Rifts Japan (reliving and head shaking)

[Eashamahel]

So, on RPG day here in Toronto I went down to the local shop that carries RIFTS books with the plan to get at least one of the books I loved but don't currently own, which meant either Japan, Triax & The NGR, or England, and walked away with Japan (a printing from 2011 in fact, when I was expecting to get a much older copy, but it's not an UE updated, so I'm happy).

I love this book. To me, it's one of the iconic RIFTS books, it's filled with things that I found amazing and that people I used to (and still do) game with loved. It was amazing back in the day, and I'm just super happy to read it now, and to get to share it with a new generation of gamers who I know are going to love it just as much.

That said, holy Gork is this book a mess. The flavour text is fine, it's got typo's on every page (every page, often times multiples on each page) but that doesn't really bother me in an old book (I grew up gaming with Palladium, so to me it's just how things were), but the rules, THE RULES.

I don't think it goes a single section without either blatantly contradicting itself, or just not making any sense. I remember all the head scratching me and my fellow gamers did in our youth at a bunch of things in the book, but now years later sitting down and actually reading the thing cover to cover I see how bad it actually is! From little things like contradictions in how something is used, to two sets of stats/bonuses being given in the same section for the same things, to stuff that just has no consistency with earlier books. I can see why the older gamers used to have the opinions of RIFTS that they did when we were all just die hard fans of the books.


Anyways, this is mostly just me reminiscing while reading a book I haven't actually read through in years, but I was wondering if anyone else had stories about picking up an older book or coming back to the game after some years away? For me it's almost all positive, I loved this book and am loving it still, but I think I would have loved it more if I'd gotten a 15 year old version.

[The Galactus Kid]

Yup. I have my theories as to why this is the case, none of which have to do with Palladium in it's current incarnation but mentioning them in their entirety would be against forum rules.

[Eashamahel]

Okay.


I think the last time I went through a book like this was in the last year when I re-read both Lonestar and Xiticix Invasion. I loved Lonestar back in the day, it was I think the first RIFTS book I ever owned, but re-reading it I just didn't get the same joy and interest I've gotten out of Japan.

I think one of the reasons is that so much of the info in Lonestar is pretty much totally un-useable, secret characters and hidden levels of a military base that characters are highly unlikely to ever actually venture into, ect. Still, I love Dog Boys and loved the addition of old style CS environmental armour for them, as well as lots of great, NEW art (mostly from Breaux I believe).

Xiticix invasion is a strange one. I loved the Xiticix, but the attempt to bump them up in power to match where RIFTS had gone did not catch me as great, the bonuses for the bug-men being mixed all over the descriptions didn't help the reading, and now looking back on it all these years later I can't help but think it's close to the most unnecessary book out there. The changes to stats and increased bonuses are ignored in the later re-printings (in the RUE book), the Xiticix Wars never came to pass (the whole timeline presented in the book is pretty much pointless), the Psi-Stalkers have since been re-printed yet again with new special abilities since that book, the Xiticix Killer program from Lonestar (which I loved) is scrapped (and for good reason, the XK doesn't stand a CHANCE against the newly pumped up bug-men), and on and on. That all said, there is yet more amazing art by Breaux and some great info on the Xiticix, Lazlo's war, ect.


Next up I'm going to get my hands on Triax & the NGR (the original). From my memory, it has FAR less errors and inconsistancies (of all types) than Japan, and it will be interesting to see how it stacks up to how I remember it.

[Tor]

two sets of stats/bonuses being given in the same section for the same things

Just stack them

[Eashamahel]

Ha! I don't even remember what we used to do for most of those issues (the damage for the magic Daisho has the different numbers) but I DO remember a player who made a Mystic Ninja (and I just remembered this from reading the section over) who had the bonuses for the Samurai HtH in ADDITION to the Ninja one, because at the end of the Level One abilities of the Ninja HtH it says 'Also see samurai hand to hand combat'. It's just thrown in there at the bottom. I have no idea why and didn't even realize that is why he had done it, I just explained to him that the Ninja could pass for a Samurai but they had their own combat skills.


I haven't gotten to it yet, but I also remember a friend trying to figure out if the negatives that the Tsunami 'borg should have had already been included in the stats for it, and furiously flipping back and forth between the rulebook and Japan trying to make it all make sense! I'm actually smiliing right now thinking about it.

[Eashamahel]

Oh, the typos or spelling mistakes or whatever don't bother me at all. They are going to be in anything we write somewhere, and they just happen to be in old RPG books pretty often. It's the constant screwy rules that have me shaking my head, but again, it's not something that makes me dislike the book, I love it, it's just that contantly confusing/wrong/unexplained/contradictory rules/stats actually have a negative effect on the game where forgetting to put a space between two words doesn't.


Lonestar IS full of lots of neat stuff. I was a big fan of the hover cycles and such.

[kaid]

Okay.


I think the last time I went through a book like this was in the last year when I re-read both Lonestar and Xiticix Invasion. I loved Lonestar back in the day, it was I think the first RIFTS book I ever owned, but re-reading it I just didn't get the same joy and interest I've gotten out of Japan.

I think one of the reasons is that so much of the info in Lonestar is pretty much totally un-useable, secret characters and hidden levels of a military base that characters are highly unlikely to ever actually venture into, ect. Still, I love Dog Boys and loved the addition of old style CS environmental armour for them, as well as lots of great, NEW art (mostly from Breaux I believe).

Xiticix invasion is a strange one. I loved the Xiticix, but the attempt to bump them up in power to match where RIFTS had gone did not catch me as great, the bonuses for the bug-men being mixed all over the descriptions didn't help the reading, and now looking back on it all these years later I can't help but think it's close to the most unnecessary book out there. The changes to stats and increased bonuses are ignored in the later re-printings (in the RUE book), the Xiticix Wars never came to pass (the whole timeline presented in the book is pretty much pointless), the Psi-Stalkers have since been re-printed yet again with new special abilities since that book, the Xiticix Killer program from Lonestar (which I loved) is scrapped (and for good reason, the XK doesn't stand a CHANCE against the newly pumped up bug-men), and on and on. That all said, there is yet more amazing art by Breaux and some great info on the Xiticix, Lazlo's war, ect.


Next up I'm going to get my hands on Triax & the NGR (the original). From my memory, it has FAR less errors and inconsistancies (of all types) than Japan, and it will be interesting to see how it stacks up to how I remember it.

I kinda liked the xiticix war book. It gave the xiticix a bit more threat level but individually even the nasty ones are not that bad. It does a good job of giving some basic layouts of what hives are like and populations in them and fleshes out the "flavors" of the xiticix a bit more as before you pretty much had warriors and queens and I think workers.

I do find it a bit odd that they talked about the xiticix war starting and then just ignore that in pretty much every book after. I am guessing after they published it they found they had some other direction they wanted to go with them probably with the minion wars.

While the psi stalker rcc was revamped the info about the various clans and world information is still useful.

kind of an odd book I would agree but I still liked it and it is pretty useful for a north american campaign as the xiticix are at least a potential threat in a large swath of the normal play areas.

[kaid]

Oh, the typos or spelling mistakes or whatever don't bother me at all. They are going to be in anything we write somewhere, and they just happen to be in old RPG books pretty often. It's the constant screwy rules that have me shaking my head, but again, it's not something that makes me dislike the book, I love it, it's just that contantly confusing/wrong/unexplained/contradictory rules/stats actually have a negative effect on the game where forgetting to put a space between two words doesn't.


Lonestar IS full of lots of neat stuff. I was a big fan of the hover cycles and such.

lonestar is one of the better supplements. Lots of good world info, good tech goodies with the hover cycles and what not that only recently in NG2 have gotten addons so it has kept good for a long time tech wise and some nice info on a popular RCC the dog boys and some variations on them.

I always loved the xiticix killer but it never made much sense and was rightly nixed in the xiticix source book. No animalistic killer is likely to do much to even be noticeable vs xiticix unless its available in stupidly high numbers which would make it a threat in and of itself. There is just no way to make a single creation here and there individually strong enough to make a a dent in the population that could avoid simply getting swarmed to death baring large amounts of magic.

[Tor]

Lone Star rocks for Bradford having invented the new Master Race.

[Eashamahel]

The new master race being the mutant rats?

[Eashamahel]

One other thing that keeps catching me as I read through this book is the constantly repeated contradictory points. As an example, I think every single cyborg in the book has "Concealed Compartment in each leg" listed under it's standard ("non-weapon types") features, and then inevitably when it comes to Weapons, lists "Concealed Weapon Compartments: TWO concealed compartments in EACH leg", and then explains what is in one compartment, and then what is in the other. It seems pretty clear there is supposed to be on compartment in each leg, but it seems like very one has that "two in each leg" sentence thrown in there for some reason.

That's of course just a minor thing, but it's an example. Sometimes this book (Japan) feels like it was written by two different people, or that it's been edited/re-written but not cleaned up afterwards. The Specialist Hand to Hand skills, Samurai, Ninja and Tengu are especially messy once you get into them and I wonder if they'be been more or less copied from Ninja's and Superspies?

It is amazing though, really reminding me why I fell in love with RIFTS and why everyone I knew at the time thought it was about the neatest game ever made. My mind is swirling with ideas

[The Galactus Kid]

Lone Star rocks for Bradford having invented the new Master Race.

Are you referencing the Janissaries from Rifter #28?

[Eashamahel]

I take it back if i earlier said I expected the tech section of the book to be more consistent than the old style/magic section, as I'd CLEARLY forgotten how totally out-of-whack RIFTS robots and power armour often were in regards to descriptions matching pictures or rules having any explanation at all.

The Hawkeye GB not being able to jump at all, apparantly, despite being the same power armour that can jump the standard GB with it's 870lb gun 12 feet high or across (+10ft with a running start) is the first thing I notice. The Hawkeye can't jump because it's weighed down with it's 290lb gun (which needs no ammo), it's mini missile launcher and it's invisible Medium Range Missile Launcher (which fires "unusually small" mrms) which has replaced it's thrusters. So, basically... It's way lighter, but it can't jump, because... stuff, and... invisible missile packs.

That's of course when it hits me that the gun it's holding is the same one the Point GB described right before it is said to use, despite the fact that they are clearly completely different weapons, and that the Point GB's gun is clearly NOT mounted the same way as the Hawkeye (and traditional GB) as it's over the left shoulder...Oh, and despite the description saying the boom gun was replaced with the laser cannon (which is not what's shown) and a rocket launcher, there is no rocket launcher in the stats or art. It must be even MORE invisible than the Hawkeye's mysteriously small MRM launcher.

I get a page or two on and see the Power-Spy, which has a knock-off version that gives a -15% to Prowl rolls. I assume this is in addition to the -50% prowl penalty all light power armour under 9ft have "unless otherwise noted", as I am told in the begginning of the Power Armour section, and that the "Power Spy" has no special spy powers at all, and no special prowl bonuses. But that's okay, because a page or two later, the front line combat robot Dai-Katana Bugei (which was one of my favourites way back when), which stands about 8" taller, 305lbs heavier (plus the 210lbs for the railgun it apparantly uses and the ammo drum on it's back that exists in the same limbo as the MRM system on the Hawkeye) and can FLY has NO PROWL PENALTIES. That's right, just randomly this power armour, with no special features of any kind or reason explaining it, prowls like a Wilderness Scout in soft moccasins.

It's probably here I should mention that invisible railguns with invisible ammo-drums are kind of the Ichto province's thing. Everything else about the art and description matches, from the tiny should laser in the Warrior to the missile's being able to be used while it uses it's two vibro swords. I would bet that the guns were just added to the description later after the art was submitted for gaming reasons, which explains why the swords have nowhere to go (no sheathes, ect), the guns don't exist, the ammo cannisters aren't shown, ect. (As an aside, this is an issue that seems to go all the way back to the Samso Power Armour, artists drawing Power Armours and descriptions adding invisible guns and ammo drums afterwards)

Also an Ichto province thing? All of their invisible railguns often use silver ammunition "for use against supernatural opponents", which is a great idea, but it makes me wonderr why every OTHER railgun in this book and the countries that use them don't do that? Not a flaw at a, just interesting to mention that these guys and ONLY these guys do this.


The difference between the tech section and the old-style sections is that the old style sections seem to be a mess of editing, where the tech sections are one of art descriptions. Still, the same general problem of inconsistency. A little while ago someone started a thread here about 'how much does art not matching the descriptions bother you?', and although before I didn't think it bothered me that much, at this point, I realize how wrong I was.

[Carl Gleba]

I'm running a Rifts Japan game for my group and we're having a blast with it. We usually play North America so this is a breath of fresh air! I'm doing some tie in's with Rifts Underseas. I'm glad one of my players wanted to try a Cyber Samurai.

[Eashamahel]

I remember the Cyber Samurai being a huge favourite among players with Japan, and a lot of that was due to the art. Good pictures can make or break an OCC, especially for new players, and the Cyber Samurai's is just cool. It's got the crazy sword, the pistol, the whole look is great, and it looks like what it IS, a Samurai that's a Cyborg.

On the opposite end of the spectrum are the Ronin and the Ninja Techno-Wizard, both of which have art that, I guess, MAYBE depicts what those OCC's COULD look like, I guess? But it's not art that's going to get anyone to want to play that character. The Ronin is even MORE of a mess, since just by what the book says they don't get the Samurai Horse special abilities (just the bow ones), doesn't get the Daisho abilities (but does get the Samurai HtH and the actual swords), they don't get the Fan abilities, they don't get the Chi Death Blow (and are one of the only 'ancient' style combatants that don't), PPE bonus, or the "Other OCC Bonuses", nor the Family Skills. The OCC really just sucks, and does a terrible job representing a Samurai, considering they are so different. It should be noted that the Ronin might be SUPPOSED to get all those things, but it doesn't by how the OCC is set up.



I'm almost at the end of the book and looking forward to the short monster section. I really like the streamlined random-roll Oni chart to make humanoid Oni monsters. That combined with the Random-Roll monster chart in the Rifts RPG to make all the inhuman ones/random critters will really let me make some fun stuff that is both easy and characterful, so that I can have a general monster write up ('these all have 40MDC, 3 attacks, XYZ bonuses...') but also be able to give them different physical descriptions or create unique ones as well.

I am currently thinking about making some sort of Ogre (or maybe just introducing Orcs from the Conversion Book?) as the lowest level, disposable humanoid monster, something where they all look generally the same, and are ordered around by the more powerful Oni being the lowest humanoid monsters (and less powerful than the random roll non-human ones who would be a threat to them). Maybe also to use to give bionics and tech gear to (don't have natural powers so use more captured tech).

[Eashamahel]

Alright, a serious question.

You write up a robot and say it has a mini-missile launcher that has 8 missiles in it. You get the art, and the robot clearly has seven mini-missiles in the launcher. Do you:

A) Leave them both as is, so that your art and description clearly don't match

or

B) Change the description so that it says "7" instead of "8"


Because that choice must have seemingly been made in pretty much every freakin' picture in this entire book, and apparently the answer was ALWAYS "a". Why? Why would you possibly not just, for example, change "8" to "7"? Are writers SO set on not changing even the most minor things that they would prefer that the art alongside their descriptions be CONSTANTLY wrong? Are the write-ups for these robots (and power armour) such incredible works that to change them to match the art is some kind of unspeakable crime against pure genius?

Clearly almost none of those robots have the rifles they say they do, the only one that DOES have the rifle it says it has, the Destroyer (the same rifle that all the IR power armours also say they possess), is clearly using it in it's small arms, so why not just say that? Why keep the description implying that the robots small arms are used for doing other things? And why have a bit of explanation saying how it can't have the ammo drum AND jetpack when the art has both? Would the ENTIRE GAME somehow become unbalanced if that one sentence were to be deleted so that the art and the description matched? If the picture of the Fire Tiger shows three (hinged) compartments, would it brutally unbalance the game to change the description of it having "Three in each Breastplate" to just "Three in the Breastplate"? Especially considering it only has one breastplate? You wouldn't even HAVE to change the ammo from 72 ("12 in each housing") to 36, you could just change the spread ("24 in each housing").

I mean, it's not as if ANY of the random abilities of the different power armours and robots get any explanation, so it's not like they are written in such a way that they can't be altered because OTHERWISE they wouldn't make sense. The Dai-Katana has NO prowl penalty... for no reason. The Super-Tengu only gets HALF the prowl penalty of the normal Tengu armour, despite being bigger, heavier and less manueverable... for no reason (and is also rockin' one of those invisible backpack missile launchers). The Wrecker and Destroyer can climb and rappel (I guess unlike any other robot?)... for no reason. The Hawkeye GB, weighing LESS than the normal GB, can't jump, because of it's long range guns (?) but the HEAVIER, bulkier and slower Grenadier still can...for... what?

Adding laser/particle beam guns built into the eyes of things just to give them more guns, or saying 'this ones got hidden arm blades' and 'this ones got finger lasers' just to up the guns on it is a pretty good way to cheat a little and add more to the bot than what's in the picture, but why not at least TRY to make the description match the picture? It's not hard.

Maybe I've never actually been paying attention when reading a RIFTS book before, but the level of inconsistency, between the art and the descriptions, the descriptions and the stats, heck, even between the stats and the STATS, just everywhere, is just boggling. Just completely boggling. I don't remember Triax or Sourcebook 1 or even Atlantis being like this, but now I really want to go back, take a look, and see if they are all like this and I've just never noticed over the years.

[FluidicAztec]

Japan is cool, but I always thought it should have been two books. One that covers the Tech Nations and another that covers the Mystic Cultures.

[Eashamahel]

It's worth noting I've run into art not matching stats in numerous games wherein mechs are involved. Battletech (ESPECIALLY Battletech), Heavy Gear, and various others throughout the last millenia all had similar issues.

Oh yeah, and I'm sorry if it's coming off like I'm implying the book sucks because of this (because it doesn't, it's awesome) or that this kind of thing only happens in Palladium books, far from it, that's why the typos and such don't bother me at all, because it's an RPG book from 20 years ago, and that's just how things were.

What's really catching me is that I don't remember other RIFTS books being like this. Maybe I'm wrong and I just haven't really looked in a long time, but I don't REMEMBER Triax being wong on pretty much EVERY OCC and EVERY robot or power armour, for example. It might just be because I've read those old books so many times (and read them all the way through so long ago) that I just don't notice/overlook those things in them, but to me it seems like Japan has WAY more mistakes than pretty much any other RIFTS book I've ever read.

Japan is cool, but I always thought it should have been two books. One that covers the Tech Nations and another that covers the Mystic Cultures.

I think the plan was to do a book on all the 'human' stuff, and another book on all the 'supernatural' stuff, with the demons, gods, spirits, ect. This second book never happened obviously, but I've never really felt Japan was in a bad way because of that and on a fresh and full read through these years later I find myself still believing that. Some books benefit from 500 pages of stuff, but Japan is a pretty much perfectly complete one as is. Not to say it couldn't/shouldn't be expanded sometime in the future, I feel Triax was (nearly) complete in the same way and I've heard good things about that second book as well.

[Carl Gleba]

Alright, a serious question.

You write up a robot and say it has a mini-missile launcher that has 8 missiles in it. You get the art, and the robot clearly has seven mini-missiles in the launcher. Do you:

A) Leave them both as is, so that your art and description clearly don't match

or

B) Change the description so that it says "7" instead of "8"


Because that choice must have seemingly been made in pretty much every freakin' picture in this entire book, and apparently the answer was ALWAYS "a". Why? Why would you possibly not just, for example, change "8" to "7"? Are writers SO set on not changing even the most minor things that they would prefer that the art alongside their descriptions be CONSTANTLY wrong? Are the write-ups for these robots (and power armour) such incredible works that to change them to match the art is some kind of unspeakable crime against pure genius?

Clearly almost none of those robots have the rifles they say they do, the only one that DOES have the rifle it says it has, the Destroyer (the same rifle that all the IR power armours also say they possess), is clearly using it in it's small arms, so why not just say that? Why keep the description implying that the robots small arms are used for doing other things? And why have a bit of explanation saying how it can't have the ammo drum AND jetpack when the art has both? Would the ENTIRE GAME somehow become unbalanced if that one sentence were to be deleted so that the art and the description matched? If the picture of the Fire Tiger shows three (hinged) compartments, would it brutally unbalance the game to change the description of it having "Three in each Breastplate" to just "Three in the Breastplate"? Especially considering it only has one breastplate? You wouldn't even HAVE to change the ammo from 72 ("12 in each housing") to 36, you could just change the spread ("24 in each housing").

I mean, it's not as if ANY of the random abilities of the different power armours and robots get any explanation, so it's not like they are written in such a way that they can't be altered because OTHERWISE they wouldn't make sense. The Dai-Katana has NO prowl penalty... for no reason. The Super-Tengu only gets HALF the prowl penalty of the normal Tengu armour, despite being bigger, heavier and less manueverable... for no reason (and is also rockin' one of those invisible backpack missile launchers). The Wrecker and Destroyer can climb and rappel (I guess unlike any other robot?)... for no reason. The Hawkeye GB, weighing LESS than the normal GB, can't jump, because of it's long range guns (?) but the HEAVIER, bulkier and slower Grenadier still can...for... what?

Adding laser/particle beam guns built into the eyes of things just to give them more guns, or saying 'this ones got hidden arm blades' and 'this ones got finger lasers' just to up the guns on it is a pretty good way to cheat a little and add more to the bot than what's in the picture, but why not at least TRY to make the description match the picture? It's not hard.

Maybe I've never actually been paying attention when reading a RIFTS book before, but the level of inconsistency, between the art and the descriptions, the descriptions and the stats, heck, even between the stats and the STATS, just everywhere, is just boggling. Just completely boggling. I don't remember Triax or Sourcebook 1 or even Atlantis being like this, but now I really want to go back, take a look, and see if they are all like this and I've just never noticed over the years.

Most of the time the freelance writers are writing their material without the artwork. Typically the artwork comes after. I had a discussion with Kevin when he was editing Dimensional Outbreak and there was a discrepancy between the art and what was written and he tweaked the writing to match.

I would expect this to have gotten better especially with the Northern Gun books. I can't speak to Japan as that was way before my time.

[Eashamahel]

Alright, officially finished the book.

For all the effort put into the ancient classes, A characters first level Samurai (and probably into mid-level) is going to lose to an average Oni, the basic bad guy they are supposed to fight. I was a bit disappointed to see that, after being mentioned several times throughout the book, supernatural weaknesses were not really used for the monsters, particularly not for the Oni. No built in vulnerability to Silver, Iron, Fire, ect, no random roll table of weaknesses.


For anyone else running a Japan game, or characters from Japan, I do have some questions and observations about the Chi-MD Death Blow and how you run it. (I don't have a copy of the PF main book so i can't compare it to the Palladin, but I was surprised to see that it doesn't use up any of the characters PPE reserve, which I figured was the entire point of the Samurai having a high PPE that increases each level. As it stands, I can't see anything they can do with their PPE, as they have no spells, no magic abilities, no TW gear and no note saying they can use TW gear, ect., so... Just another useless stat?)

From the Samurai:
"When used against supernatural opponents, the attack inflicts mega-damage, even if it is normally an SDC attack. The character can inflict the mega-damage strike with a punch, kick, or hand held weapon like a sword, axe, spear, club, ect., and does double normal damage plus PS bonus in mega-damage."

First of all, the damage is limited to "plus PS bonus" and doesn't include other SDC damage bonuses, but does say that the attack inflicts mega-damage even if normally an SDC attack. considering that Zanji Shinjinken Ryo has multiple bonuses (including at first level) to damage, would you include these HtH damage bonuses to the MD damage done by the death blow? For example, if the character was using an SDC sword doing 2D6 (and lets say he rolls a 7) had +4 to damage (from HtH) and +3 from PS bonuses, would he do...

1. 17MD ("double normal damage plus PS bonus", normal here being weapon but not including HtH damage bonuses)
2. 25MD ("double normal damage plus PS bonus", normal damage would be 7 from the sword and 4 from the HtH bonus, so 11x2 plus PS bonus of +3)

Next, MD attacks don't normally benefit from SDC bonuses, but they DO benefit from critical hits. I can only assume that this includes improved/modified critical requirements from hand to hand skills (ie "critical on 18-20" or "critical hit from behind"). If a Samurai gets a critical hit while doing a Chi MD Death Blow (same rolls as above and assuming option 2 is correct), would he inflict:

1-50MD (the total damage from the Chi MD Deathblow attack doubled)
2-47MD (the total damage rolled for the sword+HtH bonuses doubled from the Shi blow, with PS bonus added after)
3-39MD (the total damage rolled for the Chi blow with the sword damage but not HtH or PS bonus doubled)
4-42MD (the total damage from the Chi MD Deathblow x3 like with stacking criticals)
5-36MD (the total damage from the sword and HtH bonus tripled as above with the PS bonus added in once)

Now what about the "Power Stab" the samurai HtH gives you? Is this, like HtH damage bonuses and PS bonuses not useable with MD attacks (unlike improved criticals, which do work with MD attacks)? Regardless if it is not useable with MD attacks, as an SDC attack it will work with the Chi MD Deathblow, so does that cause the weapon you are stabbing with to do double it's damage (for example, would a 2D6 sword you are Power Stabbing with do 4D6) before the math begins for the Death Blow (which also does double damage) or does it add a multiplier to the above which stacks as (I am told) criticals do, despite neither of those two being criticals?



Also amusing, each of the other OCCs which gets access to the Death Blow has a different list of what they can use to inflict it, with the Bishamon being able to do it with a "punch, kick, sword, staff or spear", and the Sohei and Demon Queller with a "punch, kick, staff or spear", which means that the Demon Queller actually can't use a sword to do the Death Blow, which is hilarious, seeing as it notes in the description their favourite weapons are "large swords, axes and polearms"...


Anyways, I apologize if the above is a bit of a mess to understand, I'm trying to get this all down quickly before the day starts, but read through and please, anyone, feel free to comment.

[Eashamahel]

Most of the time the freelance writers are writing their material without the artwork. Typically the artwork comes after. I had a discussion with Kevin when he was editing Dimensional Outbreak and there was a discrepancy between the art and what was written and he tweaked the writing to match.

I would expect this to have gotten better especially with the Northern Gun books. I can't speak to Japan as that was way before my time.

I'm sure it has, but I'm also pretty sure it wasn't like this in other older RIFTS books like Triax. I'm hoping someone else with access to that book steps in (since it has lots of robots and power armours to match with descriptions.

[glitterboy2098]

It's worth noting I've run into art not matching stats in numerous games wherein mechs are involved. Battletech (ESPECIALLY Battletech), Heavy Gear, and various others throughout the last millenia all had similar issues.

heh, one of the reasons catalyst games was so keen on getting updated versions of the older TRO's out.. now the art at least has a reasonable connection to the stats. FASA was horrible with that sort of thing. i remember in TRO3055, the Grand Titan. the game stats didn't match the artwork.. and the fluff described a totally different weapons loadout than both. one that wasn't physically possible to boot.

[Nightmask]

Considering even real life technical manuals sometimes have the wrong picture for an item in them I'm really not going to expect perfection out of an RPG, and if the pic doesn't match the technical details given for an item I'm certainly not going to adjust the technical details to match the pic I'm going to just conclude the pic's wrong.

[Eashamahel]

Yep. Lots of books have errors. Sure is true.

Rifts Japan seems to have VASTLY more errors than even other RIFTS books from the same time period. Vastly more.

You may choose to go by the 'technical details' over the pictures/diagrams, but what if the technical details differ from the description (stats differ from explanation)? If a manual instructions says it is for a two outlet generator, the picture is of a generator with no outlets, and the listed components only have one outlet... What the heck are you putting together?

[Nightmask]

Did we ever get a clear resolution on the damage for rune katanas? Or the fact that low level bishamon, mystic ninjas, etc, are useless against MD armored/tech opponents unless they go against the entire anti-tech grain and use vibro-blades?

Wouldn't those sorts just target their opponents when they're without their protection, rather than try for such a head-on confrontation? Mystic Ninja in particular wouldn't be the sorts to go for up-front, 'fair' fights but prefer far more sneaky methods.

[Tor]

The new master race being the mutant rats?

I was thinking the Psi-X aliens, but that hottie from the Lone Star comic makes a good argument for including them in our new utopia too.

low level bishamon, mystic ninjas, etc, are useless against MD armored/tech opponents unless they go against the entire anti-tech grain and use vibro-blades?

Nobody's utterly useless, just a bit less useful... I'm sure Vagabonds experience similar troubles.