bio borgs

[say652]

with the availible upgrades and symbiotes how could i forget about these unsung powerhouses of atlantis. now since bio borg upgrades dont mess with spell casting and some(eyes of eyelor) actually help spell casting wouldnt these be availible to temporal classes instead of everybody being a demigod????

[Nekira Sudacne]

Uhh, they've always been available to any class. I'm not sure what your question is.

[say652]

offering ways to beef up spell casters without being a demigod or a godling or a lizardmage. thinking "out loud"i guess.

[say652]

spells are powerful yes but vs a pulse rifle not so much or vs a railgun spells are a joke. three spells vs the six or seven shots a samus can take at you is well useless. armor of ithan at 15th level yea thats 3 or 4 good hits from a railgun or one good shot from a glitterboy. i like the concept of magic spells but unless you really munchkinup a spell caster most wont last too long. in sdc realms spell casters seem much much stronger and in their element so to speak.

[MaxxSterling]

I agree, 1 on 1 a 1st level mage cannot stop a 1st level glitter boy. And bio-borgs can be unbelievably powerful even at 1st level...

[Nekira Sudacne]

Sure mages can. As long as they don't try to fight it fairly. have the ley line walker stay shadow melded until they get behind the glitter boy, dump carpet of adhesion so it can't turn around to aim that big rail gun at them. boom. fights over. Mage can afford to to take his time with the glitter boy with conventional weapons.

Now your going to say "Well that assumes there's enough shadow in the area to get behind the glitter boy that way". and your right--which is why the mage avoids the glitter boy until it can.

Mages, especially low level mages, do in fact stink in outright combat. they are, however, the holy terrors of gurrila combat. which means, first of all, do NOT fight unless you have the advantage. use invisibility/shadow meld to hide and evade, and only fight when it favors you.

honestly, the best stratagy for killing the glitter boy is to trail stealithly until the guy gets out of the glitter boy, then cut his throat while he's asleep and pack the glitter boy full of fusion blocks while it's empty.

[Eclipse]

Yeah, there's a classic example of a Crazy sneaking up and close and spraying the glitter boy's visor with spray paint then carving a mocking symbol on him with his vibro blade. The GB probably should have fired a round to hit him with the BOOOM, but still, it shows how vulnerable the ground pounding glitterboy can be..

[Talavar]

spells are powerful yes but vs a pulse rifle not so much or vs a railgun spells are a joke. three spells vs the six or seven shots a samus can take at you is well useless. armor of ithan at 15th level yea thats 3 or 4 good hits from a railgun or one good shot from a glitterboy. i like the concept of magic spells but unless you really munchkinup a spell caster most wont last too long. in sdc realms spell casters seem much much stronger and in their element so to speak.

Negate mechanics makes that rail gun stop working - no save. Fear makes that SAMAS pilot unable to shoot at you. Impervious to energy or Invulnerability make that pulse rifle more useful as a club or thrown weapon. Carpet of Adhesion or magic net win fights. Magic users get by just fine.

[Mack]

armor of ithan at 15th level yea thats 3 or 4 good hits from a railgun or one good shot from a glitterboy.

Any level 15 mage who relies upon Armor of Ithan (a level 1 spell) to protect him from a Glitterboy deserves the result.

[Nekira Sudacne]

armor of ithan at 15th level yea thats 3 or 4 good hits from a railgun or one good shot from a glitterboy.

Any level 15 mage who relies upon Armor of Ithan (a level 1 spell) to protect him from a Glitterboy deserves the result.

Armor of Ithan is a level 3 spell.

Same difference though. by level 15 they should have much better tools in their arsenal.

[say652]

and what other spells allow a sdc mage unarmored to take mdc damage???????

[Galroth]

and what other spells allow a sdc mage unarmored to take mdc damage???????

Invincible Armor (25 mdc per level).

If on a Ley Line there is always Ley Line Phantom, become invulnerable to non-magic/psionic attacks while still being able to dish out damage at will.

Edit: Smart mages play up their strengths and force confrontation on their terms whenever possible.

[say652]

most players i have gm'd for agree mages suck i will play a tattoo man so i don't die. or mages suck i will play a techno wizard so i can make magic items. this system is very anti magic in fact its very very anti magic. allowing mages to cast spells like psionics just makes them deadly again, not such a bad thing. my mage a leyline walker was slain by a party member after he was enticed by the secondary vampire(immortality? really?) he magicked the crap out of. giving mages a fighting chance doesn't change the game in any way(super powers HELLO!) just levels an uneven playing field.

[Talavar]

most players i have gm'd for agree mages suck i will play a tattoo man so i don't die. or mages suck i will play a techno wizard so i can make magic items. this system is very anti magic in fact its very very anti magic. allowing mages to cast spells like psionics just makes them deadly again, not such a bad thing. my mage a leyline walker was slain by a party member after he was enticed by the secondary vampire(immortality? really?) he magicked the crap out of. giving mages a fighting chance doesn't change the game in any way(super powers HELLO!) just levels an uneven playing field.

You keep saying this in numerous threads, but I don't think you read any of the responses. One more time:

1. Rifts Ultimate Edition changed the rules for magic using. They can cast more spells per round now.

2. Most people don't agree with you. Magic is extremely powerful in Rifts, particularly at winning fights, rather than just doing damage. That said, a number of spells do perfectly respectable damage - Sorcerous Fury, Nova Blast, Lightning Arc, Lightblade, Shadow Bolt at higher levels, Hellfire Bolt at mid to high levels - all of those do damage comparable or better to most hand weapons, and that's not even getting into spells like Annihilate, Tornado, River of Lava, Vicious Circle, that can one-shot giant robots, or kill platoons.

[Hot Rod]

most players i have gm'd for agree mages suck i will play a tattoo man so i don't die. or mages suck i will play a techno wizard so i can make magic items. this system is very anti magic in fact its very very anti magic. allowing mages to cast spells like psionics just makes them deadly again, not such a bad thing. my mage a leyline walker was slain by a party member after he was enticed by the secondary vampire(immortality? really?) he magicked the crap out of. giving mages a fighting chance doesn't change the game in any way(super powers HELLO!) just levels an uneven playing field.

Depends on the GM mostly. Strictly by the book, only 9th level and higher mages can teach spells so in my experience mages are stuck with only the default "level up" spells. That really tips the scales in favor of the SAMAS or GB pilot...
Kevin says in the Book of Magic FAQ that GMs should allow mages to learn as much as they like, but that is not reflected outside the FAQ.

[Witchcraft]

On a regular basis the mages in my campaign win the session-MVP. Perhaps they require a different or more thoughtful approach than your typical Man-At-Arms but I'm of the mindset that we should play what we find fun. Just two nights ago a Shifter in my campaign summoned a shadow beast to distract a mob, carpeted two greater chaos night demons next to each other, read a scroll of anti-magic cloud to prevent their retaliation / escape, and actually rolled (2) 4's for maximum damage on an annihilate -- 800 MD in one spell -- that he cast in one action from his "vajra" where it had previously been stored. I am forced to disagree. Circle gets the square.

[Ectoplasmic Bidet]

I'm really having a hard time believing there could ever be consensus within any gaming group that Palladium-style mages "suck". Not unless every player had only experienced the game under a single GM who had definite preconceived biases against spellcasters and colored their games in that vein.

With just a few relatively low level spells and a bit of creativity, most mages can hold up quite well against any reasonable opponent. Let them learn a handful of higher level spells and they become hideously powerful.

[say652]

ok back to the bio-borg heading i started with. lets take a temporal warrior(my favorite mage) add mdc-275, supernatural ps-50,speed-50,winged flight spd-120, lightning symbiote(forgot the name), and a few eyes of eyelor for the extra ppe.Boom a sick nasty mage/bio borg. for the rest of this thread all magic based discussions will be ignored. its about BIO-BORGS!

[Johnathan]

ok back to the bio-borg heading i started with. lets take a temporal warrior(my favorite mage) add mdc-275, supernatural ps-50,speed-50,winged flight spd-120, lightning symbiote(forgot the name), and a few eyes of eyelor for the extra ppe.Boom a sick nasty mage/bio borg. for the rest of this thread all magic based discussions will be ignored. its about BIO-BORGS!

Shoot... Why stop there? Get an Absurr Life Node, Chest Amalgme and a couple of Elos (those worm symbiotes that grant psionics). Add a few hundred more MDC, extended life, some juicer-esque ability and psionics into the mix... Oh and a Symbiote Heart for that extra bit of Oomph.

[Ectoplasmic Bidet]

If someone receives four or more bio-wizard augmentations or beneficial symbiotes, they become a partial bio-borg, which is considered a new OCC. This freezes their previous OCC, including skills, spell progression, PPE or ISP advancement, etc. until the new partial bio-borg level equals that of their old OCC.

Personally, I do not feel that most spellcasters, unless perhaps they have already reached the absolute pinnacle of their craft or are quite insane, would willingly halt their magical development to gain benefits which can mostly be mimicked through the use of spells or mystic paraphernalia. You can pick up a few upgrades, but it's dangerous to do so. Say you had three augmentations and/or symbiotes. If some enterprising enemy knew this, all they would have to do is infect you with one of the myriad bio-wizard microbes or parasites that instills additional bonuses or powers, regardless of its side-effects, and then you're a bio-borg, whether you like it or not.

[Akashic Soldier]

1 on 1 a 1st level mage cannot stop a 1st level glitter boy.

*snickers*

[kaid]

1 on 1 a 1st level mage cannot stop a 1st level glitter boy.

*snickers*

Hehe things like this are the joy and pain of the rifts system. Some classes like the glitterboy are pretty much as strong as they will ever get other than a few extra bonuses here and a few extra melee attacks at level 1. They have no real improvement over time in fact attrition tends to make them less and less over time and all their work goes into staving off that degradation of capabilities.

Men of magic classes are a much more typical RPG type character they start out weaker but gain power pretty rapidly as they increase in level.

Also if one wants to compare one of the strongest tech OCC in the game you may want to compare them to something like Tattoo men/lemurian caster classes/combat magus. A ley line walker is much more comprable power level to a head hunter/light borg than to an OCC that starts with the physically toughest and hardest hitting power armor if not the most versatile power armor in the game setting.

Even given that a ley line walker may not be able to kill a glitter boy at level 1 in the right situation using their magic to shadow meld/invis superior up to the glitterboy they could disable the boom gun realitivly easily or at least its connection to its ammo supply. Once that is gone you have a really tough guy who is punching for low/moderate damage. Or just carpet of adhesion him and walk away.

[MaxxSterling]

say652, just start blocking people who don't provide relevance, I have like 60 people ignored on here because they always derail, and also quote nothing but house rules... I don't see an issue with your initial question. And that character will be a monster.