computertrucker wrote:So trying to get our first group together. Our Mage player loved the sound of the ley line walker... However he got a copy of the book and started going over it, and complained that the spells both defensive and offensive were really weak compared to stuff that was available for technology based characters.
He asked why don't I just use shadowrun instead. And now isn't interested in playing that much.
So curious have any of you come up with a way to beef up magic somewhat?
Let him play a temporal wizard. Being able to choose high level spells starting out should get his attention. You might also upgrade the Temporal Wizard to RUE standards by bumping up the starting PPE and adding some bonuses similar to the Ley Line Walker or Shifter.
--flatline
I don't care about canon answers. I'm interested in good, well-reasoned answers and, perhaps, a short discussion of how that answer is supported or contradicted by canon.
If I don't provide a book and page number, then don't assume that I'm describing canon. I'll tell you if I'm describing canon.
Palladium mages don't usually work as fire and forget combat characters. They're better suited to support roles. Suggest that he look at the non-damaging spells. Stuff like carpet of adhesion can shut an opponent down entirely if used well. And if that won't satisfy him, decide whether his happiness is important enough for you to scrap your plans and switch games.
Never really been an issue. Does this player understand that: At low levels, magic can be weaker than tech, but at higher levels magic spells can improve their output as compared to tech which is static (that isn't to say magic doesn't have its own static).
Not to mention at Ley Lines and Nexus Points Magic gets a boost where tech doesn't.
Magic is also easier to recharge/repair than tech.
Rifts mages tend to focus more as support (armor of ithan is amazing for a low level spell) at lower levels, it isn't till you reach higher levels that it becomes more of a direct combat type. and rifts mages can use guns and tech to supplement until they get higher.
Your local Lurker and Temporal Wizard Extrodinaire,
Sounds like you've resigned yourself to it. That said, spells up to level five are a single attack action to cast. If he doesn't want to pay the same action surcharge as a character making a called shot or using a power-attack, he doesn't have to.
yeah, you must be looking at the old rules. even then, it's never 2 melees, the longest cast time for a non-ritual spell was arguably one round (the actual rule was that you could cast one per round, with no specific information on how long it takes to cast; giving it a one-round casting time was largely an assumption).
having said that, he's looking at it all wrong.
first off, damage is crap. any slob with a laser rifle can shoot people. in my experience, that is largely just as true in shadowrun (well, except that most people don't use laser rifles). if you want to make things explode, don't waste your time being a mage. they are terribly unsuited as nukers. if he wants to nuke stuff, and for some reason thinks that using a gun is an unacceptable option, i recommend a super hero character from heroes unlimited converted to rifts.
now, having gotten that out of the way, it's time to explain what magic is amazing at:
- instant incapacitation. damage spells tend to suck. a lot. magic net, domination, carpet of adhesion, or even compulsion are all amazing used well. a compulsion to remove your body armour and drop your weapons, for example, will basically end a one-person fight.
- defense. honestly, if he thinks that magic is bad at defense, he isn't looking closely enough. this is a setting where 1 MDC lost off your armour costs like a thousand credits to repair. at level 1, armour of ithan is awesomely good because even at level 1 it is potentially saving you the trouble of finding a place that can offer repairs, and the cost of repairs if you can even get them at all. impervious to energy is godlike, or even impervious to fire in the right situation (enemies armed only/mostly with plasma weapons). invulnerability gives you +10 to a lot of saving throws in addition to making you immune to energy attacks. that is ridiculous, because in this game, saving throws very rarely require higher than a 16. that takes you from making the save 1/4 of the time to 3/4 of the time, or three times as often; that is *massive*. for protecting the group, spells like smoke clouds or energy barriers are excellent (the first one you can get is around level 4 i think, called energy field, and has like 60 MDC, which is a pretty good source of cover).
- debuffing. blinding flash hits an area with -10 to strike, dodge, and parry. remember when i pointed out just how awesome +10 to saves is? well giving your enemies -10 to strike, parry, and dodge is just as amazing. confusion takes away enemy actions. and so on.
- buffing. not just for armour, there are spells that grant extra attacks, for example, or spells that make them move faster, hit harder, etc.
and, of course, utility. bypassing obstacles, persuading NPCs to help you out, getting information, traveling miles away in the blink of an eye... tons of amazing ways to solve problems.
now, magic does tend to get better if you have more books. for example, if you have the book of magic (or the original, not revised, federation of magic), you can find a number of spells that add even more to your usefulness. there are, for example, spells that will let you repair your team's armour. remember when i commented on just how annoying that was to do? well, a magic user with the right spell (which isn't necessarily an easy thing to get, admittedly) can do that for the whole party with just PPE. likewise with recharging e-clips, there's another spell for that. which makes it a lot easier to get by with a laser rifle for things that don't really need a spell.
now, as to nuking stuff, there are decent spells for that. but you should probably only use them if you don't want to waste a bullet, so to speak. the only real advantage to damage spells is that it doesn't cost money.
I think that he's comparing the wrong thing. Every attack spell a human magician knows is much better than a human punching somebody. Being a mage is never being unarmed. If he wants to duke it out with warmachines or men with military equipment, he should get some weapons for himself.
computertrucker wrote:He was complaining that magic doesn't scale well with levels from what he has been reading. He understood about the utility type control spells but he also was talking how long it took to cast spells ... Ie.. 2 melee passes or more. He claimed he felt it was to harsh a penalty and felt it was lame... Sigh.
The problem is if he doesn't play we are down to only me and 3 players. As one of our other friends has absolutely no interest in rifts. And said he will just wait for me to get back to running deathwatch which he loves.
I was hoping for 5 players. Now it looks like it's me and 3 more... Makes it harder to run a game, especially if I am not all that familiar with it yet.
One thing that changed in the RUE that gave magic users a huge shot in the arm is spells level 1-5 are single action acts now. Previously with 2 actions needed for even basic spells a lot of the basic buffing/combat magic was questionably useful and mostly relegated to talisman/TW usage.
This change is also what makes warlocks and their native american elemental spirit shaman about the closest to a nuker type magic user as you will find in rifts.
Warlocks all their spells earlier spell level wise than a normal invocation caster with typically half the PPE cost. Take an air elemental warlock and you gain some of the strongest combat spells that exist in the game combined with the ability to summon both lesser and greater elementals some of which can also cast those same elemental spells basically doubling your casting actions in combat.
That said I tend to prefer using my PPE for shielding/control/debuffing but if a person really really wants to nuke stuff dead with magic warlocks, elemental fusionists are two of the best traditional magic users who can do it in rifts.
For magic bad ass any of the magic tattoo using OCC are amazing choices.
t-man, t-monster man, maxi-man, and true atlantean undead slayer (which requires you to be a true atlantean, so not for regular humans) are in rifts atlantis.
there's one i can't recall the name of in south america one, the city of manoa, that gains access to another type of tattoo which allows you to assume the form (but not the full abilities) of various creatures. i think it's something like monster hunter or monster slayer. i believe they also are only allowed to true atlanteans.
the chiang-ku tattoo master and regular chiang-ku (note: both are dragons, though less directly powerful than regular dragons) are in rifts england.
the tattoo man archer is in splynn dimensional market.
it is also possible for various other characters to gain a limited number of tattoos without taking the OCCs (including being a regular true atlantean), though they aren't exactly common. various true atlantean OCCs, as well as a type of splugorth minion (found in rifts atlantis, and not common knowledge so you should probably not tell the player about them), for example.
unfortunately, the OCCs are not found in the book of magic. the tattoos, however, are found there.
Cant a normal mage have like six tattoos. Bonus sdc and ppe. Yay. Yes they cost DOUBLE ppe to activate but...... the ability to fly fast. Mdc armor. A spear that returns when thrown. Sn strength. Air elemental magic. And idk Raising the dead seems legit. Especially if you can still learn spell magic.
say652 wrote:Offer instead of a mage a borg. Flight. Check.
I don't think most borgs can fly... I expect some can but it never jumped out as an identifying creaturefeature. I know there are jet packs out there but I figure due to their weight that might cause problems... anyone know any borgs with built-in flight capabilities?
Shark_Force wrote:yeah, you must be looking at the old rules. even then, it's never 2 melees, the longest cast time for a non-ritual spell was arguably one round (the actual rule was that you could cast one per round, with no specific information on how long it takes to cast; giving it a one-round casting time was largely an assumption).
What book are you referring to? My RMB had 1/2 melee (2 attacks first cast) for low level, 1 melee for mid, 2 melees for high.
Shark_Force wrote:there are, for example, spells that will let you repair your team's armour. remember when i commented on just how annoying that was to do? well, a magic user with the right spell (which isn't necessarily an easy thing to get, admittedly) can do that for the whole party with just PPE. likewise with recharging e-clips, there's another spell for that. .
Original FoM pg 138 level 5 "Mend the Broken" for MDC restore, pg 143 level 7 "Sub-Particle Acceleration" if anyone is interested.
SPA is also cool since it lets you turn full e-clips (including the enemy's) into bombs that you can trigger from a pretty good distance.
Anyone know what the cheapest e-clip is on the market? I'm thinking maybe some kind of mini-e-clip used for some kind of tiny device. Looking for a way to minimize the expense of this, since the damage it does doesn't seem to vary based on the size.
Ideally I would think larger e-clips (long rifle clips, coalition storage cells, NGR long FSEs) should do more damage while standard or smaller should do less. Though I'm not sure by how much, might estimate it based on payload differences.
"1st edition? 2nd edition? It doesnt matter! Let's just talk" -Forums of the Megaverse
computertrucker wrote:And those are in the conversion book? Or the book of magic.. So far he is only looking at the main using the main rule book.
The warlock is from the conversion book 1 Elemental spirit shaman is from spirit west but is roughly the same as thw warlock.
Tattoo magic is found in a few places rifts atlantis being the best location.
Book of magic is where you can find the spells for pretty much everything.
I STRONGLY recommend for anybody interested in GM'ing rifts get the book of magic. It covers about 90% of all magic that exists in the rifts system and examples of most of the TW/magic items that are common.
Although they tried to avoid the you need to get this as well you can tell reading the elemental fusionist OCC in the RUE that the BOM is highly recommended.
If all you have is the RUE the elemental fusionist is a very strong pure caster type character. Their PPE costs for their abilities are even lower than warlocks both types have good access to MDC shielding powers which have high scaling and in some cases stupidly low casting costs. They lose some diversity of spell casting options other magic users have but what they do they do extremely well.
Also elemental fusionist powers are all 1 action cost abilities unless stated otherwise a few are more but those are the exception.
Shark_Force wrote:yeah, you must be looking at the old rules. even then, it's never 2 melees, the longest cast time for a non-ritual spell was arguably one round (the actual rule was that you could cast one per round, with no specific information on how long it takes to cast; giving it a one-round casting time was largely an assumption).
having said that, he's looking at it all wrong.
first off, damage is crap. any slob with a laser rifle can shoot people. in my experience, that is largely just as true in shadowrun (well, except that most people don't use laser rifles). if you want to make things explode, don't waste your time being a mage. they are terribly unsuited as nukers. if he wants to nuke stuff, and for some reason thinks that using a gun is an unacceptable option, i recommend a super hero character from heroes unlimited converted to rifts.
now, having gotten that out of the way, it's time to explain what magic is amazing at:
- instant incapacitation. damage spells tend to suck. a lot. magic net, domination, carpet of adhesion, or even compulsion are all amazing used well. a compulsion to remove your body armour and drop your weapons, for example, will basically end a one-person fight.
- defense. honestly, if he thinks that magic is bad at defense, he isn't looking closely enough. this is a setting where 1 MDC lost off your armour costs like a thousand credits to repair. at level 1, armour of ithan is awesomely good because even at level 1 it is potentially saving you the trouble of finding a place that can offer repairs, and the cost of repairs if you can even get them at all. impervious to energy is godlike, or even impervious to fire in the right situation (enemies armed only/mostly with plasma weapons). invulnerability gives you +10 to a lot of saving throws in addition to making you immune to energy attacks. that is ridiculous, because in this game, saving throws very rarely require higher than a 16. that takes you from making the save 1/4 of the time to 3/4 of the time, or three times as often; that is *massive*. for protecting the group, spells like smoke clouds or energy barriers are excellent (the first one you can get is around level 4 i think, called energy field, and has like 60 MDC, which is a pretty good source of cover).
- debuffing. blinding flash hits an area with -10 to strike, dodge, and parry. remember when i pointed out just how awesome +10 to saves is? well giving your enemies -10 to strike, parry, and dodge is just as amazing. confusion takes away enemy actions. and so on.
- buffing. not just for armour, there are spells that grant extra attacks, for example, or spells that make them move faster, hit harder, etc.
and, of course, utility. bypassing obstacles, persuading NPCs to help you out, getting information, traveling miles away in the blink of an eye... tons of amazing ways to solve problems.
now, magic does tend to get better if you have more books. for example, if you have the book of magic (or the original, not revised, federation of magic), you can find a number of spells that add even more to your usefulness. there are, for example, spells that will let you repair your team's armour. remember when i commented on just how annoying that was to do? well, a magic user with the right spell (which isn't necessarily an easy thing to get, admittedly) can do that for the whole party with just PPE. likewise with recharging e-clips, there's another spell for that. which makes it a lot easier to get by with a laser rifle for things that don't really need a spell.
now, as to nuking stuff, there are decent spells for that. but you should probably only use them if you don't want to waste a bullet, so to speak. the only real advantage to damage spells is that it doesn't cost money.
Umm, the thing to remember is the mage can still shoot guns for damage, and although armor of ithan is light MDC (invincible armor is slightly better with 25MDC per level half damage from energy with no bleed through pre GI Joe rule), but the real advantage of magic based MDC is it does not cost anything to repair, and ley lines double it. Spells like impervious to energy, deflect and target defect are amazing defensive spells.
Damage is not what most combat spells are about, there are few high damage spells such as meteor and annihilate but they cost allot of PPE.
Utilitarian and CC spells are the mage in rifts bread and butter.
Personally I am not a big fan of the temporal wizard and they are suppose to be rare not the go to mage. If all you want is high level spells at start that would be the high mage great starting spell list and if you want him to do damage give him his automaton.
(I would have to disagree with you about mages blowing things up in shadow run in my experience they are good at 1 shotting things but they tend to drop fast to fatigue, when they do so normally my mage without over casting I am can pump out 10+ boxes of damage my choice physical or stun rested with will and have little or no drain. I can do that to a small area in doors it is a great way to drop guards. But then the dice gods like me and I often in forth have half my dice land on hits. But not every one has the same experience with mages for some reason.)
The Clones are coming you shall all be replaced, but who is to say you have not been replaced already.
Master of Type-O and the obvios.
Soon my army oc clones and winged-monkies will rule the world but first, must .......
I may debate canon and RAW, but the games I run are highly house ruled. So I am not debating for how I play but about how the system works as written.
say652 wrote:Offer instead of a mage a borg. Flight. Check.
I don't think most borgs can fly... I expect some can but it never jumped out as an identifying creaturefeature. I know there are jet packs out there but I figure due to their weight that might cause problems... anyone know any borgs with built-in flight capabilities?
Shark_Force wrote:yeah, you must be looking at the old rules. even then, it's never 2 melees, the longest cast time for a non-ritual spell was arguably one round (the actual rule was that you could cast one per round, with no specific information on how long it takes to cast; giving it a one-round casting time was largely an assumption).
What book are you referring to? My RMB had 1/2 melee (2 attacks first cast) for low level, 1 melee for mid, 2 melees for high.
Shark_Force wrote:there are, for example, spells that will let you repair your team's armour. remember when i commented on just how annoying that was to do? well, a magic user with the right spell (which isn't necessarily an easy thing to get, admittedly) can do that for the whole party with just PPE. likewise with recharging e-clips, there's another spell for that. .
Original FoM pg 138 level 5 "Mend the Broken" for MDC restore, pg 143 level 7 "Sub-Particle Acceleration" if anyone is interested.
SPA is also cool since it lets you turn full e-clips (including the enemy's) into bombs that you can trigger from a pretty good distance.
Anyone know what the cheapest e-clip is on the market? I'm thinking maybe some kind of mini-e-clip used for some kind of tiny device. Looking for a way to minimize the expense of this, since the damage it does doesn't seem to vary based on the size.
Ideally I would think larger e-clips (long rifle clips, coalition storage cells, NGR long FSEs) should do more damage while standard or smaller should do less. Though I'm not sure by how much, might estimate it based on payload differences.
Spells and hand to hand attacks are have been kind of a sloppy mess with much confusion. It was often written X attacks per melee or 2 spells in early books. But as the rules for number of attacks changed in early part of the game this lead to confusion. As I understand it by the original Rifts RPG (the RMB) a person with only hand to hand started with 2 attacks, but at some point this was modified with 2 for being alive. Even the writers made mistakes in early part of the game (I know there was confusiton and missing attacks in stats as late as FOM), the first effort to clear the rules up was the rifts GMG witch is the first time I recall them saying it took 2 actions to cast a spell with the spell happening during your second action. So in many of the early old books attacks per melee often confusing. With a quote in the GMG saying it was so.
The Clones are coming you shall all be replaced, but who is to say you have not been replaced already.
Master of Type-O and the obvios.
Soon my army oc clones and winged-monkies will rule the world but first, must .......
I may debate canon and RAW, but the games I run are highly house ruled. So I am not debating for how I play but about how the system works as written.
Blue_Lion wrote:Umm, the thing to remember is the mage can still shoot guns for damage, and although armor of ithan is light MDC (invincible armor is slightly better with 25MDC per level half damage from energy with no bleed through pre GI Joe rule), but the real advantage of magic based MDC is it does not cost anything to repair, and ley lines double it. Spells like impervious to energy, deflect and target defect are amazing defensive spells.
Damage is not what most combat spells are about, there are few high damage spells such as meteor and annihilate but they cost allot of PPE.
Utilitarian and CC spells are the mage in rifts bread and butter.
Personally I am not a big fan of the temporal wizard and they are suppose to be rare not the go to mage. If all you want is high level spells at start that would be the high mage great starting spell list and if you want him to do damage give him his automaton.
(I would have to disagree with you about mages blowing things up in shadow run in my experience they are good at 1 shotting things but they tend to drop fast to fatigue, when they do so normally my mage without over casting I am can pump out 10+ boxes of damage my choice physical or stun rested with will and have little or no drain. I can do that to a small area in doors it is a great way to drop guards. But then the dice gods like me and I often in forth have half my dice land on hits. But not every one has the same experience with mages for some reason.)
yup, i noted most of that in my post.
as to shadowrun mages, yes they can blow up things. but the majority of the time, if you want to deal damage... make a street samurai or adept, and use a gun or grenades; it doesn't much matter whether the mage is KOing people with 10S stunball or the street sam is doing it with slab/DMSO grenades. yes, a mage can damage things. that is true in most RPG systems i've ever played in. but in the RPG systems i consider worth playing (so uhhh... not 4th edition D&D, out of the systems i've ever actually played) it is rarely the best option. even in situations where damage is a good option (most editions of D&D, shadowrun, and certainly i'm sure a number of other systems), it isn't reasonable to make it the best option unless the assumption is that everyone is a magic user (as has been the case for a few systems i've looked at, but never played).
as someone noted, if you let the magic user be the best in utility, crowd control, and buffing, then you also let them be the best at dealing damage... what exactly is left for everyone else?
say652 wrote:Cant a normal mage have like six tattoos. Bonus sdc and ppe. Yay. Yes they cost DOUBLE ppe to activate but...... the ability to fly fast. Mdc armor. A spear that returns when thrown. Sn strength. Air elemental magic. And idk Raising the dead seems legit. Especially if you can still learn spell magic.
Yes, spell casters from races that can have Magic Tattoos can have up to Six but more then that will destroy their ability to cast spells.
There are other options for spell casters like using the PPE Channeling rules in Rifter 21.
Most RPG's tend toward the premise that at low levels spell casters are weaker then fighter classes but as they gain levels that premise gets reversed.
"Hurry, were running out of time!"
"Cannot run out of time. There is infinite time. You are finite; Zathras is finite; This....is wrong tool.
Susan Ivonnova and Zathras, Babylon 5 'War Without End'
Blue_Lion wrote:Umm, the thing to remember is the mage can still shoot guns for damage, and although armor of ithan is light MDC (invincible armor is slightly better with 25MDC per level half damage from energy with no bleed through pre GI Joe rule), but the real advantage of magic based MDC is it does not cost anything to repair, and ley lines double it. Spells like impervious to energy, deflect and target defect are amazing defensive spells.
Damage is not what most combat spells are about, there are few high damage spells such as meteor and annihilate but they cost allot of PPE.
Utilitarian and CC spells are the mage in rifts bread and butter.
Personally I am not a big fan of the temporal wizard and they are suppose to be rare not the go to mage. If all you want is high level spells at start that would be the high mage great starting spell list and if you want him to do damage give him his automaton.
(I would have to disagree with you about mages blowing things up in shadow run in my experience they are good at 1 shotting things but they tend to drop fast to fatigue, when they do so normally my mage without over casting I am can pump out 10+ boxes of damage my choice physical or stun rested with will and have little or no drain. I can do that to a small area in doors it is a great way to drop guards. But then the dice gods like me and I often in forth have half my dice land on hits. But not every one has the same experience with mages for some reason.)
yup, i noted most of that in my post.
as to shadowrun mages, yes they can blow up things. but the majority of the time, if you want to deal damage... make a street samurai or adept, and use a gun or grenades; it doesn't much matter whether the mage is KOing people with 10S stunball or the street sam is doing it with slab/DMSO grenades. yes, a mage can damage things. that is true in most RPG systems i've ever played in. but in the RPG systems i consider worth playing (so uhhh... not 4th edition D&D, out of the systems i've ever actually played) it is rarely the best option. even in situations where damage is a good option (most editions of D&D, shadowrun, and certainly i'm sure a number of other systems), it isn't reasonable to make it the best option unless the assumption is that everyone is a magic user (as has been the case for a few systems i've looked at, but never played).
as someone noted, if you let the magic user be the best in utility, crowd control, and buffing, then you also let them be the best at dealing damage... what exactly is left for everyone else?
(Things are more likely to take a hit or two from street first and maybe a second attack do to how armor +body. The main damage spells are resisted with just will. Trolls in heavy armor can be a pain to shoot down but for a mage they are easy prey. In shadow run mage is just as likely to be a main damage dealer as a strait combat class, but they can have more options to play with. I find a blanket statement that mages are not the best means in different systems means that you do not fully use builds to the best effect as well as full system content. Playing first and second ed DnD the warror classes had high damage output early on but at higher levels most the damage comes from the mages the only issue is that mages tend to be good for fewer fights than the warror but with wands and staffs for the minions they stay on top(plus they get EXP for making them). In Shadow run combat mages not only use guns and grenades like the street sam but spells for damage and with foci and enhancing spells can match most physical enchantments add in the sprits/elementals and meta magic and your street sam is up the creek without his own mage to protect him. I have played RPGs where mages are the best damage dealers if you understand the system while combat classes are the best if you do not.--now back to the real game in question.
Rue was published after the GMG, the GMG is the first time I remember seeing them try to clean up the combat rules. RUE action rules are a step of tinkering after the GMG set of rules. The RMB(way before the rules clarification editing.) stated mages had attacks equal to the number of hand to hand attacks or two by spells. I remember a big stink around the time when they tried to clarify the action rules. Suddenly it seam to take to actions worth of time to cast a spell not that you could cast two spells in a round. Combat rules have been tinkered with allot over the years that rifts has been out in many books. A good example of this besides hand to hand would be to look at dodging range/energy attacks it went back and forth during several books including RMB and conversion book 1 (non revised) and other books on weather or not you could dodge them. PB may not have done a full change of edition but they have tinkered with the rules for the game quite a bit over the years.
The Clones are coming you shall all be replaced, but who is to say you have not been replaced already.
Master of Type-O and the obvios.
Soon my army oc clones and winged-monkies will rule the world but first, must .......
I may debate canon and RAW, but the games I run are highly house ruled. So I am not debating for how I play but about how the system works as written.
Shark_Force wrote:yeah, you must be looking at the old rules. even then, it's never 2 melees, the longest cast time for a non-ritual spell was arguably one round (the actual rule was that you could cast one per round, with no specific information on how long it takes to cast; giving it a one-round casting time was largely an assumption).
having said that, he's looking at it all wrong.
first off, damage is crap. any slob with a laser rifle can shoot people. in my experience, that is largely just as true in shadowrun (well, except that most people don't use laser rifles). if you want to make things explode, don't waste your time being a mage. they are terribly unsuited as nukers. if he wants to nuke stuff, and for some reason thinks that using a gun is an unacceptable option, i recommend a super hero character from heroes unlimited converted to rifts.
now, having gotten that out of the way, it's time to explain what magic is amazing at:
- instant incapacitation. damage spells tend to suck. a lot. magic net, domination, carpet of adhesion, or even compulsion are all amazing used well. a compulsion to remove your body armour and drop your weapons, for example, will basically end a one-person fight.
- defense. honestly, if he thinks that magic is bad at defense, he isn't looking closely enough. this is a setting where 1 MDC lost off your armour costs like a thousand credits to repair. at level 1, armour of ithan is awesomely good because even at level 1 it is potentially saving you the trouble of finding a place that can offer repairs, and the cost of repairs if you can even get them at all. impervious to energy is godlike, or even impervious to fire in the right situation (enemies armed only/mostly with plasma weapons). invulnerability gives you +10 to a lot of saving throws in addition to making you immune to energy attacks. that is ridiculous, because in this game, saving throws very rarely require higher than a 16. that takes you from making the save 1/4 of the time to 3/4 of the time, or three times as often; that is *massive*. for protecting the group, spells like smoke clouds or energy barriers are excellent (the first one you can get is around level 4 i think, called energy field, and has like 60 MDC, which is a pretty good source of cover).
- debuffing. blinding flash hits an area with -10 to strike, dodge, and parry. remember when i pointed out just how awesome +10 to saves is? well giving your enemies -10 to strike, parry, and dodge is just as amazing. confusion takes away enemy actions. and so on.
- buffing. not just for armour, there are spells that grant extra attacks, for example, or spells that make them move faster, hit harder, etc.
and, of course, utility. bypassing obstacles, persuading NPCs to help you out, getting information, traveling miles away in the blink of an eye... tons of amazing ways to solve problems.
now, magic does tend to get better if you have more books. for example, if you have the book of magic (or the original, not revised, federation of magic), you can find a number of spells that add even more to your usefulness. there are, for example, spells that will let you repair your team's armour. remember when i commented on just how annoying that was to do? well, a magic user with the right spell (which isn't necessarily an easy thing to get, admittedly) can do that for the whole party with just PPE. likewise with recharging e-clips, there's another spell for that. which makes it a lot easier to get by with a laser rifle for things that don't really need a spell.
now, as to nuking stuff, there are decent spells for that. but you should probably only use them if you don't want to waste a bullet, so to speak. the only real advantage to damage spells is that it doesn't cost money.
Umm, the thing to remember is the mage can still shoot guns for damage, and although armor of ithan is light MDC (invincible armor is slightly better with 25MDC per level half damage from energy with no bleed through pre GI Joe rule), but the real advantage of magic based MDC is it does not cost anything to repair, and ley lines double it. Spells like impervious to energy, deflect and target defect are amazing defensive spells.
Damage is not what most combat spells are about, there are few high damage spells such as meteor and annihilate but they cost allot of PPE.
Utilitarian and CC spells are the mage in rifts bread and butter.
Personally I am not a big fan of the temporal wizard and they are suppose to be rare not the go to mage. If all you want is high level spells at start that would be the high mage great starting spell list and if you want him to do damage give him his automaton.
(I would have to disagree with you about mages blowing things up in shadow run in my experience they are good at 1 shotting things but they tend to drop fast to fatigue, when they do so normally my mage without over casting I am can pump out 10+ boxes of damage my choice physical or stun rested with will and have little or no drain. I can do that to a small area in doors it is a great way to drop guards. But then the dice gods like me and I often in forth have half my dice land on hits. But not every one has the same experience with mages for some reason.)
In regards to the big damage battlefield spells this is why you will almost always hear people mention warlocks when talking about a attack magic oriented spell caster. All of the warlock flavors gain access to at level 6-7 depending on the element of extremely high damage large area effect spells that cost very reasonable amounts of PPE.
Normal invocation spells spend a lot of PPE to do the big pure damage effects but warlock magic especially air and earth wreck football stadium sized areas for 50-100 ppe depending on the spell used.
Blue_Lion wrote:(Things are more likely to take a hit or two from street first and maybe a second attack do to how armor +body. The main damage spells are resisted with just will. Trolls in heavy armor can be a pain to shoot down but for a mage they are easy prey. In shadow run mage is just as likely to be a main damage dealer as a strait combat class, but they can have more options to play with. I find a blanket statement that mages are not the best means in different systems means that you do not fully use builds to the best effect as well as full system content. Playing first and second ed DnD the warror classes had high damage output early on but at higher levels most the damage comes from the mages the only issue is that mages tend to be good for fewer fights than the warror but with wands and staffs for the minions they stay on top(plus they get EXP for making them). In Shadow run combat mages not only use guns and grenades like the street sam but spells for damage and with foci and enhancing spells can match most physical enchantments add in the sprits/elementals and meta magic and your street sam is up the creek without his own mage to protect him. I have played RPGs where mages are the best damage dealers if you understand the system while combat classes are the best if you do not.--now back to the real game in question.
Rue was published after the GMG, the GMG is the first time I remember seeing them try to clean up the combat rules. RUE action rules are a step of tinkering after the GMG set of rules. The RMB(way before the rules clarification editing.) stated mages had attacks equal to the number of hand to hand attacks or two by spells. I remember a big stink around the time when they tried to clarify the action rules. Suddenly it seam to take to actions worth of time to cast a spell not that you could cast two spells in a round. Combat rules have been tinkered with allot over the years that rifts has been out in many books. A good example of this besides hand to hand would be to look at dodging range/energy attacks it went back and forth during several books including RMB and conversion book 1 (non revised) and other books on weather or not you could dodge them. PB may not have done a full change of edition but they have tinkered with the rules for the game quite a bit over the years.
a well-built street sam in 4th edition can one-shot just about anything. with the right weapon, you're going to be dealing something crazy like 12 + net hits damage... and your offensive dice pool should be enough that you'll get plenty of net hits on anything short of a maxed out dodge adept. things don't tend to survive that. even super-armoured trolls seldom last more than 2 shots of that (and in any event, a character extremely optimized to resist magic is just as hard for a mage to deal with).
that said, i didn't say mages are never good at dealing damage... i said that it is almost never the best option. in shadowrun, for example, mind control spells are traditionally the most ridiculously overpowered spells ever. summoning a spirit is generally a more effective combat option than using a combat spell. and spells like levitate or invisibility are way more impressive than a stunball, because the stunball can be replaced by a grenade pretty easily.
likewise in D&D, you certainly can lob fireball spells all over the place at third level (and it's not a bad option, though depending on your enemy you're still definitely going to want a warrior because every time you cast a spell you're burning resources). with that said, i have won more fights by using web, stinking cloud, and pyrotechnics than fireball, and (in 2nd edition at least), those are all available a full 2 levels before. burning hands is a pretty great level 1 spell, but it's not remotely as good as sleep or charm person.
likewise, in rifts, some of the low level damaging spells are pretty good; throwing stones is one of my preferred low level spells because it doesn't cost much PPE, lasts a while, can be boosted with a WP, scales decently well as you level up (especially in range), and the damage is not energy which means resistance to said damage is fairly uncommon. however, if i'm in range for a magic net or a blinding flash, it's not even a remotely difficult choice as to which one is more effective.
Shadowrun vs Rifts:Similar Genre (futuristic sci-fi fantasy) but opposites in terms of game mechanic fundamentals (extreme cohesiveness vs haphazard organization with frequent amendments/contradictions across many books).
The workaround for spell casting times is to instead have a Techno-Wizard Device that produces that spells effect (for level 6 or higher spells) either by pumping that PPE into the item or using pre-stored PPE to fire the effect at something for only one action. An old RMB available online PDF purchase or cheap used book in some gaming stores http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/60679/Rifts-RPG--1st-Edition-Rules?cPath=5190 includes some basic TW modifications for armor and vehicles. Various TW Vehicle Mods also listed in Book of Magic (mainly repeated from Coalition Wars 1:Sedition). Thus remaining a PPE battery (with ISP option for usage if any present) by utilizing a destroyable device while retaining basic casting ability.
Also having the Sensitive Psi-Power of Sixth Sense can allow for prep time before combat if there are typically 1 or 2 ideal universal combat spells: Impervious To Energy or whatever.
If something makes the RPG experience better that's great. If not don't use it.
If not overly informative hopefully it was at least mildly amusing. Munchkin Clown Away! <fwoosh... honk, honk>
One thing that makes it really hard to quantify magic between rifts and shadowrun is shadowrun has had 5 major revisions since its inception and wind up making different iterations of basically the same books that are often not particularly compatible with earlier editions.
As much as some would hit palladium books for having some rule changes over the years most of the changes have been pretty incremental and minor in the grand scheme of things and people can use the original RMB and play with the newest supplements just released and have little issue with compatibility.
The other weird thing is the "magic system" in rifts is not just one thing it is probably a good 15 or twenty different types of magic many of which like tattoo magic have little in common with traditional spell casting other than using PPE as the energy source.
George Labour wrote:I'm surprised no one ha brought up the various Magus O.C.Cs from Federation of Magic. Certainly if the player in question is of the 'blow stuff up and forget the pansy finger wiggling' mindset of magic then those might be more his speed.
Or maybe a dragon of some sort. Dragons can wield giant guns, and chainsaw swords easily plus they know magic, and can turn into cute furry critters that can then rip a tank apart.
Another option would be to give him some sort of nifty Techno wizard doodad either from the Arzno or Federation of Magic books. This way he can get his fix for mystical urban renewal on while still keeping options open for useful spells.
Finally did you point out to this player that certain wizard classes (ley line walkers, etc) can learn higher level spells even if their class level isn't up there yet? Much like Shadowrun a lot of those spells only require that you find someone to teach them to you, and have enough PPE to cast them. At least for certain classes anyways.
Umm I did say high magus as access to high level spells over a Temporal Wizard. That is a magus from FOM.
The Clones are coming you shall all be replaced, but who is to say you have not been replaced already.
Master of Type-O and the obvios.
Soon my army oc clones and winged-monkies will rule the world but first, must .......
I may debate canon and RAW, but the games I run are highly house ruled. So I am not debating for how I play but about how the system works as written.
I've always loved the magic classes. No they are not combat oriented to dish out damage at low levels, but there are some low level spells that are very useful.
Cloud of Smoke, great to create cover for escape. It blocks line of site from mages and tech characters.
Carpet of Adhesion - even on a failed save the target is stuck for 2 to 12 melees. Super fly paper comes in real handy.
Magic Net - a single action spell to cast and the only save is a dodge of 16 or higher. Takes two full melees to get out if your stuck or cost an action to dodge.
Armor of Ithan, yeah 10 points is pretty crappy at level one, but you can cast it on your allies so why not augment their armor as well?
Now depending on the books you use magic (range, damage, duration) are doubled on a ley line and triple on a nexus. It's not mentioned in the new Rifts Ultimate Edition and was an accidental omission. I hope to correct in a future book, but its still a valid rule in my game.
RUE also has much better rules for casting spells. It was mentioned above, but bears repeating. Spell levels 1 to 5 can be cast in a single action, levels 6 to 10 two action and 11 to 15 three actions. Also Rifts magic users can have spells of any level and are not restricted by the character level. You're only limited by the amount of P.P.E. you have and then there are ways to augment that by tapping a ley line, fell characters can loan P.P.E. so you can temporarily increase you base P.P.E. to pop off a big spell if needed. Check out Annihilate
I played a Palladium wizard that was brought to Rifts Earth. That was one of the best games I played in and he is still my favorite character of all time. Having the spells I had made me think outside the box.
Carl Gleba wrote:I've always loved the magic classes. No they are not combat oriented to dish out damage at low levels, but there are some low level spells that are very useful.
Cloud of Smoke, great to create cover for escape. It blocks line of site from mages and tech characters.
Carpet of Adhesion - even on a failed save the target is stuck for 2 to 12 melees. Super fly paper comes in real handy.
Magic Net - a single action spell to cast and the only save is a dodge of 16 or higher. Takes two full melees to get out if your stuck or cost an action to dodge.
Armor of Ithan, yeah 10 points is pretty crappy at level one, but you can cast it on your allies so why not augment their armor as well?
Now depending on the books you use magic (range, damage, duration) are doubled on a ley line and triple on a nexus. It's not mentioned in the new Rifts Ultimate Edition and was an accidental omission. I hope to correct in a future book, but its still a valid rule in my game.
RUE also has much better rules for casting spells. It was mentioned above, but bears repeating. Spell levels 1 to 5 can be cast in a single action, levels 6 to 10 two action and 11 to 15 three actions. Also Rifts magic users can have spells of any level and are not restricted by the character level. You're only limited by the amount of P.P.E. you have and then there are ways to augment that by tapping a ley line, fell characters can loan P.P.E. so you can temporarily increase you base P.P.E. to pop off a big spell if needed. Check out Annihilate
I played a Palladium wizard that was brought to Rifts Earth. That was one of the best games I played in and he is still my favorite character of all time. Having the spells I had made me think outside the box.
Here's hoping you enjoy your Rifts game
If you say it's official, then that's enough for me!
Under the Pain of Death I would Stand Alone Against an Army of Darkness And Horrors Unknown
The answer to all your damage problems as a magic user is found in Merc Ops on pages 145-147. The MageFire TW weapons are the best deal for damage in Rifts. The MR-15 gives you 7 shots of 1d6x10+10 MD out to 1200 feet and it only takes 18 PPE or 36 ISP to FULLY recharge the weapon. The weapon only weighs 9lbs. So for less than 3 PPE per shot you are doing an average of 45 MD! (incidentally, I prefer to make the damage code 2d6x5+10. Same range of damage but you get more results in the range as options)
If your GM has TW weapons get enhanced on leylines and at nexuses...well, you do the math on how.much damage you'd be putting out for less than 3 PPE. Just make sure the player has the mage take WP Energy Rifle and he'll be all set for damage. And if that seems too much, there are plenty of other MageFire weapons from which one may pick.
Axelmania wrote:You of course, being the ultimate authority on what is an error and what is not.
Declared the ultimate authority on what is an error and what is not by Axelmania on 5.11.19.
Don't know of it was mentioned, but rifter #30 I think has a skill called Principles of Magic. When you successfully use the skill it reduces the time it takes to cas t higher level spells for additional PPE
Mark Hall wrote:Y'all seem to assume that Palladium books are written with the same exacting precision with which they are analyzed. I think that is... ambitious.
dreicunan wrote:The answer to all your damage problems as a magic user is found in Merc Ops on pages 145-147. The MageFire TW weapons are the best deal for damage in Rifts. The MR-15 gives you 7 shots of 1d6x10+10 MD out to 1200 feet and it only takes 18 PPE or 36 ISP to FULLY recharge the weapon. The weapon only weighs 9lbs. So for less than 3 PPE per shot you are doing an average of 45 MD! (incidentally, I prefer to make the damage code 2d6x5+10. Same range of damage but you get more results in the range as options)
They're great, but kind of the "naruni" of TW weapons. For people who can't get there hands on alien TW weapons or (prefer to buy American ) I'm fond of the Tolkeen version of the TW Fireburst Rifle. . . And if you don't care about how odd your source is, the Nuhr TW Firebolt Musket from the Coalition Navy does 6d6 for less than 1 PPE per shot (50 shots, 40 PPE to recharge)
Talismans. Tattoos. Techno wizard weapons. The blow stuff up mages are still possible. Just super powers blow stuff up better. Tech blows stuff up further away.
dreicunan wrote:The answer to all your damage problems as a magic user is found in Merc Ops on pages 145-147. The MageFire TW weapons are the best deal for damage in Rifts. The MR-15 gives you 7 shots of 1d6x10+10 MD out to 1200 feet and it only takes 18 PPE or 36 ISP to FULLY recharge the weapon. The weapon only weighs 9lbs. So for less than 3 PPE per shot you are doing an average of 45 MD! (incidentally, I prefer to make the damage code 2d6x5+10. Same range of damage but you get more results in the range as options)
They're great, but kind of the "naruni" of TW weapons. For people who can't get there hands on alien TW weapons or (prefer to buy American ) I'm fond of the Tolkeen version of the TW Fireburst Rifle. . . And if you don't care about how odd your source is, the Nuhr TW Firebolt Musket from the Coalition Navy does 6d6 for less than 1 PPE per shot (50 shots, 40 PPE to recharge)
I can't believe that I forgot about that one! My books aren't handy at the moment. What is it's range?
Merc Ops also features Armstrong TW weapons. The bug zapper or the shotgun from them are both okay on efficiency and have some effects as well, though IIRC the range isn't great on either.
Axelmania wrote:You of course, being the ultimate authority on what is an error and what is not.
Declared the ultimate authority on what is an error and what is not by Axelmania on 5.11.19.
Alrik Vas wrote:Don't know of it was mentioned, but rifter #30 I think has a skill called Principles of Magic. When you successfully use the skill it reduces the time it takes to cas t higher level spells for additional PPE
Yes it is Rifter #30 where Principals of Magic shows up. But that is not all that is needed, there are various Magical Focus skills, such as Arcane Battle Mastery (combat magic), Grand Seer (vision/communication), High Transmutation (transformative/etc.), and Rogue Wizardry (stealth/thief type) at half the PPE and double the range/duration/effects or cast without penalties (you'll have to re-read the section, page 29).
Under the Pain of Death I would Stand Alone Against an Army of Darkness And Horrors Unknown
dreicunan wrote:I can't believe that I forgot about that one! My books aren't handy at the moment. What is it's range?
Merc Ops also features Armstrong TW weapons. The bug zapper or the shotgun from them are both okay on efficiency and have some effects as well, though IIRC the range isn't great on either.
It's 1600 ft ... and gives a +1 bonus to strike while we're at it.
At one point I had a spread sheet of average damage/PPE per Shot/PPE per Damage for most of the TW weapons ... huge discrepancies in the usefulness of TW Weapons.
say652 wrote:But only for npcs because of game balance. Bwahahaha
On this topic, does anyone understand why Chaing-Ku have level indicators for when they can get tattoos?
Books can't seem to make it clear whether you can just get unlimited tats and the only limit is time (1 or 2 per 6 months I think) and accessibility (finding a High Lord or Atlantean Alchemist for most people, NPC classes) but with a tattoo-creating PC option, time is basically the only major limit, and 40 tats a decade builds up PPE and MDC pretty high.
If there are level limits for tattoo maximum that's dandy but it should be stated in more concrete terms. It seems like that for Chaing-Ku but for the other classes it seemed more like "this is how often your advancement will be recognized and you will be rewarded" flexibility more than 'you can't get more than this until you are X powerful'.
"1st edition? 2nd edition? It doesnt matter! Let's just talk" -Forums of the Megaverse
there is a time limit for how many tattoos you can handle being added. there is also a level limit. you must stay within both. the time limit only really applies in the sense that if you were to gain multiple levels quickly, you may have to wait before getting your level allotment in tattoos.
I'm sure this was probably already mentioned but mages CAN use tech so they get the flexibility of having both.
As to casting times I either use the non canon PPE Channeling from Rifter 21 or I take it a step further and say that once channeled the PPE can actually be used to cast multiple spells in a single action. Makes high level mages bad bad mama jammas. At 10th level a regular LLW could channel 50 PPE and could cast either only one spell (per Rifter rules) of 50 PPE or less (or using my alternate PPE channeling rules) several so long as they total less than or equal to 50 PPE.
If you really want to get him going on something bring in RCC/OCC combos like Silhouette (RCC in phaseworld) Temporal Warrior (OCC in England) They get a good selection of low level spells from their RCC temporal spells from OCC and a huge racial PPE bank if you roll well. Match this up with some high tech weapons and armor and you have a very versatile PC.
"We live in a world where people use severed plant genitals to express affection. Rifts is really not much weirder than that." ~~Killer Cyborg
"If we let technical problems scare us away from doing anything, humanity would still be in the trees flinging poo at each other."~~Killer Cyborg
"Everything that breeds is a threat."~~Killer Cyborg
) I'm fond of the Tolkeen version of the TW Fireburst Rifle. . . And if you don't care about how odd your source is, the Nuhr TW Firebolt Musket from the Coalition Navy does 6d6 for less than 1 PPE per shot (50 shots, 40 PPE to recharge)