Jab's Rifts Builds (Rifts- A Final Summation!)

Where in all of your character write ups will go.
greycrusader
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Re: Jab's Rifts Builds (Demon-Eater Cyborg! Geo-Borgs!)

Post by greycrusader »

Your last few posts are what gets tedious with RIFTS...variants and variants of the same O.C.C.s and armor/weapons/vehicles, instead of focusing on the sheer, wonderful insanity of the setting. That and the power-geeking, coupled with Siembieda's insistence on doing everything the way he's always done it makes it impressive the game has lasted this long. A testament to the concept and ideas, I suppose.

All my best.
Jabroniville
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Re: Jab's Rifts Builds (Demon-Eater Cyborg! Geo-Borgs!)

Post by Jabroniville »

greycrusader wrote: Tue Nov 08, 2022 11:28 pm Your last few posts are what gets tedious with RIFTS...variants and variants of the same O.C.C.s and armor/weapons/vehicles, instead of focusing on the sheer, wonderful insanity of the setting. That and the power-geeking, coupled with Siembieda's insistence on doing everything the way he's always done it makes it impressive the game has lasted this long. A testament to the concept and ideas, I suppose.

All my best.
Yeah, I was a bit surprised to find the entire Geofront section be almost uniformly "UGH- just use the Coalition" but for pages and pages. Kind of diminishes what's supposed to be a big part of the China setting.
Jabroniville
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Geofront Gear

Post by Jabroniville »

GEOFRONT GEAR:
* Geofront Soldiers are given pretty elite "Pre-Rifts" tech- though Kevin S notoriously hated the power creep within his own system, he boosts most guns here- some do 6D6 Mega-Damage! This is probably because they made all of China overrun by Mega-Damage demonic monsters with tons of attacks- it's the only way to survive.

"Guns" Blast 9-13.
-Even normal guns do Rail Gun-tier damage, but only with mercury rounds and other stuff.

"Chi Weapons" Blast 8, Blast 9-15 against Demons.
-Chi Weapons are made of demon skin and "harvested" in the positive energy of the Yin Caverns, and thus do extra damage to M.D.C. beings and especially Demons. They can only be used by those with Mystical Martial Arts Powers, and can be charged with the user's own I.S.P. The Chi-Demon Sniper Rifle actually does 2D6x10 Mega-Damage against the supernatural, and the Chi Mini-Gun does 3D4x10, almost turning them into Boom Guns.

GEOFRONT ARMOR:
-All Geofront armor is fully-environmental (Immunity- Heat, Cold, Radiation, Pressure, Suffocation 2), has loudspeakers, and polarized visors.

"Brigandine Armor" Toughness +9.
"Heavy Brigandine Armor" Toughness +10.
-The basic Soldier armor.

"Shadow Armor" Toughness +7.
-The official armor of the army, who of course try to remain incognito- this is M.D.C. fabric with selective plating so they don't look like real soldiers.

"Demon Skin" Toughness +6-7.
-This is sorta like cybernetics, with soldiers having demon skin fused to them. Some actually absorb the wearer's own Chi.

"Black Tiger Power Armor" ST 9, Toughness +14, Flight 7 (250 mph), FIGHTING & Ranged Attack +4, Leaping 1, Missiles, Rail Gun +13, Energy Sword +11.
-The equivalent of a Super-SAMAS, with great boosts to fighting and damage. Great M.D.C. A huge, well-designed, manga-esque armor, too.

"Red Falcon Power Armor" ST 7, Toughness +12, Flight 8 (500 mph), FIGHTING & Ranged Attack +2, Leaping 3, Speed 6, Laser Rifle +11-14, Missiles, Light Sword +10.
-A faster flying unit with less durability. Solid weapons and a weak "Light Sword".

"Gun Dragon" ST 12, Toughness +17, Speed 3, Ion Shoulder Turrets +12-14, Back Turrets +12-14, Tail & Wrist Guns +10, Fire Breath +10, Strike +13, Missiles, FIGHTING +3, Smoke Dispensers, 40 feet long.
-Oh hell yes- a ROBOT DRAGON suit that is piloted by a group of men and is meant to fight evil Dragons and Demon Lords in hand-to-hand! Speaking of Power Creep, this sucker has 1,050 M.D.C., pushing it to the point of some lesser Gods! It has twin Turrets, which of course can be fired independently as this is a vehicle more than a singular thing- said to be 26 attacks in total provided by five people.

GEOFRONT VEHICLES:
* And now it's a trio of random vehicles. There's a Cave Bike (Speed 7, +9 Toughness, Laser +9, Missiles), Police Cruiser (Speed 7, +11 Toughness, Stun Beams, Net Cannons, Missiles), and Air Barge (Flight 6, +11 Toughness). This might be the most minimized section of gear ever- I guess they figured nobody read this far back, or they ran outta room.
Jabroniville
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Rifts China Finished

Post by Jabroniville »

RIFTS CHINA FINISHED:
-Okay, so I'm done this set at last! Rifts China is a mixed back- the first book is just a "Monster Manual" with mostly similar demons, differentiated largely by minor damage/toughness values and what they're weak against- this book is just piles of variable characters allowing you to mix and match stuff to create highly-powerful martial artist Chi Warriors... but ones still somewhat weak against the M.D.C. powerhouses of other books. The Geofront's gear is solid, but most people would be helpless against all the Yama Kings, which is probably their point. You can create some true elites by merging the best martial arts (Shao-Lin) with the best gear, though.

As for ideas... I'm on the fence. Some of the later Demon Lords are pretty solid, and have interesting backstories that you can do something with. The Geofront is generic but at least gives humanity hope... even as it's a pretty low-grade idea conceptually and doesn't have much true backstory to it beyond "why nobody has killed them yet"- there's no NPCs, no resistance movements, no nothing- it's just a perfect lil' militaristic society in lockstep with each other.

The art is a mixed bag- the people they got for this have a pretty comic book-y style, but I'm not enamored with it. Most guys look pretty well the same and good art is few & far between- given how both books are just chunks of monsters & player classes that's a bad thing- this should SCREAM "I Want To Play That!" but it doesn't save the Black Tiger Armor. You can tell this was a weak period for Palladium when they had no real "muses" of wild artists creating incredible concepts for them.

There was apparently supposed to be a Rifts China 3, but for whatever reason, it was shelved. Given how Palladium works, anything could have happened (Kevin forgot; Kevin ran out of time; The previous two didn't sell; A manuscript was turned in but he hated it or he pissed off the writer). But essentially, all of China exists between these two books, so you can either play martial artists, military guys or demons in a world run by Demon Lords of varying levels of nuance. It's... ehn. A totally weak book compared to Rifts Japan, but at least they detailed it.
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Sidious
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Re: Jab's Rifts Builds (Geofront Borgs & Gear! Gun Runner!)

Post by Sidious »

Rifts Titans Robotics just started it's Kickstarter. That should be good for some more material when it comes out.
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Ares
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Re: Jab's Rifts Builds (Demon-Eater Cyborg! Geo-Borgs!)

Post by Ares »

greycrusader wrote: Tue Nov 08, 2022 11:28 pm Your last few posts are what gets tedious with RIFTS...variants and variants of the same O.C.C.s and armor/weapons/vehicles, instead of focusing on the sheer, wonderful insanity of the setting. That and the power-geeking, coupled with Siembieda's insistence on doing everything the way he's always done it makes it impressive the game has lasted this long. A testament to the concept and ideas, I suppose.

All my best.
Jabroniville wrote: Tue Nov 08, 2022 11:29 pm Yeah, I was a bit surprised to find the entire Geofront section be almost uniformly "UGH- just use the Coalition" but for pages and pages. Kind of diminishes what's supposed to be a big part of the China setting.
Oddly enough, if Rifts insisted on being a level based system (and it really shouldn't), it'd benefit from what D&D 5e and Pathfinder did with the whole Class and Archetypes features. Rifts could just have a class called Soldier and then have an archetype like Coalition soldier or Geofront soldier. It'd cut down on a lot of bloat, but I'm Kevin liked bloat to fill page counts.
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Jabroniville
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Rifts Dimension Book 5 (The Anvil Galaxy)

Post by Jabroniville »

Image

RIFTS DIMENSION BOOK 5- THE ANVIL GALAXY (2002):
-So I'm done most of what's on Rifts Earth, and am going back and forth on what to do with this thread, so I figured I would take a look at one of the Dimension Books from the early 2000s- it looks like they did a lot of space books around that time. This one is written by the infamous Bill Coffin- a Palladium staffer now most well-known for being the guy who publicly trashed Palladium's business practices and Kevin Siembieda himself via an extremely hilarious, long form essay about how insane Kevin is.

Coffin explains in the preamble that he was simply given this assignment by Kevin and had no prior knowledge of the "Three Galaxies" setting established by CJ Carella in the late 1990s Phase World books. Yes, he literally admits that Kevin gave someone WITH NO KNOWLEDGE of a popular setting the job to create new stuff for that setting- you think that's a thing new to modern Hollywood or comics? Coffin says he loves the notion of space opera, and admits that fans of science fiction tend to want a bit of realism in their work- there'll be a BIT of that here but it's mostly about square-jawed heroes fighting bug-eyed aliens to him.

Central to the setting is the "Nine Heresies" of people seeking the Cosmic Forge, or those empowered by it. And man, this is PILES of words- not only the section on the Heresies, but pages on humans, the Wulfen and other races. Largely just exploring the same stuff Carella laid down, but the huge blocks of text and minimal art are notable. The art itself is mostly fine, with the standard NPC stuff. Nothing outrageously cool or "I want to play this", though.

At about the halfway point of the book, we get an absolutely MASSIVE section expanding upon the Coalition of Civilized Worlds (the "Federation"), Trans-Galactic Empire (the bad guys), the United Worlds of Warlock, and more- effectively just Coffin going on about the work laid down in Phase World. Annoyingly, the R.C.C.s are earlier but their worlds are expanded upon later- the Altess, for example, are one of the big new names here. Then there's a big section on how to build your own "World" with types of stars & junk.

Overall, the book seems like a basic "Expansion Pack", though is oddly short on superstars, NPCs, great new tech or even new O.C.C.s- it's just one guy going full "Setting Fluff" and boosting what came before. The sheer number of paragraphs here is too much for me to read through and really delve into, which will probably make this a quicker set- anyone who's read it can feel free to give their notes.
Jabroniville
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The Nine Heresies

Post by Jabroniville »

THE NINE HERESIES:
-There's a big section on "The Forge"- the cosmic energy source that Cosmo-Knights draw their power from. The origin story is explained as it having been created by The First, who used it to create the entire universe... but one of its own creations, the One, jealously grabbed the Forge and wiped out The First and tons of other worlds until the Forge hid itself away, having become sentient. There's now piles and piles of words indicating various possible fates of the Forge, such as accidentally destroying two rival star systems when they went to war over it, another being a lost alien ship of an evil race that was destroyed and was "reborn" by the Forge, and another a Splugorth plot to trap the Forge with an "Endless Eye". There are nine such "Heresies", a name evoking Warhammer 40K and it's "Horus Heresy" to me.

Each Heresy has its own adherents and people will go to war over it- this is largely the setting of the "Anvil Galaxy", which is the smallest but most chaotic of the Three Galaxies setting. Only a small percentage of people are "Forge Fanatics", but their battles could lead to a large war creating a disaster like what destroyed Rifts Earth.
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The Anvil Galaxy Races

Post by Jabroniville »

THE RACES:
-Now we get the "Monster Manual" section, albeit with short lists of R.C.C.s, starting with three CCW-aligned ones, then three Trans-Galactic Empire and a couple others. This is when the books really started pushing the notion that a race was inherently it's own Class, so everything has the skills all laid out. All very basic art, done in a 1990s comic book style with lots of shading.
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Durosk

Post by Jabroniville »

DUROSK R.C.C.: INT +1, PRE +3, Slithering, Extra Limbs 2, Parry +2, Expertise (Alien Lore) +8, Vehicles +2, Ambidexterity [20]
-Four-armed slugmen, the Durosk are a CCW race. Unusually, they are "xenophiles"- they adore looking into and exploring other cultures. This makes them ideal ambassadors, researchers, and spies, but they have little culture of their own. They're low-yield otherwise, and actually kind of stand out as a solid "utility" people because they aren't otherwise broken.
Jabroniville
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Faustian

Post by Jabroniville »

FAUSTIAN R.C.C.: STA +6, AWA +4, PRE +2, Immunity (Suffocation 2), All are Master Psionics [26 + Psionics]

-As you might imagine by the name, these chalk-white guys are pretty bad news, with a reputation for genocide and using their psionic powers for evil. However, they are actually a race that was nearly wiped out by the Kreeghor (the Trans-Galactic Empire), and the remaining ten million or so sought refuge with the CCW. Now an allied race under "probation", with the entire race being judged by the bad actions of only a few, so they are under their best behavior for now, as the Kreeghor would easily wipe them out if the CCW cast them aside.

-This has made the race very self-policing- news of one bad actor mobilizes almost the entire people against them, and their network of spies seeks them out. Faustians have become great anti-TGE agents, deliberately choosing the most dangerous missions in order to prove themselves.

-Faustians have elite AWA & PRE stats, and low-level M.D.C. (around 50 or so). They will all choose Master Psionic classes like Burster, Mind-Melter, Psi-Slayer, Mind Bleeder, etc.
Jabroniville
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Iborian

Post by Jabroniville »

IBORIAN R.C.C.: STA +2, AWA +3, PRE +2, Treatment +6, "Death Touch" Damage +13 (Requires Skin Contact) Linked to Affliction 12 (Fort; Dazed & Impaired/Stunned & Defenseless/Comatose), "Healing Touch" Healing 4 (Touch Only), Healing 10 (Diseases Only, Via Blood Transfusion), "Psionics" (Master Psionics; All Healing Powers & Bio-Manipulation) [32]

-Wrinkled, wizened-looking people, the Iborians were created millennia ago as a slave race, and won their freedom only through an act of genocide- apparently every single one of their creators are dead. Driven by guilt, the current Iborians seek to make the world a better place, using their innate healing powers. The only ones they cannot heal are themselves- others are cured by blood transfusions, enzymes in their skin, etc.

-Iborians also have an innate Death Touch- an ability they will almost never use, even to save their own lives. Doing so will cause them to enter a long penance lasting 2D4 months, wearing special clothes to symbolize their shame. If they use the Death Touch during THIS time, they will be expelled from Iborian society. They consider the power shameful as a whole (and it's probably linked to the genocide of their creators). Iborians are also Healing-based Psionics.
Jabroniville
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Kelesh

Post by Jabroniville »

KELESH R.C.C.: FIGHTING +2, Ranged Attack +2, Technology +6, Vehicles +2 [10]
-Kelesh are "pack rats" with very "Star Trek Alien" features (humanoid but with weird face lumps), and joined the Trans-Galactic Empire owing to feeling more kinship with them than with humans. They have an extra attack but otherwise little else, and are said to have a ridiculously complex social system that other races find difficult to navigate. Of major note are the HUGE amount of skills (12 secondary skills!) and a wealth of gear. It's suggested that players can either play their "Collecting Technology" obsession for laughs or be serious with it, as it drives most of the species.
Jabroniville
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Re: Jab's Rifts Builds (Rifts China Done! The Anvil Galaxy!)

Post by Jabroniville »

QUIDIAN R.C.C.: ST +3, STA +5, AGI +1, AWA +2, "Berserker Rage" (ST +3, STA +1, FIGHTING +5, Ranged Attack +5, Improved Initiative; when injured or frightened), "Psionics" (Clairvoyance, Empathy, Sixth Sense) [34 + Psionics]
QUIDIAN SEER R.C.C.: "Psionics" (All Sensitive Powers, +2 from other three categories) [+ Psionics]

-Golden-skinned reptile men that keep to themselves, as they are embarrassed by flying into frequent berserker rages that cause them to target people at random. The Kreeghor use them as gladiators & soldiers, as well as Psionic operatives. The Seers are a Mind Melter equivalent- 40% of the race are like this.
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Sinestrian

Post by Jabroniville »

SINESTRIAN R.C.C.: INT +2, PRE -2, Parry +2, Dodge +3, Technology +6, Equipment 2 (Waldoes- ST 5), Uncanny Dodge, Slithering [13]
-Armless snake-men whose planet was destroyed by the TGE centuries ago, and the rest were absorbed into the empire. They all keep robotic "Waldoes" as a set of arms, and fuss over them endlessly, as they're quite helpless without them.
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