Hi, I'm new!

[Tinker Dragoon]

For online resources, a decent selection of pages are found here: http://www.palladiumbooks.com/links/rings.html

The best way to learn about Rifts is of course to read the books

But if you don't have access to them (for example, if your GM won't let you read his books ), just keep your eyes on this forum.

[MADMANMIKE]

..Well, let's see. The setting goes something like this.

..In 2089, after a thirty year cold war and 80 years of technological advancements, the great cataclysm happens. Everyone has PPE, Potential Psychic Energy, the mana if you will. When a person dies, this energy doubles and is released into the environment, which has it's own streams of PPE, Ley Lines, coursing over the surface of the planet. Places of power, like Stonehenge are located at nexus points, where two or more Ley Lines cross and Rifts, rips in the fabric of reality, can be opened.

..So the cold war ends when two tiny nations nuke eachother. Millions die, and their PPE is released. Only it just happens to coincided with that once every few thousand years planetary alignment that increases the PPE in the environment.

..Suddenly the flood gates are opened on an already overflowing pool of energy, and what you get is a chain reaction. Earthquakes, volcanos, tidal waves, etc. One extra terrible event; the lost continent of Atlantis has been in a pocket dimension for eons, trapped there by the True Atlanteans by a magic experiment gone awry. Suddenly the sea is displaced by a new contenent a third the size of north america and the coastlines move in 100 miles all over the world.

..Of course, most of the worlds population lives within a hundred miles of the coastlines, so even more energy is released.

..The orbital community watches in terror and disbelief as the world is engulfed in flames, clouds of ash, and a mysterious laticework of glowing blue lines of energy. Close scrutiny shows terrible alien creatures pouring through rips in the fabric of reality where the lines meet.

..The dark ages began.

..If you want to play in that setting, you need to look into Chaos Earth, forthcoming.

..Rifts takes place a few hundred years later. The Magic level is still quite high, with rifts opening randomly all over the world, but in comparison the world is much more stable. Humanity makes up only about 15% of the sentient population of the world, and all manner of alien and fantasy creature can be found on this new earth.

..The seat of human civilization in North America is the Coalition States. An anti-magic Human Supremicist regime with a death's head motif. Depending on what part of the timeline your GM is placing the game, they may have already laid siege to Tolkeen or are preparing to do so. Tolkeen is a magic kingdom built where Minniapolis is today.

..That's it in a nutshell. Magic and high tech mixed together.

-Mike >8]

[Goblin-Jack]

Stealthy... Hmm, let's see hear. Well, when I look for a character that oozes stealth, I usually play a glitterboy. They have this magnificent weapon called a "boom gun" (though for the life of me I have no idea why as it's absolutely silent!). That would be my reccomendation. Otherwise, if that's not really to your liking, consider perhaps a full conversion cyborg. They are really big on subtelty and stealth, plus they run really fast and are pretty strong. Hope that helps! --GJ.

[Nekira Sudacne]

Stealthy... Hmm, let's see hear. Well, when I look for a character that oozes stealth, I usually play a glitterboy. They have this magnificent weapon called a "boom gun" (though for the life of me I have no idea why as it's absolutely silent!). That would be my reccomendation. Otherwise, if that's not really to your liking, consider perhaps a full conversion cyborg. They are really big on subtelty and stealth, plus they run really fast and are pretty strong. Hope that helps! --GJ.

don't be mean to newbies '

he's lying naturally.

oh, and Illithid13, Welcome to the boards

[Goblin-Jack]

Nekira's right; Illithid I'm sorry. In reality, the character's I like the best for stealth and for assassinations, are juicers. They are the creme-de-la-creme of physical athletes, are trained for stealth and silence, and perform marvelously when a light-infantry-type of stalker/sniper/killer is called for. They don't use power-armor (unless played by a munchkin...), don't rely on magic/psionics, and since they get automatic dodge are just about impossible to suprise. Hope that helps! --GJ.

[RoadWarriorFWaNK]

play a mystic ninja. they're the best for sneaking around.
or a Psi-Ghost if you want to be the most annoying character EVER.

[Svartalf]

don't be mean to newbies '

he's lying naturally.

oh, and Illithid13, Welcome to the boards

thanks for saying all I meant to Nekira...

seriously... the guy who told you about superspies and master assassins had it right... have fun

[grandmaster z0b]

I think that Crazies are great for stealth, they are a type of augmented human, almost as good as a Juicer but with more skills and abilities but without the auto-dodge ability. They get a lot of stealthy skills by default - prowl, acrobatics, detect ambush, intelligence etc. and some minor psychic powers.
The trade off is that they get more and more insane as they go up levels, but that can be a great tool for character development and role playing.

Oh and for and for ultra-stealth a Crazy can use Techno-Wizard items and armor (Techno-Wizards create technology with magic effects, obviously). Body armor with the spells chameleon, shadow meld and invisibility could be used by a crazy (or any other characterwho has psychic or magic powers such as the Super Spy) who already would have impressive stealth abilities - that's stealth-a-rific!!

[Nekira Sudacne]

OK then.

Master Assassin:
Pros:

has many more skills than the Super Spy, and better selsection to boot.
has a +3 OCC bonus to inititive that can be a lifesaver
starts with 1d6+1 cybernetic implants to help him
starts with good money
starts with excellent equipment

Cons:

you must be of anarchist or evil alingment to play
focus on killing. roleplaying-wise, you have to live, eat, sleep, breath, and deal death.
it carries a stigma much like a gunslinger. who REALLY trusts an assassin?

Super Spy

Pros:

decent skill starting package, limited selection
earns far more for a job then a normal human, you're paying for his powers

CAN BE A MASTER PSYCHIC

you start with 3 powers from each of the 3 basic catagories and 1 super. every level you gain 1 power of choice. this is very strong. you can start with astral projection, with lets you spy undetecable by any normal means. and you can hypnotic suggestion the gaurds, use psionic invisibility, and a TON of others. too useful for words

CAN BE A MAGE
you can be a line walker (default) with the only difference being limited specail powers and fewer spells to start, BUT you can learn any spell at any time, and learn a new one per level.

Or you can be ANY mage class your GM allows (temprol Wizard is ideal, dimension warping magic lets you get in and out, and you can speed up or slow down time to your advantage, and dimesional pockets let you carry LOTS undetected)

CAN HAVE PARTIAL BIONIC RECONSTRUCTION
you have bionic arms and legs, and 1d6+4 bionic or cybernetic features of choice

CAN BE A MUTANT OR D-BEE SUPERHERO
this requires Heros Unlimited, but you can have super powers. check out Rifts Conversions for idea. there are way too many killer combos to list here, check out the Hero's Unlimited Forums for that, but for breif discription, you can be MDC, do MDC, run at mach one, flay at mach one, turn into metal, eliminate you enimies combat bonuses, and lots more

though note, he can only be one of those, but he can choose which ones.

Cons:

limited skill selection.
special powers, while they make him valuable, also make him feared.
limited starting money
decent starting equipment.

all in all, the Super Spy Allows for far more Creativity and versiltility with his selection of powers. in fact, he may well be the best OCC in the GAME for this area.

however, the master assassin is a more traditional stelth type with a long, if dark, history as an excellent choice for dark-themed campaigns. also, the fact that he is a normal human means he can enter places where being with super powers like the Super Spy are barred. also, he is more humanily faliable, and means you need to be more creative, and is generally better for Role-Playing as opposed to Roll-playing, as he cant' simply bash his way out of as many sticky situations.

personally, I'd go with the master assassin, he's a great balance between being a normal human and being a super guy.

[Dustin Fireblade]

cool! thanks Magnus...

Now is there armor penalties for casters in rifts... I'm well versed in D&D 3/.5 ed and 2ed as well, so I'll probably try to make as many parallel conclusions as I can during my transition period.

Please be paicent with me.

Thanks again!

Armor penalties for spell casters are located in the book Siege on Tolkeen 1 and the Rifts Book of Magic.

[Nekira Sudacne]

I was thinking of going the evil alignment because of the being a saint for appearances... I was the DM for my D&D adventures and I often ended up putting a supplemental character in the party that ended up betraying them in the end... Its so delightfully fun. But again, I'm not dead set on this alignment... What are the alignments in rifts? are they the same as D&D?

Good aligments

Principled (Paladin type, always fight for right)
Scrupulous (basically good, but is not quite as restiriced in what he does, this is the type that will do breaking and entering, but only to villians and type. almost all vigilate heros fall in this catogory (sider man for exsample)

selfish aligments

Unprinicpaled- basically good person who looks out for #1. they're not likely to help people unless theirs some gain involved, and will work with criminals to suit themselves (think Han Solo)

Anarchist- constantly tottering between good and evil, they are willing to at least CONSIDER doing anything, if the price is right. they are shy of true evil in that they don't WISH to be so, but they will always do what's in their best intrest, even if others must suffer.

Evil alignments

Abberant - Honerable villian. this guy has his own twisted code of ethics. they find cruetly like tortue and rape distasteful, yet they have their own code of ethics. they also use their own code of loyalty and the word of an abberant assassin is just as good as one from a Prinicpaled paladin.

miscreant- this is the selfish villian. whatever he wants is right and others be damned. he can work in a group, but will always try to usurp leadership.

Diabolic- evil for evils sake. might makes right. most demons fall in this catagory. can appear to be good if it suits their purposes.

[Nekira Sudacne]

The classic one or the disney one

jk

really, as he's told in common legends today, he'd be scrupulous.

[Nekira Sudacne]

Adding to Nekira's point about Aberrant alignments, the book indicates that, they find torture distasteful, but they can still do it if they feel it neccesary. They might be the good cop to the miscreant/diabolic bad cop, basically.

hmmmm, I always interpreted that to mean that they more "rough them up" to get them to talk rather then using whips and screws.

[Nekira Sudacne]

For either class you chose, ask your GM if for armour you can be hooked up with something called a Naurani Stealth Armour from mercenaries. Its basically a chameleon system like from predator. Very useful for sneaking around. And if I remember right, either OCC class can take it as their starting armour provided the GM okay's its availability.

is this a specific type of armor or is this something that can be applied to all armor types, and how common is this stuff? Is it only found in one part of the world or is it pretty readily available.

1. He's refering to the NE-C20 Camouflage Variable Armor. it's very availabe with an NPC called Tader Joe, but has terrible availability elsewhere.

2. there are Camouflage sheets that can be use to cover large vheicle and robots or anything else, but they only have 10 MDC and loose the ability to hide when they take any damage.

[Dustin Fireblade]

The availability of any/all items depends, of course, on your GM. The armor in question is from a company called Naruni Enterprises. Very good hi-tech stuff.

As far as canon text goes, Naruni came into the North American scene late 104 PA-early 105 PA. Nobody wanted them around so a massive campaign was waged against them, kicking them out. However in late 109 PA-early 110 PA Naruni is back, this time with bigger and better weapons plus all the old goodies as well.
Trader Joe was just ONE dealer in the 104 to 105 timeline. There are/were multiple dealers, mostly well hidden. So basically they can show up anywhere your GM wants them to.

MDC = Mega Damage Capacity. Basically in the most simple of terms, super hit points. One point of MDC equals 100 hit points, or 100 SDC points (Structural Damage Capacity)

In terms of books, the Rifts Main Book, Rifts Mercenaries would be good starters. In terms of finding them try looking up game stores in your area. Sometimes they are sold from comic book stores as well. Also I think there is a link on the Palladium Front page that has a Retailer Directory, or you could always order direct from Palladium.

[Nekira Sudacne]

what regon is trader joe in and how much would something like this cost? also what does MDC stand for?

Can anyone tell me what book I should get a hold of first? and is there a specific store that I need to go to for them? I couldn't find at the book store in my local mall.

Like I said, I'm completely a noob.

Rifter mercenarys has Trader joe as well as BOTH the NPC's in question, as well as pretty much everything else I explained.

you need to have the main book to understand what many of the power I told you about for the Super Spy are, as well as the rest.

other than that, you should pick up the GM's guide, as it has a lot of rules changes that have come out sinse the Main book. and conversion book is useful in more ways than I can count. and the book of magic has the spells compiked.

those are what I consider the main books absoulty needed to play the game well. all the others are useful in their own ways.

Trader Joe travels with a mercenary group called Robot Control, and can be found anywhere in North America you can find a job for a merc group.

and you can order them online from Palladium Books website

[Dave the dragon]

[quote="Nekira Sudacne"]OK then.

Master Assassin:
Cons:

you must be of anarchist or evil alingment to play
focus on killing. roleplaying-wise, you have to live, eat, sleep, breath, and deal death.
it carries a stigma much like a gunslinger. who REALLY trusts an assassin?

You say that like those are BAD things. Personally, I love the Abberrant assassin, Trying to find something more to life than constant killing. But if you want stealth, nothing starts a bad day like a Pulse rifle saying "good morning" from a half mile away.

To me, super spies end up too munchkin, and they need more work for a character hook. I usually recomend them for experienced players that have a clear focus, goals, and a specific concept.