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It seems everyone agrees that the amount of powers to give generic hero with powers is
Two majors and two minors or some variation of that.
All my years we have played either 1 M 3 m, 2M, or 5m and I’ve scoured the books and don’t seem to find a standard power distribution that reflects the common methods in this forum.
I was wondering if that was a collective decision or if there is a spot in the rule book.
What I’ve always done was, to make leveling interesting and to reward long time characters, is slowly add powers over time via story elements or weapons so by level five they will probably have another major and minor added.
How has your current power ratio affected your games? Any complains on your current system?
Is there a page that says the general amount of powers that’s ideal? If someone could tell me the standard everyone goes by I’d appreciate it

I was wondering if that was a collective decision or if there is a spot in the rule book.

Every Power Category lists how many powers of each type the toon gets. Most have a percentage table for random rolling. In addition, there is a generic powers roll table just before the powers descriptions.

What I do is, follow the books. Players can roll on the D100 tables or choose a result.

Sure, some PCs get more powers than others, but hey, that's life. Palladium isn't supposed to be fair, or be balanced, or even make sense.

Theoretically, each PC gets something else to balance them, with added abilities or more advantageous skill lists. This is little comfort to most players, as telling them "Sure, Captain Above-Average is invulnerable, flies at Mach 4, shoots eye lasers, and bench presses bulldozers. You, though, get a +2 vs magic, +1D4X10 SDC and +1D4 to PS!" doesn't really work.

With me it depends, follow what ITWastrel said sometimes, but mostly these days unless the player wants something more random I'll work on a concept with them and see what we can come up with based on what each category has as an option.


Daniel Stoker

NeoGenMike wrote:It seems everyone agrees that the amount of powers to give generic hero with powers is
Two majors and two minors or some variation of that.

This has not been my experience among the Palladium circles I frequent. Every power category that offers super powers has a unique table to use to determine the number of major and/or minor powers, and less than half of those tables can produce a hero with two major and two minor powers.

The Rifts Conversion Book intentionally leaves open the chance to select super powers, to a recommended maximum of 3 Major and 3 Minor, but clearly leans towards using HU tables instead.

I go by the book. Random roll or pick for the category, random roll for the number of powers (if they indeed do have powers), and roll or pick for each power. I allow them to pick because they might have an idea what they want their character to be able to do. The only time I add powers, either at the beginning or as they progress, is if there was a major event in the story which cause their powers to change. And a lot of the time it is a swap where they lose a power to gain another one.

For generic characters with superpowers you're either an Experiment or a Mutant.
I'll let them choose from the listed options with the exception of the "best" one.
1M 3m
4m
2M 1m
1M 2m
5m
2M
1M 1d4+1m Psi
2m 2S Psi
3M or 6m

We start by eliminating 3M or 6m because that is the best roll.
We then eliminate 4m because 5m is an option
We then eliminate 1M 2m because 1M 3m is an option
We then eliminate 2M because 2M 1m is an option

That is why we are often left with 1M 3m; 2M 1m; 5m

If I'm the GM and not accepting pre-made chars....most make those rolls...unless the player has a character concept that I like already.

i'm at the point where I do like some game balance. I think what my next group will do is, that all players will either roll once, and everyone takes that roll, or we just decide on a number. Several different aspects of the game use a percentile, like the damage of a magic weapon. Its not all perfectly set up that mystically bestowed is equal to mutant or hardware, but its a nice start.

I just go by the book. As others have pointed out each category tells you what they get. As a GM I'lll allow a bit of lean one way or another. Seldom do people really want to "Enjoy the challenge" of being the lowest powered guy in the group.

By the book, or concepts. Power level we are going for in the group can influence the build greatly.

If I want to play a sort of spy based comic book game(think Agents of Shield) I most likely don't want to have a PC group of 5 first level Secret Operatives.....but I also most likely don't want a maxed out mutant blaster brick either. Now if the Mutant has a bunch of minors, but they are things like Iron Will, Living Anatomy, Criminal Intuition, Linguistics, Extraordinary IQ it would fit really well.

I would let the plays chose then look over the character to make sure they don't over do it. Having played champions in several of its editions, being forced to roll powers on a table would be a no go on my part. I would not even bother playing with that group and would find someone else to play with.