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Hello all.

So will be in a new campaign coming up and our GM asked me for some advice on how to handle Ley Lines in his game and I wanted to hear some other GMs opinions.

One of the character in the game is a Ley-Line Walker, who this discussion is pretty much all about.

Many of their class feature are ley-line related so if a ley-line is not going to be involved they are cut off from a lot of what MAKES a ley-line walker. That being said Ley line walkers are very powerful without ley-lines and not only do they, as a class, get a lot of ley-line related feature the ley-line itself grants them lots of extra benefits like more P.P.E., 50% increase range, damage and other spell junk.

Do you feel if someone wants to play a ley-line walker then ley-lines should come up during the game?

I personally said yes, since when I GM I try to let everyone have a chance at playing to their characters strengths. Stealthy guys gets to do some dangerous recon jazz, fighter guy gets to smash someones face, diplomancer gets to convince their benefactor to pay them more ect ect.

Without their LL powers & spells LLW are just average wizards. 90% of the mage chars I play are Mystic Studies cause they have a better stating spells list (HUMB).

A for whether the group crosses a LL in their travels... unless the group is following a LL's path, they come up when the GM decides the story needs for them to come up or they are notedly absent from the story when the GM decides they need to be not available. Otherwise random rolls to see if the group comes across one.

I generally try to have maps of the area ahead of time, including ley lines. If there are ley lines, then they will (usually) be being exploited. Just as civilizations tend to settle by fresh water, expect ley lines to have the same sort of influence (its a natural resource after all). If I plan on making ley lines extremely rare, or non-existent I will say so before character creation, so that people will know ahead of time. But beyond that I do not feel that its a 'right'. If it fits, then there will be ley lines, if it doesn't fit...then no lines.

drewkitty ~..~ wrote:Without their LL powers & spells LLW are just average wizards. 90% of the mage chars I play are Mystic Studies cause they have a better stating spells list (HUMB).

A for whether the group crosses a LL in their travels... unless the group is following a LL's path, they come up when the GM decides the story needs for them to come up or they are notedly absent from the story when the GM decides they need to be not available. Otherwise random rolls to see if the group comes across one.

What percentage do you use for chances of a ley line present? There are random roll tables for how long the ley line is, but I haven't found anything in the books for actually stumbling across one in the first place. I'd be interested in a percentile chart for ley lines and ley line nexuses.

I always first decide if the campaign is in a heavy ley line setting or non-existent. If it's heavy, then there are going to monsters all over the damn place, strange phenomenon, and possibly battles to be stumbled upon. Of course there is no issue finding a ley line or feeling one in the distance.

If it's non-existent, it's more road warrior or survivor man with the ley lines being barely detectable. I'll have at certain points they sense something and that it feels almost like ley line energy. Once pursuing the source I have them find a ley line that doesn't actually have bonuses but a just barely detectable ley line to the Ley Line Walker. I also will sometimes throw in like one nice fat one with none others in forever amount of distance, but it's taken over and locked down by something either nasty, neutral, or good and won't share it's ley line.

Such a chart would have to be customized for the area the characters are in. Some places (like the the Magic Zone) have lots of Ley Lines while others (like Russia) have very few. I generally just default to 15% chance of Ley Lines.

BuzzardB wrote:Do you feel if someone wants to play a ley-line walker then ley-lines should come up during the game?

Forcing them to come up is just a kind of metagaming. Ie, things come up in the game world to fill a real life quota (jim hasn't had a ley line yet - quick, force one in!)

I would have presumed the stealthy guy gets to recon because that situation just kind of comes up, or that the diplomat uses diplomacy because NPC's are naturally inclined to be somewhat open to diplomacy.

If I felt the GM was forcing in such stuff, it'd annoy me - it'd just be making busy work.

I'm not interested in game world which just change in order to make me feel good in RL. If I didn't like the game world as it is, I wouldn't play. If you're players will only play if you twist the game world around to suit them - that's not a great situation.

Sometimes if something might exist, I might make it slightly more likely to exist if it fits a PC. But if it wouldn't be there at all I don't force it in - that just ruins playing a particular setting.

Ley line availability depends on the setting (Rifts should have a lot more of them than Beyond the Supernatural for example, or Ninjas and Superspies), but yes they should be available for a LLW to find based on how common they'd be to the setting. A GM shouldn't contrive things so that they either can never find them no matter how common they should be or they're everywhere even when the setting doesn't go along with that. Which is why as some note you should have maps and clear ideas as to where Ley Lines are in the game so that you aren't tempted to make them more of less available because you want to make things easier or harder for the character as you'll quickly find yourself leaning towards one of those extremes (most likely the 'can't find any anywhere even on Rifts Earth' position, as one player complained about in the Rifts forum) if you're making it up on the fly as you go along.

Doesn't it specify in the LLW class that they can detect 'undetectable ley lines?' Essentially, that opens the door for the GM to give them a ley line in the campaign that doesn't change or impact the story. It just gives them a non-bonus ley line so they can go meditate and get their spells. Otherwise, IMHO, you should be giving them more access to spells that they can learn.

I always see it as my job to make the campaign applicable to whatever classes I allow. I don't have a strict storyline, but a story that can move and altar to ensure a fun campaign for everyone.

I don't have the book in front of me and haven't looked at it in over a year, so I welcome corrections. Didn't BtS 1ed have transitional places of power that essentially worked the same way? Poof, there, poof, gone. Would a LLW be able to use those?

Nightfactory wrote:

arouetta wrote:I don't have the book in front of me and haven't looked at it in over a year, so I welcome corrections. Didn't BtS 1ed have transitional places of power that essentially worked the same way? Poof, there, poof, gone. Would a LLW be able to use those?

I don't have the BtS book, but I don't see why not if it's a temporary PPE receptacle.

Okay, I have the book, and until Palladium the 2ed book dealing with magic, 1ed is still relevant. There are Rips of Magic, which are described as a tiny fragment of a ley line (4-16 ft area). Transitional Places of Power are irregularities on an existing ley line, like sitting on a PPE volcano when it decides to blow its top for a few days then settle back down to normal. Both could be useful for a mage wanting a fill-up.

Well nothing in the rules say Ley-lines are dangerous other then from storms. Which to me doesn't even say how often that happens.
In general I see to camp of thoughts
1. IN general people see a resource then it should be used. So most add things in. Ie if I'm going to be powerfully at it then I should camp here. So monsters and others things flock to them.

2. I see ley-lines most likely as some have campers, but alot are remote wilderness areas. So why would something be their over the normal.

Sometimes it makes since like to have monster at nexus, since they rift in, but most people would leave because their is that threat, but again how often do rifts happen again no real rules for it has far has I know.

So it really what type of group do you want. Want a wizard always going to ley-lines like they are truck stop or dangerous places best to be avoided. Again their is little in the way of cannon has far has I know to say either is right. It just GM preference.

I throw in a random leyline. I use the lil chart for size.

I also use nexus points as arenas for major badguys.

Ley Lines are less useful than simply finding crowds of people. As such, I don't think it's a big deal one way or the other.

--flatline

For Rifts, ley lines are regionally specific. See the most appropriate world book for how common they are. England, for example, has them practically everywhere while northern Michigan is supposed to have hardly any.

That said, I think it's a poor GM that doesn't at least try to engage major elements of every player character. If you've got supernatural characters, the cool effects of ley lines ought to come into play periodically.

flatline wrote:Ley Lines are less useful than simply finding crowds of people. As such, I don't think it's a big deal one way or the other.

--flatline

Unless you are using Rue as your canon...there is no syphoning off of PPE from people unawares in RUE....then finding a LL or LLN is an easier way to refill with PPE cause you don't need to broadcast to the people that you are taking their PPE.

drewkitty ~..~ wrote:

flatline wrote:Ley Lines are less useful than simply finding crowds of people. As such, I don't think it's a big deal one way or the other.

--flatline

Unless you are using Rue as your canon...there is no syphoning off of PPE from people unawares in RUE....then finding a LL or LLN is an easier way to refill with PPE cause you don't need to broadcast to the people that you are taking their PPE.

I would love to know the reason behind that omission.

--flatline

BuzzardB wrote:Hello all.

So will be in a new campaign coming up and our GM asked me for some advice on how to handle Ley Lines in his game and I wanted to hear some other GMs opinions.

One of the character in the game is a Ley-Line Walker, who this discussion is pretty much all about.

Many of their class feature are ley-line related so if a ley-line is not going to be involved they are cut off from a lot of what MAKES a ley-line walker. That being said Ley line walkers are very powerful without ley-lines and not only do they, as a class, get a lot of ley-line related feature the ley-line itself grants them lots of extra benefits like more P.P.E., 50% increase range, damage and other spell junk.

Do you feel if someone wants to play a ley-line walker then ley-lines should come up during the game?

I personally said yes, since when I GM I try to let everyone have a chance at playing to their characters strengths. Stealthy guys gets to do some dangerous recon jazz, fighter guy gets to smash someones face, diplomancer gets to convince their benefactor to pay them more ect ect.

I'd say, "Sometimes."

A lot of it depends on what kind of game you're in. If the GM has already written an adventure, THEN the player wants to be a Line Walker... Too bad. On the other hand, if the player has the character, and the GM is basing the adventure on the characters, then yeah, he should probably throw in a ley line somewhere.
If it's part of an extended campaign, though, it wouldn't be right to include ley lines in every single adventure of the campaign unless it made sense. Especially if ley lines cause problems for other members of the party (psi-stalkers, for example).

flatline wrote:

drewkitty ~..~ wrote:

flatline wrote:Ley Lines are less useful than simply finding crowds of people. As such, I don't think it's a big deal one way or the other.

--flatline

Unless you are using Rue as your canon...there is no syphoning off of PPE from people unawares in RUE....then finding a LL or LLN is an easier way to refill with PPE cause you don't need to broadcast to the people that you are taking their PPE.

I would love to know the reason behind that omission.

--flatline

Quite possible to avoid loopholes like the one you just described.

Killer Cyborg wrote:

flatline wrote:

drewkitty ~..~ wrote:

flatline wrote:Ley Lines are less useful than simply finding crowds of people. As such, I don't think it's a big deal one way or the other.

--flatline

Unless you are using Rue as your canon...there is no syphoning off of PPE from people unawares in RUE....then finding a LL or LLN is an easier way to refill with PPE cause you don't need to broadcast to the people that you are taking their PPE.

I would love to know the reason behind that omission.

--flatline

Quite possible to avoid loopholes like the one you just described.

There is only one possible use for that rule, so I fail to see how using the rule for that purpose could be considered a loophole.

--flatline

flatline wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:

flatline wrote:

drewkitty ~..~ wrote:

flatline wrote:Ley Lines are less useful than simply finding crowds of people. As such, I don't think it's a big deal one way or the other.

--flatline

Unless you are using Rue as your canon...there is no syphoning off of PPE from people unawares in RUE....then finding a LL or LLN is an easier way to refill with PPE cause you don't need to broadcast to the people that you are taking their PPE.

I would love to know the reason behind that omission.

--flatline

Quite possible to avoid loopholes like the one you just described.

There is only one possible use for that rule, so I fail to see how using the rule for that purpose could be considered a loophole.

--flatline

Okay, how about I spell it out then. The rule may have been purposefully removed to avoid the abuses that it can lead to. The idea of mages seems to have been that they have limited supplies of ppe to do their magic with. Giving them unlimited access to nigh unlimited amounts of PPE that no one can stop them from tapping, with no defense, in almost every adventure location probably was removed as it was being abused by munchkins and powergamers. If your group still likes it then go for it. But it seems that the RUE rule set no longer uses it, quite likely for that exact reason.

flatline wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:

flatline wrote:

drewkitty ~..~ wrote:

flatline wrote:Ley Lines are less useful than simply finding crowds of people. As such, I don't think it's a big deal one way or the other.

--flatline

Unless you are using Rue as your canon...there is no syphoning off of PPE from people unawares in RUE....then finding a LL or LLN is an easier way to refill with PPE cause you don't need to broadcast to the people that you are taking their PPE.

I would love to know the reason behind that omission.

--flatline

Quite possible to avoid loopholes like the one you just described.

There is only one possible use for that rule, so I fail to see how using the rule for that purpose could be considered a loophole.

--flatline

The ONLY possible use for that rule is to routinely mass-farm PPE unsuspecting passersby in crowded areas?
It couldn't possibly be used to gain low amounts of PPE from a single individual in an emergency?

Because I tend to think that the rule was probably written for the latter, and retracted due to the former.

eliakon wrote:

flatline wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:

flatline wrote:
I would love to know the reason behind that omission.

--flatline

Quite possible to avoid loopholes like the one you just described.

There is only one possible use for that rule, so I fail to see how using the rule for that purpose could be considered a loophole.

--flatline

Okay, how about I spell it out then. The rule may have been purposefully removed to avoid the abuses that it can lead to. The idea of mages seems to have been that they have limited supplies of ppe to do their magic with. Giving them unlimited access to nigh unlimited amounts of PPE that no one can stop them from tapping, with no defense, in almost every adventure location probably was removed as it was being abused by munchkins and powergamers. If your group still likes it then go for it. But it seems that the RUE rule set no longer uses it, quite likely for that exact reason.

As a GM, I liked how it made things different from every other game system out there since it encouraged mages to mingle with non-mages rather than shut themselves away. As a player, I liked it because it gave me options.

This is a perfect example of a rule that can't be abused without GM cooperation since it's as simple as "for some reason the people don't like the looks of you and so they're on their guard" and POOF! the PPE is no longer available for absorbing.

I'd love to know why RUE left it out, but no matter the reason, it hurt the game. It was a bad decision and ranks near the top of the list of bad decisions in RUE.

--flatline

Killer Cyborg wrote:

flatline wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:

flatline wrote:
I would love to know the reason behind that omission.

--flatline

Quite possible to avoid loopholes like the one you just described.

There is only one possible use for that rule, so I fail to see how using the rule for that purpose could be considered a loophole.

--flatline

The ONLY possible use for that rule is to routinely mass-farm PPE unsuspecting passersby in crowded areas?
It couldn't possibly be used to gain low amounts of PPE from a single individual in an emergency?

Because I tend to think that the rule was probably written for the latter, and retracted due to the former.

The rule specifically spelled out the limits on how many people could be drawn from. If the intent was to only ever allow drawing from a single individual, then that's what the rule would have said.

--flatline

flatline wrote:The rule specifically spelled out the limits on how many people could be drawn from. If the intent was to only ever allow drawing from a single individual, then that's what the rule would have said.
--flatline

I never said that the intent was only ever to allow drawing from a single individual.
What I said was that it's possible to use the power as described without regularly farming unsuspecting crowds.
And I said that because you claimed that such farming was the "only" possible use for the power.

flatline wrote:This is a perfect example of a rule that can't be abused without GM cooperation since it's as simple as "for some reason the people don't like the looks of you and so they're on their guard" and POOF! the PPE is no longer available for absorbing.

You're not wrong.
The thing is, though, that many GMs cooperate. Heck, there are a lot of people here on the forums that argue that it's a GM's job to cooperate.

I'd love to know why RUE left it out, but no matter the reason, it hurt the game. It was a bad decision and ranks near the top of the list of bad decisions in RUE.
--flatline

It hurt YOUR game.
That's not the same as hurting the game.

As I said, the reason why seems to be to curb abuse.
Whether or not you think that's a good reason, that seems to be the most likely candidate.
You can always write Kevin a letter and ask, though.

drewkitty ~..~ wrote:

flatline wrote:Ley Lines are less useful than simply finding crowds of people. As such, I don't think it's a big deal one way or the other.

--flatline

Unless you are using Rue as your canon...there is no syphoning off of PPE from people unawares in RUE....then finding a LL or LLN is an easier way to refill with PPE cause you don't need to broadcast to the people that you are taking their PPE.

Yeah, according to the errata you have to announce to your target that you're about to drain their PPE.

flatline wrote:
As a GM, I liked how it made things different from every other game system out there since it encouraged mages to mingle with non-mages rather than shut themselves away. As a player, I liked it because it gave me options.

This is a perfect example of a rule that can't be abused without GM cooperation since it's as simple as "for some reason the people don't like the looks of you and so they're on their guard" and POOF! the PPE is no longer available for absorbing.

...snip... It was a bad decision and ranks near the top of the list of bad decisions in RUE.

--flatline

Mostly agrees with those points.