Savage Rifts and Weapons

First, let's start with the good. Combat is, as advertised, Fast, Furious, and Fun. Combat tends to be more "deadly", in that characters can and will be incapacitated relatively quickly. On the up side, however, incapacitated does not necessarily equal dead. Possibly just maimed, or otherwise marked, but not necessarily dead.

One thing is certain, however - the current release that we backers have needs some TLC. It looks like some sections, and even some weapons (since that's the focus of this post) were designed one way, and then forgotten when another design choice changed how the weapon actually interacted in away completely different from the intent.

For example, let's look at the Portable Rocket Launcher. It has an AP of 20 and does 6d6 damage. The mounted version has the same AP, with 7d6 damage.

Okay, so the PRL ignores pretty much any armor value, ever. The highest armor in the game that I've seen so far is on the Glitter Boy, at +18. What is supposed to be the pinnacle of personal powered armor is useless against a bazooka.

Surely the missiles are just as insane ... wait, they're not?

Vehicle Missile Launchers (VMLs)
VML:Mini - 5d6, AP 6
VML:Light - 6d6, AP 8
VML:Med - 8d6, AP 15
VML:Large - 10d6, AP 20

So, the closest we get to equivalent AP is the large missile launcher. For damage, we're looking at the light launcher.

A theory was proposed that the PRL was put in when they were doing armor like in Hell on Earth, where apparently tanks are running around with +100 armor as standard. When the changed how they were handling armor, they didn't update the PRL.

I think it's an even simpler transcription error. When looking at the text about missiles, the player's guide describes AP missiles over HE (HE being the default). AP missiles lose 2 damage dice, but gain +5 AP. If you look at a medium missile, it has a default statline of 8d6 AP 15. An AP medium missile would be 6d6 AP 20. There's other issues, but most of it can be chalked up to not paying attention when transcribing the data.

Still, I think its a problem that a Glitter Boy is at serious threat from a bazooka. I'll probably swap the medium missile for a light missile and give it the same treatment (4d6, AP 13) - painful, and can possibly take out GB, but less likely. An even less likely one-shot would be an AP mini-missile (3d6, AP 11).

That said, let's break down the categories:

Ammunition and E-Clips

My biggest issue with ammo and e-clips is the overall simplification. I get that it makes things more "Fast, Furious, and Fun", but the way they handle it is that an e-clip is rated based on total shots, not total energy. For example, let's say I have a laser pistol with 20 shots and an ion rifle with 20 shots. I can use the same e-clip between either of them (at least, that's how I read it - the alternative is that e-clips are per weapon, which is just counter to the source material of e-clips being universal). However, I could not use the same e-clip in a laser pistol that has a capacity of 10 shots. That needs a 10 shot e-clip.

This comes into play when pricing new e-clips and recharging them - the cost of recharge is the number of shots * 100 credits, and a new clip is double the recharge cost. So there's a definitive difference between a 20 shot e-clip (2000 to recharge, 4000 new) and a 10 shot e-clip (1000 to charge, 2000 new).

Grenades

Overall, grenades are grenades. Throw 'em, shoot 'em, get them over there somehow and they go boom - preferably amidst the enemy.
One oddity, however, is with the middle to entries, both Fragmentation (as opposed to Armor Piercing or Plasma).

The first one is 3d6 damage, LBT, 550 credits.
The second is 3d8 damage, MBT, 750 credits.

Not sure if the blast templates got switched or it was intended to have a larger blast for less credits. The difference in damage is at most 6 and on average 2, which doesn't really account for a smaller blast radius. I'll probably be swapping them.

Ion Weapons

Apparently in Savage Rifts, ion weapons act sort of like shotguns - +2 to hit due to spreading but loosing of damage at each range past short. Okay ... I can sort of dig that. It gives ion weapons a uniqueness beyond damage ratings, and I'm okay with that.

Lasers

Default weapon type in Savage Rifts, nothing especially special about them except that they provide +2 to vigor rolls to avoid bleeding out after incapacitation due to cauterizing the wound.

Particle Beams

Listed as a sub-set of lasers ... okay. Sure, why not. Supposedly they trade the range of a laser for extra punch, but in this case the "punch" is one increased die type and a straight bonus to damage.

If I recall my source material correctly, PBs were the premier anti-armor energy weapon type, typically used to take out giant robots, tanks, large supernatural creatures like dragons, etc.

As such, I would probably either trade the damage bonus for AP on a one to one basis, or simply double the AP. That would give the single PB example in the book (a pistol), an AP of either 4 or 5. That's enough to negate most of the armor bonus on most body armor, making PBs something to truly fear.

Plasma Weapons

Plasma ejectors are now large, unwieldy affairs, incurring a Snapfire quality.
Plasma engulfs the target completely, all at once, and so is treated as hitting the least protected area of the target. Not wearing a helmet? No armor bonus, then.
Plasma has a default 1 in 6 chance of igniting, causing 1d10 fire damage per round until doused.
Plasma is always Mega Damage.

So, big honking brute force weapons, and always effective (such as it is) against any target. I like it - it really cements its place as a squad heavy weapon.

Summary

Overall I like it, but it needs work. I have issues with how they handle ammo, and I think they need to tighten up some of the entries. Otherwise ...

• Lasers are your default, go-to weapon.
• Particle Beams are armor peelers (the way I have them set up).
• Ion weapons are energy shotguns.
• Plasma weapons are brute-force kick down the door heavy weapons.
• Grenades are grenades.

Modelling CS Response to Player Actions

Wanted: Dead or Alive

So this is something I've been working on since ... a while ago. Couple of years, at least, I think.

The basic idea is to give the CS a form of AI for the game. Something that responds organically to the actions the player group takes.

In the previous iteration, it was a percentage check much like a skill. The group had a "CS Awareness" stat, and the GM rolled it like a skill. On a success, the CS is actively pursuing the players, with the level of success indicating how bad of a response.

I may continue working on that, but with Savage Rifts finishing in about a week, I figure I should start looking at how to adapt my present ideas over to the Savage Worlds rule-set.

In this case, it's actually fairly straightforward. There are a couple of ways to handle it - the RAW Savage Worlds way and the Savage Rifts way.

The RAW Method

The RAW method is to, again, treat it as a skill check. The level of the skill is the general idea of how annoyed the CS is, while the TN is the result of more immediate actions. Suggested starting values for both are d4 and 6, respectively, making it very unlikely that a new group will attract particular interest at any given time.

Suggested modifiers:
Obvious DB(s) in the party: -1 to TN
Obvious use of Magic / Psionics against CS troops: -1 to TN
Within the borders of a CS territory: -3 to TN

Things that increase the die level:
Repeatedly wiping out CS troops
Assisting known enemies of the CS

The Savage RIFTS Method

The Savage RIFTS way, and my preferred way, is to borrow shamelessly from the Savage Juicer mechanics.

Give the players a Wanted level, and a Wanted die. At the beginning of the game session, the GM rolls the Wanted die. If the roll is above the Wanted level, the CS has taken notice of the players and has sent some forces after their group. The players may opt to lower their Wanted level (and lower is worse, in this case) to avoid the encounter, but in doing so they make it more likely to occur in the next session, and possibly with worse consequences: the lower the Wanted level, the bigger and nastier the force that is sent after the players.

Suggested starting points for Wanted are 8 and a d8 (yes, the Wanted die can Ace).
The Wanted die fluctuates based on player action:
+ 1 die level when travelling through CS territory
+ 1 die level when passing near a CS outpost
Still working on what would lower the Wanted die

Finally, the players may actively court CS intervention with flagrant displays of power. This is mechanically represented by lowering their Wanted level in exchange for a "super" bennie. I'm still working on the details of what this would entail, but an example might be that the group automatically achieves a particular task, or maximizing any roll (without raises), etc. It will need to be worth bring the CS closer to finding the group.

Work Still to be Done

These are very rough, off the cuff ideas that need refining and playtesting. In particular I need to determine what the CS response is at a given Wanted level, how to regain Wanted levels, and what voluntarily burning a Wanted level does when used for a "super" bennie.
Still, I think this is a good starting point and there's enough there for anyone reading this to run off with and make their own.

CS Medium Machine Gun

As noted in the Organization post, the CS lacks anything resembling a heavy machine gun. Hell, they don't even have a light machine-gun equivalent. The closest thing to a machine gun that I can find in Rifts at all are rail guns. I'll forgo the complaint that rail guns are not intended to be fast firing weapons (see the US Navy and their foray into RGs - damn thing sets the air on fire!) - Siembieda has obviously built his world with rail guns filling the role of many-rounds-fired projectile weapon.

With that in mind, I took a look at the CS arsenal and found a depressing lack of rail guns. The SAMAS flying power armor uses a rail gun. The Skelebots (think Terminator, but really, really dumb) use a couple of variations. That's it. The Skelebot models are listed as being used by troops in enhanced body armor, but they're really just used as oversized rifles - not an emplacement type weapon.

So, what to do? Glancing at the options and examining the role intended (use in a Heavy Weapons Squad), I think I'll have the CS port the C-40R (SAMAS rail gun) to a man-portable version. Or rather, I'm going to go back to the origin of the CS equipment: the NEMA equipment found in Chaos Earth. They have two man portable rail guns that seem to fit both squad and platoon level support roles.

The NEMA R-660 and R-670 were both rail guns intended to be fielded by two man human teams. The 660 was a lighter weapon, filling the role of M-60 or M-249. It had its own internal power source, negating the need to haul around the additional weight of a power pack. The 670 was a heavier weapon, analogous to the M-2. If the C-40R (SAMAS main weapon) is patterned off of the Silver Eagle's USA-40R, then there's no reason that the CS wouldn't have something similar to the 660 and 670. However, the CS aren't as advanced as NEMA was and have been reverse engineering their tech and using inferior materials. This translates to bulkier, heavier gear, accuracy degradation, and externalization of some features such as the power supply.

C-450R

This is a medium, all-purpose rail gun designed to be used by a two-man team or a single augmented user. The C-450R has a fair amount of recoil requiring it to be braced on a bi-pod for most users. Users with a PS of 22 or higher can use it without the bi-pod without penalty; users with a PS of 18-21 will take a -2 penalty to strike while users with less than an 18 PS will take a -5 penalty to strike.

The weapon is belt fed and takes the same ammunition as that used for the C-40R and C-200. Typically the weapon is deployed with C-200 style ammunition drums and belts as those are more man-portable than the nearly 200 lb drum used by the SAMAS.

Primary Purpose: Assault, Anti-personnel

Secondary Purpose: Defense, Light Anti-armor

Weight: Gun: 45 lbs, Ammunition: As C-200 and C-40R

Mega-Damage: A burst is 20 rounds and inflicts 4D6 MD. A single round deals 1d4 MD.

Rate of Fire: Each burst is one hand-to-hand attack.

Payload: As C-200 / C-40R

CS Organization

The Coalition States - depending on your perspective they're either one of the most evil organizations in North America, if not the world, or they're the saviors of humanity. It's quite possible that they're both.

One of the books that Palladium released for Rifts was World Book 11 (WB11): The Coalition War Campaign. It gave the CS a major face lift, updated and upgraded a lot of it's gear, and provided quite a bit of background information. However, I feel that the squad make-ups are lack luster and don't really feel like part of a true military. Now, this is easily chalked up to the writer simply not being familiar with the military and looking at it from the point of view not dissimilar from that of a Hollywood producer. I, however, want some extra realism with my extreme gonzo setting, so I'm setting about addressing that.

First, let's discuss how the US Army does things. The smallest unit usually encountered at an organization level is the Squad. A Squad is typically nine members strong, with a Squad Leader and two Fire Teams of four members each. A Squad's actual make up and load-out is dependent upon the intended purpose of the Squad. Here we will discuss two real world Squad types and two that will exist only in Rifts Earth.

Rifle Squad

A Rifle Squad is the bread-and-butter Squad of the military. When people think of an infantry squad, they're really thinking of a Rifle Squad. Generally speaking the squad will carry similar gear with two of the squad toting automatic weapons. The US Army fields Rifle Squads with nine members - a Squad Leader and two Fire Teams. Each Fire Team is lead by a Team Leader and consists of an additional three members. The CS version is similar, but instead of two Fire Teams of four, they field three Fire Teams of three, giving the CS Rifle Squad a size of ten members total. The reduced Fire-Team size is a nod to Siembieda's idea that the combat in Rifts Earth has evolved to be much smaller in scale due to the overall destructive power of an individual soldier.

• Squad Leader - SGT, CA-4, CP-50
• Fire Team Alpha
• Team Leader - CPL, CA-4, CP-40
• Rifleman - PVT, CA-4, CP-40
• SAW - PVT, CA-4, C-29
• Fire Team Bravo
• Team Leader - CPL, CA-4, CP-40
• Rifleman - PVT, CA-4, CP-40
• SAW - PVT, CA-4, C-29
• Fire Team Charlie
• Team Leader - CPL, CA-4, CP-40
• Rifleman - PVT, CA-4, CP-40
• SAW - PVT, CA-4, C-29

Heavy Weapons Squad

A HW Squad is typically designed to either provide heavy anti-infantry firepower or heavy anti-vehicular firepower. In the modern military, a HWS typically runs two machine guns and two anti-armor weapons. For the CS, this will likely be a pair of CTT-P40 particle beam cannons and a pair of CTT-M20 mini-missile launchers. There is a surprising lack of heavy machine gun equivalent in the CS arsenal - then again, they're typically dealing with single to small groups of high defense targets rather than other armies, so I suppose this makes sense.

Assault Squad

This is a purely fictitious squad designed for Rifts Earth. With the prevalence of magic, psionics, and the like, melee combat has seen a resurgence. The Assault Squad is designed to handle that. Composed primarily of juicers and combat 'borgs, the assault squad is designed to get into the enemy unit and wreak havoc up close an personal. Since this is a purely fictitious squad type, it will require more thought on it's composition and so will be detailed in a later post.

Psi-Squad

The Psi-Squad is an attachment from PSI-Batt. It's really just a larger version of the Rifle or Assault Squad, but with CS Psi-Stalkers and Dog Boys. The squad leader is either a highly trained SF type or a well respected Psi-Stalker. The fire teams are lead by Psi-Stalkers with their members comprised of between three and six Dog Boys. Total squad size: between 13 and 22.

Again, being a fictitious squad type, I will detail it's composition in a later post.

Rifts Tactics

Having gotten some perspective from the RRT stuff, I think I can start piecing together what a Rifts Tactics game would look like. I'll be posting individual model stats periodically, but we'll start with the CS Grunt.

Basic Conversion Factors
These conversion factors are the baseline for given values - individual attributes may be tweaked up or down.

Speed: Given or calculated MPH / 15. 15 MPH = 1" MV.
Range: Given Range (in ft) * 3/1000.
MDC: Given MDC of main body / 25.
MD: Maximum damage of weapon / 20.

I have not done any work on calculating attack or defense values (GUN / DEF in RRT).

CS Grunt

---

MV    | 1"
MDC | 4
RNG  | 6" (4" for C-29)
MD    | 2 (3 for C-29)

Our friendly cannon-fodder CS Grunt is back, and ready for action. As we've calculated before, the Grunt has a SPD of 20 which translates to about 14 MPH. This gives him 1" of MV, which makes sense at this scale. Infantry are SLOW compared to modern vehicles.

He's wearing CA-4 armor, which nets him an MDC of 4. Not the most resilient thing on the battlefield.

He's wielding a CP-40 rifle. It has a range of 2000 ft and does a max of 36 MD. Rifts Tactics stats would be 6" range and 2 MD.

So, he's not much to look at on his own: MV 1 MDC 4 RNG 6 MD 2.
However, the strength of the CS infantry is not in the individual, but in the army itself. I foresee CS infantry being bought by the platoon, with three to four stands of ten troops each (squads). To put this in perspective, a single stand would have 40 MDC and be putting out 20 MD. A full platoon is racking 160 MDC and putting out 80 MD, and that's assuming no special weapons. Based on my design for CS organization (still being worked out, hopefully it'll be published by the summer), each squad is rocking three C-29 plasma ejectors. So, a squad is putting out 7*2 + 3*3 MD, for a total of 23 MD per stand. 92 MD per platoon. A single squad could conceivable take out any known power armor and a few robots while they're at it.

So what's the downside? Speed. They are abysmally slow compared to everything else. Most units will outmaneuver them or take them apart before they close to a range at which they can bring their full fire power to bear - the CP-40 has a range 6" but the C-29 only has a 4" range. That's two rounds of advancing that the C-29s aren't being used. A smart opponent will use fast, hard hitting units to close and destroy the infantry before they're able to open up. Missiles work great as well.

Rifts TTWG - Issues Pt 2

I've had a chance to compare Robotech RPG Tactics values to their book counterparts. Holy sweet mother of pearl, there's some handwaving going on.

A gun with a 20 mile range is set to 36". A gun with 3200 ft range is set to 9". The GU-11, with a 4000 ft range, is given two range values: 24" and 12". The 24" is when used in giant robot mode and is able to aim better, so we can probably assume that 24" corresponds to the 4,000 ft and the 12" is probably closer to 2,000 ft.

Let's ignore the weapon with a 20 mile range - that was obviously a necessary hand-wave. Instead, let's look at the GU-11 and the .50 cal machine guns. We want the ratios to be roughly the same between the un-scaled and scaled ranges.

3,200/4,000 = 0.8, this is the base ratio between the .50 cal and the GU-11.

If we assume 4,000 = 24", then the scaled ratio looks like:
9/24 = 0.375, not good.

If we assume 4,000 = 12", then the scaled ratio looks like:
9/12 = 0.75, much better.

Okay, so 12" = 4,000 ft ... which also means the GU-11 is getting its range doubled for aiming. I suppose I can accept that.

If we accept that 12" = 4,000 ft for most cases, that means the CS CP-40 will have a 6" range. For 6mm scale that's not terrible.

How about movement, though? The Tomahawk has a ground speed of 55 mph, or about 81 ft per second. Tomahawks have a scaled movement of 5" per turn in RRT. The Defender has a speed of 61.2 mph, or about 90 ft per second. At first blush it looks like the RRT speed is the max speed / 10, rounding down. However, the Spartan has a speed of 65 mph and a RRT speed of 7, suggesting that they rounded up for that one, or simply to differentiate it from the Defender's speed of 6 since the Spartan is designed to close for melee.

Okay, so mph/10 as speed in inches per turn. I can actually work with that on the infantry level by determining their effective MPH and going from there. CS Grunt with a SPD of 20 moves 1200 ft per minute which roughly translates to 14 MPH. That would give the Grunt a movement of between 1" and 2", depending on which way to fudge.

Mmmkay ... what about the VF? Apparently the VF just breaks all kinds of rules. It's running speed as a battloid is 100 mph but it has a RRT speed of 5? I understand the need to fudge the speeds of the Guardian and Fighter modes, but why cut the Battloid's speed in half?

In any case, going with a general MPH/10 = movement in the TT game, the Mk V APC will move 9"

Skills Variant

Palladium is definitely a skills based game and it provides one of the most straightforward depictions of how likely you are to succeed at a given skill that I've seen - your skill is expressed as a straight percentage chance.

However, for all that, skills are static once chosen. The only differences between your skill and the skill of that other guy are when the skill was chosen, any OCC / RCC bonuses, and any bonus from a high IQ. This is boring to me, so I decided to make a house rule (a common occurrence, in Palladium games).

At each level, as written, you advance every current skill you have by its per-level amount. 

My house rule is simply that you may forgo advancing one skill to "double" advance another skill. For example, let's say that I have Climb and Forensics. I want my character to be something of a legend when it comes to Forensics, so when I gain a level I might advance Forensics twice and let Climb sit at whatever percentage it's already at.

This begs the question of how to track all of this - after all, we want to minimize the complexity of any house rule so that it is easy to implement and does not overly complicate the game. With the traditional skills system you may have tracked when a skill was learned for easy reference and re-computing should something go awry. The easiest way to implement this house rule is to instead track what level a skill is at. Picked up a skill at 2nd level and you're now 3rd? That skill is level 2. 

Due to the nature of some skills, this approach only works for skills with actual per-level percentages or level based progression. For example, this will not work with Body Building or Boxing, but will work with most Weapon Proficiencies. Additionally, you may only do this swap once per skill per level. In other words, you can't add two extra levels to a single skill by not advancing two other skills - it's a strict 1:1 scenario.

Let's look at a more cohesive example. I have a Veritech Pilot (Robotech RPG, 2nd Edition). Let's say he's 1st level, fresh out of the academy. He has the following skills of note at level 1 (NB: This is not comprehensive in the least - if you want details on the Veritech OCC, please support Palladium and by the book linked at the beginning of this paragraph):

[1] Computer Operation

[-] Forced March

[1] Language: English

[1] Military Etiquette

[1] WP Handgun

[1] WP Rifle

[1] Mecha Pilot: Veritechs

[1] Wilderness Survival

The number between [ and ] denotes what level the skill is at. [-] indicates a skill that does not level.

Now, let's say the pilot levels up and reaches 2nd level. He decides that he wants to be something of an ace in his VT and somewhat of a crack shot with a pistol. He looks at his skills and decides he doesn't much care about etiquette or computers. Truth be told, he doesn't much care about forced marching, either, but that skill isn't a candidate for the house rule. So, rather than adding a level to Computer Operation or Military Etiquette, he instead adds those levels to WP Handgun and Mecha Pilot; Veritechs, respectively. Now his skills look like this:

[1] Computer Operation

[-] Forced March

[2] Language: English

[1] Military Etiquette

[3] WP Handgun

[2] WP Riflee

[3] Mecha Pilot: Veritechs

[2] Wilderness Survival

Astute readers may notice that skills have the potential to cap pretty quickly. The mathematical among you may even see that a skill will reach level 15 by character level 8 if that skill has an extra level added to it at each level past the first. How do you handle that? How do you handle the potential for skills well above the 98% soft-cap?

There's a couple of ways. The first is to simply disallow any more levels to be added to a level 15 skill. This is the easiest way, but also brings us back to everyone looking the same at max level. The other way, the way that I handle it, is to let the skills get high. At worst a skill will be level 29 at character level 15. Is that alot? Sure. However, remember the soft cap - no matter how huge that skill gets, the character will always have a 2% chance to fail. That huge skill of, say, 144%, simply provides a buffer against penalties. He can suck up 46% worth of penalties without worrying about his performance - and it's depressingly easy to get -46% or worse on a skill check.