God help me.... I'm thinking of running a Rifts game

[Piedmon_Sama]

If any of you can recall way back, I've been pondering where I should go from D&D for some time. For a while now, I've owned some books for the Rifts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rifts_(role-playing_game)) game, but I have yet to actually play it. I really like the whole "mismash of everything awesome ever" approach, and familiarized myself with the basics of the setting. Unfortunately, my gaming friends (who I all know online) were never interested enough to go out and get the books themselves.

Well, at last I've talked them into giving it a try, though I had to go with the "you can be ANYTHING, really" approach to get them to go along. So when we play, unfortunately, I don't think I'll get the luxury of starting with a simple group of out-of-the-book characters. I recently acquired a large number of the Rifts Worldbooks, Sourcebooks and Dimension Books (thanks to living in a fairly large city with some well-stocked used bookstores) so I'm sitting on a huge pile of rules to give the players what they want. The problem is sorting through it all... anyone who's looked at the Rifts books before will agree with me that compared to Wizards of the Coast, Palladium's stuff is horribly organized. So in the hope that someone here has a familiarity with Rifts, I'd like to ask your advice on where to look for something similar to the concepts my friends came up with:

1) A magic-user focused around summoning and controlling Demons/Fiends

2) Some sort of squidlike or similarly horrible alien monster with a suitably advanced hovercraft/hoverchair to cart it around

3) A warrior with demonic grafts/bodyparts welded to his body somehow

Well, Palladium touts Rifts as the game where anything is possible, so I'm going to put that to the test. I'd like to use existing things where possible, but I have no problem homebrewing anything I need if someone can show me where similar things are outlined in the piles of source material.

If anyone can make sense of this request, TIA for any advice and suggestions.

[OverdrivePrime]

As a guy with well over 30 Palladium and Rifts books in his basement, I wholly sympathize with your agony over the organization. I'm trying to run a Heroes Unlimited in Rifts, pitted against the Mechanoids and A.R.C.H.I.E., and every game is a frickin' nightmare to run, mechanically. Storywise, it's a dream, and my players are having the time of their lives.



1) A magic-user focused around summoning and controlling Demons/Fiends

2) Some sort of squidlike or similarly horrible alien monster with a suitably advanced hovercraft/hoverchair to cart it around

3) A warrior with demonic grafts/bodyparts welded to his body somehow.

I believe you'll get a lot of mileage out of the Federation of Magic (http://www.palladiumbooks.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=829&Category_Code=W800) book, as well as Atlantis (http://www.palladiumbooks.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=804&Category_Code=W800).

[Skjaldbakka]

I would recommend running the Rifts setting with another system. Savage Worlds would work really well. I was recently in a Savage Worlds Torg game. I'm sure someone has posted a Savage Rifts adaptation.

[Piedmon_Sama]

As a guy with well over 30 Palladium and Rifts books in his basement, I wholly sympathize with your agony over the organization. I'm trying to run a Heroes Unlimited in Rifts, pitted against the Mechanoids and A.R.C.H.I.E., and every game is a frickin' nightmare to run, mechanically. Storywise, it's a dream, and my players are having the time of their lives.

Sounds awesome. :smallcool:


I believe you'll get a lot of mileage out of the Federation of Magic (http://www.palladiumbooks.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=829&Category_Code=W800) book, as well as Atlantis (http://www.palladiumbooks.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=804&Category_Code=W800).

Ah, thanks. Both those books were amongst the latest haul, so I'll start looking through them. While the Splugorth seem appropriate for the kind of alien my friend wants to be, they seem really powerful... is there a progression of some sort for them like with dragon hatchlings?


I would recommend running the Rifts setting with another system. Savage Worlds would work really well. I was recently in a Savage Worlds Torg game. I'm sure someone has posted a Savage Rifts adaptation.

Yeah, I looked around and most discussions on Rifts seem to include a "you'll be better off running it with GURPS/BESM/Something" post somewhere. While that's a useful suggestion for looking at other systems, for now I want to use the rules from the books (even if I have to beat them into submission to make them work) before I head back to the shopping trail.

[FoE]

God help you, sir. God help you.

I am writing this under an appreciable mental strain, since by tonight I shall be no more. Penniless, and at the end of my supply of the drug which alone makes life endurable, I can bear the torture no longer.

I have seen the Beast itself, and it is terrible.

Ia! Ia! Rifthulhu fhtagn!

I shall seek with my revolver the oblivion which is my only refuge from the unnamed and unnameable.

In truth, my Rifts experiences were coloured by bad DMs. So don't go by mad absinthe-fuelled ramblings.

[OverdrivePrime]

Ah, thanks. Both those books were amongst the latest haul, so I'll start looking through them. While the Splugorth seem appropriate for the kind of alien my friend wants to be, they seem really powerful... is there a progression of some sort for them like with dragon hatchlings?

Running a Rifts campaign means never having to care about balance. :smallwink:

Eh, the Minion of Splugorth (the dude on the cover of the Rifts book with all the 80's Jazzercize clones on his hovercraft) is best kept out of the hands of players. There are a number of lesser Splugorthian mooks that your guy can play, and you can whammy up a hovercraft that will work for him pretty quick by checking out the stats of other vehicles. But yes, like most R.C.C.s, there is a racial progression table for them, if I remember.

[Skjaldbakka]

Yeah, I can see that with other systems, since you would have to do some work making the system work for Rifts, but I am pretty sure that there has been a Savage Worlds rifts conversion done already.

Also, Savage Worlds is really cheap. You could buy all your players a copy of the phb for the price of buying a phb for some other games I could mention.

[mabriss lethe]

For the summoner, The Shifter OCC is in the core rulebook. should be exactly what you want.

For the guy with all the grafts? I think there's bio borg rules in Atlantis. Maybe the Corrupt in Fed of Magic...

I'm sort of at a loss for the other guy at the moment, I don't own too many rifts books these days

[OverdrivePrime]

Another option for the tentacled guy is for him to be a robot intelligence with truly frightening body design. Check out the rules in the Sourcebook 1, which apparently has been recently revised. I've got an archaic copy and the bot-design rules are a hoot.

[NecroRebel]

1) A magic-user focused around summoning and controlling Demons/Fiends

Shifter, a class from the Rifts handbook proper, is supposedly a magic-user focused around dimensional travel and summoning demons/fiends. That said, it sucks; its PPE (mana) is too low for it to actually use dimensional travel or summoning spells, its starting spell list is awful, its skill list is weak, and its starting equipment and money are both somewhat lame. Ley Line Walker (generic Wizard) is what your friend will want to be. More PPE and faster growth per level (not that that matters unless you force it to; it will take forever to gain levels unless you routinely give massive xp bonuses) means that its magic is actually useful, it has the ability to choose its starting spells (all lower-level, but that doesn't matter), it has a better skill list, and roughly the same starting equipment all make the Line Walker superior to the Shifter.

That said, neither class will actually be able to summon or control anything without a Ley Line Nexus with a celestial event due to the stupidly high cost of such spells. IIRC, "Summon Lesser Being" costs 425 PPE to cast, while your average Line Walker has ~120 at level 1 and gains ~10 per level (Shifters have ~60 and ~7 per level. Lesser Being in this context refers to essentially anything below the level of full-fledged deities, by the way).


2) Some sort of squidlike or similarly horrible alien monster with a suitably advanced hovercraft/hoverchair to cart it around

Splugorth themselves... Probably not. You might look into the Splugorth Slavers, though, which are a servitor race to the Splugorth that are also betentacled monsters that usually ride around on hovering barges. One is pictured on the front of the Rifts handbook, at least on the edition I have, and they're statted out in Atlantis and Sourcebook 1 (It's actually titled "Rifts Sourcebook").

I know OverdrivePrime said that they're best kept out of the hands of players, but... Well, to be honest they're lower-mid tier powerwise. Roughly on par with a dragon without a character class, in truth, and those really don't keep up once the rest of the party has 20mil or so in gear. Not too bad.


3) A warrior with demonic grafts/bodyparts welded to his body somehow

Um. There's the Anti-Monster in South America 1, the Corrupt in Federation of Magic, the rules for bio-borgs in Atlantis, Technomancer bionics in... I think War on Tolkeen 1, or maybe it's Canada... There's several of that sort of thing around. Building a bio-borg character is probably best and easiest overall. Build it like an ordinary Borg or Headhunter, except with magical biotech implants instead of traditional cybernetics, and you should be golden.


Well, Palladium touts Rifts as the game where anything is possible, so I'm going to put that to the test. I'd like to use existing things where possible, but I have no problem homebrewing anything I need if someone can show me where similar things are outlined in the piles of source material.

If anyone can make sense of this request, TIA for any advice and suggestions.

The mechanics in Palladium's games, Rifts included, leave much to be desired, but the Rifts setting is quite good. It would probably be better off as a campaign setting for another game, to be honest, but if you really want to run a Rifts game, I suppose all I can say is good luck to you.

[LibraryOgre]

1) A magic-user focused around summoning and controlling Demons/Fiends

In the Core Rifts books, there's the Shifter. The Rifts Ultimate Edition and Rifts: Dark Conversions have expanded their propensity to have demon allies. They're otherwise normal spellcasters, just focused on that.

You might also look in Palladium Fantasy, at the Summoner. Their magic is based around magic circles; it tends to last longer than a Shifter's magic, but takes longer to enact.


2) Some sort of squidlike or similarly horrible alien monster with a suitably advanced hovercraft/hoverchair to cart it around

The first thing that comes to mind is the Splugorth Slaver; they're in Atlantis, and, IIRC, the first Sourcebook (too lazy to reach over and get the book; it'll disturb my cat). They've got the benefit of a large number of scantily clad Blind Warrior Women (I'd link to an image, but it's moderately NSFW).

There is also a race known as the Octomen (IIRC) in the 2nd Atlantis book (Splynn Dimensional Market), and I think they were reprinted in D-Bees of North America. Otherwise, you'd probably have to make one; Road Hogs (very old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles supplement) has a mutant octopus that you can tweak how you need.


3) A warrior with demonic grafts/bodyparts welded to his body somehow

Rifts: Atlantis has Bio-wizardry, which would fill the bill. Juicer Uprising (World book 10) introduces the Maxi-killer, a juicer made from an excess of bio-wizardry. You can also use Wormwood; canonically, the symbiotes from Wormwood don't survive off-planet, but that's probably one of the most commonly ignored rules in the game.

Palladium, IME, is a very fun game to play when you relax and let the game flow. Unless you know the rules like the back of your hand, don't worry about all the ins and outs of them... combat boils down to opposed d20 rolls, plus bonuses, with variable damage, and skills are "roll under on d%". The mechanics aren't as bad as everyone is whining about... they're just not well organized.

[Prak]

As for the guy with demon grafts, might I suggest the KISS philosophy?

Just use the borg OCC and reflavour it, that's all you have to do...

[BobVosh]

1) A magic-user focused around summoning and controlling Demons/Fiends

2) Some sort of squidlike or similarly horrible alien monster with a suitably advanced hovercraft/hoverchair to cart it around

3) A warrior with demonic grafts/bodyparts welded to his body somehow

Lol, I'm humored how many of these can be anwsered with "Atlantis"

1. A T-Man with demonic tattoos (basically reflavor the existing tattoos.)
2. Slaver as mentioned
3. Biomanip from Atlantis, and/or the parasites.

Anyway...out of Atlantis....
1. I think one of the witches out of the Conversion book used demons, but I can't remember for sure. Palladium mainly stayed clear of demons and whatnot. Can't really think of anything if you don't reflavor existing things.

2. Splynn Dimensional Market has some fun rules for various tentacles etc. I believe the NGR book has some tentacle things in the Black Forest with the evil mil tree.

3. I'd recommend the biomanipulation still, also check out Mindwerks for some other neat things.

[elliott20]

RIFTS?

http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/7623/motivator1039608au2.jpg

[potatocubed]

Palladium, IME, is a very fun game to play when you relax and let the game flow. Unless you know the rules like the back of your hand, don't worry about all the ins and outs of them... combat boils down to opposed d20 rolls, plus bonuses, with variable damage, and skills are "roll under on d%". The mechanics aren't as bad as everyone is whining about... they're just not well organized.

I concur, the best way to handle a game of Rifts is to keep it very fast and loose. Apply lots of common sense, roll some dice, and keep it moving.

Also bear in mind that one shot from most MD weapons will punch a basketball-sized hole through a city block. Collateral damage is fun!

Oh, and I also recommend going gonzo. If your bad guys are the animated corpse of Bruce Lee with laser-nunchuks, a rocket-propelled clam-dragon, and a necromancer who raises the dead with heavy metal guitar riffs, you're probably on a roll.

[Kris Strife]

Oh, and I also recommend going gonzo. If your bad guys are the animated corpse of Bruce Lee with laser-nunchuks, a rocket-propelled clam-dragon, and a necromancer who raises the dead with heavy metal guitar riffs, you're probably on a roll.

So a paladin on a gold and ivory celestial motorcycle that uses evil for fuel and emits pure good as exhaust would fit in?

[Riffington]

So a paladin on a gold and ivory celestial motorcycle that uses evil for fuel and emits pure good as exhaust would fit in?

Absolutely. Just be aware that's highly illegal/treasonous.:smallbiggrin:

Also, shifters are in no way underpowered, unless you add in too much powercreep from the splatbooks.

[Kris Strife]

Absolutely. Just be aware that's highly illegal/treasonous.:smallbiggrin:

Also, shifters are in no way underpowered, unless you add in too much powercreep from the splatbooks.

How would having a motorcycle that turns evil into good be illegal and/or treasonous? Its not like I'd be playing Paranoia.

[potatocubed]

Well, you know how the Coalition States get... if you're not dressed as a skeleton and shooting lasers you're on the 'do not want' list...

:smalltongue:

[kjones]

In my opinion, all three character concepts can be modeled using Glitterboys.

...

Ok, fine, this is totally offtopic, but I can't talk about Rifts without mentioning Glitterboys and how awesome they are. Not mechanically, but, well, mechanically, in the whole "drill your feet into the ground so you can fire your BFG" sense.

[Kris Strife]

Well, you know how the Coalition States get... if you're not dressed as a skeleton and shooting lasers you're on the 'do not want' list...

:smalltongue:

Actually, never got around to reading the RIFTS books.

[OverdrivePrime]

One of the things I love about rifts is that everyone looooves beating up nazis, and here you've got this whole huge power base of not just nazis, but nazis with giant robots and secret mutant experiments! And then to top it all off, they're Chicago Bears Fans (or would be, if football was still around). To my Packer-loving players, it makes for the ultimate random beat feat.


*random encounter time*
Me: "Alright guys, you have just broken camp, and are heading toward the area you think those weird aliens were coming from, when you notice a big hokin' robot with a skull head cresting the hill to your west."

Players: "It's the Coalition! Let's go F%#@ 'em up!"

Me: "Well, the robot doesn't seem to show any signs of noticing you. You could probably just keep..."

Players: "Screw that! We love to mess with these guys!" {rude plans are formulated}

[LibraryOgre]

Oh, and I also recommend going gonzo. If your bad guys are the animated corpse of Bruce Lee with laser-nunchuks, a rocket-propelled clam-dragon, and a necromancer who raises the dead with heavy metal guitar riffs, you're probably on a roll.

It's a method, though I will add that the best Rifts games I've ever been in have had a unifying theme for character creation... something that everyone has in common.

The first was a relatively low-powered game where everyone was Coalition. We had three humans and a psi-stalker; one of the humans wasn't technically CS, but he was a headhunter who worked for them, so there wasn't any disconnect.

The second was a much higher-powered game where everyone was a True Atlantean... a shifter-turned-witch, a cyberknight, and a psychic warrior are the ones I remember.

This group had done gonzo before, but had a slight problem with one player radically outshining everyone else (and it wasn't even on purpose).

[Riffington]

How would having a motorcycle that turns evil into good be illegal and/or treasonous? Its not like I'd be playing Paranoia.

Well, magic is (according to the Coalition) the vile force that threatens humanity. You are a Paladin - a force of goodness and righteousness - who also happens to be wielding magical powers. It's like if there was a Nazi Greenpeace group, and you were this blond-haired, blue-eyed hero who kept saving villages from pollution by means of your nuclear cleanup kit. And when you left town you tossed the kids some chocolate Hanukkah gelt.

[OverdrivePrime]

Oh totally. Having everyone from the same background, or at least agreed upon power level makes things a lot more enjoyable for all the players. I played a cyberknight in a several-year-long campaign alongside a Heroes Unlimited hero that the player had managed to whine and badger the GM into allowing. He had originally joined as a Juicer and the first few games were great, but then decided he just couldn't do everything he wanted to. Other original players in the campaign were an Operator/DM's Girlfriend, and a Shifter, so things were pretty relaxed for a while.

All of a sudden, the Operator & Shifter dropped out, the juicer turned into a super hero, and we added a Hawrk-Olw a dragon hatchling and an Atlantean Undead Slayer to the mix. The GM had to scale up power through the roof just to make things interesting, which left my poor cyberknight in a lot of trouble and frustrating circumstances. The GM took pity on my character and gave him a magical pair of indestructable boxer shorts because he was sick of my dude's armor being blasted into vapor and then having my cyberknight charge back into the fray butt-nekkid, and protected only by cyber armor.

Eventually I got a sweet rune-sword outta the deal, but I still wound up going through MDC armor like most people go through socks.


My most success as a Rifts GM also happened to be when I was running a Coalition Squad campaign. They eventually went rogue (which was my plan), but since they all had the same starting point and a cohesive background their characters stuck together quite well.

[Prak]

dammit... now I'm thinking of running a rifts game...

[Piedmon_Sama]

In the Core Rifts books, there's the Shifter. The Rifts Ultimate Edition and Rifts: Dark Conversions have expanded their propensity to have demon allies. They're otherwise normal spellcasters, just focused on that.

You might also look in Palladium Fantasy, at the Summoner. Their magic is based around magic circles; it tends to last longer than a Shifter's magic, but takes longer to enact.

Yeah, we were looking at the Summoner from Palladium Fantasy. This guy has basically always wanted to play a Demonizer from AD&D. But when I told him what the other guys were playing, he decided he wanted a "less serious" character to fit in better. So now he wants to be a heavily armed communist-hunting Robot left over from the Pre-Rifts era (or maybe blundered in from a parallel dimension where the Cold War never ended). Any suggestions on how to represent that? Right now I'm thinking I'll just stat him out as a 'Borg and replace any fluff related to organic bits, but if anyone has suggestions for portraying true robots those are welcomed.



The first thing that comes to mind is the Splugorth Slaver; they're in Atlantis, and, IIRC, the first Sourcebook (too lazy to reach over and get the book; it'll disturb my cat). They've got the benefit of a large number of scantily clad Blind Warrior Women (I'd link to an image, but it's moderately NSFW).

There is also a race known as the Octomen (IIRC) in the 2nd Atlantis book (Splynn Dimensional Market), and I think they were reprinted in D-Bees of North America. Otherwise, you'd probably have to make one; Road Hogs (very old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles supplement) has a mutant octopus that you can tweak how you need.

I got the Splynn Dimensional Market book, and yeah the Octoman RCC looks ideal. His character is from a wealthy Free Octoman Family (they immediately defected to the Spluggorth side/ran away during the initial invasion and live free and rich in space somewhere). The character is a rich brat who was raised on old anime programs they picked up from earthling radio transmissions. He came to earth specifically to satisfy his Japan fetish, attended by his slave/butler/henchman who will be a Hawrk-Duhk, probably using the Assassin class from Palladium Fantasy with customized fighting-spurs. (This is not at all a serious game, have you noticed?)


Rifts: Atlantis has Bio-wizardry, which would fill the bill. Juicer Uprising (World book 10) introduces the Maxi-killer, a juicer made from an excess of bio-wizardry. You can also use Wormwood; canonically, the symbiotes from Wormwood don't survive off-planet, but that's probably one of the most commonly ignored rules in the game.

Awesome. Also, are there any minor types of sentient undead I could use to represent some damned souls? This character, Ulric Von Bloodhaus, fought his way out of hell and grafted the limbs of slain demons to his body and is accompanied by a small company of damned souls that play his themesong, the Bloodhaus Anthem, whenever he goes into battle.

[LibraryOgre]

Right now I'm thinking I'll just stat him out as a 'Borg and replace any fluff related to organic bits, but if anyone has suggestions for portraying true robots those are welcomed.

Sourcebook 1 (both the original and the revised edition) have out-and-out robot-building rules. Want to play a sentient robot? Sit down with that book and build yourself from the ground up. A borg will work just fine, especially if he's got a human-like brain. But there are robot-building rules.


He came to earth specifically to satisfy his Japan fetish, attended by his slave/butler/henchman who will be a Hawrk-Duhk, probably using the Assassin class from Palladium Fantasy with customized fighting-spurs. (This is not at all a serious game, have you noticed?)

You have an Octoman with an anime fetish? That is awesome!



Awesome. Also, are there any minor types of sentient undead I could use to represent some damned souls? This character, Ulric Von Bloodhaus, fought his way out of hell and grafted the limbs of slain demons to his body and is accompanied by a small company of damned souls that play his themesong, the Bloodhaus Anthem, whenever he goes into battle.

There's ghouls; they're technically demons, but they work. If you've got Conversion Book 1 or Dark Conversions, those would be your go-to for standard types of demons. Most other books have a few other options, as well.

You might also take a look at Africa, Mystic Russia, or PF's Adventures on the High Seas; choose a few Necromancer-like grafts, and say that's a permanent part of him.

***

People make a big stink about Palladium rules being bad. I've never found them to be bad or difficult. They are frequently poorly organized, and in some cases illogical or overly complex, but they're not bad. Modifiers are rarely grouped in convenient tables, and are instead spread out across a large span of text. However, they are, in many ways, similar to the 1st and 2nd edition AD&D rules, in that they're designed to be pretty modular; you can ignore things you don't like pretty easily, and the system doesn't collapse.

A few suggestions, and common complaints addressed:

1) Attributes don't matter unless they're really high; also stated as "My guy with a 20 IQ and a 3 PP is a better gymnast than the one with a 10 IQ and a 20 PP." I've recently submitted an article on how to fix several difficulties with the skill system, but this is really the easiest: For everyone, add the relevant attribute to their skill percentage. If I have a 20 I.Q., then I add +20 to skills where I.Q. would be the relevant stat. If I have a 20 P.P., then I add 20 to a skill where dexterity or agility is the main feature. It's simple and convenient, and doesn't require any retconning of NPCs; you can do it on the fly if you're decent at mental math. Since you're doing this for everyone, there's no discontinuity.

2) Skill percentages are wonky; every skill has a different percentage, and goes up at a different rate. I don't really have this problem, but that's because I have a spreadsheet that self-calculates... everything is entered in at character creation, and I can ignore it from then on out. To fix this requires a bit more work, but is still pretty easy. Change all the percentages to one of three standard ones; every skill goes up by 5% at every level. Rate skills as Easy, Medium, or Hard. Easy skills start at 60%, Medium at 45%, and Hard skills at 30%. Multiply level-1 by 5 and you have anything on top of the base.

3) Boxing lets me shoot my guns faster! Not terribly realistic; it's supposed to represent additional speed in combat because of being a boxer. If it bothers you so much, change it to a +1 to initiative... it will still be taken fairly often, because initiative bonuses don't grow on trees, but it won't be the munchkin skill of choice.

4) MDC is unrealistic. Pretty much true; it's mostly there to represent "This **** will kill you if you get hit." A lot of people fiddle with the ratio of MDC to SDC (1:100 is the standard; a lot of people go with 1:10). I'm happy with it, except in a few cases (like attacking earthen fortifications with energy weapons); that can be ruled on the fly pretty easily.

Those are the most common ones that are coming to mind right now. People who don't like the system whine about it a lot, but most of the things are either stylistic differences (they want the game to run on another system), or are very easy to correct to your own play style.

A conversation Hzurr and I had about something else really helps me sum up Rifts. It's not a good game, but it is an awesome game. Even though it's not a good game, I wouldn't call it bad. The mechanics aren't so inspiring or elegant as to make it a good game, but neither are they so clunky or confusing as to be a bad game. But, in either case, it is an awesome game... a game of awesome.

[Piedmon_Sama]

Sourcebook 1 (both the original and the revised edition) have out-and-out robot-building rules. Want to play a sentient robot? Sit down with that book and build yourself from the ground up. A borg will work just fine, especially if he's got a human-like brain. But there are robot-building rules.

Awesome, thanks for pointing this out to me. The character concept was a giant robot (25 feet tall), and I was worrying since none of the mech stats I had seen so far were big enough.




You have an Octoman with an anime fetish? That is awesome!

All credit has to go to this player. But yes, I expect hilarity to ensue when the alien japanophile realizes he's landed on the wrong continent. :D




There's ghouls; they're technically demons, but they work. If you've got Conversion Book 1 or Dark Conversions, those would be your go-to for standard types of demons. Most other books have a few other options, as well.

Found Ghouls in Dark Conversions, looks like they'll work great.


You might also take a look at Africa, Mystic Russia, or PF's Adventures on the High Seas; choose a few Necromancer-like grafts, and say that's a permanent part of him.

Thanks, I'll explore that possibility too.


1) Attributes don't matter unless they're really high; also stated as "My guy with a 20 IQ and a 3 PP is a better gymnast than the one with a 10 IQ and a 20 PP." I've recently submitted an article on how to fix several difficulties with the skill system, but this is really the easiest: For everyone, add the relevant attribute to their skill percentage. If I have a 20 I.Q., then I add +20 to skills where I.Q. would be the relevant stat. If I have a 20 P.P., then I add 20 to a skill where dexterity or agility is the main feature. It's simple and convenient, and doesn't require any retconning of NPCs; you can do it on the fly if you're decent at mental math. Since you're doing this for everyone, there's no discontinuity.

I've never actually played a game with the Palladium rules before, but the skill rules did seem problematic to me. Anyone should be able to attempt to sing, for example, whether they've got the skill or not, and for something like that I don't see how not having the skill should guarantee failure. Adding the stats seems like a good fix, thanks for the suggestion.


2) Skill percentages are wonky; every skill has a different percentage, and goes up at a different rate. I don't really have this problem, but that's because I have a spreadsheet that self-calculates... everything is entered in at character creation, and I can ignore it from then on out. To fix this requires a bit more work, but is still pretty easy. Change all the percentages to one of three standard ones; every skill goes up by 5% at every level. Rate skills as Easy, Medium, or Hard. Easy skills start at 60%, Medium at 45%, and Hard skills at 30%. Multiply level-1 by 5 and you have anything on top of the base.

This will only be a problem if the party lives long enough to level up. They're going to be extremely powerful just to start with and it's kind of a one-off joke game, but hopefully one that will attract them to a more long-term Rifts game with some standard characters. I'll keep this idea in mind if leveling up proves to be a quagmire, though.


3) Boxing lets me shoot my guns faster! Not terribly realistic; it's supposed to represent additional speed in combat because of being a boxer. If it bothers you so much, change it to a +1 to initiative... it will still be taken fairly often, because initiative bonuses don't grow on trees, but it won't be the munchkin skill of choice.

Honestly, this is no worse than a lot of the snafus in standard D&D (my 20th level fighter is no better at evading a blow than at 1st level if he still has 10 dex). It's not the sort of thing I or my players sweat over.


4) MDC is unrealistic. Pretty much true; it's mostly there to represent "This **** will kill you if you get hit." A lot of people fiddle with the ratio of MDC to SDC (1:100 is the standard; a lot of people go with 1:10). I'm happy with it, except in a few cases (like attacking earthen fortifications with energy weapons); that can be ruled on the fly pretty easily.

Yeah, I don't know what the HP is for a tree or a brick wall, but I feel like I understand what MDC is intended to represent (if it's not made of space metal, it's going to punch through) so I intend to just use DM fiat instead of rolling to see how many trees get knocked down by a PC's expanding magical ring of destruction, or whatever. I doubt the players will care much as long as they're adequately armored.


Those are the most common ones that are coming to mind right now. People who don't like the system whine about it a lot, but most of the things are either stylistic differences (they want the game to run on another system), or are very easy to correct to your own play style.

Yep, I have no loyalty to RAW in any game. My players are used to me bending the rules if it's justifiable, and likewise they can expect me to extend them that courtesy if they make a good case for it. As long as everyone's having a good time, that's the priority.



A conversation Hzurr and I had about something else really helps me sum up Rifts. It's not a good game, but it is an awesome game. Even though it's not a good game, I wouldn't call it bad. The mechanics aren't so inspiring or elegant as to make it a good game, but neither are they so clunky or confusing as to be a bad game. But, in either case, it is an awesome game... a game of awesome.

Totally agree. The setting is ridiculous, but also amazingly fun to think about. I got a dozen character concepts I wanted to try out since reading through the World Books, and that's the sign of a fun game to me.

[elliott20]

ODP, when I grow up, can I run a RIFT's game too?

but honestly, undead bruce lee with laser nunchucks? I think I just got my next character concept.

[Yakk]

With most percentage based systems, the "roll symmetric" dice trick can generate some neat crunch.

Instead of rolling d%, roll two d10. Now read them both ways.

Ie, you roll a 2 and a 7, that's a 27 and a 72.

0 successes, pair = you fumbled
0 successes = you suck failure
1 success = marginal success
2 success = solid success
pair that is a success = critical

And, all of a sudden having 30% in a skill gives you:
2% crit <= 9% solid <= 51% marginal <= 92% failure <= 100% fumble
or:
2% crit + 7% solid + 42% marginal + 41% failure + 8% fumble

Low skill % result in lots of "marginal successes". Higher skill % mean that you are almost guaranteed a least a marginal, and your solid successes ramp up faster per point of skill.

[OverdrivePrime]

O__O Yakk, that's brilliant! I'm definitely grabbing that mechanic for my game.


ODP, when I grow up, can I run a RIFT's game too?
Elliott, you can do anything you set your mind to. Dream big! You could even run Phase World! :smallwink:

[LibraryOgre]

I've never actually played a game with the Palladium rules before, but the skill rules did seem problematic to me. Anyone should be able to attempt to sing, for example, whether they've got the skill or not, and for something like that I don't see how not having the skill should guarantee failure. Adding the stats seems like a good fix, thanks for the suggestion.

E-mail me. I've got a article I recently wrote to show you.



Yeah, I don't know what the HP is for a tree or a brick wall, but I feel like I understand what MDC is intended to represent (if it's not made of space metal, it's going to punch through) so I intend to just use DM fiat instead of rolling to see how many trees get knocked down by a PC's expanding magical ring of destruction, or whatever. I doubt the players will care much as long as they're adequately armored.

For SDC of common objects, take a look at page 47 of PFRPG, 2nd edition (you mentioned looking at the summoner, so I figure you have that); it's usually towards the end of any combat definitions summary chapter. There's some additional fiddly bits you can use if you want, regarding shooting through objects.


Yep, I have no loyalty to RAW in any game. My players are used to me bending the rules if it's justifiable, and likewise they can expect me to extend them that courtesy if they make a good case for it. As long as everyone's having a good time, that's the priority.

Truthfully, it sounds like Palladium will work for you, in that case. Groups who are slaves to RAW tend to have more problems with Palladium than ones that say "You know what, this works better. We'll do that."

[Grynning]

This thread brings back many fond memories...

I must confess I also love Rifts, and Mark Hall is right, overall the system is not terrible, but I agree it needs a few tweaks to run. I've thought about converting it to other systems but you lose a lot of the flavor of the game if you try to do that.

Also, Palladium/Kevin Siembeida (same thing) has a very strict internet policy (http://www.palladiumbooks.com/policies.html) that pretty much says "you will get a cease and desist if you put conversions up anywhere." You'll be hard pressed to find publicly posted conversions for this reason.

As usual I found the thread too late to contribute much actual advise, but I do have a couple questions of my own, for Mark and others who may have experience, since I may try to convince a group to run the wonderful strange beast that is Rifts sometime in the future.

1) When switching to a 1:10 ratio for MDC, how do you handle monsters with large amounts of SDC that would have been equivalent to MDC? Leave their stats the same, or bump them down?

2) Also, do you generally reduce the MDC of Dragons and other powerful supernatural critters? They just seem to take forever to kill if you don't.

3) I hate the 4 different strength tables. Anyone have any alternatives (hopefully with the 1:10 conversion in mind)?

[Hida Reju]

One word of advice

Pick a list of books that are legal and allow no extra ones to be brought in later. Avoid the following unless you want mega cheese powers to be activated.

Phase World - Cosmo Knights (DO NOT WANT!!!!)
The Faiths and pantheons book (Godlings are just stupid)
Juicer uprising - Why on god's green earth did someone come up with Mega Juicers.
Rifts conversion book and anything involving super powers.
Rifts England - Temporal Magic, just don't go there.

Some of the best books writen
Rifts Mercenaries
NGR book
Cyber Knight War on tolkien

Remember to duck and not to worry if they players want to talk about things like blowing the planet up. Because god knows they can get the powers for it.

[OverdrivePrime]

Pick a list of books that are legal and allow no extra ones to be brought in later. Avoid the following unless you want mega cheese powers to be activated.

{snip}

Some of the best books writen
Rifts Mercenaries
NGR book
Cyber Knight War on tolkien

I totally agree with what Hida Reju says (though I'm running an all-super hero game. All supers= fun, 1 super hero = awful).
TRIAX and the NGR is my favorite of all Rifts book.

Add to the list:
Rifts Underseas
The New West
I'm also partial to Rifts Japan, despite the power creep in there.

[LibraryOgre]

1) When switching to a 1:10 ratio for MDC, how do you handle monsters with large amounts of SDC that would have been equivalent to MDC? Leave their stats the same, or bump them down?

I generally do not mess with the ratio; it works fine for me at 1:100... and I say this as someone who has had a character misted because I charged something without armor.


2) Also, do you generally reduce the MDC of Dragons and other powerful supernatural critters? They just seem to take forever to kill if you don't.

I do not, because they should. What I do tend to do is get creative, and I have had GMs who will let me. For example, a dragon I will frequently shoot in the wings, to limit its mobility. In our recent Robotech game, I was playing a friend's character. We were facing some choppers which had a range, but not speed, advantage on us. So I had his giant robot get into hand to hand combat with the choppers... they couldn't shoot him while he was holding their cannons, and its hard for choppers to argue with judo.


3) I hate the 4 different strength tables. Anyone have any alternatives (hopefully with the 1:10 conversion in mind)?

Not really. I'm not a fan of the strength tables, so I tend to just calculate things at-need.

[potatocubed]

One word of advice

Pick a list of books that are legal and allow no extra ones to be brought in later. Avoid the following unless you want mega cheese powers to be activated.

Good call. I disagree on Juicer Uprising, though - maybe ban the Mega Juicers if you're trying to keep things manageable, but I'm a big fan of other things from that book. Specifically, the Phaeton Juicer, the bikes and the flight pack.

I also like Rifts: Japan, but I think you'd get more mileage out of that if you set an entire game there and kept everything to Japan-specific OCCs.

[Yakk]

OverdrivePrime, comments on that system:

It emulates rolling twice with a reasonably high degree of accuracy. 1 direction success chance ~= chance of not failing when rolling twice. 2 direction success chance ~= chance of succeeding twice.

The doubles just fall out, and look pretty as crit success/failure. Note that 1 in 10 rolls will be either a crit success or a crit failure -- so they shouldn't be that harsh.

The values I posted in the OP are based off the approximation. The actual chance of a crit/full/marginal/failure/botch success on 30% skill is:
Crit: 11 and 22 = 2%
Full: 01 - 03, 12 = 4% * 2 from symmetry = 8%
Botch: 33 ... 99 00 = 8%
Failure: 93-98, 83-87, 73-76, 63-65, 53-54, 43 = 6+5+4+3+2+1 = 21% * 2 from symmetry = 42%

Marginal = rest = 100%-42%-8%-8%-2% = 40%

Marginal or better = 50%
Full or better = 10%
(Marginal or Better) + (Full or Better) = 60% = skill% * 2

That last equation -- that your chance of a Marginal or better, plus the chance of a Full or better, equals twice your skill, holds from 0% to 100% skill.

The actual 'roll twice' method would generate a full or better chance of 9%, a marginal or better chance of 51%, and a sum of 60% -- slightly different. They differ because reading the dice each way results in two slightly correlated random numbers from 1 to 100, instead of two completely uncorrelated numbers.

The curve still looks like y=x^2 and x^2 mirrored over the equation x=y, just isn't perfectly smooth.

What I like about it particularly is that it fits the "feel" of "crap, if the dice where in the opposite direction, I would have won!", and makes rolling doubles special. It also does away with "which is the 10s die?" issues -- both are the 10s die!

[LibraryOgre]

Uh, Yakk, is this in the right thread?

[Hida Reju]

Good call. I disagree on Juicer Uprising, though - maybe ban the Mega Juicers if you're trying to keep things manageable, but I'm a big fan of other things from that book. Specifically, the Phaeton Juicer, the bikes and the flight pack.

I also like Rifts: Japan, but I think you'd get more mileage out of that if you set an entire game there and kept everything to Japan-specific OCCs.

I should have mentioned that it was those specific items that I would ban. Most of the other items in those books are usually ok with the exception of Phase World. That book is awesome if that is the campaign you are running and pure pain if you are just cherry picking from it.

As a matter of fact most of the Region books are awesome if all you do is play a massive campaign in those areas. Rifts Japan is epic to run a full game using just that setting. NGR/Triax book is beyond coolness too.

[Piedmon_Sama]

One word of advice

Pick a list of books that are legal and allow no extra ones to be brought in later. Avoid the following unless you want mega cheese powers to be activated.

Thanks, I've actually got Phase-World but haven't looked at it yet. You make it sound "interesting." I don't have to worry about the players trying to abuse the books really, they just told me what kind of characters they wanted (after I said the whole "you can be ANYYYTHIIING" bit) and now I'm trying to figure out what races, OCCs and equipment will represent it best.

[Hida Reju]

Thanks, I've actually got Phase-World but haven't looked at it yet. You make it sound "interesting." I don't have to worry about the players trying to abuse the books really, they just told me what kind of characters they wanted (after I said the whole "you can be ANYYYTHIIING" bit) and now I'm trying to figure out what races, OCCs and equipment will represent it best.

Of all the available settings for Rifts I always thought Phase World was the most fun, you were not stuck being just on Earth and you can run any type of game you want without normal issues like the Coalition or Atlantis getting much in the way.

Plus having a multi-dimensional corporation that will let your whole planet get deep into debt then conqure it always made me laugh.

[Yakk]

Uh, Yakk, is this in the right thread?

It was tangental, but at least one person was interested in it. I thought I'd point out how the "alternative percent-system" works, which (I think) would make a Rifts game (which uses percent skills for non-combat purposes) better and less cludgy.

[OverdrivePrime]

It was tangental, but at least one person was interested in it. I thought I'd point out how the "alternative percent-system" works, which (I think) would make a Rifts game (which uses percent skills for non-combat purposes) better and less cludgy.

Indeed. I found the information quite useful and will be putting it in action next Thursday.


Assuming of course, that my players somehow think to do something beyond punching, dodging and scrambling to find a healer.