drewkitty ~..~ wrote:And I covered this in my privius post just under how somebody would drag this bit of information about the optional stuff posted in the cutting room floor. As to my point about changing class is that "There are no genrale rules that allow players to change the class of their chars to a different class in rifts canon."
Sure there is, Palladium canon is Rifts canon, the MEGAverse.
drewkitty ~..~ wrote:(IOW rifts players are out of luck if they want to change their char's class if there are no class specific change rules(as to and from jusicer and borg classes) They are So Out Of Luck because Kevin has not included in the published rifts books genralized changing class rules.
You're not out of luck just because you don't possess the book rules are published in. Rules don't cease to exist just because someone doesn't own the book. Does lacking Underseas mean that people can't silent-cast underwater in Rifts Earth?
drewkitty ~..~ wrote:To Re-Iterate: To be Published is to be in a physical book. Not just posted somewhere.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_publishing is still publishing. Something doesn't have to be paper-published to be canon. Are you saying that the web-published stuff that was left out of RUE isn't canon?
drewkitty ~..~ wrote:ALL the settings canon are seperate. "why?" Because the rifters don't like it when the old hands here point out that they is a perfectly good canon text in another setting and they go "That is not rifts, it is not in a rifts book. It doesn't count in Rifts."
Rifters not liking other setting's canonicity doesn't negate their canonicity. The books reiterate constantly that the setting is one giant Megaverse.
drewkitty ~..~ wrote:So the
Rifters have spoken in the amlgamation of their multitued of posts rejecting the other settings canon as canon applicable to rifts. So no Setting canon has any canon athourty outside it's own setting, INCLUDING
RIFTS canon.
I'm really not sure where you're getting this. That this might be some Rifts players/GMs attitude is irrelevant, it ignores the books which establish universal canon.
drewkitty ~..~ wrote:Thus the only PF canon is found in pf books.
HU canon is only found in HU books.
Rifts canon is only found in rifts books.
There is only Palladium canon, aka Megaverse canon. There are no individual canons.
I've seen stuff like this crop up with Dune, were Frank's is the central canon and Brian's is the 'expanded universe' or whatever, but Kevin hasn't died and been replaced by some guy who's flipped the product. He's been here from the start and is still here, so there's not any solid basis to establish a canon barrier on.
Goliath Strongarm wrote:it's explained SOMEWHERE (see a few words ago on why I can't give book and page number) that a characters PPE is burned up in the development of their psychic powers and ISP. Which is why psychic classes don't multiclass...
I believe I know what you're referring to, but I think it's being remembered wrongly.
Going back to RMB, pg103bursters "most of the person's PPE has been expended in the development of psychic abilities. The remaining PPE base is 2D6" This was repeated on pg106 for stalkers. This was identical to the standard PPE most people got. Dog boys had the same text in spite of having 3D6, which is more than most humans. Melters had it with 2D4.
Nowhere did it mention that psychics initially had more PPE than normal people or anything like that. It mentions PPE is burned off to develope psychic abilities. Skills also burn them off though, as other PBs have explained.
Goliath Strongarm wrote:And whoever brought up first edition rules.. that was silliness. Because how you determined powers in 1st edition was a lot different! Psionics was handled a LOT different! SILLINESS I SAY!
It's not silly at all. Psionics weren't determined differently. Every species with the potential for psychic abilities rolled a random chance of having them, and could be a minor, major or master. The major difference was that powers were grouped into levels rather than genres.
Goliath Strongarm wrote:PB settings are supposed to be multiversal, yet we are constantly coming across places where the rules don't mesh.
It happens. There are probably cases even within a single setting where the same author has contradicted themselves in 2 different (or even the same) book. Mistakes don't negate the Megaversal aspect of the settings.
Goliath Strongarm wrote:in the RIFTs forums, many people have been quite adamant about how you can't go taking rules from other places and applying them to RIFTs... So is that to be out the window, simply because it is convenient?
It's out the window because it's wrong. Who is saying this? Where? I'll go call'm out. All rules can be applied to all settings. In cases of contradictions, they can be puzzled out. About the only non-megaversal thing that comes to mind with me is MDC.
Goliath Strongarm wrote:because there are so many places where the rules don't mesh, each set of rules needs to be outlined in it's own setting.
Rules just get changed, even in different printings, much less editions, of a single setting. Doesn't mean the dimensions have different rules unless that's explicit.
Goliath Strongarm wrote:you need to flip through the rest of the PF, look at the psi- classes, and see that they are all prohibited from changing OCCs. If you want to take part of it, you need to take all of it.
Nowhere in PF does it say PCCs as a whole can't have multiple OCCs. The notation is listed individually, under each PCC.
It would've been simpler to just have a note at the beginning saying 'no multiple OCCs for PCCs'. But it didn't, instead it noted it under the specific classes.
The necessity of that derives from PCCs (and RCCs) being able to change to OCCs. That's how we got a Mind Melter CS Special Forces in Soulharvest.
Goliath Strongarm wrote:psychic classes burned away their PPE in developing their psychic abilities. That is why they have lower than normal.
The only psychic classes that have lower than normal PPE are the highest-tier (Mind Melter/Mind Mage) and some later ones like Psi-Techs. Bursters/Stalkers had normal PPE, some of the later ones had higher than normal.
Goliath Strongarm wrote:in PF (you know, the setting that actually has the changing OCC rules...) each of the psionic classes actually says CANNOT CHANGE OCCs.
Yes.
Each of them. Meaning it only applies to them, not other PCCs. Meaning yes, 2nd Edition Mind Mages can't have multiple OCCs. But Mind Melters and 1st Edition Mind Mages can.
Goliath Strongarm wrote:And, you're right.. for a human, only losing 1d6 isn't that much. But, that's 1/2 the normal PPE... for an elf, that's (iirc) 1/6 the normal. Different races, different numbers. Did you take that into consideration? Don't look at it as "he lost 1d6", but "he lost HALF the PPE he would have had". For other races, it's even worse.
I think we should only look at these in net amounts rather than percentages. Spells don't usually cost "half your PPE". Nor do specific permanent PPE costs that naturals/geniuses burn off to learn their talents.
In 1st ed Beyond the Supernatural (the origin of PCC) you didn't expend fractions of total PPE, you expended fixed costs. You had to permanently sacrifice 1 PPE to learn Death Trance, for example. Or 6 PPE to learn Telekinesis.
This system of purchasing them for various costs was dropped though. I actually like the old system of either PPE perm cost for psionics, or having 8 levels of psychic abilities. Now there's for the most part just 2 tiers, master or lesser. Suddenly TK and DT have exactly the same cost and value even though they used to be a 1:6 ratio.
Basically all that 'sacrifice PPE stuff' is leftover Beyond the Supernatural flavour text which actually has no bearing on the mechanics of gameplay, because psionics no longer have PPE values, unless they kept those in 2nd ed of BeySu.
Prysus wrote:By the strict reading of the words, a Psi-Sensitive can never learn any other class. I've (personally) always theorized that this meant someone can't become a psychic (because you need to be born that way), but the psychic (could in theory) learn another non-psionic class.
If this were the case, PCCs would be treated like primary martial arts forms. As in you could begin with them, but you couldn't learn them later after you've been something else first.
Prysus wrote:we have to figure out how mage's get such a large P.P.E. base. Clearly they don't just start off with this amount, and it's something they have to learn. An adult human (2D6 P.P.E.) can learn to become a mage and develop a larger base/permanent P.P.E. base. This is done by learning to "draw upon, nurture and hold Potential Psychic Energy."
Yup. Though generally since most mages begin learning magic before reaching adulthood, they'll actually be starting off with the 3d6 or 4d6 or whatever it is kids/teens get.
Prysus wrote:Factoring in this, along with the fact that a mage's P.P.E. continues to grow as well, we can deduce that a mage must be learning to draw in P.P.E. from outside sources (ambient P.P.E. or off a ley line) and then hold that P.P.E. in their bodies.
No, that isn't what's happening. That's a completely separate process. The mage's tolerance for PPE grows. They can regenerate it on their own, or refill it from external sources, but the increase in maximum isn't specified as having anything to do with outside sources. It's an aspect of experience. The more you work with magical energy, the more you can hold in you.
This applies to permanent amounts, and possibly also to how much excess you can hold. I wish I could remember where those rules were on temporarily holding PPE above maximum. What was it again, 3 times base for PE in hours? Bleh... can't even remember if that was canon or not.
Their starting P.P.E. is the limit of how much they can hold. As the mage grows in experience, they learn to hold more P.P.E. in this way. This also helps explain how a mage draws in that extra P.P.E. off ley lines and can hold it for a time (but not indefinitely, because it exceeds their capability to hold steady).
Prysus wrote:if psionics are developed by expending P.P.E., and a psychic can learn to develop P.P.E. the same as a mage, the psychic could (in theory) burn off all that mage P.P.E. to learn a bunch of new psionics ... which would clearly be breaking the system.
It wouldn't be breaking any system, because the 'spend PPE to buy psionics' system isn't used in Rifts classes, it's used in BeySu classes.
Besides, seeing as how psychics learn more powers as they level up, that could very well mean their PPE is going up and they're just automatically burning it off for powers. They gain ISP as they level up too, and PPE can be burned off permanently to gain ISP as well (as per Astral Lords).
Prysus wrote:From a game mechanics point of view, it makes perfect sense that they can't.
What exactly is a game mechanics point of view? Is this some 'balance' nonsense in a world where PC's invisible teleporting regenerating genius dragons can pilot glitter boys?
Psi/Mages really aren't as unbalancing as people are thinking. It's actually a lot less relevant now than it would've been in the past, now that magic can be cast at psionic-like speeds. Who needs pyrokinesis when you can firebolt? It used to be the speed factor but that's gone now.
Nightmask wrote:the Psi-Mechanic, he'd have more PPE to expend creating psi-mechanic gear and the class is already self-limiting).
In a Rifts World with Gizmoteers, extra PPE for imports of BeySu/BetShad Psi-Mechanics is an utter joke.
