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Can you tell us what power level your game is?

A shifter is one of the characters in the game where we could give you ideas to put you on par with a vagabond or a god...we need to know what chars the other PCs are playing and how powerful the game is.

Rifts Ultimate Edition actually has rules for this. page 125 at the bottom. The only thing that I add to the listed stuff is that they receive the SDC bonus as an MDC bonus, and they gain +1d6+6 to strength which becomes supernatural.

One of the questions you have to ask yourself is why are you still on earth. Unlike the other people of the planet, you are capiable of exploring the multiverse, travelling to an exciting place like phaseworld, or hopping on a space ship and exploring that way.

Links are over rated...you don't need them. You will know or have heard of other shifters who have linked and ended up dead, enslaved, or serving the whims of others.

A large part of what makes a shifter is what they are is what minions they choose. Once you have determined your personality, you can choose likeminded minions. Your life consists of summoning and controling beings (possibly from other dimensions) to make your life better. You will already have atleast two interesting spells: tame beast (you can have 3 monsters at level 3, perhaps you want to leave one spot open for wandering monsters) & summon greater familiar. Minions: At level 3 you can have 1 greater being, 2 lessor beings or 4 subdemons. This doesn't include golems, robots, undead or minions who aren't bound to you. There are other ways to gain followers such as hire them or buy them as slaves. Top that off with a pile of minions that you will be summoning with spells on an as needed basis. You will need to make up a list of your favorites, those that you normally deal with (with whatever spells you have). As you will see you should be picking your minions as a group.

I don't understand why you want to try and compete in melee with the other chars...you can have a squad of minions do that for you. For example, not many people will want to tangle with 4 gun toting Brodkill riding 4 Spiny Ravengers (starting you at level 4). They form a square around you, eating anything that approaches, with the Brodkill blast at a distance anything that doesn't come close.

So...hmmm...cagey but not overpowered (you didn't tell us how powerful you want to be compared to the rest of the group):

Familiar: perhaps a Phantom Wolf from Madhaven...they have autododge if you go into melee, which you seem to think is likely...and can phase you out while you cast spells Or otherwise help you be cagey by sneaking you around out of phase. I've made the psi ghost redundant.
Tame Beasts: 3 highly intelligent (for animals) T-rex's. Scare the other PCs to death and make them take you seriously (or run away in terror). Fits your cagey theme - you won't be needing to melee anyone. Other large scary monsters work fine too...
Minions: A Succubus which you have had since level one..and 2 soultrackers coated in weapons to ride the T-rex's. The third T-rex is ridden by a Zombie dressed like a mage (so people always shoot it instead of you).

Alternate idea: 1 magot (CB1 or CB3), avian biomech familiar (DB7) & 3 warbirds (madhaven). The magot would be your mount, which has 8 nice save or loose attacks per melee...and several thousand mdc. The warbirds give you credibility, have autododge, forcefields and a distance attack. The avian biomech gives you a spy with interesting tech aplications.

EDIT: One nice thing about shifters is they can switch out their minions to be mission dependant (unlike most other chars who will be static, which is a good reason why shifters can be mroe powerful than other classes). Do you know what type of game you are playing? Should we be suggesting anti-vampire minions (russian firebirds), anti-tech minions (gremlins), anti-magic minions (3 hawk species from Atlantis that are immine to magic)?

Ullr is the God you are thinking of, Karsus.

Belial, Odin is also the God of magic as well as a warrior God, great choice for a shifter IMHO. The rules for linking would only allow you to link to one of those aspects, so far as I can tell, but yeah, Odin the All Father is awesome.

Weeeeelp, here's an idea. A little off the wall, but JUST a suggestion.

You say the game is High-ish in regards to power. How bout this: Give your shifter the Gift of Union (As per Witchcraft).

I KNOW! I KNOW! People will say "Non-canon!" "He's not a Shifter anymore! He's a Witch now!"

But, Odin is STILL a God. Not a just a God. But the All-Father of an ENTIRE Pantheon (Technically Two...). He's the most powerful of his group of Gods! Why wouldn't he be able to impart such power unto a mortal? Give the Gift of Union with the bonding but allow the Shifter to continue to progress (Since all Witch powers really don't grow that much, if at all!). Now, suddenly, your Shifter is a major MDC being, a supernatural being AND an incredibly powerful spell caster to boot! (You'd get all of Odin's spell knowledge at 1/3 level. That's ALL known common spells, necromancy and Temporal Wizardy!). Plus he can still summon and bind demons and monsters to his will.

Wow... Now that I look back on it... Probably a REALLY unwise idea. That might be a little... too powerful...

*coughs*

That would be way to OP in my opinion.

dragonfett wrote:That would be way to OP in my opinion.

Hey. I didn't deny that did I? It would be an incredibly powerful and excessively HUGE boost in the Shifters power. However, I merely suggested the possibility of it.

Of course, you could just give your shifter the Warrior God bonding and the Magic God bonding in the same shot... significantly toned down.

Of course, there is always just the standard regular stuff, yer call!