Tell me about RIFTS

Crothian

First Post
Felon said:
Of course, there's not much to the character without the armor, so it might as well be a borg or robot. :)

I disagree. It would be like saying a hifgh level fighter is nothing without his magical armor and weapons. Sure he's better with them, but every now and then it is nice to show the character can exist without them.
 

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Michael Tree

First Post
Gundark said:
I was a long time Rifts player. I second what everybody has said about the rules. The rules as someone already put it is a "steaming pile of dog poo". The rules will frustrate you beyond belief. Having said I think that the setting is a good idea IF you focus only on the first couple of books that came out.
I agree with the general consensus: It's a great setting if you don't try to include everything ever published for it, and the system is a steaming pile of dog poo. The combination of the various city states of the Coalition, the wastes, Atlantis, the kingdoms of magic, Tolkeen, and the Rifts is a fantastic core setting, with lots of room to travel to the other parts of the world if you want a change.

Setting wise, there's so much stuff in Rifts that it's important to constrain the scope of the setting, especially at first. Make sure that all the characters have a reason to be together, and that their "themes" and genres don't drastically clash. Make the characters come from the basic setting, to prevent them a group of otherworldly circus-freaks.

Sadly, the rules suck wet farts out of dead pidgeons. If I were to run it today, I would most likely use Mutants and Masterminds, with some houserules to make skills more accessible. There are so many possibilities in the setting that it works out best to have each character custom-tailored to be able to do what they want. I'd probably give 20 points/level instead of 15, and make skills cost 1/5 of a power point per rank.
 

Kaffis

First Post
As others have mentioned, the setting has some interesting bits, and could be good if you picked a direction or two and focused on it some to tame the hyperactive "and this, and this, and this, and this" mega-inclusion it goes for. The rules? Throw them out, they're pointless, convoluted, and balanced like a five-hour-long Jenga game.
 

Dragonblade

Adventurer
I played Rifts for years. I love the setting, but hated the rules. Basically humanity had advanced pretty far with mecha, cybernetics, and psionics, and then a massive nuclear was devastated the world. The resulting psychic backlash of life force energy released from millions of souls dying at the same time, super charged the mystic ley lines which run across the Earth.

And in many places the surge of psychic energy was so powerful that rifts to other dimensions opened and all sorts of beings came through. Beings from D&Desque fantasy worlds, alien races, demons, monsters, and assorted cthuluesque monsters, you name it. The world was plunged into a monster ravaged apocalypse for a couple hundred years. Eventually a few human and D-Bee (slang for dimensional being; aliens who came to Earth through rifts) communities have clawed themselves back into a semblance of civilization. Some communities have embraced magic, other technology. Some of these nations are fairly powerful and their mecha and weapons technology has exceeded even pre-rifts levels. The most famous of these is the Coalition States, a Nazi-esque xenophobic nation determined to reclaim Earth for humanity and purge all magic and D-Bees. There are magic based nations like the re-risen continent of Atlantis ruled by a cuthlueqsue alien entity (though somewhat similar to Jabba the Hutt) that runs what is effectively an interdimensional crime syndicate.

The cool thing about Rifts is there is a lot of style to the game. You can play cyborg soldiers, drug-enhanced super soldiers known as Juicers, mages, mecha pilots, or any number of super human mutant or alien races.

However, there is no balance to the system whatsoever. Some races and classes are vastly more powerful than others. All balance must be enforced by the GM in terms of allowing specific classes or races.

Rifts also emphasizes a concept called megadamage. Basically most of the supernatural nasties and most mecha and high tech body armor have megadamag capacity or MDC. Most supernatural nasties and high tech weapons like rail guns, plasma rifles, and so forth, deal megadamage. Basically 1 point of MD is equal to 100 regular hitpoints. And only weapons that deal megadamage can even harm structures, vehicles, or beings with natural MDC hitpoints. To put it in d20 Modern or D&D terms, your average 10th level guy may have 80 hit points. But in Rifts he could be wearing 100 MDC body armor which effectively makes him invulnerable to all mundane damage (100 x 100 = 10,000 hitpoints). However, he may be wielding a plasma rifle which does 1d6 x10 MD. So it would take him several shots to kill someone wearing similar armor. But if he shoots something mundane like an unarmored human than he does anywhere from 1000 to 6000 points of regular damage per shot. Enough to vaporize an unarmored human, or blow a car in half (assuming it has 500 hit points).

Basically in Rifts, if you can't dish or take MD then you better run. Combat (if you can get past the clunky rules) is very anime-like (think Dragonball or Fist of the Northstar) with buildings getting blown to rubble, and huge craters everywhere after a battle.

Magic on the whole is far weaker than technology when it comes to dishing damage, but alien beings, demons, and so forth, tend be tougher than most most mecha and MDC power armor.

Another thing to note is the power creep through some of the books. The power of magic and technology begins to rise through the first few books, until they began to reach a level of parity, but then Kevin Siembieda (owner of Palladium) took back control of the line and immediately dropped the power level back down again. A jarring change that never sat well with me. Its one of the reasons I stopped playing Rifts. The power creep climaxes in the two Phase World books. However, despite the power creep, the author most responsible for it, CJ Carella, did write the best Rifts books in my opinion. Phase World is still my favorite Rifts sourcebook of all time.

I like the source material but the system is in bad need of an overhaul. If Kevin Siembieda were to release a well-written d20 version, they would sell a bajillion copies. But I think that will never happen as long as Siembieda is in charge. He has an extreme irrational hatred of d20 (even though his system is a clunky rip-off of AD&D).

Basically, I think the system would work exceptionally well using d20 Modern/Future rules. All you have to do really is figure out how you want to handle MD and the rest should be fairly easy to convert. Just bear in mind that many playable races and creatures will have vastly different ECLs and some character classes will be far more powerful than others.
 

Dragonblade

Adventurer
If you do want to actually use the Palladium Rules then I suggest taking a look at the house rules I came up with. It pretty much ended all the rules arguments we used to have when we played Palladium Games, especially Rifts. Keep in mind that this system is far more abstract and cinematic than d20.


----------------

Palladium Rules Patch v. 2.5 by Kyle Watt

Number of Attacks:

First of all every character gets a base 2 Hand-to-Hand Attacks per round PLUS whatever they get from HTH Martial Arts or Expert or whatever (including one of the myriad martial arts in N&S). So a level one character with HTH martial arts would get 4 attacks (+1 if they took Boxing)

Combat is the same as it was before. Roll initiative. Combatants take turns in descending initiative order. Roll to Strike when you attack. If you are being attacked then you can roll to Parry or Dodge. Move to the next combatant until everyone has used up their attacks. Roll initiative again. Repeat.

NOTE: Some special combat moves take up more than one attack. Thats fine, simply subtract the cost of the move from the number of attacks you have remaining. Most magic spells or special powers or whatever usually cost 1 attack.

"Simultaneous attacks" are removed from play.

Dodging:

Dodging costs 1 attack unless you have Auto-Dodge. Example, I have 4 attacks. I have highest init. so I go first. I attack and the defender dodges or parries. I have 3 attacks left. My foe attacks me. I dodge and now have 2 attacks left. My turn again, I attack and now have 1 attack left. And so on.

You CAN dodge even if you are out of attacks. If you have Auto-Dodge then you do not lose an attack when you dodge.

If you are surrounded by numerous foes or fighting a particularly tough one it is conceivable that you might spend the entire round dodging and never get to attack back. In this case, initiative becomes important so that you can go first and attack. Or you can choose to not dodge and save an attack for striking.

Bursts:

You can fire several different kind of bursts. They do varying degrees of damage depending on how long you hold the trigger down and how many rounds you use up. Any weapon that says it has "Standard rate of fire" or can fire bursts in its description can fire bursts. Any weapon that specifically says it cannot fire bursts or can only fire single shots or can only fire pre-set pulses/ bursts CANNOT fire bursts. For example, some rail guns only fire pre-set bursts. Those weapons follow the rules in their description and cannot be used to fire freeform variable bursts as written below. When in doubt, GM decides. All bursts cost 1 attack to use. Its simply a matter of how many rounds you want to fire. If you have a vehicle, a power back, or are playing a Bot or a Borg, you can link an energy weapon to your power system and can basically fire long-bursts all day long. You must have the minimum number of rounds that a particular burst requires to fire that burst. In other words, you must have at least 9 rounds remaining to fire a Long-burst with a burst capable weapon.

Mini- burst: uses up 1d4+1 rounds and does x2 damage
Short-burst: uses up 1d6+4 rounds and does x3 damage
Medium burst: uses up 1d8 +6 rounds and does x4 damage
Long-burst: uses up 1d10+8 rounds and does x5 damage

Sprays:

A burst capable weapon can spray any number of adjacent targets (within reason, GM's should rule out ridiculous abuses). Roll to strike normally and defenders can dodge vs. that one strike roll. Any defender hit takes damage from one shot. A spray uses up 1d4+1 rounds per target. GM adjudication is important here because tightly clustered targets may be hit by more than one round each. Also there is a limit to how many opponents can effectively be targeted in 1 attack. It is impossible to write rules that cover every situation so GM common sense should prevail.

Missiles:

When firing missiles singly or in a volley, roll to strike using all relevant modifiers. That is the Strike roll for the FIRST missile. Every missile in a volley beyond the first missile gains a cumulative +1 to Strike. Example, I fire 4 missiles. My Strike roll is a 15. Thus missiles 2,3,and 4 have strike rolls of 16, 17, and 18, respectively. Next the defender rolls to dodge. If he rolls 18 or higher than he is ok and dodged all the missiles. If he rolled a 16, then he is hit by two missiles (those with strike rolls of 17 and 18) and dodges two.

Called shots:

Making a called shot is difficult but can be done. Some mecha have specific called shot modifiers of -5 or whatever depending upon the location. You can use these or use mine. I generally hold that the head is -8 and that specific limbs are -4. Other areas can be determined by the GM on a case by case basis. Of course, individual GMs are free to change these values for increased or reduced lethality. An attacker must announce a called shot and then roll to strike. The defender can dodge and the called shot modifier can be applied as a penalty to the attackers roll or as a bonus to the defenders. I usually say bonus for the defender. Any strike roll that rolls high enough to hit but not high enough to hit with the called shot modifier hits the main body instead. Called shots to the head that miss, miss completely. A called shot costs 2 attacks and must be a single shot, no bursts. Weapons that cannot fire single shots cannot be used for called shots. Generally the head and/or any limb can take 25% of the damage that the main body can unless otherwise noted.

Movement:

A character can generally move anywhere and as much as they like within reason everytime their turn in combat comes up. Look at a characters speed and extrapolate from there. To encourage fast anime-style combat, any "reasonable" movement should be allowed. Movement is usually free.

General combat:

We use this system for every kind of combat in the Palladium game. Whether for Characters, mechs, jet fighters, whatever. It makes things easier and speeds up play. This is NOT a tactical system like D&D 3e. Rather it is a more abstract cinematic system. YMMV.

Any Palladium rules that don't conflict with these rules are generally kept.
 

twofalls

DM Beadle
I may be begging for an angry email from Palladium's web lawyers, however I offer our old web page for scrutiny to the readers of this thread.

http://www.geocities.com/grifts_rp_ss/griftsindex.html

This is an incomplete conversion of Rifts to GURPS that we lovingly call GRIFTS. Palladium has done a great job offering up wonderful material in images, ideas, and background, but has fallen short on system. Well, fallen off a cliff really, no disrespect intended. RIFFTS is my favorite game for background and ideas, GURPS is my favorite system, so I combined them. We ran a campaing for two years using this information and are now playing D&D 3.0 (for the past 3 years). We will eventually be getting back to our GRIFTS game.

I wrote all the material, and my best friend posted it for me.
 

Jürgen Hubert

First Post
As others said, the setting has a few interesting bits, but the rules are lousy.

But if I ever were to run this setting, I'd use the BESM rules instead. I think those ought to be able to handle pretty much everything in the setting without getting unbalanced...
 

Sir Elton

First Post
Jürgen Hubert said:
As others said, the setting has a few interesting bits, but the rules are lousy.

But if I ever were to run this setting, I'd use the BESM rules instead. I think those ought to be able to handle pretty much everything in the setting without getting unbalanced...

Yeah. BESM, or BESM d20. Strangely enough, by a simple twist of fate, you can convert d20 monsters, classes, and so forth into Palladium. The only reason why I'd think anyone would want to is a simple exercise in how the OGL operates and the Palladium Internet Policy operates. For Palladium Books gives a limited license to use their trademarks. Although I think it has been revoked, it might be a nice exercise.
 
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Gelg

First Post
Rifts thoughts

Rifts is a game that truly made for a fun expierience. I have had few chances to actually play a game as I was the only one in my circle of friends who could understand the rules well enough to make an interesting game that didn't involve the age old "YOu are at a bar" scene to get the game started.

The rules that worked best for this game came from the original posting of the first book. I bought it online about a year ago and quickly had all kinds of ideas. Its set up to allow the greatest flexability. One enemy could destroy the entire party even if I well balanced it and sometimes the characters managed to escape certain death by using their skills in manners that seemed impossible and working it into the game so well I couldn't not let it happen. The games turned into adventures that seemed straight out of an 80s scifi movie.

TO make the game more standable by everyoneI limited the most powerful classes in ways that I thought were fair and usually I gave lucky breaks to characters of exceptionally mundane status.
 

Storyteller01

First Post
Felon said:
For me, RIFTS was fun in that you never really knew what could happen next. You could encounter anything. You could find yourself in just about any kind of action scene. It was the first graphically-intense game, and it's probably still the best in that respect. Lots of beautiful full-color illustrations of vampires and cyborgs and ley line walkers and Coalition armored vehicles really fired the imagination. Pluse, the core rulebook offered the GM lots of idea mines on where to set the next adventure. I really liked the way it suggested terrible or fantastic things going on in the hinterlands (like the Vampire Kingdoms).

I didn't keep up with the supplements, so what's the deal with cosmic knights? IIRC, one of the reasons why global communications couldn't be established had to do with every satellite launched into space being destroyed. What was responsible for that?

Cosmo Knights were part of a Rifts cross-over called Phase World. The setting wasn't based on Earth. Imagine, if you will, a planet (or at least, the only habitable building on said planet) that embraced the idea of Rift travel, learned to control it, and is now a giant Rfit nexus complete with Splugorth and Nerunie malls roughly the size of LA. No one knows who made the city, why it exists, or why only one race seems to have access to tech very similar to that found on the facility. :)

Oh yeah, space travel was possible too...

Cosmo Knights exist on said dimension. They're essentially the Silver Surfer as a PC (shiny skin tight armor, cosmic power source, a piece of equip that was usually [but not always] a weapon of some kind, FTL travel speeds, etc).

You're right about the satillites blocking travel off planet, but Rifting tends to bypass all that anyway...
 
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