Would you allow it if you where GM?

[NMI]

Here is how you prevent them from building a spaceship in this scenario --
The Time Dilation device only affects and area the size of a small garage -- say about 20'x20'x10' [wide, long, height]
Not going to build a spaceship in there.
Also, if they were to spend years in this "space / time bubble", they would need food, water, living space, etc...

[jaymz]

Yeah gotta go along the lines NMI is saying. Not to mention the characters would age. At some point someone (The main Villain) is going to start snooping and want that item for hismelf once he finds out abutit...

[Gamer]

Wouldn't allow it at all.
If the player is sick of missing all the action then the player should stop fixing and building things for awhile.
Too easy to screw up a campaign with a device like that.
Explain how your players won't exploit this into a weapon.
Just why wouldn't they use this against their enemies?

[MaxxSterling]

This is why it's better to stick to the books. I might allow it, but you better believe it'd require some ridiculously rare items, and after it was used once or twice, I'd have it blow up.

[Elthbert]

NO! I would not allow it. The rest of the party is unwilling to have down time while the machine person builds stuff? Does he never build stuff for them? Perhaps you should introduce an NPC to fit that role. But unless you have juicer in the party, or have a campaign based around some very time sensitive event like a war I don't understand why time can't e dialated by the GM.


I.E. "6 months pass, your custom power armour is finished." During this time the other characters could be doing things as well. If it is a real issue to the players reward your charcters for being willing to have 6 months of down time for the other party member. Say " So Marisa, while Ted was building his power armour, that shipment of coffee from the land of a thousand islands you invested in came in and was sold, you made a full 10% return on your investment, add 10,000 credits to your character sheet." I don't understand why this is an issue.

[Prysus]

Greetings and Salutations. I wouldn't likely allow it for several reasons. First, the player better have a daaaa--rn, darn (I was going to say "darn" all along, really) good explanation for how he (or she) has the knowledge to build this device. To the best of my knowledge there is no such device in any of the other books, so the character is effectively inventing a brand new technology. I don't know if there is even a good jumping off point for this (except maybe a few spells, but that wouldn't help unless he's a Techno-Wizard), so he's pretty much just starting from scratch which isn't easy. Without a really good explanation for how he's going to come up with this design (beyond it being useful, because useful does not equal success), then he's just not going to succeed.

Second, is the fact as has been previously stated its too easy to abuse. For example, it can be used to effectively attack and incapacitate enemies. Sure, anyone in the time dialation device (TDD) range would be affected as well, but that doesn't stop the characters from within it firing a ranged weapon. The ranged weapon would travel outside of the TDD and slow down like everything else (maybe, I'm not a big science guy to figure out of the momentum would instantly slow or would the fact that it was fired from within the TDD allow it to keep momentum and still travel at normal time). Even if it does slow though, you can effectively attack EVERY opponent, multiple times (to the point the enemy can't even really dodge because I don't believe the rules allow someone to dodge 20 nearly simultaneous attacks for example).

Yes, I would still age the character, but 200 years is kind of a lot of time to play with (unless this campaign is stretching centuries and all the other characters are equally long lived or more). Granted I wouldn't allow it even for a short lived race, but mainly because once allowed the next character (or group) will probably try to inheret it and/or build a new one (and precedent has been set that I'll allow it).

Anyways, that's at least the way I see things. Of course, as a GM, I've never penalized a character for fixing or building other things. Either it just happens slowly over multiple games (taking months or a year in game, but done during downtime when we don't focus on the characters), or fast forward some time (where everyone is doing other things as well, but taking the time to role-play every second of it isn't really necessary). Very rarely would I remove a character for it (except really in the rare incidents when something like the enemies are batting down the doors and the other players are trying to buy the mechanic enough time to finish his device or repairs to save the day, and mainly because that adds some suspense, tension, and possibly a more epic feel if done right). All right, hope that helps. Thank you for your time and patience, please have a nice day. Farewell and safe journeys to all.

[ShadowLogan]

Since the one thing that ALWAYS hinders characters in games is the time it takes someone to create an item for themselves, TW, RS, CD, etc always pulls them out of the action for a long period of time, so much time in some cases they might have been NPC's

Then there are a few choices to be made here:
-GM needs to allow enough time inbetween adventures to allow this to happen so the player can utilize the character more.
-the player could do start/stop work, this will lengthen the time needed, but would allow them to partake in other activities
-the player could look for assistantance of some kind to speed up the work that is not potentially game breaking like hiring a person(s) to help, constructing devices to speed up the work (via machine meld link), etc.
-player could work up a second character to play

So the machine person decides he's tired of missing ALL of the action because he's always building or fixing stuff and decides to make a time dilation device, IE, you turn it on, outside the field only a few seconds pass, but inside the field years could go by giving time for the character to build what they need.

A TW could construct a device to allow this to happen using the Time Hole Spell. But that is a high level spell and outside the skill set described. Which means a 3rd party would have to become involved.

Technologically speaking I think it would be very demanding for the approach desired. I would have the character make the necessary checks (Astrophysics and Math: Advanced at minimum) with results showing it to be impractical. The degree of impracticalness would depend on how much they suceede or fail the check.

I would allow time dialation pocket of "slow time", but not "fast time" (what the player wants). This could be done by having the other characters travel at a % of the speed of light for a short period of time OR near a strong gravity source (like a Black Hole). Neither is real practical for Rifts Earth (Phase World or some other settings yes). Even then the other PCs would need to have a reason for doing this.

[MikelAmroni]

If you allow it, you have to be prepared for one heck of an increase of resources. One of my gamign groups had this - in D&D. It was a canon creation that gave a villain a big leg up on research. The players managed to capture intact. They used it to grow crops for a world that was starving, thereby cementing themselves as its rulers (we have food, all you have to do to get it is to follow us - oh yeah, we kill anyone who tries to take our place, so fair warning!).

It goes without saying that the method used to curtail their personal designs was the responsbility of feeding and ruling the world (though to be fair the PCs actually came up with that - because they didn't want it to become so overpowered the GM got rid of it in some dimensional collapse), while marking off years of their lives spent in the pocket dimension. If you include any sort of time dialation effect that benefits the PCs, there needs to be some drawback that limits the usefulness so that they don't get unlimited wealth for very little work/time.

In general I wouldn't allow it though. You should rather reward the other players for waiting - and encourage them to do things that takes time. Just me though.

[Dr Megaverse]

This is actually a very novel idea and I can appreciate it. However given the concerns already listed and taking into account some of the aspects of it's creation mention earlier I also have to agree that some steep penalties apply. I liked the idea of making them age the time they were gone, but thats a little extreme. How about anything they make there has a 1-65% chance that it can't handle the "time transition" and breaks. So they get to expend the time and resources making it, but it might break! Trade off is it's a powerful resources...but could also end up being a powerful time/effort waste.

[Grinning Demon]

This is for GM's, if you're not a GM, don't read this, or do and see if your GM will allow it if you feel the need for this sort of thing.

Person in the group rolls a machine person, they go for rogue scientist for their OCC, they have buckets of skills, so many in fact we used the giant skill book found online to fill in their skills.

Since the one thing that ALWAYS hinders characters in games is the time it takes someone to create an item for themselves, TW, RS, CD, etc always pulls them out of the action for a long period of time, so much time in some cases they might have been NPC's.

So the machine person decides he's tired of missing ALL of the action because he's always building or fixing stuff and decides to make a time dilation device, IE, you turn it on, outside the field only a few seconds pass, but inside the field years could go by giving time for the character to build what they need.

Basically they would just hand over their ideas to the GM on what they want to build, roll for the skills needed to build it and pop back into the game within a few minutes of real time debating.

This cannot be used to go back in time, only slow down time within it's time dilation field.

However, this can by abused. Say the group amass alot of materials, they have everything they would honestly need to make say... a space ship. In theory they would be able to pop into the TDF and build an entire ship in mere moments, granted, for them, it would be normal time consuming work, but outside it wouldn't.

The short answer? No.

Plus Machine People cannot pick an O.C.C. so they can't even be a Rogue Scientist in the first place, they'd have to rely on their R.C.C. skills.

[Grinning Demon]

Machine People don't get OCCs, they have their own RCC skill-set(which gives them access to every skill, but not many skill selections.

Where can I read something on why this isn't possible? I've never ran across this, just that every RCC has an OCC. Maybe I don't have a book that stated this? Cause a kregor can have an OCC and it has skills listed for it's RCC. even says in the book "tend to go into men-at-arms o.c.c.s, especially imperial legionnaire occ”. So how would they have come about building massive space ships and destroying worlds and being evil bastards if they never were able to be a scientist? or something that could build a ship to get them off their planet? Sense? this makes none to me. Besides they are machines, not like they don't have the capacity to learn everything essentially. Think human form replicators from stargate, their ability to learn was only impeded by their numbers to store the information.

P. 277 of the Game Masters Guide (among other places) Racial Character Classes are basically a secondary kind of character class. the Rifts world is heavily populated by inhuman creatures, many of which are available as Racial Character Classes. Some R.C.C.'s allow the character to go on and select an O.C.C. as well, while other R.C.C.'s do not. When selecting an R.C.C., be sure to see if other O.C.C. selections are permitted.


So in this case, Machine People (unlike the Kreeghor) are just an R.C.C. who cannot select an O.C.C. and must use their R.C.C. skills. Of course you and/or your GM can do anything you want, but according to the rules a Rogue Scientist Machine Person isn't cannon. Moreover, I (as a GM of two current Rifts campaigns myself) wouldn't allow it anyway since Machine People are a very high powered R.C.C. as it is (I'll take 800 MDC, unlimited ammo, and Robot Combat Elite with ANY Robot/Power Armor for $500 Bob).

Oh and as for the Time whatever thingy, no. Just no. Yes anything's possible in Rifts. But allowing stuff like this is a slippery slope. Once the GM says "why not" this, you (or another PC) says hey why can't I build a time machine!!! or or the ultimate nullifier thingy from Marvel Comics that just like, kills anything? I mean I took all the skills, and you know it is Rifts so anything's possible right? Wrong. It's important for a GM to set reasonable rules and standards so things like this don't get out of hand.

But it doesn't matter, it sounds like you have your mind already made up and are somehow looking for validation from people here on the boards. If you were truly looking for advice you'd say ok cool thanks and leave it at that instead of shooting down/arguing with everyone that says they wouldn't allow this

[Elthbert]

"The rest of the party is unwilling to have down time while the machine person builds stuff?"

The party is totally willing to wait, however the actual time in game like saving the world isn't, try telling the kregor "Hey we need to build this thing, it's going to take a month, could you hold off your attack just a bit?" they would LAUGH AT YOU and kill you seconds after.

Well I have 2 answers for that... a campaigns typically work on artifically short time scales. we have to build X to help fight off the Kreegor attack in 3 days.... well if you are 3 days away from a planatary invasion when you find out, well, your screwed! You should be, the Kreegor have probably been planing this for 6 months or more. If you can't buold the thing in an appropriate amount of time... you lose. Thats when the Gm should be saying " come up with another plan.

Does he never build stuff for them?

Actually they build this stuff for the players to avoid buying from npc's cause generally it would cost out the wazoo and they aren't made of money. Cheaper to get the materials and build it, plus that's what those characters are for. They tinker for the group, unless they are a-holes and just want to make things for themselves, in which case I'm all for them sitting in a corner and doing nothing while the rest of the group goes ahead, and when they are done making the item they needed for that moment, the moment has already passed. So yeah, the GM can totally skip forward, but like I said, just cause the GM skips forward, doesn't mean the rest of the megaverse stopped for that.

Well I agree, if the player is a turd, he can sit there.

However, the GM's job is to make a fun game.... if he needs to fudge on the time rules, or make the character, make an extra roles to see if he can stay awake to work 72 hours straight and finsh what the party needs to save the day, thats what he should do. there is no need to make a device which is potentially game breaking to account for what can be done by good GMing.

Maybe the Kreegor attack fleet was assaulted by privateers from the Free W orld council (one of my favorite campaigns was a Free world privateer campaign) and delayed for 2 days chasing them down, buying the player time to finish, but giving an essentially ageless race a time dilation device seems like a really bad choice.

Does the megaverse stop for the party to make whatever they want... NO. but if the party are the heros of the story, the universe ( read GM) should help them out just a bit.

[johnkretzer]

I would not allow it because I have seen it before (so really not a new idea here) and seen it abused. But then again I am a nice GM that allows people to build things...I just don't think you should bend over backwards to accomandate them. If I am running a adventure that is time sensitive it because I don't want to give them the prep time to challenge them.

Also just my humble opinion is that this player wants to invent something that does not even exist...heck the science does not even exist to create this. No one has been shown in any of the Rifts books to even be close to such a device. Not saying your player could not make it...or even a alien race could not show up with the tech and the PCs get it...at best I would say it would take 5 years to build if you get the tech from a alien race...or probably 10 years to build if it is from scatch.

Just my humble opinion from what I have seen in many games.

[Shark_Force]

with judicious use of astral domains, this can actually be done.

[Zer0 Kay]

Here is how you prevent them from building a spaceship in this scenario --
The Time Dilation device only affects and area the size of a small garage -- say about 20'x20'x10' [wide, long, height]
Not going to build a spaceship in there.
Also, if they were to spend years in this "space / time bubble", they would need food, water, living space, etc...

Nah just make it a fixed place like... I hate to use it as an example but DBZ, and it has a door. Try getting the ship out of the door.