RIFTS.

[Splattercat]

Oh, by the way...Certain World Books do in fact make the entire main book obsolete...So depending on what you're using (i.e. Atlantis, Triax), and what you're fighting I could be remiss in trying to suggest magic is useful...In North America though, Magic is terrific...Outside North America, Mages become support characters...

[KevinW]

no real idea where the setting was. I remember my fist character was a Cyber Knight. He survived the C4 block that was planted on him(barely) and I was encouarged to bring in another character,a Hunter-cat. Dm HATED him and did just about everything in his power to kill the cat and never could. Last char was a Psi-tech. First Mision-Fight Gargoyles. last mision too as never played the game again. But back to the Magic subject. I played a Dracanoid/Mind Melter/Smoker. That was where I got the magic access and found,much to my dislike, the decided lack of valuabe combat spells. This was out in space in some such seting for him, thus, perhaps, in a campaign where Carpet of Adhesion was used on more than one occasion(fun spell, but not the direction I was wanting to go), magic was indeed sorely lacking.and as far as te caess to better weapons, like I said, the P.Cs I played with all carried better weapons than what a mage could cast.

[Splattercat]

Okay, this is exactly what I meant...If you make up characters outside the "North America" books (Atlantis/Splynn Dimensional Market, Triax, Africa, Russia, South America, Japan, England, and especially Phase World and Pantheons of the Megaverse), you're going to encounter grossly powerful character/equipment options...So yeah, given the choices available to you, I can see why you wouldn't bother with a Ley Line Walker...

There's nothing wrong with your character choices, because your GM made them available to you...Hunter Cats are gross...Draconids are from Phase World, and are one of the "weaker" RCCs therein...Phase World is a really high-powered environment, so yeah, a "spellcaster" is going to be out-powered by virtually anything...

On Earth, in North America, magic is awesome...Outside of North America, magic is still good, but there's lots that will make it seem less significant...Like your Hunter Cat for example...It all depends on your environment...

EDIT:

kevinw said:

as far as te caess to better weapons, like I said, the P.Cs I played with all carried better weapons than what a mage could cast.

In Phase World, anything that does less than 1D6x10 MD per shot is not worth taking...That's why your friends' damage output was so much better than yours...

[bmurderh8s]

RIFTS is a combination of High tech and fantasy.


In the world of D&D I've found that a high level mage is nearly unstopable. And with 3rd edition rules, its not anymore difficult to lvl up a mage then it is a fighter. That to me seems horribly unbalanced.

RIFTS is far more balanced. IN RIFTS you can do two types of damage, Structural Damage and Mega Damage. To be honest, anything that does MDC damage is pretty powerful. And asking any magic or weapon to do more then 2d6 x10 damage is outragreous. That sort of damage output would completely obliterate a character without power armor, and would even do severe damage to characters in low level armor.

Hell, do you have a problem with Lord of the Rings?! Mage's in Tolkeins world ppocess very weak magic. I guess you think Tolkein's world sucks huh? ;D

[Splattercat]

Lord of the Rings Magic is actually incredibly powerful, it's just presented in a different way...All the most powerful people in the world wield magic...Gandalf, Saruman, Sauron, Galadriel, Elrond...Gandalf killed a Balrog in single combat...The only other character in the Lord of the Rings trilogy short of Sauron himself that could accomplish such a feat would be the Witch King...Gandalf the White is arguably the third most powerful being in middle Earth (behind Sauron and Galadriel) and he's a "mere" mage..

Also, DMK, I know what you're getting at with the game balance thing, but Rifts is far from Balanced...As I said, the stuff in most of the "North America" books balances nicely with each other...But as soon as you step out of North America, all the stuff in the main book is dwarfed in power...Even the Conversion book outpowers the stuff in the main book (especially if you have a copy of Heroes Unlimited handy)...

That was something that turned a lot of people off from Rifts...Each World Book became successively more powerful...Vampire Kingdoms was simply different...Antagonistic...Not a lot to offer players in there...But then Atlantis comes out and anything you take out of that book is going to unbalance a North American campaign...England, though not as powerful as Atlantis, gives a lot of powerful Character choices (Star Child anyone?)...Same with Africa...If you send your characters to Africa, it's pretty much a death sentence...And that's without using the Four Horsemen...Triax..? Ridiculously powerful technology...Robots, power armour and cyborgs, even their guns are gross...South America, Re: Hunter Cat...Japan i don't remember that much of because we didn't use it at all...The only books that are somewhat "tame" are Canada, New West, Free Quebec (if you excuse the Glitter Boys), Xiticix Invasion, etc...Again, North America...

Rifts is fine for game balance, but it has to be strictly controlled...If you let anyone use any books they want, you're going to have one player that thinks their 30ft Robot with it's 500 MDC Main Body is really awesome, suddenly feel pathetic because there's a 9 foot tall Russian Cyborg standing next to him with 1250 MDC...

KevinW pointed this out perfectly in his example: He was playing a Main Book character (Cyber Knight) who almost died, and it was suggested that he make a new guy...He made a guy from South America and the GM, despite his best efforts, couldn't kill him...First off, the GM shouldn't have to try to kill anyone...Second, it's the freakin' GM..!! I could see it if a player was failing to kill him, but the GM..?? He sould be able to fire one missile, and that's it...New Character...

One Player, one campaign, two characters...One he could barely keep alive, and the other so powerful he couldn't die...And Hunter Cats aren't even near the top of the food chain...Like I said at the start, Titan Ley Line Walker, (if you can handle being 12 feet tall), or better yet, drop in on the Pantheons of the Megaverse book and check out the Godling/Demigod...

[KevinW]

The funny thing about my Huntrr cat was that the Gm SUGGESTED him to me. Actually, his first recommendation wa sthe otehr cats in Soputh America-the super psychic kitties-can't rememrb what they were, and then I saw Hunter Cat, and the Gm agreed,. I later fouind out that the Gm did his hardest, I think without being too blatant, to kill off my hunter cat. In the last battle, my Cat wa sin, I knew from the outset that he wnated my Hunter Cat dead. He was partnered up with a Mega-Juicer and The Juicer dided, but my cat lived! Ao I was encouarged, becasue I loved the charcater, to make somehting different, and of course you know the rest.

[Splattercat]

I too have been in a group with a Hunter Cat...they look fine on paper, but when you actually play them, they are ridiculous...Again, not unlike an Atlantean Undead Slayer...Just a super human with a bunch of cool tatoos...Once you start playing him however....they're WAY powerful...

My coolest abuse of Tattoo magic:

I took a monster tattoo of a creature well within the tattoo parameters...It was the big armoured fish from Rifts England...Yes... a fish...If you try to kill it it goes into death throes if I'm not mistaken, and it's also 60 feet long, 40 feet wide and weighs 40 tons...

Sooo....I flew up above the bad guys, and used my Fish tattoo...I dropped it on them, and being out of water, it started dying...Nothing quite worse than 40 tons of Mega Damage Fish flopping wildly on a dozen unsuspecting people... ;D

[sickman]

Yeah; I remember having a Tattoo guy myself. Ended up getting a blowworm (wasn't permitted by game design but had a cool GM) Not sure of the specific stats but it was something like 800 ft long and weighed 200 tons or something crazy like that with natural MDC armor. The GM would purposely put us in crazy situations just so I could bust it out!!

[gamemaster]

You guys sold me on checking out rifts. I went to the website and stumbled on a christmas sale. For $35 bucks you can get a special order grab bag of whatever items you like. I signed up for the core book and some others. You get at least $60 bucks worth of stuff. Check it out. Make sure you read the details here section though.

www.palladiumbooks.com/

[GalactiKing]

Yeah, they have one of those every year and it's a great deal. I think my wife is planning on getting me one so I may finally be getting Beyond the Supernatural.