Is mega damage a little too powerfull?

[Chronicler]

Been thinking about this for a little bit. To me mega damage has a little too much of a gap to SDC, on the other hand MDC doesn't deal with AR as much. I just want opinions on this since I'm working on my little project of reworking things.

Pleas keep this clean.

[Dreamstreamer]

Not too powerful, just too common.

[Chronicler]

Not too powerful, just too common.

That could be it too.

[Glistam]

I think Mega-Damage as a mechanic is fine. It's the execution that needs work.

[Killer Cyborg]

Been thinking about this for a little bit. To me mega damage has a little too much of a gap to SDC, on the other hand MDC doesn't deal with AR as much. I just want opinions on this since I'm working on my little project of reworking things.

Pleas keep this clean.

It all depends on what you use it for, and how.
I've never had any problems with it. I'm fine with things being deadly.

[Chronicler]

As a mechanic, yes I like it as a step up from SDC, but the fact that I can't even scratch MDC armor because "of the material it uses". And even then it seems to be a couple of steps up from SDC. It has also become a focus of scale creep in the game too.

I don't know, I always thought SDC weapons should have some effect. Give enough bullets things would start whittling down or chipping off.

[Alpha 11]

As a mechanic, yes I like it as a step up from SDC, but the fact that I can't even scratch MDC armor because "of the material it uses". And even then it seems to be a couple of steps up from SDC. It has also become a focus of scale creep in the game too.

I don't know, I always thought SDC weapons should have some effect. Give enough bullets things would start whittling down or chipping off.

I think it's fine. And if you think that, here's an M-4, there is an Abrams, good luck!

[Killer Cyborg]

As a mechanic, yes I like it as a step up from SDC, but the fact that I can't even scratch MDC armor because "of the material it uses". And even then it seems to be a couple of steps up from SDC. It has also become a focus of scale creep in the game too.

I don't know, I always thought SDC weapons should have some effect. Give enough bullets things would start whittling down or chipping off.

Well, WATER will start whittling things down over enough time...

You might be happy to know, though, that as of RUE, any time you inflict over 100 SDC with an attack, you can take 1 MDC off the target.

[Jefffar]

If you played the first edition of the Or biotech RPG, particularly in the Macros era you'd see MDC working exactly as it was designed and should. Only tanks, mecha, giant aliens and heavy weapons had MDC or inflicted MD. As the later Robotech books evolved and Rifts came about, MDC spread too far into what I call the personal level, resulting in SDC and Hit Points becoming essentially obsolete.

[Chronicler]

If you played the first edition of the Or biotech RPG, particularly in the Macros era you'd see MDC working exactly as it was designed and should. Only tanks, mecha, giant aliens and heavy weapons had MDC or inflicted MD. As the later Robotech books evolved and Rifts came about, MDC spread too far into what I call the personal level, resulting in SDC and Hit Points becoming essentially obsolete.

Right. My line of reasoning (which I probably should have stated first... opps ) is that, yes you can't fight an M1A2 with just an M4. Yes the M4 can inflict damage to an M1A2, it's just that it probably going to do 0.0000001% damage to it. No that's when you bring an anti-material rifle (it will do a lot better).

Now when you have someone in say a plastic-man suit, he has the armor equivalent of an M1A2. This doesn't bode well with me. There is also the fact that SDC weapons can't even harm it because as the rules state you can't do any sort of damage unless it exceeds 100 SDC, under it, nada, doesn't even scratch the paint. So a guy in plastic-man armor can stroll into a village and cause havoc unless some fortunate so happens to have a very expensive high-tech weapon that can scare the guy off. Given setting as stated this is rare (though the weapon list would say otherwise).

I was just thinking of just reducing MDC to SDC equivalent of 1MD = 100SD, to 1MD = 50SD and have SDC weapons still do some damage to people in body armor. Yeah one guy with an AK against a guy in Plastic-man wouldn't work in short term, but give a mob of villagers AK's against the guy in MDC body armor, the armor would start chewing up and then he would have to fall back. Also add multiple encounters like that with places to repair the armor few and far between, that armor will not last as long too.

[flatline]

I hate MD/MDC. It defies our intuitions on how things should work.

For instance, everybody has a basic intuition that someone in hard armor standing in front of a modern tank gun is going to be liquefied inside their armor EVEN IF THE ARMOR IS UNDAMAGED. Yet we, apparently, have no trouble with the idea that 15lbs of armor makes that puny laser pistol ignorable even though it does the same amount of damage as the tank. Or that somehow power armor will keep you alive if you crash into a rock wall at 400mph.

Mega-damage does more to ruin the setting of the game than any other mechanic by making it feel like a video game with poorly implemented physics rather than an actual world.

--flatline

[Killer Cyborg]

I hate MD/MDC. It defies our intuitions on how things should work.

For instance, everybody has a basic intuition that someone in hard armor standing in front of a modern tank gun is going to be liquefied inside their armor EVEN IF THE ARMOR IS UNDAMAGED. Yet we, apparently, have no trouble with the idea that 15lbs of armor makes that puny laser pistol ignorable even though it does the same amount of damage as the tank. Or that somehow power armor will keep you alive if you crash into a rock wall at 400mph.

Mega-damage does more to ruin the setting of the game than any other mechanic by making it feel like a video game with poorly implemented physics rather than an actual world.

--flatline

Originally, a 400 mph crash would be fatal for almost any SDC creature inside.
As of RUE, those rules are optional, but they are still there.
It's not an issue with Mega-Damage.

The reason why a tank would liquify somebody inside their armor is because of the impact.
That's generally not an issue with laser weapons.

[Killer Cyborg]

Now when you have someone in say a plastic-man suit, he has the armor equivalent of an M1A2. This doesn't bode well with me. There is also the fact that SDC weapons can't even harm it because as the rules state you can't do any sort of damage unless it exceeds 100 SDC, under it, nada, doesn't even scratch the paint. So a guy in plastic-man armor can stroll into a village and cause havoc unless some fortunate so happens to have a very expensive high-tech weapon that can scare the guy off.

Okay... I'm not seeing the problem there.

(although everybody has to take off their armor sometime, not to mention eating and sleeping and such.)

I was just thinking of just reducing MDC to SDC equivalent of 1MD = 100SD, to 1MD = 50SD and have SDC weapons still do some damage to people in body armor. Yeah one guy with an AK against a guy in Plastic-man wouldn't work in short term, but give a mob of villagers AK's against the guy in MDC body armor, the armor would start chewing up and then he would have to fall back. Also add multiple encounters like that with places to repair the armor few and far between, that armor will not last as long too.

Seems reasonable.

[flatline]

I hate MD/MDC. It defies our intuitions on how things should work.

For instance, everybody has a basic intuition that someone in hard armor standing in front of a modern tank gun is going to be liquefied inside their armor EVEN IF THE ARMOR IS UNDAMAGED. Yet we, apparently, have no trouble with the idea that 15lbs of armor makes that puny laser pistol ignorable even though it does the same amount of damage as the tank. Or that somehow power armor will keep you alive if you crash into a rock wall at 400mph.

Mega-damage does more to ruin the setting of the game than any other mechanic by making it feel like a video game with poorly implemented physics rather than an actual world.

--flatline

Originally, a 400 mph crash would be fatal for almost any SDC creature inside.
As of RUE, those rules are optional, but they are still there.
It's not an issue with Mega-Damage.

The reason why a tank would liquify somebody inside their armor is because of the impact.

So in your game do you treat ramjet shotgun rounds the same way as the tank? They both do "impact" and, apparently, carry about the same amount of energy judging from the damage.

That's generally not an issue with laser weapons.

And this is where you've been totally duped by the MD system. You're incorrectly applying intuitions developed at low energy levels ("light doesn't have any significant momentum") to high energy levels ("the material that just flashed into plasma has LOTS of momentum").

If I shoot an MD laser at a rock, the rock will quite literally explode. The energy transferred to it is greater than it can receive without experiencing a very rapid, very violent phase change. Exactly like a grenade or other explosive. If a laser hits MDC armor, the same thing happens except this time it's the surface of the armor itself exploding. And since we're talking energy levels on par with or exceeding a modern tank round, the resulting shock wave should be plenty to liquefy the guy inside the armor.

Which brings me to the other reason I hate MD/MDC: "It's MD, so normal physics doesn't apply!" People realize that there's something wrong, so in order to incorporate mega-damage into their games, they're willing to simply pretend MD is "magic" by appealing to fictional rules of physics that are never described. Can a regular fire extinguisher put out a "MD fire"? Can baking soda neutralize "MD acid"? Can MDC creatures breath regular oxygen or do they need special MD oxygen? Can the resulting MD carbon-dioxide be split by regular photo-synthesis?

--flatline

[Spinachcat]

I rule that if your armor takes 1 MDC, you take 1 SDC. Lasers that fry away armor may not cause impact, but certainly tremendous heat. Those supersonic rail gun shells? They shear away MDC armor, but whammo, you get a gut punch and wind knocked out of you too.

BTW, if you don't like MDC, its easy enough to nuke OR just make the ratio 10 SDC to 1 MDC.

[Glistam]

I rule that if your armor takes 1 MDC, you take 1 SDC.

That's a house rule I've considered implimenting for years now. How's that work out?

[Killer Cyborg]

The reason why a tank would liquify somebody inside their armor is because of the impact.

So in your game do you treat ramjet shotgun rounds the same way as the tank? They both do "impact" and, apparently, carry about the same amount of energy judging from the damage.[/quote]

Uh... no. That's not how physics works. At least, that's not how game physics work.
An Armor Piercing round inflicts more damage than a normal round, even though they have the same physical force behind them, simply because the AP round has better penetrative value. Just because you roll the same damage dice doesn't mean that it's the same.
Tank rounds are bigger than ramjet rounds. Their energy is distributed over a larger area, and there's more mass behind them.
A ramjet round inflicts damage because it's moving really, really, really fast.
A tank round inflicts damage because it's moving really fast, and it's massive, and are generally explosive.

As for how I treat them in the game, I use the rules for taking SDC damage from kinetic attacks either way... but that doesn't mean that they have the same energy.

If I shoot an MD laser at a rock, the rock will quite literally explode. The energy transferred to it is greater than it can receive without experiencing a very rapid, very violent phase change. Exactly like a grenade or other explosive. If a laser hits MDC armor, the same thing happens except this time it's the surface of the armor itself exploding. And since we're talking energy levels on par with or exceeding a modern tank round, the resulting shock wave should be plenty to liquefy the guy inside the armor.

You sure know a lot about how non-existent things work.

Which brings me to the other reason I hate MD/MDC: "It's MD, so normal physics doesn't apply!" People realize that there's something wrong, so in order to incorporate mega-damage into their games, they're willing to simply pretend MD is "magic" by appealing to fictional rules of physics that are never described. Can a regular fire extinguisher put out a "MD fire"? Can baking soda neutralize "MD acid"? Can MDC creatures breath regular oxygen or do they need special MD oxygen? Can the resulting MD carbon-dioxide be split by regular photo-synthesis?

I think you're arguing with somebody else here, about other stuff that I've never really even heard about.

[Lukterran]

Yes...too much stuff was created to inflict and to be mega damage.

I think a few heavy weapons, giant armor robots, large military vehicles etc... should have been MDC. Having MDC for every weapon, average body armor and monster in the game was too much. Making anything non-MDC completely useless.

However, Pandora's box has been opened for decades so no use complaining about it.

[kaid]

I honestly would have preferred if MDC was a x10 multiplier and not a x100. One of the biggest and weirdest issues is the way MDC works nearly negates one of the traditional roles in RPG's and that is the healer. Rifts winds up being very binary either you are fully healthy and alive or you are deader than dead. About the only things that find themselves in the middle of the healthy spectrum tend to be creatures of magic like dragons or otherwise supernatural/magical MDC beings.

The problem with those is for healers is very few heals in the game can effect an MDC being and those that can heal a trivial amount of health for large amounts of PPE and usually its not worth it due to the bio regen rates of beings with natural MDC.

If the multiplier was x10 and not x100 men at arms could potentially survive a hit or two from light/medium energy weapons. It would hurt them badly but it would not be instant death.

[Killer Cyborg]

One of the biggest and weirdest issues is the way MDC works nearly negates one of the traditional roles in RPG's and that is the healer. Rifts winds up being very binary either you are fully healthy and alive or you are deader than dead. About the only things that find themselves in the middle of the healthy spectrum tend to be creatures of magic like dragons or otherwise supernatural/magical MDC beings.

Personally, what you describe is one of the things that draws me to Rifts.
It never made much sense to me when games were set up where you get stabbed/shot every battle, then just rest or otherwise heal back up to full health.

The problem with those is for healers is very few heals in the game can effect an MDC being and those that can heal a trivial amount of health for large amounts of PPE and usually its not worth it due to the bio regen rates of beings with natural MDC.

If the multiplier was x10 and not x100 men at arms could potentially survive a hit or two from light/medium energy weapons. It would hurt them badly but it would not be instant death.

Which is what I don't like about that ratio.
I prefer the lethality that the current ratio brings.
Although a normal human, if he's tough enough, can survive 1 MD, and augmented humans like juicers can survive even more.

[Spinachcat]

I rule that if your armor takes 1 MDC, you take 1 SDC.

That's a house rule I've considered implimenting for years now. How's that work out?

For me, it works great. It does exactly what I want - people in armor pass out from pain and shock.

Here's my breakdown...

1 SDC per 1 MDC for people wearing armor
1 SDC per 2 MDC for people in a robot / giant armor suit (Glitterboy)
1 SDC per 5 MDC for people in a vehicle (you get tossed around when missiles hit your ATV)

My house rule has flaws because that means MDC creatures don't get bruised. For me, this works and defines the nature of creatures so inhuman that they can stand within non-magical fire and not suffer. For the munchkin player, it appears that my houserule gives them another free goodie, but I run lots of social issues for non-humans in my games.

The other flaw of my rule is that it adds another layer of record keeping.

Also, please note that in regards to the RIFTS universe, I mostly run Chaos Earth or what most people would consider "low powered" RIFTS games where most PCs are human or human-ish.

[Zenvis]

I rule that if your armor takes 1 MDC, you take 1 SDC.

That's a house rule I've considered implimenting for years now. How's that work out?

For me, it works great. It does exactly what I want - people in armor pass out from pain and shock.

Here's my breakdown...

1 SDC per 1 MDC for people wearing armor
1 SDC per 2 MDC for people in a robot / giant armor suit (Glitterboy)
1 SDC per 5 MDC for people in a vehicle (you get tossed around when missiles hit your ATV)

My house rule has flaws because that means MDC creatures don't get bruised. For me, this works and defines the nature of creatures so inhuman that they can stand within non-magical fire and not suffer. For the munchkin player, it appears that my houserule gives them another free goodie, but I run lots of social issues for non-humans in my games.

The other flaw of my rule is that it adds another layer of record keeping.

Also, please note that in regards to the RIFTS universe, I mostly run Chaos Earth or what most people would consider "low powered" RIFTS games where most PCs are human or human-ish.

I am really house ruling it so that MDC creatures are afraid when they bleed and bruise. I love your rules and agree of the idea of 1:10 over 1:100.

[Killer Cyborg]

I rule that if your armor takes 1 MDC, you take 1 SDC.

That's a house rule I've considered implimenting for years now. How's that work out?

For me, it works great. It does exactly what I want - people in armor pass out from pain and shock.

Here's my breakdown...

1 SDC per 1 MDC for people wearing armor
1 SDC per 2 MDC for people in a robot / giant armor suit (Glitterboy)
1 SDC per 5 MDC for people in a vehicle (you get tossed around when missiles hit your ATV)

My house rule has flaws because that means MDC creatures don't get bruised. For me, this works and defines the nature of creatures so inhuman that they can stand within non-magical fire and not suffer. For the munchkin player, it appears that my houserule gives them another free goodie, but I run lots of social issues for non-humans in my games.

The other flaw of my rule is that it adds another layer of record keeping.

Also, please note that in regards to the RIFTS universe, I mostly run Chaos Earth or what most people would consider "low powered" RIFTS games where most PCs are human or human-ish.

Sounds pretty cool!

[cyber-yukongil v2.5]

I've ditched MDC as a form measure of damage in exchange for it being a measurement of penetration/ablation, reason being that getting your arm cut off with a steel longsword or a vibro knife is no more/less life-threatening than the other.

my system uses a simple conversion to give everyone SDC with a AR based on the amount of MDC or SDC it once had. Weapons were converted similarly. Quick and dirty, on the best result when attacking weapons did some damage to the armor and some damage to the wearer, while on the worst (while still hitting of course) the armor took all the damage. Where MDC and SDC came in was the weapons ability to help that or the armors to hinder. A MDC laser rifle always struck SDC armor as if it had bypassed its AR, meaning the armor took damage and so did the wearer, while and SDC weapon striking MDC armor meant the armor took all the damage at best or less if it failed to beat the armor's AR but still hit.

This allowed all weapons to be viable, from 9mms to JA-12s and armors to run the gamut from undercover vests to your best personal MDC armors. Vehicles, PA and Robots with a certain amount of MDC, gained Hardened armor, meaning that it effectively had unbeatable AR vs. SDC weapons.

My players seemed to enjoy it for taking the overall tech level needed to survive RIFTS down to less insane levels.