Random Major Psis in Rifts

[thorr-kan]

Rolling Major Psi in old Rifts had you lose have your "Other" OCC skills and a penalty to skill bonuses. I remember hearing RUE did away with that penalty. Does that mean there's no longer any drawback to major psionics?

[Library Ogre]

Rolling Major Psi in old Rifts had you lose have your "Other" OCC skills and a penalty to skill bonuses. I remember hearing RUE did away with that penalty. Does that mean there's no longer any drawback to major psionics?

Pretty much, yes. RUE got rid of the penalty, so if you get random major, you get a nice bonus at no cost.

[thorr-kan]

Rolling Major Psi in old Rifts had you lose have your "Other" OCC skills and a penalty to skill bonuses. I remember hearing RUE did away with that penalty. Does that mean there's no longer any drawback to major psionics?

Pretty much, yes. RUE got rid of the penalty, so if you get random major, you get a nice bonus at no cost.

Well, that's boring. Handy for the mage/adventurer/D-Bee who rolled up major psi, though.

Thanks!

[Library Ogre]

Rolling Major Psi in old Rifts had you lose have your "Other" OCC skills and a penalty to skill bonuses. I remember hearing RUE did away with that penalty. Does that mean there's no longer any drawback to major psionics?

Pretty much, yes. RUE got rid of the penalty, so if you get random major, you get a nice bonus at no cost.

Well, that's boring. Handy for the mage/adventurer/D-Bee who rolled up major psi, though.

Thanks!

I tend to agree. Personally, I disliked the old solution (Half your Related skills could be VERY expensive or VERY cheap, depending on how many you had), but the new solution is likewise not to my taste.

My non-canon suggestion? Spend 1 skill to become a minor psychic with no powers. Psychic powers cost 1 Related or Secondary skill a piece. Take as many as you like. If you use a Secondary skill, your starting level of proficiency is 1; if you use a Related skill, your level is equal to your own (at character creation, there's no drawback to using secondary skills for psi powers; as you level up, your secondary skill psi powers will be behind your actual level of experience). You get ME + 2d6 ISP at 1st level, +1d6 each additional level. Super Powers are only available through your xCC.

Does this result in a lot of people picking up one or two psychic powers because they'd be useful? Sure. But it's better than a 1-in-4 lottery, were 40% of those who win the lottery win big.

[eliakon]

I have has some success with random psi's having to roll on tables for random powers. This eliminates the 'everyone has the same couple of powers' problem.
If rolling up psi doesn't automatically mean that you will get the optimum PC power package every time it becomes a lot less munchy and a lot more in line with the original "some people have a touch of wild talent"

[Khanibal]

What's your idea of an optimum package?

I usually go for mask isp, mask ppe (or machine ghost if not a spellcaster), meditate, mind block, sixth sense, speed read, telepathy, total recall.

[eliakon]

What's your idea of an optimum package?

I usually go for mask isp, mask ppe (or machine ghost if not a spellcaster), meditate, mind block, sixth sense, speed read, telepathy, total recall.

Add to that Clairvoyance, Alter Aura, Remote Viewing, Bio-Regeneration, Psychic Diagnosis, Psychic Surgery, Restore PPE, Exorcisim, Empathy, and the various TK attack powers. TK gets picked alot for people that want to pull shenanigans with it.

What does NOT ever get picked is the lesser stuff... resist pain, resist cold, resist heat, summon inner strength, ectoplasim, sense time, read dimensional anomalyies....

Basically every single 'random' psychic seems to always have the most optimum selection of the same few powers over and over again... which to me is not 'random'.
If you want to be able to fine tune out the most optimum psi... then play a psi. You shouldn't get to make 'the perfect psychic' with your random roll.

[Warshield73]

Rolling Major Psi in old Rifts had you lose have your "Other" OCC skills and a penalty to skill bonuses. I remember hearing RUE did away with that penalty. Does that mean there's no longer any drawback to major psionics?

Pretty much, yes. RUE got rid of the penalty, so if you get random major, you get a nice bonus at no cost.

Well, that's boring. Handy for the mage/adventurer/D-Bee who rolled up major psi, though.

Thanks!

I tend to agree. Personally, I disliked the old solution (Half your Related skills could be VERY expensive or VERY cheap, depending on how many you had), but the new solution is likewise not to my taste.

My non-canon suggestion? Spend 1 skill to become a minor psychic with no powers. Psychic powers cost 1 Related or Secondary skill a piece. Take as many as you like. If you use a Secondary skill, your starting level of proficiency is 1; if you use a Related skill, your level is equal to your own (at character creation, there's no drawback to using secondary skills for psi powers; as you level up, your secondary skill psi powers will be behind your actual level of experience). You get ME + 2d6 ISP at 1st level, +1d6 each additional level. Super Powers are only available through your xCC.

Does this result in a lot of people picking up one or two psychic powers because they'd be useful? Sure. But it's better than a 1-in-4 lottery, were 40% of those who win the lottery win big.

I started running Rifts in 1990 and I found the original rule too imbalanced. The Head hunter lost like 2 skills and the Glitter Boy pilot lost like 5. I just said that major psi lost 2 OCC related and 2 secondary skills and I stuck with that even after RUE came out.

In recent years though I have been using the "Human Special Abilities Table", Lone Star Pg. 97, and the "Special Aptitude Bonuses", Shadow Chronicles Pg. 50 to try an add some additional options other then psionics to modify characters. Has any one else been using either of these charts in Rifts?

[thorr-kan]

In recent years though I have been using the "Human Special Abilities Table", Lone Star Pg. 97, and the "Special Aptitude Bonuses", Shadow Chronicles Pg. 50 to try an add some additional options other then psionics to modify characters. Has any one else been using either of these charts in Rifts?

I haven't played either, but missed Lone Star's "Human Special Abilities Table" completely.

But I find the Robotech "Human Special Abilities Table" interesting from a character creation stand point.

[Warshield73]

In recent years though I have been using the "Human Special Abilities Table", Lone Star Pg. 97, and the "Special Aptitude Bonuses", Shadow Chronicles Pg. 50 to try an add some additional options other then psionics to modify characters. Has any one else been using either of these charts in Rifts?

I haven't played either, but missed Lone Star's "Human Special Abilities Table" completely.

But I find the Robotech "Human Special Abilities Table" interesting from a character creation stand point.

Every Robotech character you create gets a special aptitude bonus, really helps add a lot of variation into characters especially pre-gens for convention games. In Rifts I have only had a few players use these, most prefer psionics or OCC's with existing powers, but it has been great for NPC's and pre-gen convention characters.

[eliakon]

I allow humans and other "Vanilla" races to roll for a special aptitude. It tends to encourage them to get played since otherwise everyone wants to play one of the more powerful races.

If a person rolls for random psionics I allow them to choose from a list of options besides the regular psionics table. They can opt to roll on the Random Mutant Table, or the Rifter 50 Latent psi table, or roll for a random minor super power, or to roll for 1/1d4 innate spell(s) (like a mystic).

Again, as I said before I usually require the powers to be randomized though I tend to allow a lesser psi to pick one and a major psi to pick 2 powers... but the rest are randomly generated. On the upside I have seeded my table with a few "special" results that allow for getting 'better' stuff, such as a super psi, or a psi form one of the other obscure categories or the like.

I also have anyone with 'mutations' roll to see if they have a physical mutation to go with it (5% chance for minor 15% chance for major)
On the whole it tends to result in a lot more of the 'classic rifts' feel to the game I feel. In that it makes power have a price and its often a crap shoot where having psychic powers or mutant abilities isn't always an amazing gift that makes you a super efficient adventurer...sometimes they are just boring pointless stuff.

[Warshield73]

I allow humans and other "Vanilla" races to roll for a special aptitude. It tends to encourage them to get played since otherwise everyone wants to play one of the more powerful races.

If a person rolls for random psionics I allow them to choose from a list of options besides the regular psionics table. They can opt to roll on the Random Mutant Table, or the Rifter 50 Latent psi table, or roll for a random minor super power, or to roll for 1/1d4 innate spell(s) (like a mystic).

Again, as I said before I usually require the powers to be randomized though I tend to allow a lesser psi to pick one and a major psi to pick 2 powers... but the rest are randomly generated. On the upside I have seeded my table with a few "special" results that allow for getting 'better' stuff, such as a super psi, or a psi form one of the other obscure categories or the like.

I also have anyone with 'mutations' roll to see if they have a physical mutation to go with it (5% chance for minor 15% chance for major)
On the whole it tends to result in a lot more of the 'classic rifts' feel to the game I feel. In that it makes power have a price and its often a crap shoot where having psychic powers or mutant abilities isn't always an amazing gift that makes you a super efficient adventurer...sometimes they are just boring pointless stuff.

I understand why GMs like to do the random roll thing with players but I always just let people choose. To me the powers a person has is just as much a part of the character as OCC or race/species so I just let them choose.
I do make them pay for it. Characters with major psi or the equivalent in super powers loose skills as I said above and if a person wants to run someone with even more powers then I take the skills and move them up to a tougher XP chart (usually the Demigod chart).

[13eowulf]

Personally I like to include the latent Psi option from Rifter 50 in addition to the normal Psi options.

Also regarding the special aptitude table from Robotech, the Nightbane Survuval Guide has one that includes more preternatural options like a magic aptitude.

[thorr-kan]

Personally I like to include the latent Psi option from Rifter 50 in addition to the normal Psi options.

Also regarding the special aptitude table from Robotech, the Nightbane Survival Guide has one that includes more preternatural options like a magic aptitude.

Hey, I missed the NSG table! That's a nice little boost for some folks. Noted in my PPE and ISP thread:
posting.php?mode=reply&f=39&t=155751

Rifter 50 makes an nice read as well.

There's also Human Mutants from After the Bomb or Transdimensional Turtles. You can use your BIO-E to buy animal psionics or other powers.

[eliakon]

I allow humans and other "Vanilla" races to roll for a special aptitude. It tends to encourage them to get played since otherwise everyone wants to play one of the more powerful races.

If a person rolls for random psionics I allow them to choose from a list of options besides the regular psionics table. They can opt to roll on the Random Mutant Table, or the Rifter 50 Latent psi table, or roll for a random minor super power, or to roll for 1/1d4 innate spell(s) (like a mystic).

Again, as I said before I usually require the powers to be randomized though I tend to allow a lesser psi to pick one and a major psi to pick 2 powers... but the rest are randomly generated. On the upside I have seeded my table with a few "special" results that allow for getting 'better' stuff, such as a super psi, or a psi form one of the other obscure categories or the like.

I also have anyone with 'mutations' roll to see if they have a physical mutation to go with it (5% chance for minor 15% chance for major)
On the whole it tends to result in a lot more of the 'classic rifts' feel to the game I feel. In that it makes power have a price and its often a crap shoot where having psychic powers or mutant abilities isn't always an amazing gift that makes you a super efficient adventurer...sometimes they are just boring pointless stuff.

I understand why GMs like to do the random roll thing with players but I always just let people choose. To me the powers a person has is just as much a part of the character as OCC or race/species so I just let them choose.
I do make them pay for it. Characters with major psi or the equivalent in super powers loose skills as I said above and if a person wants to run someone with even more powers then I take the skills and move them up to a tougher XP chart (usually the Demigod chart).

Yeah, like I said. I used to let people pick. And then I realized that it was turning out to be rather unfair to the psychic classes because they were being routinely upstaged at their own job by random psis who invariably always had the same set of desirable powers over and over again.
So I decided that if people wanted to have the covented cluster of 'golden powers' that they would have to play a psi and not just tack them on to something else.
So far I haven't had a lot of complaints.
I tend to allow people to spend a skill per psionic power to buy specific minor psionic powers as per Rifter #30 though so there is that.

[Warshield73]

Yeah, like I said. I used to let people pick. And then I realized that it was turning out to be rather unfair to the psychic classes because they were being routinely upstaged at their own job by random psis who invariably always had the same set of desirable powers over and over again.
So I decided that if people wanted to have the covented cluster of 'golden powers' that they would have to play a psi and not just tack them on to something else.
So far I haven't had a lot of complaints.
I tend to allow people to spend a skill per psionic power to buy specific minor psionic powers as per Rifter #30 though so there is that.

I've never had this problem. PCC's have access to either special abilities, like psi-stalkers and dog boys, or super psionics, which minor and major do not, and so they always had flashier powers then the others.

When I ran RMB back in the '90's every character took sixth sense and mind block so I thought about doing random tables for the next group but after people became more familiar with the setting they started taking different powers. I guess I have just never had the issue with "golden powers" and most of the players I have run in the last few decades have had a theme in mind so a random table would have disrupted that theme.

[thorr-kan]

Looking over Rifter 50, the Latent Minor Psionics give I.S.P., but don't actually have psionic powers to use it on. It just...accumulates. Huh.

[thorr-kan]

Looking over Rifter 50, the Latent Minor Psionics give I.S.P., but don't actually have psionic powers to use it on. It just...accumulates. Huh.

ETA: Rifter 50 will be included in Chaos Earth's Psychic Storm. It'll be interesting to see if that's updated for the book.