# So what's the most powerful combo in Rifts?



## Green Knight

I was thinking about the over-the-top craziness in Rifts and started wondering what the most powerful combo in the game is. So anyone know?


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## XCorvis

It's whatever looks the coolest in the most recent book.


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## Plane Sailing

I only ever saw the first book, and so long ago that it is probably not the case now, but the edition I saw it was possible for a juicer to become hugely over-the-top crazy. Something to do with being able to get lots of extra actions or something?

They were the ultimate 'live fast, die young' character class at the time!


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## Chainsaw

I had that book in high school.. soft cover, demon guy on a floating barge surrounded by half-naked women. Setting looked cool as heck and I wanted to play all the classes, but we never did. I'd love to find someone local and get involved.


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## TroyXavier

I can't say I'm an expert on it so I won't venture a guess, but I do know that it's rarely so much the classes as the races that tend to be overpowered.  I will say they've reigned it in a bit from the early years (except maybe in the Dimensional Books, but  I don't have most of the recent ones of those)


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## pawsplay

Maybe a half-god Temporal Wizard.


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## Thanee

From what I recall, the cosmic knight was pretty crazy. 

Bye
Thanee


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## Green Knight

Yeah, the Cosmo-Knight was pretty tough. I played one almost 10 years ago in a space-based Phase World campaign, back when playing the Palladium system didn't automatically cause me to break out in hives. 

Another crazy combo I heard of was a Demigod with a Heroes Unlimited martial arts class. I forget what the class was called (Ancient Master, maybe?), but the gist of it was that the class started at level 15, to represent a long life of studying the martial arts (think Quai Chang Caine). The funny thing, though, was that a Demigod could select the class abilities of several spellcasters, including the Ley Line Walker, and he automatically knew all the spells for that class equal to his level. So such a character could, quite literally, start out a campaign knowing every single spell there is in the game for the Ley Line Walker. Though from what I understand, that was nerfed. Still funny as hell, though.


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## Dannyalcatraz

1) Get out Heroes Unlimited.  Ignoring the randomness of the random power chart, make a Superhero.

2) Get the RIFTS Conversion book and convert the Superhero's stats into RIFTS.

3) Start loading him down with RIFTS gear, like getting him a SAMAS or Glitterboy.


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## Stormonu

A dragon mindwalker in power armor.


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## scourger

Dannyalcatraz said:


> 1) Get out Heroes Unlimited.  Ignoring the randomness of the random power chart, make a Superhero.
> 
> 2) Get the RIFTS Conversion book and convert the Superhero's stats into RIFTS.
> 
> 3) Start loading him down with RIFTS gear, like getting him a SAMAS or Glitterboy.




I did that with a Heroes Unlimited alien and wound up with a very cool MD character.  He was still undone by a 1 MDC mini-grenade hidden in an aspirin tablet that he took for an in-game headache.  Ah, the good old days!


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## Dannyalcatraz

BAH!

Q: What kind of hero takes asprin?

A:  Dead ones!

If a Heroes, Unlimited PC had only one power- Invulnerability- that would give him an MDC of 700 + MDC regeneration.

And he could have more than that...


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## Plane Sailing

I found a reference to something here back in 2001

Rifts Juicers... - SpaceBattles.com that mentions



> The ultimate Rifts character at first level though was made on the Palladium Books forum and had tens of thousands of melee attacks, could launch all of them in under four seconds, and was totally book legal.






> AnubisXy posted it months ago, and he didn't even save it. It did involve an Octoman with added bio-magic limbs, rings with magic adrenal rush and fleet feet, and Muay Thai's Lightning Kata, with a few other nasty things I forget. Anubis says he's going to try and reconstruct it once he gets all his books back.
> 
> [Edit] Oh yeah, Battle Fury blades too.


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## megamania

Core book-  Atlantean slave lord with his blind slave guards.

RIFTS has some of the best art work out there.

I always wanted to "3.5" Rifts for better play but never did.

Juicers I remember were powerful.  Beyond that... I played only once but bought about a dozen books to use then the group decided they didn't want to try something other than DnD.   Aw well.... it's just money (I can say that then since I had unlimited OT and nearly no bills)


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## fireinthedust

megamania said:


> I always wanted to "3.5" Rifts for better play but never did.
> 
> Juicers I remember were powerful.  Beyond that... I played only once but bought about a dozen books to use then the group decided they didn't want to try something other than DnD.   Aw well.... it's just money (I can say that then since I had unlimited OT and nearly no bills)





M&M is the best way to do the 3e version of this.  Alternatively you can go wild with d20 modern or True20, but you'd have to not care about balance if you're oging all the way by including dragons and psionics, etc.


Most powerful Combo:  I remember the space book having a race with "gods" as the function of it, like if you wanted to play Thor or something.  Spellcasters would know and cast every spell of a particular level: first would get all 1st level spells, second level you'd get all the 2nd level spells, etc.  I don't even think it was if they took a spellcasting class, it was like a feat or trait they could choose on top of anything else.

By craziest combo, tho, are you talking about PC combos?  In that case, it depends on what resources you're allowing.  If I could be, like, a splugorth or deity, sure I'd be that.  But if we're talking core book... that uber psionicist would be a good start.

  Juicers are cool, and the whole "you die in 5 years" assumes the campaign will last five years (ugh; that's like assuming Elven lifespans will affect anything other than roleplaying).  But it depends on the gear and situation and suchnot, and what the other players have.

for example, if the Juicer is gear with weapons and such but is on the ground, and another player is a dragon or deity and can shoot them from space with MDC damage... or just teleport them into the Sun... well, there you go.  I'm sure some grognard or other has a character designed to max out teleporting a character into the sun.

juicer-wraths are NPCs, tho, so I don't think they count.  Same thing for monsters like splugorth; or most of the options mentioned (octo-guys, etc.).  

And Vampires were pretty powerful, I recall, unless you had wood, silver, or a squirt gun (which was silly, but that's Rifts for you).


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## hero4hire

I dont remember the specifics but years ago I made a rahaman juicer who had thai kickboxing just to prove how broken I could make a character when the gm said any megaverse supplement was allowed. I remember having a massive amount of attacks per round combined with autododge and supernatural strength.


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## Green Knight

> By craziest combo, tho, are you talking about PC combos?




Yep. Any playable RCC with an OCC. For example, I thought I'd see what kind of beast I could come up with if I made, say, a Demigod Mega-Hero Experiment (Heroes Unlimited). I gave the guy Sonic Flight, Invulnerability, and Supernatural Strength, as well as the Mega-Hero powers of Tremendous SDC (which for him would be converted to MDC) and Tremendous Physical Strength. In the end, I ended up with a supernatural PS of 98! That's 2d4x10+30 MD if I remember right, just with his bare hands! And he inflicts a death blow on a to hit roll of 16-20. 

Nevermind the Invulnerability! Half damage from supernatural attacks, full damage from psionics, spells, and magic weapons, and *zero* damage from everything else. And to top it off, he got an extra 700 MDC and regenerated 1d6x10 MDC per four rounds. Geeze! It's been almost 10 years since I've played Rifts, as I just couldn't take its rules system anymore, but I got almost half a mind to start up a Rifts campaign just so I could play with my old ganking friends, again, and spring that monstrosity on them (They regularly played a Juicer and a Glitter Boy, and on more than a few occasions they'd backstab my character, kill him, and take his stuff).


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## Wik

Gah.  RIFTS.  

Even the name makes me scowl.

I remember seeing the option of playing what was basically described as a "walking mountain" - an RCC That was at least 50 feet tall and had super strength... and could carry guns that were literally the size of TANKS.  Oh, and they were also naturally psionic.  

And then you could also have a PC that was an intelligent whale.  With intelligent whale body armour, and weapons.  

And then the next guy would be Mr. Uber Juicer, with crazy kung fu, crazy weapons, and super cool shades and spiky hair.

And then there'd be the poor sap (ah, who am I kidding, it's me) that decided playing the "Vagabond" was a good choice.  You know, the guy who got a few piddly skills, a pistol, no armour, and no crazy super powers?  you know, the "regular joe" PC?  

The "regular joe" who was friends with a walking mountain, a weird armoured whale, and a tweaked out methhead ninja?  

Gah.  RIFTS.


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## Saeviomagy

Heroes unlimited cheese is probably the best you can do. I think there was a combo that was possible with some sort of flame-form power and either multiple selves or resurrection.

In short, flame form gives you natural MDC while you're in it, a bunch of fire attacks and also allows you to *detonate yourself for 10,000 mega damage in some stupidly big radius*.

Multiple selves or resurrection allows you to do this repeatedly (I think there's a cost, but it's minor compared with the destruction you can cause).

I think there's also some nuts stuff you can do with nightspawn's expansions and the conversion book but it's all so whacky I can't even remember the basics of it.


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## Wik

I once got into an argument with this girl that plays RIFTS, and has never played any other RPG.  I told her that RIFTs was one of the most unbalanced and crazy games out there... and her argument was that it was a better designed game than D&D.

I told her there was no way she could be serious - that, as far as actual rules DESIGN went, D&D had RIFTS beat in spades, that one could objectively prove this (as opposed to say, a better designed SETTING).  I love the argument she gave, though - and this was coming from a Rifts fan who only plays Rifts, who thinks it's a very well-designed game:  

"Well, of course if you use everything in the books it will be unbalanced.  The GM has to carefully look over anything in his game."

...what?  I can understand the sentiment here, and of course she's sort of right.  But it bugged me that this is the defence that is used, again and again, in defence of Rifts.  Still boggles my mind.


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## SSquirrel

fireinthedust said:


> And Vampires were pretty powerful, I recall, unless you had wood, silver, or a squirt gun (which was silly, but that's Rifts for you).




This was a play on vampires not being able to cross water.  In teh world of RIFTS, it now means you can deal real damage to them.  The Techno-Wizard guns were, of course, the best ones.  I think normal water guns worked too tho.



Wik said:


> And then there'd be the poor sap (ah, who am I kidding, it's me) that decided playing the "Vagabond" was a good choice. You know, the guy who got a few piddly skills, a pistol, no armour, and no crazy super powers? you know, the "regular joe" PC?
> 
> The "regular joe" who was friends with a walking mountain, a weird armoured whale, and a tweaked out methhead ninja?




The GM should have told you up front if it was a high or low power game and that if you play a Vagabond, you may as well have a 2nd character built and waiting in the wings   The main book has a few low end ideas so you could do a campaign focused on survival inside one of the city states, running with the underground folks.  Or you could have a Mind Melter or Great Horned Dragon in the same book heh.  




Wik said:


> "Well, of course if you use everything in the books it will be unbalanced. The GM has to carefully look over anything in his game."
> 
> ...what? I can understand the sentiment here, and of course she's sort of right. But it bugged me that this is the defence that is used, again and again, in defence of Rifts. Still boggles my mind.




3.X was this way.  So was 2E when you got into all of the various kits *cough* Bladesinger *cough* and things.  The DM should always be concerned with what options are included and what makes things over (or under) powered.  RIFTS and balance are not related, but careful decisions on what is allowed and making sure the party is built to work well with the planned game, it can be a good time.


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## Rangergord

My Favorite that I played years ago was a GM approved Monster Brodkil with a rune weapon, some Altanean tech, and Narani weapons and specialized armor.  Pretty Pimped out, something like 6 attacks average 2d6x10 to 6d6x10 MDC each without working for it at all.  

As a GM my party (A pimped out cyber-knight, a Cat person cyborg (from Lone star), and one other I can't remember) they Stole a Deathshead Transport...and kind of launched every nuc. on the town they had fled, I remember we had to0 roll every d6 we owned for damage (and of course x10 or x100 for everything).  From that time on the town was a new wasteland and nexus in our games.


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## Saeviomagy

SSquirrel said:


> 3.X was this way.  So was 2E when you got into all of the various kits *cough* Bladesinger *cough* and things.  The DM should always be concerned with what options are included and what makes things over (or under) powered.  RIFTS and balance are not related, but careful decisions on what is allowed and making sure the party is built to work well with the planned game, it can be a good time.




Not by design though. And even a bladesinger competed on the same order of magnitude as other characters.

In D&D, the most heinous examples of powergameing, rulebreaking optimization require some serious work and very specific combos.

In rifts, they require choosing from a basic character class.


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## SSquirrel

3.x has a definite power creep to it, which is exactly what RIFTS has always been.  There was a certain power range in the core rules and most every book after expanded on that.


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## Dannyalcatraz

SSquirrel said:


> This was a play on vampires not being able to cross water.  In teh world of RIFTS, it now means you can deal real damage to them.  The Techno-Wizard guns were, of course, the best ones.  I think normal water guns worked too tho.




As I recall, it was a cross between the legendary weakness of Vampires to be unable to cross _moving_ water coupled with the whole holy water thing.

At this point, I'll just reiterate my desire that RIFTS eventually gets bought up or licensed by another game company so that the setting can get some mechanics to match its richness...M&M or HERO would be my first choices, but I can think of several others that would work as well.


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## Thanee

Noone's stopping you from using the background with the HERO rules. 

You don't even need to convert everything (which would be a ridiculous amount of work), but just what is currently needed (probably manageable), step by step.

Bye
Thanee


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## Dannyalcatraz

I have done just that in the past...but I'd rather see a complete treatment of the game in a better system so I wouldn't have to do all the heavy lifting by myself.


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## SSquirrel

Shh quiet!  If Kevin hears people talking of converting his system to anything else he has a conniption


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## Dannyalcatraz

Then his estate can get on with the selling/licensing of RIFTS...


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## scourger

Wik said:


> ...And then there'd be the poor sap (ah, who am I kidding, it's me) that decided playing the "Vagabond" was a good choice.  You know, the guy who got a few piddly skills, a pistol, no armour, and no crazy super powers?  you know, the "regular joe" PC?...




I allowed the Vagabond in the Rifts Coalition Soldiers Campaign that I ran once upon a time.  Sort of a conscript option.  It worked okay, but the other OCCs & RCCs were very restricted.  There was some sort of bonus for being a vagabond, but it was definitely a "story" choice as opposed to a "power" choice.


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## Dannyalcatraz

I actually think that one of the best things about the RIFTS system (IOW, mechanics, not fluff) was its absolute rejection of balance.  The huge variety of OCCs and RCCs and their wildly varied power levels means that a typical party can be uniform or filled with peaks & valleys of potency, meaning roles get clearly defined.

Kind of like superhero groups. (Superman vs Batman, anyone?)

IME, it definitely encouraged tactical and strategic thinking.


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## Saeviomagy

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Kind of like superhero groups. (Superman vs Batman, anyone?)




Yeah, and wasn't there an episode of that in which Superman tells the badguy "look, the only reason I don't crush every threat solo is because I'm holding back all the time" and then proceeds to single-handedly defeat him?


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## ValhallaGH

Saeviomagy said:


> Yeah, and wasn't there an episode of that in which Superman tells the badguy "look, the only reason I don't crush every threat solo is because I'm holding back all the time" and then proceeds to single-handedly defeat him?



You might be thinking of the World of Cardboard speech from late in season 3 of the Justice League Unlimited animated sereies.


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## Saeviomagy

ValhallaGH said:


> You might be thinking of the World of Cardboard speech from late in season 3 of the Justice League Unlimited animated sereies.




Yup, that's the one. The point holds: Superman fights side by side with Batman, and the whole time he's holding back to play nice.

Now, why exactly do you want that built into character creation? I mean the justice league unlimited example is the best possible case in terms of storytelling: the player always holds back all the time. Mechanically we may as well just balance the characters in the first place, and if the DM really wants one character to overshadow all the rest for a session, he can just do it. That at least avoids the scenario where the character overshadows everyone else in every single game.


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## Dannyalcatraz

The way I handled the mechanical imbalance of OCCs/RCCs was by using RW tactics.

If the NPCs see a Glitterboy and a few Atlantean Tattooed Men charging them, unless they recognize the Atlanteans for what they are, they will concentrate fire on the obvious threat- the Glitterboy.

Its like a modern army seeing a main battle tank surrounded by infantry.  Sure, the infantry matters, but the obvious and immediate threat is the tank.

In the meantime, the "lesser" threats have a momentary reprieve from being targeted by NPC railguns, etc., right up until they prove themselves to be a danger to the NPCs or the Glitterboy goes down.



> Now, why exactly do you want that built into character creation?




Because its realistic(ish): 

In a given military or quasi military organization, no two units have the same strengths and weaknesses.  The tank is powerful, yes, but without support from other units, it can be destroyed with alarming ease...by 2 lowly infantrymen hiding in the bushes with a LAW.

The imbalance in OCCs/RCCs reflects this.

Because it promotes roleplay:

If you're in the middle of a MDC battle without MDC armor, you've brought the proverbial knife to the proverbial gun fight.  Your PC can't just stand there and fight to the bitter (and quick) end- he has to think & act like someone who is a bit fragile for the events of the moment and find other ways to contribute.

Because...well, its 4:30 AM where I am, I'm going to leave additional justifications to those that want to or need to add them.


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## Saeviomagy

Dannyalcatraz said:


> If the NPCs see a Glitterboy and a few Atlantean Tattooed Men charging them, unless they recognize the Atlanteans for what they are, they will concentrate fire on the obvious threat- the Glitterboy.



Unfortunately this seems to be assuming that your NPCs are idiots. You, I and they all know the following
1. Anyone could be carrying an MDC pistol, rifle, grenades, or wielding mindbending powers or dangerous magic.

2. Anyone in the world of rifts who is heading into battle and isn't wearing armor is not a normal human being. Hell, anyone just hanging around in the wilderness not wearing armor is not a normal human being.

3. Even people who are wearing MDC body armor are ridiculously easier to kill than people piloting a glitterboy. Chances are you can kill the lot of them with a single grenade. Which will also hurt the glitterboy.


> In a given military or quasi military organization, no two units have the same strengths and weaknesses. The tank is powerful, yes, but without support from other units, it can be destroyed with alarming ease...by 2 lowly infantrymen hiding in the bushes with a LAW.



So... yet again, why are you ignoring infantry to kill the glitterboy again?


> The imbalance in OCCs/RCCs reflects this.
> 
> Because it promotes roleplay:



True, real life isn't fair. Real life battle isn't usually fun either.


> If you're in the middle of a MDC battle without MDC armor, you've brought the proverbial knife to the proverbial gun fight. Your PC can't just stand there and fight to the bitter (and quick) end- he has to think & act like someone who is a bit fragile for the events of the moment and find other ways to contribute.



It's not just MDC vs non MDC, it's the sheer range of everything involved. Even if you go out and get yourself MDC armor and an MDC gun, chances are there's any number of PCs who can do absolutely everything you can do only better.


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## ForceUser

My friends and I enjoyed playing _Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles _in high school, a super hero RPG which used RIFTS game mechanics, but we were done with RIFTS proper shortly after character creation. Everyone went home and made their own characters using whatever sourcebooks were available, and when we next convened we had a dragon, a glitterboy, a ninja, and an anthropomorphic cat. We all agreed that we had no idea how to make a game work with such a weird and unbalanced party, so we moved on to a different game system, and that was that.


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## Dannyalcatraz

Saeviomagy said:


> Unfortunately this seems to be assuming that your NPCs are idiots. You, I and they all know the following
> 1. Anyone could be carrying an MDC pistol, rifle, grenades, or wielding mindbending powers or dangerous magic.




And until any of those is in evidence, the best option is concentration of fire on the most obvious threat.  Otherwise, you're potentially wasting firepower "swatting gnats."



> 2. Anyone in the world of rifts who is heading into battle and isn't wearing armor is not a normal human being. Hell, anyone just hanging around in the wilderness not wearing armor is not a normal human being.




That is an assumption not supported by my experience with the game.  I've seen players who were perfectly willing to go into battle with a decent weapon and no armor.  In this, they shared common tactics with many of the world's irregulars, who may enter battle with only an RPG and no helmet or flak vest.



> 3. Even people who are wearing MDC body armor are ridiculously easier to kill than people piloting a glitterboy. Chances are you can kill the lot of them with a single grenade. Which will also hurt the glitterboy.




So far, none of the vagabonds I've seen in play has been dumb enough to stand that close to the Glitterboy (or SAMAS, or whatever) in combat.  When the fit hits the shan, they scatter.


> So... yet again, why are you ignoring infantry to kill the glitterboy again?




Its the obvious target.  When you attack armor mixed with infantry, armor is the primary target.  If you have firepower enough to engage both simultaneously (as some armor does), you may do so, but not if doing so would endanger your guys.  For example, while a typical tank has both anti-armor and anti-personnel weapons, using many of the anti-personnel munitions would require operating in a way that would be ill-advised when also engaged with opposing armor.  So you target the armor first, then strike infantry.

OR

You operate in mixed units yourself, so your armor can engage armor and your infantry can engage infantry.


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## Saeviomagy

Dannyalcatraz said:


> That is an assumption not supported by my experience with the game.  I've seen players who were perfectly willing to go into battle with a decent weapon and no armor.  In this, they shared common tactics with many of the world's irregulars, who may enter battle with only an RPG and no helmet or flak vest.



There's a pretty big difference between the effectiveness of a flak vest/helmet in the real world, and having or not having MDC capacity.


> So far, none of the vagabonds I've seen in play has been dumb enough to stand that close to the Glitterboy (or SAMAS, or whatever) in combat.  When the fit hits the shan, they scatter.



And in an ambush? I mean sure, you can play your character as though you're a 3e wizard with 5 con, but eventually someone is going to hit you.


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## jdrakeh

Green Knight said:


> I was thinking about the over-the-top craziness in Rifts and started wondering what the most powerful combo in the game is. So anyone know?




If I remember my Rifts Conversion Book One correctly, any SDC creature from another world (i.e., another Palladium game) that enters Rifts Earth via a rift becomes an MDC creature and retains all of their abilities. This being the case, I'd go with something totally crazy like an Old One from the world of Palladium Fantasy — if there wasn't already an Old One from the world of Palladium Fantasy lurking on Rifts Earth (there is).


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## Dannyalcatraz

Saeviomagy said:


> I've seen players who were perfectly willing to go into battle with a decent weapon and no armor. In this, they shared common tactics with many of the world's irregulars, who may enter battle with only an RPG and no helmet or flak vest.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> There's a pretty big difference between the effectiveness of a flak vest/helmet in the real world, and having or not having MDC capacity.
Click to expand...


How do you figure?

A muhadjin who is just wearing tribal robes and firing an RPG could be killed with a single bullet or the thrust of a knife.  If he actually took a round from a tank shell, he's gone...no more dead, just more spectacularly so.

A RIFTS PC without MDC armor is like that irregular.  He's all offense and no defense.  He can deliver a punch, but can't take one at all.



> And in an ambush? I mean sure, you can play your character as though you're a 3e wizard with 5 con, but eventually someone is going to hit you.




While I can't say I've actually played a Con5 Wizard, I've played one with Con8.  He survived by not getting hit.  When he finally _did _get hit and killed, the extra 12 HP wouldn't have helped- he'd have needed an extra 40.


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## Saeviomagy

Dannyalcatraz said:


> How do you figure?
> 
> A muhadjin who is just wearing tribal robes and firing an RPG could be killed with a single bullet or the thrust of a knife.  If he actually took a round from a tank shell, he's gone...no more dead, just more spectacularly so.
> 
> A RIFTS PC without MDC armor is like that irregular.  He's all offense and no defense.  He can deliver a punch, but can't take one at all.




IIRC, MDC damage gets multiplied by 100 (or is it 10??) when applied to SDC, yes? And starting characters get something like 3d6 sdc?

That means that a rifts muhadjin who gets hit by a bullet from an MDC pistol IS DEAD, guaranteed. Same for the thrust of an MDC knife. Or a nearby MDC grenade hit. That's pretty different from real-world weapons: while a bullet might kill you, it's quite likely to just wound you, and even if you are killed by it, it's not necessarily straight away.

Meanwhile, the guy wearing an MDC flakjacket cannot be killed by a single hit from any of these things.

Which, again, is different to the real world. A flakjacket reduces the chance that you'll die by a significant margin, but it's far, far, far from 100%.

And then there's the fact that the wall that you're taking cover behind is not going to be an MDC structure unless it's specifically fortified. That means if a grenade catches you within it's radius, you're dead, cover or no.

Guys without MDC armor in rifts are surviving combat purely through the good graces of their DM.


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## Dannyalcatraz

Actually, RW muhadjin who get hit by modern battlefield weaponry don't generally live to tell the tale.

Simply put, RW or RIFTS, unarmored combatants actually hit by military munitions have about the same survival rate.

The reason is this: RIFTS weaponry, whether heavy battlefield pieces or sidearms, are generally at least as powerful as RW artillery of various kinds- and according to certain studies, it is the heavy weapons like artillery, tanks, etc., that cause as much as 86% of battlefield casualties.

http://smallwarsjournal.com/documents/urbancasstudy.pdf

So, if you're a resistance fighter whose black-market budget options are between purchasing MDC armor or a powerful MDC weapon, you're probably going to opt for the weapon.  Armor lets you survive, yes, but the weapon gives you the chance to actually strike a meaningful blow.


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## Vaslov

The original South America book had some things so over the top powerful that K.S. pulled it and said "oops, we goofed.  This is too powerful."  I can't recall any particulars, but there were some crazy powerful aliens that made the Splugorth look like teletubbies.


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## Razzlefrazz

I haven't played Rifts in a while (I think the last book I bought for the game was Rifts Japan or Rifts South America).  The most powerful combo I ever saw was an Atlantian Tattooed Undead Slayer with a glitter boy power armor suit.

The glitter boy armor itself ruined the game with it's long range, massive damage, and high M.D.C., but the Undead Slayer is a powerful M.D.C. warrior as well.  A laser resistant heavily armored walking tank with a supernatural, super-powerful, center.  Mmmm...

That's sort of why we don't play Rifts anymore.  Someone always has to be a glitter boy.


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## Green Knight

Vaslov said:


> The original South America book had some things so over the top powerful that K.S. pulled it and said "oops, we goofed. This is too powerful." I can't recall any particulars, but there were some crazy powerful aliens that made the Splugorth look like teletubbies.




There was nothing in the South America books that outstripped the Splugorth, or even approached them. A Splugorth has supernatural PS 50 (doing 6d6 MD on a melee attack), 56,000 MDC, 13,000 PPE, 3,000 ISP, regenerated 2d6x10 MDC per minute, had the unlimited ability to teleport across dimensions(!), possession, teleport 600 miles, turn up to 600 undead, animate and control up to 600 undead, summon 2d6 Splugorth High Lords, summon 6d6 lesser minions three times per 24 hours, 11 melee attacks per round, and to top it off, it knew every single Ley Line Walker and Stone Mage spell, as well as every psychic power up to 10th-level. And I left stuff out! The only things in those books that even approached a Splugorth in power were the gods. And even then, they only achieved full power when inside the Great Palace of Omagua, or when in Cuzco. Outside of those places of power, they were drastically reduced in strength, and far easier to take out than a Splugorth. 

The weaponry was more powerful than what you found in the main rulebook, sure (one rifle did 1d6x10+10 on a three-round burst), but from what I understand, CJ Carella purposefully did it that way because of the fact that combat in Rifts took way to long (which I can personally attest to. Fighting War of the Four Horsemen was an unbelievable act of masochism which, once begun, you just have to soldier your way through til it's over). So he upped the damage on the weapons. 

Siembieda calling someone out for making "overpowered" items is grossly hypocritical of him to do, though, seeing as how he's the man who invented the Glitter Boy, with its 3d6x10 MD gun and 770 MDC armor, and throwing that, the Juicer, and the Dragon Hatchling into the game right alongside the Rogue Scientist, City Rat, and Vagabond. His claiming someone else's work is overpowered is pretty damn laughable. And the way he did it, outright calling CJ Carella out in a game product, was grossly unprofessional. Especially since all the decisions of what to put into the South America books ultimately rested with him. He could've easily toned down any stats that he felt were out of line. But to not do so and then pass the blame onto Carella? When I read that blurb he put into one of his own game books all I could think was "Wow... what an ass."


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## Wik

Green Knight said:


> Siembieda calling someone out for making "overpowered" items is grossly hypocritical of him to do, though, seeing as how he's the man who invented the Glitter Boy, with its 3d6x10 MD gun and 770 MDC armor, and throwing that, the Juicer, and the Dragon Hatchling into the game right alongside the Rogue Scientist, City Rat, and Vagabond. His claiming someone else's work is overpowered is pretty damn laughable. And the way he did it, outright calling CJ Carella out in a game product, was grossly unprofessional. Especially since all the decisions of what to put into the South America books ultimately rested with him. He could've easily toned down any stats that he felt were out of line. But to not do so and then pass the blame onto Carella? When I read that blurb he put into one of his own game books all I could think was "Wow... what an ass."




And that, there, is pretty standard for him.  He definitely has a "me" complex in how he approaches things - there are plenty of documents floating around the net that attest to this sort of behaviour... I should dig them up so everyone can do a jaw-drop.

Personally, I hated his tendency to get on a soapbox defending how his game works in the rules text, and how he moved towards "onetruewayism".  But really, I just got miffed because while the basic idea of Rifts is awesome (post-apocalyptic earth becomes ground zero for an intergalactic war) it just got so super crazy and comicbook like that it just felt silly.

That being said, I did run a pretty awesome adventure once involving a Wilderness Scout (played by my dad, who must always be a "ranger", regardless of game system) and a Glitter Boy (my little brother, about ten at the time) found themselves under attack by a couple of Coalition SAMAS pilots.  the two escaped into a building (I think the Glitter Boy wasn't in his armour, though I can't recall if he was even PRESENT during this encounter) that was so destroyed from a century's worth of water damage to be falling apart.  The SAMAS started filling the place with bullet holes, while the two struggled to escape without being seen.  

That was actually pretty cool, and the vision stuck with me.  If only the rules didn't blow so bad.


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## Herobizkit

A friend of mine attested that using a Robotech Shadow Fighter in a RIFTS Multiverse made him nigh unstoppable, as his automatic dodge score was so high, nothing could hurt him, and he didn't lose attacks for making the dodge attempts.  Combine this with the shield-busting cannon built in to the device and you've got a float like a butterfly, sting like a ... shield-busting cannon-type character.


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## Saeviomagy

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Actually, RW muhadjin who get hit by modern battlefield weaponry don't generally live to tell the tale.




Your study would seem to dispute that. It gives a ~60% usage of body armor, and a 77% wia vs total casualties rate (in other words, twice as many people survive as wear armor). In rifts that ends up being a more-or-less 100% correlation.


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## Dannyalcatraz

I wasn't saying that wearing body armor was ineffective.  If it were, modern forces wouldn't wear it.

I was saying that many irregular armies are forced to decide between heavier weaponry and body armor- they usually can't afford both- and usually opt for heavier weapons.

When those unarmored irregulars take fire from conventional forces, they take high casualties, but are also able to inflict damage because of their choice of armament.  Irregulars with body armor and sidearms won't do much damage to mixed regular infantry and armor.  They may kill and injure a few and escape, but in terms of the actual degradation of the force they attacked, their strike was minimally effective.

But equip those same irregulars with RPGs, Mortars, Bazookas, LAW's, etc, at the cost of not having body armor, and they can inflict heavy casualties, maybe even take out some of the armored vehicles.  Even if irregular casualties are near 100%, the mission could arguably considered more successful from their perspective- they've degraded their enemy's capacity to do battle by a significant amount.

This is the same logic that unarmored characters with MDC weapons in RIFTS live (and die) by- surviving the encounter is a bonus, the goal is to make sure your foes don't.


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## Saeviomagy

Dannyalcatraz said:


> This is the same logic that unarmored characters with MDC weapons in RIFTS live (and die) by- surviving the encounter is a bonus, the goal is to make sure your foes don't.




... that sounds like you're agreeing that playing an unarmored character is basically a way to guarantee that your participation in the game is going to be sharply limited.


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## Dannyalcatraz

Yeah, unless they hit first.

Or, to mangle a Monty Python quote, they succeed at not being seen (or hit).

IME, every RIFTS party that has included non-MDC capable PCs has either gotten those PCs MDC armor pretty quickly or found them a FHW (Freakin' Huge Weapon).

Until one or the other was achieved, non-MDC PCs laid low and contributed in other ways.  If they got armor first, they continued to sit out combats until they got a MDC weapon.  If they got a FHW first, they contributed to combats and either used guerilla tactics or something that the best Korean MIGs used to do when encountering top American pilots*- shoot once then run.  Those FHW-equipped PCs occasionally made a direct difference in the fight by actually damaging or destroying a foe, but even if they didn't, it definitely made them reconsider their tactics...  _How many of those guys who ran into the woods were carrying rail guns again?_

* The "fire & flee" tactic was also used in the Middle East by the Arab nations attacking Israel in the 1960s and 70s- they couldn't afford to risk their best pilots and newest planes (both in short supply) in extended dogfights with Israeli pilots, but could definitely afford the price of a few missiles fired in the hope of taking down a foe before ducking back into friendly airspace.


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## SSquirrel

jdrakeh said:


> If I remember my Rifts Conversion Book One correctly, any SDC creature from another world (i.e., another Palladium game) that enters Rifts Earth via a rift becomes an MDC creature and retains all of their abilities. This being the case, I'd go with something totally crazy like an Old One from the world of Palladium Fantasy — if there wasn't already an Old One from the world of Palladium Fantasy lurking on Rifts Earth (there is).




1 MD was equal to 100SDC, so a typical MDC blaster will kill any normal human.  The only folks who got changed into MD creatures when coming to RIFTS earth were mostly super heroes.  Supernatural things tended to end up MD and many super hero powers converted the SDC directly into MDC.  

The Old Ones weren't included as PC options thankfully (sadly?).  The Splugorth are a race similar to the Old Ones really, evil alien intelligences.  The Splugorth and the vampire intelligences are pretty similar as well.  There are multiples in RIFTS Earth, they just carve out their own chunk of the planet


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## ickywicky

Most powerful characters in the game were actually the most complex.
My friend Colin was a freak about the game and one day he made an "ultimate character" game where each player could play their ulimate character made.
I remember that he made a dragon juice with over three million MDC, 15 attacks, automatic dodge, and each of his hits would do 15d6x10 damage. 
Mine was a four armed mutant magic robot pilot, who controlled 8 robots each with 6 attacks, each of which did 1d6x10 damage. 
Then there was the tattooed alien phase walking kung fu master with super strength who he managed to get his strength up to 126. 
Most broken game system ever.


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## Dannyalcatraz

Welcome to the boards!

And yes, RIFTS' system is quite the mess.

The setting, though...ahhhh...that's some gold right there!


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## ArekExcelsior

There's a few.

A) Superliminal Flight + Rocket Charge or Rocket Fists (the first two are from Powers Unlimited 3, the latter from PU 2). Get going at Superliminal. Unlike Cosmo-Knight flight, this is NOT a hyperspatial jump, but your character going CONTINUOUSLY at that speed for the whole arc. Rocket Charge and Rocket Fists make it so you ignore ramming damage. Page 72 of HU Revised 2nd Edition gives you +4 damage per mile per hour. So:

186,000 miles per second per level [since you get x1 FTL per level] * 60 seconds per minute * 60 minutes per hour * 4 damage = Your base striking damage + 2,678,400,000

Since they imply heavily (though don't explain since they do a terrible job at details like this) that this damage converts directly to Rifts, that means this character can splat anything in the game that is not literally invulnerable per action. Then just make them a Mega-Hero and make sure they have the Major Power Supernatural Strength and Tremendous P.S. as a Mega-Power. Almost nothing in the game can resist you. Worse comes to worst, grab a stake, some silver, a holy weapon, and a few other things you can use to make sure you kill invulnerable, intangible, etc. foes. Done.

B) Zebuloid Cyber-Knight. Even without the combos people mentioned of Battle Fury Blades, Magical-Adrenal Rush, etc., you can still dump out THOUSANDS of MDC a round. At level two. With NOTHING but the RCC and OCC. Let alone adding Amaki psi-sword amplifiers or Caliber-X, etc. etc.

C) Anything with Spin at High Velocity. That move just makes everything better.

D) Atlantean Stone Master. x1000 PS for picking up rocks. Now add on Gravity Manipulation, Weight Manipulation, supernatural P.S. buffs from spells and scrolls, Stone Ox training from Japan, and eventually you can splat Apsu with a rock.

In general:

ALWAYS take Ninjas and Superspies martial arts if your class is eligible for it. Screw O.C.C. Related skills.

ALWAYS take mutant powers if you can with your O.C.C. Screw O.C.C. Related skills.

Etc.



> Not by design though. And even a bladesinger competed on the same order  of magnitude as other characters.
> 
> In D&D, the most heinous examples of powergameing, rulebreaking  optimization require some serious work and very specific combos.
> 
> In rifts, they require choosing from a basic character class.




Wrong, wrong, wrong.

In one campaign, Goblins-themed, I rolled a Krynn Minotaur Monk. A 0 LA level 1 monk was thrashing third-to-fifth level enemies with class levels.

Anyone who rolls a Wizard, Druid or Cleric and isn't doing everything the Fighter or Barbarian can do but far, FAR better by fifth level is holding back or doesn't know how to play their class. Druids alone have class features better than entire classes.

In Rifts, lucky rolls for attributes rarely make you substantially stronger than everyone else, except for P.P. You have to get above 16 to see real benefits. In D&D, if I roll (as if I often do) a character with an 18, 18, 16, 16, 14, 12, I will make the person with an elite array a joke.

Some of the optimized combos are complex and hard to understand. Warhulk and Hulking Hurler is brain-smashingly obvious. The Vermin Lord H.I.V.E. trick is also pretty obvious. If you do the Vermin Lord trick, you can splat gods with your spells. Tome of Nine Swords combinations are so myriad and obvious it's tragic to even have to mention it. Not to mention the awful wording of Iron Heart Surge. And remember, while the differences may not be orders of magnitude, in Rifts anyone can pick up an absurdly broken energy weapon or railgun and do 2D6x10 M.D. and at least compete with the Cosmo-Knight's damage per round. But in D&D, the Barbarian and Fighter are likely to be literally useless.

Planar Shepherds have TWO, count them TWO, broken mechanics that are mind-blowingly obvious. First: Turn into extraplanars. Turn into a djinn, get Wishes, profit. Second: Manifest a bubble of the plane you're native to. Get 10 turns to their one. Profit.

Almost any PrC makes you better than almost any level of a base class, save Wizard, Druid, and Cleric.

And Rifts does not have a Pun-Pun.

I agree that, in general, Rifts is more broken. In particular, with Rifts different class choices give you different ranges of optimization, and a lot of classes are set at one level (e.g. a Dead Boy can't be optimized very much beyond sucking, and a Cosmo-Knight can't be optimized very much above or below being obscene). In other words, in D&D, the Wizard or the Druid can avoid casting the cheapest spells, specializing in the cheapest schools, and using the most broken wildshapes, but there's very little a player can do if they want to play a Cosmo-Knight but want to tone them down.

But I think you have to take Rifts more as a suite with options. You can organize it into tiers. A Cosmo-Knight, a Spirit Warrior, a Lizard Mage Mystic Knight, a Warlock (oh GOD Warlocks), a Xiticix Super-Warrior, and a converted Heroes Unlimited character can have a great time smashing face. Or you can roll a pure Coalition/Triax campaign and watch as your players have to run from the aforementioned team in mortal terror.

That having been said, IMHO, Phase World is actually fairly balanced. Heavy hitters like the Quatoria, Cosmo-Knight, Space Minotaur, etc. can co-exist pretty peacefully. C.J Carella was twinky as hell, but I will say this for most of his books: Aside from the standard skill monkey OCCs you have to throw into every Rifts book, most options within them are totally balanced.


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## a4 shadow fox

I had a Ulquiarra rip off character once! He was a Space Pirate but what made him different was he ended up with a martial art. Sankukai
Zombie Flesh and Alter Physical Form Bone! 

Turn the Bone into Magma and Instead of Space Pirate make it a Cosmo knight and you have the most powerful character EVER!


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## Lost Knowledge

In defense of vagabonds. The whole give up skills to get more superpowers plus vagabonds bonus power (conversation book) can make that class not only playable but very powerful. (Ex PE, Growth, Create Force Fields. And still chose several more powers gets thousands of MDC and at least 1d6x10 damage with a punch....)


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## HardcoreDandDGirl

I can't say anything was 'most' powerful, we did have a game back about 10 years ago that was way over board...

Matt was playing a dragon that shape shifted into a 8 year old girl and was pretending to be my daughter
I was an Alatian Undead slayer
Chris was a run away from the collation glitter boy pilot who we retro fit his armor with a spider walker cannon that crawled on his back, and he had a remote control speeder bike that we used to call in 'artillery fire' of mini missles
John was a Cosmo knight
and Betty was a technomage 'crazy' who had a cyclone armor brought over from robotech and a lightsaber designed for use in it's armored from...

The Cosmo Knight was by far the most powerful of us, but we all kicked but...


Edit: although my must fun game of rifts I was a Cyber Knight, and I ended up on good old Captian Nemo's ship finding out about his pre rifts tech...


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## Lost Knowledge

Half (or more) of the combos listed here are blatantly against the rules of the system, yes it can be unbalanced, but many of the most powerful abblitys had limits on who could use it. Like no cybernetics with bio-regen, that included crazie and juicer upgrades. And superpowers are limited to the weakest classes and races. That said there are still many verry powerful combos.


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## Nytmare

For the most part, even though I ran a lot of Rifts games, I never really had to deal with the wackiness because I almost always played with groups of people who were big on constraining themselves and the source material.  So they'd opt to do something like playing a pack of Dogboys trying to escape Lonestar, or limiting themselves to a single book and making a bunch of cyborg cops in New Germany or something.

I think it might have been the last open game of Rifts I ran, but I had three people in a row come up with character concepts that I ended up turning away.  The first guy wanted to play a Scarecrow Burster because Scarecrows were impervious to everything but fire and Bursters were immune to fire.  The next two guys wanted to play cyborgs and the only thing they were interested in was #1 whether or not they could get tactical nuclear weapons built into their bodies, and #2 if I thought that the damage of a nuke would be able to kill everyone else in the group.

Ah, the good old days.


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## Lost Knowledge

I played TMNT and Robotech before rifts so i was familiar with the balanced versions of the Pladium system. My first character in rifts was a randomly rolled hereos unlimited character(so 100% legit) my group had a line walker (legal), two adult dragons (not legit) a greater demon ( auctualy used a npc) and a full conversion borg ( with numerous nonstandard/legit parts) after two weeks it became obvious i could whipe the floor with any two of them. So even what looks like a power combo could find itself crippled by a random character.


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## Braden Rusty Spencer

In my rifts campaign, our GM was extremely generous and accepting, basically his theory was that if nothing in the books says that it's impossible, you can do it. So, I made a Demon Dragon Mage Dragon-Juicer. And he's pretty scary at level 1. I can't wait until he reaches level 10, and transforms.


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