china 2

drewkitty ~..~ · Sun Oct 03, 2004 4:33 pm

I just got this book this week and what I've read in it makes me think that PB went the wronge direction with this book. It is the first book that is totally outside the PB megaversal system. Why do I say this? Because it directly cotradicttes what has been stated in other books with its definition and use of the word 'chi'. It contradicts that Chi is closely related to PPE in that it is a form of life energy. Chi beinging the life enregy of the body, and PPE being the energy of the soul and body. Saying that Chi is ISP, which is the force of the mind, is insane. And sence ISP is the power of the mind, it makes it impossible to convert to PPE.

Dr. Doom III · Unread post by **Dr. Doom III** » Sun Oct 03, 2004 4:39 pm

In Japan martial arts powers use PPE.
In the Phase World Source Book they (Oni Ninja) use ISP.

Just change it to the one you think is best.
Personally I think PPE is the right way to go.

I don't have China 2 so there may be problems about doing it that way that I am unaware of.

Vrykolas2k · Unread post by **Vrykolas2k** » Sun Oct 03, 2004 4:44 pm

Oni ninja were going to be oni mind melters or somesuch {master psychics}, but the ninja clans got them at a young age and trained them to use their psionics in a different way. It isn't meant to be chi.

Svartalf · Unread post by **Svartalf** » Sun Oct 03, 2004 5:06 pm

I'm still in the process of reading the thing... but since chi is the stuff that flows in the ley and dragon lines, and that has long been known to be PPE...
changing it to ISP is just wrong

I think that EW and KS just labored like mad to make China specific on Rifts earth... but they did it so hard that rifts china is virtually its own thing, independent, or even incompatible with the rest of Rifts, not to mention the rest of the Palladium megaverse... my gripes about Rifts 2 alone could fill their own thread I think.

Vrykolas2k · Unread post by **Vrykolas2k** » Sun Oct 03, 2004 5:22 pm

Svartalf wrote:I'm still in the process of reading the thing... but since chi is the stuff that flows in the ley and dragon lines, and that has long been known to be PPE...
changing it to ISP is just wrong

I think that EW and KS just labored like mad to make China specific on Rifts earth... but they did it so hard that rifts china is virtually its own thing, independent, or even incompatible with the rest of Rifts, not to mention the rest of the Palladium megaverse... my gripes about Rifts 2 alone could fill their own thread I think.

Hmph.
I'll be damned.
I agree with you.
:lol:

Svartalf · Unread post by **Svartalf** » Sun Oct 03, 2004 5:35 pm

Vrykolas2k wrote:Hmph.
I'll be damned.
I agree with you.

Don't feel bad about it... For a Frenchie, I'm steeped in American culture... unlike the others, I don't get it wrong everytime

Borast · Unread post by **Borast** » Mon Oct 04, 2004 10:33 am

Svartalf wrote:
Vrykolas2k wrote:Hmph.
I'll be damned.
I agree with you.

Don't feel bad about it... For a Frenchie, I'm steeped in American culture... unlike the others, I don't get it wrong everytime

So...you're a Francophone, eh?

Mind you, the fact that you're from France kinda gave me that idea long ago!

Svartalf · Unread post by **Svartalf** » Mon Oct 04, 2004 12:30 pm

Borast wrote:So...you're a Francophone, eh?

Mind you, the fact that you're from France kinda gave me that idea long ago!

oui, pourquoi?

Greg Diaczyk · Unread post by **Greg Diaczyk** » Mon Oct 04, 2004 5:09 pm

In my opinion most of the material presented in Rifts China is really, really good. I just choked on a number of "new" game mechanics issues... and game inconsistencies.

Chi, in and of it self is a cool concept, and makes books like Mystic China kind of neat. However, having three different power sources for characters to run off of, starts to make some of the game mechanics awkward.

Ninjas and Superspies/Mystic China essentially only had Chi. (with mystic China having a few references to PPE). Most every other game in Palladium uses PPE and ISP (Soul/Life Energy and Mental Energy). So I can understand if Ninja's and Superspies needs a "face" lift to make it coincide better with the rest of the Megaverse. So when Palladium decided to reject Chi for Rifts that was fine, not the greatest but fine. I would have preferred PPE given more depth and being given the attributes of Chi, so that Chi and PPE could be interchangeable (Especially since Rifts Japan set the precedence of using PPE instead of Chi for martial art powers.)

Now as was mentioned above ISP has been used for martial art powers in the past by Rifts as well, but that was for the Oni Ninja, who I might add were master psychics to begin with and only had their powers funneled into "martial art-like" psi abilities.

Rifts China 2 kind of thru conventional game mechanics out the window and rewrote everything, using ISP (Mental Energy associated with Psychic powers that are genetic in nature, thus not everyone can have/use them, which is quite contrary to how martial arts work. i.e. Martial Arts are a learned skill like magic, yet another reason why PPE should have been used!) as the energy to replace Chi. Then it went further to state that these new Chinese martial arts powers can only be fully effective inside the Mists of Rift China (ISP base and effectiveness of all these powers are reduced by half else where!).

To top that off all these cool "new" martial art O.C.C. (Borrowed from Mystic China...) where for the most part sitting ducks. Most could not select a useful martial art power that offered MDC transformation or protection at level one. Nor did any of these martial artists get any body armour to counter the lack of MDC protection. So one flick of a demons finger and the martial artist would be dead! I'm surprised these heroes can even survive past level one! Now I know the Demon Catching Hero "collects" demons and reforms them and "talks his way out of trouble" but.... is that going to be the case every time?

Then there is the inconsistent editing. The Martial Artist O.C.C.'s all have skills that look like they came out of Ninja's and Superspies (W.P. Large Sword, W.P. Small Sword as oppose to W.P. Sword for an example...) I could see a little mistake here and there, but all the Martial Art O.C.C.'s (Borrowed from Mystic China) where like this. And then to kick you when you were down they added a complete list of skills available to those of Rifts China which clearly showed that many of the available skills pointed out in the Martial Artist O.C.C's were indeed wrong!

So Yeah I'm in favour of a rewrite/super errata etc. in the beginning of China 3 or a Rifter!

Josh Sinsapaugh · Mon Oct 04, 2004 5:15 pm

Apathy man, apathy.

((I choose "Just doesn't care."))

Prince Cherico · Mon Oct 04, 2004 7:11 pm

my big issue is that any deamon can easly bump of martial artists
like crazy, The power issues are too extream

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china 2

should China 2 be rewriten to bring it in line with the previous, accepted definitions for chi?

china 2