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Within the world of rifts
A myriad of combinations are possible when building a adventuring party

Within The Steel City Rifters
campaign of Cordoba,
our adventuring party consists of

4 RPA Elite OCC:
1 Striker Samas
1 Terror Trooper
1 Japanese Samas
1 Triax Predator 2

1 Military Specialist OCC:
Smiling Jack: that's me!

And when we play we end up having

2 players who are bruising tanks wrecking havoc
2 players who play as intermediate players using strategy and abilities to take calculated measures
1 Stealthy, Fast , Scout:
That's me! :0)

As a result we are often very balanced, and in our collective opinion are a very strong adventuring party

That's how we are but i really want to know, what you think is the best adventuring party

1. How many people are in your group

2. What OCC's are in your party

3. What mecha,weapons, psionics, or magic do you possess

4. What role does each character fulfill

5. Why do you feel your party is the best

1.Super Rogue Scholar
2.Temporal Warrior
3.Full conversion borg
4.Special forces soldier
5.Amaki Gizmoteer

Super Rogue Scholar? Like, a normal Rogue Scholar, but super?

Another party I've found to be really successful is comprised of the following

1 Cyber Doc
1 Juicer
1 Military Specialist
1 City Rat
1 Glitter Boy
1 Cyber Knight
1 Operator

Yes, it is the kitchen sink of PC parties

My current list of PCs:

Sowki Shifter
Human Temporal Wizard
D-Shifter (Chaos Earth)
Nightbane Paratrooper (NB / Merc Adv)
Splicer Dreadguard

I'm the luckiest GM in the world! I love these guys and their crazy characters!

edit: forgot to add my pick for optimal group

shifter
mind melter
ace (pilot expert)
cyberknight or other combat monkey (juicer, FC borg, bio-borg, Maxi-Man, T-Man, T-Monster Man, anti-monster, demon queller, mutant, spirit warrior, psi-warrior, temporal warrior, etc.)
temporal wizard
operator / psi-operator
gunslinger / psi-slinger


Just in my humble opinion -- the shifter is perhaps the most versatile class in the game being able to summon a minion for almost any occasion...right up with there with the swiss army mystic. The mind melter provides some offense, some investigation (object read, remote viewing, astral proj, bio-manip, mind-bond, hypno sugg, super TK / FF, etc.). The piloting expert is gonna be useful in almost any situation and can provide some support offensively. The CK is your beef. He's anti-technology, got great combat skills, decent armor, and gets up in people's faces. Feel free to substitute any other combat monkey in this spot. The T-Monster man is great because he can take some punishment and he can summon other pets / minions like the shifter and can keep enemies off the casters and squishies. The temporal wizard is too valuable not to include. Time stop is a game-changer. Making talismans of time slip is a game changer. The operator is self-explanatory -- I think they get something ridiculous like 33 skills at lvl 1 -- super valuable addition to any group. The gunslinger is your long-range guy -- sniper, sharpshooting, WP- ranged any, give him a JA-12 and let him go to town covering the party.

Just my humble opinion. Would love to see how these guys perform against the original team posted.

@Witchcraft

Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought that gunslingers only excelled at pistols, perhaps a gunfighter would better suit your needs if you were looking for someone to snipe and have some trick shooting abilities ?

maybe so -- I'm not too sure. I know the Sharpshooting skill requires you to choose a WEAPON it's applicable to -- I think Gunfighter/slinger get the souped-up version where they get all the different tricks and I'm not sure if they have to choose an exact weapon to count towards...

but feel free to substitute any of the following for that long-range slot: Triad Gun Master, Paratrooper, Psi-slinger, Gunfighter, TW Gun Bunny, etc.

Personally, how you fill the role is up to the party -- the sniping skill and sharpshooting combined with WP bonuses and aimed / called shots make it a necessity for any serious party.

Human (?) Martial Artist/Special Ops Merc
Great Horned Dragon Hatchling
Asgardian High Elf Summoner/Elementalist
Human Battle Magius
Human High Magius
Human Full Conversion Cyborg/Operator
Human (?) Former Crazy/Cyber Knight

Hurm. Lets see.

1 godling with fire and air warlock magic, temporal mage magic, and psionics (sensitive and super)
1 godling with water and earth warlock magic, temporal magic, and burster powers
1 godling with necromatic magic and temporal magic, and psionic powers (physical and super)
1 demigod with Shifter magic powers and paradox shaman OCC
1 demigod with temporal magic powers and Battle Magus OCC
1 Demigod with temporal magic powers and Operator OCC

I think that covers most any base.

1. Super Techno-wizard( extraordinary IQ, pocket dimension and prehensile tail)
2. Cyber-knight( trained with psyscape psychics)
3. Grackle tooth gunfighter( rifter earth native wound up on center)
4. Tolkeen Artifact hunter(recruited after tolkeens fall)
5. SAMAS pilot(originally from chaos earth with silver eagle SAMAS)

warrenthewanderer wrote:1. Super Techno-wizard( extraordinary IQ, pocket dimension and prehensile tail)
2. Cyber-knight( trained with psyscape psychics)
3. Grackle tooth gunfighter( rifter earth native wound up on center)
4. Tolkeen Artifact hunter(recruited after tolkeens fall)
5. SAMAS pilot(originally from chaos earth with silver eagle SAMAS)

I don't think practitioners of magic can get superpowers, only scholars and adventurers

Nekira Sudacne wrote:

warrenthewanderer wrote:1. Super Techno-wizard( extraordinary IQ, pocket dimension and prehensile tail)
2. Cyber-knight( trained with psyscape psychics)
3. Grackle tooth gunfighter( rifter earth native wound up on center)
4. Tolkeen Artifact hunter(recruited after tolkeens fall)
5. SAMAS pilot(originally from chaos earth with silver eagle SAMAS)

I don't think practitioners of magic can get superpowers, only scholars and adventurers

Rifts dimension book 4: scrapers, pg 78-83 talus and bio-freaks can learn magic. Talus May or may not have superpowers, bio-freaks all have powers.

Without knowing who the other players are and what kind of campaign we all want to play, it's hard to be specific, but my favorite medium level parties are usually structured similarly: 2 or 3 magic users, a psychic or two, and a tech/weapons user. These are loose definitions since lots of classes cover more than one of those wants.

I almost always play Temporal Wizards. It's far and away my favorite class. Other classes that are handy to have are Psi-Techs, Temporal Warriors, and Shifters.

Anyways, ignoring tedious qualifiers (demi-god this, super powered that, and race+class combinations), something like the following would be nicely balanced:
Temporal Wizard
Temporal Warrior
Shifter
Psi-Tech
Techno-wizard

The most effective 5-man team I ever played as part of was a little less varied than that:
Temporal Wizard
Temporal Wizard
Temporal Warrior
Temporal Warrior
Psi-Tech

This party worked freakishly well together and actually mostly functioned as two sub-teams with the warriors in one team and the wizards and tech in the other.

If the GM allows super powers, I am a big fan of super powers, especially for newer players or players that have little interest in bookkeeping.

If it's going to be a truly high powered campaign, combinations that I'd like to try include:
Temporal Wizard demi-god with Air/Earth Warlock abilities
Mind Bleeder demi-god with Shifter abilities
Lizard Mage Temporal Wizard and Techno-wizard.

But it's my experience that a party of medium powered characters working as a team to succeed in a high powered campaign is more fun and successful than a party of high powered characters doing the same since a party of high powered characters have so much overlap in abilities that the flavor of the characters is lost (imagine the A-team except that everyone was a tough as BA, charming as Face, and skilled as Murdoch...it just becomes boring).

--flatline

Our epic team that lasted over 9 years in an ongoing campaign was as follows:

Atlantean Undead Slayer
Juicer
Cyber Knight
Mind Melter
Robot Pilot with Kittani Raptor power armor
and an Unskilled Vagabond, no super powers, and using RMB so not even candy (we did give him eyeball a fella when it came out)

edit: forgot the weakest and most aloof ice dragon hatchling ever, I think he had a supernatural strength of like 6. I also think he participated in about 2 fights the whole 9 years, he was just doing dragon stuff and was never where we needed him.

candy

Curse my perverted mind!!

One of these days, I'd love to see someone do a genuinely low-power campaign, the kind where your vehicle is either your feet, or a horse. The kind of campaign where your classes are restricted to stuff like this, with no extra powers whatsoever:

Body Fixer (seriously, does anyone play this?)
City Rat (another OCC I rarely ever see)
Rogue Scientist/Scholar
Wilderness Scout
And of course, the Vagabond

Hotrod wrote:One of these days, I'd love to see someone do a genuinely low-power campaign, the kind where your vehicle is either your feet, or a horse. The kind of campaign where your classes are restricted to stuff like this, with no extra powers whatsoever:

Body Fixer (seriously, does anyone play this?)
City Rat (another OCC I rarely ever see)
Rogue Scientist/Scholar
Wilderness Scout
And of course, the Vagabond

I've played in an all vagabond campaign. It was okay.

I've also played all city rat campaign. It sucked.

--flatline

SmilingJack wrote:Another party I've found to be really successful is comprised of the following

1 Cyber Doc
1 Juicer
1 Military Specialist
1 City Rat
1 Glitter Boy
1 Cyber Knight
1 Operator

Yes, it is the kitchen sink of PC parties

that is one bored juicer.

flatline wrote:

Hotrod wrote:One of these days, I'd love to see someone do a genuinely low-power campaign, the kind where your vehicle is either your feet, or a horse. The kind of campaign where your classes are restricted to stuff like this, with no extra powers whatsoever:

Body Fixer (seriously, does anyone play this?)
City Rat (another OCC I rarely ever see)
Rogue Scientist/Scholar
Wilderness Scout
And of course, the Vagabond

I've played in an all vagabond campaign. It was okay.

I've also played all city rat campaign. It sucked.

--flatline

What city did it take place in?

Yeah, I'm really curious why the City Rat game sucked. I mean, has your GM never read any Cyberpunk?

Marrowlight wrote:

flatline wrote:

Hotrod wrote:One of these days, I'd love to see someone do a genuinely low-power campaign, the kind where your vehicle is either your feet, or a horse. The kind of campaign where your classes are restricted to stuff like this, with no extra powers whatsoever:

Body Fixer (seriously, does anyone play this?)
City Rat (another OCC I rarely ever see)
Rogue Scientist/Scholar
Wilderness Scout
And of course, the Vagabond

I've played in an all vagabond campaign. It was okay.

I've also played all city rat campaign. It sucked.

--flatline

What city did it take place in?

One of the CS fortress cities. Not Chi-town.

Of course, since there are no canon descriptions of the fortress cities, the GM pretty much made it all up, so if your group does the same, you will likely have a different, hopefully better, experience.

--flatline

I would love to see a body fixer campaign. Scrubs meets Rifts!

Shoot, I'd be happy just hearing about a single body fixer character that actually played well in a Rifts campaign.

Hotrod wrote:I would love to see a body fixer campaign. Scrubs meets Rifts!

Shoot, I'd be happy just hearing about a single body fixer character that actually played well in a Rifts campaign.

Yeah, most people don't play fixers because, well...magic...psionics...yeah. Too bad, most PC's aren't really interested in that sort of thing.

I could see a Body Fixer becoming a drug lord. That would be an interesting game.

One Operator
4-5 guys to carry the Operator's stuff and be sad sad shadows of the glorious master OCC, the operator.

Hotrod wrote:I would love to see a body fixer campaign. Scrubs meets Rifts!

Shoot, I'd be happy just hearing about a single body fixer character that actually played well in a Rifts campaign.

Never got the option to try but always wanted to try out a Gizmoteer with a focus on Cyber-Doc skills, able to do medical stuff for the group and when everyone's good double as repairing gear and making gizmoteer gear.

flatline wrote:

Marrowlight wrote:

flatline wrote:

Hotrod wrote:One of these days, I'd love to see someone do a genuinely low-power campaign, the kind where your vehicle is either your feet, or a horse. The kind of campaign where your classes are restricted to stuff like this, with no extra powers whatsoever:

Body Fixer (seriously, does anyone play this?)
City Rat (another OCC I rarely ever see)
Rogue Scientist/Scholar
Wilderness Scout
And of course, the Vagabond

I've played in an all vagabond campaign. It was okay.

I've also played all city rat campaign. It sucked.

--flatline

What city did it take place in?

One of the CS fortress cities. Not Chi-town.

Of course, since there are no canon descriptions of the fortress cities, the GM pretty much made it all up, so if your group does the same, you will likely have a different, hopefully better, experience.

--flatline

Yeah, the newest Dredd flick kinda crystallized how I'll handle Coalition Cities for the foreseeable future. Or at least gave me a base visual to work with - so hopefully they would be, *nod*. Sorry it wasn't for you! Though I'd definitely be curious in hearing more details as to why it all went so bad.

Last Group I was in worked surpizingly well was.

1 robot pilot minor psi with the NG moble gun robot with the "belly gun" (since when is belly between the legs)
1 operator human
1 Glitter boy pilot human
1 true atlantian rouge scholor
1 wolfen wilderness scout
1 elf TW focusing on tanks (me)
1 Ley line walker.

basicaly we used the robot and a tank for transport and heavy combat well accept the gb. Was a merc game the tank was a tw modifed iron heart main battle tank. We did perty well for ourselfs. The tw only made toys a few toys for mages and psi. Armor of ithean TW on a tank is nice. During the fights just kept putting up the armor spell and we could take one heck of beating. The robot only had a muffng buton and CoA cannon coaxal to the belly gun.