the Enforcer. That works out to Borgs (and Power Armor and body armor) have something like x10 as much MDC per kg as a giant robot (and other general vehicles). And there are things with x10 or more what the 'borgs get by this measure.

I think the best way to look at MDC values is that it is the sum of several factors added together:
-Structural Integrity (or how much protection the material provides)
-System Health (given that MDC reduction can cause malfunctions with things like hydraulics under the armor it seems reasonable)
-Plot Shielding (fixed by Palladium)

It's not that the MDC of borgs is too high.
It's that the MDC of most vehicles and robots is too low.

That's one way to look at the "scale" issue, but it can also be read the other way given its a POV thing. It also applies in other areas to, scale isn't something Palladium does well (1E Robotech had 50MDC main body Battlepods that tower over the UAR-1, but a 7ft Cyclone Battloid has 150-200 Main Body).

[Hotrod]

Palladium has a long history of disproportionate statistics of scale, particularly when it comes to size, mass, and durability.

A 6 ft tall human in armor has 80 MDC and weighs about 200 lbs. If MDC is proportional to mass, and if body armor is roughly proportional in relative thickness between a giant robot and body armor, then an 18 ft robot is three times as tall, three times as wide, and three times as long. Thus, it should weigh about 27 times as much as a man, or 5400 lbs, just shy of 3 tons. If the MDC of the armor scales up, then it should be 2,160 MDC. If a man-sized rifle does 4D6 MDC, then a proportionately-sized rifle should do around 1D6x100.

If you really want to emphasize this disproportionality, consider the big Triax robot, the X-5000, which is 50 ft tall, or roughly 8 times the height of an armored man. The X-5000 should weigh 512 (8 times taller, 8 times wider, 8 times longer) times as much, or 102,400 lbs, or 51 tons. If the MDC is proportionate, it should be about 41,000 MDC. Its main rifle gun should do 2D6x1000 MDC.

Both of these calculations ignore the fact that most of the body armor is filled with a human body, which is going to be less dense then the metal internal structure of these robots. Unless these robots have lots of empty space inside (which is plausible, if somewhat wasteful), the mass and MDC of these robots would likely be even higher.

From a game design perspective, however, Kevin's warped scaling makes a certain amount of sense, otherwise the X-5000 could go toe-to-toe with most in-game gods one-on-one and win in a straight-up fight. Characters need ways to challenge mighty robots and not get squashed like mildly annoying bugs by these huge war machines.

[Eagle]

Perhaps smaller objects are easier to armor because of some quirk with MDC materials. Weight and surface area may actually work against your MDC rating.

In the old Mekton Fuzion system, only giant machines could take full effect from really big weapons. Human sized targets were light enough that they couldn’t absorb the full blast. Imagine that Coalition Grunt Bob gets shot by a Glitter Boy. The GB pilot craps out on the damage roll and only gets 70 MD. Bob goes flying fifty feet through the air but he survives. But an Enforcer is too heavy — it doesn’t move an inch. It can’t “roll with it” like a human sized target can. It takes full effect.

The concept of “mega-damage” is pretty abstract. It’s for our use only — Rifts characters would use different terminology. In the real world soldiers don’t shoot enemy soldiers and say “crap! I rolled bad on damage, he’s still got many hit points left!” Instead they say “I think I only grazed him, he’s still moving.”

I’m suggesting that an Enforcer is FAR more heavily armored than a Borg. It’s just that there are other factors, like weight, surface area, shock absorption, and things like that which increase the vulnerability of an Enforcer even though it carries more armor. But in Palladium, these things are all taken into account on the front end, when the books are written.

[eliakon]

Perhaps smaller objects are easier to armor because of some quirk with MDC materials. Weight and surface area may actually work against your MDC rating.

In the old Mekton Fuzion system, only giant machines could take full effect from really big weapons. Human sized targets were light enough that they couldn’t absorb the full blast. Imagine that Coalition Grunt Bob gets shot by a Glitter Boy. The GB pilot craps out on the damage roll and only gets 70 MD. Bob goes flying fifty feet through the air but he survives. But an Enforcer is too heavy — it doesn’t move an inch. It can’t “roll with it” like a human sized target can. It takes full effect.

The concept of “mega-damage” is pretty abstract. It’s for our use only — Rifts characters would use different terminology. In the real world soldiers don’t shoot enemy soldiers and say “crap! I rolled bad on damage, he’s still got many hit points left!” Instead they say “I think I only grazed him, he’s still moving.”

I’m suggesting that an Enforcer is FAR more heavily armored than a Borg. It’s just that there are other factors, like weight, surface area, shock absorption, and things like that which increase the vulnerability of an Enforcer even though it carries more armor. But in Palladium, these things are all taken into account on the front end, when the books are written.

^this^
There is a reason I detest people who have there characters talk about Megadamage. It doesnt exist. There are no game stats in the game unless your playing Order of the Stick style.

[Vincent Takeda]

Perhaps smaller objects are easier to armor because of some quirk with MDC materials. Weight and surface area may actually work against your MDC rating.

In the old Mekton Fuzion system, only giant machines could take full effect from really big weapons. Human sized targets were light enough that they couldn’t absorb the full blast. Imagine that Coalition Grunt Bob gets shot by a Glitter Boy. The GB pilot craps out on the damage roll and only gets 70 MD. Bob goes flying fifty feet through the air but he survives. But an Enforcer is too heavy — it doesn’t move an inch. It can’t “roll with it” like a human sized target can. It takes full effect.

The concept of “mega-damage” is pretty abstract. It’s for our use only — Rifts characters would use different terminology. In the real world soldiers don’t shoot enemy soldiers and say “crap! I rolled bad on damage, he’s still got many hit points left!” Instead they say “I think I only grazed him, he’s still moving.”

I’m suggesting that an Enforcer is FAR more heavily armored than a Borg. It’s just that there are other factors, like weight, surface area, shock absorption, and things like that which increase the vulnerability of an Enforcer even though it carries more armor. But in Palladium, these things are all taken into account on the front end, when the books are written.

^this^
There is a reason I detest people who have there characters talk about Megadamage. It doesnt exist. There are no game stats in the game unless your playing Order of the Stick style.

Agreed. Thought it's always nice when the pubisher flat out states the method to the madness, in the absensce of it one can only hope there is a method to it and attempt to reverse engineer that method through postulate and, dare I say, fiat. (I'd say 'TLDR: It is what it is' but I hate that phrase with a burning passion)

[Killer Cyborg]

I detest people who have there characters talk about Megadamage. It doesnt exist.

It exists in the game setting, apparently, because NPCs in the books (such as Tarn) refer to it.

I mean, they don't say "x points of MDC left" or anything, but there are in-game, canon characters who talk about things being "mega damage."

[shadrak]

I like to think that the Enforcer is a body on frame type of set up...there is an internal skeleton and the external armor is largely what the MDC consists of. The internal structure is light MDC or even SDC components and structure.

For the Cyborg, I envision it as composed of many MDC parts with a myriad of redundancies...with the exception of servos, electronic pathways or other parts, it is largely MDC structure through and through...

The difference between these two ways of constructing a body means that you don't need to disintegrate a UAR Enforcer to destroy it...if you punch enough holes in it and destroy enough of its internal components it will cease to function. Of course, this also means you might be able to cannibalize parts of it or even repair it.

The borg, on the other hand, is essentially atomized by the time you destroy all of its MDC. There is no "repairing" the Borg...the parts largely have to be replaced...you can't just rebuild the endoskeleton and re-hang armor on it...

Of course, even with this explanation--and even taking into consideration that the UAR Enforcer is ancient technology compared to most Bionic systems--does not fully account for the differences.

In truth, Palladium has a lot of issues with things making sense and it normally comes down to three subjective factors:

1: The game designer's sense of balance
2: Precedent set by previous canon
3: Power creep and responses to power creep

[shadrak]

I like to think that the Enforcer is a body on frame type of set up...there is an internal skeleton and the external armor is largely what the MDC consists of. The internal structure is light MDC or even SDC components and structure.

For the Cyborg, I envision it as composed of many MDC parts with a myriad of redundancies...with the exception of servos, electronic pathways or other parts, it is largely MDC structure through and through...

The difference between these two ways of constructing a body means that you don't need to disintegrate a UAR Enforcer to destroy it...if you punch enough holes in it and destroy enough of its internal components it will cease to function. Of course, this also means you might be able to cannibalize parts of it or even repair it.

The borg, on the other hand, is essentially atomized by the time you destroy all of its MDC. There is no "repairing" the Borg...the parts largely have to be replaced...you can't just rebuild the endoskeleton and re-hang armor on it...

Of course, even with this explanation--and even taking into consideration that the UAR Enforcer is ancient technology compared to most Bionic systems--does not fully account for the differences.

In truth, Palladium has a lot of issues with things making sense and it normally comes down to three subjective factors:

1: The game designer's sense of balance
2: Precedent set by previous canon
3: Power creep and responses to power creep

[Jorick]

I think the issue surrounding robot MDC (pretty much all robot MDC) is resolved, to some extent, if one imagines robots to essentially be vehicles, and not armor. They are not meant to be tanks. They are meant to be weapons platforms at best (and some I think are really just cool looking people movers with some relatively unimpressive guns on them cause the world is a dangerous place). Think something like the exo-suit thing Ripley rides at the end of Aliens, but usually bigger, and with doors around the pilot (and a swankier cockpit, with big displays and nice seats with cupholders and some storage). Especially the older ones. It's just a vehicle made out of MDC material, maybe with some extra armor. Put heavy borg armor on Ripley's exo-vehicle, and you get one of those "is it power armor or a robot?" crossovers. But would it still be able to do its job without falling over?

I suppose we could delve into all sorts of stats. How fast does the unit move? The issue of height is significant (mechs are inherently top heavy). For any given variable we could probably find inconsistencies when compared against other examples. But the truth is robots are always *apparently* low on MDC in Rifts when comparing mass vs things explicitly called armor. There are enough variables that we could come up with all sorts of reasons why the discrepancies make sense. Maybe the light robot is slow because the legs just aren't designed as well as the heavy but fast robot?

Robots are useful as people movers in a world that does not have roads. You can sleep in them, unlike power armor (the best of which does let you go to the bathroom, but you're still gonna be a mess if you stay in too long). Maybe you'll get a leg cramp if you stay in too long, and it's small, like after a long car ride, but you don't have to get out and set up the tent in a ley-line storm. You often get a good vantage point, and you can punch greater demons in the face. You can also have other people inside pushing other buttons and pulling other triggers. When you have 3 people in a vehicle that can bounce around like a ninja and still shoot at you multiple times, all at once, you're gonna make stuff happen.

[TeeAychEeMarchHare]

I could have sworn it says somewhere that the Borg isn't necessarily dead when his MDC is depleted, there's like 24 hours or something during which time the brain can be recovered and put into a new body.

[Curbludgeon]

I've seen brain survival for 24 hours mentioned a couple of times.

Most Cyborg MDC is fine, with the arguable exception of the Hellbuster from Heroes of Humanity. One souped up by a Cyber-doc has between 1196-1368 MDC, depending on just how much counts as bionics. For giant robots I could see using a variant on A.R., or just upping the MDC, since the discrepancy is more noticeable with some robots than others.

A fun tangent I just looked up is to find out which Borg OCCs are able to repair/modify their own equipment. The Vedmak from Sovietski is probably the best fit, but I've only seen the preview. A Megaversal Legion Destroyer Borg is able to get all the skills required to care for themselves after their initial conversion. Here's a 1st level skill list:

"Other" Skills: HTH:MA, boxing, electrical engineering, mechanical engineer, robot electronics, robot mechanics, weapons engineer
Sec. Skills: literacy, basic electronics, computer operation, computer programming, computer repair (or a W.P.)
At 3rd level take RPA:Elite for the Counterstrike Armor and Pilot:Military Helicopters, and they can use all the Megaversal Legion equipment.

A Mining Borg can get some Mechanical skills, and nothing else comes close.

(Edit: Oni Cyberai and Wulfen Quatoria can also pull it off. There aren't any strictly Earth-based borgs (with the possible exception of the Vedmak) that can fully serve as their own Operator.

[Blue_Lion]

Simply Rfits MDC does not fallow any MDC to size rules that I can find.

Iron hamer main battle tank weighs 65 tons and had 650 MDC.(this should logically be the heaviest armored thing from the company)
The same company makes an air craft that weighs 200 tons and has 800 MDC.(has a large payload of bombs and missiles and flies and heaver armor than a main battle tank)
The super samas 10' tall has 425 MDC weighs 2.4 tons and flies.
The CS terror trooper an advanced ground fighting PA from the same book has 400 MDC is 11 foot tall and weighs 1250 pounds.
A suit of body armor can weigh less than 50 pounds and have 100 MDC.

There is no rime or reason to how things are made in rifts it just is what the writer thinks at the time there is no creation formula to determine stats.

[Jorick]

Simply Rfits MDC does not fallow any MDC to size rules that I can find.

Iron hamer main battle tank weighs 65 tons and had 650 MDC.(this should logically be the heaviest armored thing from the company)
The same company makes an air craft that weighs 200 tons and has 800 MDC.(has a large payload of bombs and missiles and flies and heaver armor than a main battle tank)
The super samas 10' tall has 425 MDC weighs 2.4 tons and flies.
The CS terror trooper an advanced ground fighting PA from the same book has 400 MDC is 11 foot tall and weighs 1250 pounds.
A suit of body armor can weigh less than 50 pounds and have 100 MDC.

There is no rime or reason to how things are made in rifts it just is what the writer thinks at the time there is no creation formula to determine stats.

I don't disagree, in that I'm pretty sure statistics (especially those aside from mdc) are pretty much up to the author. C.J.'s stats in particular often strike me as odd (like, even the weight of super high tech guns from Phase World and stuff). But I do think they must be getting the numbers from somewhere, and that there is reason that can be sussed out.

The Iron Heart stuff you mention is similar in weight to actual military vehicles. The largest military transport is around 200 tons, and can carry at least around 80 more (feel free to do more research than I have). Modern tanks are around 60 tons.

A large plane can conceivably be peppered with more holes than a tank and still be useful (or can be more vulnerable if more vulnerable parts happen to be struck). "Main body mdc," or the any kind of mdc is inherently an approximation of many different variables. There's a lot of surface area made up of mdc material on a large plane. Much more so than a tank. That mdc approximates not only that surface area, but the strength of the armor, the chance of anything of value being hit, how much of the vehicle can be damaged before operational failure, etc.

One can elect to shoot a leg of a robot. And the implication is that the "main body" is not the leg. But I don't think It is necessarily always not the leg. If you were asked to describe how the vehicle was destroyed once the mdc was depleted (in a narrative fashion) you might say "my missile took out its legs."

If we insist on the "main body" not being any other named part of the vehicle (which I think is taking things too literally, but the rules suggest it) then we're inherently dealing with a much smaller part of the vehicle than the entire vehicle. In the case of a tank, it's pretty hard to distinguish that part. In the case of the UAR1 a smaller amount of mdc makes a lot of sense.

[Blue_Lion]

Simply Rfits MDC does not fallow any MDC to size rules that I can find.

Iron hamer main battle tank weighs 65 tons and had 650 MDC.(this should logically be the heaviest armored thing from the company)
The same company makes an air craft that weighs 200 tons and has 800 MDC.(has a large payload of bombs and missiles and flies and heaver armor than a main battle tank)
The super samas 10' tall has 425 MDC weighs 2.4 tons and flies.
The CS terror trooper an advanced ground fighting PA from the same book has 400 MDC is 11 foot tall and weighs 1250 pounds.
A suit of body armor can weigh less than 50 pounds and have 100 MDC.

There is no rime or reason to how things are made in rifts it just is what the writer thinks at the time there is no creation formula to determine stats.

I don't disagree, in that I'm pretty sure statistics (especially those aside from mdc) are pretty much up to the author. C.J.'s stats in particular often strike me as odd (like, even the weight of super high tech guns from Phase World and stuff). But I do think they must be getting the numbers from somewhere, and that there is reason that can be sussed out.

The Iron Heart stuff you mention is similar in weight to actual military vehicles. The largest military transport is around 200 tons, and can carry at least around 80 more (feel free to do more research than I have). Modern tanks are around 60 tons.

A large plane can conceivably be peppered with more holes than a tank and still be useful (or can be more vulnerable if more vulnerable parts happen to be struck). "Main body mdc," or the any kind of mdc is inherently an approximation of many different variables. There's a lot of surface area made up of mdc material on a large plane. Much more so than a tank. That mdc approximates not only that surface area, but the strength of the armor, the chance of anything of value being hit, how much of the vehicle can be damaged before operational failure, etc.

One can elect to shoot a leg of a robot. And the implication is that the "main body" is not the leg. But I don't think It is necessarily always not the leg. If you were asked to describe how the vehicle was destroyed once the mdc was depleted (in a narrative fashion) you might say "my missile took out its legs."

If we insist on the "main body" not being any other named part of the vehicle (which I think is taking things too literally, but the rules suggest it) then we're inherently dealing with a much smaller part of the vehicle than the entire vehicle. In the case of a tank, it's pretty hard to distinguish that part. In the case of the UAR1 a smaller amount of mdc makes a lot of sense.

It is a heavy bomber not a heavy transport, a heavy bomber is typically have a max take of weight of around 188 tons. It was not as much about the weight as showing how they just seam to plug in what ever they think works and not having any formula. This leads to weird power fluctuations and power creep.

The rules for main body say it is the largest part or area/mass of the vehicle typically for humanoid shapes that would be the torso. If a leg was the largest area/mass then it could be the main body but that seams a bit unlikely.


I have house rules that assigns MDC by frame type. The issue is if you put bot/vehicle MDC and weapons where I think they should be PA, borgs and body armor does not stand a chance.(realistic but not as much fun.) I did experiment with scaling MDC by tech level but that caused issues of game balance as CS is suppose to have higher tech level than standard in NA. Making players need to use traix or titian to be on even footing if they are not CS, and bandit NG/bandito always having a disadvantage.

[Jorick]

The rules for main body say it is the largest part or area/mass of the vehicle typically for humanoid shapes that would be the torso. If a leg was the largest area/mass then it could be the main body but that seams a bit unlikely.

I basically agree. I brought up the leg thing only as an example of how "main body" is an amorphous term. "Destroying" the main body could also leave a functional leg flailing about in the air (or a workable radio or something) even though the vehicle is essentially inoperable. I believe there are rules that allow for a narrative conclusion to destruction of a main body (but I'm too lazy to find them if they do exist), where one can decide or roll for what does or doesn't work. Regardless, I think in most cases when I blow up a tank's main body, I assume that the main gun stops working, even if the main gun has its own MDC. If the MDC of the main gun (or some other part of some other vehicle) is truly separate than there's little reason to assume that destroying the main body also keeps the gun from working. The pilots compartment in a robot is still reinforced, and it's easy to imagine that, though the robot might have fallen over, the arm can still shoot the railgun. But that is never the assumption made, per the rules. The assumption, by rule, is that the thing is no longer any kind of threat.

Living creatures "main bodies" are everything of that creature, and one can, if one wants to make a called shot, give damage capacity values to specific parts of the creature. I believe this principle holds in every case, including tech (they just spell it out for you in the case of tech).

All that is simply to say that the very concept of main body MDC is an approximation of various factors for the purpose of making the game playable as such, and one can come up with reasons after the rolls as to what exactly happened that made the vehicle stop working. While I agree that MDC values often seem relatively arbitrary, one can at least imagine that the value should not be strictly based on size/mass or any other single factor.

[Eagle]

The rules for main body say it is the largest part or area/mass of the vehicle typically for humanoid shapes that would be the torso. If a leg was the largest area/mass then it could be the main body but that seams a bit unlikely.

I basically agree. I brought up the leg thing only as an example of how "main body" is an amorphous term. "Destroying" the main body could also leave a functional leg flailing about in the air (or a workable radio or something) even though the vehicle is essentially inoperable. I believe there are rules that allow for a narrative conclusion to destruction of a main body (but I'm too lazy to find them if they do exist), where one can decide or roll for what does or doesn't work. Regardless, I think in most cases when I blow up a tank's main body, I assume that the main gun stops working, even if the main gun has its own MDC. If the MDC of the main gun (or some other part of some other vehicle) is truly separate than there's little reason to assume that destroying the main body also keeps the gun from working. The pilots compartment in a robot is still reinforced, and it's easy to imagine that, though the robot might have fallen over, the arm can still shoot the railgun. But that is never the assumption made, per the rules. The assumption, by rule, is that the thing is no longer any kind of threat.

Living creatures "main bodies" are everything of that creature, and one can, if one wants to make a called shot, give damage capacity values to specific parts of the creature. I believe this principle holds in every case, including tech (they just spell it out for you in the case of tech).

All that is simply to say that the very concept of main body MDC is an approximation of various factors for the purpose of making the game playable as such, and one can come up with reasons after the rolls as to what exactly happened that made the vehicle stop working. While I agree that MDC values often seem relatively arbitrary, one can at least imagine that the value should not be strictly based on size/mass or any other single factor.

I agree. If somebody's armor has a main body with 50 MDC, then that means it takes 50 mega damage to make the armor non-functional.

So if you get shot with a laser that does 2D6, and they roll a '2', then maybe they just grazed your armor. Or maybe they shot you in the foot. You and the game master can describe it however you like. Regardless, they've made very little progress in destroying your suit of armor. When they hit 50 MD, then the armor is destroyed. It doesn't matter if (description-wise) they've hit the same place repeatedly and finally penetrated, or if they totally stripped the thing, or if they hit a really important connector piece and the chestplate fell off.

The damage system is abstract. Whatever they did, they finally did enough of it so that your armor doesn't work anymore. Main body MDC on a vehicle or robot would be the same.

--

Say you took a 10'x10' slab of light MDC material. It's an inch thick and it has maybe 200 MDC. Then you take an industrial laser of some kind, something with a continuous power feed and computer control, and you try to burn through slab, slowly going inch by inch and doing just enough damage that you melt every bit of it. How much Mega Damage would you have to do to completely destroy the slab?

I think you'd have to do more than the 200 MDC. I think the 200 MDC that we have in the game represents how much damage you have to do until the slab no longer offers effective protection. That basically it's 200 MDC before you blow a hole through it. It isn't that you've annihilated every part of the armor, it's just that when you reduce it to 0 MDC, it's basically useless. There might still be some pieces of armor on the vehicle, it just isn't functional anymore.

So, description-wise, I'd say if you're doing this slow, computer-controlled burn where you're purposefully trying to melt every last piece of armor (and you aren't just trying to render it combat ineffective)... I'd say game-wise it's easiest to describe it as you choosing to roll minimum damage every time. You are intentionally avoiding hitting the important/vulnerable parts. In game mechanics, I wouldn't have to assign the slab more MDC, I'd just say that you're only doing 1 or 2 points every shot.

[TechnoGothic]

Another issue...
Weight.

The more mdc something has the more it weighs.
Rifts bots are Weak, strength wise. They have to be able to support themselves, walk around, etc.
Official Rifts Robotic PS Lifts/Carry PSx25 only.

So the low md value is due to weight issues. Less armor to safe weight, to ensure better speed and maneuverability.

[TechnoGothic]

Another issue...
Weight.

The more mdc something has the more it weighs.
Rifts bots are Weak, strength wise. They have to be able to support themselves, walk around, etc.
Official Rifts Robotic PS Lifts/Carry PSx25 only.

So the low md value is due to weight issues. Less armor to safe weight, to ensure better speed and maneuverability.

[Vrykolas2k]

Perhaps smaller objects are easier to armor because of some quirk with MDC materials. Weight and surface area may actually work against your MDC rating.

In the old Mekton Fuzion system, only giant machines could take full effect from really big weapons. Human sized targets were light enough that they couldn’t absorb the full blast. Imagine that Coalition Grunt Bob gets shot by a Glitter Boy. The GB pilot craps out on the damage roll and only gets 70 MD. Bob goes flying fifty feet through the air but he survives. But an Enforcer is too heavy — it doesn’t move an inch. It can’t “roll with it” like a human sized target can. It takes full effect.

The concept of “mega-damage” is pretty abstract. It’s for our use only — Rifts characters would use different terminology. In the real world soldiers don’t shoot enemy soldiers and say “crap! I rolled bad on damage, he’s still got many hit points left!” Instead they say “I think I only grazed him, he’s still moving.”

I’m suggesting that an Enforcer is FAR more heavily armored than a Borg. It’s just that there are other factors, like weight, surface area, shock absorption, and things like that which increase the vulnerability of an Enforcer even though it carries more armor. But in Palladium, these things are all taken into account on the front end, when the books are written.

I've often considered this point.
Perhaps the MDC materials actually "weaken" the more they're spread out over surface... kind of like how a steel marble is a bit tougher in proportion to a steel ball.

[glitterboy2098]

given that MD materials seem to react to blunt impacts different than pinpoint ones (a slow car crash or falling damage doing MD, for example, when a bullet needs to be going super fast to even leave a mark), it may be that MD materials, despite their toughness otherwise, are a bit on the brittle side?
with brittle materials, the greater the surface area the less protective it tends to be.

[Vrykolas2k]

given that MD materials seem to react to blunt impacts different than pinpoint ones (a slow car crash or falling damage doing MD, for example, when a bullet needs to be going super fast to even leave a mark), it may be that MD materials, despite their toughness otherwise, are a bit on the brittle side?
with brittle materials, the greater the surface area the less protective it tends to be.

Ya, I never got the whole "a fall from this height does MD" thing... people have survived landings from greater heights.
I ignore it, unless it's a really great height.

[Axelmania]

Borgs don't have too much MDC, theirs makes sense compared to body/power armor. The issue is moreso that robots and vehicles have far too little compared to body/power armor.

The concept of “mega-damage” is pretty abstract. It’s for our use only — Rifts characters would use different terminology.

I detest people who have there characters talk about Megadamage. It doesnt exist.

What about Pax Tyrannica (SOT2p60) "Sitting against a wall of Mega-Damage stone, I can feel the explosion's vibration rattle faintly into my spine". This is in the section "The twin faces of evil" by Bill Coffin with additional text and ideas by Kevin Siembieda.

It exists in the game setting, apparently, because NPCs in the books (such as Tarn) refer to it. I mean, they don't say "x points of MDC left" or anything, but there are in-game, canon characters who talk about things being "mega damage."

Any recollection where she used it? This appears on page 10 of Madhaven:

In many places, a canopy of steel beams, cable, Mega-Damage concrete and debris hangs overhead; some covered in grass, weeds or vines.

Not sure if she used it prior to that though.

[Eagle]

Borgs don't have too much MDC, theirs makes sense compared to body/power armor. The issue is moreso that robots and vehicles have far too little compared to body/power armor.

The concept of “mega-damage” is pretty abstract. It’s for our use only — Rifts characters would use different terminology.

I detest people who have there characters talk about Megadamage. It doesnt exist.

What about Pax Tyrannica (SOT2p60) "Sitting against a wall of Mega-Damage stone, I can feel the explosion's vibration rattle faintly into my spine". This is in the section "The twin faces of evil" by Bill Coffin with additional text and ideas by Kevin Siembieda.

It exists in the game setting, apparently, because NPCs in the books (such as Tarn) refer to it. I mean, they don't say "x points of MDC left" or anything, but there are in-game, canon characters who talk about things being "mega damage."

Any recollection where she used it? This appears on page 10 of Madhaven:

In many places, a canopy of steel beams, cable, Mega-Damage concrete and debris hangs overhead; some covered in grass, weeds or vines.

Not sure if she used it prior to that though.

The term could still exist, though it's really too meta-gamey and doesn't feel right for someone to say in character. But the term could exist as sort of a shorthand way of referring to modern construction and materials. Maybe it was a trademarked term for military hardware before the coming of the Rifts and just stuck around afterwards. "And now, with our new patented Mega Damage formula, 3M is leading the way in blah blah blah..."

But the numbers definitely shouldn't exist. You shouldn't say "I only have 23 Mega-Damage left on my suit."

[Axelmania]

But the numbers definitely shouldn't exist. You shouldn't say "I only have 23 Mega-Damage left on my suit."

Devil's advocate here: CA-4 Standard "Dead Boy" Armor in CWC has 100 MDC, so you could probably say "I have 23% integrity left on my mega-damage armor".

Since the Coalition sets the standards for North America (credits and so on) 1% of the damage the torso of CA-4 Standard armor could take, could be designated as a "Mega Damage Capacity Unit" for measuring the integrity of other armors.

It's certainly fathomable for this to happen, there just isn't evidence exhibited that this is done. But then, lack of evidence of many possible/probable things in Rifts is also the case. Like for example, if toilets on Death's Head Transports have a bay which can dump their contents on mage cities. It's never explicitly mentioned, but it's probably possible and does happen.

[Blue_Lion]

But the numbers definitely shouldn't exist. You shouldn't say "I only have 23 Mega-Damage left on my suit."

Devil's advocate here: CA-4 Standard "Dead Boy" Armor in CWC has 100 MDC, so you could probably say "I have 23% integrity left on my mega-damage armor".

Since the Coalition sets the standards for North America (credits and so on) 1% of the damage the torso of CA-4 Standard armor could take, could be designated as a "Mega Damage Capacity Unit" for measuring the integrity of other armors.

It's certainly fathomable for this to happen, there just isn't evidence exhibited that this is done. But then, lack of evidence of many possible/probable things in Rifts is also the case. Like for example, if toilets on Death's Head Transports have a bay which can dump their contents on mage cities. It's never explicitly mentioned, but it's probably possible and does happen.

Do most high tech suits not have a computer that tracks things like damage.(thoght could mean that non tech armors damage the charter/player might not know its current state) It is possible that mdc is an assigned value for the over all integrity tracked by computers as a way to guesstimate how much of a beating you can take, verses a corresponding stat of weapon damage value. The people in the setting do seam to have some knowledge of MD tech being different than non-MD.

There is real world support for stat value being given to things. Body armor has a tested penetration resistance value and bullets have a penetration value. the v50 and v0 values are examples of this.

It could also be MDC is like horse power a unit of measurement created as a marketing tool.

With more advanced armor monitoring it may be possible to get a reliable estimate of how much damage a peace of armor can sustain before risk of failure. Then again this may or may not take the form of mdc pools. It is up to the GM and group to decide how damage is tracked in game.

[lather]

Borgs don't have too much MDC, theirs makes sense compared to body/power armor. The issue is moreso that robots and vehicles have far too little compared to body/power armor.

The concept of “mega-damage” is pretty abstract. It’s for our use only — Rifts characters would use different terminology.

I detest people who have there characters talk about Megadamage. It doesnt exist.

What about Pax Tyrannica (SOT2p60) "Sitting against a wall of Mega-Damage stone, I can feel the explosion's vibration rattle faintly into my spine". This is in the section "The twin faces of evil" by Bill Coffin with additional text and ideas by Kevin Siembieda.

It exists in the game setting, apparently, because NPCs in the books (such as Tarn) refer to it. I mean, they don't say "x points of MDC left" or anything, but there are in-game, canon characters who talk about things being "mega damage."

Any recollection where she used it? This appears on page 10 of Madhaven:

In many places, a canopy of steel beams, cable, Mega-Damage concrete and debris hangs overhead; some covered in grass, weeds or vines.

Not sure if she used it prior to that though.

I've seen Erin Tarn use it in Vampire Kingdoms.

[eliakon]

But the numbers definitely shouldn't exist. You shouldn't say "I only have 23 Mega-Damage left on my suit."

Devil's advocate here: CA-4 Standard "Dead Boy" Armor in CWC has 100 MDC, so you could probably say "I have 23% integrity left on my mega-damage armor".

Since the Coalition sets the standards for North America (credits and so on) 1% of the damage the torso of CA-4 Standard armor could take, could be designated as a "Mega Damage Capacity Unit" for measuring the integrity of other armors.

It's certainly fathomable for this to happen, there just isn't evidence exhibited that this is done. But then, lack of evidence of many possible/probable things in Rifts is also the case. Like for example, if toilets on Death's Head Transports have a bay which can dump their contents on mage cities. It's never explicitly mentioned, but it's probably possible and does happen.

Do most high tech suits not have a computer that tracks things like damage.(thoght could mean that non tech armors damage the charter/player might not know its current state) It is possible that mdc is an assigned value for the over all integrity tracked by computers as a way to guesstimate how much of a beating you can take, verses a corresponding stat of weapon damage value. The people in the setting do seam to have some knowledge of MD tech being different than non-MD.

I have never heard of these computers at all nor read anything of the sort, sounds like a house rule to me.

There is real world support for stat value being given to things. Body armor has a tested penetration resistance value and bullets have a penetration value. the v50 and v0 values are examples of this.

It is still pretty variable
Its not going to be "100 SDC" its going to be IIIB ballistic armor or the like.

It could also be MDC is like horse power a unit of measurement created as a marketing tool.

Or it could just be sloppy writing.

With more advanced armor monitoring it may be possible to get a reliable estimate of how much damage a peace of armor can sustain before risk of failure. Then again this may or may not take the form of mdc pools. It is up to the GM and group to decide how damage is tracked in game.

This presumes that such armor monitoring is created by the GM in the first place...
...which is pretty circular in and of itself. Since the justification for something relies on the creation of the justification in the first place...

[Eagle]

If you believe that the characters in universe can discuss how much MDC their armor has, then you also have to believe that they talk about how many D6s of damage their weapons do. "For some reason, it's a law of physics that all weapons damage follows a bell curve that can be represented by rolling multiple 6-sided dice."

Or you can accept that occasionally the writers don't think about it very clearly, and let a game term slip into a character quote.

I will accept the possibility that the concept of mega-damage, of miniaturized battlefield class weaponry, might exist in-universe in Rifts. You might even get me to accept the existence of the term, like it was a marketing campaign back before the cataclysm. "Now with new mega-damage power!" But it completely breaks my suspension of disbelief to think that people would think about it in the same way we do. The game rules are just an abstraction, simple enough so that we can have fun playing it.

I think to be "realistic" about it, you'd have to have an extremely complex system, with different types of attacks doing different types of damage. So a standard MDC helmet would look something like this:

Location / MDC vs high velocity projectile / MDC vs laser and particle beam / MDC vs explosive / MDC vs fire and heat / MDC vs blunt impact / MDC vs teeth and claws
Forehead plate: 15 / 18 / 12 / 18 / 10 / 12
Faceplate (frontal): 12 / 15/ 10 / 15 / 8 / 10
Crown: (more numbers)
Sides of face: (more numbers)
Eyeslit protection: (more numbers)
Back of head: (more numbers)
Protective neck collar: (more numbers)
Underneath chin: (more numbers)

You'd also have a ratio for how damage affected each piece. So if you get hit in the crown (top of the head) with a 10 MD bite, perhaps the forehead plate also receives 50% of that damage. And then you've got to include a hit location chart, taking into account angle of attack and other factors. Even this would be somewhat simplified. It would be more detailed, and much closer to what people in-universe have to deal with, but it would be way less fun to play.

[Blue_Lion]

But the numbers definitely shouldn't exist. You shouldn't say "I only have 23 Mega-Damage left on my suit."

Devil's advocate here: CA-4 Standard "Dead Boy" Armor in CWC has 100 MDC, so you could probably say "I have 23% integrity left on my mega-damage armor".

Since the Coalition sets the standards for North America (credits and so on) 1% of the damage the torso of CA-4 Standard armor could take, could be designated as a "Mega Damage Capacity Unit" for measuring the integrity of other armors.

It's certainly fathomable for this to happen, there just isn't evidence exhibited that this is done. But then, lack of evidence of many possible/probable things in Rifts is also the case. Like for example, if toilets on Death's Head Transports have a bay which can dump their contents on mage cities. It's never explicitly mentioned, but it's probably possible and does happen.

Do most high tech suits not have a computer that tracks things like damage.(thoght could mean that non tech armors damage the charter/player might not know its current state) It is possible that mdc is an assigned value for the over all integrity tracked by computers as a way to guesstimate how much of a beating you can take, verses a corresponding stat of weapon damage value. The people in the setting do seam to have some knowledge of MD tech being different than non-MD.

I have never heard of these computers at all nor read anything of the sort, sounds like a house rule to me.

There is real world support for stat value being given to things. Body armor has a tested penetration resistance value and bullets have a penetration value. the v50 and v0 values are examples of this.

It is still pretty variable
Its not going to be "100 SDC" its going to be IIIB ballistic armor or the like.

It could also be MDC is like horse power a unit of measurement created as a marketing tool.

Or it could just be sloppy writing.

With more advanced armor monitoring it may be possible to get a reliable estimate of how much damage a peace of armor can sustain before risk of failure. Then again this may or may not take the form of mdc pools. It is up to the GM and group to decide how damage is tracked in game.

This presumes that such armor monitoring is created by the GM in the first place...
...which is pretty circular in and of itself. Since the justification for something relies on the creation of the justification in the first place...

page 193 orginal rifts book. Under features of CS armor states they have a computer that tracks damage levels.

Page 261 of rue also mentions such a computer as being standard on all CS armor.

Wrist Mini-Comp: A multi-purpose miniature computer and display that will indicate system errors within the armor, damage levels, and oxygen supply, as well as direction (compass), time, and date.

So the computers to track damage do exist in cannon. I intended for it to be a question but seams my mind so I used a period instead of a question mark. Such computers could do exactly what I said.

So the existence of such computers is not a house rule the question then becomes is that something that the standard computer on eba can do. So the logic is not circular like you claimed, but based on a cannon device. If the CS eba could do this could not a PA or robot vehicle computer do the same?

[Axelmania]

To help with RPing that, GMs should roll damage secretly and not tell the other players anything but vague stuff unless they have Dead Boy armor, so they can benefit from that exact knowledge.

I've seen Erin Tarn use it in Vampire Kingdoms.

Searching...
pg 39 under "Vampire Legends", 30 April 101 PA: "Vampires are impervious to all other types of weapons, including particle beam weapons, rail guns, and explosives (I find this difficult to believe)."

Rifts Africa is set in 103 PA and she is 14th level with demon & monster lore at 98%... PROOF that Tarn was intentionally spreading misinformation to try and get humans killed by pointlessly wasting PB/rail/explosive against vamps, since vampires are demons and this was the go-to skill. It's what the Undead Slayers have in WB2p97, for example.

I guess you could consider that ret-conned with the introduction of lore skills specific to vampires though. Perhaps they're no longer included under demon+monster lore anymore as of the RUE era? Pg 18 of Rifts Vampires the Vampire Hunter has it as an OCC ability for example. Pg 23-24 extends it to Mystic/Totem/Spirit Warriors from Spirit West...

Anyone know if any reprints have WB2 have snuck this separate Lore skill in as a free skill for Undead Slayers? Seems something they really ought to have. I remember seeing in Nightbane, yeah page 57 says (NEW) along with Lore:Nightbane and Lore:Nightlands, might be where it was introduced? Anyone know the first Rifts book to have it?

As an alternative interpretation... maybe Undead Slayers actually lack Lore: Vampire as a mandatory power because they don't really need it? I mean, they can SENSE vampires so they don't need any special tricks to FIND them. They can make magic weapons and magic hurts vampires so they don't need to go hunting for wood/silver/water to do the job.

Perhaps Undead Slayers, like Erin Tarn, are ignorant of vampires and their invulnerability to certain weapons, because Undead Slayers don't bother with weapons like that so they never found out unless they actually bought Lore as an OCC Related / Secondary skill.

So anyway, 1st edition I don't see her mentioning MD in either 39 or 99.

Tarn letters were consolidated on 6-8 of VKrevised and I don't see it there either. Lather could you be remembering a different book?

Interestingly enough, bullet 5. on her list has been changed...

BEFORE

5. Vampires are impervious to all other types of weapons, including particle beam weapons, rail guns, and explosives (I find this difficult to believe).

AFTER

5. Vampires are impervious to all other types of weapons, including particle beam weapons, lasers, rail guns, and explosives.

They removed the parenthesized disbelief and added lasers... INTERESTING.

[Blue_Lion]

Ok axleman look up the meaning of impervious. It means can not be harmed, so she said the where not harmed by all other weapons including rail guns, Particle beams, and explosives. That seams to be the exact opposite of what you are claiming she was doing. As she told people that those weapons can not damage vampires.

[lather]

To help with RPing that, GMs should roll damage secretly and not tell the other players anything but vague stuff unless they have Dead Boy armor, so they can benefit from that exact knowledge.

I've seen Erin Tarn use it in Vampire Kingdoms.

Searching...
pg 39 under "Vampire Legends", 30 April 101 PA: "Vampires are impervious to all other types of weapons, including particle beam weapons, rail guns, and explosives (I find this difficult to believe)."

Rifts Africa is set in 103 PA and she is 14th level with demon & monster lore at 98%... PROOF that Tarn was intentionally spreading misinformation to try and get humans killed by pointlessly wasting PB/rail/explosive against vamps, since vampires are demons and this was the go-to skill. It's what the Undead Slayers have in WB2p97, for example.

I guess you could consider that ret-conned with the introduction of lore skills specific to vampires though. Perhaps they're no longer included under demon+monster lore anymore as of the RUE era? Pg 18 of Rifts Vampires the Vampire Hunter has it as an OCC ability for example. Pg 23-24 extends it to Mystic/Totem/Spirit Warriors from Spirit West...

Anyone know if any reprints have WB2 have snuck this separate Lore skill in as a free skill for Undead Slayers? Seems something they really ought to have. I remember seeing in Nightbane, yeah page 57 says (NEW) along with Lore:Nightbane and Lore:Nightlands, might be where it was introduced? Anyone know the first Rifts book to have it?

As an alternative interpretation... maybe Undead Slayers actually lack Lore: Vampire as a mandatory power because they don't really need it? I mean, they can SENSE vampires so they don't need any special tricks to FIND them. They can make magic weapons and magic hurts vampires so they don't need to go hunting for wood/silver/water to do the job.

Perhaps Undead Slayers, like Erin Tarn, are ignorant of vampires and their invulnerability to certain weapons, because Undead Slayers don't bother with weapons like that so they never found out unless they actually bought Lore as an OCC Related / Secondary skill.

So anyway, 1st edition I don't see her mentioning MD in either 39 or 99.

Tarn letters were consolidated on 6-8 of VKrevised and I don't see it there either. Lather could you be remembering a different book?

Interestingly enough, bullet 5. on her list has been changed...

BEFORE

5. Vampires are impervious to all other types of weapons, including particle beam weapons, rail guns, and explosives (I find this difficult to believe).

AFTER

5. Vampires are impervious to all other types of weapons, including particle beam weapons, lasers, rail guns, and explosives.

They removed the parenthesized disbelief and added lasers... INTERESTING.

My apologies. It's in Wormwood where she tells about the plan to go to the Kingdom but ends up in Wormwood.
Page 30, when describing the wormspeaker.

[eliakon]

Also, I would like to point out that "lore" does not mean "Knows everything about the subject with no possibility of misinformation
Lore means just that... lore.
It is not some OOTS "Read the sourcebook" skill.
And even with a 98% in something you can still roll a 99 or 100

[Killer Cyborg]

Also, I would like to point out that "lore" does not mean "Knows everything about the subject with no possibility of misinformation
Lore means just that... lore.
It is not some OOTS "Read the sourcebook" skill.
And even with a 98% in something you can still roll a 99 or 100

Agreed.
For that matter, "I find it hard to believe" does NOT mean "I do not believe it."
A person can know that something is true, but still find that something hard to believe, and that's all that I thin Tarn was saying.

[Vrykolas2k]

Borgs don't have too much MDC, theirs makes sense compared to body/power armor. The issue is moreso that robots and vehicles have far too little compared to body/power armor.

The concept of “mega-damage” is pretty abstract. It’s for our use only — Rifts characters would use different terminology.

I detest people who have there characters talk about Megadamage. It doesnt exist.

What about Pax Tyrannica (SOT2p60) "Sitting against a wall of Mega-Damage stone, I can feel the explosion's vibration rattle faintly into my spine". This is in the section "The twin faces of evil" by Bill Coffin with additional text and ideas by Kevin Siembieda.

It exists in the game setting, apparently, because NPCs in the books (such as Tarn) refer to it. I mean, they don't say "x points of MDC left" or anything, but there are in-game, canon characters who talk about things being "mega damage."

Any recollection where she used it? This appears on page 10 of Madhaven:

In many places, a canopy of steel beams, cable, Mega-Damage concrete and debris hangs overhead; some covered in grass, weeds or vines.

Not sure if she used it prior to that though.

The term could still exist, though it's really too meta-gamey and doesn't feel right for someone to say in character. But the term could exist as sort of a shorthand way of referring to modern construction and materials. Maybe it was a trademarked term for military hardware before the coming of the Rifts and just stuck around afterwards. "And now, with our new patented Mega Damage formula, 3M is leading the way in blah blah blah..."

But the numbers definitely shouldn't exist. You shouldn't say "I only have 23 Mega-Damage left on my suit."

I doubt that the suit's damage computer would be that precise; it would probably say "25% Damage Capacity remaining", or the like.

[Curbludgeon]

Considering the illiteracy involved, I'd go with a color coded paper doll in the HMD. Green/Yellow/Orange/Red/Flashing Red, equally divided, is probably about as close of an approximation that doesn't snap verisimiltude in half with which I'd be comfortable.

[Killer Cyborg]

Considering the illiteracy involved, I'd go with a color coded paper doll in the HMD. Green/Yellow/Orange/Red/Flashing Red, equally divided, is probably about as close of an approximation that doesn't snap verisimiltude in half with which I'd be comfortable.

Illiteracy is not discalculia.

[eliakon]

Considering the illiteracy involved, I'd go with a color coded paper doll in the HMD. Green/Yellow/Orange/Red/Flashing Red, equally divided, is probably about as close of an approximation that doesn't snap verisimiltude in half with which I'd be comfortable.

Illiteracy is not discalculia.

In palladium it appears to be though.
They seem to be big on the cinematic versions and not the narrow scientific definitions.
I know, its hard to believe
But it appears that in Palladium if you can't read you cant read *anything* even numbers...

[Killer Cyborg]

Considering the illiteracy involved, I'd go with a color coded paper doll in the HMD. Green/Yellow/Orange/Red/Flashing Red, equally divided, is probably about as close of an approximation that doesn't snap verisimiltude in half with which I'd be comfortable.

Illiteracy is not discalculia.

In palladium it appears to be though.
They seem to be big on the cinematic versions and not the narrow scientific definitions.
I know, its hard to believe
But it appears that in Palladium if you can't read you cant read *anything* even numbers...

Let me know if you have a rule citation to support that notion.

[Curbludgeon]

Discalculia is not innumeracy, which is AKA mathematical illiteracy.

In that the Coalition Grunt does not receive Math: Basic, but does get Sensory Equipment, I struggle to think of a model by which to express approximate armor status that is more efficient than the above.

[Axelmania]

There is a glaring lack of literacy as a prerequisite for Basic Math. Are we thinking this skill represents people doing things entirely in their heads without the assistance of calculations or written equation?

Ok axleman look up the meaning of impervious.
It means can not be harmed, so she said the where not harmed by all other weapons including rail guns, Particle beams, and explosives.
That seams to be the exact opposite of what you are claiming she was doing.
As she told people that those weapons can not damage vampires.

Reread page 39 of the original Vamprie Kingdoms to clear up your confusion. Erin was providing a list of vampire legends which she collected from locals. She then added a parenthesized ("I find this difficult to believe") after the 5th thing on her list from locals to draw doubt to it, even though it's 100% true and she should know that based on her high lore skills.

My apologies. It's in Wormwood where she tells about the plan to go to the Kingdom but ends up in Wormwood.
Page 30, when describing the wormspeaker.

Thanks for clarifying that. TWICE even... the 2nd in regards to the Towers

(left col)
"Underneath her tattered robes, her body was encircled by several python-sized worms that served as mega-damage body armor."
(right col)
"We would soon learn that everything on Wormwood, including its indigenous human populace, are mega-damage structures, which meant these encroaching towers were walking fortresses."

So this might be the first published instance of in-universe usage of the term, I'm thinking? Wormwood came out around 93/94 while SoT was 2000 and Madhaven was 2006.

Also, I would like to point out that "lore" does not mean "Knows everything about the subject with no possibility of misinformation
Lore means just that... lore.
It is not some OOTS "Read the sourcebook" skill.
And even with a 98% in something you can still roll a 99 or 100

That's just it though. The lore DOES exist (she is quoting the locals) and Mexican children all seem to know it better than a 13th level Scholar with 98% Demon + Monster Lore.

"I find it hard to believe" does NOT mean "I do not believe it."
A person can know that something is true, but still find that something hard to believe, and that's all that I thin Tarn was saying.

No, if Tarn wanted to say "I know this is true" she would say "I believe it" or similar. Tarn as a historian and writer would be well aware that words which do not literally state things can still imply them.

If Erin had written "I have a hard time believing Karl Prosek is a good person" would we think she is saying she believes Karl is a good person?