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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Graf" data-source="post: 2465400" data-attributes="member: 3087">Disclaimer (I wish this kind of thing weren't necessary but anyway)I know some people don't like <a href="http://www.palladiumbooks.com/" target="_blank">Rifts</a>, the company that publishes it or the man behind it (Kevin Siembieda) some kind of personal animosity. I think these are all valid kinds of things to discuss (except for the last one) but that's hopefully not going to wind up being the main theme this thread. So if you were tortured by a DM using a Palladium game in the past please feel free to start your own thread about that somewhere else.Likewise if you feel the Palladium system is perfect and any attempt to discuss how the world could be utilized in a different system is an insult to Mr. Siembieda then I'd like to assure that I don't mean any disrespect and encourage to you post about your love of the untouched system <a href="http://forums.palladium-megaverse.com/" target="_blank">here</a>.I haven't played or looked at a Rifts book in years, but as products like D20 Future and Apocalypse have started to come out I've been reminded about just how broad and intricate the world K. Siembieda created was.In addition to being wildly creative, as an attempt to combine fantasy and futuristic elements together in a coherent, playable world it was brilliant. I'd like to think a bit about what the core concepts of Rifts are and what could be mimicked with D&D/Modern/Future rule set.Ex: In the original the Coalition States (usually called CS) had formed big mega complexes on the east coast. It was a tech heavy region of the world, filled with Xenophobic humans, ruled by an absolute authority figure and perpetually threatened by very real, very powerful enemies. There were a handful of very specific near and non-humans who filled the role of "psychic cops", cyborgs, and guys in power armor. Thematically it borrowed from the Empire from Starwars (prejudice against non-humans, military society, outlawing of mysticism, etc) and the Imperium from WH40K (magic/psychic powers attracting the attention of dark and powerful creatures from beyond, a corps of trained psychics constantly conducting raids, squads in power armor sweaping over a barren landscape to root out magic/demons/psychics, outlawing of magic oriented books, and again a military society).Modern + Future/Apocalypse seems like it could capture this well. (especially if you start characters off at a character level where they can begin with a prestige class).However other aspects of the game like Ley Line Walkers (Wizards who don't need to prepare spells, Cybernights (who can summon psychic weaponry), Baby dragons (as player characters) and so forth would be much easier to mimic using the DnD ruleset.(Modern's magic system seems very limited in what it would enable a lower or mid-level PC to accomplish...)Is it possible to balance both of these rulesets?I'd be especially curious about balancing player character classes.(the biggest complaint I heard from people who played in Rifts was that there was no attempt at balancing different character classes, especially as the number of high powered MDC granting character classes increased with the addition of multiple world books)I am inclined to think that DR can effectively compensate for the mega damage segment of the game (i.e. Splugorth Slavers are terrible creatures whose flesh is resistant to normal weaponry. They have DR 20/Magic or High-tech).A follow up question would be: If monsters and players are somewhat easier to kill (vs. the 100s of MDC often possessed by the frequently played PC classes and the 1000s+ MDC of the bigger monsters) how would that impact the setting?[Edit= fixed tags]</blockquote>

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