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It's been over a decade since I last looked at anything related to Rifts. Before I left, Psionics got an upgrade from Psyscape, magic got a downgrade from Federation of Magic (although the new spells did address some obvious gaps), and the power creep was at a level such that the average attack did at least 1D6x10 (making almost everything from the first set of books pretty much uncompetitive).

Anyways, I was looking through my old books again and suddenly got curious about the status of Rifts 10 years later.

Did the system get a reboot?

If not, were there any rule tweaks that significantly changed the balance or flavor of the game?

Have any game-changing magics, psionics, or tech been introduced?

Any books that became instant must-haves like England or Atlantis were?

Can someone give me a summary of the highlights?

Thanks!

--flatline

ps. I think this is the same username I used on these forums 10+ years ago, so "hi" to anyone who might remember me.

flatline wrote:It's been over a decade since I last looked at anything related to Rifts. Before I left, Psionics got an upgrade from Psyscape, magic got a downgrade from Federation of Magic (although the new spells did address some obvious gaps), and the power creep was at a level such that the average attack did at least 1D6x10 (making almost everything from the first set of books pretty much uncompetitive).

Anyways, I was looking through my old books again and suddenly got curious about the status of Rifts 10 years later.

Did the system get a reboot?

No. Rifts Ultimate Edition cleaned things up a bit, though.

If not, were there any rule tweaks that significantly changed the balance or flavor of the game?

In virtually every book to come out.

Have any game-changing magics, psionics, or tech been introduced?

Hm. Probably not.
After a certain point, there's so much stuff in the mix that no matter what you add, it blends in fairly well.

Any books that became instant must-haves like England or Atlantis were?

England was? Really?
Hm.

Killer Cyborg wrote:

flatline wrote:Any books that became instant must-haves like England or Atlantis were?

England was? Really?
Hm.

It's been a long time, but as I remember, the temporal wizard was the first magic OCC that felt "right" for the rifts setting. All the magic OCCs from the main book were just Rifts adaptations of the OCCs from Beyond the Supernatural.

Also, England was a book that seemed dedicated to creating the flavor of the region it described, rather than just adding a new list of weapons, armor, and baddies to the mix. That, and the distinct lack of power creep was refreshing.

Perhaps it wasn't as important a book as I remember, but in my mind, Temporal Magic, and specifically the Temporal Wizard, was a real game-changer at the time. Obviously, Federation of Magic changed that some, but the FoM OCCs were all built around gimmicks and lacked the elegance of the Temporal Wizard.

Just my (hazily remembered) opinion, of course.

--flatline

flatline wrote:Any books that became instant must-haves like England or Atlantis were?

If you were to ask me, D-Bees of North America was awesome.

A lot of stuff has been done with Phase World, in case you like that setting. The Sourcebook 1 (ARCHIE book) has been revised. I wouldn't call it a "must have" but I liked it

Oh, and Palladium launched a spin-off game of Rifts called "Chaos Earth" which is set during the Cataclysm.

If you like Atlantis, there's the "Splynn Dimensional Market" (haven't looked at it myself)

I've heard mixed reviews of Triax 2......

Oh, and I don't know if it was out 10 years ago, there's also the Rifts Game Master Guide.

The old Vampires Kingdoms book has been revised (I've head good things). AND, there's gonna be a Vampire-dedicated book

One thing about the magic system that has changed is that it is quicker and less complicated to cast spells low level spell require one attack to cast and it moves up from there.

Anthar wrote:One thing about the magic system that has changed is that it is quicker and less complicated to cast spells low level spell require one attack to cast and it moves up from there.

That's a good change. When I left, the only way to get 1 spell = 1 attack was to create talismans for the spells you wanted to cast quickly. As I recall, that worked for spells less than level 8.

--flatline

There was a 7 book series with the CS Siege on Tolkeen...you probably stopped playing as it was beginning. Its been widely debated, Ie. everyone hates it for different reasons, which was both the CS and Tolkeen not fighting as well as we would like.

There was 1 comic book by Perez, Rifts Machinations of doom. Useful for getting people interested in the game.

...and we are still waiting for the mechanoid space book.

G wrote:There was a 7 book series with the CS Siege on Tolkeen...you probably stopped playing as it was beginning. Its been widely debated, Ie. everyone hates it for different reasons, which was both the CS and Tolkeen not fighting as well as we would like.

There was 1 comic book by Perez, Rifts Machinations of doom. Useful for getting people interested in the game.

...and we are still waiting for the mechanoid space book.

Did wormwood get any updates?

That was one of my favorite settings, even if the mechanics didn't work well.

--flatline

flatline wrote:

G wrote:There was a 7 book series with the CS Siege on Tolkeen...you probably stopped playing as it was beginning. Its been widely debated, Ie. everyone hates it for different reasons, which was both the CS and Tolkeen not fighting as well as we would like.

There was 1 comic book by Perez, Rifts Machinations of doom. Useful for getting people interested in the game.

...and we are still waiting for the mechanoid space book.

Did wormwood get any updates?

That was one of my favorite settings, even if the mechanics didn't work well.

--flatline

No updates other than a brieg mention in the Rifts Aftermath book for the Siege on Tolkein series and I think one or two articles in the Rifter at some point maybe. There are many books that were scheduled to come out ten years ago that have been put on the backburner or cancelled completely. Just a guess but not counting the Rifters they probably didn't publish more than 2 dozen books in ten years.

Amongst the thing that changed.
New York got its own World Book, is Madhaven, and its the creepiest , most dangerous place in Rifts Earth I've ever seen!

SplynnDimensional Marke is great addition for Atlantis based campaign and give lot interesting info. Also Bio-borg got their OCC. Specific models wneto on being printed in Rifters.
One change, that wa smore or less already in place before on some level, was that not official stuff ended up printed in Rifters sometimes.

Rifts China 1 and 2, should have been three books. But Erik Wujik had been called to roleplay in heaven And so the third book never was(but he got time to revise AtB completely, replacing TMNT&OS..too bad now he is gone...since it means N&S and AtB will stay in limbo for a while )

Triax 2 while debated, had lot of interesting text in it, infact the non statistical part of the book is an interesting reading in all and for all. And of course has also some nifty toys.

RUE refined lot of the things that players asked loudly to be changed. Too bad that did not satisfy all of them. The only trouble i got with it, personally, is the GI.Joe armor rule(armor when destoryed stop the very last bit of blast before, so if you have a 3 MDC armor and you're hit with 25 MD blast, you still live UNSCATHED(I consider it optional and depend on what sort of campaign are you running), and Vagabond become a super skilled vagabond, with some extra skills that just don't fit any idea of unskilled average guy...

Sourcebook one got revised too. Archie is still there, and mor einfo about him are added, introducing the Repubblicans, a secret faction that could potentially be a problem on large level. ARCHIE is more tha meet the eye, really.

Talking about Archie, Shemarrians got their own sourcebook!! Truly many wonder why, but in the end come out a cool book.

One Megaversal note. the Minor war exploded on full throttle!!! One of the few Megaversale "crossover" that is actually working. Hades and Dyval dimension got seriously updated. And othe rbooks added more and more about this, included the most sadistic, cruel, heavy metal demonic spells ever written for an RPG(i'm not joking to summon a gargoyle at chepa PPE cost, you have to CHOP the head off a living bat...do not say with a bite, but is demonic magic, so 9 GM on 10 will say "yes with a bite" . The last ook to come out will cover Rifts Earth, the magic zone demonic kingdoms to be exact. I'm waiting for it.

Shocking news, that really took us all by surprise. Rifts Lemuria is going to be pubblished.....SERIOUSLY!! Many huh??? were spelt at this news. Some old timers, like me, say that they will believe it when they see the book in their hands. Still Rifts Lemuria...my god...

And here a little bit of what happened in these 10 years...more or less(is more the pivotal points I remember)

CS fought Tolkeen ... a Nation vs a City. Took 5 years for the CS to win. See Seige of Tolkeen 1-6.

Cyberknights got a book. Updated to be Anti-tech based. Updated again in Ultimate Edition. See Seige of Tolkeen 4 Cyberknights.

Atlantis 2 : Splyn Dimensional Market

Xiticix Invasion = Book about the Xiticix themselves.

China 1 and 2. China 3 is on a shelf at PB-HQ.

Rifts Ultimate Edition was released. Save your Money, trust me. I wish i did.

Not Rifts, but ... SPLICERS RPG ... a new rpg/Dimensionbook. Bio-Technologies. Organic Power Armor. The bad guy, a crazy robot AI trying to kill all humans (ugg). GREAT RPG btw.

England was a running gag on the show for the book that most people would want to re-write

Just to chime in here really quickly -- MADHAVEN ROCKS! As someone who lives here in NY the Madhaven book is effing phenomenal! Enjoy it wholeheartedly! If you've got a little money to burn I'd DEFINITELY pick up DBoNA (D-Bees of North America). If you're a Merc guy I'd pick up Mercenaries, Merc Ops, and Merctown. Merc companies, adventure ideas, NPCs, etc.

For non-RIFTS books I absolutely adore Nightspawn and HU2. I can't say enough awesome things about those two and have found that they work decently in conjunction with each other and with Ninjas and Superspies.

Splicers - got this one in my Christmas Surprise Package and immediately gravitated toward it. It's charming!

Spread the love!

Witchcraft wrote:Just to chime in here really quickly -- MADHAVEN ROCKS! As someone who lives here in NY the Madhaven book is effing phenomenal! Enjoy it wholeheartedly! If you've got a little money to burn I'd DEFINITELY pick up DBoNA (D-Bees of North America). If you're a Merc guy I'd pick up Mercenaries, Merc Ops, and Merctown. Merc companies, adventure ideas, NPCs, etc.

For non-RIFTS books I absolutely adore Nightspawn and HU2. I can't say enough awesome things about those two and have found that they work decently in conjunction with each other and with Ninjas and Superspies.

Splicers - got this one in my Christmas Surprise Package and immediately gravitated toward it. It's charming!

Spread the love!

Where the HE double hocky sticks is West Babylon????? I have been to NY never been there.

boxee wrote:

Witchcraft wrote:Just to chime in here really quickly -- MADHAVEN ROCKS! As someone who lives here in NY the Madhaven book is effing phenomenal! Enjoy it wholeheartedly! If you've got a little money to burn I'd DEFINITELY pick up DBoNA (D-Bees of North America). If you're a Merc guy I'd pick up Mercenaries, Merc Ops, and Merctown. Merc companies, adventure ideas, NPCs, etc.

For non-RIFTS books I absolutely adore Nightspawn and HU2. I can't say enough awesome things about those two and have found that they work decently in conjunction with each other and with Ninjas and Superspies.

Splicers - got this one in my Christmas Surprise Package and immediately gravitated toward it. It's charming!

Spread the love!

Where the HE double hocky sticks is West Babylon????? I have been to NY never been there.

Right here.

Anthar wrote:

boxee wrote:

Witchcraft wrote:Just to chime in here really quickly -- MADHAVEN ROCKS! As someone who lives here in NY the Madhaven book is effing phenomenal! Enjoy it wholeheartedly! If you've got a little money to burn I'd DEFINITELY pick up DBoNA (D-Bees of North America). If you're a Merc guy I'd pick up Mercenaries, Merc Ops, and Merctown. Merc companies, adventure ideas, NPCs, etc.

For non-RIFTS books I absolutely adore Nightspawn and HU2. I can't say enough awesome things about those two and have found that they work decently in conjunction with each other and with Ninjas and Superspies.

Splicers - got this one in my Christmas Surprise Package and immediately gravitated toward it. It's charming!

Spread the love!

Where the HE double hocky sticks is West Babylon????? I have been to NY never been there.

Right here.

Wow nice, I am from the shore, but dont remember that town, but it has been 20+ years since I was up that way.

to sum up so far..

The setting expanded exponentially with increases in both areas covered and details.
RUE expanded a number of OCC's and added some all new OCC's and RCC's.
RUE streamlined a number of the clunkier rules
RUE added new clunky rules
many of these changes met opposition due to individual preferences.

Daniel2112 wrote:And in other news, Kevin STILL thinks it's 1985, as evidenced by freaking F-14 TOMCATS being used by the Coalition Navy.

which:
A) Kevin didn't write. (it was done by Patrick Nowak)
and
B) are found in a book first printed in 1997, ten years earlier when the F-14 Tomcat was still in service and the F-14 Super Tomcat 21 upgrade package was being considered by the navy, which would have extended F-14 operations into the 2040's or later, including the option of new build models.

it is only now, when we know the F-14 Super Tomcat 21's were cancelled to free up budget for the (cancelled in turn) A-12 development project, then retired, then the remaining airframe destroyed to keep their parts out of the hands of the iranians.

hindsight may be 20/20, but it is also deceptive, since it is easy to forget that those in the past didn't have the perspective we have today.

Daniel2112 wrote:And in other news, Kevin STILL thinks it's 1985, as evidenced by freaking F-14 TOMCATS being used by the Coalition Navy.

Wait, it's not?

you shouldn't count the 300 years post cataclysm though, they spent that time in a bunker. you only have to explain how the tomcats got into that bunker. the CS lacked any fighter capability (Skycycles don't really count), so they'd take what they could get.

which makes the tomcat design only 94 years old, and those particular airframes (if not complete new builds) only 75ish. new builds under the AST21 program would have still been flying in the 2070's, given the improvements in durability and maintence being desiged into planes at the time. with service life extension programs and airframe overhuals to 'zero' the wear (where the manufacturer goes though and rebuilds the plane to return it to near new status, usually done as part of an upgrade), the design could have been flying that long. certainly the B-52 stratofortress has shown that to work. (the B-52 is currently 56 years old, with most of the airframes being over 45 years old. there is no plan to retire it, with no plan to even consider it until 2045 at least..at which point it would be 90 years old, and the individual planes would be over 79 years old.)

it's a stretch, but possible. given that they were parked in a bunker, it's likely those planes were either in the process of being retired, or were being overhualed for sale to an allied nation. which more often than not, are one and the same, with retired planes being 'zeroed' with an overhual then sold off.

Daniel2112 wrote:Do the words "metal fatigue" mean anything at all to you? Just sitting there in normal Earth gravity would've caused them to long since collapse into shapeless piles of scrap metal, bunker or not. That's not even accounting for things like mold and humidity ruining delicate internals like electronics. Trying to defend this bit of stupid is like trying to defend Kevin taking fifteen years to figure out that the speed of sound isn't 670 miles per hour.

I don't claim to be an authority on this, but if I recall my material sciences from college correctly, metal fatigue results from repetitive changes in the force applied. The relatively constant pull of gravity should not result in metal fatigue, although it's possible that many small earthquakes over time might result in metal fatigue.

--flatline

Daniel2112 wrote: That's not even accounting for things like mold and humidity ruining delicate internals like electronics.

It all depends on how things were stored.

the F-14's airframe and skin is almost entirely Aluminum. Aluminum is immune to weathering, and steady stress like the effect of gravity actually makes it stronger. likewise most of the engine is corrosion proof stainless steel, titanium, and aluminum. it would have the striped down and rebuilt to replace seals, wiring, and other degradable parts, same for the avionics in the aircraft. which is why the CS hired GAW to do it. that is their speciality. as per SB4, GAW would have to rebuild the fighters to make them useful.

and as i pointed out, prior to the tomcats, all the CS had was Skycycles and SAMAS, both subsonic, low altitude, and with extremely limited and short ranged firepower.


and by the way, the speed of sound varies based on altitude. 670mph is the speed of sound at 30,000 feet, or normal cruising altitude for airliners and military jets. speed at sea level is around 760mph. a difference of only 90mph, or 22%. not really much all things told. especially since if you average out the speeds at different altitudes, it comes to around 670mph.

F-14s are fine. As long as the change to Gaurdian Mode and Battleoid modes in battle.