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A lot of the OCC abilities with ley lines are often explained as being 'due to the high magic levels'. It is explained that by the time of Rift World that the PPE in the ley lines has died down a bit.

I am wondering if it has ever been addressed how someone who learned these OCCs would fare in Rifts. Like if their powers would drop, and how much. Conversely, if a Rifts OCC made it back to the Chaos Earth times, if they'd go up in power or stay the same.

While some of these seem a lot stronger than Rifts Main Book, with the RUE boosts the difference isn't that huge, the biggest I can see is the Chaos Wizard's PPE channeling rates eclipsing the Line Walker's a bit.

Also regarding the Chaos Wizard's, is it just me or did they get a bit confused writing their MDC? It starts off like it's saying they literally become MDC creatures (mentions basing the amount on their own life points) but then by the time it describes their regeneration it's like they're talking about the Blue Wizards again because it mentions an energy field even though I don't think that is what is intended.

"Conversely, if a Rifts OCC made it back to the Chaos Earth times, if they'd go up in power or stay the same."

Good question.

Somewhere, maybe the PW book, it talks about the lower levels of Center have the same level of ambient magic as was present durning the CE time period.
I think the "Megavercial Builder" RDB has some text about magic levels.
And the Splicers mainbook has some text about it's ultra low ambient magic levels.

Well, general reasoning, if CE's magic is equal too or less than Rift's magic, then I would say 99% of a magic's OCC in CE would remain the same. Based on PF OCCs coming to Rifts are pretty much the same. They do get some extra saving bonuses but I think that is because of the time passed between PF OCC printing and Conversion Book printing. The biggest thing a CE magic OCC 'could' eventually learn about Rifts Earth is that magic can be cast silently.

SittingBull wrote:Well, general reasoning, if CE's magic is equal too or less than Rift's magic, then I would say 99% of a magic's OCC in CE would remain the same. Based on PF OCCs coming to Rifts are pretty much the same. They do get some extra saving bonuses but I think that is because of the time passed between PF OCC printing and Conversion Book printing. The biggest thing a CE magic OCC 'could' eventually learn about Rifts Earth is that magic can be cast silently.

With the exception that intuitive magic users, like the kid wizard and the mystic, would not be able to Learn any other magic. (IOW take a Mage magic class. Mage being a person who has persued and learned for years how to make magic. example being a Blue Line Wizard, (RMB) LLW, a Wizard, a Mystic study, and archanist, etc...)

Wouldn't a mystic still gain spells, as they come to them out of the blue, regardless of where he is? Unless, of course, the mystic you are referring to is from CE and I don't have access to the CE magic OCC's yet.

I would personally just leave the classes alone, sort of like how mages from low magic lines like the Arcanist, or Wizard, or Mystic Study dont get much more than a few saves or ppe. For simplicity of book keeping I prefer to leave the classes alone, unless there is something explictly stated. this is my two cents worth.

SittingBull wrote:Wouldn't a mystic still gain spells, as they come to them out of the blue, regardless of where he is? Unless, of course, the mystic you are referring to is from CE and I don't have access to the CE magic OCC's yet.

Was referrencing the two major Intuitive magic classes that rifters would know.
Getting "spells" from "Not common magic" (i.e. invocations) when they level up has never been a problem in my mind, because they are not "learning it". But if you READ everything I wrote, you'd see I was talking about them not being able to switch to a differnt magic class. And yes I do chose my words carefully so they mean what the words say (nearly all of the time.)
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eliakon wrote:I would personally just leave the classes alone, sort of like how mages from low magic lines like the Arcanist, or Wizard, or Mystic Study dont get much more than a few saves or ppe. For simplicity of book keeping I prefer to leave the classes alone, unless there is something explictly stated. this is my two cents worth.

Was including the other setting common magic mages as examples of what I meant as "What are mages?".

Personlly I find the Mystic study the best over all common magic mage type. Better starting spell selection, better level up spells.

I like the idea of treating the CE magic useing classes and " proto mages ". Dump a few kids children of the corn style into the rifts wilderness. A few of them have the talent that in some place like Lazlo could lead them to being line walkers, in the rush to survive they self teach themselves magic. Kid wizards could result form this.

Likewise maybe some line walkers apprentice runs off long before he's learned enough to be considered a full mage himself. Poof a "blue zone wizard " is created.

The CE mages are self taught their no reason a few of the classes couldn't still exist.

As for a line walker or something existing back then id just say their'd be a bit more mage to throw around.

You ought to consider how it affected pre-existing magical OCC when the Rifts kicked in since there were several types of magical practitioners around prior to the Cataclysm (as well as a number of super-natural creatures and alien beings). There were Arcanists and likely a few Nazcan Line Makers at a minimum. More than likely the entire range of BtS OCC were present (certainly those that lasted for thousands of years managed to remain around through the Golden Age).

Nightmask wrote:You ought to consider how it affected pre-existing magical OCC when the Rifts kicked in since there were several types of magical practitioners around prior to the Cataclysm (as well as a number of super-natural creatures and alien beings). There were Arcanists and likely a few Nazcan Line Makers at a minimum. More than likely the entire range of BtS OCC were present (certainly those that lasted for thousands of years managed to remain around through the Golden Age).

source?

Damian Magecraft wrote:

Nightmask wrote:You ought to consider how it affected pre-existing magical OCC when the Rifts kicked in since there were several types of magical practitioners around prior to the Cataclysm (as well as a number of super-natural creatures and alien beings). There were Arcanists and likely a few Nazcan Line Makers at a minimum. More than likely the entire range of BtS OCC were present (certainly those that lasted for thousands of years managed to remain around through the Golden Age).

source?

Whether one wants to consider BtS the actual past of Chaos earth or just a parallel version of Earth at that time period either way there was a Masquerade hiding supernatural things from the larger world going on and characters like Arcanists and Psi-Mechanics were around during the times leading up through the Golden Age into the Cataclysm.

We know from the world books that the Nazcan Plateau was the product of Nazcan Line Makers and the secrets were passed down through the generations for those that remained behind when the bulk left. There would have been a few around keeping an eye on things if nothing else and let the rest know when magic returned.

Same goes with supernatural creatures (like the 'Red Giants' from South America and were-jaguars), they existed prior to the Cataclysm and in the case of the were-cats traveled to Omagua the City of Cats during and after the Cataclysm thanks to the three feline gods that summoned them there.

With Chaos Earth as the past of Rifts Earth it's simply not possible as a result for there to have not been any supernatural beings or spellcasters prior to the Cataclysm, they existed long before the Cataclysm occurred hiding in the shadows for the most part and acting in secrecy. So they were acting and responding to the events as natives (human and non) to the incursions by other non-native creatures (human and non).

EDIT:

Come to think of it there might be some or all of the OCC from Mystic China around as well, given Victor Lazlo transcripts have an appearance in Mystic China (and it's certainly written more like BtS in flavor and power levels) it's likely you could find Wu Shih and Infernals around in spots as well.

Nightmask wrote:

Damian Magecraft wrote:

Nightmask wrote:You ought to consider how it affected pre-existing magical OCC when the Rifts kicked in since there were several types of magical practitioners around prior to the Cataclysm (as well as a number of super-natural creatures and alien beings). There were Arcanists and likely a few Nazcan Line Makers at a minimum. More than likely the entire range of BtS OCC were present (certainly those that lasted for thousands of years managed to remain around through the Golden Age).

source?

Whether one wants to consider BtS the actual past of Chaos earth or just a parallel version of Earth at that time period either way there was a Masquerade hiding supernatural things from the larger world going on and characters like Arcanists and Psi-Mechanics were around during the times leading up through the Golden Age into the Cataclysm.

We know from the world books that the Nazcan Plateau was the product of Nazcan Line Makers and the secrets were passed down through the generations for those that remained behind when the bulk left. There would have been a few around keeping an eye on things if nothing else and let the rest know when magic returned.

Same goes with supernatural creatures (like the 'Red Giants' from South America and were-jaguars), they existed prior to the Cataclysm and in the case of the were-cats traveled to Omagua the City of Cats during and after the Cataclysm thanks to the three feline gods that summoned them there.

With Chaos Earth as the past of Rifts Earth it's simply not possible as a result for there to have not been any supernatural beings or spellcasters prior to the Cataclysm, they existed long before the Cataclysm occurred hiding in the shadows for the most part and acting in secrecy. So they were acting and responding to the events as natives (human and non) to the incursions by other non-native creatures (human and non).

EDIT:

Come to think of it there might be some or all of the OCC from Mystic China around as well, given Victor Lazlo transcripts have an appearance in Mystic China (and it's certainly written more like BtS in flavor and power levels) it's likely you could find Wu Shih and Infernals around in spots as well.

Logical... And the suppositions are backed by canon.
Stretching things a tad with the non-rifts stuff; but the Rifts WB stuff is valid.
Never really thought about it before...
Food for thought.

I've just remembered an interesting issue, thanks to Rifts: Mercenaries. Demonbusters, Inc. is lead by a man from before the coming of the Rifts and who was a Parapsychologist at the time before being Rifted forward and in his backstory under The Dreamer he at a minimum fought a vampire in 1990. The Dreamer herself is part of a psionic immortal offshoot of humanity known as Lost Ones (and who are infertile with normal humans) and took the slow path forward having survived the coming of the Rifts and all the time since and was over 2000 years old when it happened. Clearly there are Supernatural creatures native to Chaos Earth running around after things happened.

It also means a friendly GM might let one play a Lost One since they're an established race for the setting as a result.

notafraid2die wrote:I think it was mentioned in sourcebook 1 that K.S. treats BtS as the time before Rifts, but he also states that that's just his personal view.

It was Conversion Book 1.
In Rifter 2 he states it is not. And explains how the various crossovers occur.
The R2 article is later reprinted in Dimension Book 4.

notafraid2die wrote:

Damian Magecraft wrote:

notafraid2die wrote:I think it was mentioned in sourcebook 1 that K.S. treats BtS as the time before Rifts, but he also states that that's just his personal view.

It was Conversion Book 1.
In Rifter 2 he states it is not. And explains how the various crossovers occur.
The R2 article is later reprinted in Dimension Book 4.

Thanks for the, er... clarification? Didn't realize Kev "took it back". Me, personally, I like the idea of BtS being pre-Chaos Earth. It makes more sense to me with Lazlo being a major player in both BtS and Rifts.

This is just speculation...
But I imagine it probably had something to do with the movie option... Entertainment contracts being such that if you claim property x is connected to property y then our option on property y also gives us access to property x; it is often easier to just keep the properties separate.

How about this for an interpretation...

There are multiple incarnations of Rifts Earth, and Beyond the Supernatural is the past of ONE of them, but not the other one.

So it could, for example, be the past of the Rifts Earth described in RMB + Vampire Kingdoms, but not the past of RUE+VKrevised.

Nightmask wrote:You ought to consider how it affected pre-existing magical OCC when the Rifts kicked in since there were several types of magical practitioners around prior to the Cataclysm. There were Arcanists and likely a few Nazcan Line Makers at a minimum. More than likely the entire range of BtS OCC were present (certainly those that lasted for thousands of years managed to remain around through the Golden Age).

CB1 already had notes on how to boost the BtS OCCs in Rifts. Perhaps we could apply them 2x for CE? As for the Line Makers, we know their stats in Rifts. My guess is they'd be slightly stronger in CE and slightly weaker in BtS>Golden Age era.

Damian Magecraft wrote:It was Conversion Book 1. In Rifter 2 he states it is not. And explains how the various crossovers occur. The R2 article is later reprinted in Dimension Book 4.

So basically Kevin flip-flopped on the issue? Or perhaps he's just giving explanations on how either could occur and there is no canonical answer?

With BtS (or BtS-type) guys like Henry Smith and Victor Lazlo time-travelling forward and meeting up with old friends like Dreamer and Lo Fung, we are left with the reality here that if Rifts is not the future of BtS, it is at very least a dimension that is virtually indistinguishable, in that any differences in the Dreamer/LoFung which could exist (including their knowledge of the past, not to mention pre-Rifts historical data from the Golden Age) are not noticed or commented on by Smith/Lazlo who believe this to be the future of their old reality, unaware that it is actually just an alternate dimension with time shifted forward per Transdimensional TMNT categorization and per AstralPlaneVoid time-travel wishing.

What this interpretation allows for is the easy travelling back to the "past" and making changes there without altering the "future" of Rifts since Rifts is a future of a DIFFERENT (older) BtS and not the canonical BtS.

Sounds like someone needs to start labeling the dimensions Marvel style

Starmage21 wrote:Sounds like someone needs to start labeling the dimensions Marvel style

Simple numeric designations does tend to make things easier, although that does carry the flipside of 'okay so which dimension is x-361 again?'.

Tor wrote:

Damian Magecraft wrote:It was Conversion Book 1. In Rifter 2 he states it is not. And explains how the various crossovers occur. The R2 article is later reprinted in Dimension Book 4.

So basically Kevin flip-flopped on the issue? Or perhaps he's just giving explanations on how either could occur and there is no canonical answer?

With BtS (or BtS-type) guys like Henry Smith and Victor Lazlo time-travelling forward and meeting up with old friends like Dreamer and Lo Fung, we are left with the reality here that if Rifts is not the future of BtS, it is at very least a dimension that is virtually indistinguishable, in that any differences in the Dreamer/LoFung which could exist (including their knowledge of the past, not to mention pre-Rifts historical data from the Golden Age) are not noticed or commented on by Smith/Lazlo who believe this to be the future of their old reality, unaware that it is actually just an alternate dimension with time shifted forward per Transdimensional TMNT categorization and per AstralPlaneVoid time-travel wishing.

What this interpretation allows for is the easy travelling back to the "past" and making changes there without altering the "future" of Rifts since Rifts is a future of a DIFFERENT (older) BtS and not the canonical BtS.

WB4 it was (and one major figure from the lazlo society, took the "60 seconds to a minute" path from BTS to Rifts)
WB5 it was.
CB1 it was
Rifter 2 it wasn't.
CB1 revised it is
DB4 it wasn't
Triax 2 it is.

so right now, it is.


and to be fair, the rifter 2 article didn't say it wasn't.. instead that BTS, HU, and N&SS universes somehow merged when the cataclysm happened.

however, the megaverse builder book established that HU is a completely seperate universe even from rifts (tolkeen tried to recruit superhumans from there to fight the CS)

So...like with a quantum wave form BTS is before and is not before the rifts in the same universe until a GM looks at it for use in her game and it falls into one or the other option.

well, the general evidence, all together, is "BTS is the history of CE/rifts earth... however it may or may not have merged with a few others along the way"