the game itself already kind of pretends mega damage isn't a thing by making every creature an MDC entity and every weapon an MDC weapon and all armor MDC armor and all robots MDC etc etc
rifts makes SDC irrelevant and therefore the distinction between them isn't worth anything
This is completely logical & why I hate Mega Damage as presented in the books.
BUT!
Conceptually & thematically, I think it is still valuable. In my head, an SD gun is some shit weapon scavenged-up and/or cobbled together by a Vault Dweller after doing some bartering at a shanty town. It something that fits the partially post-apocalyptic side of Rifts; small tribal communities with limited resources trying to eke out a living in a brutal man-eating planet.
An MD weapon, by comparison, is a battle tank melting particle gun fresh off of an assembly line or dug out of a subterranean military bunker that survived the coming of the Rifts. It's not just 'better' than our Vault Dweller's scavenged gun - it's in a completely different universe of capability. You could conceivably become the de facto ruler of a personal fiefdom just by virtue of possessing it & some armor of a similar caliber.
I'm just not sure how worth it / not worth it the pursuit of that thematic point is in mechanical terms, because (as you've said), the average player is basically never going to be partaking in the whole 'post-apocalyptic scavenger' side of things. It's just story dressing.
My current thoughts orbit the idea of basically making SDC entities the equivalent of 4E Minions, except that most of them can't damage the player - only apply different status effects (knocking them down, disrupting optics, etc).
Dinosaur Swamp (and Adventures in Dinosaur Swamp, its companion book) is a relatively new piece of the RIFTS setting, or at least one that I've only started looking at fairly recently, so I decided to kick off our grand reopening by exploring something that was sort of derivitively RIFTS as opposed to essentially RIFTS as with my earlier series. The location was mentioned in the earliest core books, but not much beyond "dinosaurs" and "swamp" was really said. Not that you probably need much more than that, I guess.
Some adventures just write themselves.
Once upon a time, there was a land filled with buried treasures, monstrous reptiles and drug-fueled superhumans. Barbarians roamed the countryside, burning and pillaging. The last vestiges of civilization were rotted and crumbling, collapsing under the weight of centuries of senseless debauchery and violence. Then the RIFTS came, and very little changed.
That's not strictly true, actually. Lots changed, really quickly and horribly. The South-Eastern coast of the American Empire didn't fare as well as the midwest, specifically the Michigan area, did in the aftermath of armageddon. Tidal waves hundreds of miles wide buffeted the shores, hurricanes "stacked up like boxcars" to smash into coastal communities, and long dormant tectonic plates activated. The entire region nearly sunk into the sea, taking huge portions of the area's population with it.
Sometimes, less Florida is more Florida.
Virtually every coastal city was completely washed away, the only surviving citizens moving inland to avoid the absurd death storms that came with the RIFTS. The centers of science and learning that had been built up before the cataclysm are now nothing more than washed out old ruins, their empty streets overgrown with the rampant, inevitable vegetation of the subtropical region. The largest remaining settlement is in the ruins of what was Charlotte, now referred to by the locals as "the Char". It's slightly less full of dinosaurs than the rest of this place.
Dinosaurs: Not always an upside.
True to the elevator pitch, the area is now one big swampy lowland, having sunk significantly in elevation FOR REASONS and is cut off from the north and west by a new extention of the Appalachians. And dinosaurs live there. All of them, from every era, even some made up ones. That breathe fire and turn invisible, because of course they do.
Somehow this guy stayed out of the fossil record.
The two major industries in the area are looting and hunting, both largely based out of "the Char". During the Golden Age a lot of research complexes were built in the strip between Virginia and Florida, mostly in conjunction with the space race programs of the period. Lots of really high end tech is out there to be scavenged if you can run the gauntlet of territorial thunder lizards, man-eating plants and crazed former Floridians. Your search may necessitate spelunking or even scuba excursions into the depths of ancient research bunkers that definately aren't inhabited by some kind of ancient predator or extra dimensional horror.
Down there
Waiting
Hunting is exactly what you think it's going to be. A cottage industry has grown up glory hunting dinosaurs, because this little corner of the world is quite obviously just an excuse to mash up Gator and Jurassic Park. (Though as far as I can tell there isn't a single MDC airboat to be found in either book.) (This is wrong, actually. "The Skeeter" is a two man airboat that can go 50 mph and has 65 MDC. So not a great option, but it definitely exists.)
Ach! Croc! Run!
To exactly that end, there are not one but two enormous, prehistoric alligators to hunt/flee/die from an aneurysm near to. They are both 40 or so feet long, top out at around 600 MDC and have a bite attack that hits like a railgun burst. And you can make gator-skin jacket out of them that can absorb laser blasts.
Ahmsosneaky
Theoretically you could do the same with any of the other dinosaurs included here, and hoo boy are there a ton of them. All of which are mega-damage creatures with fearsome natural weapons because MAGIC ENERGY and the fact that they'd be pretty lame if one stray ion blast turned them into chunky salsa.
My I.Q. is only 1d4, so they make me wear a helmet.
In case murky water filled with prehistoric predators wasn't enough, the swamp is also home to multiple varieties of carniverious plants, some of which have a cadre of symbiotic junky fairies that feed them passing humanoids. The fairies actually turn out to be pretty ok if you can get them off the death-junk, but their family throws a reverse intervention if they try and go straight. Fuckin' Future Florida, you guys.
Just one more hit, man. I'm good for it.
Also entering the ring are challengers from the other side of the RIFTS, a lot of which are oddly thematically appropriate for a place filled with dinosaurs. Because if you're going to go, go all in. They're also horrifying.
Extra eyes to see you with, my dear.
One other form of dino worth mentioning is the Raptor King, a hyper intelligent predator that uses human-style tools and even keeps slaves to do its bidding.
Sorceror Supreme of RIFTS Earth.
Included as well are a ton of rules for making your travels in the swamp a living hell, if they weren't already. Notably, you can now catch Yellow Fever and Malaria. Because there's no greater adventure than bleeding out through the rectum in a suit of heavy MDC armor.
Confederate Ghosts. Because sure, why not.
Borgs, robots and power armor face periodic rolls to avoid rusting into uselessness tin-man style. Heavier armors make it harder to swim and risk various forms of heatstroke and similar maladies. Weapons that aren't properly maintained might misfire due to corrosion and moisture. Basically, it's a nightmare. I guess there's a reason a ton of parties never leave the midwest.
The Palmetto People: Looters, Mutants and Barbarians
I'm not sure what this is, but it's awesome.
The apocalypse was not kind to the American Southeast. Almost all civilization was wiped out by various sea and earth-based natural disasters, leaving the few survivors to improvise their own continued existence. The complete collapse of the food distribution infrastructure along basically every public health and safety program pretty much doomed whatever cities weren't destroyed by tidal waves, earthquakes or chain-icanes. Smaller, rural communities fared somewhat better, especially those that were already primarily agricultural. It is from those settlements that most of the remaining population of the Dinosaur Swamp is drawn.
As it turns out, they were more prepared than the dinosaurs.
If they weren't before, the pressures of the coming of the RIFTS forced these rural southerners to become proficient explorers, scouts and hunters. Those that didn't fall into barbarism (we'll talk about them later) still learned to live off the land and effectively combat the huge reptilian creatures that had emerged as threats as the rifts opened.
"Them's some good eatin'."
Eventually, a level of civilization reasserted itself in the ruins of old Charlotte, now known as "the Char". A lose confederation of peoples set up camp around the ruined city center, trading knowledge and relics scavenged from the area. As points of light go, it really isn't so bad. The Coalition has started sniffing around, though, so it's really only a matter of time until it loses the rustic charm and turns into yet another fascist hell-hole.
"Aw, really? Guess I'll just grab my stuff."
The new O.C.C.s presented as part of the "civilized" society of the swamp are all basically just riffs on existing archetypes, without much to recommend them over the the originals. Besides maybe their names. The Swamp-Stomper and Pathfinder are both new Wilderness Scouts focused on swamp life. The Naturalist is a Rogue Scientist with an emphasis on, well, naturalism. The Legacy Scout is another Wilderness Scout variation, but it adds in some technical abilities to aid in looting the old centers of progress more effectively.
Canis Lupis Disapprovius
Big Game Hunters have a specialized form of sign language known only by other Big Game Hunters as an O.C.C. ability. Good luck using that at any point. Another of their special skills is a laundry list of bonuses to other skills, because it wouldn't be RIFTS if there wasn't some nested, recursive number fog.
And skulls on hovercycles.
To help with their various huntings and explorations, there are also a variety of new weapons available from named manufacturers in the Char, which is admittedly a neat piece of worldbuilding. Less neat, however, is that they're all ballistic gunpowder weapons, and almost uniquely non-Mega Damage. One does 1d6 MD, but it's a breach loading single shot rifle that takes 3 attacks to fully cycle. They do a pretty neat trick, though. They get a +2 bonus to Aimed Shots that counts toward their natural roll, making Critical Hits much more likely. Because they're so incredibly accurate, you see. More accurate than lasers, apparently. It remains unclear how useful it is to hit a 600 MDC triceritops in with a 4d6 S.D. bullet, regardless of how well placed it is.
It does look completely bad ass, though.
On the other side of the "surviving the apocalypse" coin, many of the former occupants of southern cities fled for the countryside and embraced an odd form of rustic tribalism. In the centuries since the collapse of civilization, they have developed a robust culture, and rejected the use of the technology they blame for ending the world. Actually, that last bit is something of a sticking point, as it's hard not to recognize the value of Mega Damage weaponry when you're constantly surrounded by dinosaurs. Some tribes have re-embraced the use of "modern" weapons and armors, while others utilize less conventional options.
He's just sad because they took away his plasma thrower.
Among the barbarians are a large number of mutants, most of are basically just psychics that look weird. Which fits the bill, I suppose. Some of them are the classic Master Psychics from the core book, Mind Melters and Bursters, while others are fairly normal tribespeople with limited access to special senses and brainwhammies.
They traded all their P.B. for I.S.P.
Barbarian Eco-Wizards, a new variant on Techno-Wizard, have learned to create MD weapons out of dinosaur parts. These range from the simple to the absurd, but almost always end up looking like something out of Dark Sun.
If Athas had stegosaurs.
Axes made from stegosaurus plates. Spears tipped with triceratops horns. Tomahawks bladed with raptor claws. It's some seriously bad ass stuff, all things considered.
Turnabout makes for fair stabbing.
Likewise, the barbarian warriors wear suits of Mega Damage armor scrounged together from looted tech and dinosaur hide. They actually have a class sort-of ability, hidden in their starting equipment lists because of course it is, of randomly rolled MDC armors. With separate stats for the main body, limbs and helmet, which no other body armor in the game has. RIFTS.
I'm seriously having Dark Sun flashbacks with this one.
The Eco-Wizards also make some other stuff, most of which looks like the dino-hippy version of TW gear.
No, really. They're the Feminist Art Philosophy students of Techno-Wizardry.
Other semi-useful gear can be made from the so-called "steeltree", a botanical immigrant from some far-flung dimension. The wood and leaves of the tree can be used to forge Mega Damage weapons and armor, though such products are not exactly high end. You can make MD arrowheads out of it, which is cool. And there's a bird that only eats berries from these trees and turns a metallic blue. So there's that.
But can you make sparky claws that ignore armor? Didn't think so.
A couple new R.C.C.s round out the players options side of Dinosaur Swamp. There's a species of humanoid spider-people, which is just as weird as it sounds, and a rehash of the Horune Pirates. The Horune are an extra-dimensional species of raiders and lunatics who terrorize the shores of the Americas.
They're basically Batarians.
Not a single species of gater-person to be found. Which is weird, because RIFTS already has at least 2 that I know of. I guess Leatherhead is really Australian.
So this is a fairly recent worldbook? Did they run out of material or what, because I'm used to new OCCs being bonkers, off the wall, and unique.
You're describing almost all specialized rehashes.
These are recent-ish. 2004, I think. And they're by someone who is new to the franchise.
Overall, though, there really isn't anything here but setting information. And dinosaur stats for the GM, I guess.
No new robots or power armor, no plasma chainsaws or particle beam bows for hunting MDC creatures. No juicer variants. Not even any real new body armor to go with the setting, which is almost unprecedented from what I can tell. And no mutant animals, which, I mean mutant dinosaurs are right there and already exist in other Palladium properties to reuse the art assets from.
I don't know if this was a conscious effort to reign in some of the craziness of the past or just a middling effort by a first time contractor, but there's not much here to recommend it to players that are fans of RIFTS for it's zaniness.
Edit: And in fairness, something like 45% of new O.C.C.s in world books are just variants on Wilderness Scout. There's usually one or two per book that really stand out, but that makes us forget about the other 9 that are all Triax grunts with the primary differentiation being a toggle on who gets Espionage skills.
Siembieda pulled the reins in HARD after, apparently, he started looking over the stuff CJ Carella was actually putting out. This is why the Coalition War books start out with Naruni getting driven out of North America, it was basically a giant fuck you to Carella's power spikes, and a conscious effort to make the Coalition top dogs instead of random mercenaries buying cartridge plasma rifles.
I really wish it was in something besides Savage Worlds.
That system just never really worked for me.
Don't think of this as an adaptation of RIFTs to a system you won't play. Think of it as another way for Siembieda to create a train wreck. And just watch.
I really wish it was in something besides Savage Worlds.
That system just never really worked for me.
Don't think of this as an adaptation of RIFTs to a system you won't play. Think of it as another way for Siembieda to create a train wreck. And just watch.
If they do that, is it really an adaption rather than just a reprinting?
I really wish it was in something besides Savage Worlds.
That system just never really worked for me.
Don't think of this as an adaptation of RIFTs to a system you won't play. Think of it as another way for Siembieda to create a train wreck. And just watch.
I really wish it was in something besides Savage Worlds.
That system just never really worked for me.
Don't think of this as an adaptation of RIFTs to a system you won't play. Think of it as another way for Siembieda to create a train wreck. And just watch.
I'm still waiting on those Robotech minis.
I almost backed that. Then I remembered that Palladium is still taking pre-orders for Mechanoids Space and has been for at least a decade if not longer.
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ThomamelasOnly one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered Userregular
I really wish it was in something besides Savage Worlds.
That system just never really worked for me.
Don't think of this as an adaptation of RIFTs to a system you won't play. Think of it as another way for Siembieda to create a train wreck. And just watch.
If they do that, is it really an adaption rather than just a reprinting?
Well it's likely it would have a working set of rules so I think we can count that as at least a new edition.
I really wish it was in something besides Savage Worlds.
That system just never really worked for me.
Don't think of this as an adaptation of RIFTs to a system you won't play. Think of it as another way for Siembieda to create a train wreck. And just watch.
I'm still waiting on those Robotech minis.
I almost backed that. Then I remembered that Palladium is still taking pre-orders for Mechanoids Space and has been for at least a decade if not longer.
Oh, I didn't back it. I'm a fanboy, not a sucker.
But I was planning in getting into it while I had a workshop to paint in. Sadly, that time is almost past.
FFG isn't putting out Star Wars stuff fast enough to fill it.
I'm weak.
*whisper* We can recommend other things.
For example have you heard of this crazy game called Rifts.
Hey, I'm supposed to be the shoulder devil here.
Pretty sure that when you're talking about Rifts, the shoulder Devil is the good one, with a horrifying sapient insect mage from the nether reaches of the aether on the opposing shoulder.
Could be wrong though, it's been a while since I had any exposure to Rifts beyond this thread.
Would Savage Worlds be a good system for this game? I feel like it would need something really narrative based to work. There's just no way you can realistically and fairly simulate this stuff with crunchy mechanics.
I think the thing that always hinders conversion to another system is MD. If you can sacrifice that sacred cow conversions are easy, but MD is just such an integral part of the game that it seems weird not to have it.
I think the thing that always hinders conversion to another system is MD. If you can sacrifice that sacred cow conversions are easy, but MD is just such an integral part of the game that it seems weird not to have it.
You just have to not get hung up on it. Ditching MD is pretty easy. You either go to a cinematic system where the lethality of a bullet/tank/laser/whatever are all kinda the same, or you adjust it so that lasers/boom-cannons are very dangerous and bullets are only sort of dangerous or whatever you and your gaming group are happy with.
Or just ditch lasers entirely because lasers aren't as cool or grimdark as bullets.
Let's take a trip together, mentally. For many of us, this will be a trip back in time.
To when smoking was cool.
You've just gone through the middle school pre-algebra daymare that is RIFTS character creation. Hours of effort have resulted in a bizarre but intellectually pleasing combination of R.C.C., O.C.C., psionics, spells and equipment that really gets your imagination cylinders firing. Maybe you built an alien Juicer with Mega Damage swords for arms or a psychic cyclops techno-wizard in appropriately sized, kitten-powered armor. The details are largely unimportant for this exercise, so just imagine the most awesome thing that 14 year old you could have come up with. Go nuts.
"It's a nice start, but I think it needs more extra-dimensional brain fire."
With the homework done, you and your incredibly unlikely team filled with marginally less awesome by virtue of not being you teammates embark on the grand adventure that is murder-hobo-ing in the ruins of North America. With lists of powers several pages long and armed to the literal teeth with Mega Damage weaponry, you are collectively prepared for any threat you might face in the wilds, be they dragon or deadboy. The world is your soon-to-be-smoking hulk of an oyster.
...and an Associates Degree in Bartending.
As the adventure opens, your gamemaster describes a scene of starlit countryside, putting you and your compatriots on the ruins of an old highway. A half-collapsed bit of overhead signage indicates that you are some 50 miles outside of Juarez. After a few moments of acclimation, feral cries erupt from beneath the overpass, and a few malnourished-looking D-Bees, unarmed and dressed in rags, charge your group. The Glitter Boy player laughs arrogantly and shatters the air with his Boom Gun.
Super popular among 14 year old boys, for some reason.
The salvo slams into the lead vagrant and ... nothing. It doesn't even blink. A barrage of pulse laser blasts issues from the place you're pretty sure the Brodkil Psi-Ghost was just a minute ago, washing over the same target, succeeding only in lighting his meager clothing on fire. Closing with the pyro-kinetic Felinoid Mutant Cyber-Knight, the newcomer smashes his hand into her stomach, denting her armor inward and lifting her off her feet, moonlight glinting off his now visible fangs.
Artist's Rendering.
In the world of RIFTS Earth, there are very few problems that can't be solved with bigger robots or superior firepower. Vampires, though, are one of those problems. Completely immune to normal Mega Damage weaponry, and indeed to basically all damage that isn't from a limited few sources, hordes of vampires were a gamemaster's hard counter to a proliferation of cartridge plasma weaponry and Kitanni dino-centaur power armor among player characters. A group that failed to properly prepare for the inevitable attack of the undead was basically screwed and probably very quickly dead.
And then un-deaded, again.
So, how does one effectively combat the vampire threat? Well, there are actually quite a few ways to get that done. They really don't like wood, for example. To the point that a wooden sword will wreck up even a Master Vampire pretty quickly in skilled hands, since they'll be taking double normal melee damage from it. Spears, arrows and such have roughly the same trick available. Silvered weapons can do the same thing, with silver bullets being a very popular redeadening method. It often seems like vampires exist mostly as an excuse for your Juicer to dual wield a silver katana and a 1911 Colt loaded with silver bullets.
Impractical but awesome.
Even less conventional methods are available, though, for the discerning vampire hunter. Running water will destroy a vampire, so submerging them is an option. As are water ballons, super soakers and techno-wizard water shotguns and SAWs. Holy water is also an option, but completely unnecessary. A squirt gun from Credit General will do exactly the same amount of damage.
Weaponized flat-top optional.
Crosses will harm and repel vampires, though no one is really sure why. A vamp scalded by one might even panic and lose a bunch of attacks swatting themselves to get rid of it. The shadow of a crucifix will also deal signficant damage, meaning that properly modified spotlights can be lethal. Even a flashlight and two pieces of tape can get you 2d6 damage against the undead, the same amount as a silver 9mm bullet.
Or, if you're into fisting...
Conventional railguns can fire specialized wood or silver ammunition, dealing signifcantly reduced Mega Damage but absolutely shredding vampires. Sadly, this is not an option as present for the Glitter Boy.
Bigger is only ALMOST always better.
Staking does not kill a vampire. Instead, it puts them into a state of stasis, which they recover from very quickly when the stake is removed, even if they have mostly decomposed in the meantime. The same is true for any of the methods outlined above, though. Actually killing a vampire requires decapitation and burning, and failing that they'll be back on their feet and trying to eat you again in 30 seconds at the outside. They are very, very hard to keep down. Fire, running water or sunlight will do the job, everything else is a temporary measure at best.
Personal hygiene is an ongoing issue.
In terms of personell, some vampire hunters are going to be significantly more useful than others. Glitterboys are going to be sub-standard as explained earlier, but with their high MDC, robotic strength and extra attacks from Power Armor Elite Training, they can still do some serious damage with a silvered baseball bat or something. Dog Boys get their normal bonus stuff against supernatural, and they're used to going hand to hand with monsters. Neural maces can be silver studded without losing much effectiveness, too. Psi-Stalkers can tell you when the vampire is well and truly dead, because they're going to eat what's left of the bloodsucker's soul, and they get the cool monster hunting bonuses. Mages can do things like create zones of sunlight and summon rain, and Carpet of Adhesion vampires until dawn.
Dmitri's Disco Ball of Relative Safety
Borgs are immune to being turned into vampires themselves (a process we'll discuss next time, maybe, since this is getting a little long as it is). They can also silver plate their whole body if they want. Crazies are of no special use when vamps are about, but they are just nuts enough to go looking for them so that's probably something. Juicers are, as always, incredibly useful. In fact, depending on your gamemaster's interpretation of the interaction between supernatural strength-based MD melee attacks and vampire hit points, some Juicer variants may just be able to instantly powder most vampires with very basic weaponry.
Just don't let them get turned.
But if you're really into hunting vampires, just bring a dragon. They natively have the ability to damage vampires with their physical attacks, breathe fire, can withstand plenty of Mega Damage claws and bites, regenerate at a comparable rate to the vampires themselves and as long as they're making decent decisions on their spell selection they can cast all the best anti-vampire magic.
Don't hate me for being awesome.
Eventually, most rune weapons and greater beasties would gain the ability to directly harm vampires as well. This is likely due to the fact that even in RIFTS it would seem a little strange if Zeus found himself without any proper means of damaging a minor alien undead entity.
Maybe try swan form, I guess.
Just about any RIFTS player you ask is going to have a story about hunting vampires, the ending of which will likely be determined by how well prepared they were. They first appeared in World Book 1, so they've been around in the setting basically forever. Their odd weaknesses (can't cross running water, need to sleep on dirt from their homeland, etc) tend to keep them pretty localized to arid climates. Primarily they ended up in places you would probably set your power armor psychic westerns, which is kind of weird given the source materials' propensity for fog-wreathed gothic castles and such.
Eastern Europe is Borg Country, now.
Maybe next time we'll actually get into the nature of vampires in RIFTS. They're far, far weirder than you would probably expect.
I think the thing that always hinders conversion to another system is MD. If you can sacrifice that sacred cow conversions are easy, but MD is just such an integral part of the game that it seems weird not to have it.
You just have to not get hung up on it. Ditching MD is pretty easy. You either go to a cinematic system where the lethality of a bullet/tank/laser/whatever are all kinda the same, or you adjust it so that lasers/boom-cannons are very dangerous and bullets are only sort of dangerous or whatever you and your gaming group are happy with.
Or just ditch lasers entirely because lasers aren't as cool or grimdark as bullets.
What if the lasers are black though?
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mysticjuicer[he/him] I'm a muscle wizardand I cast P U N C HRegistered Userregular
I think the thing that always hinders conversion to another system is MD. If you can sacrifice that sacred cow conversions are easy, but MD is just such an integral part of the game that it seems weird not to have it.
You just have to not get hung up on it. Ditching MD is pretty easy. You either go to a cinematic system where the lethality of a bullet/tank/laser/whatever are all kinda the same, or you adjust it so that lasers/boom-cannons are very dangerous and bullets are only sort of dangerous or whatever you and your gaming group are happy with.
Or just ditch lasers entirely because lasers aren't as cool or grimdark as bullets.
One of my current buddies told me a story about vampire hunting in Rifts back in his old high school game. This city mayor/elder/whatever gave them the quest to kill vampires and access to whatever resources they had available. So what did my friend ask for?
Didn't the source book just not give sdc/mdc stats for vampires? It was just like: completely vulnerable to this, otherwise no damage.
Vamps have Hit Points, no MDC or SDC. Dealing damage to them requires jumping through crazy hoops and using weird weapons, though. And they can fight to -20, while regenerating some crazy amount per Melee. And unless you stake-behead-burn them, they'll just stand back up once they regenerate above 0.
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This is completely logical & why I hate Mega Damage as presented in the books.
BUT!
Conceptually & thematically, I think it is still valuable. In my head, an SD gun is some shit weapon scavenged-up and/or cobbled together by a Vault Dweller after doing some bartering at a shanty town. It something that fits the partially post-apocalyptic side of Rifts; small tribal communities with limited resources trying to eke out a living in a brutal man-eating planet.
An MD weapon, by comparison, is a battle tank melting particle gun fresh off of an assembly line or dug out of a subterranean military bunker that survived the coming of the Rifts. It's not just 'better' than our Vault Dweller's scavenged gun - it's in a completely different universe of capability. You could conceivably become the de facto ruler of a personal fiefdom just by virtue of possessing it & some armor of a similar caliber.
I'm just not sure how worth it / not worth it the pursuit of that thematic point is in mechanical terms, because (as you've said), the average player is basically never going to be partaking in the whole 'post-apocalyptic scavenger' side of things. It's just story dressing.
My current thoughts orbit the idea of basically making SDC entities the equivalent of 4E Minions, except that most of them can't damage the player - only apply different status effects (knocking them down, disrupting optics, etc).
Dinosaur Swamp (and Adventures in Dinosaur Swamp, its companion book) is a relatively new piece of the RIFTS setting, or at least one that I've only started looking at fairly recently, so I decided to kick off our grand reopening by exploring something that was sort of derivitively RIFTS as opposed to essentially RIFTS as with my earlier series. The location was mentioned in the earliest core books, but not much beyond "dinosaurs" and "swamp" was really said. Not that you probably need much more than that, I guess.
Some adventures just write themselves.
Once upon a time, there was a land filled with buried treasures, monstrous reptiles and drug-fueled superhumans. Barbarians roamed the countryside, burning and pillaging. The last vestiges of civilization were rotted and crumbling, collapsing under the weight of centuries of senseless debauchery and violence. Then the RIFTS came, and very little changed.
That's not strictly true, actually. Lots changed, really quickly and horribly. The South-Eastern coast of the American Empire didn't fare as well as the midwest, specifically the Michigan area, did in the aftermath of armageddon. Tidal waves hundreds of miles wide buffeted the shores, hurricanes "stacked up like boxcars" to smash into coastal communities, and long dormant tectonic plates activated. The entire region nearly sunk into the sea, taking huge portions of the area's population with it.
Sometimes, less Florida is more Florida.
Virtually every coastal city was completely washed away, the only surviving citizens moving inland to avoid the absurd death storms that came with the RIFTS. The centers of science and learning that had been built up before the cataclysm are now nothing more than washed out old ruins, their empty streets overgrown with the rampant, inevitable vegetation of the subtropical region. The largest remaining settlement is in the ruins of what was Charlotte, now referred to by the locals as "the Char". It's slightly less full of dinosaurs than the rest of this place.
Dinosaurs: Not always an upside.
True to the elevator pitch, the area is now one big swampy lowland, having sunk significantly in elevation FOR REASONS and is cut off from the north and west by a new extention of the Appalachians. And dinosaurs live there. All of them, from every era, even some made up ones. That breathe fire and turn invisible, because of course they do.
Somehow this guy stayed out of the fossil record.
The two major industries in the area are looting and hunting, both largely based out of "the Char". During the Golden Age a lot of research complexes were built in the strip between Virginia and Florida, mostly in conjunction with the space race programs of the period. Lots of really high end tech is out there to be scavenged if you can run the gauntlet of territorial thunder lizards, man-eating plants and crazed former Floridians. Your search may necessitate spelunking or even scuba excursions into the depths of ancient research bunkers that definately aren't inhabited by some kind of ancient predator or extra dimensional horror.
Down there
Waiting
Hunting is exactly what you think it's going to be. A cottage industry has grown up glory hunting dinosaurs, because this little corner of the world is quite obviously just an excuse to mash up Gator and Jurassic Park. (Though as far as I can tell there isn't a single MDC airboat to be found in either book.) (This is wrong, actually. "The Skeeter" is a two man airboat that can go 50 mph and has 65 MDC. So not a great option, but it definitely exists.)
Ach! Croc! Run!
To exactly that end, there are not one but two enormous, prehistoric alligators to hunt/flee/die from an aneurysm near to. They are both 40 or so feet long, top out at around 600 MDC and have a bite attack that hits like a railgun burst. And you can make gator-skin jacket out of them that can absorb laser blasts.
Ahmsosneaky
Theoretically you could do the same with any of the other dinosaurs included here, and hoo boy are there a ton of them. All of which are mega-damage creatures with fearsome natural weapons because MAGIC ENERGY and the fact that they'd be pretty lame if one stray ion blast turned them into chunky salsa.
My I.Q. is only 1d4, so they make me wear a helmet.
In case murky water filled with prehistoric predators wasn't enough, the swamp is also home to multiple varieties of carniverious plants, some of which have a cadre of symbiotic junky fairies that feed them passing humanoids. The fairies actually turn out to be pretty ok if you can get them off the death-junk, but their family throws a reverse intervention if they try and go straight. Fuckin' Future Florida, you guys.
Just one more hit, man. I'm good for it.
Also entering the ring are challengers from the other side of the RIFTS, a lot of which are oddly thematically appropriate for a place filled with dinosaurs. Because if you're going to go, go all in. They're also horrifying.
Extra eyes to see you with, my dear.
One other form of dino worth mentioning is the Raptor King, a hyper intelligent predator that uses human-style tools and even keeps slaves to do its bidding.
Sorceror Supreme of RIFTS Earth.
Included as well are a ton of rules for making your travels in the swamp a living hell, if they weren't already. Notably, you can now catch Yellow Fever and Malaria. Because there's no greater adventure than bleeding out through the rectum in a suit of heavy MDC armor.
Confederate Ghosts. Because sure, why not.
Borgs, robots and power armor face periodic rolls to avoid rusting into uselessness tin-man style. Heavier armors make it harder to swim and risk various forms of heatstroke and similar maladies. Weapons that aren't properly maintained might misfire due to corrosion and moisture. Basically, it's a nightmare. I guess there's a reason a ton of parties never leave the midwest.
Bargin bin dragons.
Next Time (?)
The Evolution of Florida Man
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
I'll have to include a correction.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
I'm not sure what this is, but it's awesome.
The apocalypse was not kind to the American Southeast. Almost all civilization was wiped out by various sea and earth-based natural disasters, leaving the few survivors to improvise their own continued existence. The complete collapse of the food distribution infrastructure along basically every public health and safety program pretty much doomed whatever cities weren't destroyed by tidal waves, earthquakes or chain-icanes. Smaller, rural communities fared somewhat better, especially those that were already primarily agricultural. It is from those settlements that most of the remaining population of the Dinosaur Swamp is drawn.
As it turns out, they were more prepared than the dinosaurs.
If they weren't before, the pressures of the coming of the RIFTS forced these rural southerners to become proficient explorers, scouts and hunters. Those that didn't fall into barbarism (we'll talk about them later) still learned to live off the land and effectively combat the huge reptilian creatures that had emerged as threats as the rifts opened.
"Them's some good eatin'."
Eventually, a level of civilization reasserted itself in the ruins of old Charlotte, now known as "the Char". A lose confederation of peoples set up camp around the ruined city center, trading knowledge and relics scavenged from the area. As points of light go, it really isn't so bad. The Coalition has started sniffing around, though, so it's really only a matter of time until it loses the rustic charm and turns into yet another fascist hell-hole.
"Aw, really? Guess I'll just grab my stuff."
The new O.C.C.s presented as part of the "civilized" society of the swamp are all basically just riffs on existing archetypes, without much to recommend them over the the originals. Besides maybe their names. The Swamp-Stomper and Pathfinder are both new Wilderness Scouts focused on swamp life. The Naturalist is a Rogue Scientist with an emphasis on, well, naturalism. The Legacy Scout is another Wilderness Scout variation, but it adds in some technical abilities to aid in looting the old centers of progress more effectively.
Canis Lupis Disapprovius
Big Game Hunters have a specialized form of sign language known only by other Big Game Hunters as an O.C.C. ability. Good luck using that at any point. Another of their special skills is a laundry list of bonuses to other skills, because it wouldn't be RIFTS if there wasn't some nested, recursive number fog.
And skulls on hovercycles.
To help with their various huntings and explorations, there are also a variety of new weapons available from named manufacturers in the Char, which is admittedly a neat piece of worldbuilding. Less neat, however, is that they're all ballistic gunpowder weapons, and almost uniquely non-Mega Damage. One does 1d6 MD, but it's a breach loading single shot rifle that takes 3 attacks to fully cycle. They do a pretty neat trick, though. They get a +2 bonus to Aimed Shots that counts toward their natural roll, making Critical Hits much more likely. Because they're so incredibly accurate, you see. More accurate than lasers, apparently. It remains unclear how useful it is to hit a 600 MDC triceritops in with a 4d6 S.D. bullet, regardless of how well placed it is.
It does look completely bad ass, though.
On the other side of the "surviving the apocalypse" coin, many of the former occupants of southern cities fled for the countryside and embraced an odd form of rustic tribalism. In the centuries since the collapse of civilization, they have developed a robust culture, and rejected the use of the technology they blame for ending the world. Actually, that last bit is something of a sticking point, as it's hard not to recognize the value of Mega Damage weaponry when you're constantly surrounded by dinosaurs. Some tribes have re-embraced the use of "modern" weapons and armors, while others utilize less conventional options.
He's just sad because they took away his plasma thrower.
Among the barbarians are a large number of mutants, most of are basically just psychics that look weird. Which fits the bill, I suppose. Some of them are the classic Master Psychics from the core book, Mind Melters and Bursters, while others are fairly normal tribespeople with limited access to special senses and brainwhammies.
They traded all their P.B. for I.S.P.
Barbarian Eco-Wizards, a new variant on Techno-Wizard, have learned to create MD weapons out of dinosaur parts. These range from the simple to the absurd, but almost always end up looking like something out of Dark Sun.
If Athas had stegosaurs.
Axes made from stegosaurus plates. Spears tipped with triceratops horns. Tomahawks bladed with raptor claws. It's some seriously bad ass stuff, all things considered.
Turnabout makes for fair stabbing.
Likewise, the barbarian warriors wear suits of Mega Damage armor scrounged together from looted tech and dinosaur hide. They actually have a class sort-of ability, hidden in their starting equipment lists because of course it is, of randomly rolled MDC armors. With separate stats for the main body, limbs and helmet, which no other body armor in the game has. RIFTS.
I'm seriously having Dark Sun flashbacks with this one.
The Eco-Wizards also make some other stuff, most of which looks like the dino-hippy version of TW gear.
No, really. They're the Feminist Art Philosophy students of Techno-Wizardry.
Other semi-useful gear can be made from the so-called "steeltree", a botanical immigrant from some far-flung dimension. The wood and leaves of the tree can be used to forge Mega Damage weapons and armor, though such products are not exactly high end. You can make MD arrowheads out of it, which is cool. And there's a bird that only eats berries from these trees and turns a metallic blue. So there's that.
But can you make sparky claws that ignore armor? Didn't think so.
A couple new R.C.C.s round out the players options side of Dinosaur Swamp. There's a species of humanoid spider-people, which is just as weird as it sounds, and a rehash of the Horune Pirates. The Horune are an extra-dimensional species of raiders and lunatics who terrorize the shores of the Americas.
They're basically Batarians.
Not a single species of gater-person to be found. Which is weird, because RIFTS already has at least 2 that I know of. I guess Leatherhead is really Australian.
Because in Africa they hunt in packs.
Next Time:
Second Use for Orphans
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
You're describing almost all specialized rehashes.
These are recent-ish. 2004, I think. And they're by someone who is new to the franchise.
Overall, though, there really isn't anything here but setting information. And dinosaur stats for the GM, I guess.
No new robots or power armor, no plasma chainsaws or particle beam bows for hunting MDC creatures. No juicer variants. Not even any real new body armor to go with the setting, which is almost unprecedented from what I can tell. And no mutant animals, which, I mean mutant dinosaurs are right there and already exist in other Palladium properties to reuse the art assets from.
I don't know if this was a conscious effort to reign in some of the craziness of the past or just a middling effort by a first time contractor, but there's not much here to recommend it to players that are fans of RIFTS for it's zaniness.
Edit: And in fairness, something like 45% of new O.C.C.s in world books are just variants on Wilderness Scout. There's usually one or two per book that really stand out, but that makes us forget about the other 9 that are all Triax grunts with the primary differentiation being a toggle on who gets Espionage skills.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
I'm looking forward to what kind of mash-up they have planned, because something's got to give
That system just never really worked for me.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Don't think of this as an adaptation of RIFTs to a system you won't play. Think of it as another way for Siembieda to create a train wreck. And just watch.
If they do that, is it really an adaption rather than just a reprinting?
I'm still waiting on those Robotech minis.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
I almost backed that. Then I remembered that Palladium is still taking pre-orders for Mechanoids Space and has been for at least a decade if not longer.
Well it's likely it would have a working set of rules so I think we can count that as at least a new edition.
Oh, I didn't back it. I'm a fanboy, not a sucker.
But I was planning in getting into it while I had a workshop to paint in. Sadly, that time is almost past.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
FFG isn't putting out Star Wars stuff fast enough to fill it.
I'm weak.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
awhile back the city I live in was looking for an interim city councilperson
the applications were a matter of public record, and one of the local news blogs dug them all up and made a list of all the least likely candidates
one of them was the guy who ran my Rifts game in high school
I was like, "no way they should totally pick Kyle, he let us party in his barn"
For example have you heard of this crazy game called Rifts.
Pretty sure that when you're talking about Rifts, the shoulder Devil is the good one, with a horrifying sapient insect mage from the nether reaches of the aether on the opposing shoulder.
Could be wrong though, it's been a while since I had any exposure to Rifts beyond this thread.
You just have to not get hung up on it. Ditching MD is pretty easy. You either go to a cinematic system where the lethality of a bullet/tank/laser/whatever are all kinda the same, or you adjust it so that lasers/boom-cannons are very dangerous and bullets are only sort of dangerous or whatever you and your gaming group are happy with.
Or just ditch lasers entirely because lasers aren't as cool or grimdark as bullets.
Let's take a trip together, mentally. For many of us, this will be a trip back in time.
To when smoking was cool.
You've just gone through the middle school pre-algebra daymare that is RIFTS character creation. Hours of effort have resulted in a bizarre but intellectually pleasing combination of R.C.C., O.C.C., psionics, spells and equipment that really gets your imagination cylinders firing. Maybe you built an alien Juicer with Mega Damage swords for arms or a psychic cyclops techno-wizard in appropriately sized, kitten-powered armor. The details are largely unimportant for this exercise, so just imagine the most awesome thing that 14 year old you could have come up with. Go nuts.
"It's a nice start, but I think it needs more extra-dimensional brain fire."
With the homework done, you and your incredibly unlikely team filled with marginally less awesome by virtue of not being you teammates embark on the grand adventure that is murder-hobo-ing in the ruins of North America. With lists of powers several pages long and armed to the literal teeth with Mega Damage weaponry, you are collectively prepared for any threat you might face in the wilds, be they dragon or deadboy. The world is your soon-to-be-smoking hulk of an oyster.
...and an Associates Degree in Bartending.
As the adventure opens, your gamemaster describes a scene of starlit countryside, putting you and your compatriots on the ruins of an old highway. A half-collapsed bit of overhead signage indicates that you are some 50 miles outside of Juarez. After a few moments of acclimation, feral cries erupt from beneath the overpass, and a few malnourished-looking D-Bees, unarmed and dressed in rags, charge your group. The Glitter Boy player laughs arrogantly and shatters the air with his Boom Gun.
Super popular among 14 year old boys, for some reason.
The salvo slams into the lead vagrant and ... nothing. It doesn't even blink. A barrage of pulse laser blasts issues from the place you're pretty sure the Brodkil Psi-Ghost was just a minute ago, washing over the same target, succeeding only in lighting his meager clothing on fire. Closing with the pyro-kinetic Felinoid Mutant Cyber-Knight, the newcomer smashes his hand into her stomach, denting her armor inward and lifting her off her feet, moonlight glinting off his now visible fangs.
Artist's Rendering.
In the world of RIFTS Earth, there are very few problems that can't be solved with bigger robots or superior firepower. Vampires, though, are one of those problems. Completely immune to normal Mega Damage weaponry, and indeed to basically all damage that isn't from a limited few sources, hordes of vampires were a gamemaster's hard counter to a proliferation of cartridge plasma weaponry and Kitanni dino-centaur power armor among player characters. A group that failed to properly prepare for the inevitable attack of the undead was basically screwed and probably very quickly dead.
And then un-deaded, again.
So, how does one effectively combat the vampire threat? Well, there are actually quite a few ways to get that done. They really don't like wood, for example. To the point that a wooden sword will wreck up even a Master Vampire pretty quickly in skilled hands, since they'll be taking double normal melee damage from it. Spears, arrows and such have roughly the same trick available. Silvered weapons can do the same thing, with silver bullets being a very popular redeadening method. It often seems like vampires exist mostly as an excuse for your Juicer to dual wield a silver katana and a 1911 Colt loaded with silver bullets.
Impractical but awesome.
Even less conventional methods are available, though, for the discerning vampire hunter. Running water will destroy a vampire, so submerging them is an option. As are water ballons, super soakers and techno-wizard water shotguns and SAWs. Holy water is also an option, but completely unnecessary. A squirt gun from Credit General will do exactly the same amount of damage.
Weaponized flat-top optional.
Crosses will harm and repel vampires, though no one is really sure why. A vamp scalded by one might even panic and lose a bunch of attacks swatting themselves to get rid of it. The shadow of a crucifix will also deal signficant damage, meaning that properly modified spotlights can be lethal. Even a flashlight and two pieces of tape can get you 2d6 damage against the undead, the same amount as a silver 9mm bullet.
Or, if you're into fisting...
Conventional railguns can fire specialized wood or silver ammunition, dealing signifcantly reduced Mega Damage but absolutely shredding vampires. Sadly, this is not an option as present for the Glitter Boy.
Bigger is only ALMOST always better.
Staking does not kill a vampire. Instead, it puts them into a state of stasis, which they recover from very quickly when the stake is removed, even if they have mostly decomposed in the meantime. The same is true for any of the methods outlined above, though. Actually killing a vampire requires decapitation and burning, and failing that they'll be back on their feet and trying to eat you again in 30 seconds at the outside. They are very, very hard to keep down. Fire, running water or sunlight will do the job, everything else is a temporary measure at best.
Personal hygiene is an ongoing issue.
In terms of personell, some vampire hunters are going to be significantly more useful than others. Glitterboys are going to be sub-standard as explained earlier, but with their high MDC, robotic strength and extra attacks from Power Armor Elite Training, they can still do some serious damage with a silvered baseball bat or something. Dog Boys get their normal bonus stuff against supernatural, and they're used to going hand to hand with monsters. Neural maces can be silver studded without losing much effectiveness, too. Psi-Stalkers can tell you when the vampire is well and truly dead, because they're going to eat what's left of the bloodsucker's soul, and they get the cool monster hunting bonuses. Mages can do things like create zones of sunlight and summon rain, and Carpet of Adhesion vampires until dawn.
Dmitri's Disco Ball of Relative Safety
Borgs are immune to being turned into vampires themselves (a process we'll discuss next time, maybe, since this is getting a little long as it is). They can also silver plate their whole body if they want. Crazies are of no special use when vamps are about, but they are just nuts enough to go looking for them so that's probably something. Juicers are, as always, incredibly useful. In fact, depending on your gamemaster's interpretation of the interaction between supernatural strength-based MD melee attacks and vampire hit points, some Juicer variants may just be able to instantly powder most vampires with very basic weaponry.
Just don't let them get turned.
But if you're really into hunting vampires, just bring a dragon. They natively have the ability to damage vampires with their physical attacks, breathe fire, can withstand plenty of Mega Damage claws and bites, regenerate at a comparable rate to the vampires themselves and as long as they're making decent decisions on their spell selection they can cast all the best anti-vampire magic.
Don't hate me for being awesome.
Eventually, most rune weapons and greater beasties would gain the ability to directly harm vampires as well. This is likely due to the fact that even in RIFTS it would seem a little strange if Zeus found himself without any proper means of damaging a minor alien undead entity.
Maybe try swan form, I guess.
Just about any RIFTS player you ask is going to have a story about hunting vampires, the ending of which will likely be determined by how well prepared they were. They first appeared in World Book 1, so they've been around in the setting basically forever. Their odd weaknesses (can't cross running water, need to sleep on dirt from their homeland, etc) tend to keep them pretty localized to arid climates. Primarily they ended up in places you would probably set your power armor psychic westerns, which is kind of weird given the source materials' propensity for fog-wreathed gothic castles and such.
Eastern Europe is Borg Country, now.
Maybe next time we'll actually get into the nature of vampires in RIFTS. They're far, far weirder than you would probably expect.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
What if the lasers are black though?
*removes_sunglasses_to_reveal_more_sunglasses.gif*
"A fire truck and a priest."
Vamps have Hit Points, no MDC or SDC. Dealing damage to them requires jumping through crazy hoops and using weird weapons, though. And they can fight to -20, while regenerating some crazy amount per Melee. And unless you stake-behead-burn them, they'll just stand back up once they regenerate above 0.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.