Body type?

Steve Dubya · Unread post by **Steve Dubya** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 4:13 pm

Did they drop the whole, "Short, Medium and Long" body types with regard to size level? It seemed that just about everything was "medium" anyway, with few exceptions (weasels were "Long" if I recall; I think that muskrats might have been "Short").

Tinker Dragoon · Tue Mar 21, 2006 5:41 pm

Nope, and in fact the charts are identical to those in Revised TMNT.

Steve Dubya · Unread post by **Steve Dubya** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 5:54 pm

Good crap - did they drop ANYTHING that was particularly unwieldy, or did they just add more (it sounds like the latter)?

gordyzx9r · Unread post by **gordyzx9r** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 11:51 pm

You know wrote:Good crap - did they drop ANYTHING that was particularly unwieldy, or did they just add more (it sounds like the latter)?

Unwieldy? It works just fine IMO.

Kalinda · Unread post by **Kalinda** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 12:11 am

Never had a problem with the body types either. What did you find unwieldy about them?

Steve Dubya · Unread post by **Steve Dubya** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 9:28 am

Never had a problem with the body types either. What did you find unwieldy about them?

Well, like I was saying before, with very few exceptions, just about everything is a Medium creature. I can think of two "Long" ones off the top of my head (the weasel and one of the prehistoric rhino variants) and maybe a Short one - and that is it. All the rest of EVERYTHING seems to be Medium.

Wouldn't it have been easier to have different size rules for individual creastures based of their Short or Long body type in the creature description and have just ONE height/weight table for Size Level?

Kalinda · Unread post by **Kalinda** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 3:51 pm

It is a good point that most of the animals fall into the medium body type. I don't know if it was laziness or something else, but there should be more variation if they're going to have the chart at all.

Steve Dubya · Unread post by **Steve Dubya** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 5:45 pm

Perhaps my initial assesment may have been in error owing to the fact I haven't looked at the original TMNT book in over 10 years - what animals were the Long or short?

In any event, well over half of the initial animals and then every subsequent book I would bump that percentage up to 80-90% (per book) - really didn't get a lot of use out of it. Plus, it seemed that everybody was unusually short as a medium build (despite the fact that at Size Levels that weren't incurring or gaining penalties, it was still smaller than the average human - which were also of Medium build).

gordyzx9r · Unread post by **gordyzx9r** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 9:36 pm

You know wrote:Perhaps my initial assesment may have been in error owing to the fact I haven't looked at the original TMNT book in over 10 years - what animals were the Long or short?

In any event, well over half of the initial animals and then every subsequent book I would bump that percentage up to 80-90% (per book) - really didn't get a lot of use out of it. Plus, it seemed that everybody was unusually short as a medium build (despite the fact that at Size Levels that weren't incurring or gaining penalties, it was still smaller than the average human - which were also of Medium build).

They usually only lose that height because most players are going to take natural weapons and animal powers (especially if it's something unique to that animal type).

The only issue my players ever had was that I had one guy that wanted to be a Wolverine, each and every single time he rolled up a character and he'd always try to fudge the numbers because he hated that they were so short if he took any natural abilities.

Steve Dubya · Unread post by **Steve Dubya** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 1:26 pm

They usually only lose that height because most players are going to take natural weapons and animal powers (especially if it's something unique to that animal type).

Which would be the only reason to choose (as opposed to randomly rolling) the animal in the first place... So why are they all so durned short?? Surely the actual height vs. weight could have been realigned a little bit so that the occasional PC might be able to see over the steering wheel of an avreage car without a booster seat...

Rali · Unread post by **Rali** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 2:56 pm

You know wrote:Which would be the only reason to choose (as opposed to randomly rolling) the animal in the first place... So why are they all so durned short?? Surely the actual height vs. weight could have been realigned a little bit so that the occasional PC might be able to see over the steering wheel of an avreage car without a booster seat...

That's what makes the setting so darn interesting though.

However, if you want to make sure that your players characters are between 5 to 6 feet in height, just fudge the rules so that it costs less to get to the height that you want the characters to be at, or give the players extra Bio-E to be used exclusivly for size adjustment.

Rules books are not cast in stone. GM's can make whatever adjustments they wish to flavor their games to their liking. After all, rarely can a game designer make a rules book that everyone agrees on.

Library Ogre · Unread post by **Library Ogre** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 3:18 pm

Really, I think the game doesn't suffer much if you give EVERYONE 20 BIO-E extra. It lets most people build the characters they want, still forces a couple hard choices, but keeps people from having to sell their size levels to nothing in order to have some neat powers.

acreRake · Unread post by **acreRake** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 4:16 pm

MrNexx wrote:Really, I think the game doesn't suffer much if you give EVERYONE 20 BIO-E extra. It lets most people build the characters they want, still forces a couple hard choices, but keeps people from having to sell their size levels to nothing in order to have some neat powers.

See, that's exactly what i do. It's not a hard conclusion to come to. You calculate what the Turtles need to be the way they are, and add it to everyone else. Simplicity itself.

Anyway, i like the build system too, Seems weird to me that someone would have a problem with it.

gordyzx9r · Unread post by **gordyzx9r** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 8:00 pm

acreRake wrote:You calculate what the Turtles need to be the way they are, and add it to everyone else. Simplicity itself.

What was the number you came up with?

Guest · Unread post by **Guest** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 8:13 pm

I think they should bring back the Cause of Mutation table myself. After all, Transdimensional TMNT showed us how easy it was to add base BIO-E based on mutation cause to the mutant animals.

gordyzx9r · Unread post by **gordyzx9r** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 11:00 pm

Kuseru Satsujin wrote:I think they should bring back the Cause of Mutation table myself. After all, Transdimensional TMNT showed us how easy it was to add base BIO-E based on mutation cause to the mutant animals.

Well, while it's not necessarily a product of cause, some of AtB2's backgrounds do provide additional BIO-E.

Kalinda · Unread post by **Kalinda** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 12:20 am

Kuseru Satsujin wrote:I think they should bring back the Cause of Mutation table myself. After all, Transdimensional TMNT showed us how easy it was to add base BIO-E based on mutation cause to the mutant animals.

I'd agree, but in the new AtB setting all the mutations result from a common source.

Maybe a Rifter article updating the tables from TDTMNT and adapting them to Rifts.

Steve Dubya · Unread post by **Steve Dubya** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 1:54 pm

Maybe a Rifter article updating the tables from TDTMNT and adapting them to Rifts.

I could easily see the additional Ley Line Energy just as easily being a factor in causing mutation (and perhaps more useful mutation) than just toxic goo or radiation.

Is that something that could be homebrewed and then posted, or would that count as a "conversion"?

Sentinel · Unread post by **Sentinel** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 2:28 pm

You know wrote:
Maybe a Rifter article updating the tables from TDTMNT and adapting them to Rifts.

I could easily see the additional Ley Line Energy just as easily being a factor in causing mutation (and perhaps more useful mutation) than just toxic goo or radiation.

Is that something that could be homebrewed and then posted, or would that count as a "conversion"?

I think you'd be safe there. 8-)

Steve Dubya · Unread post by **Steve Dubya** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 4:26 pm

Maybe a Rifter article updating the tables from TDTMNT and adapting them to Rifts.

Anyone care to try to do this? Not having the new ATB (or RUE for that matter) it might prove difficult/unweidly for me to do.

Plus I have to dig out TDTMNT...

Where IS that??

acreRake · Unread post by **acreRake** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 5:22 pm

gordyzx9r wrote:
acreRake wrote:You calculate what the Turtles need to be the way they are, and add it to everyone else. Simplicity itself.

What was the number you came up with?

20. That's what i meant by "that's exactly what i do."

It may not actually be twenty, but that's what i came up with all those years ago and have been playing ever since...

gordyzx9r · Unread post by **gordyzx9r** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 6:37 pm

acreRake wrote:
gordyzx9r wrote:
acreRake wrote:You calculate what the Turtles need to be the way they are, and add it to everyone else. Simplicity itself.

What was the number you came up with?
20. That's what i meant by "that's exactly what i do."

It may not actually be twenty, but that's what i came up with all those years ago and have been playing ever since...

Ah, okay then. Though, now that I think about it...I'd rather have a 1D4X5 roll (or 1D6X5-10) for additional BIO-E to make it so that even the species are unique amongst themselves.

Kalinda · Unread post by **Kalinda** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 11:52 pm

You know wrote:
Maybe a Rifter article updating the tables from TDTMNT and adapting them to Rifts.

Anyone care to try to do this? Not having the new ATB (or RUE for that matter) it might prove difficult/unweidly for me to do.

Plus I have to dig out TDTMNT...

Where IS that??

I have all the required books so I could see about putting something together.

I'm working on a rifter article already, but if this looks to be simple enough I could set that aside for a bit.