Rifts d20 ideas

[fireinthedust]

So my friends and I improvised a Rifts game last night. We hate the Palladium rules, but love the settings; standard Rifts gripe, that.

Anyway, the option we've decided on was Star Wars Saga Edition as the base rules set, then liberal borrowing from d20 Modern/Future/Cybernetics/Apocalypse, as well as 3e books. The only real conversions I foresee are changing saving throws to attacks against defenses; and the skill system will remain primarily SWSE.

The level is 2 or 3, so other than equipment we've got people either as Soldiers, Scouts, etc.; or else as Smart/Strong/Tough heroes for those traits.

I'm curious whether it would be awful or inspired to use 3e classes like Wizard or Cleric or Artificer, or the XPH for Psionics, converted to SE for Line Walkers or Mind Melters; we're likely going to leave Jedi alone, or use them as villains (Sith), though one of the players was eyeing it rather longingly.

I'm wondering if anyone more familiar with Rifts than I could give me some ideas for how to convert the setting. What level should various monsters be? What would something like a Splugorth look like in d20?

Campaign ideas could also help. We've got three Firefly types with cybernetics, and one man-of-science, all in a Wild West area.

I'm good with 4e, and I've had my 3e books for years (but either couldn't find a group or found it too cumbersome to GM when I did (I go from scratch a lot, and like customizing, and I was much lazier as a GM back then )), but could use some reminders about the SAGA system.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Dude, there are so many sci-fi D20 games out there that you could swipe from for a D20 RIFTS campaign that its not funny.

Besides the ones you've mentioned already, check out the D20 versions of Fading Suns, Prime Directive, Dragonstar, Dragonmech, D20 Modern: Dark*Matter and Traveller, as well as yoinking stuff from D20 CoC or even the more esoteric critters from 3.5 itself- beholders, mindflayers, grells, gricks, aboleths, etc.

Also check out this site for threads like this: Palladium Wolfen.

A fusion of Soulknives, PsiWars and Jedi make nearly perfect Cyberknights. Wizards or Sorcerers could sub for Ley-Line Walkers.

 

[scourger]

When I converted from Rifts to d20, I first used DragonStar and then Omega World. I really liked Omega World for the story that I was trying to tell, but I like limited magic (there were no magic-using PCs). So, if you limit the players' options, then it is much easier for you to run. If you want it wide open, then making the characters as modular as possible gives you the most flexibility; limited classes with unlimited choices. A true conversion just has to be ad hoc, though, because there are too many options in Rifts. So, if you have a player who really wants to play a jedi then in Rifts terms he is a cyber-knight, and you have to just sort out what his skills, feats and other abilities are; or rather what his choices are. I would take whatever approach gives you the least work and leaves you free to make a compelling story. The rules are just a framework for the story--an important framework but basically just a guide.

 

[fireinthedust]

Oh, for sure. I'm just thinking in terms of any conversions people know of online maybe. Or even just stories of what your campaign was like.

Currently we've divided up the types of adventurers using the SAGA rules: you're good at fighting, talking, sneaking, or stealing (well, scoundrelling, I guess). If you're anything more generic than that, go d20 modern regular hero; y'know, fill in the corners.

We have three mercs with cybernetics. One is a "soul-transfered robot", so we may just use the droids rules from SAGA for him, then go soldier or scout for acouple levels. The other two are generic gun-totting cyborg ruffians. All of them opted to be bounty hunters, separately. Kinda funny. Makes sense in Rifts, too, as I don't see why there's a big difference between various levels of Cyborg and a Crazy. You can split hairs where stats go super, but for our purposes in a story-driven game, we can just take stats, add equipment, and ascribe a concept to them.

I liked the question of Wolfen in that thread. I think the OP there had wanted a size large wolf-creature (size of a minotaur, bigger than a gnoll), but didn't want to stat them out. The problem I see is that Wolfen are about gnoll-sized, not size large (which would be insane for a PC in d20), even in Palladium. Trolls are bigger, but not Wolfen.

I think I can get by with SAGA, and I was thinking of Beholders for the Splugorth. Never ran a beholder, so I do have questions about that, but I think I've got time before it's an issue.

Another question is how powerful vehicles are in RPGs.

 

[Aus_Snow]

You could always try this.

But seriously, there are at least a couple of links there that you might want to have a look at. Scribd is the first one that leaps out, but you'd need to register (for free) to get that one. Then there's the whole forum dedicated to Rifts d20. . .

 

[Scurvy_Platypus]

Rifts d20... yeah, this has come up more than a few times over the past 10 years.

So a lot of folks will talk about how it's hard to do a conversion because Palladium is so rabid. *shrug* Palladium's approach to things doesn't make it _easier_ I grant, but that's not really the problem.

The first problem is, What is Rifts?

No, it's not a koan, it's an honest question for you to think about. See, different people are going to hook on to different things; that might sound obvious, but you'd be amazed at how many people look at the same game, play by the same rules, and feel the game is about wildly different things.

Some folks might dig exploring the setting, some folks are going to dig the crazy classes (and Min-Maxing them), some folks are going to see a goofy-over-the-top-turned-up-to-11 setting, others are going to see a harsh world with a mis-matched rules system... are you catching my drift here?

Ok, you hate the Palladium rules. Old news. What is it about the _new_ rules that you like? Is it because it's "balanced"? Is it because it's popular? (don't knock it, lots of folks play a game because it's popular; it means it's easy to find players/GMs) Is it because you already basically know them and don't feel like learning another set? (another popular reason for conversions) Is it because you're cheap and don't want to spend money buying new things, just using what you've already got?

Answers to these are kinda important, because if you're not willing to spend money, it's going to limit your options. If it's a system mastery issue, that might limit them in other directions. If it's an issue of balance, that's going to change suggestions as well.

For example, I'm pretty confident I could knock together a more than respectable version of Rifts d20 using: BESMd20, Advanced Magic, and Mecha Compendium Deluxe (Dream Pod 9, but uses GoO's Mecha SRD as the base). Those are all BESMd20-based products.

Flipping it a different way, I'm reasonably confident I could work out a Rifts d20 using Silver Age Sentinels d20. It's pulling from the same BESMd20 base, but since it's a supers game it's got a bit of a different focus.

Mutants & Masterminds should be able to do Rifts d20 as well; there's hordes of M&M fans out there that'll tell you how M&M can run any game there is.

But let's put that aside... you've mentioned Star Wars Saga (a game I'm not really familiar with) as the core and then you're adding on to it from there.

First thing you might do is stop over here:
Sword and Sorcery Saga, by John "The Gneech" Robey

From there you can download a Sword & Sorcery conversion, which allows you to run S&S style games using SWSE. It's not directly applicable to what you're doing, but since it's using traditional fantasy classes, it might help you figure out a consistent approach for doing your class building. Like figuring out what base class to use for what and assigning Talent Trees to refine the class from there.

The other thing you might take a look at while you're at Robey's site is the Saga Edition Encounter Budget. It might not be an exact sort of thing, but it's probably going to help you out.

What about vehicles and power armour and Glitterboys?

Yeesh. Well, d20's focus on "balance" and Palladium's lack of caring for it really make this tricky. You might be able to bash something together with SWSE. I dunno.

If that stuff is going to be a major influence in your game, you might consider messing around with the Mecha SRD. It's intended to work for regular d20 so you'll probably still need to massage things a bit, but it'd be a way of consistently building all the gear.

Guardians of Order are long gone but you can still get the Mecha SRD as well as the Anime SRD here:
Guardians Of Order - d20 - Open Game Content System Reference Documents

The Mecha SRD is going to be a decent enough starting point for figuring out how to handle the Glitterboy, not just the mech itself, but the class as well.

You can get a more "human readable" version of the Anime SRD here:
FateRPG.Com: Fate: Fantastic Adventures in Tabletop Entertainment (TM)

I mention this because the Anime SRD might be of use to you as well. Why? Well, there's that pesky issue you've (potentially) got of... Dragons. Or just about any other funky race. How? Anime SRD (the SRD version of BESMd20) is a points-based system. Now, some folks would like to argue about how "accurate" the point system is and all that, but it _really_ doesn't matter as much as some folks would like to think.

For your purposes, you basically need to figure out a rough equivalency. About how many Character Points are the other classes getting to spend to do their thing? Probably a bit hard to figure out isn't it?

Well, a potential solution for you is to grab the Adventurer class out of the Anime SRD. See, the various classes in the Anime SRD are all basically equivalent to each other. The nice thing about the Adventurer is it's essentially a blank slate. It provides very basic progression in terms of BaB and Saves. Most importantly is the "5 Character Points" which are gained each level.

You can tweak around the base progressions of the Adventurer class to suit whatever your sensibilities. Depending on how you tweak it (if at all) and what Attributes the dragon (or whatever) can buy, you're going to have a decent idea of the power of the character.

The player basically can choose as he levels up if he wants to pimp out the dragon with dragon abilities, or whatever.

I dunno if any of the above is useful, but hopefully it at least provides some food for thought.

Someday, someone is going to get around to doing a clone of Rifts, very very very carefully relying on Open Game Content to do so, while avoiding mentioning Palladium I.P. Sometimes I think that person might be me, other times I think "Bah. Too much effort." I guess time will tell.

 

[fireinthedust]

I like the links, and also the questions.

I've got to say that Rifts for me is a post-apocalyptic setting with Sci-Fi and Fantasy mixed together first, and a survival game at that. I like how really varied concepts can work together in it. I like zombie movies because I like the challenge of what I'd do to survive. If I was in Rifts, who would I be? I like Westerns (which is the major cultural influence in the setting for me), I like cyborgs, I like magical fantasy as a spice. I like the idea of the Rebellion against the Empire model that we see in PCs vs. the Coalition States. I want to do that while shooting alien bugs from dimension X. I want my reckless band of mercenaries to escape the Coalition genetics lab's destruction through a hole in space that leads to a Splugorth slave market, then find another portal home in time to explode giant Coalition tanks marching on Tolkeen.

I don't like uber creations dominating story. I've heard of a cyborg floating whale PC, and the DeeBee Juicer creations with 16 MegaDamage attacks per round at level one.
I don't like spending days working on the stats for one PC. I don't like figuring out whether the third commoner on the right is a carpenter or a woodworker.

I do like the idea of finally using all the books that I've been collecting for the past decade. All of them, the modern and the 3e, but with tweeks from SAGA that fix general issues with 3e that bothered me.

 

[fireinthedust]

Question: what about the d20 Future Mecha rules? I've heard people gripe about them, but I've never used them so I don't know what the complaints are.

 

[fireinthedust]

so I'm looking over the S&S magic rules. I think that would work great in a Rifts setting using d20 Modern rules. Magic could still be learned normally, like for the various Urban Arcana PrCs, but most mages would have the feat-based system as a foundation. Like, if you need flashy spells then fine; but my Rogue Scholar could know a thing or two about magic, even if it's not the focus.
What I like is that the focus can be on guns and cyborgs, with some Magic backup, but that it won't turn into 3e right away (only at higher levels, and only to a limited extent).

 

[Scurvy_Platypus]

Question: what about the d20 Future Mecha rules? I've heard people gripe about them, but I've never used them so I don't know what the complaints are.

Well, you can read the rules for yourself. They're included in the d20 Modern SRD. You can find it here: d20 ModernSystem Reference Document

One thing I know a number of folks don't like is that mecha add to the operator's stats. So there's an extra pile of Hit Points added to the character for example.

Other than that, I'm not entirely sure I've got anything else I can really offer up. At the end of the day, you're just going to have to make decisions and start plugging things in. Once you start doing that, people might be able to offer some constructive suggestions, based on what you're trying to achieve, but... I doubt there's going to be many "you should do it [this way]" sorts of suggestions. Too many variant rules, too many people wanting different things from their games, and what you're wanting to do is kind of a niche thing on top of it all.

Good luck with the project though. I'm sure there's at least a few of us that are curious to see where you go with things.