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Message: <blockquote data-quote="danzig138" data-source="post: 2470620" data-attributes="member: 3595">This is a good question. It can be approached from a couple of different angles. Mechanically, I'd say the GB, Juicers, Lone Walkers, Psychcs, Dog Boys (I can't stand them), and SAMAS/Dead Boys are integral. When trying to build it up, I'd probably ignore all of the books except the Core, WB 1, SB 1, and Lone Star. Setting-wise, the CS, and the basic idea behind the FoM, Laslo, Tolkien, and the internal struggle with Quebec. I'd certainly prefer higher damages and DR, just to keep some of the massive power flavor of the original. Although not superpowerful damages. I think the setting of Rifts is excellent for exploring the basic themes that are talked about in many game books - Man v. Man, Man v. Nature, Ideology v. Ideology. That's one of the strengths of ths setting IMO - the way it's structured is open to many themes and ideas. You can have big themes (Us v. the CS) and little themes (You can't affect the big things, so the little things are that much more important - helping a D-Bee village survive and relocate for example). In the last conversion I worked on, I used Modern (with Future) as my base, with some modifications. I opened up most d20 books as race material. I set up a way to start 1st level characters in Advanced Classes (I haven't been able to test that one yet). Armor as DR (converts kinetic damage to non-lethal*, reduces energy damage)*I don't use non-lethal damage as described in Modern, I use it as subdual damage. Cyberware is basically Shadowrun bashed together with Battlelords and some other ideas. I didn't add a whole lot in the way of Advanced Classes - mainly just modified some existing ones, and took a couple of D&D full classes and altered them (for example, the Soulknife is the basis for the Cyber-Knight). Crazies, Full Conversion Borgs, and Juicers are templates (I think have the Juicer at +6 LA) but I'm not sure about the numbers. What I'm thinking about now is modifiying the classless/levelless OGC rules from Godlike, but I don't know if Rifts will work better with or without classes. I don't have Apocalypse, so I can't speak to that. I think Modern is a great base for such a project. Future has some good stuff in it that can work for Rifts as well. As for creatures, I think you can draw upon just anout any d20 source and slip them into Rifts, and iit'll be alright. Juicers are nasty. IMC, the template has a +6 LA (and playtesting indicated that it might need to be higher). You could reduce the power of the juicer, while trying to keep the flavor. This is not my favorite choice. I'd rather keep the power high, but the character has to come up with the money (or sign the approrpiate contracts, limiting his adventuring use),find a place to do the conversion ("I think of as like trying to find a clinic that can instal alphaware back when alphaware first showed up in SR), and have a serious risk that the character may not live through the operation. The rest would hopefully be balcned by oposition. No one is going to hire a Juicer for piddly little jobs. When someone hires a Juicer, he knows it's because there is something nasty going on.  Not really. I think in d20 Modern, the two are pretty well balanced. But, balancing the two hasn't been a goal of mine in the conversion process. I admit I have a slight tech bias, and it shows in my work.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  Yep. Power creep. I never had an issue with newer books have better tech or better magic, I mean heck, the survival of humanity is at stake. I'd hope they have the R&D depts on a 25-hour a day schedule. But when almost every new critter was M.D.C., it was a little too much. I think part of the problem there is they never set down actual honest rules for what should or shouldn't be M.D.C., and why.</blockquote>

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