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So I just bought the Rifts Unlimited book and I have a group of players wanting to play a special forces/Coalition characters. I have been toying with an idea for a long adventure which involves a charismatic burster hell bent on acquiring some magical/psionic artifact capable of extinguishing the sun (when used on ley lines and combined with the burster's own power).

I was wondering if there is any precedent for this sort of world spanning threat on Rifts Earth. Also, I am used to d20/pathfinder. Rifts seems to be much more deadly, with increased character level not really making you that much tougher. Any tips on keeping important NPCs alive without having to fudge rolls?

Chris

aftershock wrote:So I just bought the Rifts Unlimited book and I have a group of players wanting to play a special forces/Coalition characters. I have been toying with an idea for a long adventure which involves a charismatic burster hell bent on acquiring some magical/psionic artifact capable of extinguishing the sun (when used on ley lines and combined with the burster's own power).

I was wondering if there is any precedent for this sort of world spanning threat on Rifts Earth. Also, I am used to d20/pathfinder. Rifts seems to be much more deadly, with increased character level not really making you that much tougher. Any tips on keeping important NPCs alive without having to fudge rolls?

Chris

If it comes right down to it, teleport/dimension teleport innate ability or something. Or just make the burster never go anywhere without a posse, RIFTS is very heavy on the guns for hire notion and those guns for hire might be brodkil subdemons and stuff. The biggest thing I have found over gming this setting for a while is that there's no in-built power level control so the GM has to very specifically manage what is and is not a "thing" in the story being told. A Burster is either amazing and deadly or hes sort of pathetically weak based on what else you allow in your world.

Also dont forget vehicles. I mean if I was a squishy human psychic hell bent on destroying the earth I'd at least have the good villain sense to roll around in a Doom Tank of some kind.

Mechnoids sets precident for world spaning threat as does the four horse men.

Some thoughts (many of which you probably already had yourself):

-Rifts is both way more and way less deadly than pathfinder/d20. It has a TON of save-or-die (or "debuffed to near-helplessness) threats out there (from "head shot you're dead" to "river of lava, you're screwed"). On the flip side it's not that hard to get yourself a ton of MDC while doing rather small-potatoes damage. In my experience with Pathfinder is the opposite.

-CS have a slight problem in that most of their stuff (weapons, armor) is kind of crap compared to what you can get elsewhere. It's also a lot BETTER than things you can get elsewhere; but whether you're comparing Dead-boy armor to Russian Magic plate, a SAMAS to a war chief, or a mighty Death's Head Transport to a Galapagos Submersible Robot you usually (maybe not ALWAYS) see the CS out-creeped in the power-creep race.

-The CS is also woefully under-prepared to deal with magic. A lot of the metaplot for Rifts Earth politics involves the CS either getting lucky or getting surreptitiously rescued from magic they couldn't deal with on their own. Or dealing with it in an incredibly inefficient manner because all they had was the hammer of overwhelming firepower.

-Rifts has the advantage/problem of making things a bit more...real? in terms of army combat numbers. Big ol' vehicles need big ol' crews to keep 'em running. Awesome gear requires awesome maintenance and supply trains (a big deal for a lot of rifts adventuring parties is just keeping their armor functional and finding ammo for their guns) to keep it going. A gang of CS commandos going to Africa are either going to have to somehow fix their own gear (difficult) get regular resupply (near-impossible) or use local replacements (HERESY! *blam*). This can be a problem OR an opportunity, depending on how things shake out.

-The above don't mean you shouldn't use the CS, it's just something that has to be kept in mind when setting up challenges for CS adventurers.

-While there is plenty of precedent for global threats, making the very localized, balkanized, and not-very-good-at-(scouting/intelligence/diplomacy) nations of rifts earth NOTICE these threats is another story. Essentially NO ONE knows what is west of the Rocky Mountains (California could be super-utopia and no one would notice), I don't recall what the Africa Apocalypse adventure had to bring in folks from the CS (if anything). Presumably Mr. Evilguy commits crimes in the CS and becomes the international fugitive that the party chases?

edit for more:

Just to run with the above concept; Johnny Evilguy is essentially an international criminal, so he will regularly be either charming/lying his way into government halls or picking fights with and avoiding governments as he rocks around the globe lying, cheating and stealing with his dazzling charisma. On that same tack, might be a good idea to give him a mind-melter (as a fiercely loyal minion, right next to the mind-reading and stealthy-as-heck vagabond) or even dual-class him into it.

Side note: dual-classing is a thing, it's as overpowered as gestalting a character but that's actually okay for an end-boss villain.

The main thing is while he's charismatic and charming as heck, and his henchmen are presumably super-loyal to him, there are going to be plenty of times when it just makes a lot more sense that he FORCES people to do his bidding, like making a guard unlock a door or forcing a line-walker to get in the way of the PCs.