Ultimate Rifts. Improvement or Same Old Stuff?

[Crothian]

RIFTS is designed with all character classes being balanced to each other but a good player can make his character stand up to anything IMHO despite what OCC/RCC he is playing

did you forget a negative? I'd have to say that Rifts is not designed for character class balance.....

 

[Infernal Teddy]

Hmmmm... d20 Modern / Future... Rifts... mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm....

 

[Catavarie]

D&D doesn't, but the world of Greyhawk does.

I've yet to see people complain about lack of timeline in D&D though was my point, some people would like to have a time line I understand, just never been a concern of mine personally

 

[Catavarie]

did you forget a negative? I'd have to say that Rifts is not designed for character class balance.....

woops i meant that its NOT meant to have all OCC/RCCs equal...my bad

 

[JoeGKushner]

I played Rifts for years. Have the first printing of the core book with that dreaded +21 to dodge or something silly along those lines. Stopped after Siege where they detailed the city under siege in the last book of the series instead of the first.

Maps? No, the world is far different than your suggestion. This doesn't count things that should have maps like interiors of large ships where the players may be breaking into, common buildings in the far wrecked future, etc....Or the new countries like Spirit West, Old West, Lonestar, etc... Taking a modern map without having everything else in hand is like taking a map of the world and going, "Well, it's Greyhawk but..."

GMing advice should be useful for many levels of GMs as opposed to equipment lists and NPCs lists. More adventure seeds, more ideas on how it all interacts.

Time line is not cohesive and bounces all over the place. From what I understand, the new edition does not advance the timeline any. This leaves Vampires, A.R.C.H.I.E., Mechanoids, the Four Horsemen, and other bits in limbo, despite the timeline being past that in many areas.

Game balance should be at least discussed. How does the glitter boy out of his armor survive when a rogue shape shifting dragon attacks? How does the super hero from 2005 deal with magic that bypasses his invulernability? This could probably fall under the GM advice.

Equipment should be, at least in the core book, reflective of what the players should use. My joke was that it'd be like the 3.5 player's handbook having lists of wooden, bone, and obsidian weapons and refering the players to the 3.0 player's handbook for the more modern lists.

Rules vs background is obvious, but the placement of some rules over here, some background here, some more rules, some more background, makes finding things difficult. It's one thing to have a short story here and there and then rules of missiles. Organization was very poor in the first edition and sounds like it continues that way.

Let me see if I can provide a little insight I've had through years playing RIFTS among other games...

Maps = Use an Atlas after all the basic geopraphy is earth, just with a few minor changes

GMing adivse = Most of the books are filled with the background information to the area they cover including NPCs of Note

Time Line = Each book has an excerpt from Erin Tarn's "Diary's" which are all dated to provide you with some sort of a loose timeline, D&D doesnt' give you time line either though

Game Balance= What do you want to Balance?

Equipment = whats new and whats old? If you figure that the core book is the old equipment an dthe expansions are all new equipment, then how did your players get their hands on such new items which I'm sure that the government would want to keep tight security on

Rules vs Background = Rules are the mechanics and Background is the fluff

Now let me say before people start flaming me let me say that I don't mean to seem pretintious, nor do i consider myself the foremost expert on D20 or Paladium rulesets, I'm just curious as to how many people would be interested in such a thing if it did exist

 

[Crothian]

woops i meant that its NOT meant to have all OCC/RCCs equal...my bad

which is why I say d20 can't do rifts. Rifts is not about balance, d20 is all about balance. Its like taking call of Chuthulu and turning it into toon.......

 

[JoeGKushner]

I've yet to see people complain about lack of timeline in D&D though was my point, some people would like to have a time line I understand, just never been a concern of mine personally

Greyhawk and those who talk about cannon such as Greyhawk Wars, would disagree iwth you.

Rifts is not a game engine, it's a setting. D&D is a game engine with amny settings.

 

[Crothian]

a few years back someone on line made a freaking awsome rifts timeline.....

 

[Catavarie]

which is why I say d20 can't do rifts. Rifts is not about balance, d20 is all about balance. Its like taking call of Chuthulu and turning it into toon.......

would say that the game could could be converted to d20 with a bit of shoehorning, just because d20 is written to balance classes, doesn't mean that you can't still have unbalanced classes within a d20 game...its just that the concept of RIFTS lends itself to needing a ton of tables and differing stat blocks than most d20 games do. Its the nature of the beast, so its not possible to fully turn RIFTS or any paladium game into a full d20 system but it could be made more Userfriendly with simplier math and more intuitive rules for actions and items.

 

[Infernal Teddy]

Time line is not cohesive and bounces all over the place. From what I understand, the new edition does not advance the timeline any. This leaves Vampires, A.R.C.H.I.E., Mechanoids, the Four Horsemen, and other bits in limbo, despite the timeline being past that in many areas.

Look at Rifts: Aftermath. That book advanced the timeline for the whole world up to after the Siege of Tolkeen.