Palladium books?

[Summer-Knight925]

Rifts corebook $3
Rifts mercs $3
Rifts Atlantis $3
Rifts Africa $3
Rifts England $3
Rifts Japan $3
Rifts Underseas $3
Rifts Coalition War $3
Rifts sourcebook $3

AND LASTLY

Palladium Fantasy 2nd ed, amazing condition, $13

so...I spent $40 (plus tax) on all of this...in less than a week I fell in love with Palladium Books

 

[Stoat]

In other words, the power scale is so widely swinging between PCs in Palladium games as a whole that you could have as starting characters a mundane 19 year old refugee, history buff, or soldier fresh out of basic training, super-soldiers that can level towns on their own, beyond-super-soldiers that can take on starships or mid-sized armies alone, or quite literally minor deities.

My particular beef is that there's no clear way to gauge the relative power levels of the various OCC's and RCC's. Sometimes it's obvious, other times much less so. I would have gotten along with RIFTS better if there had been some fairly easy way to make sure all the PC's were within the the same order of magnitude of power.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

My answer to that, as a GM, was not to care.

More accurately, I had my NPCs use "sensible tactics": if you see 3 innocuous Humanoids, a Glitterboy, a Titan, and some guy in funny robes wiggling his fingers, choose your targets from the latter three, since they are the obvious threats. Save your ammo for the mundanes during mop-ups...unless they prove themselves to be a threat.

As a player who played with a GM who did the exact same thing, that meant if I were playing a non-MD PC of some sort, when things went pear-shaped, stay away from the obvious targets.

It works beautifully, and actually feels like RW battles involving armor mixed with infantry. 'Cause that's essentially what it is.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

In other words, the power scale is so widely swinging between PCs in Palladium games as a whole that you could have as starting characters a mundane 19 year old refugee, history buff, or soldier fresh out of basic training, super-soldiers that can level towns on their own, beyond-super-soldiers that can take on starships or mid-sized armies alone, or quite literally minor deities.

Sounds like the Justice League. Or the Avengers. Or the Teen Titans. Or the Legion of Super-Heroes. Or...

 

[RainOfSteel]

Rifts corebook $3
Rifts mercs $3
Rifts Atlantis $3
Rifts Africa $3
Rifts England $3
Rifts Japan $3
Rifts Underseas $3
Rifts Coalition War $3
Rifts sourcebook $3

Coincidentally, you picked up some of the better books. England has a wonky take on the Arthur myth that I did not appreciate, and Africa is a bit iffy (it's metaplot is world-shaking and if you don't use it, there isn't anything else), but the rest is pretty good.

 

[Summer-Knight925]

Coincidentally, you picked up some of the better books. England has a wonky take on the Arthur myth that I did not appreciate, and Africa is a bit iffy (it's metaplot is world-shaking and if you don't use it, there isn't anything else), but the rest is pretty good.

thumbed through all them, Africa adds the undead element as a divine option, good for some people (I know a guy who will probably play a necromancer if he does play) but zombies are zombies, the 3 friends I already know are down to play don't need a higher reason then 'they stumble and moan brains'

England is good, I like the stuff about it and all, good if I did a play on Too Human, but the druids are too....idk, not what I had in mind, no biggy tho

Atlantis=win

Underseas offers alot of information if you scrounge, but just the Marine class is worth $3 alone (Oorah!)

Japan...well one of the guys I play with jokingly dogs on asians all the time, he doesnt actually mean any of it, its all in good fun, so he'll get a kick out it

mercs is just...wow, the previously mentioned guy plays call of duty all the damn day..sorry for swearing but whenever I call him hes playing, whenever we hangout, hes playing...the point? Special Forces is what he wants to be, I've got no dispute

Coalition=interesting, a good buy, lots of ideas and A BUNCH OF INFORMATION

the sourcebook is more information of a little bit of everything, fixes a few errors, but it works

the core book makes me day everytime, the mechanic of the game is very easy and simple, good for what I need to do with it

the fantasy rpg by Palladium is going to be included into rifts, all the races...not sure about the classes, MAYBE depending on the situation, but a Troll SpecOps PC is just blowing my mind...its worth it, I mean I honestly cannot think of a better setting, and with a few tweaks (like the gliterboy and mind melter being like PrC in D&D 3e, it all works out...same with many of the coalition elites...optional for the grunts to go...but I have a feeling we will be mostly anti-coalition...despite one person playing a wolf dogboy, mercs? HELLZ TO THE YES

 

[Summer-Knight925]

Someone halp me!

So the question right now is how does AR work?

I havn't found anything in the armors about what bonus they give for AR

 

[RainOfSteel]

So the question right now is how does AR work?

I havn't found anything in the armors about what bonus they give for AR

AR was a concept almost exclusively used for SDC armor. I believe if the d20 roll was over the AR, damage bypassed armor. Don't hold me to that exact mechanic quote, I haven't paid attention to AR in quite some time and am too lazy to start pulling out books at this hour.

MDC armor typically doesn't have AR and there is no bypassing it, even in cases where the armor's art clearly shows massive gaps all over the place, like traditional Juicer armor (which may have only 50-60% coverage by art). I think there may have been an exception or two, but I can't remember what they are, if they really exist.

 

[ACpilot]

I've played a few low-level "balanced" games of RIFTS, but the last few games where all RIFTS WITH THE LID BLOWN OFF! I highly recommend this style of game.

A short little rabbit-hole follows:

I ran a game where the PCs were:

Rakshasa Ninja
Vampire Intelligence (player played both the master vampire and the intelligence as appropriate for adventuring)
An adult Chen-ku Dragon
Can't remember the rest but they were all heavy hitters...

Anyway the plot was they wanted to free Fenris the wolf so that he'd devour the sun and thus Vampires would rule the earth and the vampire intelligence would control rifts utterly along with his other friends and they would all share in that sweet sweet PPE.

Even though I ran this I can't really remember but it had something to do with killing Tiamat and then Apsu had tricked them into bringing him back or something... anyway after they had gone to war with Atlantis (this is after killing Tiamat and freeing Fenris) the other alien beings which had stakes on RIFTS earth pleaded to the cosmo-knights to intercede and a joint cosmo-knight/ oni-space-ninja force abducted them and there was an inter-dimensional trial presided over by the gods of the law as to what to do about the whole mess.

The PCs argued beautifully that all these other beings would-shoulda-coulda done exactly what the PCs did do, and are just being hypocritical - the vampire intelligence player put it best, "Lets cut the sanctimonious crap here people and get down to brass tacs; its aaaalll about the PPE!"

...
The last game I PLAYED in was the culmination of a 15 year, meandering campaign where my lowly elven temporal wizard had a, few years back, performed a mind-swap with an alien intelligence and well, long story short he went completely mad for awhile.

The campaign had to do with the Mobius magic item (its the like the ultimate mcguffin in rifts canon) and we had to hunt down some time-clones of ourselves which stole part of the mobius fragments at the moment we got the item.

In a sort of meta-game way the mobius was the prison for Satan Lord of Hell (a creature given stats in an old palladium book but we thought he was removed from later editions for legal reasons so we decided the rifts gods erased him and trapped him in the mobius) - the adventure involved running afoul of all the big nasties of rifts - Merlin, Lord Splyncryth, the 4 horsemen (3 actually because one died years earlier), and a host of other baddies including styphon the black, lord of all evil dragons --- they all wanted the Mobius power for themselves (merlin hilariously wanted to devolve the whole of RIFTS to a medieval Europe state of being - he turned someones mecha into a donkey cart)

Long story short we lost the Mobius and set free Satan Lord of Hell (who we presume has gone back to hell/hades to settle the brutal civil war going on within --- probably not a good thing)... that was the last RIFTS game I played in.

...
I also played in a game where we were all killed by cyborgs while trying to find food in some ruins.

That's RIFTS

 

[Ghost2020]

If possible pickup the Conversion Book 1 and Dark Conversions. You will NOT be sorry. Lots of great races, monsters, etc.

If needed...
pickup the GM Guide and Book of Magic.
The GM Guide has psionics and a TON of equipment. The book of magic has a ton of ...well...magic. Spells, rituals, techno-magic. Fantastic stuff.

Welcome to the fun! IT's great stuff, keep working through the wonkiness of the rules, and you will have sessions unmatched by any other system.