Marvel Multiverse RPG Random Character Generation

After spending the last couple of months exploring deeply through the Palladium Wilderness, our main protagonist side-trekked once again to the Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game where he was found pondering random character generation...

... I hate "building" characters, so much so, that I'll spend hours/days creating a system that lets me generate them randomly.

Such is what I've done for the Marvel Multiverse game.

The tables are a mix of all the classic dice, though primarily percentiles and 3d6 -- the game's core mechanic.

First you roll your rank. There are different tables for how varied you want your power levels to be.

Then you roll your origin and occupation -- these give you your "tags" and "traits" as per the rules.

Then you roll your core stats depending on your rank. For example rank 2 looks like this:

    3-4:  0

    5-8:  1

  9-12:  2

13-15:  3

17-18:  4

The bell curve favors a number equal to your rank and these results tend to give you slightly higher abilities than your starting ability points would normally allow. Example, rank 2 gives you 10 ability points to spend with a ability cap of 5 (so you could have four abilities at 0 and two at 5, extreme but allowed). With 6 abilities (Melee, Agility, Resilience, Vigilance, Ego, and Logic) rolling on the above table would average you a total of 12 (6 2s) not 10.

NOTE: Abilities in this game range from -3 to 9. Negative scores are very rare though. The "typical" person has 0 in all abilities (the game considers the average civilian to be rank 1, but they're really more akin to a rank 0). The way I figure, Marvel Multiverse abilities translate to the old FASERIP system as follows:

-3 -- Shift 0

-2 -- Feeble (2)

-1 -- Poor (4)

 0 -- Typical (6)

 1 -- Good (10)

 2 -- Excellent (20)

 3 -- Remarkable (30)

 4 -- Incredible (40)

 5 -- Amazing (50)

 6 -- Monstrous (75)

 7 -- Unearthly (100)

 8 -- Shift X (150)

 9 -- Shift Y (200)

Rank 2s are given 8 powers. 1 power equals 1 ability point and as per the rules you can mix and match these. Rank 2s total points are 18 (10 ability points + 8 powers). So if you spent 12 points rolling above, now you're only going to have 6 powers. I favor stronger abilities and fewer powers (this game gives A LOT of powers and this can be cumbersome for play -- not remembering what they all do (similar sounding names) and trying to decide which one you should use, although some are never "used" they are simply built in; permanent buffers, such as mighty 1-4 (super-strength that increases your damage multiplier).

NOTE: Not all powers are actual powers, many are basically just maneuvers; feats if you will.

In my random system, when rolling a power, you first roll to see which power set table to roll on, then you go to that table and roll for a power. If you roll a power that has prerequisites, you must take all of them. The one prerequisite I ignore is "rank". So, if you had 6 powers and the first one you roll has 2 prereqs, you must take all 3 and now you only have 3 powers left to roll for. If you don't have enough powers left to cover all of the prereqs, you work backwards to a lesser power that you can afford. Or, you can sacrifice some ability points to make room for more power slots.

You may continue rolling in that power set or roll randomly for a new power set table.

Here's a sample character I rolled up (and a character sheet I made; still tweaking...):

Whyspurr is rank 1.

Origin: Unknown (as opposed to hi-tech, mutant, alien, special training, etc.)

Occupation: Outsider (conveniently, this goes great with her origin)

Tags:

• Mysterious: The character has no idea why or how they have their powers.

Traits:

• Connections--Outsiders: Connections basically allow you to occasionally call in a favor. This one requires a clever explanation as she doesn't know how she has her powers, so who is she calling for favors???
• Fresh Eyes: You have an edge on logic checks when trying something for the first time.
• Stranger: You have "trouble" on checks trying to fit in locally.
• Sneaky: Others have "trouble" trying to spot you if you're hiding.

As a rank 1 character she gets 5 ability points and 4 powers; total value: 9. With my creation tables her abilities add up to 7 so she only gets 2 powers which is MINISCULE for this rpg's intentions, however having a 2 in both resilience and vigilance make her a very durable rank 1, in that her health and focus are both 60 (focus fuels some powers).

I rolled telepathy for her first power set and then cloak for the power. Cloak requires that you have telepathic link (basic telepathy) and that you are rank 2, but, I ignore rank prereqs. So those are her 2 powers. Cloak allows you to hide your presence from someone, but being rank 1 it's not that strong because of her low logic defense (target number: 10 on 3d6 + vigilance score) -- however, she has sneaky as trait which gives people "trouble" (disadvantage) trying to spot her, quite convenient!

So, she's a durable, sneaky telepathic in the most basic sense. Not a scrapper. The most damage she can hope to do is marvel die (d6) x1 +1, so 2-7, or double that on a "fantastic" success. That's... not a lot, but, that's rank 1 for you.

Now, with "building" in mind, would she be better off knocking a couple points off her abilities and grabbing 2 more powers? Maybe, because as she is, she can't do much except sneak around and communicate telepathically -- she'd make a great spy. However, she can sustain a decent amount of damage. 

When "building" heroes for this game, I would always put the most points into resilience and then vigilance. A rank 1 hero could, by-the-book, have the following build: 0,0,0,0,1,4, with the 4 in resilience that would give you 120 health, better than half the Marvel Universe! A clever selection of 4 powers and you've got quite a bad-ass rank 1 hero (except for damage, rank 1 damage is highly limited). Why wouldn't you do this every time? This is why I don't like "point-buy". 

But, let's roll up one more power for her just to see what would happen. Sticking with the telepathy power set, I rolled Mental Punch*, which lets you do focus damage on a melee attack instead of health damage. For this to be worth it, she needs a better melee score, so now I have to take away 2 points from her other stats, one for the power and one to add a point to melee. So I would drop vigilance and agility each down to 1. Now her melee attacks have a x2 multiplier (according to MY HOUSE RULE, not official rules; see below) and can affect health or focus.

*Psylocke's psi-blade is sort of like mental punch. Psylocke also has "telekinetic attack" which stuns as well as damages and can be done from a distance, so this one might in fact be her psi-blade. She also has flight (?). Seems Psylocke's powers have changed somewhat. Traditionally, her psi-blade severely stuns anyone she hits with it; it's a finishing move. These days she can manifest this as a bow and arrow, apparently.

*Another point -- all of the character profiles use these generic power descriptions, e.g., mental punch, telekinetic attack. The term psi-blade is not used anywhere on Psylocke's sheet.

Tying health to one stat might be a system flaw. You could go the FASERIP route and tie health to Melee, Agility, & Resilience, and tie focus to Vigilance, Ego, & Logic. (then x this total by 10). So, Whyspurr would have 50 health instead of 60 and 20 focus instead of 60. Minimum health and focus for anyone would be 10. Spiderman's health would grow from 90 to 150 and his focus would fall from 90 to 70. Flipping through the hero profiles shows that this method would have results that are surprisingly close to the way they are (Spiderman's health jump being one of the more extreme changes).

Another critique...

Damage.

Damage is based on your rank. There are 6 ranks (1-6). Rank 1 is pretty much normal human level hero, rank 6 is cosmic level hero. You have 4 types of attacks: Melee, Agility, Ego, and Logic, all do damage according to your overall rank, not your ability score. So Sue Storm (Invisible Woman) who is rank 4 (with Melee 2, Agility 2) has a baseline of rank 4 damage with all attacks, so her regular punch is as mighty as her telekinesis, and, mightier than most of the Marvel Universe (actually her telekinesis is mightier still because of power boosts). So if she uses a gun she does rank 4 damage. Punisher is only rank 2... see where this is going? 

NOTE: How damage works: All rolls are 3d6. One of those d6 is the Marvel Die. If your attack succeeds, your damage is your Marvel Die x rank + ability score. Damage possibilities. Note: Marvel Die 6 is a Fantastic Success which means double damage or added effect or sometimes both.

• Rank 1: 1-6 + 1    (2-7)
• Rank 2: 2-12 + 2  (4-14)
• Rank 3: 3-18 + 3  (6-21)
• Rank 4: 4-24 + 4  (8-28)
• Rank 5: 5-30 + 5  (10-35)
• Rank 6: 6-36 + 6  (12-42)

My change: Damage multiplier is your individual stat not your overall rank. So, Melee 3 equals a x3 multiplier. Agility 4 equals a x4, Logic 2 equals a x2, and so on. In some cases, some high ranked characters will have up to a x13 multiplier with this ruling, e.g., a 9 melee with mighty: 4, and that's fine. No more Clea (rank 6) or the Invisible Woman (rank 4) kicking the ass of the likes of Daredevil, Elektra, Punisher, etc. (all rank 2) without even using their powers! So the above progression continues as follows:

(Stat) Rank 7: 7-42 + 7  (14-49)

(Stat) Rank 8: 8-48 + 8  (16-56)

(Stat) Rank 9: 9-54 + 9  (18-63)

Minimum multiplier would be 1, even for stats of 0 or less.

Fights in this game can last awhile, so more damage is not a bad thing.

This wouldn't affect Whyspurr really, unless she picked up a gun, then her agility of 2 would give her a x2 multiplier.

So rank still matters the way I do it because lower ranked characters still have lower stats and fewer powers and traits. It doesn't change the game too much, just makes things more logical to my brain.

Of course, you could ignore every mention of the word "rank" all together and roll up your stats simply by rolling a d6 for each, giving results 1 through 6, equivalent to "good" through "monstrous" in the old FASERIP system (by my calculation). Roll for origin and occupation and then roll 1d3 extra traits and 2d6 powers for a true random old-school experience! (Then again, Champions is old-school too and that's as point-buy as it gets... ugh!)

All for now, ideas for XP and advancement, another time.

Meanwhile, my thoughts drift back to Traveller and a certain fantasy offshoot I occasionally work on...

The Call Of Palladium...

A Cyber-Knight drawing her Psi-Sword... makes you wanna play doesn't it?

And so it calls, this crazy system of games from ages past and present.

The mother of all tool boxes.

The sum of all genres.

Rules upon rules, systems upon subsystems, flaws upon flaws, coolness that knows no bounds. A deep-dive is akin to an RPG acid-trip, you awake hours later on the floor, perfectly-bound soft-cover books and character sheets scattered about, your head ringing inside, police sirens in the distance... Is this the greatest system ever or the worst? Where have you been all this time? How many hours? How many days? To play this game straight or to hack? Hacking is a must. Contradictions and the fog of war demand it. But to pull one thread... does it unravel? No matter, down the rabbit hole you go. One thread at a time. Akin to reading the God Damn Necronomicon -- a sanity check will follow...

SYSTEM PSYCHOSIS...

• Only one attack per round. Special maneuvers that use two attacks are made at -4. Full round actions are made at -8. OR... roll 2d20/3d20 and keep the worst. This also means higher level spells will take 2 or 3 rounds to cast. We could introduce a casting roll...

• S.D.C./Hit points/A.R.. No M.D.C.!

• O.C.C related skills are rolled randomly. A multitude of class-tailored charts are required, or one standard, weighted with precursors and bonuses (like below.) How much time do you have? And so, no spamming physical skills. Secondary skills are ignored. For example, the Cyber-Knight's O.C.C Related Skills list would read:

2 rolls on the Physical skills chart

3 rolls on the W.P. charts (3 rolls total between ancient and modern)

7 rolls on the chart below... (followed by rolls on the specifically rolled or chosen skill chart)

01-05  Communications

06-10  Cowboy (+10%)

11-15  Domestic

16-20  Electrical

21-25  Espionage (+5%)

26-30  Horsemanship (+10%)

31-35  Mechanical

36-40  Medical

41-45  Military (+5%)

46-50  Physical (+5%)

51-55  Pilot (+5%)

56-60  Pilot Related

61-65  Rogue

66-70  Science

71-75  Technical (+5%)

76-80  W.P. Ancient

81-85  W.P. Modern

86-90  Wilderness (+5%)

91-00  Choose

• Weapon Proficiencies give a one-time bonus of +2 to strike/parry. If rolling randomly, you get a +2 every time you roll that weapon. This makes leveling up much simpler.

• Rolling a percentile skill you already have gives you a bonus of 10%.

• Paired Weapons roll 2d20 to attack. You can counter-strike, parry one, or both if also fighting with paired weapons.

• All spells and psychic powers rolled randomly. More tables that don't exist, but could without too much work.

• And speaking of tables... random tables for every single spell and magic item in the RIFTS Book of Magic and random tables for every single item listed in the Game Masters Guide. Every place you explore should produce random "somethings" to salvage and/or sell. A man can dream! Not impossible though...

• Each skill based on the sum of two stats, e.g., Pick Locks starting percentage is the sum of I.Q. and Prowess. Perhaps +10. Lots of work, maybe too subjective. Not crucial. Not necessary. Probably simpler to start every skill at 30 or 35%. Most of them already do.

• New skills should be less frequent, maybe 1 every 3 levels. Randomly rolled on your class chart like above. These are skills you are learning "off-screen" -- no need to explain. Perhaps have level-up instructions like 1 W.P. and 1 random skill. This way martial types will always improve combat in some way other than their hand-to-hand style. Or, add +1 to a W.P. of choice or roll randomly which results in +2 to whichever weapon skill is rolled.

• When you level up add 5% to all skills... or roll 1d6 -- more time-consuming, but more interesting. Even if you've never used the skill, it's assumed you're using them "off-screen."

• Hand-To-Hand styles are re-written to be more concise as to what you can and can not do and you CAN NOT trade up from Basic for a mere skill or two. 

• Or... combine all combat bonuses and maneuvers onto one chart and depending on your O.C.C., you get so many rolls on this chart per level. So, in effect, everyone has their very own combat style. Something akin to this... 

01-05  +1 to strike/parry

06-10  +1 to dodge

11-15  +1 to roll with punch...

16-20  +1 to pull punch

21-25  +1 to disarm/entangle

26-30  +2 damage -- melee

31-33  +2 damage -- ranged

34-36  +1 crit range (e.g., 19-20)

37-38  K.O./stun on 20

39-40  Deathblow on 20

41-44  W.P. ancient (+1 to current or +2 to random new one)

45-48  W.P. modern (+1 to current or +2 to random new one)

49-51  +1 to initiative

52-54  +1 to perception

55-56  +1 save vs curses

57-58  +1 save vs Disease

59-60  +1 save vs poison

61-62  +1 save vs Drugs/toxins

63-64  +1 save vs Circles

65-66  +1 save vs horror

67-68  +1 save vs insanity

69-70  +1 save vs K.O./stun

71-72  +1 save vs spells/rituals

73-74  +1 save vs psionics

75-76  +1 save vs wards/fumes

77-78  +10% vs coma/death

79-81  +1 M.E.

82-84  +1 P.S.

85-87  +1 P.P.

88-90  +1 P.E.

91-93  +1 SPD

94-00  Choose

• Bionic characters (Heroes Unlimited) roll bionics randomly and total value comes from that, which might determine how badly they want you back... are you hunted?

• No difference between punches and kicks, all are strikes that do normal strike damage or power-strike damage (2 attacks, see above.) Can't have worlds where knights in plate-mail are walking around trying to karate-kick dragons.

• Cyber-Knights' Psi-Swords start at 3d6 and crit on 19-20. Perhaps damage or bonus damage depends on the value of their M.E.?...or... they do 2d6 ignoring armor. They are PSI-Swords after all.

• XP based on monster hit points and finding stuff. This incentivizes action and exploration, not "story-telling." Long live the OSR!

• Critical Hits damage A.R. by one point. Death Blows by two.

• Spell-casting penalty for wearing armor for each point of A.R. over 10. This is added to the target's save/dodge or subtracted from the caster's strike roll, whichever is appropriate.

• "Mega-Damage" weapons simply get a multiplier: x5 or x10.

• When all else fails, play the game exactly as it is... except... M.D.C. must go, and XP is as described above, and no spamming physical skills, and... you see, rabbit holes inside of rabbit holes.

• And so on and on...

• But seriously, the game is fine... except for M.D.C..

RIFTS Ultimate Edition is so crammed with information that every time you read it, it's like you never have. The only other book that does this is the original AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide. RIFTS is wildly overwritten and often contradictory. And that is why you get pulled down the rabbit hole. You can not escape the gravity of this. And, do you even want to? Despite the madness, you love it.

Is this the book I would take to an island?

The ultimate game exists here... somewhere.

Honoring Memorial Day: To those patriots who fought (and fight) for the stars & stripes, I salute you.

O.C.C.: NIGHTBANE

(Sans any skills or martial-arts what-so-ever.)

On a world where your Nightbane transformation was PERMANENT, this is what you became...

A blend of leather and metal -- straps, chains, and spikes... But this is no armor, no true exoskeleton. This is your flesh. It doesn't come off, it can not be changed. Covered, perhaps. You can still bleed, a knife still cuts, a bullet, potentially fatal, but, probably not. You are tough. Tough as nails, tough as spikes. You can take... a lot. And give a lot more.

You hardly have a face, only a hint. Your lips will never again touch those of another. Do you have other options? Not your immediate concern.

You will almost certainly never walk the daylight again.

There's an invasion. A bleak mirror-world clandestinely attacks, ultimate motive, unknown. Do you defend? How can you when you are so shunned? Sometimes you have no choice but to engage and the more you fight, the more you appreciate what you are, nightmare it may be. 

Oh, how you love kicking ass.

So be it.

 

Boosting...TMNT Is Back!

As most of you probably know, Palladium Books has brought back the much beloved TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES & OTHER STRANGENESS Role-Playing Game. 

An absolute no-brainer for me!

I went in for the old-school black & white, with red editions.

Kickstarter link below!

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES & OTHER STRANGENESS

 

The SHIFTERS Campaign

Circa 2006.

A one on one campaign.

Was supposed to be one on two, but you all know how that goes.

Using my own rules for a gritty-as-fuck, realistic super-hero setting called SHIFTERS. The premise was a dipole reversal, during which a chaotic lightning storm covered the planet. Those in the vicinity of the multihued lighting, if they survived, were "shifted" into super-human status. This was street-level stuff, the strongest could maybe lift 20 tons.

The system, of which I had three editions, was an amalgamation of Cyberpunk 2020, Mutants & Masterminds 2E, and Palladium's Heroes Unlimited. There were no hit points, but a damage track involving Stun/KO/Death checks and negative modifiers, what some refer to as a death spiral. All attacks were opposed rolls.

Hunter, a Wolverine type detective, was the main character, with Crow, an all black teleporter showing up later.

It was set locally, for us Detroit. It was bloody and gritty, involving missing persons, pimps, whores, and sex-trafficking. There was a trans-dimensional succubus brothel, a fundamentalist organization seeking to eliminate SHIFTERS called S.N.O. (The Society for Natural Order), evil SHIFTERS, ninjas, and later, an African Civil War. 

Part One: A missing girl who would never be found, but the search involved taking down sex-traffickers, pimps, drug-dealers, the usual scum of the earth type stuff, with an epic tangent involving a gunfight/melee with an agent of S.N.O. in a raggedy liquor store. Ultimately, a succubus brothel was linked but not responsible. Oh, and an epic showdown with ninjas!

My campaign notes...

Part Two: Civil War in Monrovia, Liberia. Members of the press and civilians in need of rescue. The government reluctantly contracts the SHIFTERS to attempt an extraction, a potential act of war. Heavily inspired by the Sierra Leone Civil War and the movie Blackhawk Down.

Hence: Monrovia Down.

Cobra was killed by Hunter on a rainy rooftop after a brutal hour long fight in an abandoned factory district. Shot in the head. 

Haraka was killed in the final battle of Monrovia Down, being thrown out of an office building window several floors up.

Ruby assisted Hunter and Crow during Monrovia Down.

Vertigo, A European mercenary, nearly ended the heroes, but was also killed in the office building battle.

First page of 16 I drew for another story in the SHIFTERS universe.

The SHIFTERS binder.

Version 3 of the rules, not the rules used in the above adventures. 150 hand-written pages.

Including a section for Fantasy.

Who knows, maybe I'll organize, rewrite and publish someday.

Don't hold your breath.

 

A Rifter's Best Friend

There's nothing more loyal than a Coalition State Dogboy... anywhere... on earth... in space... another dimension... another reality. Nowhere. Nowhere, will you match this brand of devotion. The dog. The uplifted dog. The genetically modified dog. The Dogboy.

He'll sniff out your enemies. Natural. Supernatural. Doesn't matter. His sense of smell is one million times stronger than yours. And, he just might be psychic too. So magnify those senses by another million. He knows he's just a mutt. He knows you're superior. He knows you love him. He knows all of you love him. He knows you will die for him. Because you know he will die for you. In all of this he is content.

Just let him off his leash every now and then. Let him fight for the Coalition. Let him protect mankind. Let him protect you.

It's what he does.

Welcome to 2023.

 

Deathstalkers II: 700 Pages Of Pure METAL!

At times you crave something wild, something guttural, primal, unbalanced and unapologetic. Something with a bit more crunch and art that doesn't remind you of Nickelodeon.

Then this arrives...

Real quick: HYPERBOREA -- Nice books! Well laid out with cream, non-glossy, very readable pages. I also ordered a copy of Against The Dark Master, not because I was ever into Rolemaster, but Darkmaster looks awesome too.

But more on those games another time (especially HYPERBOREA), as my mind drifted into this dark realm...

Deathstalkers II: The Fantasy Horror Role-Playing Game, by Mike Whitehead and Joe Meyers, (C) 1999-2005.

I've owned this book for perhaps, 10 years? I saw it at the game store several times before finally pulling the trigger. It was a massive, almost 700 page tome that seemed ridiculous, but I had to buy it, if only for its sheer size and NERVE. It has since sat idle in my collection.

Now, Deathstalkers II, is an interesting game. I would describe it as Palladium Fantasy meets D&D 3.0, with a touch of Warhammer. Seriously, imagine if Palladium never happened until Kevin Siembieda played D&D 3.0 and house-ruled the hell out of it. That is exactly, Deathstalkers II.

Like Palladium, there are many races to choose from, and many of these races have sub-races, so lots of choices. There are plenty of Half-Somethings, but no Half-lings...

Races are where you get your hit points and stat generation, in fact, race is legitimately, half your character. And like Palladium, you roll a different number of dice for different stats depending on your race, for example, minotaurs roll 7d6 for strength, 2d6 for intelligence, faeries only roll 1d4 for strength and constitution, etc. You won't see any 18 strength gnomes in this game! Stats use the 3rd Edition bonus progression, and if it wasn't clear already, 3rd Edition is the backbone of this game, e.g., saving throws are: Fort, Reflex, and Will.

NOTE: This is not WoTC/Disney. If you're looking for balance and harmony among your fantasy races, you won't find it here. Perhaps explore the radiant citadel.

Races have some class restrictions, suggested alignments, and just like Palladium, a listed chance for cannibalism, which is just a descriptive stat that implies a gritty game. Most races have 0% chance of cannibalism while orcs and bestial-minotaurs (there are three types of minotaurs) take the crown at 100%, with goblyns and half-demons coming in at 75% and 70% respectively. 

Speaking of those half-demons, they are called the Antithrax. There's only one way an Antithrax comes into existence, and it's not implied like the half-orcs of old. This soulless race lives very bleak lives. The sample Antithrax picture below has hooves and a sword for an arm, but surprisingly, with all of the options in this book, there are no random tables here for rolling up your own unique demonic mutations...

Each race gets something called a Rage-Attack (which is optional) that they can use at the price of temporarily losing Constitution. It reminds me of a Capcom video game ability. For example, the Antithrax can open up a demon-pit of scorching flames around a nearby target doing 4d6 points of damage with no threat of actually igniting the victim. Fueling abilities with your stats, now that's a fascinating concept.

Below: A picture of a West-Lander Gnome. Poor little faerie. Faerie numbers are dwindling in this game world which might have something to do with the fact that eating faerie wings grants nice in-game benefits like granting extra spell castings, gaining 1d10 permanent new hit points, curing diseases, increasing ability scores, etc. You would never see something like this in a mainstream game.

Then we have the classes...

Here is a sample class chart...

And some class art. The art in this book is a cool mixture of pencils and ink. Occasionally, there's a bad piece, but overall, it's pretty damn good.

Characters all start at level 0 and each class gets a certain amount of skill points and a list of preferred skills. They all start with 3 APRs (actions per round.) You get Hit, Parry, Dodge, Initiative, and Damage modifiers, and eventually Feats and Special Abilities. If you want to improve skills or feats before you level-up, you can spend XP to do so -- another interesting concept. Also, non spell-casters can spend XP to gain particular spells. This XP will be spent in the thousands, and, for Legendary Spells, millions!

Multiclassing exists as it does in 3rd Edition D&D, but with limits. Every class has a list of Class Exits, very much like in Warhammer.

There are a shit-ton of skills and feats, some of which are wild, giving you crazy combat benefits, but with a finite number of uses before you have to repurchase the feat, another cool concept. Some stand-out Feats...

• Aggressive Assault (I-X): One use per round, roll your Aggressive Assault damage die (begins at 1d4) and multiply the result by your level, add this number to your normal damage roll. Aggressive Assault X (character levels 16+) has a damage die of 1d100! Limited number of uses before you must reacquire the feat.
• Fate (I-VIII): Allows re-rolls of attacks, saves, skills, etc. Fate VIII (character levels 3+) revives you from death back to perfect health -- one use only. One of the Half-Cat races begins with this feat. ("Do you want to live forever?")
• Mystic Assault (I-X): Similar to Aggressive Assault, but affects spell damage, range, and other properties.

There are interesting languages, a list of multiple offensive slang names for each race (such as Pech for dwarves, Stain for demons, Bull and Cow for minotaurs, Fleshy for humans, Halfbreed for a host of others, etc.) Birth Signs give your character a slight bonus. There are rules for insanity and rules for fame -- the grander your achievements, the higher the price on your head!

Combat is similar to Palladium's system, where-in you have a number of actions per round, spent, depending on what you want to do and what abilities/feats you might want to use. Melee attacks are parried and missile attacks are dodged. When you're out of actions, you can go into submissive defense mode where you can still parry (with limited effectiveness) but lose those actions on your next round, or you can take a mauling and hope your armor protects you, which... it won't. Armor is damage reduction, but not nearly enough. Shields add to your Parry score. There are many combat options if you want to use them.

There are over 500 spells in this book. Some new, some old with a different take. Magic-use is a spell-point system. You have X number of castings per day equal to half your Constitution score (keeping fractions) at 1st level and every level there-after. Some spell effects require spending multiple castings. Power Words & Ingredients reduce this cost -- pretty cool.

There are 5 dense pages of herbs and poisons, equipment lists are equally dense. Speaking of, if you want to be proficient in armor, you need to take the armor proficiency feat, regardless of your class, so you won't be wearing plate-mail for a while. Everyone starts out with fairly basic weapons and equipment and a handful of gold. Weapons are priced in the hundreds of gold pieces, e.g. a longsword is 565 GPs (Gpcs as listed in this game.) and damage is higher than you're used to, 2d6, 3d8, 3d10, 4d10, etc. Armor is priced in the high hundreds and well into the thousands. Everything has an availability score. It's a shame that D&D never used availability scores, there should be no guarantee of finding what you want in any particular town, which might give you reason to travel to the next one.

The game world is called, Arkastapha. The premise is one of lost beauty and a land ravaged by thousands of years of wars with Juggernauts -- ironclad golem-knights brought to life by dark Gods using the souls of the damned in the fires of the Dark Forge, and Demons (called Thraxians, once led by the Deathstalkers -- kind of like arch-demons, now in hibernation.) The usual monsters also exist, some with a new twist, and there are a fair number of them. Basically, think bleakness, scattered kingdoms. Points of light in a broken land. The mythology of it all is covered.

The character sheet. Standard, basic stuff. Functional. Could not find a downloadable version online. You know I'll make my own. It will require Pathfinder level complexity as bonuses come from all different directions...

There's an edge to this game that I find refreshing and mechanics that are innovative. 

Deathstalkers II: 700 pages of pure F*****G METAL! 

RIFTS: Wilderness Scout And... Skills

Once again I open the year with Palladium...

In between ideas, looking for a book to flip through... of course I grab from my Palladium shelf...

RIFTS: Ultimate Edition.

This time, I flip to the Wilderness Scout...

Low powered class, one of the mere mortals of RIFTS Earth, basically a tracker with nice bonuses to survival skills. RIFTS: Ultimate Edition adds three special abilities:

• Trail Blazing: The ability to cut and mark trails for others to follow.
• Cross-Country Pacing: The ability to pace your journey.
• Cartography: The specialized art of mapmaking.

Except, these are not special abilities at all, they're just, well... skills. And they're basically just fluff story skills that would rarely come up during play and can really be summed up under Land Navigation, which already exists.

Every class, in every game system, should have abilities that make them valuable to the team, and I'm not talking, balance, I'm talking usefulness, like, "Holy shit, am I glad we have a Wilderness Scout right now!"

Something like this would make this class a little cooler...

• Group Camouflage: Basically, mass stealth. With a successful roll, the Wilderness Scout can hide his entire team in wild terrain as if they all made their stealth* rolls. If time-keeping is important to you, it takes 1d4 minutes per person. If launching an ambush surprise attack, every member of a Wilderness Scout's group gains one extra attack during the first round of action. A failed attempt means that it's time to roll for initiative. Base Chance: 35%, +5% per level.
• *Oddly, with the plethora of skills available, there is no actual Stealth skill in RIFTS: Ultimate Edition, the closest thing is Prowl. 
• If you're a fan of critical failures and successes, which for me equals rolling doubles on a success or failure, a critical success grants two extra attacks to everyone, and a critical failure gives initiative and one extra attack to the other side.

Anybody familiar with this blog knows that I love Palladium Books regardless of inconsistencies and contradictions in the rules over many books and sometimes within the same book. I mean, who cares, especially from an OSR, DIY point of view? Yet, I would agree that changes could be made. They won't be, which is understandable, because there's too big of a catalogue that could made obsolete. So, we make these changes ourselves.

The three barriers preventing people from enjoying Palladium Games, as far as I see it are:

• Character creation takes FOR-EV-ER! Skill selection is a drag. I never write down that a character can speak his native language at 95% or can do basic math at 85%. These things are simply not worth recording.
• M.D.C./S.D.C. My solution, as I've stated before: Scrap M.D.C. Mega-Damage weapons would simply get a multiplier, be rare and dangerous to use.
• No ready-made monsters and NPCs. And they just released a very nice Bestiary, but you still have to build EVERYTHING, which is fine, but, simplified ready-made stat-blocks would be incredible.

 So, using the Wilderness Scout as an example, here's how I would present character creation:

• Roll your Attributes as normal.
• Roll Hit Points/S.D.C.
• Record Special Abilities.
• Record automatic skills, then roll for others (see below.)
• Roll starting money.
• Ignore the listed starting equipment, because, holy shit that list is extensive! Just take the important things. You don't need to record that your character has a hat or a pair of sunglasses.
• Choose alignment.

So, Skills... Looking at the Wilderness Scout O.C.C. Skills (pg. 99), the ones below are the only ones I would bother with as automatic to the class:

• Athletics
• Climbing (+15%)
• Horsemanship (+20%) this includes exotic animals.
• Hunting (+20%) percentage taken from Track Animals which is essentially... Hunting.
• Land Navigation (+20%) This includes the 3 special abilities from above.
• Pilot (+10%) motorcycle or hovercycle.
• Prowl (+15%)
• Radio: Basic (+10%)
• Wilderness Survival (+20%) Identify Plants would be combined with this skill.
• W.P. Knife, Archery, Rifle, Handguns
• Hand to Hand, I love the idea of rolling this randomly, 25% chance for either Basic, Expert, Martial Arts, or Assassin.
• Actually, for this class I might make it:
• 01-50: Basic
• 51-70: Expert
• 71-90: Martial Arts
• 91-00: Assassin

To make life easier for you, assume all skills start at a base of 35% and don't forget to add a possible  I.Q. bonus.

Now you could (and probably should) stop right there and not worry about what follows, but...

Normally, what comes next are some O.C.C. related skills followed by several secondary skills. The real drag here is all the page flipping back and forth between the class page and the section on skills. Because you get to choose all of these new skills, you're obviously going to search for the best ones. Not too painful if you're familiar with the system, but this is an enjoyment barrier for new or even occasional RIFTS fans. 

Another nuisance with such skill-based systems (in RIFTS case, it's a pseudo skill-based system, combat is d20 based) is that upon leveling up, you need to go down your character sheet, skill by skill, and this will easily be 20+ skills, adding 5% to each one (not to mention all your weapon proficiency and special ability bonuses that come at various levels.)

What I would rather do, after recording your automatic skills, is roll randomly, say, 10 times on a custom skill chart (or series of charts) containing mostly related skills and the automatic ones, but also including some possible outliers to see what other skills you have. If you roll an automatic skill, you get a further 5% bonus every time you roll it. If you roll a new skill, you get it at the base 35% and a further 5% bonus every time you roll it again. If you roll a physical skill that you already have, you get those bonuses a second time (e.g., if you roll Athletics and you already have it, now you have Athletics x 2.) If you reroll a weapon proficiency you get an extra +1 bonus.

Then when you level up, at even levels add 5% to all of your % skills and at odd levels add +1 to any weapon proficiencies. Also each time you level up, you get to roll on the class skill chart 4 or 5 times, or 1d6 times (for further randomness.)

Special Abilities improve at the listed rate or at the same rate as % or +1 skills (even and odd levels.)

Unfortunately, designing these charts for every class would be beyond tedious, so this dream really is dead on arrival.

Unless...

You turned the already existing skill lists in random roll charts and said something like: Roll 3 times on your Automatic Skills chart, Roll 2 times on the Rogue Skills chart, Roll 3 times on the Wilderness Skills chart, once on each W.P. chart, and twice on a randomly determined chart. 

Hmmm...

I'm a dreamer, but like I said earlier, take the obvious automatic class skills and stop right there! 

RIFTS: She Will Kill You!...And The RIFTS 30th Anniversary Edition

She will kill you!

The Blind Warrior Women of Altara. Slaves of the Splugorth of RIFTS Atlantis. The Altarains were enslaved 2,000 years ago. Psionic, fit warriors, three quarters of them have been thoroughly brainwashed into happily serving the Splugorth, the rest yearn for freedom. There are no males and they reproduce by cloning themselves every 12 years. My drawing above portrays them as flirtatious...they are not!...but then again, it's your game.

A couple of weeks ago, this arrived...

Keith Parkinson cover painting, one of the most iconic images in the history of Role-Playing.

This is the original game reprinted in hardcover with a bunch of extras including concept art and several pages depicting all the RIFTS covers ever published. This is raw RIFTS before the multitude of expansion books. The thing I love the most is all the Larry MacDougall art, which for whatever reason is completely absent from RIFTS Ultimate Edition. There are a few samples of his high contrast art below. 

The black ink in this book POPS, I mean, the black is BLACK and crisp. 

Makes you want to play doesn't it?

You can purchase a copy here: https://www.palladiumbooks.com/

Once again, I have absolutely zero affiliation with Palladium Books, just a fan.