Upgrading Humans

[Library Ogre]

So, something that's become a bit more common in RPGs is to give humans distinct abilities, rather than being baseline with no special abilities. For most games, it's that humans are flexible... additional skills or being able to choose a special ability that others have to pay for (in Savage Worlds, its a free feat; in WD&D, it's a feat and more skill points).

What would you give to humans in Rifts... some special ability that sets them apart from "just the average"?

[Grazzik]

So, besides psionics, cyber/bionics, super powers, designer drugs, magic, high tech, and alien symbiotes?

The abilities table open to all humans and mutants in WB13 pg 97-98.

[Library Ogre]

So, besides psionics, cyber/bionics, super powers, designer drugs, magic, high tech, and alien symbiotes?

"Can have everything" isn't that big of a deal when "pretty much everyone else can have at least some of those things, too." Oh, you can be psychic? So can most other races, and you're still not. You can have cybernetics and bionics? Have you met my wolfen friend, who is a full conversion cyborg but still looks like a normal wolfen?

"Can possibly have any given thing" doesn't really make an individual unique; in 1e AD&D, being a human thief was more or less statistically pointless, because anyone else could be a thief, and they'd have all their advantages on top of that.

[guardiandashi]

one of my friends insists that it is the capability to get reaches and additional bonus Die at character creation but thats not how I would go.

personally I don't see any real reason why humans need to have any real special advantage. but if you were to give them one I would say its not a special bonus to individuals, but more of a bonus to humanity as a whole that they are adaptable and in general hard to exterminate

[Grazzik]

Admittedly, if by rough estimate 30% of humans have psionics, 20% have some form of body modification, !0% have magic and 20% have access to high tech, then there seems to be an inherent streak of munchkinism in Rifts. But that is the game's raison d'être. So, being an unadulterated baseline is the... courageous... choice.

If you want to compare humans with DBees, then the issue is moot as there is infinite diversity. The question then shifts to whether there are as many options less powered than human than there is more powered, establishing human as the average. At a glance, it would seem the choices skew more powered, but the very nature of the RCCs presented in the books is to provide players the option to seek out adventure with powers not available to baseline humans.

Guardiandashi is right, humans seem to be everywhere. Worse than ratlings. Perhaps that is the superpower.

However, I'd also add the it comes down to what the GM deems as average for the campaign. In a wilderness game, just having a solar powered MD laser rifle amongst bow-totting nomads would be over-powered, but would seem underpowered in a Tolkeen War campaign. Context matters.

[taalismn]

Hell, in a true dark and dismal Rifts game, a human just making it to adulthood could be considered an extraordinary feat....

Especially if you were to factor in more realistic elements like disease and malnutrition....

[Grazzik]

Hell, in a true dark and dismal Rifts game, a human just making it to adulthood could be considered an extraordinary feat....

Especially if you were to factor in more realistic elements like disease and malnutrition....

Indeed. I used to think radiation sickness would also play a big factor in survival, but apparently the worst of nuclear weapons dissipates within decades, so not a factor on Rifts Earth. However, I've used low level radiation as a background element to explain certain unique PC aspects, like superpowers or mutations.

[drewkitty ~..~]

there is a special human ability table in the Lonestar worldbook,

as to superpowers in rifts....they are covered in the RCB1r.

[ShadowLogan]

What would you give to humans in Rifts... some special ability that sets them apart from "just the average"?

Nothing. I don't see a need for humans to have an automatic special ability to set them apart from the baseline, because they are the baseline.

[taalismn]

We're the vermin and doritos* of the megaverse. That makes us special enough.
*A few of us are extra-spicy ranch flavor, others are barbecue, still others are low-fat or sour cream and chives.

[NMI]

In the Dimension Book: Manhunters from years back, huamsn or ""Terrans" as they were called received a 4D6 M.A. attribute and +20% to 3 skills.

[Curbludgeon]

A couple of times I've gone with the "humanity is the cosmos' cockroach" shtick, and made every other species a little more susceptible to disease.

[taalismn]

A couple of times I've gone with the "humanity is the cosmos' cockroach" shtick, and made every other species a little more susceptible to disease.

The common cold.....devastator of alien civilizations.

[NMI]

A couple of times I've gone with the "humanity is the cosmos' cockroach" shtick, and made every other species a little more susceptible to disease.

The common cold.....devastator of alien civilizations.

It defended humanity in the Tom Cruise "War of the Worlds!"

[taalismn]

It defended humanity in the Tom Cruise "War of the Worlds!"

It didn't defend us FROM Tom Cruise.