Galroth wrote:Wait, so Rifts mages are weak, unless they find a spell combination that lets them beat a tech character then they are munchkins. Same with Psionics. I don't understand your reasoning. Rifts mages can be potent if the GM does 2 things.
1: They need exp. Growing in levels faster than Palladium generally is set up for helps things enormously.
2: They need opportunities to learn new spells outside of leveling.
Doing those two things moves magic characters into the same realms of power as tech characters if they are played well. If they try to stand toe to toe, high noon style, they will probably lose more than they win. If they make use of spells like Invisibility, Carpet of Adhesion (aka Carpet of IWin) and other spells creatively they will move their win/loss up quite a bit. Still, on a Ley Line the single most effective spell against a tech character is Ley Line Phantom. I'm going to make sure every magic character I make from now on has that spell.
the key to understanding everything keir says about magic is that he nerfs everything that isn't a damage-dealing spell (or a defensive spell, so far as i know).
so you have to understand, when he says magic sucks in rifts, what that means to the rest of us is that magic sucks at nuking in rifts (which is for the most part true, with the exceptions generally being not terribly more impressive than what technology can provide if they are more impressive at all).
so, from his perspective, he's right... the spells he hasn't nerfed into the ground (and which he generally doesn't admit or clarify that he has done so unless you do some digging) do indeed suck. this is because he nerfs all the useful spells into the ground. now, this might lead you to question why he doesn't just power up those nuking spells to compensate. to be honest, i don't know. maybe he does. i kinda doubt it though.
but basically, if it's a useful spell in rifts, assume that keir has nerfed it until it sucks and wouldn't be worth casting unless it was made to cost 0 PPE and 0 actions. and possibly not even then.
as such, having discussions about what the *actual* magic rules say is generally not going to be a productive use of your time, because in keir's games, spells don't work the way they do in the actual rules, and so far as i can tell he goes into every rules debate about magic assuming that everyone else plays the game exactly like him.
His "MEGADEATH" spell kills all!!