A Rifts Balance Discussion for Roguewriter & Buzzard

[Green Knight]

First of all, I believe that you can only Sneak Attack once per round even if you are using paired weapons only your first attack gets the damage bonus.

Second, we were discussing a up front non-sneaky fight. Rogues are the weakest class in the game for that IMHO.

Yes, but the Rogue provides other advantages which balance it out against the Fighter.

The Cyber-Knight, on the other hand, doesn't give you much of anything that makes it an advantageous OCC to take over the Glitter Boy. They both get many of the same combat skills, while the Glitter Boy can also potentially have the same amount of psionics as the Cyber-Knight, minus the psi-sword. So whatever few advantages the Cyber-Knight has over the Glitter Boy are VASTLY inferior to the net gain one has from having a suit of Glitter Boy armor.

The Fighter and Rogue are balanced. The Cyber-Knight and the Glitter Boy AREN'T. No If's, And's, or But's about it. Hell, even if the only barometer were combat ability, the Rogue still has a chance against a straight up Fighter. If a 1st-level Rogue wins Init against a 1st-level Fighter and hits, then he could probably kill the Fighter with his Sneak Attack. Likewise, a 15th-level Rogue would mop the floor with a 1st-level Fighter.

You can't say the same for the Cyber-Knight and the Glitter Boy. A 1st-level Cyber-Knight would get MASSACRED by a 1st-level Glitter Boy. And chances are, a 15th-level Cyber-Knight would suffer the same fate.

 

[Kanegrundar]

There are only 11 Character Classes and 6 Races in the PHB (if I did my math right). Seems like you were ahead of D&D for character choices.

I ran my last Rifts game with Vampire Kingdoms, Mercenaries, Atlantis, and South America 1 & 2, so I had quite a few OCC and RCC options, very few of which made it into the list. Especially in SA 1 & 2, which are horribly overpowered.

I do agree that the system needs an overhaul. I don't know if d20 is the proper system for it but honestly it wouldn't be that hard to cross it over though you'd still have the balance issues. Imposing limits on what PA or Robot a player can have or what race they can play undermines what RIFTS was trying to accomplish in the first place.

What fun is it when one or two players are heads and shoulders above the rest of the party. What was Rifts setting out to do in the first place? I don't feel like they set out to make a nearly unplayable game (unplayable from the stance of balance). They set out to make a wahoo game that encompasses everything. In that realm they succeeded with flying colors, but the system fails the setting horribly.

I've done some work on converting Rifts to D20. D20 offers a good guideline for balance. Most of the races have very hefty ECL's. I went with a stance of trying to capture the feel of Rifts while trying to bring it in line with D20's power level. Undead Slayers are no longer the nigh-unkillable juggernauts that they are in the Atlantis book, they are relatively balanced (no major balance issues so far) with the other character classes. Some things needed to be re-worked, but trust me, Rifts can be ran using D20 Modern. It takes a lot of work and some creative conversion, but it can be done and it's a lot more fun for everyone, IMO, no matter what kind of character you want to play.

Kane

 

[Darrius Adler]

Ah good ol Rifts. Its been a while since I last had a discussion on this one. My group abandoned Palladium a long time ago due to the game mechanics. I remember looking at the rules questions forum on the Palladium website and seeing conflicting answers for basically the same rule question.

I love the concept of Rifts and I hope the movie is done well honestly. After the Rifts Mexico they kinda started into the pattern of putting something bigger and badder than the nastiest thing in the previous book. I think it is the NGR that has a cannon capable of doing 10d6x1000 MD or something close to that insane. There is no balance in the game world that is left entirely to the DM to figure out. Generally our games were either all human or all non-human MD creatures. While there is no level limit on the spells you can cast, the typical human spellcaster will never have the PPE to cast the higher end spells and they were never very clear about how much power you can draw/store from a ley line. I played in the first printing of the book so some things may have changed. I remember the offensive spells like fireball were a joke (3d6 MD and I think there was a save to avoid it). I had hoped with open gaming license that Palladium might put out a d20 version of Rifts but I am pretty sure that will never happen.

 

[buzzard]

Well since I've been invoked, I'd better show.

But on to the topic, it has already been explained well what the weakness of RIFTS really is. It's the lack of tools with which to balance things.

How much more powerful is a Mega-Juicer than a juicer? What about the more advanced Glitterboy armors? How do they scale?

A GM out there without a life raft trying to figure these things out. Yeah, you can estimate, but sometimes sneaky little abilites are not so obvious.

Though I would caution you on a fighter vs. rogue comparison. Rogues can be very deadly. Correctly built they can sneak attack pretty much every round, and that damage really adds up (feinting and expert tactician are your friends).

Now if you said barbarian vs. rogue, you might have a better case. However, we'd be nitpicking. The D&D classes in head to head matchups often end up in a rock-scissors-paper arrangement. However they are reasonably well balanced in terms of combat utility.

You cannot make an credible case that such a thing exists in RIFTS.

buzzard

 

[qstor]

I'm a big fan of the setting but I don't care for the rules. And the editing of the books is horrible. No indices for the books and the material is recycled from book to book talk about a crappy way to print out books.

Mike

 

[Particle_Man]

First of all, I believe that you can only Sneak Attack once per round even if you are using paired weapons only your first attack gets the damage bonus.

Second, we were discussing a up front non-sneaky fight. Rogues are the weakest class in the game for that IMHO.

First of all, (and with all due respect) you are wrong about how many sneak attacks/round rogues get. The rogue can make a sneak attack with every single attack it has, if it is flanking. Thus a 20th level rogue could, with the proper two-weapon fighting feats, make 6 attacks/round and thus potentially get +60d6 damage, each round. That's a lot.

Second, unless you are running solo games, a rogue can almost always get a flanking opportunity, in an "up front" fight, as you describe. There are exceptions (vs. undead, constructs, etc.) but in general, rogues are useful in combat in D&D. And this isn't "hide in a corner and jump someone" combat, but "You hit him high, I'll hit him low. Charge!" combat. Unless your combats are frequrently on the level of "Stand back! This one is mine!" but that is pretty rare in games I run or play. Does that happen often in your games?

Back to Rifts. I have played Rifts. I played a Cyber-Knight. Someone else played a Juicer. We both felt sorry for the Renegade Dog Boy. And no one even tried the wilderness scout, rogue scientist, or city rat. So yes there are a lot of classes, but some of them suck compared to others, so they are just a waste of paper, really. Unless you force people to choose only those classes, in which case the players are restricted from the "power" classes, which them become the waste of paper. Either way, people are pretty restricted in their real options, which is odd considering the "play anything" idea behind the game setting.

In D&D, one can play every class without worrying nearly as much about sucking all the time, compared to everyone else. And it is possible to make a d20 game that captures all the flavor of Rifts, while remaining balanced.

 

[Aristotle]

Particle Man already pointed out that rogues can take sneak attack on every attack (provided he meets the requirements). A rogue, played correctly, can be just as effective as a fighter or a mage. Play up to their strengths, remember? Some clever dirty fighting can put that rogue on even ground.

I own all of the Rifts books (including all of the issues of the Rifter periodical) up until about 2 years ago. I bought them for the story and the setting. While there are aspects of the setting I dislike, I generally loved the overall look and feel of the game. But, as others have already said, the rules suck. And a great deal of my opinion on the rules probably stems from the utter lack of balance. I don't want a game that does everything for me, but I do want a game that is consistent. Every game has balance issues, but Rifts almost tries to be unbalanced as if that were a desirable feature.

Beyond that I've just never been happy with the attitude of the publishers. Some of the answers I've seen to questions on the palladium site make me wonder if they value their customers at all. You only need to tell me "The rules are perfect, you just don't understand them" once. Fine, I'll invest my cash in a game that I feel has a more solid ruleset and a better relationship with its customers (even those customers who are critical of the product).

 

[Wormwood]

First of all, I believe that you can only Sneak Attack once per round even if you are using paired weapons only your first attack gets the damage bonus.

Actually, a Rogue gets sneak attack dice for every attack against an opponent denied his Dexterity bonus or who the rogue flanks.

Second, we were discussing a up front non-sneaky fight. Rogues are the weakest class in the game for that IMHO.

Not so.

A rogue could use his greater mobility to attack a fighter from cover/concealment. Done properly, he will onl need a to score few hits to cripple the fighter.

A rogue could use his Climb, Jump or Balance skills to reach areas of the 'arena' where the fighter is unable to follow---setting the fighter up for sniping.

Even in a straight-up melee, a few good tumbles and feints can turn the tide against a brute fighter.

They're balanced with smart play and the rules-as-written.

 

[Green Knight]

Hmm. Speaking of balance, I was thinking of how to balance various suits of power armor. Anyone think that it'd be a good idea to treat that similar to Templates? I.E. A SAMAS is Level Adjustment +2 while a Glitter Boy is Level Adjustment +8?

 

[Green Knight]

Not so.

A rogue could use his greater mobility to attack a fighter from cover/concealment. Done properly, he will onl need a to score few hits to cripple the fighter.

A rogue could use his Climb, Jump or Balance skills to reach areas of the 'arena' where the fighter is unable to follow---setting the fighter up for sniping.

Even in a straight-up melee, a few good tumbles and feints can turn the tide against a brute fighter.

They're balanced with smart play and the rules-as-written.

Yeah. Unlike the Cyber-Knight vs. Glitter Boy fight, the Rogue isn't entirely dependent on catching the Fighter completely unarmed and unarmored.