Although I liked these rules, I like even more sticking closer to a more basic version of the rules. Spell hold (6020) was good, but it was hard to describe to players and I don't think they found it intuitive enough. Spell bolts (6030) was pretty different from the normal rules and essentially there so spell casting wasn't boring.

Number of sessions where it was significantly used: About 5.

Design Notes: Palladium's design effort of '-10, no bonuses to dodge' when attempting to spoil the aim of a shooter and dodge their attack would have been more honest if such dodges were just outright eliminated. The worst part is the inability for a juicer or any other similar character to dodge a bullet/lasers trajectory any better than a grandmother in a wheelchair, which kills off the flair such iconic characters have. It might sound desirable if you only consider the speed of the projectile. However the battle isn't against that projectile speed, it's the targets evasive moves verses the shooters aim that truly count. And from a pure design level, without the 'hard to hit factor' it leaves only armour strength and weapon strength as factors.

Changing the rule is easy, but the immensity of effect this dodge rule has and combat in Rifts (combat being somewhat significant) means any changes leave you wondering just how far you've splintered from the original.

This is where an official FAQ in Rifter 17 helps out. Looking past wonderful comments like 'So…um…get real' KS seems to think we deserve, there is potential amongst the bull dust. There are two things it brings up. One, that if your behind cover then there is can be up to a -4 penalty for people to strike you, even up to -6 if the GM thinks that’s okay. Since this penalty is left to the whim of the GM, simply basing it on the characters modified dodge score (In the case of Neon Rifts, divided by two, rounded up) is as good a whim as any. And two, it doesn't specify that the cover has to be MDC to have this effect.

When combat begins in my own games, I usually assume the characters have some SDC cover (there's usually something around). Which means their harder to hit based on their dodge score. This also has the benefit of speeding up combat…when players aren't wasting attacks on dodging, their dishing out damage more often. This means foes end up dead quicker, which means the combat ends quicker. All of this while remaining within correct system rules. Only adding a rule, not replacing any. This is what ghost rules are supposed to do.

4/Jan/03 CSR rule change: I've decided to change the CSR calculation from dodge score divided by three (round up) to dodge score divided by two (round up) because of the following session note:

Session notes: Since I've been testing this, I've been taking down each players dodge score and working out their strike requirements myself, keeping them on paper in front of me. But I don't think its having enough of an effect (that the players notice), perhaps for this reason or the following. Most combats only last about four attacks or so, which means that with the dodge score divided by three, it really doesn't have enough of a statistical effect on game play. In future sessions I may instead divide dodge score by two, round down. If it takes better I'll be making changes and notes here.