Cyber-Knight changing OCCs - is it possible?

[Johnathan]

A thought that has crossed my mind and as much as I looked I couldn't find anything on the topic.

If you start off as a cyber-knight... Can you A - Change OCCs? B - If you can, do they still maintain all of their powers that they had at the time of the change (admittedly frozen at that level)? This includes but is not limited to Zen combat, cyber-knight psi-sword, etc.

[Mack]

A thought that has crossed my mind and as much as I looked I couldn't find anything on the topic.

If you start off as a cyber-knight... Can you A - Change OCCs? B - If you can, do they still maintain all of their powers that they had at the time of the change (admittedly frozen at that level)? This includes but is not limited to Zen combat, cyber-knight psi-sword, etc.

I don't believe there's a canon answer to this, so take all responses (including mine) with a grain of salt. (There could be a canon answer in PFRPG's High Seas, but I haven't read it.)

Personally, I treat the Cyber-Knight as almost like an RCC instead of OCC. It would take a pretty tramatic event to cause a CK to leave his OCC behind. If he did abandon the OCC, most likely he would avoid all trappings of his former life to include his abilities. The abilities wouldn't vanish, but he would stop using them. Perhaps they become dormant as he shuts out his previous life.

Now that's an "in-game" explanation. The "out-of-game" explanation is to prevent munchkins from combining various OCC's together in ways that were never intended.

[Shark_Force]

A thought that has crossed my mind and as much as I looked I couldn't find anything on the topic.

If you start off as a cyber-knight... Can you A - Change OCCs? B - If you can, do they still maintain all of their powers that they had at the time of the change (admittedly frozen at that level)? This includes but is not limited to Zen combat, cyber-knight psi-sword, etc.

yes, as a general rule (for example, if the OCC change is to a full conversion 'borg, they're probably going to lose some features. if the conversion is to a headhunter OCC without the cybernetics, no problem, they'd keep everything)

[Johnathan]

Yes, yes. I figured if you're going to convert over to a full conversion borg, you would lose some features. Namely psionics and all powers that would possibly be considered "of mind, body and spirit" since you have effectively given all of them up for the sake of becoming a cybernetic and bionic powerhouse.

What I was thinking was not nearly something to this extreme. Say (following RUE), a master psychic Cyber-Knight decides to "further develope" his psionic capabilities. Could he switch over to the Mind Melter OCC? Or the Psi-Warrior OCC? Or any other number of master psychic options that are available out there?

Could a "major" psychic Cyber-Knight decided to give up his life of fighting evil and become a Grey Seer? Or a Mystic? Or... go a little further, becoming a Mystic Knight of the White Rose or turn evil and become a Mystic Knight?

Would these be possibilities?

PS - Not saying I am personally entertaining these options, but just as something worth considering... Since I somewhat agree with Mack and almost consider the Cyber-Knight OCC as -almost- an RCC or a PCC. Not really an occupation, but moreso a way of life. Cause let's face it... even EVIL Cyber-Knights still fall under the Cyber-Knight "OCC"

[Kalidor]

I think Mind Melter is an RCC

[Mack]

Yes, yes. I figured if you're going to convert over to a full conversion borg, you would lose some features. Namely psionics and all powers that would possibly be considered "of mind, body and spirit" since you have effectively given all of them up for the sake of becoming a cybernetic and bionic powerhouse.

What I was thinking was not nearly something to this extreme. Say (following RUE), a master psychic Cyber-Knight decides to "further develope" his psionic capabilities. Could he switch over to the Mind Melter OCC? Or the Psi-Warrior OCC? Or any other number of master psychic options that are available out there?

Could a "major" psychic Cyber-Knight decided to give up his life of fighting evil and become a Grey Seer? Or a Mystic? Or... go a little further, becoming a Mystic Knight of the White Rose or turn evil and become a Mystic Knight?

Would these be possibilities?

Overall I have to say no. In particular psychic classes are not something a character can switch into. The character either never had sufficient psychic talent to become a Mind Melter, or missed his opportunity when he became a Cyber-Knight instead. Psychic classes are effectively an RCC, even though they are not labeled that way.

Again, that darned "balance" thing comes up. Here's an extreme example: take a long-living race, like a True Atlantean. Suppose he spends 20 years as a Cyber-Knight, then 20 years as a Mind Melter, then 20 years as a Mystic Knight, then 20 years as a Psi-Warrior. And that's only 80 years out of an average 500 year lifetime. You can see where this could go.

[Shark_Force]

Yes, yes. I figured if you're going to convert over to a full conversion borg, you would lose some features. Namely psionics and all powers that would possibly be considered "of mind, body and spirit" since you have effectively given all of them up for the sake of becoming a cybernetic and bionic powerhouse.

What I was thinking was not nearly something to this extreme. Say (following RUE), a master psychic Cyber-Knight decides to "further develope" his psionic capabilities. Could he switch over to the Mind Melter OCC? Or the Psi-Warrior OCC? Or any other number of master psychic options that are available out there?

Could a "major" psychic Cyber-Knight decided to give up his life of fighting evil and become a Grey Seer? Or a Mystic? Or... go a little further, becoming a Mystic Knight of the White Rose or turn evil and become a Mystic Knight?

Would these be possibilities?

PS - Not saying I am personally entertaining these options, but just as something worth considering... Since I somewhat agree with Mack and almost consider the Cyber-Knight OCC as -almost- an RCC or a PCC. Not really an occupation, but moreso a way of life. Cause let's face it... even EVIL Cyber-Knights still fall under the Cyber-Knight "OCC"

the full-conversion 'borg was just an example of an obvious exception, actually.

as far as becoming a mind melter, i would allow it (if they were a master psychic cyber-knight), but not on a whim. ie, you could spend the next few *years* becoming a mind melter, but i don't think i'd just allow you to change to it out of the blue. likewise for psi-warrior (although psi-warrior is a bunch closer to a cyber-knight from what i recall, so probably not quite as long).

become a grey seer, mystic, or mystic knight? i would say no. all of those are mystic OCCs as i recall, and you can't just choose to become a mystic. now, the GM could decide that you gain those classes, and i wouldn't even require that you be a major psychic first, but those are examples of an OCC you can't just choose to become. i *would* allow a cyber-knight to learn to be a ley line walker, shifter, or techno-wizard, however (but again, there would be years of training involved). in truth, you should probably have to spend years of training to pick up most new OCCs unless they're quite similar to yours. after all, if it takes a new ley line walker several years to achieve 1st level in the OCC, it should take at *least* that long for a headhunter or cyber-knight to learn the OCC, particularly since they spent the years where humans learn fastest and most easily learning something else.

as far as probability goes, i agree that not many cyber-knights would choose to change OCC. but the question was not asked if it was probable, merely if it was possible, and i do think it *could* happen, it would just be extremely rare (particularly when you consider how difficult the training is and how long, i don't think many people would make it through the training if they were the sort to just change their mind all the time)

[Lenwen]

A thought that has crossed my mind and as much as I looked I couldn't find anything on the topic.

If you start off as a cyber-knight... Can you A - Change OCCs? B - If you can, do they still maintain all of their powers that they had at the time of the change (admittedly frozen at that level)? This includes but is not limited to Zen combat, cyber-knight psi-sword, etc.

Only way that I personally know of would possibly be if their minds were erased or something along those lines ..

Or quite possibly becomming enslaved by the Splugorthians and forced into another class such as a Bio-Borg or even possibly .. a T-Man of some type ..

[Johnathan]

Okay, thanks for the input y'all! I have a second question to tack onto this then...

What happens in the, unlikely, scenario that your cyber-knight PC manages to achieve 15th level and IS one of these longer-lived races (Elves, True Atlantean, etc)?

Does that mean they spend the rest of their lives as a Cyber-Knight with no growth potential what-so-ever? Or would they be able to do something like the leader of the White Rose achieved? Some sort of Ascension? Or would you say, "Perhaps it's time to roll up a new character... This guy has reached his apex..."?

[Shark_Force]

i would say that 15 is not the maximum, it's mostly just an arbitrarily high number and it's unlikely for anyone to need to know how much exp you need to reach 16.

[SkyeFyre]

I read in one of the books that KS actually says that you can keep going beyond level 15 and what you would basically do is just take the amount of exp listed to go from 15-16 and that is how much they need for each level beyond 15.

He doesn't touch on further advancement in skills but what I've house ruled is that the bonuses for level 16 are treated as bonuses for level 1. Just instead of getting 4 attacks per melee you get 1. So level 17 gets level 2 bonuses...etc. If something gives like a critical on 18-20 then next time they get a critical on a 17-20. Kick attacks and those sorts of bonuses just gain another die or maybe a +1 to damage. Paired weapons? I'd give them maybe another +1 damage or initiative or something like that. And yeah... that's it.

[Tinker Dragoon]

A thought that has crossed my mind and as much as I looked I couldn't find anything on the topic.

If you start off as a cyber-knight... Can you A - Change OCCs? B - If you can, do they still maintain all of their powers that they had at the time of the change (admittedly frozen at that level)? This includes but is not limited to Zen combat, cyber-knight psi-sword, etc.

You generally can't change classes in Rifts, except to become a cyborg, crazy, juicer, mutant, cosmo-knight, apok, vampire, or some other sort of life-(and species-) altering transformation.

If the Cyber-Knight decides (or is forced) to become a cyborg, not only are his skills frozen, but he may also lose part (headhunter/partial 'borg) or all (full 'borg) of his psychic and zen-combat abilities (except for paired weapons). Same if the character gets transformed into some kind of Gene-Splicer or Splugorth monstrosity. He definitely loses everything if he becomes a vampire. If the character is a Sea Titan who opted to leave the New Navy and become a Cyber-Knight instead, the character may have to wait until the age of 250 to change classes, depending on how the GM interprets the rule in Rifts Underseas.

However, if the character is just changing careers, and the GM allows it, then the standard [url="http://www.palladium-megaverse.com/cuttingroom/oops/dualocc.html"]rules[/url] apply. All the character's old skills, powers, and abilities freeze permanently, except for those which are also possessed by the new class, in which case they are only frozen until the new class' experience level exceeds the character's level as a Cyber-Knight. It could also be argued that some of the character's old Cyber-Knight abilities would be lost with time due to lack of practice, but that's up to the GM to decide.

[cornholioprime]

Yes, yes. I figured if you're going to convert over to a full conversion borg, you would lose some features. Namely psionics and all powers that would possibly be considered "of mind, body and spirit" since you have effectively given all of them up for the sake of becoming a cybernetic and bionic powerhouse.

What I was thinking was not nearly something to this extreme. Say (following RUE), a master psychic Cyber-Knight decides to "further develope" his psionic capabilities. Could he switch over to the Mind Melter OCC? Or the Psi-Warrior OCC? Or any other number of master psychic options that are available out there?

Could a "major" psychic Cyber-Knight decided to give up his life of fighting evil and become a Grey Seer? Or a Mystic? Or... go a little further, becoming a Mystic Knight of the White Rose or turn evil and become a Mystic Knight?

Would these be possibilities?

PS - Not saying I am personally entertaining these options, but just as something worth considering... Since I somewhat agree with Mack and almost consider the Cyber-Knight OCC as -almost- an RCC or a PCC. Not really an occupation, but moreso a way of life. Cause let's face it... even EVIL Cyber-Knights still fall under the Cyber-Knight "OCC"

Again according to the information in Siege on Tolkeen 4: Cyber-Knights, the Authors seem to go to great pains to state that if you want to develop a Cyber-Knight as a Psychic, then (besides whatever you naturally get as a CK), you are limited to a relatively small set of Psychic Powers.

Officially -not your own House Rule -you can pick, at very most, up to twn Psi-Powers from the three categories and, besides your Psi-Sword, one more Super-Psi power at level one, and that's it.

See page 24 of the SOT4: C-K book for more details.

It seems to me, at first blush, as if the Authors were anticipating this specific mixture of Powers amongst people playing Cyber-Knights, and are trying to head it off at the pass, as it were.