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So...putting aside common sense, has anyone ever made a character that, by the numbers, would survive a tank or vehicle stopper round (not counting a "bounce off AR")?

Is this even possible without some kind of body armor?

What's the craziest amount of chi you've ever had? Pushing tons of Chi into extra SDC (forget the name of the power that does that) might be a way...

Granted, we're getting waaaay into the HU type realm with this, but I'm curious if anyone's ever done math on that sort of thing.

I have a chi mage that could with but a touch of one magic item. . I have actually played this char....but only in pugs.

Can you explain the mechanics? I'm curious.

The char is an alchemic immortal and has the Vajra spells and has made several. One of them has it spell (Evoke Animus of Elemental Earth) to activated upon touch. And I mis-remembered, the one set up for auto-activation does not give the user SDC...(but with the rifter conversion it does give MDC) but does give the char a NAR 17and PS bonuses.
{The text is set up for playing in rifts which is why the SDC setting stats are in ().}

vajra--"big pow"--24 points...620 PPE&1700chi-
-chi absorption...1 point/melee pos
active spell containment-earth animus(85)[500]....[65min]able to sense the movement and type of chi and the presence of earth dragons through out a distance of 1 mile...a golden foil seams to cover the char as if a layer of metallic paint...(no sdc, confers a Nat AR 17, +1 ps/2 points invested) 50mdc/point invested, +1PS/2 points invested & PS becomes SN.

The char is set up to be able to play at almost any power levels. (GT's nightly Pugs were never very predictable about their power levels) So this particular Vajra's chi usage is in the munc....super high powered range.

The char's other vajra can produce other elemental animus that do have SDC protection. However, the text does not go into what the casting time for passive spell containment. So it might be just one APM needed like with Talisman or they may take the normal casting time of the spell.

Vehicle Stopper does 2D6 MD in N&SS so to make sure you survive a hit from one, you would need to pump 240 Chi into the Shi Jin (Hard Chi) MA Power to insure no harm (240 Chi x5 S.D.C. per point of Chi spent = 1200 S.D.C.). Possible, but unlikely at lower levels.

What forms and combos can get you that much Chi? I've lost a great deal of my familiarity with N&SS and I don't have my book handy.

Alrik Vas wrote:What forms and combos can get you that much Chi? I've lost a great deal of my familiarity with N&SS and I don't have my book handy.

You effectively can't not get it, if you stick with Tai Chi long enough.

Tai Chi
PE
+15 Chi
L3 double
L7 double
L11 double
L15 double

With a normal roll for PE of around 12 @ L15 that would be 432 chi

Now if the char is SN or a Super that doubles the initial chi, & presuming that the PE roll is over the average ...say 18 & Tai Chi...the chi score will be 1,056.

Going munc......high powered.... the Wu Shih is a retired MA so that says that the Wu Shih has to be a 2nd CC.
Start the char starts out with their core PE rolls maxed out that averages to 21
Add in being a Super, x2
having the DMA CC with TCC at L15 as the primary MAF +15 & 4 'double's
& Snake Style @L3 as a secondary MAF one double.
Level 1 Wu Shih
[((21x2) +15) x32]=1,824 chi.

Same Wu Shih @ L15 would be (using average rolls) +15 so just 1,839 chi.
[going Full munch. & w/max'ing the WS level ups....(21+15+30)x64=4,224 chi]

That's quite a bit. Where's the rule about chi being double for supernaturals, Rifts Conversion Book?

SN doubling Rifter 3, supers doubling in HU2 main book. Which is why in my example i used a super instead of a SN. The SN chi doubling is only officially Optional.

That said, MYSTIC CHINA includes the Chi Overcharge power: meditate for an hour, your chi is doubled for a day.

Regularguy wrote:That said, MYSTIC CHINA includes the Chi Overcharge power: meditate for an hour, your chi is doubled for a day.

The Chi Overcharge of the Mystic China book lets char gather and hold a double portion of Chi till they fall asleep. Much the why Mages can gather and hold more then their Base PPE, except for longer.

Alrik Vas wrote:That's quite a bit. Where's the rule about chi being double for supernaturals, Rifts Conversion Book?

I imagine it runs along the lines that supernatural creatures generally have the equivalent of Extraordinary PE, and the power of Extraordinary PE doubles your base Chi so supernatural creatures therefor have double the normal base Chi.

Haven't looked in a while but a Dedicated Martial Artist with two MA that double Chi but at different levels can end up with thousands of Chi by mid-level with a decent starting PE (and that's not even considering an extraordinary or super-human level of PE). Which means that an evil one can prove a monster to deal with when he can have over a thousand negative chi points to work with.

Alrik Vas wrote:So...putting aside common sense, has anyone ever made a character that, by the numbers, would survive a tank or vehicle stopper round (not counting a "bounce off AR")?

Easy.
Worldly MA + Sumo Style + Stone Ox = Minimum SDC of 90 , almost 1 MDC.

I think using Hard Chi would be an easier way to survive than building your raw SDC. As far as I know there is no parrying bullets allowed in this game and "survive" doesn't sound like "dodge" so I have to eat this damage somehow.

A vehicle-stopper round can do up to 320 (3D6x10 damage) or 1299 (2D6 Mega-Damage). Building on what fbdaury started, if you double that for a natural 20 (I don't think you can get any other type of crit) that would be 640 or 2499.

I'm not going to throw in anything from other systems (is Rifter 3 even canon?) but as drew mentions, tai-chi doubles at 3/7/11/15.

I say build a Geomancer with Tai Chi.

Using your 3 chi mastery powers, you select "hard chi" and then "dragon chi" and "chakuri chi". This will allow you to collect chi regardless of whether you're in an area with positive or negative flows, and 'positive or negative' can be accessed in either place.

Depending on location, you can tap up to 9 positive at a waterfall/volcano/ocean or 6 negative if underground.

You start with a level 3 spell "Draw Flowing Spiral of Chi" (page 77) which can suck down 5-30 positive from the sky (total 14-39) or suck up 4-24 points from below (total 10-30).

You have a class ability called 'Diverting Lines of Chi' (Mystic China page 63) which allows you for 2 hours to double a chi flow. Your ability to detect existing flows and redirect them will also make setting this up pretty easy. You also have the ability to halve or completely negate chi flows in areas you don't plan to be in to stop others from using it. So you decide to double the flow, now you have 28-78 positive or 20-60 negative to deal with.

You can supplement your class ability's multiplier by casting another spell you start with, 2nd level on page 75 "Draw Confining Arc of Chi" to triple the chi flow in your defensive position. Now you have 84-234 positive or 60-180 negative to work with.

We'll make this guy so he's 4th level and learns "Draw Alternate Line" of natural chi, 6th level spell on page 83. This allows him to compound the flow 4x into a single go. This means (I'm just doing negative because easy math) 2nd round he has 120-360, 3rd he has 180-540, 4th he has 240-720. At which point the line loop will collapse and he's back down to 60-180 until he casts another loop. At higher levels this can be maintained for even longer periods. If you allow permanence wards to extend Chi Magic spells then you can effectively get an unlimited chi flow this way, which would allow you to build up unlimited amounts eventually even in the most pathetic chi areas...

A Tao Shih or Wu Shih to start out with all of these at 1st level but Hsien Hsia doesn't teach chi mastery and a Wu Shih is stuck at third so they only get their chi doubled once. That could still be adequate though. In this case it might be better (depending on your PE) to select Snake Style though, since they CAN get Chi Overcharge at 3rd level. It's a question of what is better: PEx2+30 or PEX4. If you have a PE over 15 then Snake Style is better, if you have a PE under 15 then Tai Chi is better. I'll give the tie-breaker at PE 15 to Taichi because they can ALWAYS store 60 chi whereas Snake-Style has to build up to it, which will cost them time.

Whether you go with Fang or Wu, Tai or Snake, neither class or art has PE requirements, so you could go with a PE of 3 (minimum) for this example. Even though this character class can select any physical skill, which could be used to boost PE and chi, I won't do so either.

Unfortunately Chi Overcharge isn't available since Tai Chi isn't one of the main-book arts which Advanced Chi Mastery was made available to. But that's okay, because it can be overcome with planning.

For "potentially strongest at 1st level" it's definitely the high PE overcharging Snake Style Wu Shih. At higher levels, it's going to be the Tai Chi Fang Shih.

By level 4, even with a PE of 3, the Fang Shih will have a Chi of 36 ((3+15)x2) allowing them to draw on that much chi per round to block 180 SDC using Hard Chi. Setting up this amount of chi would be incredibly easy for them. Using a 6 chi area they could combine their class ability with Confining Arc to sextuple it, or even with a meager 3 points, the minimum gained from Flowing Spiral will boost it by at least 4 (average 14) if negative and at least 2 (average 7) if positive.

Level 7 with 72, as explained in the above you can still engineer this type of chi flow to allow you to block 320 SDC each round.

Actually I'm not even sure if that's the limit of what you draw, or just the limit of the normal flow. If there is a chi flow of 10 and you have chi 1 and can only draw on 1 max, are you limited to drawing in 1 in that melee, or is it 1 on first action, 2 on second, 4 on third, and then the remaining 3 points on the fourth?

Level 11 with 144 you can block 640 SDC per draw. Level 15 with 288 you can block 1280 per draw. That's not quite 2499 but with a x8 multiplier, added PE will get you a lot closer.

The strategy about chi flows is mostly about maintenance. The strategy of taking 2 artforms as a Dedicated or Open Hand is a good one. Particularly if both arts have multipliers and the GM lets them stack. The problem about that though is while at full chi you could take 1 good shot, unless you can control your chi flows, you won't be able to keep it up if someone keeps shooting 2D6 MD shots at you.