Modern Cosmo-Knights: How and Why?

[Greepnak]

Hello. Has the Cosmo-Knight been revised since the original printing of Phase World? I ask this, because having looked at the Fleets of the Three Galaxies and the Minion War books (like the demon knight) I am not fully certain about the much-debated super power of the Cosmo.

How does a Cosmo-Knight hold up vs starships that inflict hundreds of thousands of damage with Neutron or Fusion cannons and have thousands of MDC? Even a high level Knight is sporting only the 500mdc cosmic armor and a few rounds of perhaps 3d6x50 Cosmic blasts.

I would understand if the answer was simply "Nope, cosmo knights hide from bigger stuff as much as any squishy CCW pilot".

The Fleets book talks about seven cosmo knights being instrumental in repelling a Dominator Star Fortress, though. So surely there's an element I'm missing here?

I mean I as a GM can make it happen through the power of temporary narrative power up and the like, but stilll... I have two cosmos in my game run by very invested players and I want to make sure they always have that level of fun that comes from living up to the Star-Superman ideal, punching meteors, eye beaming bottled demon missiles away, and wrestling with starfighters.

[Axelmania]

Human sized targets either get a big bonus to dodge or else benefit from a huge penalty to strike them, can't recall which, at the back of DB3. They can attempt to Dodge until they can land in the ship, at which point it wouldn't be feasible for a lot of the fixed larger weapons to aim at them, only the smaller point defense weapons on turrets. Situations like this is where you need GM wisdom.

Rifts Ultimate introduces penalties of -1 per 50mph of speed something is traveling. Mach 1 700mph is -14 to hit, and Cosmoknigjts get that speed per level.

More MDC is possible via weapon forcefields, which scale very nicely.

[Greepnak]

In order to speed up our rounds we've simply settled on an "anything moving faster than a walking pace is -6 to hit" houserule, because palladium combat takes a long time per round as it is and we were breaking out calculators a lot. Case in point the fleets of the three galaxies book says most space combat takes place at mach 10-12 velocities as ships maneuver around, but with their advanced targeting computers etc this is practical. Nothing could hit anything else if that RUE rule was applied in full literal sense to even a middle power vehicle scenario really.

The Demon Knight RCC addresses a lot of the omissions the cosmo description makes.... like the Demon Knight STARTS at mach 10 flight in space, while the cosmo just says mach 1 per level in atmosphere or FTL in space. The newer book(s) just have a lot more completeness than the original DB3 which is...old and pre RUE anyways. Plus they have full magic casting access and all they actually lag behind the Cosmo in is natural MDC which is more than made up for by access to magical shields and such.

Maybe I just need to do the legwork myself and update the Cosmoknight to fill the gaps...


Speaking of classes like the cyberknight/cosmoknight that must adhere to a code, is killing a paralyzed Gargoyle/other demon in a battlefield situation an alignment violation?

[Eagle]

I don't have the Flees of the Three Galaxies book, or the Minion War books. But if the weapons in them are comparable to the ships in the basic Three Galaxies book (like the Demon Star's Dark Energy Cannon that does 3D6x1000), then it's survivable. The average Cosmo Knight has about 700 MDC, and takes 1/100th damage from energy attacks. So the Dark Energy Cannon shoots and hits, and does an average of about 11,000 MDC. The Cosmo Knight takes 110, leaving him with about 590 remaining. Now he's not going to beat the ship by standing there and trading blows with it, but he doesn't have to. He's going to fight smart. Land on the hull where that big gun can't shoot you. Then blast away as much as you want. Plus, page 106 of the Phase World Sourcebook gives rules for targeting smaller targets with huge weapons. It's -12 to hit a man-sized target. So you got that going for you.

Speed-wise, Palladium's space combat just doesn't make sense. Ships are traveling fast enough that they are only going to be in range for a very short time. Their speeds are too high and their weapon ranges are too low. I think you're going to have to adjust that, because you're going from out of range to right next to the guy in one melee round. If two ships are traveling towards each other, they aren't even going to be able to shoot with most of their stuff because they'll zoom past each other too quickly. The Cosmo Knight probably needs starship-equivalent speed in order to fight them effectively, whatever you decide that speed will be.

[glitterboy2098]

the Phaseworld sourcebook has a section for ship combat. including tables of to-strike penalties for big weapons being fired at small targets. those massive anti-ship guns, fired at a human sized target, would basically be unable to hit short of a natural20. which means that a Cosmo-knight would be mostly facing down the smaller anti-fighter guns, which are basically just infantry scale or tank scale heavy weapons with better ranges. and aside from the occasional railgun, mostly energy weapons and thus subject to the CosmoKnight's energy resistance.

while a CosmoKnight could not bring down anything bigger than a fighter in straight up battle, their tactics against a shuttle, frigate, destroyer, cruiser, battleship, etc. is basically "get in close, blow a hole in the side, the board it"
once inside they are basically immune to anything the crew can effectively throw at them, and can wreck controls, powerplants, and the like from the inside where they are not protected by armor.

[Eagle]

Speaking of classes like the cyberknight/cosmoknight that must adhere to a code, is killing a paralyzed Gargoyle/other demon in a battlefield situation an alignment violation?

I'd say it depends on how you decide to portray demons and other similar monsters, and what the battlefield situation is.

If demons are evil, like supernaturally mwa-ha-ha evil, then killing one isn't ever a bad thing. That creature that possessed the little girl in The Exorcist? That thing isn't something you show any mercy to, ever. You should kill that thing if you get a chance. It's an inherently evil being that exists only to torture and kill. Now, lately it's become fashionable in fantasy literature to say that there are no evil races. From Shrek to Twilight, there are lots of examples of monsters turning out to actually be good guys. Some of it is creative storytelling, some of it is a standard "don't judge a book by its cover" morality tale, and some of it is a direct response to our own society's historical problems with racism and discrimination.

So you have to decide what kind of a story you want to tell. Is that helpless gargoyle actually a wonderful father, he's got his kids back home, and he just got drafted into the army and he wants to go home to his wife and family? Or is he an evil monster that may be sniveling and begging for mercy now, but if you let him go he's just going to fly off and devour someone else's kids?

Personally, I don't think Cosmo Knights should go around executing helpless people on the battlefield, even if they're on the enemy side. Unless, of course, it's an irredeemably evil creature that you have to put down before it kills again. The Splugorth don't get to be like "oh, I've changed my ways... honest." You fight those things to the death and you don't let up for a moment.

[taalismn]

Story cases in point; the German POW in 'Saving Private Ryan"...he's captured, he's spared, he could have run away, or surrendered to another unit. Instead he knives one of the Americans in one of the more protracted and (and in my opinion) horrible combat sequences. That could be considered evil.
The Japanese in 'Letters from Iowa Jima'? Most of them are patriotic, family-loving draftees...same as the Americans. Doesn't prevent the latter from using flamethrowers on the entrenched soldiers, and the former from torturing and killing a captured Marine just out of sheer frustration at their circumstances. In general, they're mooks caught in a bad situation; the Japanese are fighting to prevent an invasion of their homelands, the Americans because the Japanese regime believes in death-marches for captured soldiers and mistreatment of civilians.
Scale that up, power-wise, and accordingly. Substitute Kreeghor or Invaders for Germans and Japanese. Yeah, your survival/strategic objectives may depend on killing them, but using your powers/technology to torture/kill for the pleasure of it? That's refined evil there.
And even though I've written up reformed or good Splugorth/Alien Intelligences, yeah, you're wise to shoot first and ask questions later. That's the onus of being a supernatural bad guy gone good...burden's on you to prove that you really mean what you say.

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

I dont really think Cosmo-Knights need to be "Tuned-Up" at all, really. They are plenty powerful.

Against large starship weapons they have huge penalties to be hit (-12 to hit them, and any dodge attempt does not consume an attack - basically a free auto dodge), coupled with their bonuses to dodge, they are unlikely to be hit.

Even if they are, their energy resistance will probably still save them (1/100th - so even those beams that hit for thousands are survivable.

Cosmo Knights wouldn't just slug it out with a Battleship or similar - that's silly. Trying to destroy hundreds of thousands of MDC (dont even get me started on how ships even bigger than Battleships and Dreadnaughts were in Fleets with tiny amounts of MDC...) would be dumb.

Instead, hell fly in close, land on the hull, cut his way inside, and then cripple the ship. Fight his way to engineering and shut the power plants down, fight his way to the bridge and incapacitate or kill the crew, etc.

[taalismn]

I

Instead, hell fly in close, land on the hull, cut his way inside, and then cripple the ship. Fight his way to engineering and shut the power plants down, fight his way to the bridge and incapacitate or kill the crew, etc.

Fight smart. The Cosmic Forge would want its Champions to be something more than blunt instruments.

[Greepnak]

Re: Breaching and boarding, how would you handle that in your games? Similarly, Jonah and the Whale scenarios where people deliberately get swallowed or somehow otherwise penetrate the bodies of large enemies and start punching lungs. How do you manage that?

[Axelmania]

Case in point the fleets of the three galaxies book says most space combat takes place at mach 10-12 velocities as ships maneuver around, but with their advanced targeting computers etc this is practical. Nothing could hit anything else if that RUE rule was applied in full literal sense to even a middle power vehicle scenario really.

Applied in a full literal sense the Earth rotates ~1000mph @equator, so I think it is clear that it means relative speed. Which in ship of ship combat you can attain by dogtailing.

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

Re: Breaching and boarding, how would you handle that in your games? Similarly, Jonah and the Whale scenarios where people deliberately get swallowed or somehow otherwise penetrate the bodies of large enemies and start punching lungs. How do you manage that?

Well, the times ive run space opera, breaching and boarding was a full-party endeavor and was part of the adventure, so i'd written it up.

I dont really let the party split into disparate groups like that (bad for everyone's fun and hard to run) and i dont run super-powered games. (Cosmo Knight is not on the table at my game).

[eliakon]

Re: Breaching and boarding, how would you handle that in your games? Similarly, Jonah and the Whale scenarios where people deliberately get swallowed or somehow otherwise penetrate the bodies of large enemies and start punching lungs. How do you manage that?

Breaching and Boarding?
I make people tell me how they are going to get on board first and then we work from there. The usual plans seem to involve flying up to a hatch and blasting their way in that way or going in via a hanger bay.

I then run the game as a separated party game.

Jonah and the Whale in Palladium I tend to say "your attacks come off of SDC, then HP when those are all gone". Since the Palladium system is an abstract damage system in the first place, and wounds are not scalar to start with. Now if someone can find a critical spot then they can do stuff like make a death blow or what have you... but so far most of my players have not wanted to mess around with getting swallowed as step one of their plan

[guardiandashi]

Re: Breaching and boarding, how would you handle that in your games? Similarly, Jonah and the Whale scenarios where people deliberately get swallowed or somehow otherwise penetrate the bodies of large enemies and start punching lungs. How do you manage that?

Breaching and Boarding?
I make people tell me how they are going to get on board first and then we work from there. The usual plans seem to involve flying up to a hatch and blasting their way in that way or going in via a hanger bay.

I then run the game as a separated party game.

Jonah and the Whale in Palladium I tend to say "your attacks come off of SDC, then HP when those are all gone". Since the Palladium system is an abstract damage system in the first place, and wounds are not scalar to start with. Now if someone can find a critical spot then they can do stuff like make a death blow or what have you... but so far most of my players have not wanted to mess around with getting swallowed as step one of their plan

it was my brothers character and he was playing a godling. he kept getting attacked by elemental plane of water creatures basically using water sources as portals, so ya that 1 inch deep puddle in the parking lot? a 500' long monster whale came out of it to attack him.
he also kept wanting to go fishing when we were using a partially submerged skyscraper in old Miami Florida as a "base"... so he started wearing a couple MDC claymores strapped to his chest and back a lot of the time.

[glitterboy2098]

Re: Breaching and boarding, how would you handle that in your games? Similarly, Jonah and the Whale scenarios where people deliberately get swallowed or somehow otherwise penetrate the bodies of large enemies and start punching lungs. How do you manage that?

Breaching and Boarding?
I make people tell me how they are going to get on board first and then we work from there. The usual plans seem to involve flying up to a hatch and blasting their way in that way or going in via a hanger bay.

I then run the game as a separated party game.

Jonah and the Whale in Palladium I tend to say "your attacks come off of SDC, then HP when those are all gone". Since the Palladium system is an abstract damage system in the first place, and wounds are not scalar to start with. Now if someone can find a critical spot then they can do stuff like make a death blow or what have you... but so far most of my players have not wanted to mess around with getting swallowed as step one of their plan

i've generally figured breaching and boarding is why palladium spaceships above shuttle size have an MDC value for 10ft x 10ft sections of the hull..

[taalismn]

[
i've generally figured breaching and boarding is why palladium spaceships above shuttle size have an MDC value for 10ft x 10ft sections of the hull..

"Ya'know, I -was- kinda hoping we could take this ship intact and have some prisoners to question, but SOMEBODY decided to go rock-and-roll with their magazine-fed mini-missile launcher at close quarters."
"...oops...."

[Greepnak]

I liked something I found in another section of the forums that gives Cosmoknights a sort of Psi-mechanic ability to mentally hear and speak in electrical transmissions so they could hear radio distress calls in deep space and communicate back with the craft etc. The Demon Knight immediately addresses the "talk in space" issue by giving them innate Vacuum Speak.

I also like from the same post the idea of Cosmos being immune to non-magical blindness ( so they can do what they say, fly around and through stars or nuclear blasts etc)

They're fine on durability's account with the force field power...

I've been thinking of allowing the cosmo blast power-ups while in atmo in my game just because (if you've read my other post) I really am trying to indulge in the insane parts of RIFTS and thus, I'm putting a party of cosmoknights and dragons against things like Apsu of the Abyss. Yet 1d6-3d6x10 is a bit of a recipe for loooooooooooooooong encounters when you're looking at foes with 3k-10k mdc but I may just be looking at the issue wrong.

I really want to channel the Superman vs Darkseid vibe in the story and I feel like if there's any reason to play RIFTS over other post-apoc magicpunk games its to indulge in the crazy. Superman doesnt generally punch meteors unless he's fighting Darkseid but when he is, we get the World of Cardboard moment of amazingness.

[Axelmania]

I figure a cosmo-knight just brought a radio headset or something like that if they needed to communicate while flying around places. No need to give them a Demon Knight's power

[Greepnak]

I thought so too at first, but looking at all the book art (phase world interior, cover of the 3galaxies book, the demon knight playing brainsquish with a cosmo) they look pretty self-contained in the cosmo armor... so I dunno I draw a lot of "vibe" from the green lantern corps for them in my headcanon.

Also thoughts: Acceleration time for something that body flies like cosmos or mages using flight spells etc ever explained anywhere? Would be pretty amazing power fantasy to just go zero to mach five in an instant like something out of dragonball but from a game mechanic standpoint that gets into the whole speedsters break everything problem...

[glitterboy2098]

given that none of the spacecraft or atmospheric craft have acceleration times i am not surprised that cosmoknights lack it.

[Axelmania]

In HU the Sonic Flight power specifies they go from 0 to 700 in 4 seconds. Barring anything else to base it off, that seems fair enough.

[Nekira Sudacne]

I thought so too at first, but looking at all the book art (phase world interior, cover of the 3galaxies book, the demon knight playing brainsquish with a cosmo) they look pretty self-contained in the cosmo armor... so I dunno I draw a lot of "vibe" from the green lantern corps for them in my headcanon.

Also thoughts: Acceleration time for something that body flies like cosmos or mages using flight spells etc ever explained anywhere? Would be pretty amazing power fantasy to just go zero to mach five in an instant like something out of dragonball but from a game mechanic standpoint that gets into the whole speedsters break everything problem...

I just want to say, I always get confused when I see posts I don't remember making and then realize it's you

[taalismn]

[

I just want to say, I always get confused when I see posts I don't remember making and then realize it's you

Ah, facial recognition before text comprehension. That old monkey IFF just hasn't caught up to our more abstract symbology usage yet.

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

given that none of the spacecraft or atmospheric craft have acceleration times i am not surprised that cosmoknights lack it.

Well.. they ARE using Contragravity Drives in most cases, allowing them to break the bonds of inertia and gravity...

so they may legitimately be able to go Zero-Max instantly.

[Natasha]

I don't think they're breaking the bonds of inertia.

[Greepnak]

I thought so too at first, but looking at all the book art (phase world interior, cover of the 3galaxies book, the demon knight playing brainsquish with a cosmo) they look pretty self-contained in the cosmo armor... so I dunno I draw a lot of "vibe" from the green lantern corps for them in my headcanon.

Also thoughts: Acceleration time for something that body flies like cosmos or mages using flight spells etc ever explained anywhere? Would be pretty amazing power fantasy to just go zero to mach five in an instant like something out of dragonball but from a game mechanic standpoint that gets into the whole speedsters break everything problem...

I just want to say, I always get confused when I see posts I don't remember making and then realize it's you

Hahaha and I post so much this month, indeed! I wish we could set our own avatars... I do draw :/

Instant accel without inertial counter makes me think Spaceballs. LUDICROUS SPEEEEEEEEED

[Axelmania]

Maybe whatever makes inertial dampeners allows it? I never understood the theoretical physics there. Is why the Expanse is fun since there isn't any.