Environmental Body Armor and Magic Users

[(SHIFTY)]

I know there has been a rule about EBA body armor causing problems with Magic users magic. I am having trouble finding where it says this in the RMB and Ultimate Edition. Does anyone have any further information on this ruling? Thanks!

[EltonRobb]

Did you try the Gamemaster Guide?

[(SHIFTY)]

Did you try the Gamemaster Guide?

You know what? I didn't. I will check that out. I know I read it someplace.

[ShadowLogan]

Did you try the Gamemaster Guide?

You know what? I didn't. I will check that out. I know I read it someplace.

Rifts Book of Magic pg21 (in the Q&A section)?

I do think this was tacked on post RMB, but can be founded alluded to in RUE (comparing the Ley Line Walker OCC version, and their concealed body armor, something RMB lacks).

[(SHIFTY)]

Did you try the Gamemaster Guide?

You know what? I didn't. I will check that out. I know I read it someplace.

Rifts Book of Magic pg21 (in the Q&A section)?

I do think this was tacked on post RMB, but can be founded alluded to in RUE (comparing the Ley Line Walker OCC version, and their concealed body armor, something RMB lacks).

Ah ok thank you!

[Killer Cyborg]

I know there has been a rule about EBA body armor causing problems with Magic users magic. I am having trouble finding where it says this in the RMB and Ultimate Edition. Does anyone have any further information on this ruling? Thanks!

It’s not in the RMB; mages could wear any armor without interference with their magic until Siege on Tolkien or Federation of Magic.

RUE 188 has the rules.

Frankly, I suggest you just ignore them; they add nothing good to the setting or the rules.

[Warshield73]

I know there has been a rule about EBA body armor causing problems with Magic users magic. I am having trouble finding where it says this in the RMB and Ultimate Edition. Does anyone have any further information on this ruling? Thanks!

It’s not in the RMB; mages could wear any armor without interference with their magic until Siege on Tolkien or Federation of Magic.

RUE 188 has the rules.

Frankly, I suggest you just ignore them; they add nothing good to the setting or the rules.

The problem with ignoring this rule is that it eliminates many countermeasures to mages used by groups like the CS.

[Killer Cyborg]

I know there has been a rule about EBA body armor causing problems with Magic users magic. I am having trouble finding where it says this in the RMB and Ultimate Edition. Does anyone have any further information on this ruling? Thanks!

It’s not in the RMB; mages could wear any armor without interference with their magic until Siege on Tolkien or Federation of Magic.

RUE 188 has the rules.

Frankly, I suggest you just ignore them; they add nothing good to the setting or the rules.

The problem with ignoring this rule is that it eliminates many countermeasures to mages used by groups like the CS.

Eh.
What "many?"

I can only think of one, and personally never once had the whole "the CS sticks mages in heavy armor to hamper their magic” thing come up in gameplay.
I don't know that we ever had a mage taken alive by the CS, and if we DID just gagging and handcuffing them would suffice to stop spellcasting.

So it wouldn't have been--and wasn't ever--a problem for my group anyway.

For a group that routinely has the CS capturing mages, they could probably come up with something better anyway.

I don't think that specific scenario is worth mages making 2-3 extra dice rolls every time they cast a spell, mostly just to find out that nothing important happens.

Rifts worked just fine* before the Mage Armor rule, and that includes working fine before the CS had that particular mage-hampering tool.


Edit:
I mean, it worked about as good as it does now. Whether or not this is technically "fine" is debatable.

[Wise_Owl]

I'm with Killer on this one; it's a weirdly pointless rule that was ad hocced literally a decade into the product line. It never made alot of sense in the context of Rifts Magic and how Rifts Magic worked and getting rid of it is such a non issue... well because for a decade it was a non-issue.

[AceTW]

"...a mage taken alive by the CS, and if we DID just gagging and handcuffing them would suffice to stop spellcasting."

Wait, in addition to the black uniforms and German mimicry, the CS has ball gags and handcuffs too?

I'm not sure how to proceed with this information.

[Crimson Dynamo]

I know this is slightly off-topic, but do any of you know if there's an O.C.C. that grants spellcasting but which isn't a Practitioner/Creature of Magic class? Kind of like how several classes grant psionics but aren't Psychic classes.

I was wondering mostly because I was thinking about making a house rule that limits the armor penalties to magic to PoM classes only, but if only PoM classes can cast spells, it'd be a moot point.

[eliakon]

I know this is slightly off-topic, but do any of you know if there's an O.C.C. that grants spellcasting but which isn't a Practitioner/Creature of Magic class? Kind of like how several classes grant psionics but aren't Psychic classes.

I was wondering mostly because I was thinking about making a house rule that limits the armor penalties to magic to PoM classes only, but if only PoM classes can cast spells, it'd be a moot point.

The Demon Queller in Rifts Japan is listed in the GMG as a "Scholars and Adventurers" but has spell casting powers.
Gladiators and Superspies can have magic as their "special perk" and are men at arms
There are a few races in a few books that have innate spell casting. Some have RCCs and some are a race... meaning they could have some non-magic OCC, the classical example being the demigod with gift magic and the OCC of Wilderness Scout or the like.

Do those help?

[Crimson Dynamo]

It does, thank you!

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

I would imagine that the rule limiting mage armor was made in response to horror stories of people stacking Invincible armor (and maybe other armor spells) on top of regular body armor. By 5th level, Invincible armor is more or less heavy armor, along with damage mitigation properties and regeneration. Add that on top of standard armor that's already 125-150 MDC, and it's going to be somewhat overpowered at 5th level.

I just made a Keeper of the Garden OCC (Mystic Knights of the White Rose), and all Mystic Knight armor is presumably made of the same non-interfering materials. Keepers and Squires wear the light 35 MDC armor, while 'average' knight armor is 70, Infiltrator armor is 100, and the heavier ones are 130-150.

Only problem with the armor rule, is that certain magic classes (like the Keeper OCC) will never get access to Invincible armor. Even the regular Mystic will have to go around in worthless armor until they're high enough level to pick better armor spells than Ithan.

Expecting anybody to go into combat in 30-50 MDC armor is rather absurd, so by default I would take the Infiltrator armor. It only weighs 10 lbs, isn't restricted to any particular OCC in the description, and isn't environmental.

[Crimson Dynamo]

Nah, it's literally just a carry-over from D&D. Wizards wear robes not armor. It's one of those base assumptions D&D (and to a lesser extent, writers like J.R.R. Tolkien and Thomas Malory) has drilled into the common zeitgeist.

My solution is pretty simple: You can't benefit from more than one suit of physical armor and/or one type of energy-based armor, be it a force field, a spell, or anything else. If you try to put on more than that, they're completely ineffectual and start tacking on extra penalties to mobility, casting times, chance of spell failure and so on and so forth, as decided by me based on the totality of circumstances.

Rifts has plenty of munchkiny options available as is, trying to compound it by being an a-hole player isn't kosher with me.

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

Nah, it's literally just a carry-over from D&D. Wizards wear robes not armor. It's one of those base assumptions D&D (and to a lesser extent, writers like J.R.R. Tolkien and Thomas Malory) has drilled into the common zeitgeist.

But visually at least, the Mystic Knight's armor resembles classical armor.

As does, to a smaller degree, the Federation of Magic armors.

Then there's also Ironwood and Millennium tree leaf/bark armor.

The common bond between all of the above is that they seemingly want to keep a mage's base (physical) armor between about 50 and 70 MDC, on average. Presumably because they expect people to stack Invincible on it.

If you stack Invincible on Millennium bark armor, you're quickly going to reach power armor MDC levels. Add some of the higher-end TW rifles, and you can build a combat mage that rivals power armor in several key areas. I'm not against that possibility, but I can also see why some limiters have to be established. Limiters that, ultimately, we can totally ignore. But I don't mind them existing as 'suggestions'.

[Killer Cyborg]

Nah, it's literally just a carry-over from D&D. Wizards wear robes not armor. It's one of those base assumptions D&D (and to a lesser extent, writers like J.R.R. Tolkien and Thomas Malory) has drilled into the common zeitgeist.

But visually at least, the Mystic Knight's armor resembles classical armor.

As does, to a smaller degree, the Federation of Magic armors.

Then there's also Ironwood and Millennium tree leaf/bark armor.

The common bond between all of the above is that they seemingly want to keep a mage's base (physical) armor between about 50 and 70 MDC, on average. Presumably because they expect people to stack Invincible on it.

If you stack Invincible on Millennium bark armor, you're quickly going to reach power armor MDC levels. Add some of the higher-end TW rifles, and you can build a combat mage that rivals power armor in several key areas. I'm not against that possibility, but I can also see why some limiters have to be established. Limiters that, ultimately, we can totally ignore. But I don't mind them existing as 'suggestions'.

It's a bit of both.
Mages couldn't have armor in D&D because they were based on Artillery when Chainmail converted existing miniature-based war games to Tolkein-based fantasy. Which was partly a simulation thing, and partly a balance thing, in both cases.
Rifts--and this is one big thing that attracted me to the setting--initially favored simulationism with magic, and let mages wear whatever they wanted (with the caveat that they weren't properly trained for armor, so there were encumbrance issues with Heavy Armor, which was their concession to balance).
It's quite possible that they realized this wasn't enough balance for their tastes--Palladium is actually rather hardcore about balance... sporadically--so they added the bogus "new" rules in SoT or FoM, I forget where they first popped up.

But considering Palladium is the one who decided that Armor of Ithan (a spell which creates an invisible suit of armor) made sense to cast over normal armor, I don't think they have much room to complain.

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

Rifts--and this is one big thing that attracted me to the setting--initially favored simulationism with magic, and let mages wear whatever they wanted (with the caveat that they weren't properly trained for armor, so there were encumbrance issues with Heavy Armor, which was their concession to balance).
It's quite possible that they realized this wasn't enough balance for their tastes--Palladium is actually rather hardcore about balance... sporadically--so they added the bogus "new" rules in SoT or FoM, I forget where they first popped up.

But considering Palladium is the one who decided that Armor of Ithan (a spell which creates an invisible suit of armor) made sense to cast over normal armor, I don't think they have much room to complain.

Ithan's really quite weak compared to Invincible Armor. Not just in MDC per level, but much more importantly in damage mitigation and the fact that the last point of Invincible can theoretically take a 1,000 MDC blast and not transfer it to the caster. I've always considered Ithan the poor man's spell armor, suitable mainly for low-level Mystics than actual mages.

The main point of the mage armor rule, as I saw it when I first read it, was to merely emphasize that a mage cannot be fully encased in a heavy suit of EBA. Actually, super-heavy might be a better term. There are a handful of EBAs that blur the lines between standard armor and power armor, and the rule's probably aimed squarely at preventing anything with 150+ MDC being wearable by a mage.

Another point, I think, is that mages are, by design, supposed to be rather weak at low levels. If they can wear the best armor that everybody else can (and totally will) wear at level 1, then that weakness is mitigated.

This is something that probably didn't matter nearly as much early in Rifts' development, but as the books piled up, and new, stronger armor came with them, the mage armor rule was added.

I've never been bothered by the limitation, as I never had any intention of actually rolling to see if spells were ruined by wearing EBA or any armor that covered 51% of a mage's body. I simply cherry-pick the best magic-derived or TW armor I can find, which is MDC-equivalent to average medium to medium-heavy EBAs anyway.

[Killer Cyborg]

Rifts--and this is one big thing that attracted me to the setting--initially favored simulationism with magic, and let mages wear whatever they wanted (with the caveat that they weren't properly trained for armor, so there were encumbrance issues with Heavy Armor, which was their concession to balance).
It's quite possible that they realized this wasn't enough balance for their tastes--Palladium is actually rather hardcore about balance... sporadically--so they added the bogus "new" rules in SoT or FoM, I forget where they first popped up.

But considering Palladium is the one who decided that Armor of Ithan (a spell which creates an invisible suit of armor) made sense to cast over normal armor, I don't think they have much room to complain.

Ithan's really quite weak compared to Invincible Armor. Not just in MDC per level, but much more importantly in damage mitigation and the fact that the last point of Invincible can theoretically take a 1,000 MDC blast and not transfer it to the caster. I've always considered Ithan the poor man's spell armor, suitable mainly for low-level Mystics than actual mages.

Oh, it's definitely the more powerful spell, part of the power creep that Rifts has traditionally suffered from.
But it's also a suit of armor, and if Palladium hadn't set their own precedent for allowing a magically-created suit of armor to stack with physical body armor, then neither spell stacking with EBA would be a problem, and they wouldn't have felt compelled to neuter mages the way they did.
(Or rather, the way they tried to do, because ultimately the mage armor rules don't have much in-game effect as written)

The main point of the mage armor rule, as I saw it when I first read it, was to merely emphasize that a mage cannot be fully encased in a heavy suit of EBA.

That was a flat-out change, not an emphasis.

Another point, I think, is that mages are, by design, supposed to be rather weak at low levels.[/quote[

Well, that's the thing; mages in Rifts weren't originally designed to be weak at low levels.
They could use the same armor and weapons as Scholars/Adventurers, or even wear heavy MDC body armor if the didn't mind the encumbrance penalties.

I've never been bothered by the limitation, as I never had any intention of actually rolling to see if spells were ruined by wearing EBA or any armor that covered 51% of a mage's body. I simply cherry-pick the best magic-derived or TW armor I can find, which is MDC-equivalent to average medium to medium-heavy EBAs anyway.

Even TW armor hampers mages (to the extent any does) if it's made from artifical materials.
I think the only official stuff that works is the LLW Armor, Millenium Leaves, MDC Hide armor, and so forth.

But as mentioned, the penalties really aren't worth the hassle of changing up what armor you use, not from an in-game perspective.

People tend to react one of three ways to the rules:
1. They play without the rule
2. They give mages access to good armor that gets around the rule (which means the rule has no effect other than aesthetics)
3. They just spend the extra PPE and deal with the minor negative effects if/when they occur.

The only time the rules have any effect tends to be when people go with #3, and they get annoyed at having to roll 2-3 sets of extra dice every time they cast a spell.

[Crimson Dynamo]

Palladium is actually rather hardcore about balance

Well, there goes my monitor. I just spewed my soft drink all over it laughing hysterically at that comment!

[darthauthor]

HARDCORE ABOUT BALANCE!

What game are you playing?

Maybe the GM is hardcore about balance.
Maybe the players too.

But when your players are choosing Baby dragons to go up against CS grunts with a Rogue Scholar, and GB pilot in power armor on the same team it's not.

Then there are opponents like the Xiticix and the Splurgorth that might as well be undefeatable.

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

Even TW armor hampers mages (to the extent any does) if it's made from artifical materials.
I think the only official stuff that works is the LLW Armor, Millenium Leaves, MDC Hide armor, and so forth.

Well, if you get into the nitty-gritty of the armor descriptions and parse them like a legal document, even artificial materials can be used so long as they don't cover more than 50% of a mage's body.

The description in RUE says 'ideally no more than 30%' of the body is covered, with the hard line given at 50%. The casting penalty only applies to anything over 50%, which in my mind would automatically be all EBAs of any MDC amount.

However, most TW armor gets around this the same way Mystic Knight and, presumably, LLW armor does. The Mystic Knight armor description (in Madhaven) says that it's a composite of MDC ceramic and magically enhanced fabrics. Those 'magic fabrics' are presumably what covers the gigantic gaps in protection that the ceramic plates don't cover.

As I see it, the magic fabrics act as the flexible MDC Kevlar-equivalent in any set of mage armor, while artificial MDC plates can cover the vital areas and still not comprise greater than 50% of the coverage.

As a result, the only true limitation of the mage armor rule, is that a mage cannot (without penalty) be covered from head-to-toe in plate armor, or wear EBA. But partial plate that isn't EBA is fine.

Since the 'average' Mystic Knight of the White Rose wears armor that doesn't confer any penalty to casting and is 70 MDC, I consider that the lowest amount of armor I'd be willing to wear as a mage.

Furthermore, since most mage armor is essentially homemade, we can tweak the amount of protection we get for any OCC. I see no reason to give a regular Mystic, LLW, or Lord Magus, anything less than 70 MDC, as the Mystic Knight has established a precedent of what homemade mage armor can achieve.

[Killer Cyborg]

Palladium is actually rather hardcore about balance

Well, there goes my monitor. I just spewed my soft drink all over it laughing hysterically at that comment!

I get that reaction, because they’re BAD at balance, and they like to think they’re laid back about balance.

But they have a lot of rules that exist only for the sake of balance, usually sacrificing realism.
Start with the mage armor rule, then consider the -10 rule, then the invincible paper armor rule, the nerfing of guns from the original burst/spray rules, the GI Joe Rule, the constant power creep as Palladium keeps trying to balance old stuff with new stuff (dinos, CS gear, MDC grizzlies, Vagabonds getting mega gear to start, etc), the idea that certain dimensions are MDC and others are SDC, the damage ceiling so virtually nothing outpowers the Boom Gun… there’s tons of ways they go out of their way strictly for their sense of balance, even if they also shrug it off at other times.

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

I found a funny contradiction just now.

In my copy of Rifts Ultimate Edition (which is a 2008 printing, to be clear), the mage armor blurb states that pretty much any 'man-made' material is bad for mages. Including ceramics and plastics. Which I find amusing because even cloth is man-made/artificial, but let's ignore that for now.

In my Book of Magic, a much more recent printing (2021), if you go to the question and answer section early in the book (page 21), it paints quite a different picture. It singles out metal as being the only problematic artifice in mage armor, while ceramic and plastic get an unequivocal approval as being mage-friendly; along with 'natural' armors.

Both the Ley Line Walker armor descriptions and the Mystic Knight descriptions mention ceramic as forming, seemingly, the bulk of the plating.

Since the LLW's medium armor confers no casting penalties and can be 3D6+50 MDC, and the Mystic Knight's most common armor is 70, we can assume they're almost identical in construction. Potentially 68 versus 70 MDC.

Meanwhile, Ironwood mage armor (Arzno book) only has 60 MDC. Considering Ironwood armor is somewhat expensive, weighs 20 lbs, and is only found in an out-of-the-way region, it should really have stronger stats than it does.

White Rose Mystic Knight Infiltrator armor offers 100 main body MDC, weighs 10 pounds, and has zero movement penalties. Besides having activated stealth spells, it's said to be naturally silent and lightweight as a result of TW features that require no activation or PPE cost.

So, what I'm thinking somebody should do, is make an Ironwood armor that's 80-100 MDC, then lighten it with TW enhancement.

[Blue_Lion]

I know there has been a rule about EBA body armor causing problems with Magic users magic. I am having trouble finding where it says this in the RMB and Ultimate Edition. Does anyone have any further information on this ruling? Thanks!

It’s not in the RMB; mages could wear any armor without interference with their magic until Siege on Tolkien or Federation of Magic.

RUE 188 has the rules.

Frankly, I suggest you just ignore them; they add nothing good to the setting or the rules.

The problem with ignoring this rule is that it eliminates many countermeasures to mages used by groups like the CS.

Cyber ware still works.
As does gaging non ocean mages.


And the needs to be beat burned in the barrel of Woke.

[Blue_Lion]

I know this is slightly off-topic, but do any of you know if there's an O.C.C. that grants spellcasting but which isn't a Practitioner/Creature of Magic class? Kind of like how several classes grant psionics but aren't Psychic classes.

I was wondering mostly because I was thinking about making a house rule that limits the armor penalties to magic to PoM classes only, but if only PoM classes can cast spells, it'd be a moot point.

Witch. They get magic from a link to SN so they do not practice it they are just given it.

There is also the Super spy that has an option to get magic.