Thunderhowl wrote:Punstarr wrote:So what about the ease with which one can attain bonuses of +12-20 to Parry and Dodge? Make that character a Juicer and you have a dodging god.
Just a couple of points:
You can't dodge explosions, or brackets of 4 or more minimissles.
You can't parry gunfire or energy weapons or blasts.
You can't parry Psionic attacks.
Juicers are supposed to be dodging gods.
Juicers are hunted by the Coalition, and their twitchy, junkie behaviour makes them a pain in the ass to team with.
One year of downtime doesn't really hurt anyone, but it's a 5th of a juicers lifetime, and that's huge.
The best dodge bonus a juicer can start with at first level, assuming a very generous 25 PP is +9. That's high, but it's not extreme, and it requires the Juicer overloading on combat skills making them useless in any other situation. That goes up with level, of course, but higher level characters are supposed to be powerful.
Ok, I suppose I should clarify... in the games I played in when I was younger (back in the days when I owned every book for RIFTS that had been written), the GM often had no problem with allowing players to choose a HTH style from Ninjas and Superspies. By around 6th level I had a character with 8 APM, +13 to Strike and +18 to Parry and Dodge. -Mind you-, this was also a GM who allowed an extra D6 to be rolled if you initially rolled a 16 or higher on an attribute; if you rolled a 6 there, you got another D6. So on a series of perfect rolls, you could start out with a PP of 30. Unlikely but possible. Also remember I was around 16 at the time... the only system around (or so we said) that allowed for more twinkery was GURPS, and it exceeded Palladium's twinkery by a thousandfold. I've since long outgrown my munchkin phase (I'm nearly 30 now). Imagine a Juicer with HTH: Muy Thai Kickboxing.
Juicer armour is 45 MDC, and is not fully enviromental, which can expose the Juicer to gasses and chem/bio weapons and extremes of temperature.
If a Juicer is caught in the blast of a MDC grenade or missle, he'd better hope that his GM is forgiving, because non-enviromental armour means your armour survives the blast, but you don't.
Well that's certainly true for standard Juicers, but then they came out with Juicer Uprising (which don't get me wrong, was an amazing book), which introduced new Juicer variants, including the Mega Juicer. What crack was being smoked? A Juicer who's an MDC Creature... now imagine said Juicer with HTH: MTK as a Mega Juicer. Now he can afford to take a volley of missiles and some explosions, especially if he's wearing the (available in Juicer Uprising) environmental full body suits of armor now available to him with a lot more than 45 MDC.
Basically this argument can go back and forth for days, but it's not going to solve anything.
Well I wouldn't say I'm arguing, just expressing my opinions on the matter with a little debate. I understand what you're saying though.
You don't like Rifts, and I can respect that,
Not true. I love RIFTS... it was my first game and the setting is fantastic. I just think the Palladium system could use a major overhaul.
but don't claim the system is the only one that is prone to abuse and is worthless without an overhaul.
I never said it was the only system prone to abuse... just that it's one of the more easily abusable systems. More than most games, RIFTS tends to center on combat, and so players are naturally going to try and take every advantage to combat they can get (especially in a game setting as ungodly lethal as RIFTS. I can't tell you how many of my characters died)... the most readily available advantages are the physical skills. Unfortunately, most of the GMs I've played with tend to put little emphasis on non combat skills being needed (at least proportionate to the need for combat capability). Maybe it's just my experiences, but RIFTS to me is a game of kill or be killed... the world is ridiculously deadly.
ANY system can be abused, an argument that can be supported by the fact that every gaming table has some house rule changes that it makes to the system it's playing with. When you get a system as inclusive as Rifts you are, by definition, going to increase the amount of house rules.
This is true.
Does that make it more broken? Possibly. Does that make it worthless? Definately not.
I think I should clarify here. In no way, shape or form do I literally think the system is "worthless". It's just that in it's current incarnation, I have little desire to play the game. The only desire I do have stems from the setting rather than the system. I do not hate RIFTS... I freaking love the game. I'd love to hear some of your house rules, actually. Who knows? I may find some ideas that'll help me get past the flaws in the system that I perceive.
By the way, I looooove your sig file. Is it from the Civil War story arc? Cap'n America=Awesome!
Thank you!
Yes, that's the end of Captain America's speech to Spider-Man in Civil War. Cap is probably my favorite super hero.
I've been a fan of it for years and years and I finally found a reasonable conversion for it on the forums, so I thought I'd ask. *sigh*
GAH! Ah well. Can I make 7 or 8 different characters for when my they (inevitably) fail their dodge rolls?
, but right now I have to much going on, and I've not really played any PnP RPGs 
