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I know the Rifts Conversion Book covers a lot of this, but I have some issues. The character listed in my profile was made when i was about 19 and thinking "let's be as busted as i possibly can, but tell my GM that i'm just a normal human to throw him off"

Yes, terrible, i know.

However, many years later, I'm trying to think about how much i was cheating and what is actually legal.

First of all, do Chi abilities work different from the PPE (or was it ISP?) abilities in Rifts Japan? Is there a way to get supernatural stats through any powers you know of? (i seem to remember having it on demand, not all the time but i could spend some chi to do it).

Does the NSS version of body hardening exersizes make you SDC = MDC? I remember they didn't...or maybe they did. The only think i recall is the ninja in Rifts Mercenaries and he had like 33 MDC, which didn't seem right when i had like 300+, but mine wasn't permanent, had to turn it on.

You are a rifts character, but you have a NSS martial art. +2 attacks or no?

Any help would be nice. Trying to sort this out and if i'm going to be silly, at least be legal.

If your importing a character from Ninja's and Superspys, Chi is unrelated to PPE or ISP in japan or china. You use chi for that character as laid out in N&SS normally.

Yes, Body Hardening makes you MDC in Rifts, convert SDC to MDc

With Rifts Ultimate, the +2 attacks for being a hero was eliminated, in favor of simply adding 2 attacks to every hand to hand style in rifts. because it's now tied to combat, and not to your status as hero, you would not get the extra +2 attacks. your GM may permit it anyway by adding 2 attacks to every N&SS art style, but that is entirely GM's houserule.

The character wasn't really an "import", as they were made as a Rifts character. Just that Japan hadn't been printed yet, but he was trained originally as a martial artist.

That's what I figured, actually, it just dosn't make any difference.

Hrm. Well, I'll have to go through all my books soon and make sure the character is up to snuff. I'm just not 100% on what works with what.

For isntance the stat pumping chi power, we always just assumed it would give you supernatural stats, but that's because it was fricken awesome if you made it that way. Though i can't remember if that's true out of the Conversion book (at work so i can't check).

There's just a lot of things i used to do with this character and i have no clue if i was homebrewing or just outright cheating the system.

Alrik Vas wrote:Hrm. Well, I'll have to go through all my books soon and make sure the character is up to snuff. I'm just not 100% on what works with what.

For isntance the stat pumping chi power, we always just assumed it would give you supernatural stats, but that's because it was fricken awesome if you made it that way. Though i can't remember if that's true out of the Conversion book (at work so i can't check).

There's just a lot of things i used to do with this character and i have no clue if i was homebrewing or just outright cheating the system.

no, body chi does not give you supernatural attributes, it merely lets you raise them very very high. your PS of 200 is still just regular 200.

That seems right. Maybe i'll just retool the.character out of rifts japan then. He was trained in zanji-shinjinken-ryu anyway, so i may just run him as a samurai then multiclass.

Nekira Sudacne wrote:

Alrik Vas wrote:Hrm. Well, I'll have to go through all my books soon and make sure the character is up to snuff. I'm just not 100% on what works with what.

For isntance the stat pumping chi power, we always just assumed it would give you supernatural stats, but that's because it was fricken awesome if you made it that way. Though i can't remember if that's true out of the Conversion book (at work so i can't check).

There's just a lot of things i used to do with this character and i have no clue if i was homebrewing or just outright cheating the system.

no, body chi does not give you supernatural attributes, it merely lets you raise them very very high. your PS of 200 is still just regular 200.

Converting N&SS over to Rifts was always pretty muddled. Like the Conversion book states that Chi mastery powers to half damamge to Supernatural and Mega-Damage beings. Does this mean that the 10 points of Chi that you dump into hard chi can do either 50 SDC or 25 MD? No one knows.

One of the things I've done recently is to take a character with Body chi and use it to boost PP to 40 temporarily. RUE says that the normal bonuses to Strike Parry and dodge top out at 30, but it does give an impressive initiative bonus.

I'd assume SDC, just because it would further annoy me.

personally i'd give the N&SS martial arts/HTH's the extra 2 attacks, since their stats don't match up well to newer books, especially since the 'extra's' the MA's give are things like more variety of holds and physical strikes (which are really just more detailed versions of what the general 'punch/kick/hold" entries of Rifts/Robotech/etc HTH's give), and the chi-powers don't really offer too much extra to offset the fewer chances to attack. (especially given that N&SS didn't really have the 'multi-action using strikes' like most of the current current games do. using rifts aimed and called shots for example with a N&SS MA, you might get in only one strike in a melee.. while a comparable rifts character with rifts HTH:MA could easily get in several, or one aimed/called and a few regular. )

officially, with the revised conversion book 1, Chi-powers have been made some sort of alternate psionics. personally i'd take the conversion notes for damage and effects, and leave the Chi energy. Chi in N&SS/Mystic china seems to be halfway between PPE and ISP, with elements of both magic and psionics. so a conversion would either need to leave Chi as its own record keeping system, or would have to have PPE and ISP costs attached to all the powers. much easier to just leave chi alone in that regard.

While I don't see an issue with any of that in the sense of "hrm, could work..."

I'm also concerned about doing things by the rules as written.

as written, N&SS is a mess that dosn't mesh with the rest of the megaversal system. it's impossible to incoporate them purely "by the book" because so much is unclear and some things that are clear are just stupid. your best off just houseruling what works for you.

Nekira Sudacne wrote:as written, N&SS is a mess that dosn't mesh with the rest of the megaversal system. it's impossible to incoporate them purely "by the book" because so much is unclear and some things that are clear are just stupid. your best off just houseruling what works for you.

Sounds like it, yeah. It would be nice if they could clear things up, but it's been so many years already, i guess it's up to all of us.

Let me say that the best and most comprehensive Chi conversions to rifts (Outside of the RCB1) is in Rifter 3. This mostly covers conversions from Mystic China.

Alrik Vas wrote:First of all, do Chi abilities work different from the PPE (or was it ISP?) abilities in Rifts Japan?

Yes, they run off of Chi, not PPE. Most do exactly what they do in N&S.

Alrik Vas wrote:Is there a way to get supernatural stats through any powers you know of? (i seem to remember having it on demand, not all the time but i could spend some chi to do it).

Alrik Vas wrote:Does the NSS version of body hardening exercises make you SDC = MDC? I remember they didn't...or maybe they did. The only think i recall is the ninja in Rifts Mercenaries and he had like 33 MDC, which didn't seem right when i had like 300+, but mine wasn't permanent, had to turn it on.

The N&S BHE converted to Rifts give the "SDC bonus" from the BHE into a MDC (i.e.: only the bonus will be MDC not the base SDC, & they do MD with their h2h attacks. RCB1r page 51 (which are essentially a copy of what is in the RCB1).

Alrik Vas wrote:You are a rifts character, but you have a NSS martial art. +2 attacks or no?

No.
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@ GB
No, chi powers are not officially psi powers.
Yes, they do provide in the RCB1r talks about some chi powers as psi powers. But only as a Option a GM could use.

So while there are some that are officially Optional, much like how the stuff in the rifter is officially option, it stops short of saying that they Are psionic powers.

This is all pretty disheartening, to be honest. Though hey, i guess my old GM's were all generous people. That's good at least.

Lost Seraph wrote:I also heavily, heavily, heavily suggest this.
http://www.geocities.ws/kuseru/KKP_Rifts.htm

Your post had the word "kuseru" in it, you win the thread, sir.