a couple of Month ago I read an Article about a redhaired South African Tribe.
It seems like some Viking crashlanded there more than 1000 Years ago and they've passed the Genes for Red Hair
until Today
I love breaking clischeés as much as I like fullfilling them

He who Dances with red Haired Girls
(or Fillipinas with Celtic Ancestors)
Medicineman

I could see that particular bloodline being descended from an ED Orc Scorcher tribe.

Actually, that is the fault of character generation, because those options should have been balanced in the first place.

Sometimes, the genre or setting demands that certain skills be better than others, which is fine. Ever notice how everyone is an expert with a shotgun in a zombie apocalypse setting? Even the cheerleader who's never picked up a gun in her life? It's a genre convention there, so it's okay that it be the superior choice. However, sometimes that one choice is so good, everything else becomes a trap option. For example, Shadowrun used to fold all guns under the Firearms skill. It was so powerful (and cheap) that everyone was running around with a 6 in it, so every mage and decker was equally as good with assault rifles and pistols as the street sammie. It was actually at the point where not taking Firearms 6 was a bad idea.

How was this fixed? By fixing character generation. Splitting the firearms skill into different weapons meant that only the dedicated shooters could be skilled in every gun. They made other mistakes (automatics, like you mentioned) but by changing character generation they fixed the problem.


I believe the game he's talking about is Rifts. The classes there are so ridiculously unbalanced, playing some of them is suicide.

Rifts is a high-powered game. There's nothing wrong with that. But while it allows you to play a powered armor Jaeger jock, a techno-mage wielding magical laser pistols, a dragon hatchling, or a demigod, it also has classes for librarians and (I kid you not) hobos. There's no multiclassing, and there are no advantages to playing a librarian or hobo that another class doesn't get more of. You pick a class, and you're stuck with it forever. In the meanwhile, as the others are throwing around attacks that could level a small town, you are cringing in the back because even a stray shot could turn you into a fine red mist. (Again, I'm not kidding in the slightest-- the Mega-Damage scale means that anyone on the normal damage scale will get massacred by even the smallest shot.) Nobody ever plays the hobo or the librarian, because it's a trap option.

More crucially, even the midrange choices are traps. They just don't get the raw power of the better choices. They're actually worse traps, because they look viable, but in practice they'll get wiped out in the first combat.

The problem, again, is in character creation: all classes are considered equal, even though they're not even in the same ballpark. If you want the librarian to be a viable class, they need to have lots more choices-- choices that the other classes don't get. Since it's also a level system, they need to get solid benefits for leveling up, which they don't get. I have no idea what to do about the Vagabond/Hobo; right now, they get less skill points than anyone, no powers or gear, and get even less than the librarian from leveling up. I personally think it's a lost cause.

In my experience, more options = more min/maxing. Which in turn, leads to more unbalanced characters, as system mastery becomes a greater factor. Certainly, many of the min/maxed monstrosities I saw in SR4.5 weren't possible in SR3, and may or may not be possible in SR5.

I used to play a lot of Champions/Hero, and I did a fair amount of GURPS. Both systems are point-buy, and both systems are known for their extreme breakability. It's not because point costs are unbalanced, either; it's because system mastery makes it so you can drastically reduce the cost or minimize the impact of maxing out your core abilities. By itself, that wouldn't be a problem; but when you consider the gulf that occurs when a player doesn't have the same level of system mastery, you start having problems.


Actually, the GM has been fairly receptive to my questions. And I'm not giving up on FATE, I'm still playing it. However, I still haven't had that "aha!" moment. Not saying I won't get it, just that I haven't hit it yet.

Part of the problem is the PbP environment: I don't think the GM fully understands how much I'm struggling, and talking via post doesn't answer things the same way talking in person does. I'm sure that if this were a regular game, things would have been easier. In the meanwhile, though, I am struggling with the game. Every time I think I get it, I discover I'm wrong. It'll happen, it's just a headache until it does.


Um, no. That can be just as bad or a problem.

First things first: there's no such thing as a bad character, only bad players. If you hand the most min/maxed monstrosity to a good player, you won't have a single problem. OTOH, even if you hand the most balanced character to a problem player, you're going to have endless issues. It's on the player, and how you deal with it. Of course, in reality, it's seldom that clear-cut: there are many good players who have problem moments, or have hot-button topics that make them flip from one to the other.

We all know what happens with an overpowered character gets into the hands of a problem player. But when a weak character gets into their hands, it can be just as disruptive. For starters, there's the whining factor. They can derail a game by whining about how they can't do anything. Or, the feelings of uselessness could make even a good player start pulling crazy and pointless stunts that also derail the game.

The solution to this is twofold, and it's on the GM. First, you have to make sure that everyone gets roughly the same amount of spotlight time. Second, you need to make sure that every character is roughly equal in capability, so they get the same quality of spotlight time. A good character creation system will help immensely with that, as you don't have to worry about characters being consistent.

This is only true if you approach Rifts purely as a combat simulation (and if you allow yourself to get into fights with MDC-capable opponents, which is just plain stupid). It's like saying playing a tank gunner in a game with a WW2 setting is overpowered compared to playing an infantryman or radio operator because the latter can't win a shootout with an enemy tank. Those "trap" classes as you call them get skills that the big blasty classes don't, which are useful in non-combat situations or more human-scale combat situations.

(Oddly enough, I recently did play a librarian in a game that also also had an explosives-chucking martial artist, a giant of a police officer, a mystical telekinetic. Mind you that was a cthulhu-esque action/horror game, so I knew ahead of time books would be important somehow )

As silly as the Palladium/Rifts system can be sometimes, you have to love them just because they do make write-ups for all those oddball classes.

Just from the Vagabond O.C.C. List alone...
Bag Lady O.C.C.
Carny O.C.C.
Cultist P.C.C.
Drunkard O.C.C.
Redneck O.C.C.
Hillbilly O.C.C.
Hobo O.C.C.
Mountain Man O.C.C.
Street Bum O.C.C.
Squatter O.C.C.
Tramp O.C.C.
Village Idiot O.C.C.
Hedge Mage O.C.C.

Fun fact: The idea that red hair is associated with Celts is kinda new. The Spanish inquisition called in redheads for questioning, because at that time it was considered a clear sign of Jewish ancestry...

incidentally, the classes he mentioned actually do have unique abilities in the most recent rules for rifts (assuming by librarian he means rogue scholar, and by hobo he means vagabond). the rogue scholar actually has rules for teaching other people skills now, and the vagabond has a special ability to basically make educated guesses about people you run into.

obviously, these abilities are not strictly equivalent to, say, the glitter boy OCC that starts off with a super shotgun that can fire 3-4 times as far as most weapons other than missile launchers (and double the range of the most common, mini-missiles) and can one-shot many characters, but they do get them (and on the flipside, there will most likely be times where the ability to tell that someone is a con man is more important than being able to shoot things from two miles away).

Yes, it was the Rogue Scholar and Glitter Boy O.C.C.s that I was referring to.

And without digging up my RIFTs Unlimited book, IIRC the scholar got the teaching ability in that book, and did not have it in the previous book that's like 15 to 20 years older.

But, like Sponge said, if you play it like a combat simulator (like how D&D 4 is laid out to be) then that O.C.C. isn't going to be too useful. Especially if you really know the system to take advantage of everything possible, and be able to take the equivalent of over 200 actions a combat round in the Shadowrun system.

well, that also depends to some extent. rogue scholars can choose a lot of skills, including various WP skills and such

also, you could always just make a rogue scholar (or vagabond) super powered character. you can do some pretty impressive stuff with just a few minor superpowers, never mind if you can pick a couple of major ones

(but that's hardly standard either. really, it's more a matter of "rifts was never remotely intended to be balanced by the system, it was intended to be balanced by the GM")

Okay, I bought a used copy of SR5, so I am looking through it, and honestly, I don't see Priority as being any more inherently "balanced" than any of the other character creation systems.

One of the unique problems with Priority is that it requires players to discern which area needs the most resources, and stepping out of this paradigm will significantly weaken your character. The character creation examples include a very prime example of that, a technomancer who take priority A in resources. That is a good priority if you are getting lots of 'ware for your street sam (although you are better off with the archetype, who is more than 200,000 over on his expenditures ), or buying a drek-hot deck for your decker. But a technomancer? He splurges on an Ares Roadmaster, a Super-Platinum DocWagon Contract, 12 months of lifestyle, 10 fake SINs, etc. He doesn't need all of that. He would have been much, much more effective if he took that Priority for Attributes, for high mental stats, or skills (considering all of the skills that technomancers need). Even swapping it out with his B for Resonance would have given him some significant boosts.

You can't avoid getting into battle with MDC capable opponents in Rifts. Even the spy OCC has a pen laser that does 1d4 MDC. That won't scratch serious opponents, who can have several hundred MDC, but is more than enough to disintegrate the rogue scholar or wandering bum classes. Heck, even classes that are supposed to be strong combatants will be smeared by a guy running around with a pen laser. Juicers and cyber knights can't compete against halfway intelligent opposition armed with MDC weapons.

But the librarian and scholar classes aren't the problem. The problem is this is a game where you can literally play Thor. Demigod is a playable class in this game. Balancing the game is hard enough when you have characters who are mostly at the high end of the scale. Trying to balance things so your homelesss bum can contribute as well is nigh impossible.

I must play an another way. It's the only explanation I see.

a) let's forget about the problem player: the issues concerning such players are unrelated to character.
b) "If you hand the most min/maxed monstrosity to a good player, you won't have a single problem" remains false in my opinion. It still depends on the Gamemaster. There are games where the biggest min/maxed character won't cause me any problem because it works with the gamefeeling I wanna have. But when it doesn't suit, no matter how well the guy play, it's a problem. I'll take an earthdawn exemple (though I could build one with Shadowrun). I had a player playing an obsidian warrior, min/maxed. The horrific/epic theme doesn't suit with such a situation. No matter how you play, your character life is on the stake (horrific theme) so you must take the best of your character but the epic part for the rest of the players fall flat because the only thing that mattered was the obsidian's performance.




I've never experienced that. In thruth, people unsatisfied with their characters just builds another one. The only whinging subject could be about experience, but nothing else.




I've said I have a problem witn min/maxed characters as a gamemaster. I should have precised that I have a problem with that in shadowrun, not every game.

Now I change my point of view and say my feeling as a player: I don't need that equal spotlight. I could play a cyberless mundane with no computer skills and nothing to add to the team and still have fun. It's not about that. It's about what everyone seeks.

And hence, the fundamental problem with min/maxing is a gamemaster problem because HE is responsible (no nitpicking there players can make from a bad story some good fun and can also fuck up a great campaign but GM remains factor 1) for the story. Op char drags down the game? Just say NO, that's my opinion.

The setting is a deadly one, it's true, but this is (I believe) by design to dissuade players from always seeking violent solutions to problems - when you don't know who might be packing some MDC weaponry, you tend to be a little more polite (or a little more misty, take your pick). MDC body armour is also readily available. It may not help much against a Glitter Boy or similar, but it will protect you against psychopathic spies running around flashing MDC laser pens indiscriminately.



Again, you're talking strictly about combat balance. This what I call the "D&D style", where the story/plot is just window dressing to move the players from one combat to the next. Some games are about more than just combat.

It's been my experience that when you have a power imbalance in the hands of a mature player, he or she won't rub it in everyone else's face like a problem player will. You can roleplay with the team, instead of against them, assuming the system lets you.


That assumes you actually get to do something. As long as you get to play (e.g., have that spotlight time) it's not a big deal. If your character is passed over a lot, or only gets to make inconsequential rolls, things aren't as fun, and with a cyberless mundane you're going to have a lot more ineffective rolls.

Yesh, yeah, blame the GM for everything. Fact is, Shadowrun 4.5 started making characters very complicated, enough so that you can be surprised mid-game by how powerful a character is. It's actually easy; you just don't total up your dice, and the GM will never be able to add up all the sources until it's too late. You can't say no unless you know that a particular combination will break your game; and in order to do that, you need more system mastery than the offending player. That sucks the fun out of a game, as things turn into competitive character building. It becomes an endless cycle of power gaming and rules lawyering on both sides.


Um... we're taking about a game where starting characters can blow up medium-sized towns by sneezing too hard. Starting with natural MDC isn't hard at all, and those characters generally start with MDC attacks to boot! Non-MDC characters to have to be careful against MDC opponents, true, but there is no reason for the MDC characters to avoid fights. In fact, as I recall, the social system in Rifts is all but nonexistent. I honestly don't recall if there is one: If there is, we never used it, and it works just like the rest of the skill system. Actually, "works" is a strong word when referring to the Rifts skill system.


It's about all kinds of balance. The godling is a superior character across the board; he has more attribute dice, meaning he'll have higher stats in everything in comparison to the bum class. He has Supernatural Strength, so even if the vagabond somehow gets an equal strength score, he's still behind the curve. The godling has access to psionics and magic, which includes utility powers as well as combat attacks. He doesn't have to play Superman, he can play Batman instead, but he's still a superhero while the vagabond is literally a homeless bum.

Yes, the vagabond gets slightly more skills than the demigod or godling, but since the skill system in Rifts is laughably bad, that's not much of an advantage.

And this problem only gets worse as you level. Rifts uses a unified XP chart, so it takes the same XP for every class to level, like in D&D 3.5. The problem is, not all classes are created equal (or remotely equal) and it's just as hard to reach second level Demigod as it is to reach second level Innocent Bystander Hobo. You can never gain the spells or powers or special abilities of another class. You can gain their skills and gear, but that's expensive and difficult, and the godlings and demigods can do it too. (Yes, homeless bum can spend on skills to pilot power armor. So can Thor. And Thor in Iron Man's suit is just scary to contemplate.)

The Troll Combat Monster Class is basically there to allow things like the Decker and the Face to have a chance to allow combat engagement by means of distracting the enemy forces and soaking damage meant for them.
Which, incidentally, does not work as well anymore since SR4.

Quote the source.

SR3, Attributes round UP
SR4, Attributes round DOWN so already lower ceiling there
SR3 Trolls could actually hit augmented Max Body
SR4 Trolls can't actually hit augmented Max Body so MUCH lower ceiling there
SR3 physical damage did not suddenly become stun when it was less power than armor, so Trolls could stand there and take a beating like nothing else
SR4 physical damage does suddenly become stun when it is less power than armor and Stun Track is by far shorter than the physical one for Trolls so they faint just as fast as anybody else aside from maybe dorfs because they are stubborn i guess . . And due to how Armor/Stacking works, getting more Armor than incoming damage is pretty much trivial in most cases in SR4, whereas it was the exact opposite in SR3. So actually dealing with stun damage will be a much more frequent problem than it was in SR3. Combine this with the shorter stun damage track and yes, again, it's not as easy to soak damage for the troll anymore as it was in SR3.
And then we get to how cheap stun spells and stick and shock ammo are and oh look at that they both attack the stun track and not the physical track so even if you are a troll you go down as fast as an elf . .

I just want to point out that Rifts does not use a truly unified XP system. Many share XP tables but there are several XP tables. That Glitterboy will level up more slowly than the Vagabond.

We call this "role-playing" in my neck of the woods, maybe you've heard of it? I agree though, the actual mechanics of Rifts are eye-gougingly annoying.



I am boggled that you would make such a statement. The consequences of blowing up a town are not insignificant and generally bad. And when you're using weapons that do dozens or hundreds of MDC, there's probably going to be collateral damage.



I don't know about this "godling" class you speak of, I only have access to the core Rifts stuff, so I can't comment on it. Other "powerful" OCCs have their own drawbacks, though: Juicers and Crazies have horribly short life spans, powered armour is awfully conspicuous and the Coalition will look poorly on you for flaunting it in their territory (and they have more & bigger guns than you), magic-wielders have their own demons to deal with (literally). None of these are strictly mechanical disadvantages, but it's expected for the GM to use these aspects to cause problems as part of the balancing equation (much like meta prejudice in Shadowrun, at least in past editions).

Well, yeah, that's the problem. When your only tool is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. And since the social rules are somewhere between nonfunctional and laughable, combat is your best tool.

I recall a situation where somebody wanted to persuade the townsfolk to sell us food, in defiance of the Coalition edict against us. He tried to intimidate them, and punctuated it with a warning shot at a nearby house. Not only did he blow up the house, but he managed to take out a quarter of the town in the process. The GM, being a dick, said the food silo was in the line of fire and was also destroyed. However, the worst part was that this ended up being a successful intimidation, and we walked away with what little food the village had left. We left them to bury their dead and starve.

Collateral damage isn't a problem in Rifts. It's a fringe benefit.

Godling and Demigod are in the deities supplement. The core book is bad enough, but the supplements really suffered from power creep. Juicers have never been a problem, though: I've yet to see a Rifts campaign last long enough that their lifespan becomes an issue. In fact, the first time I player Rifts, I played a Juicer simply because he was going to die: That way, if he died in game, I wouldn't be upset. Crazies are a trap option, their psionics are nothing compared to a burster or Mind Melter. I once shut down an entire anti-Coalition battle with a Mind Melter, too. I took electrokinesis as my major power, which looked harmless enough. Until we faced a Coalition giant robot squad. Electrokinesis has this trick where you can turn on electrical devices, so I activated the robot's ejection system for my first action. The second was to activate the robot's missile lock.

But even just using the core books, there are natural MDC beings who are severely unbalanced. I'm thinking mostly of the dragon hatchling. Not only are you a natural MDC creature, you get a MDC breath weapon, you can fly, you have supernatural strength, you have spells or psionics (occasionally both, if you know how to break the system) and you can shapeshift, which means you can temporarily wear human MDC armor and use human weapons as well as evade dragon hunters. Sure, you don't get much in the way of skills, but who needs them? You're a frakking dragon, and the skill system never worked anyway.

Just because a game is lacking in crunchy, roll-up-your-sleeves, social rules (and a great many older games certainly are) doesn't mean that role playing isn't a thing.


And this story, right here, contributes to the usual pattern of "maybe it's not the game, it's the game table." If that's what your GM does when someone tries to intimidate someone and specifically fire a warning shot, I don't think you can really pin that on the game instead of the gamemaster. Especially since you acknowledge the GM was being a dick right there in retelling your woeful tale, why do you still base your opinion of the game -- and build all these assumptions up around the game -- based on that sort of behavior?

A dude in another thread got his shadowrunner team attacked by a gay street gang that started raping all the dudes they saw. Do you see him ranting about how Shadowrun is a game with every sourcebook full of gay rape, or something?

What attributes are you rounding in SR4A? Damage tracks round up. (In favor of the character)

Though My Troll had to keep in mind the Soak System of SR4A, he was more than a little robust. In fact, we just finished the Artifacts series prior to moving to SR5, and the ORC routinely shrugged off Vanquisher Cannon, and Claymore Mines, to say nothing of the small arms fire that he encountered. And he was LESS robust than the Troll I played at the Start of SR4.

I weep that this viewpoint is out there and common. *shakes head*



Just because you have a book does not mean it has to be allowed. I wouldn't allow it, for example.

I played in a great many of the older games. Rifts is one of the only games where the skill system actually hinders roleplay and social activities.


You can always blame the GM, but certain systems enable certain behavior on the part of the GM and players. In this case, everyone is running around with weapons that can level a city block. Hell, the spy's pen can level a city block, which brings a new terror to underwriting real estate. What that means, however, is that sooner or later someone is going to level a city block.

The way the MDC system is designed, you can utterly annihilate anything that isn't a MDC structure. That wouldn't be a problem if everyone was a MDC capable character. That makes things even. It'd also work if no one is a MDC character, the game turns into a set of eggshells running around with hammers, but it's still even. However, if some characters are running around with hundreds of MDC, and others are on a SDC scale, you have problems.


To be fair, that was over twenty years ago, I've done some growing up since then.

Dragon hatchlings are in the core book. They're as much a core class as wizard is to D&D. And they're hideously unbalanced, they can kill you by coughing too hard. (Accidents with breath weapons can be nasty. As Steve Martin put it: "Laugh and the world laughs with you. Sneeze, and it's good bye Seattle!")

much as i feel the damage-dealing capabilities of rifts characters can get quite silly, it's rather an exaggeration to describe 1d4 MD as being able to level a city block.

1d4 MD can fairly reliably total a car. it can probably consistently destroy a shed. against an actual building? well, you might inflict enough damage on a wall that it's cheaper to destroy and replace than to repair, but you're not really going to level even a small house, let alone a city block.

even a boom gun (the strongest weapon in the core book that isn't basically an ICBM) won't really destroy a city block with a single shot. certainly it would inflict major structural damage on a few buildings, but with that said, it's maximum damage is 18,000 SDC. (and it's average is considerably less than that).. which is certainly a lot, but we're talking buildings here. a car has a couple hundred SDC. a large building is likely to have multiple walls with at least hundred SDC each to blow through, with major structural walls likely being several hundred.

and even then, there's the matter of shape. the attack is likely a narrow beam, or perhaps a cone, unless you're using an explosive weapon. you would potentially smash a hole through a number of buildings in a city block, but i'm finding it incredibly unlikely to fire a warning shot and literally destroy dozens of buildings and render all of their contents unusable (particularly when the contents in question are not particularly shape-dependant. like food), unless your warning shot was a full round burst from an automatic grenade launcher or something like that. you'd probably put a hole clear through their storage building if you hit it (assuming it isn't built with MDC materials), and the food in the direct path would probably be vaporized, but unless the "building" in question is about a 2-foot diameter tube which just so happens to be exactly aligned along the path of your weapon's beam, that seems like an incredibly improbable outcome. (actually, if the building is a 2-foot diameter tube which is perfectly aligned with your weapon's beam, that also sounds like an incredibly improbable outcome).

(not that i'm suggesting rifts is balanced, mind you; like i said, the whole thing was pretty much designed with the idea that the GM is going to make it work. but let's not make up stuff about the system; there are enough real flaws to complain about, as a rule, that you shouldn't need to make things up).

And the only reason I even mentioned RIFTs in the first place here was to show that things need not be balanced in an RPG.

Once everyone's special, then no one is.

And as a real world crossover in the RIFTs arsenal of weapons, the 120mm cannon on an M1A1 is rated at 1d4x100 SDC, or 1d4 MDC, per shot.

You are arguing about every point, every post so much that I don't even understand what your global message is (if there is one at all).

And since I don't care if I fail convincing anyone, I will just post my own global opinion:

Yes, you cannot always see if a PC is overly min-maxed. As a gamemaster, you are responsible for the games fun. Whatever the way you treat OP characters when it doesn't suit the feel you wanna infuse in your camapign :

- "No" if spotted at character creation.
- Prior discussion with players about over min-maxing to avoid such behaviors.
- Nerfs and rule adjusting if a rule is broken.

It remains first and foremost the role of the GameMaster. (I'm gamemaster, so I feel like my opinion isn't about taking away players responsability. In fact they are responsible for loads of other things that can totally fuck up a good campaign)


Now back on subject: If trolls are underpowered, it should be adressed by devs into a SR 5.5, by gamemaster if he agrees they are and he feels it's a problem. It remains an tabletop-RPG so I don't think it's too much of a problem.

Welcome to conversations with Cain.

Fair Enough.



And were never allowed in our games. Maybe that is another example of the TJ Fallacy (From some people's point of view), but I would disagree. *shrug*

I thought Psi-stalkers were in the core book too. IIRC, they got pseudo-MDC too.

Having just looked at my book, they have access to MDC Body Armor, but I did not see any inherent MDC armor for the class, might have missed it, though.

I just looked at mine. They have a Mega-Damage Combat ability that turns HP into MDC.

Hmm, What page? and is it the Ultimate Rifts, or Classic Rifts (Mine is Classic). I did say I could have missed it.

The Ultimate Rifts Main Book. It is the latest edition afterall.

Yeah - I think I have it on PDF somewhere, but the Classic book is right here on my desk.

But in that instance, essentially the Combat 'Borg is MDC as well... of course it's way more expensive to be heal that MDC, but at least you never need to worry about running your weapons energy dry.

Wow - No need to worry about Ammo? Hmmm. Might as well play Feng Shui.

actually, most of the 'borg weapons are ammo-based, or at the very least have recharge times. i think only the forearm weapons are different, and either way, most of the built-in 'borg weapons are simply not as good as a decent pulse laser rifle or rail gun in the first place.

in any event, most of the advantages a 'borg gets are not substantially better than a regular human with decent tech can get. lots of MDC? that's nice. too bad it costs a small fortune to repair, just like for any other armour (not to mention everyone else just needs a mechanic, and you need a specially trained medical professional).

dragons are much more impressive because they can at least alter their physical form (still possible to detect for psi-stalkers and dog boys, for example), and they get access to magic and/or psionics, which is where most of the really crazy stuff comes in anyways. ultimately, the ability to deal lots of damage can solve many problems, but it's pretty common and straightforward to deal with. the ability to instantly take an enemy out of a fight is much much scarier, and usually comes with loads of other utility anyways.

Most of the energy based weapons for the 'borg state they can tie into the nuclear reactor of a full 'borg. Although yes, a good Wilk's laser from the New West book (power creep... not as bad as south america book) will do more damage. Although you could set up a way to recharge your normal e-packs with the generator. The real main draw is that you are only slightly taller than a human and can potentially run at over 80 MPH.

But when it comes to Rifts, the entire design philosophy revolves around nothing being created equally. Which, for how much record keeping the game has, you'd think they'd have bothered to go for more balance in the design principle.

i don't see a problem with this.
you could, after all, be slightly smaller than the average human and just RIDE A MOTORCYCBLE AT OVER 80 MPH right?

And take ridiculous penalties for firing wildly.

needs moar dakka

Or 2,50 tall and run slower than humans, because...

No reason, just because.

"Because" is one of the most powerful arguments one can make.

How about "to cause threads about underpowered trolls"?

Would've almost used the same answer about technomancers, too, Sengir.

One of the guys at our table thinks that the Pendulum (for Technomancers) just swung too far back in the other direction. A knee-jerk reaction and a desire to squash an archetype.

Just one? Hand him the Captain Obvious Award

ummm... a good particle beam rifle from the original main book was probably better in most cases. can't remember when the wilk's 447 came into play, was that main book as well? if so, that was also a better pulse rifle option than pretty much any 'borg weapon i can recall.






presumably the rest hate technomancers with a passion, and feel that the pendulum either didn't swing far enough, or that it did swing far enough, and now technomancers are down in the gutter where they belong

(at least, i find it unlikely that the rest of them think technomancers as they currently exist have a reasonable cost for what they do. alternately, maybe they expect the matrix book to come out and overcompensate in the other direction).