Megadamage & Hardness

Overview

Rifts' MDC/standard damage asymmetry is reproduced using the existing PF2e/SF2e Hardness mechanic. There's no new damage type and no parallel HP pool. Armor and vehicles that would be “Megadamage Capacity” in Rifts get a Hardness value; armor that would be “Structural Damage Capacity” gets none. The bounce-off feel falls out of the rule for free.

The core rule

Standard PF2e/SF2e Hardness, unchanged:

1. When an attack hits a target with Hardness, subtract Hardness from the damage.
2. If the result is 0 or less, the target (and its wearer) takes no damage. The hit literally bounces — this is the MDC moment.
3. If the result is positive, the remainder is dealt to the armor's HP (and, per the rules below, to the wearer).
4. When the armor's HP drops to its Broken Threshold, Hardness halves; at 0 HP it's destroyed and provides no protection.

Crits, persistent damage, and shield-style interactions follow PF2e RAW. Crits double damage before Hardness is subtracted — which is why a Boomer crit gets through even very high Hardness, and why a Federation Grunt's laser rifle crit can still scratch a Samas.

What Hardness reduces (and what it doesn't)

Per PF2e/SF2e RAW, Hardness reduces damage from every source — weapon, spell, breath, mental, energy, persistent (each tick). A saving throw only sets how much damage applies (none / half / full / double on a basic save); Hardness then subtracts from that amount. A failed save does not bypass Hardness. There is no "spells skip armor" rule.

Only two things get through heavy armor, and both are RAW:

• Effects that deal no damage. Save-based conditions — frightened, slowed, stunned, paralyzed, dominated — have nothing for Hardness to reduce, so they affect the target regardless of armor. This is how control casters and the Mindbreaker stay decisive against a locked-down Chromeboy: you don't out-damage Hardness 20, you shut down the pilot. The armor is an object; the mind inside it isn't protected by the object's Hardness.
• The Penetrating N trait. Anti-armor weapons and a handful of class abilities reduce the target's Hardness by N for that attack — see Weapon Interactions. This is the only way to push raw damage through heavy armor. Penetrating is anti-armor only: it does not reduce a living creature's Resistance (see the Resistance section for what does).

Everything else — all weapon damage, area/splash damage, energy and elemental damage, and damage from save-based spells and impulses — goes through Hardness normally. Crits still double before Hardness subtracts (RAW), so a confirmed crit always scratches even a very hard target.

Hardness — personal armor

Pilot-scale gear. Most “combat armor” in Rifts canon maps here. It caps around Hardness 10 so power armor remains a meaningful tier above.

At Hardness 3–5, a level 1 PC with a basic laser rifle (1d8+3 ≈ 7.5 avg) deals 2–5 damage per hit on the body, or nothing on a low roll. Crits get through cleanly. Once weapons hit level 5+ they start beating personal Hardness on routine rolls — the “common laser rifle stops being interesting against this guy” curve. That's the intended feel.

Hardness — power armor

A clear tier above personal armor. Power armor is what makes you a hard target for an encounter, not just an exchange. The numbers are picked so anti-armor weapons of equivalent level still feel decisive without making other classes useless.

Chromeboy state-dependent Hardness

The Chromeboy is unique in that Hardness changes by state. This is the class's central mechanic and is detailed in Chromeboy and Deployment States:

The Hardness-by-state values use the same numbers as the equivalent power armor tier. A Chromeboy locked down is exactly a heavy power armor target.

Hardness — vehicles

Vehicle scale. Hardness ranges high enough that vehicles are decisively immune to small arms but vulnerable to dedicated anti-vehicle fire. The high end (Hardness 25+) intentionally requires weapons rated as anti-vehicle or vehicle-scale to deal meaningful damage.

Robot vehicles deliberately sit one notch above heavy power armor. A Chromeboy can hurt a Spider-Skull Walker but it's a knife fight; the same encounter solved with a missile barrage from the team, or a Mindbreaker targeting the pilot, is just as valid. Asymmetric classes each dominate different scenes — the numbers are tuned to keep that spotlight balance.

Resistance — supernatural living creatures

Rifts' MDC designation isn't only for armor and vehicles. Dragons, demons, elementals, gods, and many monstrous RCCs are themselves MDC in canon — their flesh shrugs off small-arms fire the way a tank's armor does. But these are living creatures, not vehicles with HP tracks and Broken Thresholds, so applying Hardness to them would force a separate “hide HP” pool alongside the creature's actual HP. Awkward.

Instead, supernatural living creatures use Resistance, PF2e's existing creature-side damage-reduction mechanic. It's functionally identical from the player's perspective (“your hit dealt no damage, or much less than expected”) and PF2e-native — every PF2e bestiary already includes Resistance on creature stat blocks. The only adjustment here is setting baseline values that are higher than PF2e defaults to match the Rifts MDC feel.

Resistance by tier

Resistance scales with the creature's level plus a tier modifier reflecting the creature's MDC weight in Rifts canon.

Worked examples:

• A level 5 Sub-Demon (Mid tier) has Resistance 7.
• A level 12 Greater Demon (High tier) has Resistance 16.
• A level 14 Adult Dragon (Elite tier) has Resistance 20.
• A level 17 Ancient Dragon (Elite tier) has Resistance 23.
• A level 20 dragon-god (Mythic tier) has Resistance 28.

Damage types resisted

The Resistance applies broadly to weapon damage and is layered by tier — the higher the tier, the more damage types are covered:

“Physical from non-magical sources” follows PF2e RAW — a psi-sword (magical), spells targeting the creature via attack rolls (magical), and weapons with weapon runes (magical) are not covered by the “non-magical” exclusion, so they hit Resistance normally rather than bypassing it. Penetrating does not reduce Resistance — it's an anti-Hardness (armor) trait only. Damage gets through a creature's Resistance three ways: raw damage that exceeds it, the Psi-Edge property (psi-blades and the Mind Bolt ignore a non-psionic creature's Resistance entirely), or you sidestep it with no-damage control. As with Hardness, a saving throw only scales the damage amount — it doesn't bypass Resistance.

Interaction with Hardness

A supernatural creature wearing power armor (rare in Rifts, but possible — a demon in stolen Federation gear) uses whichever damage reduction is higher for that attack. Resistance and Hardness do not stack. This matches the stacking rule below.

Stat block format

PF2e creature stat blocks already include a Resistances line. A Rifts conversion uses it directly:

Adult Sky Dragon (Elite tier, level 14)
Resistances physical 20 (except magical), fire 20, electricity 20, cold 20, acid 20, sonic 20

The number (20) is the Resistance value (level 14 + Elite-tier 6 = 20). The “(except magical)” clause is PF2e RAW for excluding magical attacks from physical-type resistance. Energy types are listed explicitly; the creature's elemental affinity gets immunity (not just resistance) at Elite tier, so a Sky Dragon might be immune to electricity rather than resistant to it.

Why these values vs. PF2e defaults

PF2e default Resistance for a level 14 creature is typically 5–10 to one or two damage types. This baseline (Resistance 20 across many damage types) is 2–4× higher and broader. That's deliberate:

• A level-14 laser rifle (2d6 fire, ~9 damage) against Resistance 20 deals 0 — it bounces. Ordinary fire is useless against a dragon's hide; that's the Rifts feel.
• A Boomer at level 14 (~39 average damage) against Resistance 20 still lands ~19 per hit on raw output alone — overwhelming weapons get through by sheer force, not anti-armor tricks (Penetrating does nothing against Resistance). A psi-sword or Mind Bolt ignores the Resistance entirely (Psi-Edge), and a Mindbreaker can simply control the creature — no damage to resist.

The Resistance values are calibrated so that ordinary attacks bounce off, while overwhelming raw damage, psi (Psi-Edge), and control still threaten the creature. Penetrating does not apply to Resistance — anti-armor rounds defeat manufactured armor, not a living creature's innate toughness.

Cross-references

• Penetrating N applies to Hardness only — it does not reduce creature Resistance. (Anti-armor rounds defeat manufactured armor, not a dragon's hide.)
• Save-based damage is reduced by Resistance just like any other damage — the save sets the amount, Resistance subtracts. You push damage through Resistance with raw output or Psi-Edge (not Penetrating); non-damaging save effects (conditions) are simply unaffected, since there's no damage to reduce.
• Magical weapons (psi-sword, weapon-runed weapons) aren't covered by the “physical (non-magical)” portion of Resistance per PF2e RAW, so that portion doesn't reduce them. Other resisted damage types (fire, cold, etc.) still apply.

Weapon interactions

Crits

PF2e RAW. Damage doubles, then Hardness subtracts. A level 5 Boomer crit (call it 4d12+10 doubled = ~74) against Hardness 20 still deals ~54 — so even the toughest target eats real damage on a confirmed crit. This is the math behind “crits get through.”

Heavy / anti-armor weapons

Anti-armor weapons carry a Penetrating N weapon trait that reduces the target's Hardness by N for that attack (manufactured armor only — it does not reduce a living creature's Resistance). This models low-damage but armor-piercing weapons without inflating weapon damage dice. The Boomer carries Penetrating 10 in addition to its enormous damage; heavy laser/plasma weapons might get Penetrating 5.

Penetrating defeats mechanical damage reduction (power armor, vehicles, constructs — Hardness), not biological/magical Resistance (a dragon's scales, a demon's flesh). An armor-piercing round punches through a tank's plating, but a creature's innate toughness shrugs it off like any other hit. To threaten a high-Resistance creature you need overwhelming raw damage (the Boomer still hurts a dragon — through sheer output, not Penetrating), the Psi-Edge property (psi-sword, Mind Bolt), or no-damage control. “Anti-armor” and “anti-monster” stay distinct problems — the Boomer is the tank-killer; the Psi-Knight's psi-sword and the Mindbreaker are the monster-killers.

Psi-Edge (psi-blades & Mind Bolt)

A blade — or bolt — of focused thought slides through matter but is turned only by another mind. Psi-manifested attacks carry the Psi-Edge property: the Psi-Knight's psi-sword, the Mindbreaker's lesser psi-blade, and (as a ranged example) the Mindbreaker's signature Mind Bolt. Psi-Edge can sit on a weapon or be granted to a specific ability.

• Psi-Edge ignores Hardness and Resistance from any non-psionic source entirely. Mundane and tech armor, power armor, vehicles, constructs, and the natural Resistance of supernatural creatures (a dragon's scales, a demon's flesh) simply don't reduce a psi-blade's damage — physical or its mental rider. This is why the Psi-Knight is Rifts' premier melee slayer of dragons, demons, and armored foes.
• Only psionic damage reduction turns it. Psionic armor (the Psi-Knight's own Cyber-Armor, psychic force-constructs, a psychic creature's mind-barrier) reduces a psi-blade's damage normally — and against that, the weapon's graded Penetrating N value applies as usual.

Psi-Edge is the psionic counterpart to Penetrating N: a defined property, narrow (psi-manifested attacks only, and it stops cold against psionic defenses) and the deliberate reward for the psychic-warrior fantasy. A psi-blade or Mind Bolt does not help against a foe protected by psionic means — that's the rock-paper-scissors.

Spell and impulse damage

Damage-dealing spells and impulses follow the same rule as everything else: Hardness and Resistance reduce the damage. Attack roll or saving throw makes no difference to Hardness — the save only sets the damage amount, then Hardness subtracts. A Linewalker's Energy Bolt (attack roll) and a Firestarter's fire impulse (Reflex save) are both reduced by a power-armored target's Hardness.

Casters and psychics threaten heavy-armor targets two ways, both RAW:

• Control over damage. Save-based effects that impose conditions (no HP damage) ignore armor entirely — there's nothing to reduce. The Mindbreaker that dominates the pilot, the Mystic that slows the Cyborg, the Warlock that banishes the construct: none of these care about Hardness.
• Penetrating abilities (vs. armor). A few damage abilities carry the Penetrating N trait so they can punch through Hardness — the Firestarter's Penetrating Fire, the Manic's Mind Over Matter. These help against power armor and vehicles, not against a living creature's Resistance. The Mindbreaker's Mind Bolt goes further with the Psi-Edge property (above), which ignores a non-psionic creature's Resistance too. Deliberate, narrow grants on specific abilities, not a blanket bypass.

Critical specializations

Several PF2e weapon groups already have crit specializations that reduce Hardness (e.g. picks, hammers vs. shields). These carry over unchanged.

Stacking

A character wearing armor with Hardness, riding a vehicle with Hardness, behind a shield: the highest applicable Hardness applies, not the sum. PF2e RAW. A Chromeboy inside a hovertank is protected by the hovertank's Hardness 20, not Hardness 40.