Jab's Rifts Builds (Rifts- A Final Summation!)

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Ares
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Re: Dragon Juicer

Post by Ares »

Jabroniville wrote: Tue Jun 12, 2018 8:12 am ImageImage

SO GODDAMN METAL.

DRAGON JUICER O.C.C.
Role:
Super-Steroid Warriors, Juicer +1, Action Junkies, The Riftsiest Thing in the Universe

Complications:
Responsibility (Early Death)- Juicers must engage in the dangerous "Detoxification" process or die- a Juicer's lifespan is between five and seven years after they join the O.C.C., with no exceptions. Dragon Juicers add a few months if they extract blood from older Dragons.
Addiction (Action)- Juicers are touchy, nervous and exciteable. They crave action, danger and adventure. Some have tossed themselves off of buildings for kicks.
Responsibility (Cannot Sleep)- Juicers cannot sleep without sedatives or tranquilizers.
Responsibilty (Owes Money)- Becoming a Juicer costs a pretty penny, and most people who take the process are quite poor. This means they usually owe money to someone.
Power Loss (Juicer Abilities)- If a Juicer Detoxes, they will not only lose all their Powers, but drop BELOW their baseline stats on occasion! They will also look ten years older than normal. Most Juicers crave the lifestyle, and many become suicidal or addicted to other drugs instead.
Enemy (Dragons)- Dragons will typically attack a Dragon Juicer on sight.
Vulnerable (Anti-Dragon Weapons)- Weapons and equipment that carries an extra effect against Dragons will affect a Dragon Juicer the same way.
Responsibility (Insanity)- Dragon Juicers will have nightmares about Dragons for the rest of their lives. They are also incredibly addicted to Dragon Blood, losing stats rapidly if kept from it. After two years of being Dragon Juicers, they may become either dracophobic, attack all dragons on-sight, or obsessed with actaully drinking dragon's blood.

Total: Abilities: 48 / Skills: 46--23 / Advantages: 12 / Powers: 77 / Defenses: 6 (166)

-The question "What is the Riftsiest thing in the Megaverse?" is a common one, given the game's reputation for insanity and over-the-top weirdness. There's a lot of bizarre stuff out there- Pixies on mercenary teams, Robotic T-Rexes, Skulls walking on spider-legs, etc. But I would hazard a guess to say that a steroid addict who uses the BLOOD OF DRAGONS to give him super-powers, while wearing armor made of Dragons, is possibly the Riftsiest thing of all.

-So yes, Juicer Uprising features a couple of pages (and some supplementary art) of DRAGON JUICERS, who take the Juicer concept and basically add "so what if, instead of steroids and drugs in your injection harness, you instead used Dragon Blood?" and let it turn guys into the most powerful Juicers in the game. The art even features a girl in Dragon-Hide armor, carrying a MASSIVE gun, fighting a goddamn Dragon with arrows sticking out of it! How more metal can you get?!? There's more art of this type than of any other new O.C.C. in that book- it just BLEEDS "You want to play this, don't you?".

-The "fluff" of the class features a band of alchemists who came up with the idea in experiments, then sold it to the Federation of Magic, causing a flourishing of Dragon Juicers. Some gameplay notes include bits on how Dragons would usually attack such beings on-sight, but there's at least three instances in this very book about Dragons WILLINGLY allying with Dragon Juicers!!

-Dragon Juicers join the Mega-Juicer in the "Better than standard Juicers in every single way" category, save for being a tad bit slower for whatever reason. But seriously, they're MDC beings AND are the most durable Juicers in the game, getting access to better armor than the Maxi-Killers, later on. They also sport the best Regeneration of any Juicers (4D6 MD per minute! Better than an ACTUAL DRAGON'S!), never mind how freakin' awesome they look!
Now THIS is how you do an upgraded super-class. To me, Dragon Juicers and Mega-Juicers should be the kind of thing you need to work up to (sort of like the Prestige Classes in D&D), but also work for more high powered games. A regular Juicer works in a team with a Wilderness Scout, Headhunter, Cyber-Knight and Glitterboy. If you're a team with a Demi-God, Cosmo-Knight, Mega-Hero and the like, you probably need a Mega-Juicer or Dragon Juicer.

And really, Dragon Juicers open up all kinds of possibilities. What if you could get your hand on, say, a Demi-God and suddenly had Juicers using their blood to power themselves up? For that matter, what if a Dragon actually was the one supplying Dragon Juicers with its blood to have them work for it, maybe with something like if the dragon whose blood is in the Juicer is still alive, they can exert some influence over the Juicer.
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Maxi-Killer

Post by Jabroniville »

Image

mmm... spiky hotness...

MAXI-KILLER (Splugorth Juicer) O.C.C.
Role:
Super-Steroid Warriors, Juicer +1, Action Junkies, The Riftsiest Thing in the Universe
PL 11 (161)
STRENGTH
3/7 STAMINA 3/9 AGILITY 3/6
FIGHTING 8/9 DEXTERITY 4
INTELLIGENCE 0 AWARENESS 0 PRESENCE 3

Skills:
Acrobatics 2 (+8)
Athletics 6 (+12)
Close Combat (Unarmed) 2 (+11)
Expertise (Mercenary) 8 (+8)
Expertise (Survival) 4 (+4)
Intimidation 5 (+8)
Investigation 3 (+3)
Perception 5 (+5)
Stealth 2 (+8)
Technology 5 (+5)
Vehicles 4 (+8)

Advantages:
Equipment 7 (Juicer Gear), Power Attack, Ranged Attack 4

Powers:
"Juicer Bio-Comp System"
Enhanced Strength 4 [8]
Enhanced Stamina 6 [12]
Enhanced Agility 3 [6]
Enhanced Fighting 1 [2]
Enhanced Advantages 8: Diehard, Evasion, Great Endurance, Improved Initiative, Move-By Action, Quick Draw, Seize Initiative, Uncanny Dodge [8]

"Elite Athletes"
Speed 2 (8 mph) [2]
Leaping 2 (30 feet) [2]

"Saving Throws"
Enhanced Fortitude 1 [1]
Enhanced Will 2 (Flaws: Limited to vs. Psionics) [1]

"Symbiotic Enhancements"
Regeneration 4 [4]
Impervious Toughness 11 [11]

"Symbiote Armor"
Protection 2 (Extras: Impervious 5) [7]
"Forearm Blade" Strength-Damage +2 (Extras: Penetrating 6) [8]

Offense:
Unarmed +11 (+7 Damage, DC 22)
Forearm Blades +9 (+9 Damage, DC 24)
SDC Bullet +8 (+4 Ranged Damage, DC 19)
Energy Rifle +8 (+10 Ranged Damage, DC 25)
Initiative +10

Defenses:
Dodge +10 (DC 20), Parry +10 (DC 20), Toughness +10 (+11 Armor, +6-8 Impervious), Fortitude +4 (+10 Juicer), Will +5 (+7 vs. Psionics)

Complications:
Responsibility (Early Death)- Juicers must engage in the dangerous "Detoxification" process or die- a Juicer's lifespan is between five and seven years after they join the O.C.C., with no exceptions. Maxi-Killers are said to have 1/20th their natural lifespan, plus 1-2 years.
Addiction (Action)- Juicers are touchy, nervous and exciteable. They crave action, danger and adventure. Some have tossed themselves off of buildings for kicks.
Responsibility (Cannot Sleep)- Juicers cannot sleep without sedatives or tranquilizers.
Responsibilty (The Splugorth)- Maxi-Killers are nearly always slaves of the Splugorth, specifically ones meant to fight in the arenas.
Power Loss (The Symbiote)- The Symbiote provides extra armor, and is literally a part of the Maxi-Killer- removal is impossible without killing both. However, the reduction of a significant amount of the symbiote will cause it to recede inside the Maxi-Killer's body, leaving them greatly diminished in toughness for several hours.

Total: Abilities: 48 / Skills: 46--23 / Advantages: 12 / Powers: 72 / Defenses: 6 (161)

-Joining the Dragon Juicers among the "Techno-Magic Juicers", this one is ideally an NPC, but features some of Vince Martin's most "Rifts"-esque art- a woman wearing a Spike Bikini, hordes of crustacean-style spikes (at least 40 on her body), a spiked helmet, a dark visor, and weapons that are basically spiked gauntlets with spiked weapons.

-The backstory on them is terrific- the Splugorth were watching humanity's advancement in tech, and were intrigued by the Juicer process- while human tech is below that of the Splugorth, it is unique and innovative, and the clever Splugorth were like "HMMMM...", and so they created their own modification. The Splugorth Juicer in question is the Maxi-Killer- a mortal being with a living symbiote forged onto their body with magic- the symbiote enhances the user to a Mega-Damage being, making it a close equivalent to the Dragon Juicer.

-The peculiar thing I noticed while writing down all of the bonuses you get from all the Juicer Enhancements is that this one is actually a little worse than the others in many ways. While it makes you an MDC-being like the Mega-Juicer and Dragon Juicer processes do, you only get ONE EXTRA ATTACK, compared to 2 for almost every other type. Their MDC is added up a different way, ignoring their Physical Endurance (which is only 1D4, versus 2D6 for others!), and is 2D4x10+60, which ignores all their stats! And their armor is actually a BUILT-IN SYMBIOTE, with a set (120) amound of MDC, but with a lower amount of Regeneration (a Dragon Juicer regens per-minute; a Maxi-Killer's is per-hour). On average, you would probably be just a little bit below a Dragon Juicer. That, combined with their lower number of attacks, makes them a PL 9 offense, PL 10.5 defense creature.
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Re: Jab's Rifts Builds (Titan Juicers! Mega-Juicers! DRAGON JUICERS!!!)

Post by Batgirl III »

Her waist is smaller than her head. I’m usually a fan of Martin, but yowza. :shock:
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Ares
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Re: Maxi-Killer

Post by Ares »

Jabroniville wrote: Wed Jun 13, 2018 7:07 am Image

mmm... spiky hotness...

MAXI-KILLER (Splugorth Juicer) O.C.C.
Role:
Super-Steroid Warriors, Juicer +1, Action Junkies, The Riftsiest Thing in the Universe
BWAHAHAHAHA! Oh God, it's the Sewer Sea-urchin's extreme 90's Image counterpart. It's like someone said "Make my armor out of barnacles and nothing but barnacles" .
"My heart is as light as a child's, a feeling I'd nearly forgotten. And by helping those in need, I will be able to keep that feeling alive."
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Re: Jab's Rifts Builds (Titan Juicers! Mega-Juicers! DRAGON JUICERS!!!)

Post by Jabroniville »

The Splugorth are AQUATIC, Ares! That totally justifies it!

*ignores that I played a Splugorth Juicer entirely because I was in lust with that art, to the point where my character looked exactly like the image they used, with no changes*
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Wannabe Juicer

Post by Jabroniville »

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WANNABE JUICER O.C.C.
Role:
Riff-Raff/Street Rat, Juicer-Inspired Losers
PL 7 (90)
STRENGTH
2 STAMINA 3 AGILITY 3
FIGHTING 5 DEXTERITY 4
INTELLIGENCE 0 AWARENESS 1 PRESENCE 2

Skills:
Athletics 5 (+7)
Deception 4 (+6)
Expertise (City Rat) 8 (+8)
Insight 5 (+6)
Intimidation 3 (+5)
Investigation 3 (+4)
Perception 5 (+6)
Persuasion 2 (+4)
Stealth 4 (+7)
Technology 4 (+4)
Vehicles 3 (+7)

Advantages:
Equipment 6 (MDC Body Armor +8), Ranged Attack 3

Powers:
"Black Market Cybernetics"
"Finger Gun" Blast 5 [10]

Equipment:
"Makeshift Body Armor" Protection 6 (Extras: Impervious 5) (11)
"Energy Pistol" Blast 7 (14)

Offense:
Unarmed +5 (+2 Damage, DC 17)
Gun +7 (+7 Ranged Damage, DC 22)
Initiative +2

Defenses:
Dodge +5 (DC 15), Parry +5 (DC 15), Toughness +3 (+9 Armor), Fortitude +4, Will +4

Complications:
Disabled (Under-Educated)- A huge majority of the human population is now illiterate and under-educated.
Reputation (City Rat)- These kids are typically thought of as criminals, pimps, drug-dealers, thieves or beggars.

Total: Abilities: 42 / Skills: 46--23 / Advantages: 9 / Powers: 10 / Defenses: 6 (90)

-There's something just SO Rifts about including something like the Wannabe into a book that's full of "Like the Juicer, ONLY BETTER!". Palladium, for whatever reason, loves to include deliberately-worse options in a lot of things (sort of like how New West features a Sheriff AND a Deputy... as separate classes! One's just a worse version of the other! Why is a Deputy not just a lower-level Sheriff!?!). Flavor text even showcases a Wannabe getting one-shotted by a real Juicer.

-The Wannabe Juicer is more or less a "City Rat" with some focus on imitating a Juicer (the only real difference is "Juicer Lore" being a skill option). It's explained that these guys idolize Juicers, mimic their lifestyles, and want to BE them, but usually just can't afford it. The book also stats out some Designer Drugs that are meant to give temporary Juicer-like boosts on the cheap. 30% are said to become addicted to these drugs (ironically, this prevents the Juicer process from working), while 50% are clean. They're recommended only as NPCs (maybe because of the drug use), but they can easily switch to Juicers at any level of experience, simply swapping out Skill & Experience Tables.

Example Drugs:
* Because of course there are, the book contains a list of the drugs characters can take.

BOING-GO: More or less like speed. +1 Initiative, high energy, easily avoids sleep for hours on end.
CRASH: The iconic drug, it boosts many stats temporarily- ST +2, STA +2, FIGHTING +1, Fearless, Speed 2, Initiative +4. It makes users feel like daredevil supermen, which causes them all sorts of problems. The "crash" at the end is said to be so horrible that most only use the drug rarely.
JUICE: Similar to Crash, boasting "You'll Be As Tough As Juicers". ST +1, STA +1, FIGHTING +1, Fearless, Speed 3, Initiative +4, Immunity to Pain.
MEGA: More or less regular steroid treatments, making you stronger over time. ST +2, STA +2. The trouble is, you get a lot of negatives over prolonged use, including a heart attack!
RUSH: A speed-focused drug. FIGHTING +1, Speed 3, Initiative +4. You get very nervous, suffer from sensory overload, and can quickly become addicted.
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Murder-Wraiths

Post by Jabroniville »

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MURDER-WRAITH
Role:
Juicer Zombies
TEMPLATE (63 Points -X+Y):
Abilities: -1 INT, -1 AWA, -1 PRE, No STAMINA Score [-6 -X]
Powers:
Immunity 30 (Fortitude Effects) [30]
Protection xx (As Juicer's Original Score; Lower if Mega-Juicer) [Y]
Immunity 80 (All Damage) (Flaws: Limited to Non-Magical, Non-Silver Weapons -1/2) [60]
Regeneration 8 (Feats: Regrows Limbs) [9]

-I never cared much for Zombie or Horror-related anything, so these douches largely went ignored by me (aside from the bit featuring a Juicer being slowly murdered by his former ally). They're basically a combination of Juicer with Zombie, owing to people's fascination with watching the "walking dead" that are Juicers. Juicers who wish to avoid certain death will join the "Grim Reapers" cult, worshipping the Horseman of Death, and murdering innocents to cast blood rituals.

-This is a Template applied to any Juicer candidate (aside from Techno-Wizardry-related Juicers and Psycho-Stalkers)- they retain their earlier stats, but become Invulnerable to Everything that isn't Magic or Silver. This makes them tougher than Vampires, though Dragons and Vampires can also deal damage to them. However, they must consume living beings to maintain this. They must also follow any orders given by the Necromancer who made them Murder-Wraiths in the first place, and are pained by sunlight.
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Re: Jab's Rifts Builds (Titan, Mega-Juicers, Dragon & Splugorth Juicers!)

Post by Jabroniville »

Things that just SCREAM Rifts to me:

* Armor upon armor, usually with multiple spikes (in the Martin era, anyways).

* Something that's literally a class from another book, but superior in every way (Mega-Juicer, Dragon Juicer, Ninja Crazy).

* Something that's so hilariously ineffective that no Rifts player would ever play it- a "Roleplayer's Character" (ie. The Forger from Rifts Mercenaries or Vagabond from the Main Rulebook). Kevin Simebieda's calling card.

* Four or five separate redundant classes, vehicles or suits of armor when only ONE would do. Probably because an artist just kept drawing stuff (Sheriff AND Deputy? FOUR kinds of Dragon 'Borgs?).

* Four pages of guns that are identical in almost every way.

* Random rolling for backstory when almost every player would prefer to do that manually.
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Re: Jab's Rifts Builds (Titan, Mega-Juicers, Dragon & Splugorth Juicers!)

Post by Batgirl III »

• One short sentence or sentence fragment buried in between two Wall of Text blocks about wholly unrelated subjects... and that sentence fragment totally changes hours worth of character generation you’ve just done. Possibly completely scratching a character you’ve been building.
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Re: Jab's Rifts Builds (Titan, Mega-Juicers, Dragon & Splugorth Juicers!)

Post by Davies »

Jabroniville wrote: Fri Jun 15, 2018 6:35 am * Random rolling for backstory when almost every player would prefer to do that manually.
Almost every is not all. There's a sizeable minority of players who just want to get to the action, and lifepath background generators have always been surprisingly popular. They feature quite heavily in Shadow of the Demon Lord, one of the newer games out there. So I can't say that they scream Rifts or Palladium to me.
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Re: Jab's Rifts Builds (Titan, Mega-Juicers, Dragon & Splugorth Juicers!)

Post by Jabroniville »

Batgirl III wrote: Fri Jun 15, 2018 6:54 am • One short sentence or sentence fragment buried in between two Wall of Text blocks about wholly unrelated subjects... and that sentence fragment totally changes hours worth of character generation you’ve just done. Possibly completely scratching a character you’ve been building.
Heh- any examples? I don't doubt it, though. Palladium is AWFUL that way.
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Re: Jab's Rifts Builds (Titan, Mega-Juicers, Dragon & Splugorth Juicers!)

Post by Woodclaw »

Davies wrote: Fri Jun 15, 2018 7:01 am
Jabroniville wrote: Fri Jun 15, 2018 6:35 am * Random rolling for backstory when almost every player would prefer to do that manually.
Almost every is not all. There's a sizeable minority of players who just want to get to the action, and lifepath background generators have always been surprisingly popular. They feature quite heavily in Shadow of the Demon Lord, one of the newer games out there. So I can't say that they scream Rifts or Palladium to me.
I think that none does the "random life events" as bad as a certain Italian game that was meant to be translated in English (I was the designated translator) until the authors managed to do all the wrong things on RPG.net. I'm dead serious, I've never seen a game forcing you to roll for pre-birth events and then having (I kid you not) 10 random events tables divided by age category and you had to roll on each once per year!
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Re: Jab's Rifts Builds (Titan, Mega-Juicers, Dragon & Splugorth Juicers!)

Post by Batgirl III »

I enjoy a good Life Path, such as the ones in Fuzion / Mekton Zeta, Traveller, Last Unicorn’s Star Trek, or (my personal favorite) the one in King Arthur Pendragon that actually starts with your PC’s Grandfather!

A good Life Path should tie your PC into the setting, Foster points on connection with the other players, and still give you plenty of choice. Events from one stage should guide you to later stages, but never completely hamstring you. If I want to be a Starfleet Engineer or an Elf Wizard before Instart tolling on the Life Path, then dammit, I better be able to end up a Starfleet Engineer or an Elf Wizard at the end of it.

Palladium doesn’t have Life Path. It has Random Stats, Random Tables, Random Percentages, and More Random Tables. You wanted to be an Elf Wizard? Well, sorry, you got an I.Q. of 6, a P.P.E. of 12, you don’t qualify for any Magic User O.C.C., but you did randomly develop two Super-Psionic Powers and a random derangement of crippling Agoraphobia. Have fun!
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Re: Jab's Rifts Builds (Titan, Mega-Juicers, Dragon & Splugorth Juicers!)

Post by Jabroniville »

Oh yeah- I typically went for Juicers, Aliens or Dragons, so I never really did the full "you're trapped in your rolled stats", but holy crap- some of these OCCs have REALLY high expectations. One of the things the online reviewers have noticed is that you only have a 30-40% chance to roll adequate stats for some of these characters (especially Military Specialist types).

My friend's RPG group allowed for "roll, then assign" for 3D6 stats.
Almost every is not all. There's a sizeable minority of players who just want to get to the action, and lifepath background generators have always been surprisingly popular. They feature quite heavily in Shadow of the Demon Lord, one of the newer games out there. So I can't say that they scream Rifts or Palladium to me.
I suppose- Mekton has a pretty enjoyable Random Background Roller. Though some are pretty weird in Palladium games- you're not even allowed to choose specific psychoses, heights, etc. You can't choose your dog species as a Dog Boy RCC, either. Hell, they probably only let you choose your animal types in TMNT/After The Bomb begrudgingly- I get the impression that Kevin S. wants every player rolling randomly and making the best of it CONSTANTLY.
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Re: Jab's Rifts Builds (Titan, Mega-Juicers, Dragon & Splugorth Juicers!)

Post by proditor »

It's not a truly hard core lifepath if you can't die before completing chargen.

Lost two great SpecOps Traveller guys that way. *sniffle*
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